Intro: 200Week 1 (370) - INTRODUCTION; WHAT IS CRITICAL MANAGEMENT/INQUIRY?The develop of critical thinking: Critical thinking is that thinking, on any subject, content or problem, in which the thinking improves the quality of your thinking to seize the inherent structures of the act of thinking and when subjected to intellectual standards. The result can be seen as a critical thinker can:• Formulate issues and vital questions with clarity and precision.• Collects and evaluates relevant information and use abstract ideas to interpret that information effectively.• Reach conclusions and solutions, testing them with relevant criteria and standards.• Thinks with an open mind within alternative schemes of thinking; recognizes and evaluates, as needed, the assumptions, implications, and practical consequences and• When developing solutions to complex problems, can communicate effectively.So, critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-regulating and self-corrected. It supposed to undergo rigorous standards of excellence and conscious control of their use. It implies effective communication and problem-solving skills and a commitment to overcome selfishness and natural socio-centrism of the human being.Taken from, Richard Paul and Linda Elder (2008). The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools. Foundation for Critical Thinking Press.

Critical Management Studies (CMS) can have many uses, but they mainly try to highlight other possible "views" of the organizations that are uncommon. These other views can, among other things, serve to take different actions that are more innovative. Leveraging the perspective of Gareth Morgan(2006) (who introduced several metaphors as a way of looking at organizations: as brain, as a machine, as movement and processing, as a political system, as a culture, as a psychic prison, as a system of domination, as an organism; and beyond the number of metaphors, in fact, more can raise), it could be demonstrated that when we think about organizations, we are at one or two metaphors or visions and that it is difficult to leave them (e.g.: some of the previous eight is never spoken: the organization as a political system, as psychic prison, as a system of domination).By looking at Alveson (2009) the CMS focus on the views than traditional Management covers less (with political and ethical implications). So it could be said, that the traditional/ dominant vision of Management is overly reduced to the argument that there is good and so bad way to try to manage people well (and that the goal of management is to find the one best way). For CMS, describing management in these terms, regardless of the power relations within organizations is simply too insufficient. When it is stated that the goal is WIN-WIN, CMS responds that usually things are more complicated than a WIN-WIN scenario in real organizations and what abounds is something like humanism subordinated to short-term metrics (and for which there is usually no discussion), making it difficult (if not impossible) that WIN-WIN.

Week 2 - RADICAL STRUCTURALISM / MARX AND LPTIt is important to understand the labour value from a Marxism point of view. Work is the essence of all value, the value is an objective property of all goods and therefore had to find its roots in something other than supply and demand, the price reflects a value caused by the common element of all goods.

Looking at Vienneau (2004) FAQ about The Labor Theory of Value. It can be appreciated that, Marx had a problem with Ricardo’s theory. If work is the essence of the value of change, it is important to clarify what is the exchange value of the work: this value of the labour force can be divided into a necessary amount for subsistence (necessary social labour), and determines the value of work and another quantity called added value of whom the capitalist appropriates. Because of that, capitalism cannot exist if the worker does not produce a value greater than the required for their own subsistence. This added value arises in production, it is then that the purpose of production is to remove or extract this gain of each worker (which is denominated exploitation of labour).This exploitation is because the value of the surplus is for the capitalist, the worker produces more than it is worth, the added value is thus the sum of all income that does not correspond to work, is an integral part of class conflict, since if there is not a difference between the value of work and its use value, then the capitalist would not acquire any work.Another problem with Ricardo is how the value of goods produced by machinery is determined. Marx argued that only the work done produces added value, but the machines are some kind of crystallized work, this response will deny that machines are not productive themselves and should be valued differently from the of production work done (Beverungen, 2014).

Week 3 - BUREAUCRACY AND RATIONALITYIt is important how Weber’s critique of capitalism differs from Marx’s. Even though, in Weber’s the differentiation of degrees of specialization of labour, the application of rationality is one of the main principles that differentiate Western society from the others.Marx criticizes this organization of work (Taylor’s), these social relations of production, which are mechanisms, through which can be understood how the worker sell their labour power in order to get a salary, with what can be deduced labour power as a commodity. The problem is that the salary received by the worker does not really represent the value of labour that the worker invests in manufacturing of goods and a surplus is created, which end up in hands of the employer. This surplus is produced as from the very beginning, the worker of the product is separated from the merchandise produced and that is when it can be put to the market to be sold at a price higher to salary.Another important subject is the tension between the rationality and irrationality. It is one of the basic topics of the modern world. A basic part of historical Weberian studies is aimed to show how the rational emerges from the irrational, so it is not possible to maintain a division between the two levels; indeed even none can be clearly differentiated. The "irrational" fascinates its time: Freud, Thomas Mann and Wever investigating it, besides they are attracted to the study. That does not mean that the Weberian work can be confused with an "irrationalism" instead it shows how extremely complex, and even ambivalent, the very notion of rationality itself (Wasim, 2011). (For me) It is very important to know the major schools of organizational behaviour and the theories that support it, so to know how to organize work efficiently, how to get more productivity, how to match the objectives of a company with the staff, to obtain better results and opportunities for both, among others.

Week 4 - FOUCAULT, DISCIPLINE AND THE RISE OF INSTITUTIONSThe influence of Foucault's work on the CMS has been significant. It has significantly transformed the kinds of problems that are addressed by the literature in the field, in which

stands, besides those already mentioned, the analysis of the different types of strategies that the administrative ideals puts into stake in order to objectify (stereotype) the behaviours of individuals. Within this type of study stands, on the one hand, the analysis by D. Knights and colleagues about the effects of strategic discourse in power relations (Knights, 1992; Knights & Morgan, 1991; Samra-Fredericks, 2005) and his vision of the strategy as a set of devices designed to ensure control and standardization of the workforce in organizations; and on the other hand, the unusual rescue of the resistance concept as an object of interest in organizational studies (Ball, 2005; Fleming & Spicer 2003).It can be seen that, the critical paradigm has endeavoured to show a vision completely opposed to the functionalist perspective (iv). Their representatives defend the idea of a power characterized by a structural domination, going against to the functionalist view, holding a vision related and interacted to power. To defend this view, the critical trend introduced different dimensions, such as ideology, the disciplinary practices and, above all, the notion of domination to interpret the interstices of the organization. The critical trend was inclined to study the change, the domination, the exploitation and the disintegration of the organization. The functionalist paradigm, although it is effective, is marginally criticized by some researchers of the theories of the organization who judge as being it excessively stable and formal. This stability or inactivity as they call it, according to the critical trend, hid the political, the class domination, the exploitation, the social contradictions, and the role of hierarchies. It showed itself as a confrontation to the status quo in force.The connection that links the critical studies is the representation of power as a structural effect, but this trend knows a larger heterogeneity of trends and ideas. These go from the idea of Marxist domination, through the ideas of Foucault surveillance.From the functionalist and critical trends, a weakening of the second can be observed, this in favour of strengthening the first. In the nineties, the notion of supremacy of strategic actor becomes obvious, to the point that the most recalcitrant exponents of Marxism in theories of organization disappeared or formed boundaries with the functionalism, using its main key concepts: actor, negotiation and strategy.

Week 5 - THREE PERSPECTIVES ON POWERFor this topic, it is important how Weber argues that authority refers to the routine of obedience and its connection with the values and beliefs that support to the involved political system. In other words, the power becomes authority when achieved legitimacy. And this leads us to ask what legitimacy is. Legitimacy, according to Weber, is what people believe legitimate. Obedience is obtained without recourse to force, when the term refers to any value or belief commonly accepted and forms part of group consensus. Weber distinguishes three types of legitimacy.The traditional legitimacy, which appeals to the belief in the "holiness" or correctness of the immemorial traditions of a community as the basis of power and authority, pointing as legitimate governments those who are exerted under the influence of those traditional values (the monarchical legitimacy would be the obvious example of this type of legitimacy).The charismatic legitimacy, which appeals to the belief in the exceptional qualities of heroism or character of an individual and the normative command revealed or ordained by it, considered as worthy of obedience commands from that person or that command (the authority of leaders and prophets as diverse as Gandhi, Mussolini or Khomeini could fall into this category).

The legal-rational legitimacy, which appeals to a belief in the legality and rational procedures as justification of political order, considering worthy of obedience those who have been raised to authority, under such rules and laws; thus, obedience is not lend to specific individuals, but to the laws (when liberalism brought to the fore the idea of "government of laws and not of men", it did it following this type of legitimacy)(Spencer, 1970).

Week 6 - CONFLICT AND RESISTANCE AT WORK

Week 7 - ANARCHY, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND COLLECTIVE ACTION

Conclusion: 200Criticism of Critical Management Studies has been very strong, particularly from former colleagues Labour Process Theory, which has led to a lively intellectual debate. Although, Critical Management Studies have some significant defects (Rowlinson and Carter, 2002), the CMS are, without doubt, a new view at the world of contemporary organization and management. Faced by a discipline, dominated by the functional paradigm, in which academic legitimation strategies are based often on appeal to the authority of the mentors, and in which, on many occasions, theoretical activity is despised, exchange of ideas with other disciplines or even the same exercise of criticism by arguing that management is a profession focused on the action and in which it is exhausted, it is always refreshing to meet a school of thoughts that, like CMS, are interested in a vision that is unorthodox, interdisciplinary and challenging organizational issues. With the emergence of this new approach, problems, such as discrimination, inequality, the loss of autonomy and alienation, started to become visible. These, were hidden to the imperative pragmatic and positivist that encouraged for many decades practice and research in management and that only could be seen by using the vision of critical theory and post-structuralism.

Reference:

Alvesson, M., Bridgman, T. and Willmott, H. (eds) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies, Oxford: OUP.

Ball, K. (2005). Organization, surveillance and the Body: Towards a Politics of Resistance. Organization. Vol. 12 (1), pp. 89-108. http://org.sagepub.com/content/12/1/89.full.pdf

Beverungen, A. (2014). Karl Marx: Marx and Critical Management Studies. http://www.criticalmanagement.org/resources/theorists/Karl_Marx

Fleming, P. and Spicer, A. (2003). Working at a Cynical Distance: Implications for Power, Subjectivity and Resistance. Organization. Vol. 10 (1), pp. 157-179. http://org.sagepub.com/content/10/1/157.full.pdf+html

Knights, D. (1992) Changing Spaces: The Disruptive Impact of a New Epistemological Location for the Study of Management. The Academy of Management Review. Vol. 17(3), pp. 514-536. http://www.jstor.org/stable/258721

Knights, D. and Morgan, G. (1991). Corporate strategy, organizations and subjectivity: a critique. Organization Studies. 12 (2), pp. 251-273.http://oss.sagepub.com/content/12/2/251.full.pdf+html

Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks; London: Sage Publications.Rowlinson, M. & Carter, Ch. (2002) Foucault and history in organization studies. En: Organization, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 527-547.

Rowlinson, M. and Carter, Ch. (2002). Foucault and history in organization studies. In: Organization, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 527-547.Samra-Fredericks, 2005). Strategic practice: ‘Discourse’ and Everyday Interactional Constitution of ‘Power Effects’. Organization. Vol. 12(6),pp. 803-841. http://org.sagepub.com/content/12/6/803.full.pdf+html

Spencer, M. E. (1970). Weber on Legitimate Norms and Authority. The British Journal of Sociology. Vol. 21 (2). pp. 123-134. http://www.jstor.org/stable/588403?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents

Vienneau, R. (2004). FAQ about The Labor Theory of Value. http://www.dreamscape.com/rvien/Economics/Essays/LTV-FAQ.html

Wasim, I. A. (2011). Rationality and Irrationality of Max Weber’s Bureaucracies. http://www.ijmbs.com/14/wasim.pdf