Special Issue on Organizational Studies/Rethinking Criticism in Organizational Studies.
| Autor | Gonzales-Miranda, Diego René |
| Cargo | Editorial |
Organizational studies (os) emerged in the 1970s with the foundation and subsequent consolidation of the European Group for Organization Studies (egos), in 1973 (Lammers, 1998).This group sought to elude the hegemonic overlap of theoretical or methodological positions strongly linked to the project of American-style organizational theory. Shifting and distancing from the functional and positivist (totalitarian) orthodoxy was fundamental to opening the debate and conversations about critical thinking and organizational analysis (Clegg & Hardy, 1996). It is possible to perceive how a reconfiguration of critique that thinks closely about discourses and power in a territorialized way emerges in os. In this sense, and departing from the predominance of organizational theory, os, like all discourses, is partial, incomplete, and inconsistent since its essence is to have an open inclusion and exclusion policy (Westwood & Clegg, 2003).
Based on the above, we understand os as a field of knowledge that, based on social and human sciences, has contributed to broaden the understanding of the organizational actions that expose the ideologies and dispositions of those who participate in the development of capitalism and that, in one way or another, have violently and cruelly disrupted the relationship of modern labor subordination centered on the dignity of the person. Therefore, we can understand os as the 20th century emerging perspective that seeks to spread a line of work tending to transcend the functional explanations of collective organizational action, resisting the objective view of the unlimited enrichment of capitalism and the symbolic references that intersect with the banal hyperindividualism and ultraliberalism that has crossed borders and national identities.
This reveals one of the main attributes of os: its critical nature (Gonzales-Miranda, 2014), which has not been free of questioning. In this regard, Montaño-Hirose (2014) questions its capacity for transformation, which, according to its detractors, is limited to theoretical considerations:
With a high degree of paradigmatic diversity, expressed in the eclectic coexistence of diverse positions, carried out with no epistemological modesty, with the coexistence of [...] poststructuralist, constructivist, critical theory and neo-Marxist proposals, among others, causing widespread confusion that restricts the possibilities of developing a solid scientific discipline (p. 35).
Misoczky (2017) also states that the task of critique in os is "to contrast the 'positive' version of critique made from management without questioning it in its essence and its function for the reproduction of social structures that constantly generate victims, that is, an ethical and ontological critique" (p. 147). In this sense,--the author says--speaking of thought as a methodology to create a disposition for an approach to the life of production, work and relationships--as proposed by Alvesson and Willmott (1996)--as an "imitation of critique" is insufficient. Thus, an ontological critique that carries the transforming praxis of social structures is required.
Given this valid and propositional controversy that invites us to understand a little more about what os means, it is possible to controvert and strengthen the discussion concerning os and critique without limiting this discussion through such an exercise. But what is critique? In a lecture given at the French Society of Philosophy at Sorbonne University in 1978, Michel Foucault stated the following: "a certain way of thinking, speaking and acting, a certain relationship to what exists, to what one knows, to what one does, a relationship to society, to culture and also a relationship to others that we could call, let's say, the critical attitude" (2018, p. 46). The ideas of the French thinker lead us to consider critique as a vital, ethical, and aesthetic attitude of being and being in the world, a quality that may be cultivated and revitalizes individuals' relationships in their daily lives. It is the capacity of being informed to develop opinions about the actors and their actions from a more reflexive attitude (Messner, Clegg, & Kornberger, 2008). Foucault (2018) would say that there is an imperative that underlies a critique of general connotation, so it is related to virtue.
The above allows us to make some considerations. One of them is that critique is not malicious as a human quality but stimulates and encourages an individual to act according to specific ideal projects such as the good, the truth, justice, and beauty. In that sense, critique is opposed to a destructive, unwanted, defeatist, or pessimistic action since it is closely related to the reconstruction of individuals' ethical lives. Critique accounts for a way of thinking about life that creates a relationship with the world and, in one way or another, reconditions living with the respect, gratitude, and hospitality that comes with the value of all human beings' humanity. It also irremediably implies a degree of coherence and sincerity. It is impossible to be critical and, in this, virtuous in the incoherence of ideas that proclaim, on the one hand, absolute independence from the totalizing management discourses that tend to reduce people to a mere successful functionality and, on the other hand, the shy participation in the denunciation that, far from opposing the point of view with courage and bravery, dialogues and accommodates itself to those logics with the intention of not being cataloged as a deserter, opponent or lousy employee.
Therefore, we wish to rediscover critique as a virtuous attitude that must be cultivated and exercised coherently. In this regard, it is regrettable and sad to acknowledge that, in some cases, critique has become an academic fad. Many public and private organizations, and various administration programs, have converged in supporting and adopting critique as a cornerstone of their training programs. Still, many depart from it and--why not say so--distort it when such an uncomfortable attitude (inevitably) leads to selfreflection and to the recognition that precedes a behavioral change relinquishing their form of thinking.
However, critique also recognizes--by departing from any narrow ideology that denies the imperfection of human nature--individual's subjectivities that give them a margin of freedom to decide what is right in their actions. In this sense, critique cannot have a singularity of thought, a typical character with a universalist tendency, since by its nature, as Foucault (2018) would say, "by its function, I was going to say, by its profession, it seems to be condemned to dispersion, dependency and pure heteronomy" (p. 46).
Now, what is critiqued in the organizational context? The conceptualization of the organization has been mediated by a functional, seasonal, synchronic, and static approach. Usually defined with components such as human resources, the organization has seen its social value, expressed in the interweaving of social dynamics, which nest and coexist within it, diminished to a mere superficial, ephemeral, and linear understanding of the sample of society that makes up its very nature. The vast possibilities offered by the concept of organization, to understand society from os and, with it, identify the forces that underlie them and condition them along paths that seek to prioritize the individual over the collective, are stifled by preventing the elucidation of its capacity to adapt and reconstruct from the flow of the diverse surrounding agents (Ibarra-Colado, 2006).
This is how a critical attitude seeks to elucidate the social character of organizations and the diverse logics of action carried out by the individuals involved. Here, and among the multiple possibilities of critique in os, we would like to highlight the question about how organizations are governed, that is, to pay...
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