Critical Management Studies - Coursework Example

Modern life, to a considerable extent, is governed by managerial or economistic approach whereby, in the context of business in organizations, the efficient allocation of resources takes precedence over humanistic or ethical concerns. In this respect, many public services are increasingly facing new forms of managerialism, while many aspects of socio-cultural activities are also being subjected to the same business, management, and economic perspectives. Over the years, narrow interests such as financial institutions have traditionally dominated research in business, management, and economics leading to biased theory of practice (Barratt 2011, p.110), which CMS has been countering; CMS is now a valid and vital aspect of the Business school curriculum, and is even visible in professional bodies for practitioners in business, management, and organization studies.

The pervasive scepticism regarding the essence of the mainstream management ideas and practices have spurred the need to expand the field of management through research, to espouse alternative innovative ways of understanding management (Alvesson and Willmott 2012, p.5), instead of relying on the ineffective status quo, thus the emergence of Critical Management Studies. Overall, CRS often seeks to bring to fore the subtle workings of power while identifying and reforming the daily workplace practices that enforce injustices both in firms and in the society.

CMS views the prevailing conceptions and forms of management as well as organization as unjustified and unsustainable (Alcadipani & Hodgson 2009, p.130), with a keen focus on the social injustice as well as the environmental destructiveness of the wider socio-economic systems that managers and specific firms serve and reproduce (Foster & Wiebe 2010, p.271). In this respect, it is not really the failures of individual managers or the poor management of specific firms that informs and motivates CMS,