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Foucault, governmentality, strategy: From the ear of the sovereign to the multitude

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  • McKinlay, Alan
  • Pezet, Eric

Abstract

The idea of ‘strategy’ has a peculiar place in Michel Foucault’s work. On the one hand, he rarely discussed strategy directly, although it was an important element of his work, especially through the 1970s. We trace this development in Foucault’s thinking, and the specific place his changing conception of strategy played. Machiavelli, represented a shift towards governmentality, an infinitely more complex and open-ended notion of power than he had used before. We then turn to Tom Peters as a key figure in the emergence of new management thinking in the last three decades. If Peters initially spoke strategy to strategists, then over the two decades, he spoke to a constituency of subaltern strategists of how to transform the experience of organised working lives, an objective far beyond competitive advantage.

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  • McKinlay, Alan & Pezet, Eric, 2018. "Foucault, governmentality, strategy: From the ear of the sovereign to the multitude," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 57-68.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:53:y:2018:i:c:p:57-68
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2017.03.005
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Franck Aggeri, 2021. "La gouvernementalité chez Foucault : une perspective sur l’instrumentation de gestion," Post-Print hal-03503256, HAL.
    2. Papi, Luca & Bigoni, Michele & Deidda Gagliardo, Enrico & Funnell, Warwick, 2019. "Accounting for power and resistance: The University of Ferrara under the Fascist regime in Italy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 59-76.
    3. Faulconbridge, James R. & Muzio, Daniel, 2020. "Karl Polanyi on strategy: The effects of culture, morality and double-movements on embedded strategy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

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