Understanding the Critical Perspective of Civic Leadership Theory (CLT) for Dr. Rocal

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Critical management studies and “mainstream” organization

science A proposal for a rapprochement

Max Visser Nijmegen School of Management, Institute of Management Research,

Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a rapprochement between the field of critical management studies (CMS) and what is constructed here as the “mainstream” of organization theory and research.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper contains a comparative analysis of relevant literature from the fields of organization theory, political science and political psychology.

Findings – It is found, first, that at least four instances of “mainstream” theory and research more or less share CMS assumptions; second, that CMS and “mainstream” may benefit from mutual contact (using the example of the “power elite” discussion in the 1950s and 1960s); third, that CMS and “mainstream” may benefit from “mainstream” operationalization of CMS-concepts (using the example of the development of the F-scale in the 1930s and 1940s).

Originality/value – The paper ranks among the first to search for convergences between two fields that seem firmly divided in both theoretical and institutional terms.

Keywords Critical management, Organizational theory, Management power

Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction Since the 1970s a field of organization studies has emerged that explicitly takes a critical stance towards modern practices of management and organization and to (what is constructed in this paper as) the “mainstream”[1] of scientific theory and research on these practices (Grey and Willmott, 2005a). Given this dual purpose of critiquing management and the studies thereof, this field has appropriately labeled itself as critical management studies (CMS).

Although the field of CMS is not easily defined and demarcated, some common lines of thought can be discerned. Put briefly, CMS scholars argue for a critical conception of management “in which research is self-consciously motivated by an effort to discredit, and ideally eliminate, forms of management and organization that have institutionalized the opposition between the purposefulness of individuals and the seeming givenness and narrow instrumentality of work-process relationships” (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992, p. 4). This givenness (or naturalness) of relationships needs to be critically examined (or de-naturalized), because what is treated as natural or given often masks

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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The author thanks Jos Benders, Yvonne Benschop, Rene ten Bos, Hans Doorewaard, Erik Poutsma, and the Editor and two anonymous reviewers for their critical (both with and without capital C) and stimulating comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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International Journal of Organizational Analysis Vol. 18 No. 4, 2010 pp. 466-478 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1934-8835 DOI 10.1108/19348831011081912

underlying structural power and ideological differences (e.g. between managers and employees, capital and labor, men and women). Further, narrow instrumentality, according to which knowledge and truth are only valued in relation to effective and efficient managerial performance, is countered by an anti-performative stance, in which broader concerns (like just working relationships, human development and ecological effects) are brought into the discussion (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992; CMS Manifesto; Fournier and Grey, 2000; Grey and Willmott, 2005a).

Ultimately, the ideals of CMS are human emancipation and enlightenment, based on the:

[. . .] assumption of the possibilities of a more autonomous individual, who, in the tradition of Enlightenment, in principle can master his or her own destiny in joint operation with peers (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992, p. 9; Nord and Jermier, 1992).

Although sharing a critical conception, CMS scholars differ in their stance towards the objects of their critiques. Regarding management, some scholars want to engage with practice, using critique pragmatically to effect desired changes in organizations, while others want to disengage with practice, fearing a colonization of CMS terms and ideas by practitioners (Fournier and Grey, 2000; Huff and Huff, 2002; Nord and Jermier, 1992). However, some consensus seems to emerge among CMS scholars that engagement with practice is desirable when it creates “thoughtful practitioners capable of engaging these issues both inside the corporation as managers and outside it as citizens” (CMS Manifesto, p. 2). Such engagement could take the form of teaching prospective managers in business and professional schools and of organizational consulting (Grey and Willmott, 2005a; see also the discussion among Clegg et al., 2006; Phillips, 2006; Willmott, 2006).

Although CMS scholars thus appear to have found ways to meaningfully engage with management, their engagement with studies, i.e. “mainstream” theory and research on management and organization, seems less clear cut. Although there exists a fair amount of empirical research in the CMS field, its theory, methods and results tend to be rather narrowly confined to that field. Apart from critiquing, CMS scholars in general do not engage with “mainstream” organization scientists in discussing theory or comparing empirical findings.

This divide between CMS and “mainstream” organization science seems unfortunate for both sides. The ideals and critiques of CMS have direct relevance for management and organization studies, but they tend to remain relatively isolated and remote from the bulk of these studies. Although many of the concerns CMS scholars raise often have been noted and supported by “mainstream” scientists, these concerns tend to remain abstract and devoid of a firm empirical base (Walsh and Weber, 2002). Proper “mainstream” understanding is often not encouraged by the complex language CMS scholars sometimes resort to (Huff and Huff, 2002; Phillips, 2006), or by the fact that research in the CMS field sometimes appears to be less critical of its own assumptions (like managerial domination, structural inequality, etc.) than of those of “mainstream” organization science (Clegg et al., 2006; Wray-Bliss, 2003).

In this paper, I propose a rapprochement between CMS and “mainstream” organization science from a “mainstream” perspective. Claims by CMS scholars may gain strength and recognition when they can be connected to similar claims within the “mainstream,” and when they can be backed up by “mainstream” methods

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of empirical research. In doing so, I will primarily inquire into mechanisms of theoretical and conceptual fit and comparison, and less into inter- and intragroup processes that also may determine rapprochement in a more social sense. The theoretical and empirical possibilities of rapprochement are the prime focus of inquiry in this paper.

In the remainder of this paper, I will attempt to connect CMS and “mainstream” in three ways. In the first section, I will point out and briefly discuss “mainstream” organizational theory and research that to some degree appears to share CMS-assumptions. In the second section, I will show how CMS and “mainstream” may benefit from mutual contact through the example of the power elite debate in the 1950s and 1960s. In the third section, I will show how CMS and “mainstream” may benefit from “mainstream” operationalization of CMS-concepts through the example of the development of the F-scale in the 1930s and 1940s. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.

Connecting CMS and “mainstream” theory and research Several instances of “mainstream” organizational theory and research to some degree appear to share CMS assumptions. First, the work of Chris Argyris seems pertinent here. From his first (Argyris, 1957) to his last book (Argyris, 2004), Argyris has posited a fundamental discrepancy between basic human needs for self-actualization and development and common organizational practices. While employees want to develop and actualize themselves and to increase their competence and autonomy, they are thwarted in these wants and needs by the formal structure, culture and management style of most organizations. This discrepancy causes apathy, alienation and a materialistic orientation among employees, leading to dysfunctional behavior within organizations. In his later work with Donald Schön, Argyris has elaborated this discrepancy in terms of defensive routines, Model I norms and behavior, and limited learning systems. To remedy this discrepancy, Argyris and Schön advocate a Model II learning culture and double loop learning, embracing the norms of valid information, free and informed choice, and internal commitment to choices thus made. Managers and employees should put up their own assumptions and values for discussion and testing and display maximal openness and minimal defensiveness in their communication (Argyris and Schön, 1974, 1978, 1996).

Argyris’ general position and the concepts of Models I and II may be of interest to CMS scholars, because they seem to resonate well with the concerns of many CMS scholars with just working relationships and human emancipation, a fact already acknowledged by some CMS scholars (Nord and Jermier, 1992). Furthermore, Model II bears considerable resemblance to Habermas’ idea of “Herrschaftsfreie Diskussion” that informs many CMS ideals (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992).

A second instance of “mainstream” organizational theory and research that to some degree appears to share CMS assumptions ironically comes from a “mainstream” critique on the overall desirability of double loop learning and other higher levels of organizational learning. Various authors have pointed at the dangers of implicit ideological control, dominance and exploitation inherent in these levels of learning (Driver, 2002; Salaman, 2001; Snell and Chak, 1998). Others, in particular Edgar Schein, have compared these forms of learning to coercive persuasion, practiced in Korean and Chinese prisoner camps in the 1950s. They have argued that learning organizations, through various “golden chains,” subtly coerce their employees into a process of openly discussing their norms and values (Coutu, 2002; Schein, 1999). Such a process may

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represent a psychologically painful forced choice situation, because employees ultimately may be forced to choose between changing their own deepest values and endangering working relations with their colleagues, or even losing their jobs. The pathological effects of such forced choice situations have been firmly established in the experiments on obedience to authority (Milgram, 1974) and line judgments (Asch, 1952; 1955).

The concepts of coercive persuasion and forced choice situation may be of interest to CMS scholars, because they signify the behavioral micro-dynamics of control, dominance and power and the pathological effects thereof. CMS scholars may use these results to refine their analyses of structural power and ideological differences within organizations and devise new ways to research these differences.

A third instance of “mainstream” organizational theory and research that to some degree appears to share CMS assumptions is concerned with the role of emotions. Emotions still appear to be a difficult issue in organizations, stemming from a basic incompatibility between the elusive nature of emotions and principles of modern management. Modern management usually aims at the reduction of unforeseeable events, focusing on the control of input, throughput and output of all organizational processes. Since emotions usually evade any form of such control, there is no proper place for them in modern organizations (Albrow, 1992; Fineman, 1996). When the role of emotions is acknowledged, many management practices are primarily directed at controlling emotion. Such management of emotion focuses on effortful coping with one’s own emotions and the emotions of others and on the elimination of ineffective thoughts and feelings. It aims at the obliteration of unmanageable aspects of emotion by neutralizing, buffering, prescribing and normalizing emotions, for example in the form of feeling rules at work and emotional labor (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995; Doorewaard and Benschop, 2003; Hochschild, 1983).

The concepts of emotional control and emotional labor may be of interest to CMS scholars, because they are indicative of the subtle ways in which narrow instrumentality and managerial domination may endanger human development, identity and authenticity. More than the “mainstream,” CMS may be in a theoretical position to critically analyze the interplay of emotions, rationality and power in work situations and to provide input for further research on these issues.

A fourth instance of “mainstream” organizational theory and research that to some degree appears to share CMS assumptions is concerned with the role of paradox and double binds in organizations. Paradox in social interactions occurs when messages are incongruent at the verbal and non-verbal levels in such a way that they lead to confusion and uncertainty in the person receiving these messages. Paradoxical communication becomes part of a double bind situation under four conditions:

(1) two or more persons are involved in an intense relationship with a high (physical or psychological) survival value for at least one of them;

(2) in this relationship messages are regularly given that at the verbal level of communication assert something, at the non-verbal level negate or conflict with this assertion, and at both levels are enforced by punishments or signals that threaten survival;

(3) in this relationship the receiver of the incongruent messages is prevented from withdrawing from the situation or commenting on it; and

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(4) double binding in this sense is a long lasting characteristic of the situation, which, once established, tends towards self-perpetuation. A fair amount of organizational research evidence suggests that a prolonged exposure to double binding communication patterns may lead to a variety of psychopathological symptoms, including stress, anxiety and behavioral disturbances (Dopson and Neumann, 1998; Tracy, 2004; Visser, 2003a, b, 2007a, b).

The concepts of paradox and double bind may be of interest to CMS scholars, because they signify the interactional and communicational patterns that accompany managerial domination and manipulation and specify the detrimental effects thereof on employees’ psychological well-being.

Connecting CMS and “mainstream” through research: the power elite debate, 1953-1963 CMS and “mainstream” organizational science may benefit from mutual contact on the basis of empirical research. Several theoretical claims that appear to divide CMS and “mainstream” may be modified and enriched by critically comparing results of empirical research from both sides. I offer the power elite debate between 1953 and 1963 as an example.

Mills’ (1956) The Power Elite is generally regarded as an important precursor of CMS (Fournier and Grey, 2000; Grey and Willmott, 2005b). In this paper, Mills analyzed the power structure of US society at the national level. For him those people have power, who are able to realize their will, even against the will of others; the ultimate kind of power is violence. Power is first and foremost institutional, based on the access to the command of major institutions. Institutional power is shared by only a small cohesive group of people, called the power elite:

[. . .] those political, economic and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences. In so far as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them” (Mills, 1956, p. 18).

However, the power elite do not rule alone. Below the elite are the middle levels of power, which comprise Congress, pressure groups and the new and old upper classes at the local and regional level. At the bottom of the pyramid resides the great mass of politically powerless citizens.

The sociologist Hunter (1953) applied a similar framework to the power structure of the metropolitan community of Regional City (Atlanta, Georgia). Using a reputational method, he identified a group of 40 people who are, reputedly, dominating major decision making in industry, banking and commerce. Below this top group there appears a larger group, the political understructure, consisting of political parties, trade unions and civic organizations. A still larger group, at the bottom of the pyramidal power structure, is the powerless majority of ordinary people.

The elitists’ work ignited a lively debate in the political and administrative sciences on the conceptualization and localization of power. “Mainstream” pluralist social scientists raised several methodological and theoretical issues. Methodologically, Hunter’s use of a reputational method was criticized as a form of circular reasoning: to ask a panel to name the community’s top leaders is to presuppose that such a group of top leaders exists (Kaufman and Jones, 1954; Polsby, 1960, 1980). Theoretically, the approach by Hunter and Mills was criticized for isolating the decisions of the power

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elite from the systemic context of the interests those decisions serve and for focusing upon an abstract and a-historical image of bureaucratic hierarchies, with command posts at the top (Alford and Friedland, 1985). Instead, pluralist social scientists argued, theory and research should concentrate on concrete decisions on important public issues and on the question whether there is a cohesive elite that dominates all major issues (Bell, 1958; Dahl, 1957, 1958).

The prime empirical pluralist answer to the elitist model was Dahl’s (1961) Who Governs?. His book dealt with the principal question: “in a political system where nearly every adult may vote but where knowledge, wealth, social position, access to officials, and other resources are unequally distributed, who actually governs?” (Dahl, 1961, p. 1). Studying patterns of decision making in New Haven, Connecticut, in the areas of education, party nominations and urban renewal, Dahl found that only a few people make the actual decisions, of which the mayor and his aides are the most dominant. Their power is based on the support of the political stratum, a small group of highly politically involved individuals. This stratum is not a homogeneous and closed class, but a heterogeneous and open group easily accessible to people from the apolitical stratum of the community. Dahl also found that the elected officials are more powerful than the economic or social elite. New Haven constitutes a pluralist democracy, in which a few leaders make the important decisions, but under democratic constraints.

Important objections to both the elitist and pluralist approaches were raised by Bachrach and Baratz (1962, 1963). They argued that the pluralist model does not take account of the fact that power may be, and often is, exercised by confining the scope of decision-making to relatively safe issues. This occurs when power wielders attempt to create or reinforce social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of public consideration to only those issues that are comparatively innocuous to them. Some issues are organized into politics while others are organized out: organization is the “mobilization of bias” (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962, p. 949). Furthermore, pluralists tend to inquire into issues generally held to be significant, thus using the same reputational method they disapprove of in the elitist approach.

Several reviewers of the power elite debate between elitists and pluralists have deplored the lack of scientific progress, theoretical dissension and academic bickering on the issues of community power and decision making (Polsby, 1980; Ricci, 1984). Yet they seem to neglect the possibility to momentarily ignore theoretical and methodological differences and to concentrate on empirical findings instead. A comparison of Dahl’s New Haven and Hunter’s Atlanta studies will illuminate this point.

In New Haven Dahl discovered by empirical means that only a few people make the actual decisions in the three policy areas he selected. Nevertheless, this rule of the few is called pluralist democracy, because of the democratic constraints existing on that rule. With regard to Hunter’s work, several reviewers (Kaufman and Jones, 1954; Polsby, 1980) have argued persuasively that the Atlanta power elite face constraints as well. For example, the leaders engage in bargaining with the black community on the subject of school facilities (Hunter, 1953, p. 222), in a time that the South was still segregated and the civil rights movement still nascent. Also it was indicated that the power leaders rarely innovate or execute policies, but instead “have action initiated for them (by the under-structure personnel) more often than they initiate action” (Hunter, 1953, p. 226). The point is that, while Dahl and Hunter started out with quite different

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theoretical approaches, their empirical findings were much closer to one another: both discover elites, who make decisions under certain kinds of constraints.

The example of the power elite debate offers some clear parallels to more recent developments in CMS. Many CMS scholars posit the existence of managerial domination, structural inequality and manipulation in organizations in identical ways the older elitists posited the existence of an all powerful elite in communities and countries (Ailon, 2006). In some cases research methods in CMS are open to identical objections as the pluralists raised against the elitists (Clegg et al., 2006; Wray-Bliss, 2003). At the same time, “mainstream” organizational scientists have almost universally recognized the role of power in and around organizations (Mintzberg, 1983; Morgan, 1997). Unwittingly they may have come to conclusions that are supportive of CMS conceptions in identical ways the pluralists came to conclusions close to the elitist position. Concentrating on empirical research and critically comparing results from both sides may provide support for CMS conceptions from rather unexpected corners of “mainstream” organization science. Fairly recently, in a number of text books steps appear to have been taken in this direction (Darwin et al., 2002; Knights and Willmott, 2007; Palmer and Hardy, 2000).

Connecting CMS and “mainstream” through operationalization: the development of the F-scale, 1929-1950 Finally, CMS may benefit from operationalizing its key concepts with “mainstream” methodology to perform empirical research and develop a body of knowledge that cannot be discounted by “mainstream” scholars on methodological grounds. I offer the developmental history of the F-scale between 1929 and 1950 as an example.

The work of the Frankfurt “Institut für Sozialforschung” (hereafter IfS) is generally regarded as an important precursor of CMS (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992; Nord and Jermier, 1992). In the 1930s, the IfS was mainly concerned with the rise of fascism and national-socialism in Europe ( Jay, 1973). One of its senior members, the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, sought to find an explanation for this rise by combining Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxist social philosophy. From Freud he borrowed the insight that individuals are driven by drive-needs (such as sex, hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc.). These needs often press for instant and real gratification, the absence of which causes anxiety in the individual. From Marx he borrowed the insight that gratification of needs is dependent upon the socio-economic structures of society, in particular the modes of economic production and organization. Since society is characterized by a sharp economic inequality between the owners of production means and the working classes, it follows that the latter class has fewer opportunities for drive need satisfaction than the former. Consequently, the proletarians are forced to suppress their needs far more than the ruling class (Fromm, 1932).

As a next step, Fromm posed the question how working class individuals deal with these repressed needs and how the societal structure holds together, in spite of the sharp class dichotomy. Here he asserted that these individuals learn from an early age on to suppress their needs through an excessive dependence upon authority, first that of their parents and later that of society as a whole. In other words, they develop an authoritarian personality. Only a full identification with authorities liberates the authoritarian individual from the anxiety, caused by unfulfilled needs. At the same time, however, these authoritarians feel hostility towards the powerful authority figures, but they

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suppress this hostility and displace it on less powerful persons and groups, which they come to hate and despise. If therefore society is structured in such a way that the authoritarians can submit to a strong authority and at the same time unleash their repressed hostility on designated out-groups and minorities, the societal structure will remain intact. The authoritarian personality is the “psychological glue” that binds the ruled masses to the ruling few and which maintains the unequal socioeconomic structure in society (Fromm, 1936, 1941).

While this explanation for the rise of fascism and national-socialism was theoretically well-developed, it lacked empirical operationalization and corroboration. An early attempt to obtain empirical evidence on the psychological character of the working class and its possible receptiveness to authoritarian ideologies included a large survey among German white and blue collar workers, held in 1929 under Fromm’s supervision. However, due to the forced emigration of the IfS to the USA in 1933, during which half of the questionnaires were lost and increasing discord between Fromm and other leading IfS members, the results of the survey were not published until half a century later (Fromm, 1984; Jay, 1973).

A more comprehensive attempt to combine Freudian-Marxist insights with modern psychological measurement techniques was undertaken by a joint research team of European and US scholars during Second World War. In 1943, the American psychologists Nevitt Sanford and Daniel Levinson started a study on anti-Semitism. The study was refunded and extended to a broad assessment of the relationship between personality and prejudice, and the two researchers were joined by psychologist Else Frenkel-Brunswik, an émigré from Vienna. As the work proceeded, additional funds became available from the American Jewish Committee through the intervention of Max Horkheimer, the exiled director of the IfS. This made it possible for one of the IfS’s leading social philosophers, Theodor Adorno, to join the research group. The search continuously widened as more general aspects of anti-Semitism and prejudice were uncovered, finally leading to the conception and publication of The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950). The title indicates that the final results had come close to Fromm’s (and others’) earlier conceptions ( Jay, 1973; Sanford, 1973; Smith, 1997).

One of the best-known instruments to come out of this huge scientific endeavor was the F-scale, a 38-item scale intended to measure potential fascism in the individual. Developed on the basis of clinical interviews, projective tests and surveys among selected samples, the scale purports to measure underlying dimensions of personality through projective items, which seemingly have nothing to do with fascism. As such it represented one of the first attempts “to make depth-psychological processes amenable to mass-statistical treatment” (Sanford, 1973, p. 152).

Initially, several follow-up studies criticized The Authoritarian Personality on methodological grounds. Yet as research proliferated, much of this criticism quickly became obsolete. The F-scale was applied to a large number of subjects of different national, ethnic, social and occupational backgrounds, and none of these applications came to results incompatible with those of the original research. Often they found the F-scale to be related to other attitude scales or overt behaviors in ways consistent with theoretical expectations in The Authoritarian Personality. The validity of the F-scale gradually became well-established, as over the years consistent high scores were ascertained among groups as British fascists, American ultranationalists, former German SS-members and white South African segregationist students, where most

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other groups attained significantly lower scores. All in all, the correlations and expectations by Adorno et al. tended to be (re)confirmed, “strengthening the argument in favor of a central and relatively deep-seated personality structure, which helps to determine behavior in a wide variety of situations” (Sanford, 1973, p. 156; Meloen, 1997; Roiser and Willig, 2002; Smith, 1997).

The example of the development of the F-scale seems to offer a promising direction for CMS scholars. Similar to Fromm and Adorno, they may attempt to develop key concepts like managerial domination, structural inequality and manipulation, and to translate them into appropriate instruments and designs for empirical research. Such an approach would permit a comparison and discussion of empirical results, rather than a discussion of theoretical differences, which in its turn could lead to the joint development of a shared body of knowledge between CMS and “mainstream”. Further, such an approach could force CMS concerns more to the center of discussion within “mainstream” organization science, and they also could become relevant for practitioners.

Discussion and conclusions In this paper, I have proposed a rapprochement between CMS and “mainstream” organization science in three ways. In the first section, I have pointed out four instances of “mainstream” theory and research that more or less share CMS assumptions: the work of Argyris (and Schön); the critique by Schein and others on higher levels of organizational learning; theory and research on emotions in organizations; theory and research on paradox and double binds in organizations. In the second section, I have shown how CMS and “mainstream” may benefit from mutual contact through the example of the “power elite” discussion in the 1950s and 1960s. In the third section, I have shown how CMS and “mainstream” may benefit from “mainstream” operationalization of CMS-concepts through the example of the development of the F-scale in the 1930s and 1940s.

Several points of discussion may be raised here. As a first point, this paper has concentrated on the theoretical and empirical possibilities of rapprochement, rather than the social and institutional possibilities. Nevertheless, intragroup processes within CMS and “mainstream,” as well as intergroup processes between CMS and “mainstream” will play an important role in rapprochement. One can think of the relative positions of CMS and “mainstream” in the various national academies of management, at universities, business and professional schools, and in other institutions. The ways in which these positions will develop and leading scholars at both sides will act towards one another will be influential in determining actual rapprochement (Walsh and Weber, 2002; Zald, 2002).

As a second point, this paper has concentrated on the academic world and its internal discussions. Nevertheless, the points argued in this paper have immediate relevance for practicing managers and employees, in two ways. First, questions of power differences, inequality and just working relationships directly impact organizational life and performance. Second, it is increasingly realized in organizations around the world that corporate responsibility should encompass more than just increasing profit and performance, also including wider concerns of human growth and sustainable ecological and global development. A rapprochement between CMS and “mainstream” may put an end to insider academic bickering and mark the beginning of becoming more relevant to the world outside academia.

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To conclude, although written from a “mainstream” perspective, the proposal for rapprochement in this paper is intended as a genuine invitation for joint reflection and dialogue between CMS and “mainstream” scholars. In many ways the concerns raised by CMS scholars are too important to be left to the field of CMS, nor should the task of being critical be exclusively delegated to that field. Critical reflection should be a natural task for all organization scientists. The sheer existence of a separate field of CMS indicates that this task has been neglected in the past decades and needs to be restored to its proper place in organization science.

Note

1. The dichotomization of the organizational scientific community into CMS scholars and “mainstream” scholars is admittedly a very crude representation of reality, since it is very well possible for organizational scholars to be critical in one part of their work and “mainstream” in another part. However, for the clarity of presentation I propose to maintain this division momentarily, in which the “mainstream” is defined as all organizational theory and research not explicitly positioning itself as CMS, as defined in this paper.

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