Craig Prichard

Managing knowledge : critical investigations of work and learning

Aimed at MBA students, postgraduates and advanced level undergraduates, this text questions the naive, self interested and popularised messages that surround knowledge work and knowledge management. Case studies highlight the politics of new communications technologies which are frequently offered as a means for managing knowledge in the workplace.

Creative Selves? Critically Reading 'Creativity' in Management Discourse

In broad terms the critical tradition in organization studies (Marsden & Townley, 1996) is concerned with understanding and questioning the elaboration of power relations in worksites, particularly as they induce oppressive and exploitative practices. This paper begins by outlining some of the key features of what might be regarded as a traditional critical reading of creativity in work organizations. This initial discussion is presented via an analysis of two texts from Fortune magazine’s account of the performance of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Without dealing in detail with some of the problematics and limitations of these approaches, the paper then outlines the key features of a Foucauldian critical discourse approach to the analysis of creativity. The discussion proceeds to identify key features of such an account. These include the position of academic experts as agents of knowledge in the production of ‘creativity’, the organizational prescriptions and devices used to visualize and normalize ‘creative’ managers and professionals, and the ontological and epistemological tradition that is drawn on in the production of both the agents of knowledge of creativity and the devices that identify, classify and regulate ‘creativity’ with respect to managing and organizing workplaces. Using the term ‘economy of identity’, the concluding section discusses the implications of this approach, including the oppressive and exploitative dimensions of ‘creativity’.

Managing further education : is it still men's work too?

Further Education Colleges in the UK are involved in a continuing period of radical organisational, curricular and financial restructuring. In the midst of this the gendered character of management across the sector appears to be changing. This article explores the extent of demographic, social and cultural feminization of management following the post-1993 establishment of colleges as independent corporations. It addresses issues surrounding organizational cultures, women in professions, women as managers and theories about the spread of so-called new managerial ideologies, inspired by the private sector, to the public sector. For support the article draws on two studies of women managers in FE colleges, one focusing on women with a commitment to feminisms or equal opportunities, the other utilizing organizational data as well as data from male and female interviewees. It is suggested that whilst some social and cultural as well as demographic feminization of FE management is taking place, this is much more marked at the middle management level whilst senior management remains more mens work than womens, albeit tinged with changing notions of masculinities.

Refining, reinforcing and reimagining universal and indigenous theory development in international management

This article addresses a long-established yet still contentious question in international management scholarship—Is it possible and desirable to create a universal theory of management and organization? Scholarship about the boundary conditions of endogenous theory and the need for indigenous theories of management as well as geopolitical changes in the world order have animated this debate. Five leading scholars discussed this topic at a symposium held at the 2009 Academy of Management meeting. This article presents an analysis of their viewpoints. Three key perspectives were identified in the debate: the refining perspective, the reinforcing perspective, and the reimagining perspective. Using excerpts from the symposium transcript, we outline, compare, and critically evaluate the characteristics and significance of each perspective to advancing theory development. The distinctive contribution of this article lies in its meta-theoretical debate about the relationship between theory, context, and power in the production of global management knowledge.

Music at Work: An Introduction

There are many ways in which music and the management of work, space, time, bodies, and feelings are linked, and there is a small but rich tradition of academic research that has attempted to explore these connections. This special issue aims to contribute to this work. Our introduction identifies existing work, introduces the three articles that make up the substantive contribution of this special issue, and points to opportunities for researchers to make further contributions.

Editorial: Organizing value

In this essay, we argue that the recent financial collapse, the ensuing recession and the work of key social movements have created conditions for a reengagement of critically-inclined organizational theorists with various forms of value analysis. We then introduce the seven articles in this special issue and highlight how each makes a contribution to this reengagement.

Global Politics, Academic Dispositions,and Thetilting of Organizational Communication: A Provocation to a Debate

There is no question that the US has dominated world politics and economics since WWII. The effect has been that no matter where we are located, and no matter what we do, we are more or less required to engage with US positions in economic, political and cultural spheres. Of course the particular kind of engagement that people practice around the globe varies considerably. One response is to salute and consume, emulate and diffuse US doctrines and artifacts. Such a response affirms a position as consumer, supporter or junior partner in a US-led world order.

The organization of organizational discourse

Discourse, as Fairclough, Graham, Lemke, and Wodak (2004) noted in the introduction to their new journal, Critical Discourse Studies, is now well established as a category in social sciences. And yet, as they also note, we find significant differences as to what discourse and discourse analysis refer. These differences are, they argue, because of different theoretical, academic, and cultural traditions and how these traditions “push discourse in different directions” (p. 4). In this review essay I sketch out the key direction that discourse has been pushed or pulled in organization studies (see also Alvesson & Karreman, 2000; Chia, 2000; Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004; Grant, Hardy, Oswick, & Putnam, 2004; Prichard, Jones, & Stablein, 2004). To set the scene, I review two books that seek to advance our understanding of discourse and language analysis in organization studies. Each has its strengths, but both are relatively disengaged from the journal literature in the same field. In response to this weakness, I will present a brief, citation-based examination of discourse analysis in the management and organization studies field. This analysis brings to light eight different streams of work that are underway (see Table 2, below). Various forms of language analysis do feature among these. But the most prominent form concerns the analysis of knowledge and practice (particularly the distribution and character of various forms of management knowledge). I conclude by arguing that this, rather than forms of language analysis, is the distinctive form of discourse analysis in organization studies. In other words, and following on from the point by Fairclough and his colleagues (2004), the dominant approach to discourse in organization studies takes a distinctive form. We see many examples of such work (e.g., Westwood & Clegg, 2003), and among the most cited (see Table 2, below) are Management Communication Quarterly Volume 20 Number 2 November 2006 213-226

A warm embrace? New Zealand, universities and the knowledge-based economy

This article deploys a cultural political economy framework to explore New Zealand’s “embrace” of globally‐sourced knowledge economy discourse. It argues that the diffusion of such knowledge in this locale has been mediated by electoral shifts and rising economic prosperity but in one of the few fields where some level of institutionalization has occurred––higher education––it has been used to increase state control of a highly marketized tertiary sector. The article then discusses the implications of this investigation for researchers in non‐metropolitan locales.

Stability and change

This special feature section of Journal of Management & Organization (Volume 17/1 - March 2011) sets out to widen understanding of the processes of stability and change in todays organizations, with a particular emphasis on the contribution of institutional approaches to organizational studies. Institutional perspectives on organization theory assume that rational, economic calculations, such as the maximization of profits or the optimization of resource allocation, are not sufficient to understand the behavior of organizations and their strategic choices. Institutionalists acknowledge the great uncertainty associated with the conduct of organizations and suggest that taken-for-granted values, beliefs and meanings within and outside organizations also play an important role in the determination of legitimate action.