Doing Critical Organizational Research Implications for Studies on Diversity in Organizations Vedran Omanović

Transcription

1 Doing Critical Organizational Research Implications for Studies on Diversity in Organizations Vedran Omanović EURODIV PAPER DECEMBER 2006 KTHC - Knowledge, Technology, Human Capital Vedran Omanović, School of Business, Economics and Law The University of Gothenburg, Department of Business Administration This paper can be downloaded without charge at: The Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Series Index: The opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the position of Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Corso Magenta, 63, Milano (I), web site: working.papers@feem.it

2 The special issue on Cultural Diversity collects a selection of papers presented at the multidisciplinary and multinational Marie Curie project on Cultural diversity in Europe: A series of Conferences (EURODIV). EURODIV focuses on cultural diversity in Europe and aims to understand the ways of dealing with diversity and its dynamics in the globalisation era. Its primary objective is to provide top-level training opportunities to researchers in the first years of their research career. EURODIV is a four-year project ( ) co-ordinated by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and supported by the European Commission, Sixth Framework Programme, Marie Curie Conferences and Training Courses (contract no. MSCF-CT ). Schedule of Conferences: First Conference Understanding diversity: Mapping and measuring, January 2006, FEEM, Milano, Italy. Contact person: Valeria Papponetti, valeria.papponetti@feem.it Second Conference Qualitative diversity research: Looking ahead, September 2006, K.U.Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Contact person: Maddy Janssens, maddy.janssens@econ.kuleuven.ac.be, and Patrizia Zanoni, patrizia.zanoni@kuleuven.ac.be Third Conference Diversity in cities: Visible and invisible walls, September 2007, UCL, London, UK. Contact person: Valeria Papponetti, valeria.papponetti@feem.it Fourth Conference Diversity in cities: New models of governance, September 2008, IPRS, Rome, Italy. Contact person: Raffaele Bracalenti, iprs.it@iprs.it Fifth Conference Dynamics of diversity in the globalisation era, September 2009, FEEM, Milan, Italy. Contact person: Valeria Papponetti, valeria.papponetti@feem.it EURODIV goes in parallel with SUS.DIV, the Network of Excellence on sustainable development in a diverse world. For further information on EURODIV and SUS.DIV, please visit the web site: This batch of papers has been presented at the Second EURODIV Conference Qualitative diversity research: Looking ahead

3 Doing Critical Organizational Research Implications for Studies on Diversity in Organizations Summary This paper is a continuation of a line of reasoning from my paper: Understanding Diversity in Organizations Paradigmatically and Methodologically (Omanović, 2006), which I presented at the first of four conferences in this series focusing on Cultural Diversity in Europe ( EURODIV ). In that paper I called attention to different paradigmatical and methodological ways of understanding and studying diversity in organizations. A starting-point for my discussion in that paper was an assumption that researchers, by exploring different social phenomena (including diversity in organizations), bring their different sets of assumptions to what the studied phenomenon is (or could be) but also at the same time they make assumptions what organizations are (or could be). In other words, researchers, by studying diversity in organizations (as well as other social phenomena) construct ideas of diversity by positioning this phenomenon differently, asking different questions or designing research projects differently. To continue to try to actively engage me in both showing some benefits and limits in the present literature and searching for new theoretical and methodological possibilities for understanding and studying diversity in organizations (initiated by Fine, 1996; Litvin, 2000; Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000; Calás, 2003), in this paper I will present and discuss one of these possibilities that is grounded in the critical perspective of the Frankfurt School. This theoretical orientation, as it will be shown in the paper, develops specific forms of critical thinking that have partly been neglected in the research on diversity in organizations. Therefore, this theoretical orientation can, from my point of view, contribute to new possibilities of understanding this phenomenon by allowing researchers to understand and study diversity in organizations as a social-historical creation, which is accomplished in conditions of struggle and domination. Additionally, this theoretical orientation may indicate that the process of studying and understanding diversity itself is a dialectical process, but also that diversity in organizations could also be seen and studied as a process of social production in which (particular) sectional ideas and interests about diversity can be privileged while other ideas and interests can be marginalized. Keywords: Diversity, Critical Theory, Dialectic, Social-Historical Context, Struggles and Domination Address for correspondence: Vedran Omanović School of Business, Economics and Law The University of Gothenburg P.O. Box 610 (OF 3) SE Gothenburg Sweden Phone: vedran.omanovic@handels.gu.se

4 3 Background Already at the beginning of the 1990s we can find diversity appearances in the organizational/management literature. Those first contributions have been published in the context of the U.S. research, and in some of them researchers plead for a more businessoriented view of diversity (e.g., Thomas, R.R., 1990) by focusing on performance of (culturally) diverse groups (Watson et al., 1993). Additionally, in some studies focusing on diversity in organizations 1, this research area has been reviewed and divided into different categories, depending on which central themes characterize those publications (Fine, 1996), on the history of scholarly publications on workforce diversity (Litvin, 2000), as well as on the turns in diversity management history (Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000). Finally in the study of Omanovic (2002), the author focuses his attention on the theoretical construction(s) of diversity by trying to answer the question: why and how is diversity defined as it is in the literature. By identifying and contrasting different approaches on diversity the author s ambition is to stimulate different understanding of this phenomenon. Furthermore, in some of the organizational studies, the researchers provide a critique of the existing literature and give suggestions for future research (e.g. Fine, 1996; Litvin, 2000; and Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000, Calás, 2003)) who argue that the awareness of alternative ways of studying diversity in organizations should be reflexive and historically sensitive. Fine (1996) suggests, for instance, alternative perspectives, such as feminist theories, critical theories or sociological paradigms to identify what she assumes are problematic areas in the existing research on diversity. According to Fine, future diversity studies need to document different voices in the workforce, especially those that have been marginalized. Litvin (2000) suggests that future research on workforce diversity should be designed upon organizational ethnography or one consisting of extensive and comprehensive interviews (ibid., 336). Lorbiecki and Jack (2000) also argue for an awareness of alternative ways (ibid., 29) of doing research by suggesting a post-colonial theory for studies of diversity management. From their point of view, this perspective is critical, reflexive and historically sensitive. In that sense they point out that it is necessary to be able to look at diversity in organizations with the different sets of lenses that really focus attention on issues such as history, context, process, power, and marginalized organizational members. Which ways are those ways? There are multiple perspectives that can help us to focus on these issues, and each of them allows us to do the work in a particular way. To continue to search for new paradigmatic and methodological possibilities for understanding and studying diversity in organizations (initiated by Fine, 1996; Litvin, 2000; Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000; Calás, 2003), in the following paragraphs I will present and discuss one of these possibilities that is grounded in the critical perspective of the Frankfurt School. The motive and reason for choosing this 1 I put quotation marks around the term diversity in organizations here because it is really difficult to put boundaries on what diversity literature is (but I am not going to continue to do so in the article). There are many issues that could be classified as diversity issues (e.g., demography, discrimination, equal opportunity, research on gender and race, team-work, managing/valuing diversity/differences and the like). Different researchers labeled also differently the subject of their study (e.g., cultural diversity in the workplace, Fine, 1996 or workforce diveristy, Litvin, 2000). Furthermore, different authors even though they use the term diversity, it is not necessary that they are talking about diversity. Rather their studies are focused, for instance, on meaning making (how people make sense of differences how do they do differences /see West and Fenstermarker 1995/) or how the production of cultural- ideological control has shaped the constructions of diversity and managing diversity in the context of the U.S. (Litvin, 2000).

5 theoretical orientation, in my interpretation of Burrell and Morgan s work (1979) which is located in the radical humanist paradigm, is that it develops specific forms of critical thinking that have been neglected in the research on diversity in organizations. Therefore, this theoretical orientation can, from my point of view, contribute to new possibilities of understanding this phenomenon by allowing researchers to understand and study diversity in organizations as a social-historical creation, which is accomplished in conditions of struggle and domination. Additionally, this theoretical orientation may indicate that the process of studying and understanding diversity itself is a dialectical process. 4 A description of the organization of the article follows. I first present a short introduction to critical theory, in particular focusing on the work of the Frankfurt School and some of its main ideas. This introduction is based on the original works of some of the founding members of the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse) as well as on other researchers interpretations of the work of the Frankfurt School (such as Held, 1980; Kellner, 1989; Agger, 1998; Alvesson and Deetz, 2000). Next, I review some of the organization literature that is based on the main ideas of the radical humanist paradigm (of which the critical theory is part) and on Burrell and Morgan s descriptions of the central concepts of this paradigm. I focus in particular on the themes and positions of specific interest for those critical organizational studies. At the end of the article I present some of the central positions of the presented critical studies, as well as their potential implications for studies focusing on diversity in organizations. Critical Theory Although the radical humanist paradigm also derives from Solipsism, French existentialism and anarchistic individualism, a predominant influence on organizational studies is grounded in critical theory. Within critical theory, Burrell and Morgan (1979) recognize three schools of thought based upon Lukácsian sociology, 2 Gramisci s sociology (influenced by Antonio Gramsci, ), and the work of the Frankfurt School whose home institute was the Institute of Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung), formally attached to the University of Frankfurt, Germany 3 in In this article I refer, as indicated earlier, to the critical theory that has its roots in the Frankfurt School. 4 Although the term critical theory and its theoretical orientation owe much to Kant, Hegel, Freud, Marx and Lukács (Held, 1980; Deetz and Kersten, 1983; Burill, 1987; Kellner, 1989; Agger, 1998), the term was first introduced by the members of the Institute of Social Research 2 This school is influenced by Georg Lukács ( ). Unlike Burrell and Morgan (1979), Held (1980) and Agger (1998) have not treated Lukács s writings as a distinct school within critical theory. Lukács s writings during the 1920s that challenged and rethought Marxism are rather viewed as a precedent for the Frankfurt theorists. 3 Some of the relevant works of the original members of the school (Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse) were, however, written in the U.S. during their exile from Germany (during and after World War II). See more about the history of the Frankfurt School in Held, 1980; Burill, 1987; Kellner, 1989; and Jay, The works of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin and Fromm are usually classified as the early critical theory while Habermas and his work are usually labeled the second generation of the Frankfurt School (see Burill, 1987; Kellner, 1989; Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2003). In Kritisk teori en introduktion (Critical Theory an Introduction) some significant writings (except for the work of Habermas) of these key figures have been translated into Swedish. In the introductory article, Burill provides an analysis of the role of these people in the development of the Frankfurt School and its work. See also Held s (1980), Kellner s (1989) and Jay s (1996) interpretations of the historical development of the critical theory and its major contributions and key issues/themes, as well as Alvesson and Sköldberg s (2003) shorter introduction to critical theory that also includes the work of Habermas and his theory of communicative action.

6 (Horkheimer and Marcuse) in 1937 (Burill, 1987). 5 Unlike earlier groups in the social sciences, the Institute of Social Research should have interdisciplinary nature and should aim toward understanding society as a whole, a totality of dialectic connections (Burill, 1987:11-12). Even though the themes covered by the Frankfurt School are extensive and vary during different periods (as well as between the original members), the School s founding members hope was always, as Held (1980:38) states in his analysis of the Frankfurt School, that their work would help establish a critical social consciousness able to penetrate existing ideology, sustain independent judgment and be capable of maintaining its freedom to think things might be different. For instance, according to Marcuse, the aim of the critical theory is to analyze society in the light of its used and unused or abused capabilities for improving the human condition. In that sense, a certain focus should be placed on the established way of organizing society compared to other possible ways. Thus, a specific historical practice should be measured against its own historical alternatives (Marcuse, 1994:xlii). Furthermore, if Lukacs s analysis of Marxist theory can be seen as a deepening of Marx s analysis into the analysis of reification, the work of the Frankfurt theorists may be viewed as an extension of Lukács s analysis of reification (which the Frankfurt theorists termed domination). Lukács asserts that (late) capitalism increasingly has manipulated classconsciousness as an ideology in order to convince people that radical changes were impossible. This analysis became known as reification, which, according to Lukács, means the reduction of social relations and ideas to inert processes that, like nature, appear frozen and are thus unchangeable (Agger, 1998:80). Reification processes, with the economic transitions in capitalism (e.g., from early market capitalism to late capitalism and then to, as Agger writes, a later late capitalism) are no longer possible to recognize as a clear-cut text. 6 It is instead an everyday experience of the world produced and reproduced in various discourses such as popular culture and the social sciences that suffuse the person with a sense of society s inertness and inevitability (Agger, 1998:81). 5 Uncovering and Demystifying Domination, Dialectics and One-Dimensionality Because the late capitalist ideology, according first to Lukács and then to the Frankfurt theorists, is very difficult to discover (because it is inchoate and often concealed), the theorist should focus on uncovering and demystifying reification (in Lukacs s terms) or domination (as used by the Frankfurt theorists) that is found in people s everyday experiences and activities. This process of uncovering and demystifying domination is an important concept/position of the Frankfurt theorists, known as ideology critique. In the writings of the Frankfurt theorists we can recognize at least two arguments of the concept of ideology critique that are an interpretation of Agger s (1998; 1991) readings of the work of the Frankfurt theorists summarized as the Dialectic of the Enlightenment argument and the culture industry argument. 7 5 See, for instance the study of Horkheimer (1976), originally published in 1937, in which he introduced the term critical theory by discussing differences between what he labeled a traditional theory and a critical theory. After Horkheimer assumed the directorship of the Institute in 1930, most of the original members became well known as members of the Frankfurt School (Held, 1980:29). Because of the rise to power by the Nazis during the 1930s, the Institute was transferred to Geneva (February, 1933) and then to Columbia University in New York (1935). By 1953, the Institute had been re-established in Frankfurt (Held, 1980:38). 6 Such as ideology (e.g., religion) which is set out in books and as such can be more easily studied and criticized (Agger, 1998). 7 The cultural industry argument is discussed further in the next section. See also Burill s (1987) and Kellner s (1989) interpretations of their readings of the Frankfurt theorists writings in which they also identify several significant sequences in the development of this theoretical tradition and its main ideas and arguments. In addition to these writings, in a new edition of The Dialectical Imagination (1996), based on his doctoral dissertation published in the year 1973, Martin Jay provides a very rich description of the historical development of the Frankfurt School, its prominent members and their writings as of 1950.

7 One of the most important contributions of the Frankfurt School theorists is the Dialectic of Enlightenment in which two of the founders of the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer and Adorno, examine various themes, including the relationship between enlightenment, mythology, and the scientific domination of nature. 8 The book, Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1997) [first German version in 1944, first English translation in 1972], is an important contribution by the theorists of the Frankfurt School because it helps us to understand the development of the thought of this School, such as the rise and domination of (instrumental) reason, as well as dialectics in the concept of Enlightenment. Horkheimer and Adorno criticize all previous theory for ignoring the issues of domination. By domination they refer to a view of the world (including nature), as an object/instrument that will be used for human purposes. 9 For instance, the concept of reason, as described by Horkheimer and Adorno (1997) in Dialectic of Enlightenment, contains dialectic: the dialectic between reason, universal and common to everyone, and reason as the domination of the specific and particular. In that sense, promoting/liberating reason, like many other social phenomena, expresses the contradiction that it is both itself and simultaneously something else a unity of opposites. This is how Horkheimer and Adorno describe the Enlightenment s concept of reason: It comprises the idea of a free, human social life in which men organize themselves as the universal subject and overcome the conflict between pure and empirical reason in the conscious solidarity of the whole At the same time, however, reason constitutes the court of judgment of calculation, which adjusts the world for the ends of self-preservation and recognizes no function other than the preparation of the object (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1997:83/84). By supposing that (positivist) science can solve all problems (and demystify all myths) earlier thinkers also made science (reason) as mythic as the myths, or using Horkheimer and Adorno s (1997) line of reasoning, it could be stated that the Enlightenment and mythology reflect one another. Thus, there is a dialectic between myth and Enlightenment, which means that advances in Enlightenment always court the return of myth, faith and belief under positivism. In other words, dialectics regards things as being in a process of motion and as interrelated, and affirms that all concrete things are contradictory. In this way, the underlying problem of previous (Western) theories, as recognized and criticized by the Frankfurt theorists, was their attempt to dominate the object the world, nature, otherness and other people. 10 Positivism was, in that regard, recognized as an example of the attempt to dominate. This is how Marcuse in his book, One-Dimensional Man (1994, originally published in 1964), published several years after Dialectic of Enlightenment, describes the principles of that kind of science: The principles of modern science were a priori structured in such a way that they could serve as conceptual instruments for a universe of self-propelling, productive control; theoretical operationalism came to correspond to practical operationalism. The scientific method which led to the ever-more-effective domination of nature thus came to provide the pure concepts as well as the instrumentalities for the ever-more-effective domination of man by man through the domination of nature. Theoretical reason, remaining pure and neutral, entered into the service of practical reason (Marcuse, 1994:158). 6 8 This relationship was conceptualized through study of Homer s Odyssey. 9 According to Agger s interpretation of the Dialectic of Enlightenment, although Horkheimer and Adorno clearly acknowledged the need for food, farming and industry, they distinguish between the mastery of nature and its domination. More precisely, they do not argue for the destruction of technology, but argue that nature can be humanely mastered for human purposes and for people who embody difference tolerated without giving up the benefits of technological advancement (Agger, 1998:84-86). 10 This critique of the domination of nature and the suggestion by some of the Frankfurt theorists that social changes might be assessed by the extent to which they achieve the redemption are viewed by critics as technological utopianism or a romantic strain. However, some of these ideas, as Agger (1998) states, have been put into practice by environmentalists and theorists on technology and nature.

8 In that sense, the Frankfurt theorists critique of ideology 11 was very much directed toward a critique of the dominant influence within the social sciences (positivism) and technological rationality, and challenged one of the major assumptions of positivism nature or an external reality. The technological rationality, according to Marcuse (1994), has become totalitarian because it creates a kind of one-dimensional thinking and a one-dimensional society, which is only one way of thinking (about society). Marcuse writes: The way in which a society organizes the life of its members involves an initial choice between historical alternatives which are determined by the inherited level of the material and intellectual culture. The choice itself results from the play of the dominant interests. It anticipates specific modes of transforming and utilizing man and nature and rejects other modes. It is one project of realization among others. But once the project has become operative in the basic institutions and relations, it tends to become exclusive and to determine the development of the society as a whole. As a technological universe, advanced industrial society is a political universe, the latest stage in the realization of a specific historical project namely, the experience, transformation, and organization of nature as the mere stuff of domination (Marcuse, 1994:xlviii). Thus, for Frankfurt theorists, the positivist tradition advances the impression that social relations resemble relations in the natural world and thus cannot be changed significantly. The Frankfurt theorists reject, therefore, positivism as a world of adjustment, a world that is perceived as rational and necessary. As a result, the world is unchangeable. Unlike the positivists, the critical theorists attempt to develop a mode of consciousness and cognition that breaks the identity of reality and rationality, viewing social facts not as inevitable constraints, but as a pieces of history that can be changed (Agger, 1991:109, see also Held, 1980; Alvesson and Deetz, 2000). The Frankfurt theorists assume that societal conditions are historically created (and influenced by the asymmetries of power and certain interests), and thus such conditions can be changed. In that sense, this theoretical perspective could be viewed as the perspective that is oriented toward challenging rather than accepting what is already established. 7 The Cultural Sources of Domination Apart from the forces of domination found in science, the Frankfurt theorists were also concerned with the cultural forces of domination. For instance, in Dialectic of Enlightenment, in the chapter, The Culture Industry-Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Horkheimer and Adorno examine the ways in which economic rationalization and mass production techniques relate to culture. They conclude that culture is not the product of genuine demands; rather, it is the result of demands that can be seen as evoked and manipulated. Several years after the publication of Horkheimer and Adorno s Dialectic of Enlightenment, Marcuse in One-Dimensional Man introduced and analyzed new forms of domination and social control that in his view produce a one-dimensional man and a kind of onedimensional thinking. In Marcuse s opinion, different forms of culture create false consumer needs that integrate individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management and contemporary modes of thought. One of the results is the reproduction of the existing system and the elimination of 11 Ideology is referred to by the Frankfurt theorists as domination, which is conceptualized as a tendency to view society as an internalized and potent part of nature (see Agger, 1998:83). Thus, ideology refers to a distorted conceptualization, collectively produced and sometimes institutionalized, and to explanations of how society functions and the role of individuals in it. Ideology is viewed as distorted because it serves, from the Frankfurt theorists point of view, to keep an individual mired in false consciousness while pretending to free him. Following this line of reasoning, the notion of false consciousness is seen as the acceptance of an unreflected notion of the society (or organizations) as given, as truth without interpretation, and as thinking by individuals who have forgotten the processes that make up reality and their participation in those processes (Eyerman, 1981a; 1981b). In other words, dialectics regards things as being in a process of motion and as essentially interrelated. It maintains that all concrete things are contradictory. There are contradictions in reality and dialectics recognizes that other possibilities are available.

9 critique and opposition. 12 Thus, by identifying and analyzing culture as a new form of domination and social control, Marcuse also emphasizes that culture is dominated/influenced by some ideological aspects: Today, domination perpetuates and extends itself not only through technology but as technology, and the latter provides the great legitimation of the expanding political power, which absorbs all spheres of culture (Marcuse, 1994: 158). This additional argument of domination, often known as the cultural industry 13 argument/conception (see e.g., Held, 1980; Kellner, 1989; Agger, 1998), is the argument in which movies, television, trade books, mainstream newspapers and magazines, and commercial radio (i.e., popular culture) become a kind of ideology (of a late capitalism) that tends to manipulate people s consciousness. This manipulation is accomplished by diverting people s attention from their real problems and instead offering them false solutions projected onto the lives of fictional characters (Agger, 1998). In other words, the term cultural industry, as used by the Frankfurt theorists, should be understood (not literally, referring to production itself), as the standardization of cultural entities themselves and to the rationalization of promotion and distribution techniques (see Held, 1980). In that sense, the Frankfurt theorists are oriented toward questioning with an intention to disrupt rather than to reproduce and freeze (cultural) traditions and conventions. Some theorists within the Frankfurt School (e.g., Benjamin), however, have questioned this argument of cultural industry, since they believe popular culture also has the potential to spread the messages of critique and freedom (see e.g., Held, 1980:88; Agger, 1998:91). 8 Habermas s Theory of Communicative Action Finally, in this introduction to the origins and main positions of the Frankfurt School, I briefly present some interpretations of the work of Habermas, Adorno s assistant, who usually is identified as the leading Frankfurt theorist of the so-called second generation of the Frankfurt School (e.g., Burill, 1987; Alvesson and Deetz, 2000). Habermas conceives of his project as an attempt to develop a theory of society with a practical intention: the selfemancipation of people from domination (Held, 1980). Habermas believes that only through self-reflection and communication can people (really) control their own destiny and restructure society in humane ways. It is through interaction and communication that people can, in Agger s (1998:94) interpretation of Habermas s work, master society by forming social movements and achieving power. For Habermas, successful communication is underpinned by four (validity) claims/criteria: comprehensibility, sincerity, truthfulness and legitimacy. The ideal speech situation for Habermas is that in which the chances for dialogue are equal for all participants: The structure of communication itself produces no constraints if and only if, for all possible participants, there is a symmetrical distribution of chances to choose and to apply speech acts. (Habermas, cited by Alvesson, 1997:84; and Alvesson and Deetz, 2000:91). Undistorted communication leads to the ideal speech situation. However, opposed to this, according to the interpretation of Habermas s theory of communication by Alvesson (1997) and Alvesson and Deetz (2000), is systematically distorted communication where power 12 It is important to note that Marcuse sees new forms of culture, to use his terminology, as instruments of manipulation and also of liberation in the sense that they provide the potential for progressive, social changes. However, in his analysis in One-Dimensional Man, he focuses first and foremost on forms of social domination. 13 For Kellner (1989:131), the term culture industry (used by the Frankfurt theorists) contains a dialectical irony: culture as usually understood is supposed to be opposed to industry and expressive of individual creativity while providing humanization or emancipation. In the culture industries, by contrast, culture has come to function as a mode of ideological domination, rather than of humanization or emancipation (ibid., 131).

10 relations and ideological dominance (e.g., technocratic consciousness and instrumental reasoning) 14 distort descriptions, and disinformation influences the communication process. A central aspect of systematically distorted communication is that it follows the principle of the dominance of goal rational acting systems (Alvesson, 1997:85), which means that the imperative that follows from given goal/means relations consistently is given priority and dominates the agenda. For instance, effectiveness interests, according to Alvesson (1997:85), dominate conceptions of what is relevant, important, and legitimate, and allow little room for questioning more basic conditions. The work of Habermas has been criticized in several respects. Here, I mention only one of these critiques which is that Habermas s theory of communicative action overemphasizes the possibility of rationality as well as the value of consensus, and places too much weight on the clarity and rationality potential of language and human interaction (Alvesson and Deetz, 2000:91) * * * In summary, we can say that the members of the Frankfurt School, attached to the Institute of Social Research, were the first to introduce the term critical theory (in the late 1930s). Even though the themes addressed by the Frankfurt School and its members vary during different periods, the hope was always that the School s work would help establish a critical social consciousness able to penetrate existing ideology, sustain independent judgment and be capable of maintaining its freedom to think in a way that might be different. The work of the Frankfurt theorists, in a historical sense, can be seen as a deepening of Lukács s analysis of reification (which the Frankfurt theorists termed domination). Reification is regarded as a way of reducing social relations and ideas to inert processes, which then appear frozen and thus unchangeable. One of the most important focuses in their analysis was on the concept of domination found in people s everyday experiences and activities (for instance, as identified within the social sciences and the culture industry ). The work of the Frankfurt theorists has been faulted for its critique of the domination of nature as a technological utopianism or a romantic strain, as well as the critique of the Habermas theory of communicative action which overemphasizes the possibility of rationality as well as the value of consensus and places too much weight on the clarity and rational potential of language and human interaction. Furthermore, the poststructuralist inspired researchers have criticized the aim of the earlier Frankfurt theorists for their understanding of society (or different social phenomena) as a whole, or totality. Critical Work and Organizational Studies As I have earlier indicated, several traditions within critical theory can be recognized, which complicates the explanation for anyone wishing to give a sense of the critical work within organizational studies. Furthermore, in some studies, which I introduce below, authors try to overcome the distinction, for instance, between structuralist and humanist arguments (e.g., Benson, 1977) or between interpretative and humanist (critical) arguments (Alvesson and Billing, 1997). However, taking into account the previous discussion in this article, as well as 14 According to Habermas (as interpreted in Held, 1980; Alvesson and Deetz, 2000) instrumental reasoning can potentially be a productive form of thinking. However, its highly specialized, means-fixed character contributes to the objectification of people and nature, and thus to various forms of destruction. 15 A more detailed critique of Habermas work is in Held, 1980: and Agger, 1998:95-98.

11 Burrell and Morgan s (1979) introduction and analysis of the main arguments and directions within the radical humanist paradigm, in the following sections I provide a short review of organizational and management research. In this review we can recognize some arguments of the radical humanist paradigm, or more specifically, critical theory. In my analysis, as already indicated, I focus particularly on directions within the identified critical organizational studies in order to identify themes as well as positions of specific interest for these studies. Organizational studies in drawing inspiration from the Frankfurt School have a much shorter tradition in organizational and management research than, for instance organizational studies in drawing inspiration from, as Burrell and Morgan (1979) labeled it, the functionalist paradigm (and its different perspectives) (see for instance, Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Alvesson and Deetz, 2000). Some of the first organizational studies in which we recognize researchers interest in issues such as domination, asymmetric power relations, struggle, contradiction, disintegration or emancipation, as introduced by the Frankfurt School (separate from the studies of Burrell and Morgan, 1979), became evident in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. By investigating organizations, researchers have focused on such issues as the development of organizational dialectics. They have shown how the social production of social reality depends upon the power of various participants, and how the powerful, organizational participants can control the direction of this social production (Benson, 1977). Furthermore, researchers have shown how a dialectical method can be formulated and applied (Benson, 1982 and 1983); how organizations, viewed as structures of communicative action, can be analyzed (Forester, 1983), as well as how organizations could be viewed and studied as social-historical constructions that represent certain interests (Deetz, 1985). Finally, in some studies researchers pay attention to issues such as how ideological thinking prevents an adequate consideration of deep structure by hiding a true representation of interests (Deetz and Kersten, 1983); how ideas of the original members of the Frankfurt School (Marcuse) are brought into organizational theory (Alvesson, 1985); and how a relationship can be found between cultural and social actions in bureaucracies (Rosen, 1985). Similar to the interpretative point of view (see for instance, Burrell and Morgan, 1979, and Morgan, 1980) the critical perspective characteristic of the dialectical view 16 of organizational analysis, developed by Benson (1977), views an organization as a part of the social world, which is always in a state of becoming. The dialectical view emphasizes, however, that this social production of social reality depends upon the power of various participants: that is, their capacity to control the direction of events. They can design the organization as an instrument in the service of specific purposes, adjust its directions and/or motivate its participants with certain ends in view (Benson, 1977:8). Therefore, an examination of the power base of authority figures 17 as well as of the sources of power used to resist the official According to Benson (1977), the dialectical view provides a critical-emancipatory stance toward organizational studies. The dialectical approach places at the center of analysis the process through which organizational arrangements are produced and maintained. This view is also supported by four basic principles: social construction, totality, contradiction and praxis. Organization is seen as a product of past acts of social construction. Its directions depend upon the interest and ideas of people in power who can produce and maintain social formations. Unlike the variable analytical traditions that view the organization as a reasonably coherent, integrated system, rationally articulated, the organization, as conceived dialectically, is characterized by contradictions (ruptures, breaks and inconsistencies). According to Benson (1977:14), the social construction/production is not a rationally guided (centrally controlled) process. In spite of the efforts to channel the process, some elements in the organization (e.g., those growing out of the units/departments/divisions or even from authorities) and outside it remain beyond the reach of rationalization. These define distinct, semiautonomous spheres of social action, which are divergent contexts for social construction/production. However, every organization, unit, or department can be seen as a unique case because the production of contradictions depends upon the ways in which different groups become involved in their production. When people in an organization are conscious of a contradiction (between the constructed social world and the ongoing process of social construction) they rationally reconstruct, as Benson (1977) states, the present order and overcome its limitations, which leads to praxis (or a free and creative reconstruction of social arrangements on the basis of analysis of both the limits and the potential of present social forms). 17 According to Benson (1977), an examination of the power base of authority figures often extends the boundaries of the organization, exploring, e.g., interorganizational networks and legal systems.

12 authority structure of the organization are, as Benson states, important elements of dialectical analysis. The focus on such elements in a process of exploring the social production of organizational reality can lead to an increased understanding of how some groups are better able than others to extract advantages and privileges from the organization and/or how some groups are better able than others to influence the major decisions affecting the direction of the organization. In the study by Deetz and Kersten (1983), the authors provide a theoretical discussion of how organizational structure is constructed by illustrating the manner of construction, which allows for some interpretations and disallows for others. Once created, a particular meaning system maintains and legitimizes, as the authors state, the conditions that established it. In effect, social practices become institutionalized and confront organizational members as if they are natural occurrences rather than historical constructions. 18 The deceptive side of this (reification) process is the presence of ideology, which is seen as a way to control - the argument that is grounded in the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. According to Deetz and Kersten (1983:163), ideology both shapes and limits the construction of social reality. It shapes, for instance, our consciousness by providing a sense of what is real, right, and possible, as well as limits social construction by excluding other conceptions. Thus, while people in organizations do construct a social reality, that reality is shaped, influenced and limited by both the dominant organizational ideology and the dominant ideology of society. These ideologies serve to create a particular social reality that eliminates or excludes others (Deetz and Kersten, 1983:163). Inspired by Habermas s work, Forester (1983) grounded his theoretical discussion on the analysis of organizations as structures of communicative action. The concept of communication is used in a way to link specific actions (such as orders, reports and agreements/disagreements) to the structural settings in which those actions take place and are understood by participants. Thus, as Forester states, particular actors make sense of daily life subjectively, through communicative interaction. However the sense depends on context or setting (the objective social structure) in which those actors work and live (ibid., 235). In Alvesson s study (1985), the author introduces, discusses and brings into organizational analysis some aspects of critical theory of the Frankfurt School, in particular, arguments of Herbert Marcuse, on the issue of technological (or instrumental) rationality. In particular, Alvesson is concerned with the relation between work, man/woman, organization and ideology in the advanced industrial society. Unlike traditional organizational theory, which wishes to remedy technical difficulties as efficiently as possible by deferring to the prevailing restrictions, the interest of critical organizational theory should be an emancipatory knowledge interest. One of the directions in that regard can be to focus on the question: How can people who have been the object of effective and productive domination create the conditions of freedom by themselves? (Marcuse, as cited in Alvesson, 1985:135; see also Marcuse, 1994:6). In another study, published in the same year as Alvesson s study, Rosen (1985) explores how dominance is exercised in an American advertising agency by studying how particular sets of Alvesson and Deetz (1996) call this process in which different social and historically constructed practices are treated as necessary and natural occurrences naturalization. The term irrational naturalization is used by one of the Frankfurt School founders, Marcuse (1987:111), who relates this phenomenon to a critique of liberalism and the totalitarian conception of the state that, according to Marcuse, interprets the social-historical course of events as a natural-organic process that gets at the real (economic and social) forces behind history. In agreement with Marcuse, Alvesson and Deetz (1996) state that in this process of naturalization, social formation is abstracted from the conflicting site of its origin and treated as a concrete, relatively fixed entity. As such, the reification becomes the reality rather than the life processes. By obscuring the construction process, institutional arrangements are no longer seen as choices but as natural and self-evident. In that way, the authors continue, the illusion that organizations and their processes are natural objects and functional responses to needs protects them from examination as produced under specific conditions (which are potentially passing) and out of specific power relations (Alvesson and Deetz, 1996:199).

13 interests are enacted while other meanings are relatively suppressed. Using several illustrations, the author shows how expressive situations are staged to reinforce dominant conceptions, and how this, in turn, helps to reproduce asymmetric social relations. For instance, Rosen illustrates how notions of prestige, responsibilities and gifts are presented as neutral and naturally requisite. In addition, they are, as Rosen notes, communicated as parts of a long sequence of actions and ideas presenting the ontology and epistemology of bureaucracy as without alternative. In the late 1980s and in the 1990s, after a period of an increasing interest among organizational researchers in qualitative research, 19 there developed an increasing interest in critical theory and its different traditions. Similar to work of the above-mentioned authors, the themes of ideology and domination within organizations that serve certain human interests can also be recognized in the work of Mumby (1988). According to Mumby, organizations are not stable, fully integrated structures. Rather, they are products of various groups with competing goals and interests. Thus, an organization serves a group s interests and part of this process involves framing organizational sense-making in a way that supports extant relations of domination, where sectional interests appear universal (Mumby, 1988:166). Rosen s study from 1988, based on the same empirical material as his previously cited study from 1985, explores how a social drama (Christmas party) at an American organization effects a rationalization of bureaucracy and a concomitant neutralization of the stratification of, among other characteristics, roles and prestige. Using a dialectical view, Grimes and Cornwall (1987) examine a process of disintegration of an organization while the focus in the work of McGuire (1988) was on interorganizational networks. In a few organizational studies the authors have looked at some untraditional issues, which have been largely ignored and excluded within organizational studies, such as gender (e.g., Alvesson and Billing, 1999) 20 and race (e.g., Nkomo, 1992). 21 Other organizational researchers have focused on issues such as how cultural-ideological control operates in relation to all employees, including also levels of management (Kunda, 1992), and on the idea of emancipation in management and organization studies (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992). In the study of Alvesson and Willmott (1992), the authors introduce and discuss some of the most common conceptions of the critical perspective regarding the notion of emancipation. According to their interpretation of the earlier studies, emancipation is viewed and described as a process by which individuals and groups are freed from repressive social and ideological conditions, in particular those that place socially unnecessary restrictions (e.g., sexual and racial discrimination) upon the development and articulation of human consciousness. From For instance, a special issue of Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) on qualitative methodology was edited by van Maanen in In this issue, various authors discussed differences between qualitative methodology and quantitative methodology, and ethnographic paradigms (ASQ, Dec. 1979, Vol. 24, Issue 4). In 1983 ASQ published an issue on Organizational Culture. Finally, the Journal of Management published an issue on Organizational Symbolism in 1985 with several papers on the interpretative (also critical, such as Deetz s paper) research approaches to the study of organizational symbolism (Summer 1985, Vol. 11, Issue 2). The above-mentioned events in Organization Studies were a part of what was happening throughout the social sciences, often called an interpretative turn, where the researchers were/are focusing on understanding, interpretation and meaning. Among other studies, the work of Clifford Geertz (1973), an interpretative anthropologist, was very influential regarding this interpretative turn within Organization Studies. For instance, his writings and method of studying cultures through thick description (focusing, among other things, on meanings that characterize human action and studied social phenomena) were linked to management studies. 20 By exploring the notion of sex/gender, the authors use a critical-interpretative perspective, which in their view does not assume research can do much more than suggest questions to be reflected on and discussed without any clear-cut political objectives by offering arguments, illustrations and raising question marks (not evidence) for certain understanding. 21 As an example, in the study of Nkomo (1992), the author criticizes the way in which race has been written about in the study of organizations. These incomplete and inadequate ways of studying race, as Nkomo emphasizes, reflect historical and social meanings of race, especially a race ideology embedded in a Eurocentric view of the world. It is important to mention that there are also several organizational studies inspired by postructuralist analyses (e.g., Calás, 1992; Calás and Smircich, 1996; 1999) and feminist approaches (e.g., Acker, 1990) that have also explored gender or ethnicity in organizations.