Pete Thomas

The Recontextualization of Management: A Discourse-based Approach to Analysing the Development of Management Thinking

Many analysts have sought to explain the development and growth of management ideas and discourse in recent years, using notions such as the diffusion and consumption of ideas, and analogies with the fashion industry. These frameworks have a number of weaknesses that inhibit their value. Conceptualizing management knowledge or ideas or thinking as a form of discourse leads us to alternative frameworks for examining developments in this field. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) can be used to explore the social processes and structures from which discourse emanates and which discourse in turn underpins. Bernsteins concept of recontextualization can be employed to analyse the discursive relations between different social spheres or conjunctures within which human action takes place and how discourse is changed as it moves between conjunctures to meet the needs of different social agents. In this respect it can be used to analyse how management discourse unfolds as it is produced, distributed and acquired by agents within the academic, consultant and practitioner conjunctures. By doing so we can explore: the intertextual relations between the discourses; how the management discourse becomes technologized; and how hybrid forms of discourse, which mix genres and styles, emerge. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2003.

Managerial Organization and Professional Autonomy: A Discourse-Based Conceptualization

The conceptualization of professions and professionalization is once again a significant theme in the social sciences. The position of professions seems increasingly complex as relations with other occupational groups develop in ways that seem uncertain, ambiguous and complex. We present a discourse-based framework for the analysis of professional change, drawing on Chouliaraki and Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA), and their adaptations of the work of Laclau and Mouffe, and Bhabha. The model focuses on the articulation process within conjunctures of social practice, and in particular how social actors endeavour to make advantageous articulations which achieve a degree of permanence in an inherently changeable world. It also considers how discourses are articulated together to create hybrid forms of professional discourse. We apply the framework to recent changes in the role and autonomy of general medical practitioners in the United Kingdom following the implementation of the clinical governance system, to assess the value of the framework in addressing the negotiated nature of professionalism and, more specifically, to explore the relationship between managerialism and professional autonomy and status.

Reframing workplace relations? Conflict resolution and mediation in a primary care trust

In recent years, workplace conflict has become increasingly manifest in individual employment disputes as collective labour regulation has been eroded. Accordingly, attention has been focused on finding ways to facilitate the early resolution of such disputes. Policy-makers have placed a particular emphasis on workplace mediation. However, the broader impact of mediation on conventional grievance and disciplinary processes and on the workplace relations that underpin them has been largely ignored. This article reports on research into the introduction of an in-house mediation scheme within a primary care trust. It explores the implications of the scheme for: workplace relations within the organization; the dynamics of conflict management; and trade union influence. It argues that the introduction of mediation provided a conduit through which positive workplace relations were rebuilt which in turn facilitated informal processes of dispute resolution. Furthermore, it allowed trade unions within the organization to extend their influence into areas traditionally dominated by managerial prerogative.

Constructing ‘the history of strategic management’: A critical analysis of the academic discourse

The development of the strategic management field has been outlined in many ‘histories’ in recent years. This article analyses a sample of those histories using a Critical Discourse Analysis framework in order to understand how they are constructed, what common textual features they exhibit and what effects they may have on the future development of the field. Our analysis shows a neglect of historiographic method in the construction of the histories and a tendency to present the field as progressing in a teleological, evolutionary fashion. We suggest that the histories are constructed in order to support the continuing development of the field and to secure its demarcation from other fields, and that this may demonstrate a degree of self-interest on the part of strategy scholars.

Fair enough? Women and Fair Trade

Purpose – This paper aims to consider the impact of Fair Trade on producers with particular reference to women involved in Fair Trade production.Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers Fair Trade as an alternative to rational economic models of free trade and as a tool for development. A gender and development (GAD) perspective is used to assess whether Fair Trade empowers women in developing nations.Findings – Fair Trade offers an alternative to free trade within capitalist production and has a positive impact for producers. The impact on gender relations within producer communities is limited although there are benefits for some women involved in Fair Trade production.Research limitations/implications – The paper is based on secondary data and highlights the need for more focused research, which explores the links between gender, cultural relations and Fair Trade.Originality/value – Understanding that while Fair Trade is usually considered as a positive developmental tool, its impacts are not ...

The Fearful and Anxious Professional: Partner Experiences of Working in the Financialized Professional Services Firm:

This article explores the work and career of law firm partners in the context of a financialized organizational regime, highlighting the effects of performance measures and metrics on the ways partners see themselves and their careers. The empirical analysis reveals a sense of fear and anxiety as partners experience the scrutiny and pressure of financialized performance management. Furthermore, it reveals partners face contradictory demands as they are pushed to meet financial and ‘citizen’ objectives within the firm. The result is a career as a ‘project of the self’ that relies on various protection strategies and which results in professionals captured by ‘financialization’ and unable to assimilate its demands in ways that protect traditional professional values.

Workplace Mediation Schemes: Antagonism and Articulation in the Discursive Process of Organizational Conflict and Disputes

In recent years the role of mediation in workplace dispute resolution has increased and has been lauded as a means of efficiently handling conflicts and resolving, and even avoiding, antagonistic employment relationships. Empirical research has highlighted the positive impact of workplace mediation, with studies finding high rates of resolution and satisfaction amongst the parties to the process (for example: Bingham and Pitts 2002; Latreille and Saundry 2014). Some contributions to the literature on mediation, such as Bush and Folger (2005) and also recent UK Government evaluations (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills 2011), even suggest that it offers the potential to trigger broader transformations in workplace relations and culture, and mediation can sometimes invoke a somewhat evangelical fervour amongst its proponents. However, despite there being good empirical accounts of the process and impact of mediation there is very little written that offers a more conceptual or theoretical perspective on mediation in the workplace. Within the industrial relations literature, where most accounts of workplace mediation are to be found, theoretical aspects of work are rarely made explicit (Edwards 2011).