Towards A Critical Management Science

This article examines the work of a number of writers who have attempted critical assessments of management science. Each writer has focused on specific areas that any critical management science would need to consider, viz. the origins of values, relations between organizations and society, the historical development of organizations, and the relationship between management science and developments in the capitalist mode of production. In addition these writers have declined to accept existing modes of organization as given, and have avoided the assumption that management science is inherently, or necessarily, manipulative. Each of the writers, however, has displayed several weaknesses in his analysis: thus Churchman fails to locate the management scientist in the society of which he is a part; Hales has no clear or viable alternative other than to call (in effect) for socialism, and makes the erroneous assumption that managerial strategies are necessarily effective; whilst Whitley too seems to have ‘divested management research of its practical dimension’. In conclusion it is pointed out that the actual effects of managerial strategies must be treated as problematic, since they may be modified by various forms of resistance and class struggle, and that developments in the production process may not necessarily be to the detriment of workers.