BAR: Brazilian Administration Review (Jan 2008)
Critical Management Studies: Some Reflections
Abstract
This paper seeks to challenge some assumptions associated with Critical Management Studies (CMS). This is done based on insights originating from the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), an approach that can be considered as an empirical form of post-structuralism and that has gained prominence in social sciences. Fundamentally, this paper broadly reviews some key CMS ideas associated with this perspective ontology to argue that what CMS usually tends to take as explanation is exactly what has to be explained. Moreover, it discusses CMS’ problematic view of objects and its tendency to neglect how existence is kept and maintained.