No / We suggest in this paper that whilst exploring how to make business schools more critical we must also turn a critical and reflexive lens upon ourselves, critical management thinkers. Our endeavour is outlined here as a ‘reflexive journey’ in which we turn upon ourselves, academics who identify as ‘critical’ thinkers, the theories we use to analyse others. Our focus is upon critical management education. We use three vignettes drawn from our previous research. One is of graduands from the postgraduate programmes on which two of us teach, the second an analysis of knowledge transfer programmes in which we have participated, and the third a study of the construction of academic identities. The first study shows the academic teacher may become an internalized, judgemental gaze, the second that what we see as a critical approach may be construed by our students as another ‘truth’ that fails to encompass the complexities of organizations and management, and the third encourages us to ask some questions about our own positions. This causes us to ask some uncomfortable questions about our own positions as critical management scholars and the ways in which we conceptualize business schools and our colleagues who work in them.

L’émancipation des individus par le travail et au travail est un phénomène psycho-social transhistorique, étudié par différentes écoles de pensée. L’ère hypermoderne (une époque du toujours plus, de l’extrême, vers une radicalisation dans la vie sociale et individuelle) devait permettre, pour les chercheurs en gestion attachés au paradigme positiviste, l’avènement d’une nouvelle figure, à savoir celle d’un individu émancipé au travail ; c’est-à-dire autonome et responsable de ses réussites et échecs.
Force et de constater que les nouvelles formes de management hypermodernes creusent les inégalités au travail et engendrent de nouvelles formes de pathologies que nous pensons liées à l’injonction de la réinvention de soi au travail. 
À partir d’une posture de recherche de filiation critico-clinique ce travail de recherche à pour but de comprendre comment les individus au travail résistent aux aspects aliénants de ces nouvelles formes de management et en quoi leurs actes de résistance sont émancipateurs ou restrictifs quant à leur capacité d’être sujet de leur propre histoire.
 Ce travail de thèse contribue à la recherche d’un point de vue méthodologique, en ce que l’auto-ethnographie croisée à des entretiens semi-directifs et l’étude de données secondaires réalisée pour ce travail, constitue un apport encore peu exploité dans le champ des sciences de la gestion pour penser de nouvelles manières de produire de la connaissance. Une autre contribution de ce travail sera liée à la dimension affective qui est prise en considération pour la compréhension du processus émancipateur vécu par les travailleurs de terrain, ce qui constitue un apport théorique pour l’école critique en sciences de gestion. Enfin, d’un point de vue plus pratique, ce travail de recherche permet de questionner les nouvelles formes de management hypermoderne dans le cadre original du mannequinat pour homme. Ce secteur d’activité est peu étudié en sciences de gestion, ce qui constitue un apport managérial pour les chercheurs en sciences de gestion et plus largement pour les professionnels. Ainsi d’un point de vue pratique, cette recherche a pour ambition de questionner les pratiques managériales au regard de la santé des travailleurs de terrain au croisement des dimensions psychiques et sociales, en essayant de proposer de nouvelles voies possibles pour favoriser le développement du sujet social. / The emancipation of individuals through work and at work is a transhistorical psycho-social phenomenon, studied by different schools of thought. The hypermodern era (an era of ever more, of the extreme, towards a radicalization in the social and individual life) was to allow, for the researchers in management attached to the positivist paradigm, the advent of a new figure, namely that of an emancipated individual at work; that is to say, autonomous and responsible for its successes and failures. It is clear that new forms of hypermodern management are widening inequalities at work and creating new forms of pathology that we think are linked to the reinvention of self-reinvention at work. From a position of research of critical-clinical filiation, this research work aims to understand how individuals at work resist the alienating aspects of these new forms of management and how their acts of resistance are emancipatory or restrictive as to their ability to be subject to their own story. This thesis work contributes to the research for a methodological point of view, in that the auto-ethnography crossed to semi-directive interviews and the study of secondary data carried out for this work, constitutes a contribution poorly exploited in the field of management sciences to think of new ways of producing knowledge. Another contribution of this work will be related to the emotional dimension that is taken into account for the understanding of the emancipatory process experienced by the field workers, which constitutes a theoretical contribution for the critical school in management sciences. Finally, from a more practical point of view, this research work makes it possible to question the new forms of hypermodern management in the original setting of the male modeling industry. This sector of activity is little studied in management sciences, which is a managerial contribution for researchers in management sciences and more broadly for professionals. From a practical point of view, this research aims to question managerial practices with regard to the health of field workers at the intersection of psychic and social dimensions, trying to propose new possible ways to promote the development of the social subject.

Under de senaste tre decennierna har populära managementböcker erbjudit snabba och enkla recept för hur ledare ska leda personal på ett effektivt sätt. Dessa böcker har blivit bästsäljare och har inspirerat många ledare inför nya utmaningar angående personalfrågor. Kända managementförfattare har alltså stor påverkan för hur individ och ledarskap uppfattas i samhället, samt för att förstärka en viss vision om hur människors beteende borde utformas för att företagsmässiga mål skall kunna uppnås. Denna studies syfte var att öka förståelsen för populär managementlitteraturs maktdimensioner. Tre bästsäljande managementböcker från sekelskiftet analyserades genom en foucaultinspirerad diskursanalys, med fokus på styrningsmentalitet, disciplin och människosyn. I analysen visas hur de utvalda böckerna innebär en styrningsmentalitet som präglas av interna kontroll- och utvärderingsformer, samt en disciplinär dimension som kristalliseras ut i definitioner av vad norm och avvikelse är i dagens organisation. / Over the past three decades, popular management books have offered quick and easy recipes for how leaders have to lead staff in an effective manner. These books have become bestsellers and they have inspired many leaders to face challenges regarding management of people. Famous management writers have thus a big influence on how individuals and leadership are perceived in society, as well as a big influence to reinforce a certain vision of how human behavior should be designed in order for that entrepreneurial goals will be achieved. The study's aim is to increase understanding about the power dimensions in popular management literature. Three best-selling management books from the turn of the century were analyzed using a Foucault-inspired discourse analysis, focusing on management mentality, discipline and view of human beings. The analysis shows how the selected books implies a management mentality  that is characterized by internal monitoring and evaluation, as well as a disciplinary dimension that crystallizes in the definitions of what norm and deviation are in today's organization.

Bakgrund och problem: Att organisationers medarbetare beskrivs som den viktigaste resursen utgör idag mer regel än undantag, på samma sätt som hållbarhet är en självklar del av de organisatoriska praktikerna – åtminstone enligt den retorik som används. Tillsammans utgör begreppen essensen i framtidens hållbara personalpraktiker, där anställningsbarhet, engagemang och anknytning väntas skapa fördelar för organisation, medarbetare och samhälle enligt principen mutual gains i en harmonisk verklighet. Men är det så enkelt och självklart som det låter? Vad betyder det egentligen att vara en mänsklig resurs i nutida organisationer, för den arbetande människa som befinner sig i rollen av medarbetare? Är det enbart positivt, och är det positivt för alla? Om inte – vilka möjligheter till gemensam påverkan finns i ett allt mer individualiserat och flexibelt arbetsliv i den svenska kontexten? Syfte och metod: Studiens syfte är att utifrån ett kritiskt management-perspektiv granska uppfattningen om organisationer som harmoniska, neutrala och ömsesidigt fördelaktiga, genom att relatera nutida HRM till den arbetande människans situation i ett förändrat arbetsliv och belysa en fördunklad konflikt. För att besvara studiens frågeställning har en genomgång av tidigare litteratur genomförts utifrån den skandinaviska klassikerna Arbetarkollektivet i kombination med en empirisk undersökning i form av djupintervjuer med skyddsombud inom fackförbundet Byggnads. Resultat och slutsats: Nutida strategier för personalstyrning som inom litteraturen presenteras som ömsesidigt fördelaktiga har även en skuggsida, då praktikerna även kan förstås som indirekta kontrollmetoder som vidtas i syfte att öka inflytandet över personalen. I praktiken förekommer även andra mer destruktiva HRM-praktiker som är mer inriktade på nedskärning och lydnad än utveckling och trivsel. Dessa två sidor förefaller utgöra två sammanhängande sidor av ett och samma problem – brist på respekt för den arbetande människans demokratiska rätt att påverka arbetslivets utformning. De styrningspraktiker som vidtas riskerar att på olika sätt att försvaga människors möjligheter till att gemensamt påverka arbetslivets förändring. Det nyliberala samhällsklimat som idag råder med fokus på individualitet och flexibilitet riskerar dessutom att förstärka sådana tendenser. / Background and problem: The common notion that the employees are an organizations most valued resources, is today more of a rule than an exception, in the same way that sustainability is a natural part of the organizational practices – at least from a rhetoric perspective. If combined, the two concepts are described as the essence of the sustainable HR practices of the future, there employability, work engagement and affective commitment are expected to generate benefits for organization, employees, and society according to the principle of mutual gains. But is it as simple and obvious as it sounds? What does it really mean to be a human resource in a contemporary organization, for the working human that inhabits the role of employee? Is it just positive and is it positive for everyone? If not – how can employees actively and collectively influence work in an increasingly individualized and flexible working life? Purpose and method: From a critical management perspective the purpose of this study is to question the notion of organizations as harmonious, neutral and mutually beneficial by relating contemporary HRM to the working persons situation in a changed working life and open up an obscured conflict. To answer the problem being studied here, previous literature has been studied from the Scandinavian classic The Workers Collective which has been combined with an empirical investigation which has been conducted by deep interviews with safety representatives from the trade union Byggnads. Results and conclusion: Contemporary strategies for people management presented in the literature as mutually beneficial also have a darker side, that can be understood as indirect forms of control undertaken to increase influence over the staff. In practice, other forms of more destructive HRM practices appear, that are more focused on downsizing and obedience than development and well-being. These two sides seem to constitute two connected sides of the same problem – the lack of respect for the working humans democratic right to influence the design of the working life. The people management strategies that are undertaken risk weakening peoples opportunities to collectively influence changes in their working life. The prevailing neo-liberal social climate with its focus on individuality and flexibility may also risk reinforcing such tendencies.

Change is a timely issue across organisations, particularly since the start of the economic crisis, and especially within English local government. Yet, this question remains dominated by macro and micro explanatory models which tend to exclude conflict, mess and power in favour of enumerating universalistic steps or leadership factors for successful change. This thesis problematises this literature, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) political discourse theory and its mobilisation by critical management studies of organisational change. Three avenues are identified to further this literature. First, the organisation is analysed as an ongoing and fragile hegemonic project in which spaces are defined and consent must be constantly renewed. Second, the organisation is recast as a discursively constituted ‘site’ within a flat ontology, where change is not the result of some ‘bigger’ phenomena such as neo-liberalism or austerity, but instead is the product of situated articulations, disparate demands being mobilised as threats or opportunities requiring change. Finally, a third proposition articulates leadership in organisations as a set of multiple and changing practices, pragmatically deployed by organisational players. In exploring those avenues, a five-step ‘logics of critical explanation’ approach is deployed, characterising organisational change practices according to social (rules and norms), political (inclusions and exclusions), and fantasmatic (fears and hopes) logics (Glynos and Howarth, 2007). A nine month case study of an English County Council and its local strategic partnership’s organisational change project, Integrated Commissioning 2012 (IC 2012), is analysed to problematise the emergence, transformation and failure of practices of change in organisations. Rather than a set of factors or top-down causes and effects, this research demonstrates how change, organisations and leadership are best explained as discursive constructions, where a set of conditions drawn from a given site must be problematised. This research contributes to critical explanations of organisational change politics in three ways. First, by developing the concept of hegemony and hegemonic spaces, this thesis evidences how organisations and change are the result of ongoing struggles, consent being notably gathered by the constant refuelling of the fantasmatic appeal of change. Second, framing the organisation as a site generates a more complex, situated and dynamic understanding of the mobilisation of disparate demands within change discourses. Third, by considering leadership as a set of changing discursive practices and developing four situated dimensions of leadership in the case study, this research adds to critical leadership studies and discursive discussions of the role of individuals in organisational politics.

La question des implications sociales et environnementales des activités économiques et de leur gestion ou gouvernance traverse aujourd’hui largement le champ académique des sciences de gestion. Pour autant, le potentiel transformateur de cette RSE continue largement de poser question. Les auteurs nourrissant une analyse critique de cette dernière arguent que, plus qu’une transformation ou qu’une démocratisation des espaces de régulation de problématiques sociales et environnementales devenues transnationales, la RSE serait à resituer dans une analyse des rapports de force à l’œuvre. A défaut d’inclure les différents intérêts en présence, la RSE prendrait finalement la forme d’un pouvoir discursif offrant au contraire le maintien et la perpétuation de pratiques et asymétries de pouvoir inchangées, et marginalisant les opposants ou témoins susceptibles de contrevenir à cette continuité. Inscrit dans le courant des perspectives critiques en management, ce travail doctoral s’est donné pour projet de venir comprendre et mettre au jour les rouages et procédés permettant l'édification d’une puissance industrielle à même de fermer les issues en sa défaveur et d’assurer les conditions de sa propre perpétuation. Ce travail accorde en particulier une place centrale aux implications et aux marges de l’histoire, offrant de considérer les moyens dévolus à la mise en impuissance des contestations et tentatives de remise en cause de cet ordre dominant, et dans le conteste de politiques de RSE. Quelles modalités, mécanismes ou boîtes noires viennent sous-tendre le processus de légitimation des entreprises vis-à-vis des externalités sociales et environnementales qu’elles produisent ? Quelles techniques ou technologies du pouvoir viennent-elles mobiliser pour se constituer en macro-acteurs légitimes ? Comment permettent-elles leur maintien et leur renouvellement en dépit des conflits, des contestations et des dénonciations venant les remettre en cause ? Pour permettre l’analyse de ces différents points, une étude exploratoire fut réalisée et prolongée de l’étude du cas Weda Bay Nickel, projet minier développé par la multinationale française Eramet dans une lointaine Indonésie. Inscrite dans une posture constructiviste pragmatique, la démarche qualitative adoptée cherchait à comprendre et à déconstruire ce projet minier, présenté comme exemplaire en matière de RSE et pourtant largement contesté, par la recension systématique des documents produits et publiés à son sujet, la réalisation d’interviews auprès de diverses parties prenantes (N=41), ainsi qu’une ethnographie de trois semaines principalement effectuée dans la baie de Weda, et plus largement dans la province indonésienne des Moluques du Nord, constituant le théâtre de son implantation.Inscrit dans la tradition des postures analytiques descriptives et narratives, ce travail doctoral propose une mise en récit processuelle du cas offrant de caractériser le contexte de fabrication d’une puissance WBN et de mettre au jour sa transformation d’hypothèse spéculative en projet de développement ne pouvant plus qu’advenir, produit des contingences de l’histoire, de la nécessité de retour sur investissement auto-générée et d’un réseau d’intérêts bien compris. Par ailleurs, la mise en impuissance des contestations, révoltes et mobilisations s’étant faites jour à son encontre sera également étudiée, de sorte qu’elle se voit reconnaître sa place de produit des échecs successifs subis par une contestation bien réelle et active. Aussi, plus qu’un pendant inéluctable de la puissance, l’impuissance collective des acteurs s’étant opposés au projet minier WBN se présentera comme un construit, le produit d’une fabrique où les pouvoirs de cadrage et de contrainte des partisans de la mine apparaissent finalement moins empreints d’une quête de légitimation, qu’apparentés à un processus d’écrasement vécu comme indiscutable et irréversible par les parties prenantes sans pouvoir. / The academic field of organization studies has paid, in the past several years, a growing attention to the social and environmental impacts of economic activities, to their management as well as their governance. The idea of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) came to materialize and embody the commitment of corporations against unsustainable activities, even if the voluntary or constrained character of this phenomenon remains a matter of debate. Additionally, the prospects of CSR in terms of concrete transformations leading to more sustainable and democratic practices are still questioned. Critical scholars of CSR have, more recently, tackled these issues by pointing to the need for bringing power struggles back in the study of CSR. Although CSR principles aim at managing a multiplicity of stakeholders, critical scholars have highlighted that CSR practices took shape as a discursive power designed for maintaining and enforcing existing practices and power asymmetries, thanks to a marginalization of protestors and those trying to threaten their continuity.This doctoral project is precisely drawing upon such critical perspectives on CSR in order to understand comprehensively the political mechanisms according to which a corporate power manages to rise so as to counter potential protests and secure its own perpetuation. More particularly, this project devotes a significant attention to the implications of such corporate power on powerless stakeholders, highlighting the specific means implemented to manufacture powerlessness, starting from the following research questions: what are the modalities, mechanisms and black boxes upon which the legitimation process of corporations’ social and environmental impacts relies? What are the techniques and technologies of power designed and implemented by corporations in order to do so? How do they manage to maintain and renew their power in the face of struggles, contests and denunciations trying to challenge it?The design of this doctoral project relied on two different stages: an exploratory study of a multiplicity of CSR discourses articulated within and around a political CSR arena of the mining industry ; an in-depth case study of Weda Bay Nickel, i.e. a mining project undertaken by a French multinational corporation, Eramet, in far-off Indonesia. The methodological background of the doctoral project draws upon pragmatic constructivism and qualitative methods in order to comprehend and deconstruct the paradox according to which the Weda Bay Nickel case is at the same time praised for its exemplariness and fiercely contested. Data collection consisted in a systematic inventory of published data, interviews with a multiplicity of stakeholders (N = 41), as well as a period of three weeks ethnography in the Indonesia North Maluku region, where the mining deposit is located. Data analysis was conducted following a descriptive narrative approach, allowing for the production of a narrative which starts from the context of manufacture of corporate powerfulness, from a mere object of geological then financial speculation to a project of development that must be achieved, thanks to historical contingencies, return-on-investment self-fulfilling imperatives, as well as the forging of a coalition of interests. The narrative continues to portray the manufacture of powerlessness of protesters, rebellions and social movements, highlighting that the failure to contest corporate power cannot be associated to a powerlessness per se. Accordingly, the manufacture of powerlessness is shown to be of a socially constructed nature, relying on the implementation of framing and coercive forms of power by the corporation and its allies. Framing and coercion being the cornerstones of a policy that seems to go far beyond a search for legitimation. Instead, they can be subsumed into the idea of a domination process, experienced as non-disputable and non-reversible by the powerless stakeholders.

The aim of this study was to explore the nature of frontline nurses’ experiences of living with rapid and continuous organizational change in a tertiary health care institution. The phenomenon under study was organizational change. A component of this research was also to explore the possibility of change fatigue in nurses’ discourse. Change is inevitable, and increasingly rapid and continuous in health care as organizations strive to adapt, improve and innovate in response to external pressures. These pressures challenge hospitals to strive for patient safety, quality assurance and provision of exceptional family centred care. Attending to these pressures require time, energy and money. Rapid and continuous change creates a push/pull relationship between innovation and budget. New technologies require extra resources however, simultaneous restructuring and optimization efforts see hospitals decreasing available resources. This creates a challenging workplace for nurses who must engage in organizational change activities with limited resources. Organizational change challenges health care providers in a variety of ways because it restructures how and when patient care delivery is provided, changing ways in which nurses must carry out their work. Little research has been done regarding the impact of rapid and continuous organizational change for frontline health care providers, most notably, nurses. In this study a critical hermeneutic design was applied. Guided by the theoretical framework of critical management studies, the researcher explored concepts of organizational change, experience of change, change fatigue, and power and voice. The setting was an urban pediatric teaching hospital located in eastern Ontario. The researcher sought breadth, depth, complexity and richness of data in understanding the experience of organizational change, which supported a decision to seek a sample size of ten to fifteen participants. Thick description commenced at fourteen participants. Face to face interviews were conducted using open-ended questions to understand nurses’ experiences of change. Brown and Gilligan’s Voice-centred relational method of data analysis was used – a multi-levelled analysis exploring the concept of voice in relation to self, other, culture, society and history. Rapid and continuous organizational change in the workplace profoundly impacted nurses’ work, their relationships to the self, other, culture, society and history. Nurses recognized that many change initiatives reflected an ideological shift in health care that supported a culture of service, whilst sacrificing a culture of care. A culture of service prioritized cost-savings and efficiency, which saw nurses lose the time and resources required to provide quality, safe care. Nurses felt morally responsible to uphold a culture of care, which proved challenging, and at times unobtainable. The inability to provide quality, safe care resulted in a multitude of negative emotional repercussions, which fostered moral distress. Nurses exhibited elements of change fatigue, further contributing to feelings of voicelessness and powerlessness within their workplace. Organizational change must be re-conceptualized in ways that ensure change initiatives uphold institutional integrity and better support the provision of morally authentic nursing practice. Health care organizations should place nurses at the forefront of planning, implementation and evaluation of change initiatives in order to alleviate the many negative experiences of organizational change noted in this study.

Background: The field of impact assessment in social enterprises is largely influenced by the top-down demands of institutions like the European Union and other resource-giving institutions. This has caused a one-sided exploration of the topic impact assessment as the perspective of the social enterprises is so far under-researched. Therefore, the purposes, challenges and other experiences the social enterprises face when assessing impact were not yet given enough attention. Purpose: By taking a critical perspective, we seek to inspire dialogue and a change in the practical and theoretical field of impact assessment in social enterprises. We explore the enterprise’s perspective on why they assess their impact and what challenges they face. By that, their voices that have been hidden so far are raised and existing assumptions enriched by the social enterprise’s perspective. Method: To highlight the social enterprises’ experiences when assessing impact, the qualitative research approach Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was chosen. A purposive sampling strategy led to eight in-depth interviews with people from different German-based social enterprises. Five steps were followed to analyze the data, including a two-stage interpretation process where the researcher’s and participant’s interpretations play an essential role. Conclusion: This thesis shows the importance of including all perspectives in a research field. Our study found that social enterprises can have different reasons to assess impact and face challenges differently than assumed with the previous research focus on the funding perspective. At the same time, they experience the process positively. A model was developed to show the interrelations of the different experiences and influencing factors.

This research presents a critical analysis and original theoretical approach to a complex phenomenon that addresses current gaps in our understanding of the experiences of nurse executives and their organizational positioning in homecare organizations. It reveals how nurse executives experience paradoxical identities of executive and nurse. The competitiveness of homecare as a business and the status of homecare among other healthcare sectors is problematic and exacerbates the tension between those two identities. This qualitative research aims to explore NEs' epistemic and discursive organizational positioning in HCOs. This research also explores how nurse executives enact their moral, socio-professional, political and epistemic agency in homecare organizations in Ontario. The research questions guiding this study were: 1) How do nurse executives enact their agency, identity, values, and means in their organization? 2) What are the daily transactions and negotiations with organizational and systemic entities with which nurse executives engage in their organization? 3) How do nurse executives navigate such complexities to fulfil their organizational responsibilities and enact influence in their organizations? This research emphasized the importance of dominant discourses and practices in homecare organizations, shaping distinct epistemic landscapes that foster specific ways of thinking, speaking, and acting across those organizations and within the healthcare system. Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyze interviews with nurse executives and selected policy and guidance documents. A theoretical framework combining Critical Management Studies, as informed by Foucault, and the Sociology of Ignorance was used to highlight the complexity of nurse executive power within the context of social structures. This study exposed the relationships and the circulation of knowledge and non-knowledge (i.e., ignorance) and the ability to exercise power within homecare organizations. Findings can contribute to scholarly knowledge about practice, education, policy, theory, and future research perspectives. This research has implications for scholarship about nursing leadership across healthcare and management disciplines by better understanding the power, knowledge, and ignorance dynamics within homecare organizations and the healthcare system.

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