Critical Management Studies

Paul S
. Adler University of Southern California Linda C. Forbes Franklin and Marshall College Hugh Willmott
University of Cardiff Abstract Critical management studies (CMS) offers a range of alternatives to
mainstream management theory with a view to radically transforming management practice. The
common core is deep skepticism regarding the moral defensibility and the social and ecological
sustainability of prevailing conceptions and forms of management and organization. CMS’s motivating
concern is neither the personal failures of individual managers nor the poor management of specific
firms, but the social injustice and environmental destructiveness of the broader social and economic
systems that these managers and firms serve and reproduce. This chapter reviews CMS’s progress, main
themes, theoretical and epistemological premises, and main projects; we also identify some problems
and make some proposals. Our aim is to provide an accessible overview of a growing movement in
management studies. Introduction Critical management studies (CMS) might best be introduced with an
illustration. In a large body of mainstream research, teamwork is presented as a means by which
managers can more effectively mobilize employees to improve business performance. By reorganizing
work so as better to accommodate task interdependencies, and by leaving team members a margin of
autonomy