Beyond Critique: Towards Transformative Practice in Critical Management Studies. Editors’ Introduction

Critical management studies (CMS) is a vibrant and increasingly substantial subfield of management studies. From geographically and theoretically diverse seedlings in the last years of the 20th century, CMS has blossomed into an international movement with large biannual international conferences, a Division at the Academy of Management, and a burgeoning scholarly literature. The growth of CMS – particularly in the Anglo-American world – has fostered an intensive debate on the historical background, current research agenda, and the future of CMS over the past decade (see, e.g. Adler, 2002, 2008; Adler, Forbes, & Willmott, 2007; Alvesson, 2008; Clegg, Kornberger, Carter, & Rhodes, 2006; Cunliffe, 2008; Fournier & Grey, 2000; Ibarra-Colado, 2008; Parker, 2006; Phillips, 2006; Spicer, Alvesson, & Kärreman, 2009; Thompson, 2004; Voronov, 2008; Willmott, 2008). Despite its share of doctrinal disputes, by and large CMS scholars have been willing to encourage the participation of those from different disciplines and research interests under the same umbrella (see, e.g. Adler et al., 2007; Alvesson, 2008; Cooke, 2008). One product of the relative openness of the CMS community, however, is that there is no common agreement on what is meant by CMS. Neither is there something that could be called CMS-theory (Adler, 2008). As Alvesson (2008) points out, different groups perceive criticality differently. While there are a number of accounts that explore the meaning(s) of CMS (see, e.g. Adler et al., 2007; Alvesson, 2008; Alvesson, Bridgman, & Willmott, 2009; Alvesson & Willmott, 2003; Fournier & Grey, 2000), the CMS project as a whole remains theoretically fragmented with no clearly dominant approaches and perspectives. This epistemological, ontological, and teleological diversity in turn is reflected in highly divergent attitudes towards the possibility of engaged practice, as the varying interpretations by the different authors in this collection demonstrate.