Critical Management Practices and Organizational Theories

Critical management practices encompass the methods and interventions through which leaders and managers shape organisational structures, cultures and behaviours, placing particular emphasis on power relations, ethical dimensions and emancipatory outcomes. Drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks—from Marxist and Foucauldian analyses to post-colonial and psychoanalytic lenses—scholars have interrogated the assumptions that underpin conventional management routines. At the same time, organisational theories offer systematic accounts of how institutions evolve, adapt and reproduce themselves under varying environmental and social pressures. The intersection of these two fields has yielded insights into the role of discourse, identity and ideology in sustaining or challenging existing hierarchies. Practical applications of this scholarship extend from the design of participatory decision-making forums in public institutions to the development of alternative organisational forms in the social economy. By attending to issues such as secrecy, transparency and strategic ignorance, this body of work illuminates the ways in which knowledge is both produced and withheld in organisational settings, with implications for leadership, governance and social justice.

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Critical Management Practices and Organizational Theories publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in critical management practices and organizational theories across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Critical management practices: Managerial interventions that explicitly interrogate and reshape power relations, ethical norms and organisational ideologies.

Organisational ignorance: A managed or emergent state in which lack of knowledge is maintained through social processes, structures or deliberate practices.

Performativity: The concept that theories, discourses or organisational rituals actively bring about the realities they describe.

Enabling power: A perspective on organisational power that emphasises its capacity to empower actors through mechanisms such as formal authority, community formation and shared language.

References

1. Ignorance in organisations – a systematic literature review. Management Review Quarterly (2023).
2. Critical Management Studies: A Critical Review. Journal of Management Studies (2024).
3. The dialogic performativity of secrecy and transparency. Human Relations (2023).
4. Power as an enabling force: An integrative review. Human Relations (2022).