Understanding Management Critically : A Student Text

In these times of global economic crisis, social unrest towards the powers that be, and a yearning for alternative systems and organization, it is now more relevant than ever for you to take a critical stance to your management studies in order to analyse, understand and question the world around you and the capitalist stronghold in which you live and work.

This new thought-provoking text uses critical theory and revolutionary ideas to help you challenge the status quo and prevailing ideologies in management. It covers key issues, thinkers and topics in an accessible style to provide a broad and clear understanding of vital theory which is applied to the real world through international case studies and reflective questions and think points for you to carry into practice.

A companion website provides additional learning materials for personal study and class activities.

This text is essential reading for any undergraduate or postgraduate student studying critical management or any management course with a critical slant.

Dr. Suzette Dyer lectures in Human Resource Management in the Department of Strategy and Human Resource Management in the Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Her current research interests include globalization, flexibility and work place change, career management and development, women′s experiences in complex organizations, and the settlement experiences of migrants. She also has a keen interest indeveloping critical pedagogy in the management classroom. Currently, she is collaboratively working on projects investigating the impact of changes to work on single-industry towns, the emotional experiences of skilled migrants living in New Zealand, and examining whether critical pedagogical teaching techniques improves students’ critical reasoning.

Dr. Maria Humphries is an Associate Professor in the Department of Strategy and Human Resource Management in the Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Maria created and taught the first ′Business, Government and Society′ course at the School in 1990. She co-initiated the early courses in ′Women and Management′ that continue to be taught at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Maria was closely involved in the creation of a programme of studies focused on the development of indigenous management theories and practice. Various versions of the critical examination of management and civil society under the contemporary conditions of globalisation currently inform her leadership of the Social Enterprise Studies programme at WMS. She takes a great interest in the United Nations initiatives such as the Global Compact and the promotion of the related Principles for Responsible Management Education. Maria brings a critical perspective to the training and mentoring of her doctoral students as well as in all her post-graduate classes.

Dr. Dale Fitzgibbons is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management & Quantitative Methods at Illinois State University, USA. He teaches strategy, corporate social responsibility, and environmental management using a critical perspective. He is the Program Director for the minor in Business, Environment, and Society in the MQM Department. His research interests are at the intersection of critical theory and sustainability, critical pedagogy, social/economic justice, corporate corruption, and indigenous knowledge and management education. He is a strong supporter of the United Nations’ Principles for Management Education. He publishes in a wide variety of scholarly journals and is a former editor of the Journal of Management Education.

Ms. Fiona Hurd is a doctoral student in Human Resource Management in the Department of Strategy and Human Resource Management in the Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Her thesis examines, through an identity lens, the impact of globalization on work, workers and communities. Her wider research and teaching interests include critical management studies and pedagogy, gender and organisation, and critical perspectives on strategic management, organizational behavior, and career management and development.