Critical Management Studies: A Critical Review

André Spicer and Mats Alvesson

Journal of Management Studies, 2025, vol. 62, issue 1, 446-483

Abstract: In this paper, we review the development of critical management studies, point at problems and explore possible developments. We begin by tracing out two previous waves of critical management studies. We then focus on more recent work in critical management studies and identify ten over‐arching themes (Academia, alternatives organizations, control and resistance, discourse, Foucauldian studies, gender, identity, Marxism, post‐colonialism, and psychoanalysis). We argue that CMS has largely relied on one‐dimensional critique which focused on negation. This has made the field increasingly stale, focused on the usual suspects and predictable. We identify a number of problems calling for critique and rethinking. We label these author‐itarianism, obscurantism, formulaic radicalism, usual‐suspectism and empirical light‐touchism.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13047

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:62:y:2025:i:1:p:446-483

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... s.asp?ref=00022-2380

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Management Studies is currently edited by Timothy Clark, Steven W. Floyd and Mike Wright

More articles in Journal of Management Studies from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().