On the Importance of Broader Critique: Discursive Knowledge Production in Management Education
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Eero Vaara |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00771.x |
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On the Importance of Broader Critique:
Discursive Knowledge Production in
Management Education
Eero Vaara
Department of Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics, PO Box 479, Arkadiankatu 22,
00101 Helsinki, Finland, and EMLYON Business School, 23 av. Guy de Collongue, BP 174,
69132 Ecully Cedex, France
Email: eero.vaara@hanken.fi
The 25th anniversary of the British Academy of
Management gives rise to celebration and reflec-
tion. I would like to add to this discussion by
emphasizing the importance of broader critical
reflection of the systems that we are part of. This
is an objective that sociologists and philosophers
have advocated time and again. For example,
Foucault promoted critical analysis of bodies of
knowledge and the way in which they govern our
lives (Foucault, 1994). Bourdieu in turn under-
scored the importance of reflexivity in general
and advocated the sociology of sociology (Bour-
dieu, 1990). Similar ideas have also been pro-
moted by critically oriented management
scholars (Alvesson and Willmott, 2003).
I have an important example in mind: discursive
knowledge production in management education.
Although management education has received a
great deal of critical attention in recent years
(Antonacopoulou, 2010; French and Grey, 1996;
Khurana, 2007; Mintzberg, 2004), this is an area
that warrants continuous attention. This is not
least because of its huge expansion and central role
in the globalization of all kinds of management
practices and values (Khurana, 2007).
I wish to advocate analyses that take a broad
view on management education systems and their
discursive and ideological underpinnings. Fol-
lowing Foucault, I focus on the central role of
discourses in management knowledge. In this
view, discourses are an essential part of manage-
rial practice – to the extent that we take these
discourses for granted. Management discourses,
however, are not neutral but carry with them
values and ideological assumptions. In particular,
management discourses seem to be linked with
neo-liberalism and instrumentalism – which can
be seen as root causes for the ethical problems
pointed out in managerial practice (Khurana,
2007; Mintzberg, 2004). Why is this the case?
Foucault would say that these discourses have
evolved over time with practice and that power
and knowledge are always intertwined. Bourdieu
would emphasize that education systems tend to
reproduce the interests and values of the elite in
society. Interestingly, for example Khurana’s
(2007) historical overview of MBA education
supports these arguments by pointing to the close
linkage of business interests and the development
of business schools.
Drawing on Bourdieu (1991, 1996), I see
management education as a complex system with
its own sub-fields and rules of the game. In this
view, management education produces not only
intellectual capital (or ‘knowledge’ as we con-
ventionally see it) but also social capital (social
contacts and networks) and especially symbolic
capital (dispositions that distinguish people who
have gone through such education from others)
(Vaara and Fay
¨, 2011). Discourses play a
central role as intellectual capital; students and
managers are able to use discourses instrumen-
I wish to expres s my gratitude to Eric Fay
¨, Pikka-Maaria
Laine, Saku Mantere and Henri Schildt with whom I
have worked on related topics.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 22, 564–566 (2011)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00771.x
r2011 The Author
British Journal of Management r2011 British Academy of Management. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
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