Culture and Organization

Problematising Management and Organization Studies through genealogies of power

Special Issue Proposal:

Problematising Management and Organization Studies through genealogies of power

Guest editors (in alphabetical order):

Charles Barthold, Senior Lecturer, Department for People and Organisations, Open University, UK

Alix Blanchard, PhD candidate, La Rochelle University, France

Layla Branicki, Professor, School of Management, University of Bath, UK

Guillaume Delalieux, Professor, La Rochelle University, France

Genealogy is a methodological approach enabling to critically analyse and bring novel insights to management and organization studies in a profoundly challenging context marked by a rise of authoritarianism and the crisis of democracy in politics, society and organizations (Barthold 2024). Firstly, the current broader context is characterised by deepening inequalities from social, economic, gender, racial and environmental perspectives. Secondly, the current broader context is characterised by a dangerous movement towards authoritarian governance, where human rights are challenged by state and corporate actions, for example through generalised surveillance conducted through a collaboration of states and corporations (Zuboff 2019). Thirdly, the current broader context is characterised by the Anthropocene, whereby a planetary environmental crisis is putting the Earth system at risk because of the hegemony of corporate capitalism based on fossil energy (Barthold and Bloom 2020; Bonneuil and Fressoz 2016; Nyberg, Wright, and Bowden 2021). As a result, genealogy is relevant in that it connects specific management and organisation phenomena and the broader context through a critical historicisation (Jørgensen 2002).

Drawing on the work of Nietzsche (1994), philosopher Michel Foucault (1971/1984, 1977) developed genealogy as a way to analyse the historical emergence of the Modern prison system, centred around disciplinary power and panopticism, in replacement of more violent ways of managing and repressing illegal practices. By contrast, with other types of historical approaches that aim to reproduce the past social systems and their contexts, genealogy is a ‘‘history of the present” whose objective is the “uncovering of hidden conflicts and contexts as a means of re-valuing the value of contemporary phenomena” (Garland 2014, 365).  Another important point that differentiates genealogy from traditional types of historical approaches emphasising linear causality is that genealogy foregrounds contingency in its historicisation of power relations (Rowlinson 2004; see also, Chan and Clegg 2002; Barratt 2004). Thus, genealogy enables to problematise contemporary phenomena by tracing their hidden history, especially “the production of specific discourses, subjects, and practices” (Barthold, Branicki, Delalieux 2024, 7).

The methodological approach of genealogy has been employed to study critically various topics relating to management and organisations. HRM has been argued to be a site of disciplinary power through a variety of techniques of power (Townley 1994; Barratt 2003). A genealogical methodology has also been employed to problematise how business ethics discourses such as compassion can be used as a technique of disciplinary power in organisations (Simpson, Clegg, and Pitsis 2014). Authors have deployed a genealogy of accounting (Hoskin and Macve, 1986; see also, McKinlay et al., 2010). Furthermore, a genealogical analysis has been deployed to uncover the colonial origins of specific forms of entrepreneurship discourses (Smith and Kaminishi 2020) and sexuality in organizational practices (Priola et al., 2018. Finally, genealogy has been used to provide a critical account of CSR discourse, explaining how stakeholder dialogue is based on military strategies. However, additional studies using genealogical approaches drawing on the work of Foucault would allow us to make sense of the multiple and entangled forms of power relations of today’s world.

The Current Special Issue

In this Special Issue, we argue that genealogy is a particularly fruitful approach to bring novel insights to management and organization studies by conducting in-depth and problematised analyses of management and organisation power relations at a time when democracy is in crisis in politics, society and organizations (Barthold 2024). Firstly, genealogies of power enable bringing contingency and granularity in accounting of how power works in and around organizations, as opposed to methodologies prioritising streamlined data analysis and therefore linear causality. Secondly, genealogies invite an interdisciplinary approach drawing on social sciences (e.g. sociology, anthropology, politics, history) and humanities such as philosophy, art history, film analysis or literary criticism (Parker 2005; Thexton, Prasad, and Mills 2019), linking specific organisational phenomena to different contexts. This interdisciplinary ethos contrasts with the current disciplinary emphasis in management and organization studies and beyond to social sciences, which often ignores humanities and history. Thirdly, genealogies can help construct effective alternatives and resistance strategies to mainstream power relations and hegemonies in politics, society, and organisations. As a result, this Special Issue seeks original, critical and interdisciplinary scholarship in relation to these three points.

Although this is not an exhaustive list, we propose the following research questions:

Problematise management and organization studies through a genealogical analysis of power

• ·       How could  a genealogical analysis of power be deepened in relation to management and organisational phenomena that have already been studied (e.g. HRM, accounting, entrepreneurship or CSR)
• ·       How could a genealogical analysis of power be applied to areas of management and organisation, where it has not been employed (e.g., platforms, diversity, digital work, teamwork…)?
• ·       How could a genealogical analysis of power be combined with other approaches to power (e.g., hegemony, elites, sociomaterial approaches to power)?
• ·       How could a genealogical analysis of power be employed in the context of gender, race, coloniality?
• ·       How could a genealogical analysis of power be employed in relation to nonhuman and more-than-human subjects in the context of the Anthropocene?

Problematise management and organization studies through a genealogical interdisciplinarity

• ·       How could a genealogical method be deployed, in combination with disciplines based in the social sciences?
• ·       How could a genealogical method be deployed, in combination with disciplines based in the humanities?
• ·       How could a genealogical method be deployed by combining various qualitative approaches (e.g. archives, documentary analysis, observation, literary texts, films and series)?

Problematise management and organization studies through informing resistance with genealogies

• ·       How can a genealogical method inform alternative organisations?
• ·       How can a genealogical method inform social movement organisations resisting mainstream management and organisations?
• ·       How can a genealogical method map resistance to management and organisation?
• ·       How can a genealogical method develop an analysis of whistleblowing?

We are open to a wide variety of submissions, especially using qualitative approaches and/or interdisciplinary approaches. These could be qualitative analyses of empirical data such as interviews, ethnography, policy documents, and archival documents, but we would also welcome fiction objects in line with humanities methodologies (e.g. literary texts, films and series). Conceptual papers would also be accepted.

References:

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Barratt, E. 2004. “Foucault and the politics of critical management studies.” Culture and organization 10: 191-202.

Barthold, C. 2024. “Leadership and the promise of democracy”. In The Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies, edited by D. Knights, H. Liu, O. Smolović-Jones, and S. Wilson, 403-413. London: Routledge.

Barthold, C., and P. Bloom. 2020. “Denaturalizing the environment: Dissensus and the possibility of radically democratizing discourses of environmental sustainability.” Journal of Business Ethics 164: 671-681.

Barthold, C., L. Branicki, and G. Delalieux. 2024. “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? How corporations maintain hegemony by using counterinsurgency tactics to undermine activism.” Organization Studies 45: 1467-1491.

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Accounting, Organizations and Society 11: 105-136.

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Nyberg, D., C. Wright, and V. Bowden. 2022. Organising responses to climate change: The politics of mitigation, adaptation and suffering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Priola, V., D. Lasio, F.  Serri, and S. De Simone. 2018. “The organisation of sexuality and the sexuality of organisation: A genealogical analysis of sexual ‘inclusive exclusion’ at work.” Organization 25: 732-754.

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Simpson, A. V., S. Clegg, and T. Pitsis. 2014. “‘I used to care but things have changed’: A genealogy of compassion in organizational theory.” Journal of Management Inquiry 23: 347-359.

Smith, A. and M. Kaminishi. 2020. Confucian entrepreneurship: Towards a genealogy of a conceptual tool. Journal of Management Studies 57: 25-56.

Thexton, T., A. Prasad, and A. J. Mills. 2019. “Learning empathy through literature.” Culture and Organization 25: 83-90

Townley, B. 1994. Reframing Human Resource Management. Power, Ethics and the Subject at Work. London: Sage.

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