11/6/2015

About CMS | Critical Management

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About CMS
Last updated, 18 Jun 2015

What is CMS?
Critical Management Studies (CMS) is a largely left-wing and theoretically informed approach to management and
organisation studies. It challenges the prevailing conventional understanding of management and
organisations.CMS provides a platform for debating radical alternatives whilst interrogating the established relations
of power, control, domination and ideologyas well as the relations among organisations, society and people.
As an umbrella research orientation CMS embraces various theoretical traditions including anarchism, critical theory,
feminism, Marxism, post-structuralism,postmodernism, postcolonialism andpsychoanalysis, representing a
pluralistic, multidisciplinary movement.Having been associated mainlywithbusiness/management schools in the
United Kingdom and Scandinavia earlier,CMSas a research approachhas presence all over the world andis not
confined to management/business schools.This suggests that CMS is an approach todoingresearch rather than a
school or tradition, andthere is no particular 'right' way of doing CMS.

Denaturalisation, non-performativity and reflexivity(Fournier & Grey, 2000)are the key features of CMS for some,
whilecritical performativity(Spicer et al., 2009) is something other researchers would argue for. Recently there has
also been a rise in discussing alternative forms of organising (Parker et al., 2014), including alternativesto
thegrowth-driven neoliberal capitalism. Beyond CMS research, the issue of what it means to be a CMS scholar is
ofparticular concern. Challenging the (class/gender/racial) power structures in academic workplaces and the politics
of university life (e.g. around journal publishing, corporatisation,precarity), as well as involvement in activism are
among the key themes to be reflected on here.

Bi-ennial CMS conferences have been organized since 1999. CMS also has presence at annualEuropean Group of
Organization Studies colloquiums, Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism,and
otheracademicconferences. There is a CMS division within the Academy of Management also.

Why a portal for CMS?

The aim of this website is to gather information about CMS in one place as well as develop its own content (e.g.
overviews on philosophers and CMS, overviews of themes researched within CMS, commentated bibliography etc)
through collaboration of the CMS community.All the content is created by the members of CMS community.
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About CMS | Critical Management

criticalmanagement.org is for everyone who wants to find out about/keep updated with CMS, both academic and
non-academic, working in CMS and other areas.Through this, we hope to bring the spheres of education, practice
and transformation closer together.
criticalmanagement.orgis anindependentplatform and isfunded by the CMS community (via thesurplus from the
CMSconferences)

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WHAT'S THIS?

ALSO ON CRITICAL MANAGEMENT

Cornelius Castoriadis

On academic publishing

1 comment 2 years ago

2 comments a year ago

criticalmanagement Those interested in

criticalmanagement Great, thanks a lot

Cornelius Castoriadis could also check Vitor

Klein's recent paper in Organization, where
he

for sharing these!

Management Theory at Work 3 , day

around radio / video

Criticalmanagement.org meeting
3 comments 7 months ago

7 comments 5 months ago

will789gb As noted on the page for

Management Theory at Work 3 / in Radio I

have done a playlist for CMS as I am trying
out several. This could

John Burgoyne I will probably pop into

this conference or get info on it.. will try to

post relevant summary here

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Critical Manageme
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Critical Management
Studies
17 October at 16:18

UNKNOWN VISTAS IN MANAGEME

AND ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
2015.

https://sites.google.com/a/york
ohrc/winterschool2015

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Critical
Management
@CMStudies

3 Nov

How would the great

philosophers of the past
have fared under the
notorious Research
Excellence Framework
(REF)? gu.com/p/4dy7q/stw
Show Summary
Critical
Management
@CMStudies

27 Oct

Who are the postbureaucrats? read

Christian Garmann

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