higher education

Introduction

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a one-party state, with the ruling party – the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) – having no opposition parties that are legally tolerated. Although the economy has undoubtedly been liberalized, the state remains a soft authoritarian regime (Thayer, 2010). Vietnam is a lower middle-income country with 97 million people.

Introduction

This Special Issue’s call for papers reprises critical management studies’ (CMS) ongoing concern about its perceived inability to change the status quo or to improve the world in any meaningful way. That concern is manifest elsewhere, such as in Parker’s (2018a, 2018b) radical suggestion that the business school (b-school) should be shut down and bulldozed[1].

Introduction*

How is it that ratings activity and trading operations carried out in the plush offices of banks and investment institutions have an effect on unemployed, precarious, seasonal, occasional and temporary workers? (Lazzarato, 2012: 14)

Introduction

On May 3^rd, 2013, Keguro Macharia wrote a piece for The New Inquiry called ‘On quitting’. It was a courageous, painfully beautiful piece that started with a diagnosis: ‘bipolar disorder, an oscillation between periods of frenetic activity and periods of profound depression’ (Macharia, 2013). This is a condition perfectly compatible with the academic calendar, he added, chronicled by an alternation of almost drug-induced bursts of mental productivity followed by a near-catatonic state of exhaustion and prolonged delays.

Introduction