organization, identity and locality (oil) vi: critical ...cprichar/oil proceedings 29-01-10...

Organization, Identity and Locality (OIL) VI: Critical Studies of Management and Organizing in

Aotearoa/New Zealand

11-12 February 2010 Victoria University of Wellington

-------------DRAFT ONLY (AS AT 29 JAN 2010) -----------

Conference Proceedings

Louise Purvis: Seismic – Outside Victoria Management School

Proceedings Editors: Todd Bridgman, Deborah Jones and Sarah Proctor-Thomson Victoria Management School Victoria University of Wellington PO Box 600 Wellington 6140 New Zealand

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Table of Contents

Call for Submissions ........................................................................................................................ 4

Programme ......................................................................................................................................... 6

Position Papers ............................................................................................................................... 10

‘From OIL to LIO: Location, Identity and Organisation(s) (for human and environmental flourishing)’ Caroline Allbon ...................................................................... 11

‘Laughing all the way to the bank: How New Zealand’s banks dominated public debate on the Global Financial Crisis and why it matters.’ Todd Bridgman ........... 17

‘CMS: approaching teaching and research in rich, multiple and complex ways.’ Edgar Burns...................................................................................................................................... 20

‘Intentionally co-creating social change through community gardening.’ Anna Cox ....................................................................................................................................................... 24

‘What perspectives can CMS offer on recent managerialist strategies such as PBRF auditing and ‘international’ Business School accreditation?’ Suzette Dyer and Maria Humprhies .................................................................................................................. 28

‘A Call to Place: Normalisation of a Critical Discourse in New Zealand?’ Bruce Edman ................................................................................................................................................ 34

‘Translating Critical Management Studies.’ Shiv Ganesh ............................................... 38

‘Drawing as experiential learning: Images of ‘career’ in the classroom.’ Suzanne Grant and and Fiona Hurd .......................................................................................................... 40

‘What can critical perspectives contribute to business school curricula?’ Maria Humphries, Suzette Dyer and Fiona Hurd ........................................................................... 45

‘Critical perspectives and the ‘partnership model’ between the State and Māori.’ Barbara L’Huillier .......................................................................................................................... 48

‘Perspectives on the social implications of developments in quantum physics with a focus on reuniting the Cartesian split.’ Maree Maddock and Maria Humphries ........................................................................................................................................ 52

‘Making Sense of the Silent Sojourn of Older Women.’ Barbara Myers and Judith Pringle ................................................................................................................................................ 58

‘Barefoot theory; embodied practice and the organizing of local identities.’ Craig Prichard ............................................................................................................................................. 63

‘Teaching Law in a Business School: Is it the role of the lecturer to radicalize or to empower?’ Amanda Reilly .......................................................................................................... 67

Colonisation of Research – What Māori activism can tell researchers about dealing with Māori Issues? Helen Richardson .................................................................... 70

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‘Critical Competence in the Health and Social Sciences: A Preliminary Discussion.’ Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia ............................................................................. 79

‘A Sense of Place: A contribution from astrocartography.’ Damian Ruth ................ 83

‘“We have to be cautious in what we say”: Finding critical agency within a context of neoliberal hegemony.’ Fiona Shearer ............................................................... 91

‘Discerning a path in tricky ground: Finding ways in local, interpretive, and critical research.’ Mary Simpson .............................................................................................. 95

‘Critical Competence in the Health and Social Sciences: A Preliminary Discussion.’ Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia ............................................................................. 99

To Challenge or Conform? - Strategies for Coping with life in a Business College as an Enthusiast for Critical Management Studies.’ Marianne Tremaine ............. 105

Expressions of Interest ............................................................................................................. 108

“Who is ‘the public’ we are the servants of?” Bronwyn Boon .................................... 109

‘A discussion of the contribution of a critical perspective to business and management school curricula.’ Alison Henderson ........................................................ 111

‘A Critical Look at the PhD Process’, Deborah Jones ..................................................... 113

‘Participatory Action Research and working toward resolving gender equity uses in Business Schools’. Jayne Krisjanous ............................................................................... 115

Critical Management Studies and Trade Unions: A Case of a ‘Missing Subject’? Colm McLaughlin ......................................................................................................................... 117

“Gaining research access to Māori women at executive management levels.” Zanele Ndaba ................................................................................................................................ 119

‘Not everything that can be counted counts.’ Judith K. Pringle ................................. 122

‘Expression of Interest.’ Suze Wilson .................................................................................. 125

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Call for Submissions

Organization, Identity and Locality (OIL) is a participatory conference that has been meeting since 2005. Our focus is on informally sharing our work with supportive and challenging colleagues. We also provide a peer review process shared among participants. Post-graduate students are warmly welcomed.

See: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar/oil.htm

There is no charge for this conference, which will be hosted by Victoria Management School.

SUBMISSION DUE DATE: Monday 7 December 2009: if you submit by this date we expect to be able to give you a response by 18 December.

TOPICS FOR 2010

For 2010 we are casting the net quite widely, inviting you to discuss your work and interests in relation to the question:

What is the place of Critical Management Studies (CMS) in business schools in Aotearoa/ New Zealand?

For instance:

• What can critical perspectives contribute to business school curricula?

• How can CMS contribute to local debates?

• How can / does CMS influence the research agendas of business studies?

• How can CMS lead strategic themes such as ‘sustainability’ in business schools?

• How can critical business school scholars intentionally create social change?

• What perspectives can CMS offer on recent managerialist strategies such as PBRF auditing and ‘international’ Business School accreditation?

• How can CMS create new interdisciplinary relationships within universities?

• How can CMS work with activist groups such as unions and NGOs?

SUBMISSIONS:

Registration is based on sending a short submission by 7 December 2010. Submissions to OIL are typically written in a relatively informal style which raises questions and invites discussion, while still focussed around academic issues.

Submissions can include:

• A short Position Paper to be blind peer reviewed (about 1500 words addressing the questions raised in the call) and, if accepted, published on the

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conference website. Position Papers should include a separate title page with author name and contact details; OR

• A brief Expression of Interest (500 words) from people who would like to attend as Discussants, discussing ideas they would like to contribute to the conference. These will not be peer reviewed.

DEADLINE AND SUBMISSION ADDRESS: Submissions should be emailed by 7 December 2010 to: Sarah Proctor-Thomson, Victoria Management School, Victoria University of Wellington

Phone: 04 463 9982 Email: [email protected]

CONFIRMATION OF ACCEPTANCE: We aim to confirm acceptance of your submission by 18 December if received by 7 December. Please let us know if you need a decision by a particular date for any reason.

COST: There will be no registration fee. Lunch will be provided. Participants will organise their own accommodation (we will put suggestions on the OIL website), and we will organise a venue for a restaurant meal that night.

VENUE: Exact venue to be advised. It will be in central Wellington.

FURTHER INFORMATION: Please contact the organisers with any further queries:

Sarah Proctor-Thomson 04 463 9982 Email: [email protected]

Todd Bridgman 04 463 5118 Email: [email protected]

Deborah Jones 04 463 5731 Email: [email protected]

UPDATES: See http://www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar/oil.htm and the

OIL listserver: Send the words 'subscribe oil' in the body of your message to: [email protected]

Oil Coordinators:

Craig Prichard, Department of Management, Massey University, Palmerston North. Phone: 06 350 5799 Email: [email protected]

Deborah Jones, Victoria Management School Victoria University of Wellington Phone: 04 463-5731 Email: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]�

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Programme

Organization, Identity and Locality (OIL) VI:

Critical Studies of Management and Organizing in

Aotearoa/New Zealand

11-12 February 2010

Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus, Bunny Street,

Victoria University of Wellington

Programme – DRAFT ONLY (27 Jan version)

Thursday 11 February

12.00 – 1.00 Lunch 1.00 – 3.00 Welcome (RHMZ10) 3.00 – 3.30 Afternoon Tea (Mezzanine) 3.30 – 5.00 Paper Session 1

Stream A: Knowledge Production and Instrumentality

Chair: Shiv Ganesh (RHMZ10) Discussant: Judith Pringle 3.30 ‘Perspectives on the social implications of

developments in quantum physics with a focus on reuniting the Cartesian split.’ Maree Maddock and Maria Humphries

3.55 ‘A Sense of Place: A contribution from

astrocartography.’ Damian Ruth

4.20 ‘Critical Competence in the Health and Social Sciences: A Preliminary Discussion.’ Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia

4.45 Discussion

Stream B: Perspectives on Social Change

Chair: Craig Prichard (RHMZ11) Discussant: Suze Wilson

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3.30 ‘Laughing all the way to the bank: How New Zealand’s banks dominated public debate on the Global Financial Crisis and why it matters.’ Todd Bridgman

3.55 ‘A Call to Place: Normalisation of a Critical Discourse in

New Zealand?’ Bruce Edman

4.20 ‘From OIL to LIO: Location, Identity and Organisation(s) (for human and environmental flourishing.’ Caroline Allbon

4.45 Discussion

5.00 - 5.45 Plenary (RHMZ10) Chair: Todd Bridgman

Discussants: Shiv Ganesh, Craig Prichard 6.00 - Drinks and Dinner at The Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street,

Thorndon Friday 12 February

9.00 – 10.30 Session 2

Workshop - Teaching Critically (RHMZ10) Facilitator: Alison Henderson Discussants: Bronwyn Boon, Huong Nguyen

Panellists: ‘Drawing as experiential learning: Images of ‘career’ in the classroom.’ Suzanne Grant and Fiona Hurd (presenter) ‘Teaching Law in a Business School: Is it the role of the lecturer to radicalize or to empower?’ Amanda Reilly ‘What can critical perspectives contribute to business school curricula?’ Maria Humphries, Suzette Dyer & Fiona Hurd Expressions of Interest: Bronwyn Boon, Huong Nguyen, Deborah Jones, Alison Henderson

10.30– 11.00 Morning Tea (Mezzanine) 11.00 – 12.30 Paper Session 3

Stream A: CMS, the Business School and the University

Chair: Mary Simpson (RHMZ10) Discussant: Colm McLaughlin 11.00 ‘What perspectives can CMS offer on recent

managerialist strategies such as PBRF auditing and

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‘international’ Business School accreditation?’ Suzette Dyer and Maria Humphries

11.25 ‘Translating Critical Management Studies.’ Shiv

Ganesh

11.50 ‘To challenge or conform? Strategies for coping with

life in a business school as an enthusiast for critical management studies’, Marianne Tremaine

12.15 Discussion

Stream B: Discourse, Institutions and Social Change

Chair: Fiona Hurd (RHMZ11) Discussant: Jayne Krisjanous 11.00 ‘Barefoot theory; embodied practice and the organizing

of local identities.’ Craig Prichard

11.25 ‘“We have to be cautious in what we say”: Finding critical agency within a context of neoliberal hegemony.’ Fiona Shearer

11.50 ‘Intentionally co-creating social change through

community gardening.’ Anna Cox

12.15 Discussion

12.30 – 1.30 Lunch (Mezzanine) 1.30 – 3.00 Paper Session 4

Stream A: Perspectives on Non-Māori Research about/ with Māori Chair: Deborah Jones (RHMZ10) Discussant: Zanele Ndaba

1.30 ‘Critical perspectives and the ‘partnership model’

between the State and Māori.’ Barbara L’Huillier 1.55 ‘Colonisation of Research – What Māori activism can

tell researchers about dealing with Māori issues.’ Helen Richardson

2.20 ‘Discerning a path in tricky ground: Finding ways in

local, interpretive and critical research. Mary Simpson 2.45 Discussion Stream B: Identities in Transition

Chair: Maria Humphries (RHMZ11)

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Discussant: Sarah Proctor-Thomson

1.30 ‘Making Sense of the Silent Sojourn of Older Women.’ Barbara Myers and Judith Pringle

1.55 ‘CMS: approaching teaching and research in rich,

multiple and complex ways.’ Edgar Burns 2.20 ‘Managing Identities or Managing Categories - What’s

Really Wrong with Diversity Management.’ Joanne Travaglia and Hamish Robertson

2.45 Discussion

3.00 – 3.15 Afternoon Tea (Mezzanine) 3.15 – 4.00 Wrap Up and Close (RHMZ10) Chair: Sarah Proctor-Thomson Discussants: Craig Prichard, Maria Humphries

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Position Papers

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‘From OIL to LIO: Location, Identity and Organisation(s) (for human and environmental flourishing)’ Caroline Allbon Author: Caroline Allbon PhD doctoral student Strategic Management Management School University of Waikato, Hamilton New Zealand. Telephone +64 7 838 0580 Mobile + 64 27 479 4770 Email:[email protected] "Free from desire, you realize the mystery…caught in the desire, you see only the manifestations." Laozi Key words: Living life as inquiry, self, autoethnography, presence identity, location, organisation. Overall Aim: Beginning with a focus on location, my ‘self’, I am engaged in contributing to the theories emerging from gestalt theory, narrative theory, and ontology drawn from Wittgenstein’s On certainty, (1969). I will explore how ideas of systemic thinking drawn from scholarly work of Senge (1999, 2005), Reason and Bradbury (2001), and Jaworski (1998) connect this presentation to the scholarly disciplines supporting the concept and practice of ‘the learning organisation’. Theoretical reflection in and on practice, drawn from work of Schon (1983, 1987), Finlay (2002) influences my practice of self-reflective inquiry.

Abstract Outline Through my focus, I aspire to contribute to a new model for organisational learning- and organisational change Helms-Mills (2003), exploring communities of practice Wenger (1998, 2002), Senge (1999, 2005), in learning organisation, Jaworski (1998), acknowledging Habermas (1987, 2003), communicative action, reframing common understandings of identity and change Denzin, Lincoln and Smith (2008), Giddens (1991) which embraces my attention to ‘living life as inquiry’ as proposed by Marshall (1988,1999, 2001, 2004) through the method of autoethnography Chang(2008), Ellis (1999, 2001, 2007) which looks to self and structures as relational accomplishments. Gestalt theorists Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951); Latner, (1973, cited in Mortola, 1999:308) examine how individuals are constantly engaged in an ongoing process of losing and then re-establishing equilibrium. In a parallel way, narrative theorists Labov (1982), Bruner (1990), Linde (1993, cited in Mortola, 1999:308) describe how we tell stories about troubling events in our everyday lives. The important shared concept at the heart of both gestalt theory and narrative theory is that human beings are constantly addressing and attempting to make sense of ‘disequilibrium’ in their own experience. In this presentation I will make visible how individuals work to re-establish a sense of equilibrium in their lives through the stories they tell. I will also show how these efforts parallel what Gestalt theorists have described as a process of the gestalt formation and closure (Mortola, 1999) and the work of Senge, Otto Scharmer,

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Jaworski and Flowers (2004) Jaworski (1998) regarding human purpose and presence as relational accomplishments, which takes seriously the need to create more liveable, equitable ways of living and communicating. Senge et al, (2004) provide a collective body of work on ‘presencing’ of different levels of perception and change, and ‘sensing and actualising new realities’. The essence of this theory is that it corresponds to the process of deepening collective learning. This theory of change starts with learning to see, then moves on to opening to a new awareness of what is emerging and one’s part in it, and leads to action that spontaneously serves and is supported by the evolving whole. So how can critical business school scholars, intentionally, at an organisational level create social change? By reversing the order of our thinking, I am as Senge (2004) suggests, engaged with learning how to see. Seeing freshly starts with stopping our habitual ways of thinking and perceiving. The capacity to engage with seeing a new way of thinking, integrating ‘location’ – as ‘within’ the person ‘identity’ [- in western societies conceived of as ‘the individual’] with organisation [association] as inner work of redirecting, will empower an awareness of seeing from the whole. Attentiveness and curiosity about change and our perceptions of organisational culture is one of the underlying principles of this theory of L.I.O. The focus on ‘identity’ as the location of change resists definitional and conceptual fixity. It is performative in the transitive sense of a bridge, a middle position, and a structure as form that intervenes in social reality through embracing fluidity in action. Through this action it re-creates the agent for change even as the agent is creating action (Sandoval, 2000). A differential, oppositional, performative and above all transformative approach is that of living life as inquiry, Marshall (2001) with use of autoethnography, Denzin, Lincoln, Smith, 2008), Spry (2001), Sparkes (2002), in which self are immersed in such lives, texts, cultures and contexts. This shift in thinking, introduced as ‘living life as inquiry’ invites the researcher to the foreground ones’ awareness, and characterises the essence of redirection as living process. As Goethe wrote, ‘the one brings the many out of itself’ (Senge et al, 2004:47). Application of ‘presence’ situates this deeper learning in the context of a more integrative science, acknowledging, intuition and spirituality, in the practice of leadership. Wenger (2002), Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) narrative approach to organisational complexity, outline that leaders in associations are now beginning to realise that the act of creating and nurturing community is something that such organisations must address. Shenkman (1996) provides the strategic heart, as an organisational management tool, whereby individuals are guided by values they believe in. Providing a deep ongoing awareness’ of perceptions, needs, desires and actions is, what I believe is what lies at the heart of any individual’s work. The essence of L.I.O is to help foster human purpose, innovation and awareness’ of Bourdieu, (1990), habitus, habitual thinking. As an individual enacts this process of reversing the order of habitual thinking, this is the first step in L.I.O to empower self as an active agent of change. Use of autoethnography Ellis (2000, 2007), Chang (2008), to coalesce with Marshall’s (1999) living life as narrative inquiry, focuses on the reorganisation of the order of thinking of L.I.O and human purpose for social change. As scholars have responded to a perceived need for social change. Coalescing personal stories [autoethnography],

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with new theory [reversing the order of our thinking using theory of L.I.O], will encourage academic scholars and others to critically explore ‘presence’ with curiosity, scepticism and vulnerability. Provision of new theory with awareness’ of location, identity and organisation as ‘presence’, invites a fundamental shift in the redirection of thinking in the relationships between seer and seen. Boje (2001) narrative story telling in organisations provides an approach of connecting self and presence as an evolving self. This connection and desire to seek out complexity and redirection of thinking is where L.I.O as theory offers to organisations the key to creatively work with complexity, flow and change. Addressing complexity, and flow in organisations is necessary in the process of re-thinking the whole experience. Reflective practice enables redirection and seeing for the individual to encounter presence with ‘whole’ experience and is the generative process Senge et al (2004) of ‘presence’. These concepts that I have outlined in this paper are rearranged to invite different reflections within’ and may bring a deeper meaning to just simply an initial shared interest or belonging within an organisation. A benefit of all this inquiry is to compliment the conference theme- of how critical business school scholars intentionally create social change? The assumption that I am exploring is that social change, as structure, in living systems must look to self and structure as relational accomplishments. These accomplishments lie at the very heart of the creative design process. By modeling creative change as process in L.I.O that intervenes with social reality, clarity and certainty will be created. Through deploying an action that re-creates and embodies the individual as an agent for change, the only predictable outcome in this change process is transformation itself. Finally, L.I.O draws more explicitly on arts than traditional forms of qualitative research, and acknowledges individuals as living systems. L.I.O will provide the legitimized opportunity for researchers to write evocatively about self. From an appreciation acknowledging that identities and communities are performative, relational accomplishments for social change. We ourselves collectively generate change in an organization, staying connected to the larger organisation while in action builds on the capacities for sensing, presencing intent and action that which becomes experienced as culture or society. As Gandhi so poignantly states- “We must be the change we seek to create” (Senge et al, 2004:147). Professional Biography

Caroline is a registered nurse and PhD doctoral Student at The University of Waikato and works independently undertaking evaluation research projects, with Research Connections Hamilton, New Zealand. In her most recent role as a researcher, Caroline’s interests are in the early conceptual development of her autoethongraphic PhD research project with use of self as practicing researcher with living life as inquiry. My example is located in the area of health care using an analytical approach of autoethnography to write about the self/writer as part of a group or culture. Exploring chronic illness using own narrative as a map to explore self, body and work as mutual relations and consider what is the formulation of self as identity.

Caroline has worked collaboratively with the practice development facilitators to assist in the planning, implementation and evaluation of research and practice development activities undertaken by the Nursing Research and Development Unit at Waikato District Health Board, Hamilton, New Zealand. Some of her key research

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interests are Women’s health, ageing nursing workforce, disability & chronic illness, health development and policy, communication, organisational change management, primary health care, health promotion, research and sustainable practice development.

Personal details

Caroline Allbon, RCpN, ADN, BN, BSoci Sci (Hons), MA Soci (Hons), PhD doctoral student (University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand) 150 Lake Crescent Hamilton New Zealand Telephone +64-7-8380 580 Mobile 0274 794 770 Email: [email protected]

References

Boje, D. M. (2001). Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage.

Bourdieu, P. (1990). Structures, habits practices. In P.Bourdieu, The logic of practice (pp.52-79).Stanford, C.A; Stanford University Press. Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as Method. Walnut Creek CA: Left Coast Press Inc. USA.

Denzin, N.K., Lincoln, Y.S., AND Smith, L.T.(2008).Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ellis, C. (1999). Heartful autoethnography. Qualitative Health Research, 9, (5), pp.669-683.

Ellis, C. (2000). Creating criteria: An autoethongraphic short story. Qualitative

Inquiry, 6, (2), pp.273-277.

Ellis, C., and Bochner, A.P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln. (Eds.). Handbook of Qualitative Research, (2nd.ed.), pp.733-768.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ellis, C., Bochner, A., Denzin, N., Lincoln, Y., Morse, J., Pelias, R., and Richardson,

L. (2007). Talking and thinking about qualitative research. In N. Denzin & M. Giardina (Eds.), Ethical Futures in Qualitative Research: Decolonizing the Politics of Knowledge. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. (Also accepted in Qualitative Inquiry). Finlay, L. (2002). Negotiating the swamp: the opportunity and challenge of reflexivity in research practice. Sage Publications: Qualitative Research, 2, (2), pp. 209-230. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and Self Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.


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Habermas, J. (1972). Knowledge and Human Interests, Trans.J.J.Shapiro. London:

Heinemann.

Habermas, J. (1987) Critical Theory of The Theory of Communicative Action Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.

Habermas, J. (2003). The Future of Human Nature. Oxford: Blackwell Press.

Helms-Mills, J. (2003). Making Sense of Organisational Change. London: Routledge. Jaworski, J. (1988). Synchronicity. The Inner Path Of Leadership .San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Marshall, J., and Reason, P. (1988). “Collaborative and self-reflective forms of inquiry in management research” in J.Burgoyne and M Reynolds (eds.). Management Learning. London: Sage.

Marshall, J. (1999).“Living life as inquiry”. Systematic Practice and Action

Research, 12, (2), pp.155-171. Marshall, J. (2001). ‘Self-reflective Inquiry Practices’ in Reason.P and Bradbury.H

(eds.). Handbook of Action Research, pp.433-439. London: Sage.

Marshall, J. (2004). Living Systemic thinking: exploring quality in first person action research. Action Research, 2, (3), pp.309-329.

Reason, P. (1988). Human Inquiry in Action: Developments in new Paradigm Research. London: Sage.

Reason, P., and Bradbury, H. (2001). Handbook of Action Research. London: Sage

Sandoval, C.(2000). Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Schön, D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action Maurice Temple Smith, London.

Schön, D.A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass. San

Francisco. Shenkman, M.H. (1996). The Strategic heart: using the new science to lead growing

organisations. Westoprt: Praeger.

Spry, T. (2001). Performing Auto ethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry, 7, (6), pp.706-732. Sage Publications.

Sparkes, A.C. (2002). Autoethnography: Self-indulgence or something wrong? In Bochner, A.P. and Ellis, C. (Eds.). (2002). Ethnographically speaking: Autoethnography, literature and aesthetics. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.

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Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning

Organisation, New York: Currency Doubleday. Senge, P., Otto-Scharmer, C., Jaworski, J., and Flowers, B.S. (2005). Presence:

Exploring Profound Change in People, Organisations and Society. Great Britain: Nicholas Brealey.

Senge, P.M. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The art and Practice of the Learning Organisation. (Revised and updated). London: Random House Business Books. Schön, D.A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco. Tsoukas, H. and Hatch, M. (2001). ‘Complex Thinking, Complex Practice: The Case for A Narrative. Approach to Organisational Complexity’. Human Relations, 54,pp.979-1013.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice, learning meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Synder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of

practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On certainty. San Francisco: Harper Torch books.

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‘Laughing all the way to the bank: How New Zealand’s banks dominated public debate on the Global Financial Crisis and why it matters.’ Todd Bridgman

TODD BRIDGMAN

Victoria Management School Victoria University of Wellington

PO Box 600 Wellington 6140

New Zealand

Email: [email protected] Phone: 00 64 4 4635118 Fax: 00 64 4 4635253

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC), triggered in 2007 by rising credit losses on US residential mortgages, was the most significant financial shock to the global economy since the 1930s Great Depression. Governments took unprecedented intervention to stabilise institutions and markets in an attempt to prevent the collapse of the world’s financial system. New Zealand successfully avoided the systemic banking crises seen in other banking systems, which required recapitalisation and in some cases nationalisation (Hunt, 2009). The GFC did, however, exacerbate problems in New Zealand’s non-bank finance company sector. From 2006 onwards, more than 30 finance companies went into receivership or liquidation, entered moratoria or froze repayments to investors. New Zealand also suffered a deep recession which necessitated an expansionary fiscal policy which significantly increased the country’s indebtedness. It might have been expected that in New Zealand, the GFC would spark a vigorous public conversation around its causes and consequences, with consideration given to issues of economics and finance and the management and governance of organisations. Throughout 2009 I conducted empirical research to explore the contribution of academics and other ‘experts’ to public debate on the GFC. The primary data collection method consisted of 43 semi-structured interviews with academics in relevant disciplines (e.g. economics, banking, property, law, management etc), experts without a university affiliation (such as bank economists and economic consultants) and finally, journalists, journalism educators and media commentors. Special consideration was given to the role of academics since in New Zealand universities have a statutory obligation to act as the ‘critics and conscience’ of society (Education Act, 1989). These responsibilities, in turn, rely on the protection of academic freedom, defined in Act as

“the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions”

While the ‘critic and conscience’ role is not restricted to engagement with a wider public, it seemed reasonable to expect that academics would have been active in contributing to a public consideration and critique of global events and their


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implications for New Zealand. Overall however, New Zealand academics were conspicious by their silence, apart from some notable exceptions in the banking and property fields. The dominant voices were those from the finance and economics private sectors, especially bank economists and economic consultants. Almost all the respondents who were not academics felt academics had a distinctive and important role to play in public discussion of the GFC. While they were divided on whether or not academics constituted an objective source of information, there was agreement that compared to other experts, academics had higher levels of disinterestedness and freedom. There was however, a feeling amongst some respondents that academics did not have the knowledge to comment on the major economic and financial issues of the day or were reluctant to do so because of a distrust of journalists and an associated fear of their expertise being ‘dumbed down’. The failure of New Zealand’s universities to perform the role of ‘critic and conscience’ on the GFC has several explanations. Given the pressures on academics to publish, driven by the PBRF, maintaining an active public role reduces time available for research. Some academics felt that the PBRF discouraged them from studying New Zealand data, since the ‘holy grail’ was publication in international journals which were less receptive to research on the New Zealand context. In addition, it was felt that universities offered few incentives or rewards for academics that were active in the public domain, with those active often feeling their public work had been to the detriment of their careers. They continued because they regarded the public role as a service to society in return for continued financial support for universities from the taxpayer. Interestingly, most respondents who were not academics assumed the academics that appeared regularly in the media would be valued highly by their institutions. What should we make of these findings? If we take the Education Act at face value, there seems to be an expectation that universities, in New Zealand at least, can fulfill an important function as the critics of received wisdom and popular opinion. In return, academics are offered the protection of academic freedom by their institutions. The limited contribution of academics in relation to the GFC could be seen, therefore, as a dereliction of duty. But why does it matter? As stated earlier, bank economists have been the most vocal voice on the GFC. Bank economists are effectively part of the bank’s public relations team. They produce research on topical economic issues (housing, commodities etc) and disseminate this information to clients and the media. New Zealand banks have an intimate relationship with New Zealand media. Throughout the GFC, banks sponsored news bulletins on both free-to-air TV networks and their economists had regular spots to discuss the economic and business news of the day. It was not only the banks that sponsorsed NZ television news during the GFC. Capital + Merchant Finance sponsored TVNZ’s nightly news updates until it was placed in receivership in November 2007 with debts of around $190m, leaving the deposits of at least 7000 investors under threat (Gay & Boughey, 2007). Hanover Finance sponsored TV One's weather update. The nightly voiceover, provided by former TV One news presenter Richard Long, said: "This One Weather Update is brought to you by Hanover, a New Zealand business with the size and strength to withstand any conditions." In July 2008 Hanover Finance froze $554 million of funds owed to 16,500 investors because

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of bad loans, a run on investors wanting to quit the company and the drying up of new funds from investors (NZ Herald, 2008). We should be concerned about the cosy relationship between banks and the media because banks have been the insitution at the heart of the GFC. While New Zealand’s banks did not invest in the US mortgage assets that triggered the crisis, thereby avoiding major losses, is it desirable that New Zealanders should rely so heavily on bank economists for their understanding of the causes and effects of the GFC? The GFC constituted a crisis in free-market financial capitalism and presented a rare opportunity for a public critique of its contemporary form. The debate has instead been dominated by the organic intellectuals (Gramsci, 1971) of the financial class, meaning an historic opportunity to reflect on alternative economic directions has been lost. Of course, academics are not solely responsible for this. As mentioned, universities provide few rewards for academics to engage with a wider audience and the pressures to perform on the PBRF are intensifying. In addition, media organisations have been hit hard by the recession and business newsrooms have been stripped of resources, giving those journalists who remain less time to source expert comment. With bank economists eager to offer comment and well trained in dealing with the media, it is little surprise that journalists turn to them first. The end result is that virtually all the ‘experts’ who offer comment on the financial sector represent organisations that regard the financial sector as inherently good. Important issues pass without sufficient exploration, such as the reckless offshore borrowing by New Zealand banks which has exposed the economy to higher risks. This is not a story the bank economists want to tell, for obvious reasons. What is the relevance of all this for cricial management sholars and for our conversations at OIL? My research examined the contribution of business and economics academics generally, rather than Critters per se. However, this issue is relevant to the questions ‘How can CMS contribute to local debates’ and “How can critical business school scholars intentionally create social change’? These questions imply that as critical management scholars we see this as an important part of our identity. How serious are we about this? Do we see this as part of our obligations as academics, or as personal commitments which are over and above our academic responsibilities? References: Education Act (1989). Wellington: Government Printer. Gay, E & Boughey, S. (2007). “Finance group leaves 7000 investors in the dark’ New Zealand Herald, 7 January. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selection from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Hunt, C. (2009) “Banking crises in New Zealand – an historical perspective.” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, 72(4), 26-41. New Zealand Herald. (2008). “Commerce Commission investigating Hanover Finance’, July 24.

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‘CMS: approaching teaching and research in rich, multiple and complex ways.’ Edgar Burns Introduction Our conference topic, “the role of critical management studies in business schools in Aotearoa New Zealand?” is positioned differently today in light of the failures of triumphalist Western capitalism and the rise of new global economic centres in India and China, outside the Western ‘order’ of things. It may not be, however, that a CMS voice is any more welcomed in the academy than previously, given that sometime systems pushed closer to end-stage logic are more resistant rather than more accommodating to alternative ideas. The limitations of underlying logic can lead to brittleness in attitude rather than the search for new ways in which to adapt. And still-dominant but brittle modes of operating may penalise opposing voices. Different papers will focus on different parts of the question: CMS itself, the business school environment, or the Aotearoa-New Zealand context. I would like to make some observations about CMS’s contribution to the academic sphere. As a way of localising this bigger question about the role of CMS, this paper describes some issues arising from current work I am doing on career transition. By looking at what might be needed to get some explanatory traction on the specific topic this might provide ideas applicable to the bigger question of how CMS is contributing to, either in being useful or annoying, in the larger business school environment. There is contemporary bite in this issue as business, like farming before it, is less able today to automatically trade on an unwritten moral imperative that it is inherently productive, and is “good” for society. Career transition The question that is a major focus of my attention at present arises from research I am doing around career transition. More specifically, this is professional career transition; it is not focused on forced/job loss career transition, nor school-to-work career transition, but mid-career transition when some capable, educated and reflective people change from one profession in which they have invested themselves in, to another, requiring time, effort and money to launch. Simply, I ask myself, “How do you explain career transition? Why do people change careers?” Clearly everybody has a story, and no two are same. Even those who have not made such career change can offer a theory “why” others change. However, our academic task is more than repeating “commonsense”, but generating explanations (not always models) of how things work, or what is making them not work, or work poorly. These explanations should not so abstract that specific circumstances get lost (sociologists can sometimes be criticised for this), nor on the other hand should our attention be so individualised on leaders, managers, organisations, case studies and the like that we are merely describing, important though that is as a foundation for explanation. As I have gathered scores of interviews of men and women who have made career transitions into law during the course of their careers, you can imagine the rich trove of information provided as they look back and explain how they have arrived at this point in their lives, their motives, reasons, and interpretations about what has

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happened. I can report to you that the “commonsense” view why people become lawyers, to make money, is mostly not a main part of the imagined role of these career changers. Even status, the other common explanation, is much more complex than standard assertions imply. Simply asking, listening complexly If not these things, then what? Well, lots of things. It is the combinations of reasons, motives and circumstances that makes each story unique, even while acknowledging at the same time the presence of patterns and similarities across these life accounts. This to me is the pressure area for career transition as for all areas addressed in business schools, and the place where CMS summons attention: to the plethora of social theory ideas that can help unpack and explain the complexities. The pressure for action, decisions and real-world results often superficialises analysis, but a critical analytic perspective calls for deeper inquiry, the unpicking of obvious narratives, the inspection of axiomatic truths, the challenge of what is “for the good”, and implicit power negotiations in popular representations. In these career transition accounts, there are clusters of individuals that are more similar than others, but this is not a matter of types. The facts are more layered and complex than that, despite my best efforts at synthesising. An answer that is more than just an answer, singular, to the human questions of organisational function and performance is much more common in the social sciences than the literature of business textbooks. Taiichi Ohno’s (1998, p. 17ff) approach asking “why” five times seems a good practice to follow. From social theory we night ask of business questions we face, “why” or “how” multiple times like Ohno did of Toyota’s production systems. There is nothing magical about five, but it certainly delves beyond initial question levels. Or we might ask five times what the next theoretical perspective illuminates for us that we missed, or misunderstood until then. Or we might start in five different places around the thing about which we wish to increase our understanding, different aspects, different dimensions. But again, I am cautious of neatly labelled dimensions that smack of first-year text-books rather than deeper approaches. And I am also wary of too-soon assertions that “I get it” such as Avatar hero Jake Sully’s trite “I hear you”. The apparently expendable decimation of the Na’vi people showed he clearly didn’t get it. Patience is part of what is needed. But so are multiple iterations that incrementally piece together new things learnt on previous iterations of inquiry. A business culture that wants instant results, or policy obedience, is of course inimical to this kind of thinking, and in a structural sense is resistant to renewal risking its own base. Unpacking career transition problematics I am in the process of analysis and some preliminary writing up of the evidence from these career transition interviews. A lot of time was earlier spent trawling through the management literature on career transition typologies from Louis (1980) to the banalities of Holland’s (1996) attempt to blend trait approaches with typologies. The insights or Super (1957) developmental approach though now outdated are often still revered, while his notion of “planfulness” is shrunk by both the “re-sizing” that corporations do, and the concept of boundarylessness itself. Bridge’s (1980) and

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Schlossberg’s (1984) process models of career transition have fared much better, with continuing applications. Other work about professions or careers shows a range of potentially valuable ideas for wider deployment, for example Hodgkinson and Sparkes (1998). Ibarra’s (2004) study of adult career transition is an important attempt to reconstruct ideas of multiple career possibilities and contingency while responding to earlier career transition theory including typology, individual choice and planned careers. My data, with these diverse models of what could, or should, be done to make sense of it at the periphery of my awareness, is starting to assort into four levels of analysis. The first I am calling career propinquity, that is, there has to be some point of closeness or nearness by which a given career shift can take place, either literal distance or social distance. Maybe this does not cause transition, but without it, transition won’t take place. Second, the stories are full of material about the sequence of time and the flow of time by means of which or in terms of which individuals made their career choices, discerned the next step, opportunities opened up, and things happened. Ricoeur’s (1991) idea of narrativity offers one path of critical understanding. The third layer of understanding career transitions I am tentatively calling the imagined lawyer, using Taylor’s (2004) idea of “social imaginary”. Since these people are not lawyers before they switch careers, what ideas do they have in their heads about what they are going to be, and what being a lawyer is like? Where did those ideas come from, and how are they acquired and sustained? A fourth emergent layer of interpreting these narratives is still formulating as I study the data before me. It needs to describe the personal agency these people show in their actions without withdrawing that description from economic, cultural and social networks of which they are a part, and in which they are embedded. All action is “from…” or on the basis of some social practice or knowledge, and directed “to” other social commitments and location. Conclusion The false binary of either individual choice and decision or structural coercion reads off Western popularised imagination and commercial discourse and does no justice to how social actions and organisational processes actually occur. Only the effort to step outside or restrict the projection of such shallow one-layered thinking onto the issues we study is worthy of the name CMS. Success in such effort is another matter, the difficulty of the task is central to the task. I see the role of CMS not as populist but as an approach that draws regularly and interactively on the multiple streams of social theory from psychology through sociology, media and cultural studies, to anthropology to investigate organisational and business issues from macro to micro-scale. References Bridges, William. (1980). Transitions. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

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Hodkinson, Phil and Sparkes, Andrew. (1997). Careership: A Sociological Theory of Career Decision Making. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 18(1): 29-44.

Holland, John (1996). Exploring Careers with a Typology. What we have Learned and Some new Directions. American Psychologist, 51(4): 397-406.

Ibarra, Herminia. (2004). Working Identity. Boston, MA: Harvard University Business School Press.

Louis, Meryl (1980). Career Transitions: Varieties and Commonalities. Academy of Management Review, 5(3), 329-340.

Ohno, Taiichi. (1988). Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. New York: Productivity Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1991). Life in Quest of Narrative. In D. Wood (Ed.), On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation (pp. 20-33). London: Routledge.

Schlossberg, Nancy. (1984). Counseling Adults in Transition. New York: Springer. Super, Donald. (1957). The Psychology of Careers. New York: Harper. Taylor, Charles. (2004). Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University

Press.

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‘Intentionally co-creating social change through community gardening.’ Anna Cox

Anna Cox Phone 07 853 9342

Email: [email protected] Because of the associated notion of ‘praxis’ researchers who locate themselves in Critical Management Studies (CMS) have the potential to contribute to social change through the integration of critical theory and practice. My doctoral research is grounded in two developing community gardens. The growing commitment to (or phenomenon of) community gardening is now evident in communities ranging from schools to whole towns and is perhaps a response to the challenging characteristics of the current socio-economic context including climate change, environmental degradation (Gore, 2007) peak oil (Heinberg, 2003), poverty (Korten, 2006) social inequity (Annan, 2002) unemployment, underemployment and over-employment (Dyer, 2008). This context, argued by critical theorists to be generated from the reckless pursuit of economic development and growth (Hamilton, 2003; Shiva, 2008), is being called, by some, a crisis for humanity and the wellbeing of the planet. Community gardening, with potentially permeating values of reciprocity, relationship and interdependence, may present a hopeful alternative to the commoditized, global food system and its arguably exploitative base (Shiva, 2008). It is my intention as a researcher and critical theorist to unearth the possibilities and understandings of community gardening as a form of human organization enhancing of human and planetary wellbeing. One of the gardens that I am working with is growing food principally for the local foodbank. The growth of foodbanks and increasing numbers of people dependent on them, represent a telling story of capitalism. Politically, the necessity for food-banks to ensure people are fed may speak of the failure of capitalism. Despite evidence of, and intense investment in ‘growing economies’ (as measured by GDP/GNP indicators) many societies based on this form of organisation have not provided adequately for all people. This story is worthy of rehearsal, and can now more readily be found relevant to Aotearoa/NZ in the work of such writers as Jane Kelsey (2002) and in the work of such organisations as Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCS), Budget advice organisations, City Missions and many others. Foodbanks rely principally on the surplus generosity of individuals, with the foodbank acting as an intermediary between those who have and those who don’t, the ‘them and us’ and hence arguably support the continuation of a dualistic society. They may also be conceived of as a ‘bank’ to which people may deposit surplus, and from which people may withdraw if the need arises. The ‘interest’ accumulated, is the perhaps the goodwill and the mutuality that is generated from the process. However, while the re-thinking of ‘foodbanks’ invites some notion of mutuality, the commercial metaphor does not sit well with me. It is for this reason my working metaphor will be a foodbasket. With the strengthening of collaborative food provision initiatives such as community gardens, projects that rely on values of mutuality, reciprocity and relationship, I

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suggest the possibility of the transformation of foodbanks to sustainable community foodbaskets and the strengthened voice of a non-capitalist alternative to the provision of food. I suggest that such transformation is partially reliant on dialogue and the strengthening of human hope that alternatives to capitalism and market based, commoditized food provision are possible, sustainable and economically viable. The Community Economies Collective argues that

if we understand capitalism as necessarily expansive and naturally dominant, we eliminate the imaginative space for alternatives and the rationale for their enactment. (p.3)

Māori in Aotearoa have long valued and upheld the importance of what Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) refer to as an extended sharing group – where distant relations have a call on each others resources. The support and connection of the extended family is recognized by Māori as integral to the health and wellbeing of the people (Mead, 2003). In contrast Pākehā families typically focus on the nuclear family unit, with more limited sharing of resources beyond this nuclear unit. It is with my valuing of this idea(l)s of extended sharing groups that I, as a Pākehā New Zealander and participant in community gardening, feel the challenge of extending my sharing group – my food basket. In my own involvement in community gardens I witness the ease of my participation and sharing when my family is welcomed, as this allows me to attend simultaneously to the relationships that I hold most dear, as well as to the needs of the garden and people connected there. I suggest that the ability of community gardens to be spaces welcoming of family and supportive of extended sharing groups as some of the possibilities, strengths and hopes of such human organization. I suggest that an extension of sharing through relationship may enable the building of supportive and sustainable community foodbaskets. Through my participation in two community gardens I, at times, witness the relationally destructive cultural characteristics of competition and instrumentality, pervasive within the western individualistic, market orientated capitalist system. However, in witnessing the destruction and limitations of these cultural characteristics, my intention is to work for their transformation toward mutuality and interdependence. Freire (1970) argues that the distinguishing element between revolutionary leaders and the dominant elite is not only their objectives, but their procedures. Within any garden there are many pathways toward production. When the focus of human work is on only the instrumental tasks of production, the possibility of the process of production may be lost (Schumacher, 1999). When human beings compete with one another, the significance and importance of the diverse gifts of humanity is not fully realized. Within any process there is the potential for relationship, mutuality and interdependence. I suggest that processes nurturing of relationship and interdependence are the most sustainable and generational of wellbeing. It is my intention as a researcher to enable collective reflection amongst people involved in community gardens so to enliven such processes and in so doing resist competition and the dominance of instrumentality. Community gardens appear to provide the space for such collective reflection and transformational change. As a Pākehā New Zealander I am continuously mindful of my relationship with Māori and my responsibility, as articulated by the Treaty of Waitangi, to support

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Māori self determination. Community gardening as a collective aspiration based on reciprocity and sharing is an idea supportive of a traditional Maori world view depicted in the following well known whakatouki or Māori proverb:

Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive (Kōrero Māori, 2009, para 5)

I believe it is my responsibility as a privileged Pākehā New Zealander to learn of and support more relational and connected ways of being, so to resist the destructive dominance of instrumentality and individualism largely emanating from western cultures. For me; my learning through reflective practice in community gardening represents a process of decolonization. In reflecting and writing, with a lens of appreciative inquiry, I seek to build on the strengths I associate with my culture in enabling a more equitable and just world. With the current attention to an accelerating crisis of poverty, environmental degradation and materialism, no longer expressed only by radical activists and critical theorists, I suggest the importance of building on the relational aspects of all cultures so to form a world less devoid of relationship and more full of connections that enhance wellbeing. As I engage in the world, and live my life as inquiry (Marshall, 1999; Marshall, 2001) my reflections on self through processes of autoethnographic research are important to the possibilities and strengths of my work (Chang, 2008). My worldview is unique to me, it is shaped by my ancestry but also by my learning today and therefore is in dynamic evolution. As I come to understand other cultures more, I also come to know myself and feel my transformation toward new ways for me. As a researcher committed to the fostering of spaces of cross-cultural coalition and reflexivity, I suggest that community gardens have the potential to enable the transformation of human organizing, encouraged by Humphries, Dyer, and Fitzgibbons (2007) and others, from instrumentality to relationality. I see my challenge, together with others, as co-creating gardens where the relational aspects of all cultures are strengthened and prioritized, where the possibility of the process is realized and where strong, sustainable food baskets may be woven.

References:

Annan, K. (2002, September 2). A world to the wise. Washington Post. p.6 Community Economies Collective (2001). Imagining and enacting non-capitalist future. Socialist Review, 28, 3/4: 93-135. Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Child Poverty Action Group. (2009). Child Poverty Action Group. Retrieved December 10, 2009, from http://www.cpag.org.nz/ Dyer, G. (2008). Climate wars. Canada: Random House.

http://www.cpag.org.nz/�

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Freire P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury. Gore, A. (2007). The assault on reason. New York: Penguin Group. Hamilton, C. (2003) Growth fetish. NSW, Australia: Allen and Unwin. Heinberg Richard (2003). The party's over: oil, war, and the fate of industrial societies. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers Humphries, M., Dyer, S., & Fitzgibbons, D. (2007). Managing work and organisations: Transforming instrumentality into relationality. New Zealand Sociology, 22, 99-125 Kelsey, J. (2002). At the crossroads. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books. Kōrero Māori. (2009). Whakataukī – Proverbs. Retrieved December 10, 2009, from http://www.korero.maori.nz/forlearners/proverbs.html Korten, D.C. (2006). The great turning: from empire to earth community. Sterling, VA, U.S.A.: Kumarian Press. Marshall, J. (1999). Living life as inquiry. Systemic practice and action research, 12(2155-171. Marshall, J. (2001). Self-reflective inquiry practices. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of action research: participative inquiry and practice (pp. 433-439). London: Sage. Mead, H.M. (2003). Tikanga Māori. Living by Māori values. Huia Publishers: Wellington, New Zealand. Monbiot, G. (2006). Manifesto for a new world order. New York: The New Press. New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services. (2009). Let us look after each other. Retrieved December 10, 2009, from http://www.justiceandcompassion.org.nz/site/home.php Schumacher, E.F.(1999).Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered. 25 years later with commentaries. Hartley and Marks: Point Roberts, WA, USA. Shiva, V. (2008). Soil not oil: environmental justice in a time of climate crisis. Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.: South End Press. Wilkinson, R & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit level – why more equal societies almost always are better. Penguin Books: London, England.

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‘What perspectives can CMS offer on recent managerialist strategies such as PBRF auditing and ‘international’ Business School accreditation?’ Suzette Dyer and Maria Humprhies Waikato Management School University of Waikato Hamilton. Contacting author: [email protected] From an email exchange between colleagues:

...I am just back from a trip to ## - eight days of continuous attention to the research at hand. It was hot as hell and as humid as a sauna. I am exhausted from taking in too many disturbing impressions and wondering what to do with them. I have come back with what feels like Legionnaires’ disease. I cough till I gag and, if I am not careful, I wet my pants when I cough. I need also to place myself strategically close to toilets as the effects of the change in diet on my digestive system make themselves known! Too much information? I hope you are laughing at my attempts to look normal, while actually I am frantically trying to manage my body while also meeting my commitment to my students and my colleagues. OF COURSE I should take a few days off to rest and recover but I already have a 'file note' for refusing a [disciplinary?] 'support' meeting with the admin staff about the numbers of sick days I have had this year.... 10.1 apparently...... even though, despite having attracted a serious virus and a dose of what was thought to be swine flu, most emails were answered and supervision tasks were continued on each of those days – a trawl through my email records would confirm this! We KNOW how those 'supportive’ and ‘informal’ file notes can come and bite one in the bum!

We are interested to explore with the OIL community the extent to which Universities in Aotearoa have moved from the collegial commitment to self-governance to a managerialist approach to staff control based on the mechanistic output driven models more typically associated with factory production. The more transformative among us might argue this model to be an outdated one, even for material mass production. Despite the radical critique of CMS that is now more mainstreamed than ever before and despite the many creative writers advocating for (and sometimes even describing) more enlightened ways of co-ordination human endeavours (organisation) the model is used to direct and control not only manufacturing activities, but services of all kinds the world over! Our universities are a prime example.

Our proposed paper was prompted by the opening email exchange between friends - and our wry sense of identification with the author. We recognise in it the many ways in which we agree to submit or attempt to work around the incremental creep of managerial speak in our places of work. Resistance? At what cost – and to what benefit? We can recount a number of significant betrayals of trust that arises from the couching of discipline in the falsely supportive discourses of ‘employee participation’ that deflect acute attention from the ‘tightening of the iron cage’ experienced by many of our colleagues and that has been the subject of our gaze on other organisations. This story brings the theory home! Much of the grief experienced by our colleagues is expressed in private for fear of reprisal, or tolerated through the pressures of sheer

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exhaustion and preservation of energy for commitment to the real work so many of us love. Many of these stories cannot be told outside of trusted friendships, as we are a very small community and repercussions cannot be known. Those we care about can be more hurt than helped by engagement of the administration. Tamer examples include the willingness with which we have engaged in the collaboration of the construction of templates that are designed to ‘herd’ us through ever narrowing gates to ever fewer ‘fields of enquiry’ with ever depleted grazing. The efforts to ‘list’ desirable journals for publication and to allocate them a numerical value, is just one example. The lists generated by diligent peers are often thoughtful and instructive and are justified by us all as the game we must play.

Our cry of consternation in this proposed presentation (envisioned as a conversation with peers) is to do with our collective compliance with the notion that this creeping and intensifying managerialism is the only game we can/must play. We are using the idea of ‘game’ in the sense of a Wittgensteinian ‘language game’ through which we are disciplining our ‘selves’. All the seemingly tiny concessions we make in so many aspects of our work confluence to make up this discourse of domestication, control and subjugation by the template: e.g. we agree to make lists of ‘top journals’ and to grace these with our submissions at the expense of more creative and perhaps ‘vanguard’ publications; we agree to record our absences from office on templates that allow for ease of administrative counting full days and half day absences that rarely make sense when the work in our head continues. What is bothering us about this game?

Convert the idea of ‘publication points’ to ‘dollars’ and see how closely aligned our processes are to the most narrowly conceived ‘market model’ now under challenge for all kinds of reasons. Everywhere we persist in measuring outputs, in dollars or dollar substitutes leaving yet unquantifiable dynamics un(der)valued. The complex relationships that generate the fullness of a scholarly profession are reduced to narrowly defined outputs, and assumed to be achieved by factory like production processes. Sick days are counted as if a day of illness is like a day away from the assembly line. We would like to examine this encroachment of an ‘instrumental logic’ into our lives as scholars. We would like to explore more fully the dimensions of a ‘relational ethic’ in which we would prefer to work. An instrumental logic will encourage and reward effort that promises a direct ‘out-put’ (research points/dollars). A ‘relational ethic’ sees ‘outcomes’ in a more complex sense – a generative sense with a much more elaborate notion of community flourishing in mind. We seek the celebration of the leaders in our universities who demonstrate care and concern for the full flourishing of every scholar but according to a much broader sense of ‘achievement’ than the one-size-fits all publish (in ‘anointed’ journals) or perish model. The PBRF model drives our administrators to expect a direct and lineal connection between event ‘a’ and event ‘b’ (a research project that has as its outcome a journal publication in a journal that has a high number associated with it).

In a myriad of little ways, we are encouraged to create relationships the intention of achieving two narrow goals – the generation of research grants and the publication of articles in a narrowly defined set of journals. Yet even the lexicon of ‘relationality’ has been harnessed to this instrumental ethic.

“If you want access to the X community, you have to do some of this relationship stuff – it is a condition of doing research ON X”.

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This example comes from a presentation at OIL 2009! The objectification of communities to extract data from them to be converted into grant applications and PBRF points is cloaked in the lexicon of relationship. Its perniciousness is the damage this facade does us all. To take an organic metaphor: the soil of generative relationships will become depleted!

Building connections and relationships in our communities and in the academy is a specific mission that is allied to the transformative ideals of CMS. This mission is much reliant on a relational ethic – even a hint of instrumentality would destroy much of our credibility in this area. Our ‘success’ with this approach is demonstrated by the invitation to supervise and examine PhDs in this area, the invitation to review for countless journals, create and/or contribute to conferences: DIRECT Publication links? ZERO! INDIRECT publication links, MANY. Our ‘relational ethic’ is likened to the threads of a tapestry. Pull too tightly on some threads and the fabric will scrunch up. The pressure to pull out others for the sake of the short term outcome (supposed direct links between relationships and publications) weakens the fabric from which we shape our professional identity.

We seek to return some balance to the trajectory universities have embarked on. We seek to reclaim scholarship in the broadest sense of the word – and to honour the tax payer who pays our wages with the re-enchantment of the concept of a public academic/organic scholarship/as critic and conscience of society as mandated by the NZ Education Act.

What does this all have to do with the opening snippet from the email between colleagues? We can see in the snippet the extent to which many of us are willing to serve while the conditions of our service are being constantly diminished and the integrity of our work (style) is under continuous pressure or attack. This is unsustainable and is worthy of much greater courage in its challenge and redress... if only we were not so tired or so sick!

Literature we will draw on in full paper

Alvesson, M., & Deetz, S. (1999). Critical Theory and Postmodernism: Approaches to organizational studies. In A. Clegg & C. Hardy (Eds.), Studying Organization: Theory and method. London: Sage.

Alvesson, M., & Deetz, S. (2000). Doing Critical Management Research. London: Sage.

Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (1992). Critical Management Studies. London: Sage.

Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (Eds.). (2003). Studying Management Critically London: Sage Publications.

Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: the Human Consequences. Cambridge U.K: Polity Press.

Becker, G. S. (1971: 2007). Economic Theory. New Brunswick & London: AldineTransaction.

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Becker, G. S. (1976). The Economic Approach to Human Behaviour. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. London, England: Harvard University Press.

Becker, G. S. (1992). The economic way of looking at life; Nobel Lecture. Retrieved

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‘A Call to Place: Normalisation of a Critical Discourse in New Zealand?’ Bruce Edman

Introduction

My interest in the OIL conference relates to the call for papers of the conference itself. The call of the 2010 OIL conference: what is the place of CMS in Business schools in NZ, and the discussion question: how can critical business school scholars intentionally create social change, raise some concerns for me. My concerns centre around the idea that questions of ‘place’ and questions of ‘intention’ both imply the need for CMS and critical business school scholars to take a more substantive position that will found both place and intention in the field. My fear is that answering questions of place and intention will involve an impulse for the building of consensus and the establishment of norms. Norms for the appropriate definitions of place and intention, will in this instance, provide CMS and critical business scholars with the firm footing from which to decide how CMS should relate to business schools and what social changes critical business scholars should intend. Yet, there are two harmful consequences to norms that require highlighting. The first is that norms act to exclude what is considered to be abnormal and this places a limit on the horizon of new ideas in a field. Second, normalisation can be seen as a process of regime building where the duplication of a social regime itself is its main characteristic. Here normalisation is simply an extension of past methods of social privilege, dominance and control into the future.

Debates over seemingly neutral concepts and theory can obscure an underlining impulse towards normalisation. An example of this can be seen in Labour Process Theory (LPT) where calls a return to traditional notions of the subject and the ‘core theory’ of Marxism reflect this same normalising impulse.

Awareness of such concerns is important because while the establishment of norms in CMS will facilitate the production of theory, methods of enquiry and social activism, it can also lead to the exclusion of theories, methods and activism that CMS and critical business scholars have deemed unsuitable. That is, an exclusion of the radical; an exclusion of that which is outside the (future) norms of the field, e.g. what is radically outside the ‘place’ for CMS in relation to business schools or what misaligned ‘intentions’ for social change should be marginalised.

While it can be convincingly argued that some shared norms must exist for any sense of unity or effective action to occur in a field, authors such as Iain MacKenzie and Warwick Tie (Mackenzie, 2001 & Tie, 2009) suggest alternatives. Mackenzie proposes an ontology of social criticism that uses the notion of a liminal present. For Mackenzie the liminal present is a critical opening where it is possible for categories, ideologies and limits to be transgressed, further the main effort of the critical scholar is to sustain this transgression and suspend definition (Mackenzie, 2001). This argument is reflected in Warwick Tie’s proposition that critical scholarship represents the opportunity to refine and workout what it is to inhabit such a transitional space, to enlarge it and ultimately attempt to stay in it (Tie, 2009).

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Why? Both authors argue that it is only in this transitional state that it becomes possible to locate fields of conceptual possibilities. Further, that a return to some form of normalisation or definition is just that, a return to the past and its reproduction in the present (Mackenzie, 2001 & Tie, 2009).

The posing of the questions raised in the conference call suggests that CMS and the discourse of critical business scholars in New Zealand may currently be in such a transitional state. I would propose that an effort should be made to sustain this lack of definition of our present discourse not normalise it

Argument

I am arguing for an awareness that questions of place and intention can lead to moves to establish a substantive position for CMS and critical business scholars. Such moves can have normalising effects on the field whose negative consequence is the exclusion of radical ideas and the reproduction of past discursive regimes. To counter a move towards normalisation this awareness can be used to sustain what seems to be a lack of position and definition in our present discourse.

The call for this conference also suggests a desire to further social activism in the field. As expressed in the call, this desire promotes a unification of definitions (the place of CMS and the intentions of critical business scholars) and again, ultimately the establishment of norms. Warwick Tie describes this process as ‘political performativity.’ Political performativity occurs as the intellectual system does the rounds of ‘…publications, academic conferences, classroom presentations, community meetings, and so on.’ to enable a sense of coherence (Tie, 2009, p.260). Tie argues that political performativiy, while a seemingly sensible process of consensus building, ultimately acts to reify a discourse and eliminate contestation and debate.

A current example of this normalising impulse can be seen in LPT. Here there has been a call for a return to Marxist theory. This call stems from a perception of political impotence and can be seen in debates around the ‘missing subject’ - Thompson (2001), and a desire for a return to core theory - Rowlinson & Hassard (2001). These authors argue that the fundamental project of LPT has been misdirected, fractured, or lost altogether a favour of a destabilising concern with conceptualising the post-rational/humanist subject. They argue that a return to Marxist theory will unify the field and allow for agreement about the concrete political (read social) actions needed to address the material inequalities of capitalism. In the end these debates are a move towards the normalisation of LPT discourse and the exclusion of concepts concerning the post-rational/humanist subject.

This desire for concrete action in LPT can be equated to the questions of place and intentional social change called for in the OIL conference. And I would argue that both these moves represent a desire for definition, consensus and normalisation, as well as their exclusionary side-effects. A counter-proposal is suggested in the work of two authors, Iain Mackenzie from the UK and Warwick Tie from New Zealand. These authors offer alternatives which are concerned the exclusionary side-effects of normalisation. Given the brevity of this position paper I can only briefly summarise these authors and gesture towards the more comprehensive alternatives they are suggesting.

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Alternatives to the Normalising Impulse

Mackenzie’s article, Limits, Liminality and the Present: Foucault’s Ontology of Social Criticism, (2001) offers a reinterpretation of Foucault work ‘from the perspective of the liminal’ (p.2). The liminal here is a space of transition, transgression and rupture; a paradoxical space that is both destructured and prestructured; “Such times are those which problematise the existing moral and social structures, not from the position of another moral code, but from the process of the transition itself.” (Ibid, p.23, emphasis in original). Further, MacKenzie says that the liminal is an immanent feature of the present and that a presupposition of a liminal present is an essential feature of social criticism.

For Mackenzie the possibility of critical scholarship is the possibility of sustaining this transitional state and resisting the seductive material productivity of normalisation. In this Mackenzie asks: “Is not the aim of critical thought to surpass the present, to find ways of conceptualising social relations that may transgress this boundary of our thought, the boundary of the transcendental present?” (Ibid, pp.20-21). For him it is in this transitional state that possible futures, severed from the repetitions of the past, are conceivable.

Warwick Tie mirrors aspects of MacKenzie in his analysis of late capitalism. Tie proposes that in critical scholarship rests the chance to move past simple repetitions of a past that substitutes one normalising regime for another. In ‘Radical Politics, Utopia, and Political Policing’ Tie addresses theoretical and political alternatives to the dominance of late capitalism. Here Tie argues for the need to move beyond a ‘this, not that’ preferential mode of critical conceptual engagement. For Tie what are needed are modes of conceptual enlargement that offer a new trajectory of meaning “…from a place fully within itself rather than under the impulse of an [existing] external logic (of politics, ethics, and so-forth).” (Tie, 2009, p.256). Here Tie’s proposition closely echoes MacKenzie’s claim that critical conceptual opportunity resides within the liminal, ‘a place fully within itself’ and stems from the critic’s desire to move beyond the limits of thought, ‘external logic (of politics, ethics…)’ and the transcendental present.

As esoteric and politically/socially static these alternatives may seem, both authors share the belief that any critique of present conditions carries its own history, a history that the critical scholar must make some effort to identify, disrupt or otherwise negate in order to avoid reproducing the selfsame discourses of privilege and dominance. According to Tie, academia is faced with a challenge of eluding practices of academic reification as these practices can both authorise and limit future political, philosophical, scientific and ethical conceptual possibilities (Tie, 2009).

Conclusion

I began by expressing my concern about the possible normalising effects that the questions of the OIL conference call about the place of CMS in relations to business schools and how critical business school scholars might create intentional social change in New Zealand might have. To address this concern the work of two authors, Iain MacKenzie and Warwick Tie, was presented. Their work suggests that a normalisation of critical business scholarship is doomed to re-creating and reproducing the exclusionary discourses of privilege and dominance it seeks to overcome. The authors put forward two alternative approaches to critical scholarship

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that argue for scholars to reside in the ‘destructured’ and dislocated space of transition and transgression of a discourse. Their argument being that it is from the ungrounded and undefined space of transition that the possibilities of a future that does not simply repeat the past can be located.

It seemed to me that the posing of the questions raised in the conference call suggested that CMS and the discourse of critical business scholars in New Zealand are currently in the transitional, undefined state of critical scholarship promoted by MacKenzie and Tie. I argued that an awareness of the potentional opportunities of this current state be considered in the conference and not overshadowed by the desire for social activism. To this end, an effort to sustain the lack of consensus, definition, and normalisation in our present discourse is proposed.

References

MacKenzie, I. (2001). Limits, Liminality and the Present: Foucault’s Ontology of Social Criticism. http://limen.mi2.hr/limen1-2001/iain_mackenzie.html#author

Rowlingson, M. & Hassard, J. (2001). Marxist Political Economy, Revolution Politics and Labor Process Theory. International Studies of Management & Organization, 30 (Winter), 85-111.

Thompson, P. & Smith, C. (2001). Follow the Redbrick road: Reflections on the pathways in and Out of the labour Process Debate. International Studies of Management & Organization, 30 (Winter), 40-67.

Tie, W. (2009). Radical Politics, utopia, and Political Policing. Journal of Political Ideologies, 14(3) (October), 253-277.

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‘Translating Critical Management Studies.’ Shiv Ganesh University of Waikato In a recent essay on connections and disjunctures between U.S. based organiZational communication research and organiSational communication research in Aotearoa New Zealand (Ganesh, 2009), I argued that these tensions might productively be employed to (a) critique and assess our own unique post-global locations as organizational studies researchers; (b) clarify key conceptual terms in organizational studies such as discourse and communication; and (c) de-radicalize the idea of interdisciplinary dialogue. I believe that a similar set of claims can be made in the process of tracing how critical management studies (CMS) have travelled to Aotearoa New Zealand. Additionally, however, I have also begun to contemplate other ways in which one might understand the emergence of clusters of organizational studies (including organiZational communication and CMS). Specifically, I believe that the notion of translation can offer a valuable heuristic whereby one might critically examine how CMS is configured in Aotearoa New Zealand. I must confess that while I locate my own research squarely within the—or a—critical tradition of scholarship in communication studies broadly speaking, I have never overtly identified with CMS, inasmuch as such identification work takes the form of attending scholarly conventions, publishing in a specific set of journals or citing particular sources. Further, while I bring a broad postcolonial sensibility to my work, I do not call myself a postcolonial scholar, and neither would I call myself an expert in translation studies. Nonetheless, I find myself intrigued by the question that people are gathering to address: namely, what is the place of CMS in business schools in Aotearoa New Zealand? The way in which this question is couched brings to the fore questions of place, identity, culture, location and language, which is also why I believe that translation, considered in postcolonial terms, constitutes an appropriate lens through which one might address the question. Historically, studies of translation have had two dominant trajectories: a linguistic, semiotic approach and a cultural approach (Venuti, 2003). After what one might call the linguistic turn in cultural studies and the cultural turn in linguistic studies, however, these traditions are now thoroughly intermingled, and postcolonial approaches to translation can be situated at this confluence . What, however, is translation: what does it mean, and how can we productively use it at this conference? One way of approaching the question of what translation is, might be to consider three central problematics involved in defining translation. First, the object of translation is not singular. One can understand or define translation purely in terms of the semantics of individual words, sentences, paragraphs, genres or even an entire discourse (Chavez, 2009). Second, the moment of translation itself is not historically fixed: indeed, every act of translation is constituted by the history that precedes it (Stecconi, 2004). And third, translation dissolves authenticity even as it strives for truth: there is always something lost in translation, something ineffable, which is unable to move from location to location, or from time to time (Cronin, 2005). What kinds of issues emerge with CMS when one considers it as a translated practice? If one is to consider the three problematics I have traced above, here are some issues that loosely derive from them. First, as Wheeler (2003) says, translation always

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produces an accented text, itself a kind of intertextuality, if you will. What are the accents of CMS in Aotearoa, and how does that accent start changing what one might consider CMS itself to be? Second, as Spivak (2000) states, translation always involves lags and gaps. What kinds of lags and seasons do Antipodean proponents of CMS experience, and as importantly, what kinds of gaps are evident in CMS as it grows in business schools in this country? Third, as virtually every cultural scholar of translation is prone to note, translation is a political act. As Godard says:

Translation negotiates relations of authority and prestige between languages in a continuous movement of transformation. At stake is the difference in effect of such traffic in languages, depending on where one is positioned within the axes of power, and on the direction of the transfer—downwards, upwards or horizontally—along the hierarchy, whether one translates the subject into the language of the other or translates the other into the language of the same, or speculates on the difficult work of the passage.

It is these axes that, as Emily Apter (2001) notes, determine the “precarious future of minoritarian languages in a global market that favors linguistic superpowers.” (p. 6). If CMS—or any set of academic discourses— is a language, what does it mean for us to use it, where does it position us, and what kinds of academic others is CMS itself likely to create as it is translated in Aotearoa?

References Apter, E. (2001). On Translation in a Global Market. Public Culture, 13(1), 1-12. Bassnett, S., & Trivedi, H. (Eds.). (1999). Postcolonial Translation: Theory and

Practice. London: Routledge. Chavez, K. (2009). Embodied Translation: Dominant Discourse and Communication

with Migrant Bodies-as-Text. Howard Journal of Communications, 20(1), 18-36.

Cronin, M. (2005). Burning the House Down: Translation in a Global Setting. Language and Intercultural Communication, 5(2), 108-119.

Ganesh, S. (2009). OrganiZational communication and organiSational communication: Binaries and the fragments of a field Communication Journal of New Zealand: He Kohenga Korero, 9(2/3), 6-17.

Godard, B. (1997). Culture as Translation. In S. Radhakrishnan (Ed.), Translation and Multilingualism: Post-Colonial Contexts. New Delhi: Pencraft International.

Contexts. New Delhi: Pencraft International. Spivak, G. C. (2000). Translation as culture. parralax, 6(1), 13-24. Stecconi, U. (2004). Interpretive semiotics and translation theory: The semiotic

conditions to translation. Semiotica, 150(1/4), 471-489. Venuti, L. (Ed.). (2003). The Translation Studies Reader. New York: Routledge. Wheeler, A.-M. Issues of Translation in the Works of Nicole Brossard. The Yale

Journal of Criticism, 16(2), 425-454.

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‘Drawing as experiential learning: Images of ‘career’ in the classroom.’ Suzanne Grant and and Fiona Hurd

Dr Suzanne Grant, Waikato Management School [email protected] Fiona Hurd, Waikato Management School [email protected] The kaupapa of this conference poses the question“What is the place of Critical Management Studies (CMS) in business schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand?” In this position paper, we provide an example of how we introduce New Zealand management studies students to critical management principles using pictorial imagery and experiential learning; specifically experiential learning applications within a 4th year career management and development course1

The course is intentionally taught through a critical theory lens, with the aspiration that introducing critical analysis to students with a transformational intent might bring about change at personal and societal levels. In our experience however; the students entering this course are largely unaware of a critical perspective, and are expecting to undertake a functional career-theory paper. This observation is important to our considerations, as it indicates that the students involved are largely ‘mainstream’ management students, rather than students with a particular interest in critical management studies. Key themes such as emancipation, hegemony and transformation were introduced from the very first session, and frequently revisited to encourage cyclical development of knowledge.

. We acknowledge this work builds upon the strong foundations (theoretical and pedagogical) of the work of Maria Humphries and Suzette Dyer (for example Humphries & Dyer, 2001, 2005).

The main focus for our presentation here is an introductory exercise conducted in the first session of the semester; however we also incorporate reflections students made about the exercise as part of their subsequent assessments2

1 WMS ethics approval was granted for this research, and students gave full consent for their work to be included in this research.

. The exercise was introduced informally to the class, so as to put the students at ease. A lot of information is provided in the introductory session, and students may already be feeling ‘out of their comfort zones’. An interpretive exercise such as ‘drawing’ may appear quite unconventional to functionally trained management students – and may create (further) feelings of discomfort. Students were simply invited to draw a picture/image which depicts what ‘career’ means to them. They were asked to complete the activity in silence, but were not restricted from including words or other symbols in their image. After completing their drawing (approximately 20 minutes was allocated for the activity), students were then invited to reflect individually and in small groups on what they had or had not included and why. A series of questions was then provided (see appendix 1) to further prompt and guide these reflections. After approximately 15 minutes we came back together as a class to discuss what kinds of themes and concepts were included by students – and what issues and challenges were

2 Although this exercise was one of many experiential learning activities conducted over the semester. See Humphries and Dyer (2001; 2005) for examples of other activities.



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highlighted once they were prompted to reflect more deeply on what might be ‘missing’ or ‘unseen’ in their images. Students were able to revise their drawing after this review, and were encouraged to continually revisit the image as the semester progressed. Evidence that such reviews occurred was shown through the reflections most students incorporated into subsequent learning activities.

Complementary applications of experiential learning and reflection are increasing within pedagogical practice (Kayes & Kayes, 2003; Reynolds, 2009), however the use of pictorial representation may be less common. Meyer (1991) observes how scholars frequently use data to present their research findings, but employ the technique less often as a means of gathering information. Stiles (2004) reinforces this reluctance, suggesting that concern over subjectivity in the interpretation(s) of images drawn might be one reason that some scholars overlook this means of information gathering. Yet, visual data appears to offer many advantages. Stiles (2004) claims that visual images can lead to richer understanding as drawings can help capture deep set, internal visual constructs. Pictures are universal, so they are able to assist with breaking through language barriers, and can communicate ideas reasonable quickly (Stiles, 2004). From a teaching perspective, this feature is helpful given our class included several Asian students for whom English was a second language. Our own concerns regarding subjectivity and interpretation were minimal in this instance, given the images drawn remained private to the individual students, and each student reflected on and interpreted their own work, sharing with the class only if they were willing to do so.

Reluctance to employ drawing and image representation in teaching and research is interesting to us, given the frequency with which academia draws on metaphorical images. For example, Morgan’s (1993; Morgan, 1997) use of metaphor within organisation studies is well reported; while Gerstl-Pepin and Patrizio (2009) and Moon (2003) all draw on the metaphor of the Pensieve (a magical device prominent within J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series), as an aid in teaching reflexivity and reflection. At an individual level, Phillips (1998, p. 18) suggests we organise our lives and behaviour according to internal metaphors we perceive. Such action was evident in many of the images drawn by our students, with the pictures drawn encompassing a wide range of metaphors such as rivers, mountains, trees, ladders3

Many of the initial representations were based around notions of meritocracy and individual responsibility, conveying embedded neo-liberal assumptions of a ‘level playing field’. For example, several students described their images in subsequent reflections as follows:

.

“The image I depicted in class consisted of a path of people leading towards a house. I had attempted to demonstrate in the picture that people all need to work together to achieve our goals… In this world I believe we are free to create our own paths.”

“My image of a career depicts a boat (me) sailing down a winding river which slowly narrows as the journey continues”

3 Selected images will be shown as part of our presentation.

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“When asked in class to draw a picture of my career I began to draw a mountain as it is symbolic of achievement and the journey you go along to reach the summit”

“For me the image I drew was that of a jigsaw puzzle, which had many pieces. These pieces represented all the small fragments of experiences and information which I felt I required to have a successful career.”

The potential power of such images is identified by Phillips (1998) who suggests that the metaphors we hold may potentially control and limit our behaviour, and hence our capacity to perform well. Within the context of our introductory exercise then, encouraging students to critically reflect on their career image/metaphor provided each with an individual starting point to consider issues such as potential domestication and hegemony, whilst also encouraging transformation as they sought to revise their image.

As the course progressed, so too did the students’ understanding of critical theory and how it might relate to their concept(s) of career. Through class discussion and reflection around the key themes of the course, students began to reflect more deeply on their initial images. Many students became aware that their initial images did not take into account external forces or influences, and could thus be seen to mirror hegemonic notions of individual responsibility. Having the space and theoretical tools to reflect on such embedded assumptions allowed students to ‘see’ their own career image through a new lens:

“When I looked into my image of the word career I did not look into the external influences, I could not see anyone around me which may affect my career or who also may have a career.”

“I was highly surprised that I didn’t take into account any external influences, assumptions about health, wellbeing and peace on the planet, family, community or citizenship. I found it quite disturbing to think that I automatically didn’t take into account any of these.”

“Upon reflection, I realise I gave little to no thought to outside influences – redundancy, the environment, family and friends… basically, I was saying that if you worked hard, did as you were told, and had a plan in mind.. .you should be on track to achieve your goals… writing this essay and thinking about the discussions in class have changed my view on this in a dramatic way.”

Couto (1998) acknowledges Freire’s contribution to teaching and learning through the use of pictures. Given our commitment to emancipation and transformation through critical theory, our own application of images within a learning activity thus seems very appropriate. A particularly hopeful outcome from our perspective was the increased awareness many students demonstrated of their own (relative) positions of privilege and their assumptions based on meritocracy. Consistent with the discussion proposed by van Gorder (2007), our students began to move from self centred states such as a lack of awareness to outside influences or paternalistic perceptions toward more respectful and proactive relationships and interactions:

“Ultimately, we are all part of something much larger than ourselves. Our careers need to stop being so self focused, and more on creating a place in

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which all individuals, no matter what country they are born in, the religion they belong to, what gender they are, or simply what they look like, can have the same comforts and freedoms we expect ourselves.”

“We have a social responsibility to speak up when things are not right; we would want someone to do it for us, so we must in turn do it for others. My career drawing did not reflect this; it simply showed a relatively solo journey through a life career with little input from others, except where I wrote ‘knowing the right people’… from now on I will try to view things from many different perspectives to ensure decisions I make are the best solution for the people the affect – directly and indirectly.”

These student reflections provide powerful examples of the importance of including a critical management perspective within New Zealand management education. At a time when management education is under the scrutiny of international agencies, such as the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), critical management pedagogy provides an opportunity to bring about transformation in the management classroom. This paper demonstrates how such transformation can be initiated through a seemingly simple, yet powerful, experiential exercise. The challenge before us now is to determine how we, the critical management studies community in Aotearoa New Zealand, can position ourselves so a larger number of management students can experience such transformation?

References

Couto, R. A. (1998). The art of teaching democracy. Change, 30(2), 34-38.

Gerstl-Pepin, C., & Patrizio, K. (2009). Learning from Dumbledore's pensieve: Metaphor as an aid in teaching reflexivity in qualitative research. Qualitative Research, 9(3), 299-308.

Humphries, M., & Dyer, S. (2001). Changing the nature and conditions of employment: Stimulating critical reflection. Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 325-340.

Humphries, M., & Dyer, S. (2005). Introducing critical theory to the management classroom: An exercise building on Jermier's 'Life of Mike'. Journal of Management Education, 29(1), 169-195.

Kayes, D. C., & Kayes, A. B. (2003). "Through the looking glass" Management education gone awry. Journal of Management Education, 27(6), 694-710.

Meyer, A. D. (1991). Visual data in organizational research. Organization Science, 2(2), 218-236.

Moon, J. (2003). Reflective Learning and Journals. TLDU Seminar: University of Waikato.

Morgan, G. (1993). Imaginization: The art of creative management. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

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Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Phillips, B. (1998). Energy and performance: the power of metaphor. Career Development Journal, 3(1), 18-22.

Reynolds, M. (2009). Wild frontiers- Reflections on experiential learning. Management Learning, 40(4), 387-392.

Stiles, D. (2004). Pictorial representation. In C. Cassell & G. Symon (Eds.), Essential guide to qualitative methods in organizational research. London: Sage Publications.

van Gorder, A. C. (2007). Pedagogy for the children of the oppressors:Liberative education for social justice among the world's priviledged. Journal of Transformative Education, 5(8), 8-32.

Appendix 1: Guide to reflection on your image of ‘career’ Examine your depiction and make a few notes:

1) What underlying VALUES are embedded in your depiction?

2) How are external influences depicted?

3) What assumptions have you made about health, wellbeing and peace on the planet?

4) What consideration have you given to family, community, citizenship?

5) What type of ‘management questions’ arise for you from this depiction?

6) Do you think your depiction is widely shared by others? What are the implications of a ‘homogenous’ idea of ‘career’? What are the implications of ‘diverse’ images of careers?

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‘What can critical perspectives contribute to business school curricula?’ Maria Humphries, Suzette Dyer and Fiona Hurd The construction of the identities that collectively constitute our organisational experiences has been the focus of much of the work we have for almost two decades (Self disclosing references). Particularly through the teaching and research of ‘careers’ from a CMS perspective, we have had an opportunity to explore with students the extent to which the prevailing (and narrow) notions of business, productivity and market orientation has encroached on our very sense of ‘self’. We would value a short time to demonstrate and discuss an exercise we have used for this attempt to raise awareness of this encroachment and the limitations to identity formation that may come with this. As the participants to the conference are already familiar with the theory, we expect to be able to step through the exercise much more quickly than we would in class. We would, however, value peer comment on this work. While we expect to be able to demonstrate the example in 15 minutes, 30 minutes would be most welcome to provide some discussion time.

The Theory

New Zealand has now become (in)famous for the speed and depth of its commitment to neo-liberal idea(l)s. Wilson (1992) summarises the key economic and socio-cultural characteristics of what has been termed the ‘enterprise culture’ - perhaps a more ‘accessible’ or attractive lexicon for the same phenomenon. These characteristics include:

Economic Characteristics 1. Continual process of privatisation. 2. The deregulation of industry (especially financial services). 3. The structural reorganisation of publicly funded bodies. 4. A reduction in reliance upon the culture of dependence throughout all

organizations and business sectors. This includes reliance on each other as well as government agencies for support.

Socio-cultural Characteristics 1. The view of competitive market organisation becomes the dominant role

for all others (including public statutory agencies and the voluntary sector).

2. The vocabulary of management theory becomes predominantly that of commercial practice (e.g. ‘market niche’, ‘product differentiation’, ‘sustainable competitive advantage’).

3. A noticeable trend towards the homogenization of organization models. All organisations are normatively encouraged to adopt commercial modes of operation, especially where they are expected to lead to increased organizational performance and success.

4. The idea of running even one’s own personal life as if it were a business becomes highlighted. Individuals should organise their lives around economic concepts of opportunity cost and operate under norms of overt market competition. (p. 39, emphasis added).

Is there evidence of such an approach to organising society in New Zealand? We devised an experiential exercise to see to what extent these views have been

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‘normalised’ in the students who study with us. Our observation is that not only are these ideas normalised in our students, this normalisation borders on the naturalisation of such ideas.

While there has been some apparent re-think of these idea(l)s by the Labour led government around the turn of the century, these established norms will no doubt have been a contributing factor to the ease with which we have swung towards a conservative government, moving us into ever increasing commitments to ‘free market’ agreements – and the known social costs that will come with this. How can we, as educators working from the perspectives generated by CMS engage our students and encourage them to a more critical orientation? Why do we deem this so necessary?

What are the implications of this ontological approach towards managing New Zealand’s socio-political and economic structure by and for individuals so normalised into a market-oriented identity?

The proposed process: Session participants do a quick version of the exercise just to focus attention on the theory - followed by a discussion of the merits of the exercise and its implications.

References:

Barker, J. (1993). Tightening the Iron Cage: Concertive Control in Self-managing Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(3), 408-437.

Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Carson, K, D., & Phillips-Carson, P. (1997). Career entrenchment: A quiet march toward occupational death? Academy of Management, 11(1), 62-75.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. England: Penguin Books. Translated by Allan Lane.

Fournier V. (1996). Stories of development and exploitation: Militant voices in an enterprise culture. Paper presented at the 14th Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism, July 3-6, 1996 The Anderson School at UCLA, Los Angeles. Retrieved November 9, 1998 from: http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/research/conferences/scos/papers/fornier.htlm.

Garsten, C., and Grey, C. (1997). How to become oneself: Discourses in subjectivity in post-bureaucratic organizations. Organization, 4(2), 211-228.

Grey, C. (1994). Career as a project of the self and labour process discipline. Sociology, 28(2), 479-497.

Habermas. J. (1984). The theory of communicative action, volume 1: Reason and the rationalisation of society. Boston: Beacon Press.

Herman, E., & Chomsky, N. (1994). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. USA: Vintage Books.

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/research/conferences/scos/papers/fornier.htlm�

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Kelsey, J. (1995). The New Zealand Experiment: A world model for structural adjustment? Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Lynch, M. (1985). Discipline and the material form of images: an analysis of scientific visibility. Social Studies of Science 15:37-66.

Miller, P. & Rose, N. (1988, May). The Tavistock Programme: The government of subjectivity and social life. Sociology, 22(2), 171-192.

Miller, P., and Rose (1998). Governing economic life. In Mabey, C., Salaman, G., and Storey, J., (Eds.), Strategic Human Resource Management (pp. 46-57). London: Sage.

Rose, N. (1988). Governing the Soul: Shaping of the private self. London: Free Association Books.

Rose, N. (1989). Calculable minds and manageable individuals. History of the Human Sciences, 1 (2), 179-200.

Rose, N. (1990). Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London: Routledge.

Savage, M. (1998). Discipline, surveillance and the ‘career’: Employment on the great Western Railway 1833-1914. In A. McKinaly & K. Starkey (eds.), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory. (65-92).London: Sage

Wilson, D. (1992). A strategy for change: Concepts and controversies in the management of change. London: Routledge.

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‘Critical perspectives and the ‘partnership model’ between the State and Māori.’ Barbara L’Huillier

Authors: Barbara L’Huillier Maria Humphries Waikato Management School University of Waikato Private Bag 3105 Hamilton. Contacting author: Barbara L’Huillier Email: [email protected]

Critical theorists seek to analyse and expose the interruption between the actual and the possible by examining the existing order and to explore a potential future state of harmony. They believe that all knowledge is historically conditioned but that issues can be addressed from a critical perspective that embraces future possibilities. By applying a critical perspective researchers seek to identify and draw attention to what they understand to be processes of domestication, domination or exploitation and by focusing on inconsistencies and conflicts apparent in the research data. Critical Management Studies (CMS) scholars have the potential to stimulate debate on issues surrounding the notion of partnership between Maori and the Crown within public sector entities. They seek to shed new light on the sentiments expressed by Maori regarding the perceived inequities surrounding the governance of the organisations that collectively constitute Aotearoa/New Zealand. The outcomes surrounding this notion of partnership should benefit both parties and show a “mutual respect for each others’ contribution to the partnership” (L’Huillier and Humphries, in Press). Aotearoa/New Zealand is a land made up of two very divergent peoples; Maori who are Tangata Whenua - indigenous or first people of the land and, Pakeha/Tauiwi or late comers, those who are non-Maori (Stuart, 2009). In 1840 representatives of various Maori tribes signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi which outlined the terms and conditions of settler presence under British rule and sought to define the emerging new relationship between Maori and Pakeha (Orange, 1992). Reid and Robson (2007), writing within the context of Maori health, contend that the Treaty of Waitangi and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples give Maori the right to monitor the Crown and to evaluate Crown action and, perhaps more importantly, inaction. Alleged breaches to the terms and conditions of Te Tiriti o Waitangi have been hotly contested in recent years even though, or in spite of, a succession of New Zealand governments articulating that they acknowledge and recognise that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a relevant commitment and that iwi/Māori organisations have a unique and vital responsibility in contemporary society. Public sector organisations such as schools, hospitals and indeed the proposed new Auckland ‘Super City’, while acknowledging Maori are the indigenous people of the land and that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a founding document for the formation of the nation, make no specific


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commitment for Maori to assume partnership responsibilities and rights in the governance of these organisations. And yet viewed through an historical lens Maori involvement in governance of the country is not a new phenomenon. In 1867 four Maori seats were established in the House of Representatives and two Maori members were appointed to the Legislative Council in 1872. While the struggle for Maori participation in all aspects of governance suggests an ideal far from being manifest in practice, Durie (2003) suggests that where Maori participation has been achieved, this participation has brought about fundamental changes whereby

mono-cultural attitudes and assumptions have been replaced by a set of cultural values and protocols that more appropriately reflect New Zealand as a nation in the South Pacific with its own unique heritage. While the Westminster system is still clearly the basis for governance, a New Zealand style that is able to incorporate the Maori dimension within a unitary framework has emerged … increasingly the measures of good governance are being constructed in terms that go some way towards recognising Maori aspirations and Maori advancement. Although achieving the best outcomes for all New Zealanders is a fundamental governance goal there is also recognition of an obligation to actively promote Maori culture, language and well-being. In meeting that objective, the need for more than a single set of measures has become apparent (p. 139).

One avenue for demonstrating the notion that Maori are a valued and respected Treaty partner is to promote Maori culture through the formal state-funded education system. Yet, for many years, there was a policy of banning the use of Te Reo Maori (the Maori language) in schools. Simon and Smith (2001) write “there can be no argument about the existence throughout the first half of the twentieth century of a state policy to ban the use of Maori … in schools” (p. 170). In a policy turn-around Steve Maharey, the then Minister for Education in a speech delivered in 2007, outlined his government’s plan for Maori in mainstream education. He stated that strategies are in place to “ensure the needs of Maori learners are prioritised … reinforcing that Maori success in New Zealand’s success”. However, these strategies did not extend to ensuring Maori had a place in the governance of schools. There is no requirement for schools to have Maori representation on their Boards of Trustees (BOT). A person of Maori descent can be elected to a BOT but formal Maori representation with a Treaty based mandate is not seen as a matter of right. This lack of representation is seen by some within the Maori community as yet another example of a breach of the terms and conditions of the Treaty. From a conversation with members of the Whanau Support Group of a Waikato high school where Maori make up 36% of the student population:

We expect the Ministry of Education to honour and enforce the promises made under the Treaty of Waitangi and recognise its mana, through the implementation of a true partnership between the state and Maori. This means an equal sharing of power – and yet there were no Maori on the last BOTs and there are no Maori in the school’s senior management team. And when we indicate that we expect, at the bare minimum, to have one Maori in a governance role it is thrown in our

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face that BOTs are democratically elected and if we want Maori representation we have to vote them in like every other member is (Conversation 1, 2009)

Maori are looking at the Treaty of Waitangi … if you go over the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi we should have at least half of those seats! And Pakeha think we’ve got a cheek asking for three. Maoris are shocking voters! … you could throw it at Maori parents and the Maori community and just say they are apathetic … and that would be completely true. But it’s still a Pakeha system (Conversation 2, 2009).

In terms of partnership how does a democratic society honour the terms and conditions of Te Tiriti o Waitangi – a document signed nearly 170 years ago when the cultural make-up of the society was so different? For example at the time of signing the treaty Pakeha were the minority in New Zealand, now they are the dominant cultural group with Maori being the dominant minority group. Rohmann (2000) suggests that “our understanding of the world is not an interpretation of what is, but a summary of attitudes formed by social interchanges within the present historical context” (pg. 364). People are engaging in the moment-by-moment construction of social reality which is grounded in the actions of the past. Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as stated earlier, is acknowledged as a cornerstone document and one which was based on the concept of partnership. It was not based on a numbers game whereby whoever has the most players on their side could then change the rules or even the ‘game’ itself. Many Maori look to the State to fulfil their side of the ‘bargain’ and to ensure that there is adequate Maori representation in public sector organisations including schools, hospitals and the proposed new Auckland ‘Super City’.

But what voice does the OIL community have to ask the hard questions and call a treaty partner to account? Scholars who generate their work from a Critical Management Studies perspective have the potential to stimulate debate on the issue of partnership between Maori and state sector organisations. Related research may be used to raise issues that cause an interruption between the actual and the possible by examining the existing order and, a potential future state of harmony between Maori and the State.

Reference List

Durie, M. (2003). Nga kahui pou: Launching Maori futures, Huia Publishers, Wellington: New Zealand.

L’Huillier, B. M., and Humphries, M. (In Press). Critical Third Sector Research: Transforming the Hegemonic Two-step, Third Sector Review – Special Edition.

Orange, C. (1992). The Treaty of Waitangi, Wellington, New Zealand, Bridget Williams Books with assistance from the Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs.

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Reid, P. and Robson, B. (2007). Understanding health inequities, in Robson, H. R. (Ed), Hauora Maori Standards of Health IV, Te Roopu Rangahau Hauora A Eru Pomare, Wellington, New Zealand.

Simon, J. and Smith, L. T. (Eds) (2001). The civilising mission? Perceptions and representations for the native school system, Auckland University Press, Auckland: New Zealand.

Stuart, M. (2009). ‘Crossing the Rubicon’: strategic planning or neo-biopower? A Critique of the Language of New Zealand’s Early Childhood Strategic Plan, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 168-181.

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‘Perspectives on the social implications of developments in quantum physics with a focus on reuniting the Cartesian split.’ Maree Maddock and Maria Humphries Maree Maddock and Maria Humphries Waikato Management School Contacting Author: [email protected]

For authors such as Senge(2008), Bortoft (2007) Goodwin(2007) Harding (2006) Capra(2003) Reason(1998), Kaplan(2005), the current western worldview dominating much human endeavor with an intense and far-reaching grip on what has been thought possible, is reaching the end of its useful life. Attempts to enhance popular awareness of the direness of the contemporary situation is perhaps best exemplified in the film An Inconvenient Truth and at the time of writing exemplified at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. The connections between the uneven effect of climate change to social, political and economic contexts are now discussed alongside the commitment to redress the environmental issues before humanity

Critical Management scholars are concerned with the exposing and redressing of exploitation and injustices as they perceive them. Such concerns may be expressed in any theoretical mode and include structural functionalist, post modernist and phenomenological examples and their feminist and cultural studies variants. These modes of scholarship have deeply challenged what has passed for observable truth in much organizational writing. It would be fair to say, however, that positivism based on western science, is still the predominating discourse. Harding (2006) argues that such western science has contributed to the environmental and social crises the world now faces due to a seriously flawed mode of scientific inquiry in which animism is portrayed as backward and lacking in objective validity by western scholars. Bortoft (2007 p.17) states that modern positivist scientists

approach the whole as if it were a thing among things. Thus the scientist tries to grasp the whole as an object for interrogation. So it is that science today, by virtue of the method which is its hallmark, is left with a fragmented world of things which it then must try and put together.

We do not want to spend too much space in this proposal rehearsing these arguments as they well-known to this community. Rather our proposed presentation will focus on perspectives on the social implications of developments in quantum physics with a focus on reuniting the Cartesian split and our desire to bring the emerging discussions of a sense of wholeness and complexity to organizational theory without losing the sense of ‘redress’ so significantly brought to the management disciplines by Critical Management scholars. Thus this paper is a revision of the critique of mechanistic theory with a view to opening a conversation about the potential of the emerging work of those for whom ‘holism’ is the new holy grail.

Bortoft (2007 p.39) tracks the dominant western worldview to show that Newton’s “combination of experiments and theory was to replace the phenomenon of colour with a set of numbers.” This way of reasoning contributed to the aim of the

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scientific investigation of nature developed by Galileo and others and the introduction of what was to become the dominance of the quantitative/mathematical method. The resulting dualism that emerged between primary qualities that could be expressed mathematically in a direct way to secondary qualities which are presumed unable to be expressed in this way led to the dominance of the primary qualities. Bortoft suggests that the predominance of the western/post-enlightenment scientific method has mandated that “the task of science is to reduce all the phenomena of nature ultimately to such primary qualities as shape, motion and number” (ibid). As a consequence some of the features of nature were judged to be unreal (secondary qualities) resulting in our now fragmented and disconnected view between the parts and the whole, between the human and other-than human worlds.

Goodwin (2007), a biologist and mathematician, also reflects on the predominating mode of scientific study as being one where the only knowledge of the natural world deemed reliable is that which is reportable in measurable quantities. The task of the scientist, in this way of reasoning, is to discover the logical mathematical relationships among given quantities. This, Goodwin maintains, was a “very sensible and useful assumption to make in order to examine one aspect of nature, its orderliness and predictability, in a systemic and logical way” (p.69). He also reminds us, however, that “our human lives are lived in terms of qualities not quantities and that we are now witnessing the consequences of ignoring qualities in science in the loss of habitat, species, health and quality of life” (p.71). While the predominance of a quantifying approach to nature has given us the ability “to produce vast quantities of consumer goods and made possible the particular formation of associated forms of [financial] wealth” (ibid), this way of reasoning has also resulted in the “destruction of the quality of life, of species of plants, creatures (including people) and is destroying the ‘living systems of Earth worldwide” (ibid). Goodwin urges humanity to find alternatives to procedures associated with knowing and organising that use only quantities. He invites us to consider developing what he would term a science of qualities.

Harding (2006) traces the loss of animism to the conscious as well as unconscious eradication of an archetypal primordial mode of perception (p.23) devised to serve and uphold the emerging and eventual predominance of Western Science. This modality exacerbated the separation of nature as envisioned in the work of Descartes in the 1600s. Descartes who depicted the social and natural world as a great machine –separating anything that seemed ‘spiritual’ or ‘non-material to the realms of art and religion. This Cartesian dualism, was further embedded as a reasonable representation of reality (a valid truth) by the work of Newton (1642-1727) - and along with the incremental applications of this way of reasoning to all spheres of social, political and economic expression. This emerging mechanistic worldview and a resulting decline in what was once a deep animistic reverence for the non human world (Harding p.27).

The views promoted and established in this post-enlightenment western paradigm still permeate much of what is taken for granted as ‘real’, ‘trust-worthy’ and ‘true’ in the many subject matters taught as science – from medicine to economics, from agriculture to the organisational disciplines. The work begun in period of the Enlightenment era is a yet, for many, an unfinished project – but for others, a different modality is proving more insightful and potentially fruitful. Harding argues that through the loss of an understanding Earth as Anima Mundi [World

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Soul] and the predominance of mechanistic science that no longer sees the cosmos as alive resulting in what he describes as the damaging consequences of global climate change brought about by an overvaluation of the rational mind.

Capra (2003) argues that global capitalism has increasingly come to be associated with increased poverty and social inequality through transforming the relationship between capital and labour and through “social exclusion “as a direct result of the new economy’s network structure. Consequently

Areas that are non valuable from the perspective of capitalism, and that do not have significant political interest for the powers that be, are by passed by flows of wealth and information, and ultimately deprived of the basic technological infrastructure that allows us to communicate, innovate, produce, consume ,and even live, in today’s world (Castells cited in Capra, p.127)

As described by Capra and Castells the striving for continual economic growth through current Western worldview economic theory and practice is unsustainable as they rightly conclude that unlimited expansion on a finite planet can only lead to catastrophe (p.129). The prevailing ‘mechano’ worldview according to Reason (1998) “separates us from each other and from the rhythms and patterns of the natural world “(p.43) Despite the challenges to the mechanistic and relativist worldviews through for example the systemic worldview proposed by Bateson and others and championed by Capra, Reason maintains that “some form of mechanical worldview remains the “official” view of knowledge particularly when faced with global crises and the mechanistic worldview remains a central myth of our time.”(p.44) Reason suggests that at some deep level “we know that this official knowledge is breaking down because it does not represent everyday life and the challenge is to find a way to comment on it.”(p.44)

Kaplan (2005 p.317) suggests that the prevailing approach to social development as an instrumental one where social situations and people are [deemed] things which can be developed by analysing the variables, separating and controlling them, predicting the inputs needed to realise desired outputs, inputting such inputs and reaping the predicted outcome. Thus the development industry viewed change as a controllable and measurable event. The result of this mechanistic approach in the social sphere has been what Kaplan refers to as “the rise of the paper driven bureaucracy, with its assumption that targets can be met if the right inputs are made and procedures followed.”(p.ibid).

Senge(2008) Bortoft (2007Goodwin(2007) Harding(2006) Capra(2003)Reason (1998), Kaplan(2005) and others are extending the critique of objectivity associated with the mechanistic ontologies generated from Cartesian dualism, the segregation from material and ‘functional’(ist) science, to a re-integration of the mystical and relational in to qualities within their respective areas of work through an emerging multifaceted worldview that is systemic and holistic. In Gaia theory (Lovelock, 1979) earth is described as a living system and places the human community within the earth community that is creating implications and possibilities for how as humans we understand our place in this web of life:

So the place of humans in the web of life is as embodied participants, `living as part of the whole’. From this perspective we can begin to articulate a

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participative worldview to re enchant our world and find new ways of education and inquiry. (Reason, 2005, p.2)

Goodwin (2007) draws our attention to the transition from mechanistic to holistic science and the contribution of the development of quantum mechanics, chaos and unpredictability that has reframed how we view science. Capra (2006) extends Goodwin’s work to a science of qualities by including him in what Capra terms the lineage of scientists and a science of qualities stream of knowledge that has emerged from the science of Leonardo Da Vinci in the renaissance period. Harding(2006) interprets Gaia theory through the symbolism of the rediscovery of anima mundi,( the soul of the world) and that it is imperative that we as humans understand how the earth’s natural systems , (he concentrates in particular on how the carbon cycle has evolved and our part in them) as well as through stories and experiential exercises to enable us to have a deeper understanding of the earth as a living being and argues that systems thinking mean “moving away from the idea that it is possible to predict and control nature” and that the metaphor of control is “the wrong basis on which to build a relationship with nature” and advocates participation as the only available option (p.33).

While Harding acknowledges the role of appropriate quantitative methods he posits that we also need to develop a “deep intuitive sensitivity to the qualities of things.” He extends the notion of intuition by stating that both conventional and holistic sciences are dependent on intuition noting however that the former “makes no effort to cultivate intuition as part of its methodology-it is seldom discussed and its occurrence is mostly left to chance “(p.33-34) He cites `radical holistic scientists’ like Bortoft as an example of those attempting to “cultivate intuition as much as thinking, sensation and feeling” (p.34) into this alternative epistemology to that of conventional science.

Like Seeley et al (2008) we are interested in going beyond the rational ways of knowing and we are interested in developing a Goethean approach to understanding based on the relationship between human and observer with nature and the more than human world. In considering the context in which we work, Seeley suggests that it is “this speech between the hand and the clay that is akin to dialogue. And it is a language far more interesting than the spoken vocabulary which tries to describe it, for it is spoken not by the tongue and lips but by the whole body, by the whole person speaking and listening”. Seeley asks that “if we are informed by two dimensional images, how will our senses get to know the wider deeper world?” She suggests that how we form and inform our living in turn influences and patterns our responses to the world. (p. 19) She concludes that if we integrate presentational knowing into our many ways of knowing and it is through this process that we are more likely to get to know the human and more than human world and therefore more likely to respond in “respectful, creative and well informed ways .”

Buhner (2004) develops the importance of involving our sense organs in particular the heart further with

When the fluctuating electromagnetic field of our heart touches another electromagnetic field, whether from a

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person, rock or plant, we feel a range of emotional impressions that are our experience of the information encoded within those organism’s electromagnetic fields and the alterations that have occurred in our field. This is in fact the source of the deep feelings that come from our emersion in wild landscapes …. (2004).

We open our conversation with this review and we seek conversation around the possibilities and limitations of this emerging challenge to the still prevailing mechanistic and functionalist discourses.

In the Study of nature You must always consider each single thing as well as the whole Nothing is inside, nothing is outside; For what is within is also without. So hurry onwards and try to grasp The universally –open Holy Secret. Rejoice in this true illusion As well in the serious game; Nothing alive is ever a one Always it is a many.

J W. v Goethe cited in Colquhoun and Ewald (1996 p 100)

References

Bortoft,H. (2007)The Wholeness of Nature,- Goethe’s Way of Science. Lindisfarne Press and Floris Books

Buhner, S. (2004) Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in Direct Perception of Nature .Vermont: Bear and Company

Capra F. (2003) The Hidden Connections. Flamingo London

Capra,F. Recorded lecture Schumacher College three week residential course A science of Quality May 2006)

Genders,C (2002) Sources of Inspiration –for ceramics and applied arts. A and C Black London

Kaplan,A. (2005)Emerging out of Goethe: Conversation as a form of Social Inquiry .Janus head 8(1),311-334trivian Publications , retrieved October 8th 2006 www.janushead.org/8-1/Kaplan.pdf

Reason P. (1998) A Participatory Worldview . Resurgence Magazine 168, 42-44

Reason,P. Living as part of the Whole: the implications of participation –for Curriculum and Pedagogy August 2005 retrieved September 10th 2006 fromhttp://people.bath.ac.uk/mnspwr/Papers/LivingAsPartoftheWhole.pdf

http://www.janushead.org/8-1/Kaplan.pdf�

http://people.bath.ac.uk/mnspwr/Papers/LivingAsPartoftheWhole.pdf�

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Seeley,C. and Reason P.( 2008) “Expressions of Energy” An Epistemology of Presentational Knowing. 2008 Nova Science publishers,Inc .

Senge,P.Smith B,kRUSCHWITZn,Laur,J and Schley,S.(2008) THE Necessary Revolution –How Individuals and Organisations are working together to create a sustainable world London

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‘Making Sense of the Silent Sojourn of Older Women.’ Barbara Myers and Judith Pringle Barbara A. Myers Faculty of Business AUT University Private Bag 92006 Auckland 1020 New Zealand T: +64 9 9219999 ext 5366 F: +64 9 921 9876 M: +64 21 781 868 [email protected] Judith K. Pringle Faculty of Business AUT University Private Bag 92006 Auckland 1020 New Zealand T: +64 9 9219999 ext 5420 F: +64 9 921 9990 M: +64 21 548 044

….Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains Within the sound of silence

Introduction

“Little girls should be seen and not heard.” I cannot recall the family occasion, but I do remember the exact words and the firm and matronly tone of my aunt. Most of all I recall the stinging unfairness of it all. Thus began my friendship with the darkness of silence.

At age four I was not aware of the ambivalence surrounding silence. Francis Bacon described silence as the “sleep that nourishes wisdom.” In retrospect I like to think that the ‘silence’ imposed by my aunt also marked the beginnings of my search for knowledge, truth and wisdom.

The legitimisation of knowledge and wisdom in the business school curricula is predominantly male centred and constructed around the actions and processes directly linked with paid work . My interests in the experiences of older women who have been on an OE (overseas experience) sits outside of the domain of paid work. Thus I


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have had difficulty locating my work within the extant literature. Its fits somewhat uneasily between careers, life course development, gender, ageing and older workers. These older women appear to be marginalised by gender, age and unemployment, a triple jeopardy of ‘silence’ (Onyx, 1998).

Background

The dominant discourse around older people is one of extended life spans, lifetime employment participation and individual responsibility. Older workers (particularly women) face a markedly different future than their mothers.

Despite the imperative of longer working lives, evidence suggests the existence of a cohort of women who are rejecting this path. Instead of remaining ‘inside’ these women are choosing to exit their mainstream careers.

In these actions these women simultaneously challenge and upset traditional and contemporary expectations of older women. No longer content to be “inside”, these women are cutting ties with their established lives and careers exploring new spaces at a new time of life.

Purpose of the paper

This paper seeks to explore an emerging trend of older New Zealand women undertaking an OE. The paper is conceptual, using the lens of ‘silence’ to explore these experiences and outcomes and considers whether OE is a fleeting trend, an exceptional and limited phenomenon or a radical shift in women’s way of being, a new and emerging strand of life development and career theory?

The discourse of undertaking OE initially appears as one of “opting out’, ‘othering’, and ‘invisibility.’ However findings from a pilot study suggest that moving from the known to the unknown permits the individual to explore issues around ‘self’ and ‘other’ at a deeper and more profound level. This sojourn of silence appears to create a space in the hearts and minds of these older women allowing them to develop a new way of knowing that is both liberating and empowering.

Literature

While the pilot study draws on a range of research from careers, gender and ageing, the literatures appear to be situated in the dominant domains of employment, work and organisations, with limited focus on intersections of age and gender (Jones & Proctor-Thomson, 2002) and the impact of unpaid work and personal factors on individual’s lives (O’Neil and Bilimoria, 2005).

This paper reflects the author’s search for a framework that enables a more critical exploration of older women undertaking OE. Concepts of ‘voice’ and ‘visibility’ have been drawn on extensively to address aspects of equality and inequality in organizational theory. More recently the concepts of the ‘outsider’, the ‘other’,the ‘invisible’, and the ‘silent’ have been evident in feminist organizational theory.

In their study on women and management education, silence is perceived as both disempowering and empowering (Gatenby and Humphries, 1999). Simpson and Lewis (2007) further explore notions of disempowerment citing situations where the

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response to dominant organisational ideas and actions is one of disapproval , yet non resistance, withdrawal and silence is the response. In contrast Foucault (in Simpson and Lewis, 2007) argues that while silence is an outcome of exclusion and absence , it may also be a vehicle for empowerment in that silence contains a discourse that embodies a range of unspoken thoughts. While noise and din tend to dominate discourse, articulating ‘silence’ and the ‘process of silencing ‘ contributes to a more encompassing and valid understanding of the discourse.

Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Mattuck Tarule (1986) situate the notion of silence as the foundation point for the development of self, mind and voice. In the quest for a knowledge and truth that was more inclusive of women’s ways , Belenky et al (1986) suggest that a state of “constructed knowledge” is the most highly evolved state, arrived at from the development of a narrative sense of self and an understanding and tolerance of contradiction and ambiguity. The authors build on Foucault’s notion of articulating and integrating the’ silence ‘as well as the ‘din’ suggesting that “constructed knowledge” provides an additional framework to better understand women’s way of knowing and being.

Findings

This section outlines key findings from the pilot study on older women undertaking OE . A range of episodes are explored to better understand and articulate the ‘sounds’ of silence. Finally the authors considers notions of disempowerment and empowerment that resonate within the ‘silence’.

Pre OE isolation. One participant spoke of the isolation she experienced before going on OE. She spoke of empty nest syndrome, divorce, parental care and the loosening of ties with friends. This was not a conscious process, but one which unravelled as resources of time, energy and money dwindled and her life became smaller, more disconnected and silent.

Work challenges and conflict. Some participants experienced significant work issues within a year or two of their OE. Despite these work conflicts the women did not seek legal redress or external support, preferring to manage the conflict within their private domain. While the “silence” may be perceived as disempowering in that there were power structures that were seen as formidable, the silence could also be perceived as “empowering” as the three women made decisions that ensured ongoing employment either within the organisation or in another organisation. They remained in stable employment until they left for their OE.

Organisational exit. The decision to leave their employment and go on OE was not taken lightly. The process of organisational exit was silent. Bridges were not burned. Participants believed it was important to leave on a good note. This was not driven by the need to preserve the possibility of future employment prospects alone. The women were careful to exit in a manner that was respectful of their sense of self and dignity. They deliberately did not participate in organisational exit interviews. One woman spoke of the changes in the workplace. She thought she was considered as one of the ‘good’ ones under the previous leadership team. However with the introduction of a new management structure she believed she had become one of the ‘bad’ ones ie the ‘other’. She thought there was little she could do to change these perceptions . Thus she chose to leave the organisation before it left her, leaving in a cloud of silence.

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A clean break from the organisation. There was a sense of wanting to resign (rather than taking long term leave), to sever ties and any ongoing dialogue and contact with the organisation. The women wanted freedom and to get that they required silence. While the international careers literature highlights the importance of regular networking and contact with the organisation while away, the participants did not undertake actions intent on nurturing and building work relationships.

A clean break from employment. The participants did not choose to leave only their organisations. They also left employment. While there is a body of research on those who leave or opt out of organisational employment to develop and purchase their own businesses, these women chose to reject the “employment and self employment” model. Thus their voice within mainstream employment was lost and they became silent as they moved into a state of non employment without regular income as they prepared for their OE.

A silent sojourn. Participants took themselves out of their communities, families and places of employment. For the first time in 20 -30 years they were without established responsibilities or cares. While continued communication was easy via text and email, the leaving behind of lives developed over 30-40 years was challenging and in one or two cases traumatic. Aspects of disempowerment were evident in the silence of their new life and some experienced a loss of the sense of self and place in life. However aspects of empowerment also surfaced out of the silence. A new sense of freedom, curiosity and adventure emerged, eventually allowing the transition to a more meaningful way of knowing.

It is as if these women needed to explore the processes of darkness and silence to take the ultimate step outside of mainstream life. By removing themselves from their established lives, employment, families, communities and friends, they were plunged into silence, allowing exploration of new space and new time and resulting in a new sense of “self’ and one’s purpose and place in the world. While the process of silence was not without challenge and pain, it was ultimately a process of empowerment.

Discussion questions.

Business school curricula, research agendas and interdisciplinarity.

What is privileged in business school curricula and research agendas?

What and where are the silences?

Is it appropriate or legitimate to deconstruct the silences?

What ‘other’ literatures may help articulate and integrate the silences

Discourse of paid work.

What is privileged in the paid work discourse?

What and where are the silences?

Individual careers

Consider the impact of silence on your career?

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References

Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M., Goldberger, N.R., & Tarule, M.M. (1986). Women’s Ways of Knowing. The Development of Self, Voice and Mind. New York. Basic Books.

Gatenby, B., & Humphries, M. (1999). Exploring Gender, Management and careers: speaking in the silences. Gender and Education, vol 11, no. 3, pp. 281-294.

Gatenby, B., & Humphries, M. (2000). The more things change, the more they stay the same: reconstructing gender through women’s careers. Australian Journal of Career Development, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 45-52.

Inkson, K. & Myers, B. (2003) ‘ "The big OE": Self directed travel and career development’, Career Development International, vol. 8, no.4, pp.170-181. Jones, D., & Proctor-Thomson, S . (2003). 'Ageproofing' your Career: Age, Gender and The 'New Career'. In J. Davey, J. Neale and K. Morris Matthews (Eds.)., Living and learning: Experiences of University after age 40 (p. 109-126). Wellington: Victoria University Press.

Jones, D., & Proctor-Thomson, S. (2002). Age, Gender and the Rhetoric of the 'New Career'. Tenth Conference on Labour, Employment and Work, (Victoria University of Wellington, 21 & 22 November, 2002).

Myers, B. & Inkson K. (2003) “ The big OE”: How it works and what it can do for New Zealand University of Auckland Business Review, vol. 5, no.1, pp.44-54. Myers, B. & Pringle, J. (2005). Self initiated foreign experiences as accelerated development: Influences of gender, Journal of World Business, vol. 40, no.4, pp.421-431. O’Neil, D., & Bilimoria, D. (2005). Women’s career development phases: idealism, endurance, and reinvention. Career Development International, vol. 10, no. 3, pp 168-189. Onyx, J., (1998). Older Women Workers: A Double Jeopardy? In M. Patrickson & L. Hartmann, (Eds.), Managing an Ageing Workforce. Australia: Business & Professional Publications. Pringle, J.K. & McCulloch-Dixon, K. (2003), Reincarnating life in the careers of women, Career Development International, vol 8, no. 6, pp.291-300. Gallos, J. 1989. Exploring woman’s development: implications for career theory, practice and research, in M.B.Arthur, D.T. Hall, & B.S. Lawrence (eds), Handbook of career theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp.110-132. Simpson, R., & Lewis, P. (2007). Voice, Visibility and the gendering of Organizations. New York. Palgrave MacMillan.

Suutari, V. & Brewster, C. 2000. Making their own way: International experience through self-initiated foreign assignments, Journal of World Business, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 417-436.

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‘Barefoot theory; embodied practice and the organizing of local identities.’ Craig Prichard

By Craig Prichard Department of Management

Massey University, Manawatu, Aotearoa New Zealand Email: [email protected]

_____________________________ Introduction

In mid 2006 Erin Mackie, a cultural studies academic then working for the University of Canterbury, dispatched a couple of paragraphs to the editor of the NZ Listener4

4 http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3449/letters/6293.html

. Her message was in response to complaints about the ‘no-shoes no-service’ rules in US supermarkets that had been penned by the author of the magazine’s Bradford’s Hollywood column. The column apparently connected capital punishment in Texas with laws against barefoot shopping. Dr Mackie wrote that that analogy was a ‘chauvinistically Kiwi misunderstanding of public hygiene and the public policies instituted by many countries to protect public health’. In hindsight Dr Mackie might wish she had stopped typing at this point. Instead she went on to say that she found the kiwi habit of going barefoot in public one of the ‘few customary practices here that seem not only backward and uncivilised, but dangerously unhygienic and repulsive to North Americans’. How might we make sense of this highly charged response? As for ‘dangerously unhygienic’ such claims are unsupported and disputed. Certainly in tropical climates bare feet might make the walker more susceptible to microscopic worms and poisonous snakes and insects. But in temperate and largely predator free Aotearoa such complaints are generally not a problem. As for ‘backward and uncivilized’, such terms provoke a range of reactions. Some might dismiss them as quaint and silly. For others the terms might provoke feelings of inferiority or exclusion that us barefoot anti-podes (upside down walkers) sometimes feel. More politically oriented responses are also possible. Some might regard such terms as the discursive and moral equivalent of the imperialist colonial gun or fraudulent land claim, terms used to justify the moral, political and economic subordination of small nations and indigenous communities. But there is something much more direct and reactive to Dr Mackie’s response. The words carry a strong sense of Dr Mackie’s disgust and repulsion. How is this possible? What is it that makes this kind of highly visceral and affective reaction possible? At the time of the 2006 letter Dr Mackie drew a volley of return fire from the Listener’s letters-to-the-editor writers who took exception to the backwardness


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charge. Dr Mackie responded to these detractors by shifting her original position slightly: ‘I admit that the issue is not simply one of hygiene but of propriety ’5

For the record, I have lived in New Zealand by election for five years; I love it here and love the people and the society. However, this issue, I confess, brought into full relief everything I find most alienating and unassimilable about my new home’.

(she dropped the assertion of backwardness and lack of civilization). In other words going barefoot was more a matter of poor manners than backwardness; an indecency rather than a cultural imperfection. Perhaps looking to garner some sympathy, Dr Mackie added that her comments sprang in part from her own feelings of alienation and displacement:

The ripples from Mackie’s missive may well have hit the shore at that point but for the combined power of the internet and Dr Mackie’s failure to successfully snag a job in the English Department at the University of Illinois that is also home to the President of the American Association of University Professors, Cary Nelson. Nelson’s about-to-be-published book No University Is An Island 6features the Mackie case as a story of how political correctness in US universities can lead to bad decision making. Mackie’s Listener letter had found its way to the Illinois recruitment panel. Nelson’s use of the Mackie case might of course have been ignored but for the fact that it is used by Stanley Fish (eminent US English professor) in his column in the New York Times7

[Nelson’s] own example of absurdity (it occurred in his home department) is a faculty appointment that was derailed when it was discovered that the candidate, then teaching in New Zealand, had written a letter to a newspaper [sic] criticizing the practice of going barefoot in public places on the grounds that it promoted the spread of disease. A department member decided that the letter “was an attack on the Maori people and thus racist,” and even when it was determined that it is not the Maori, but “white hippies, who go barefoot in New Zealand, the majority voted against pursuing the candidate in order, says Nelson, to prove “themselves to colleagues of color.”

as part of his profiling of the book’s key message. Fish writes:

The upshot of this is that Mackie’s comments have been recently reported in a New Zealand newspaper (Sunday Star Times8) and have featured extensively in the ‘blogosphere’9

5

. But so what? Is Mackie’s missive anything more than a few stones in the bottom of a size two sneaker? A few sharpies underfoot en route to the dairy? Is its revival three years after the original outburst anything more than a piece of soft holiday season journalism, or simply the expression of tight ties between two heavy weight US

http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3451/letters/6394.html 6 http://chronicle.com/article/The-AAUPs-Cary-Nelson-Goes-to/62619/ 7 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/political-correctness-revisited-views-from-both-sides/ 8 http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/3203416/Attack-on-shoeless-Kiwis-costs-lecturer-job 9 http://www.thestandard.org.nz/barefoot-and-kiwi/

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English professors? Of course many kiwis will find Mackie’s comments ill-mannered and patronizing and dismiss them as the irrelevant rant of a homesick American. But this would miss what the incident can teach about the organization of locality and identity, and the nature of institutions.

The conflict between barefoot kiwi and disgusted North American neatly brings to life, and to light, the importance of the body as the core institutional mechanism. Our bodily practices and the affectivity that such practices make possible (or incite when they are challenged by the practice of other bodies) are key foundations of our membership, commitment and investment in the institutions and organizations found in particular localities. From this perspective the first target of organizing is not the language we speak, forms of knowledge we rehearse, or the taken-for-granted meanings shared, but the particular techniques of body use. It is the body that carries, largely unconsciously, our cultural, political and economic history in a form that is shared somatically and largely unconsciously with others – particularly those that share a similar pattern of body techniques.

Compared with the richness of this embodied history, the language we share with others and the stories that we can tell with this language is, in this argument, a relatively small part of how we communicate with others and what our bodies are able to ‘say’. We communicate continuously via our bodies and through them declare our histories and relations with others, with ourselves and with the things around us. The process is learned from birth and continues to be refined and developed by the institutions whose dispositions find homes in active bodies. The process of acquiring and institution’s dispositions might be called ‘somatic transfusion’.

The institutions of the family, education, sports, and the military are deeply implicated in such ‘transfusion’. In these sites the body is surrounded by other bodies that continuously exhibit particular composures, skills and dispositions; which are then followed up by spoken discourse. This transfusion or learning is achieved to a significant degree through the body’s mimetic modelling and coordination with other bodies. Of course a body’s skin, muscles and organs are not just trained by an institution ( e.g. the family, the profession). It is ‘trained’ by the local form that such institutions take in their particular locales. Consequently, what this process of somatic transfusion achieves in one location differs from that found in other locales. And when one historically ‘transfused’ body meets another from elsewhere, somatic tensions are possible. Of course the fixing of somatic transfusions - in the register of the soma - are always supported by spoken statements of ‘law’ or ‘goodmanners’ that originate in particular locales. These fix in discursive and symbolically registers the appropriateness or legality of particular embodied dispositions.

From this perspective Dr Mackie’s repulsion is her body’s visceral reaction to its exposure to the unspoken embodied invitation that the bodies of barefoot kiwis evoke in public space. In order to voice such revulsion and relieve her body of obvious discomfort, Dr Mackie turns to a set of discursive claims about how covering one’s feet in public demonstrates poor health and incorrect public conduct.

Overview

The above is a short introduction to the paper I propose to present at the Oil VI Workshop. The paper in full provides an introduction to the broader institutional perspective suggested above and to the somatic process just discussed. The paper also

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explores the unique contribution that analysis of the soma makes possible in our locale10

References

.Returning to the work of Eldon Best and his Maori collaborators, I suggest an approach to the lived embodied nature of institutions that explores their non-aural musicality. The paper’s final section suggests that institutions be regarded as the soundtracks our bodies live by.

Mauss, M (1979) Sociology and Psychology: Essays by Marcel Mauss. Trans. Ben Brewster, Routledge and Kegan Paul

Miettinen, Reijo, Samra-Fredericks, Dalvir and Yanow, Dvora (2009) ‘Re-Turn to Practice: An Introductory Essay’, Organization Studies 30 (12): 1309-1327

10 The paper traces how Western social science’s analysis of the body owes much to the work of New Zealand ethnographer Eldon Best. Best’s descriptions of Maori were drawn on extensively in Marcel Mauss’s The Techniques of the Body. That book introduces the notion of the ‘habitus’ which for Mauss explains the importance and difference of the body between ‘societies, educations, proprieties and fashions and prestiges’ (Mauss, 1979: 101). There are two key inheritors of Mauss’ work. Pierre Bourdieu takes up the notion of ‘habitus’ and makes it his central theoretical platform. Michel Foucault makes extensive use of Mauss’ concept ‘techniques of the body’ in his genealogical works. Both writers in turn provide key texts for contemporary European institutional analysis (Miettinen et. al., 2009).

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‘Teaching Law in a Business School: Is it the role of the lecturer to radicalize or to empower?’ Amanda Reilly Amanda Reilly School of Accounting and Commercial Law Victoria University of Wellington PO Box 600, Wellington Email [email protected] I am a law teacher in a business school. What is my role? One view might be that it is my role to radicalize students. In my teaching I should demonstrate the contradictions and frailties at the heart of contemporary society, and in particular in its legal institutions, and hence inspire students to work as activists for justice and social change. I do not feel comfortable with this idea I teach the labour and employment law. I am personally, due to family background, of a progressive pro-worker, pro-union bent. In terms of my approach to law I have been very influenced by the insights of critical legal studies which posits that law is a product of political processes which most often serves the interests of the rich and powerful. In my labour and employment law class in any given year I encounter students from a range of backgrounds and with a variety of life experiences. For example some may be small business owners who are employers and others may be the children of small business owners. These experiences have shaped students’ perception of how labour and employment law should operate. They see work related issues from an employer’s perspective and they may also be innately conservative. Their views are different to mine. Yet, who am I to run rough shod over such students’ views which are honestly held and rooted in their personal experiences and struggles? To do so would be wrong and also not in keeping with Parker J Palmer’s description of effective learning spaces11

The Space should honor the “little” stories of the individual and the “big” stories of the discipline and tradition. A learning space should not be filled with abstractions so bloated that no room remains for the small but soulful realities that grow in our students’ lives. In this space there must be ample room for the little stories of individuals, stories of personal experience in which the student’s inner teacher is at work.

Thus I do not think radicalizing students is an appropriate goal for an educator. The role of empowering students as citizens is one I feel comfortable with. I believe the study of law can potentially equip students with the tools and the language with which to both use and critique law and legal institutions as citizens in a democracy.12

11 Parker J Palmer (1998) The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 76.

12 Citizenship is one of Byles and Soetendorp’s rationale for the inclusion of law in non law curricula. See L Byles and R Soetendorp (2002) “Law Teaching For Other Programmes” in R Burridge, K Hinett, A Paliwala & T Varnava (eds) Effective Learning and Teaching in Law London: Kogan Page

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Knowledge of workplace rights is directly empowering in the workplace. And the ability to clearly articulate well thought out, informed views about how labour and employment law should be reformed is also potentially empowering in the wider political sphere as well as being a worthwhile contribution to wider political discourse. I would hope that students in law courses in business school would become empowered both by gaining mastery of the technicalities of the subject area and by exposure to the academic and policy debates surrounding the laws. As part of this it is important that the lecturer models an open, critical and questioning attitude towards legal processes and institutions. Students should be aware that laws are a product of contemporary capitalism, local cultural mores and existing power distributions. But I think it is also important that the lecturer models an open, critical and questioning attitude in regards to his or her own stated stances and biases. This is in line with Brookfield’s observation that 13

Before students can be expected to think critically they must see this process modeled in front of their eyes. A lecture in which a teacher models a questioning of her own assumptions, recognition of ethical dilemmas hidden in her position, an identification of inconvenient theories, facts and philosophies that she has deliberately overlooked, and an openess to considering alternate viewpoints, is the necessary precursor to students doing these same things.

In summary, I prefer to see my role as a teacher as one of empowering students by exposure to alternative perspectives and by a process of modeling critical thinking. If students emerge from my course adhering strongly to the political status quo then so be it. As long as they have been presented with alternative perspectives and have thoughtfully reflected on their own perspective in an informed manner, I have done my job. I do however feel there is a tension at the heart of the ideal of educating for empowerment for the practice of citizenship between espoused ideal and practice. There is not much democracy or indeed liberty, egality or fraternity in my classroom. As the teacher I am effectively a dictator. I set the agenda, the readings, the topics for discussion and the assessment. However I acknowledge there is an alternative way for me to view the classroom i.e. as a “microcosm of the body politic, a setting in which the habits of democratic citizenship can and should be cultivated.”14

13 Stephen Brookfield (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Note all quotes are from the following extract

http://www.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/facultypapers/StephenBrookfield_Wisdom.cfm [accessed 10 April 2008]

14 Quote from Parker J Palmer (1998) The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 92. Parker himself feels the civic model of education has merits but ultimately rejects it preferring instead, what he describes as a “community of truth” model

http://www.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/facultypapers/StephenBrookfield_Wisdom.cfm�


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This tension troubles me. I can see ways that in a small post graduate teaching context it might be possible to vary course content and the organization of the classroom to take account of student wishes particularly if some consensus exists. But it is harder to see how to do this in a large class undergraduate context where the student body is varied, teaching is shared and logistical arrangements like room bookings and course material books have to be determined and organized in advance. Not only is it difficult to see how to make the classroom more democratic in this context, I do not, at a personal level, feel comfortable surrendering my power to control the classroom and the teaching and learning agenda to any significant degree. I fear that chaos and poor student evaluations would follow were I to go very far down this road. Perhaps this tension is irresolvable. It seems to me the best I, or possibly we, can aim for is to be respectful of students and their right to formulate their own views as citizens in the wider world context. Hence, my belief that empowerment rather than radicalization is an appropriate goal for educators in business schools. References Stephen Brookfield (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Note all quotes are from the following extract http://www.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/facultypapers/StephenBrookfield_Wisdom.cfm [accessed 10 April 2008] L Byles and R Soetendorp (2002) “Law Teaching For Other Programmes” in R Burridge, K Hinett, A Paliwala & T Varnava (eds) Effective learning and teaching in law London: Kogan Page Parker J Palmer (1998) The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life San Francisco: Jossey-Bass


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Colonisation of Research – What Māori activism can tell researchers about dealing with Māori Issues? Helen Richardson

Deakin University, Melbourne

This paper is a direct response to one of the overall issues that European researchers in my streams highlighted at the 2009 OIL conference - that of, how do non-Māori engage with Māori to conduct research? Subsequently this researcher attended the New Zealand Anarchist Conference 2009, where the very same issues were discussed. This time Māori activists gave their insight and advice, on how non-Māori should proceed to deal with Māori issues (Bailey, 2009). The overall advice was to know your own culture and history, or know your own whakapapa first, before you engaged with other people’s culture. These were simple, but very powerful words, however as this paper will show colonisation is not something that has happened in isolation, but it is part of a universal system of human management that colonised firstly; the people of western Europe, and then rapidly globalized and invaded the other shores, including, the shores of New Zealand/Aotearoa. This paper will demonstrate how through my research I have discovered the colonisation in my life, and how I understand why are current society and our organisations have found themselves locked in this system of management, which privileges profit over all other social outcomes. The aim of this paper is to provide a pragmatic insight into an approach to deal with “white guilt” in research and begin to engage with Māori culture in a way that is authentic to ourselves and the culture many wish to help with their research.

Although some methodology experts have stated that most race based research would be best researched by people of that race (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) this does not help the fact that still there are many issues Māori need help with. Iwi’s reach out and request help from European researchers, even in these circumstances researchers still feel uneasy with undertaking such research. Also this issue is pertinent to my own research on creativity and information technology (IT), I have always understood that there will be Māori participants and Māori culture influence for many artists, both in their traditional designs and techniques but also their expression of Māori political issues.

The next part of this paper will illustrate how I came to understand my own whakapapa; my journey both in life, theory, family, and how colonisation has changed my life. This will begin with a brief look at the concept of whakapapa and then the critical historisation of colonisation of western European life or endo colonisation to the exo colonisation of indigenous people, the colonisation of woman’s lives, and lastly the colonisation of my life.

Whakapapa

Most of us here will be aware of this term, it means to know where you come from, especially in terms of your ancestors and the land. A more detailed understanding is given below, which illustrates a much deeper engagement than lay people often perceive, and includes rich stories, of spiritual, mythological and human feats,

"Papa" is anything broad, flat and hard such as a flat rock, a slab or a board. "Whakapapa" is to place in layers, lay one upon another. Hence the term Whakapapa is used to describe both the recitation in proper order of genealogies, and also to name the genealogies. The visualisation is of building layer by layer upon the past towards the present, and on into the future. The whakapapa include not just the genealogies but the many spiritual, mythological and human stories that flesh out the genealogical backbone. Due to the modern practice of writing whakapapa from the top of the page to the bottom the visualisation seems to be slowly changing to that of European genealogy, of "descending"

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from our ancestors. The Māori term for descendant is uri, but its more precise meaning in terms of Māori mental processes is offspring or issue.

The term "Te Here Tangata", literally The Rope of Mankind, is also used to describe genealogy. I visualise myself with my hand on this rope which stretches into the past for the fifty or so generations that I can see, back from there to the instant of Creation, and on into the future for at least as long. In this modern world of short term political, social, economic and business perspectives, and instant consumer gratification, Te Here Tangata is a humbling concept. Himona, R.N. (2001), p.1

But how many of us non-Māori can say that we really explore our own culture, our own history of our culture before we have engaged as a researcher and truly use the principles outlined above to understand ourselves and our research questions? There has been much debate in many critical disciplines on self reflexivity. But how much deeper and more appropriately does the principal of whakapapa ensure reflexivity? Not only for those wishing to engage with the specific organisational issues of the Māori people but in other critical research topics? Many of you may feel you are well aware of you family history and how you got here. However this is what I thought. My mother is a keen genealogist, as was my grandfather, and genealogy has been a family interest right back to an ancestor who was surgeon general of England in the 18th Century, who paid for much extensive family research. However this does not place me critically in any position to understand better the ideas of colonisation. This was changed though by the discussion at the 2009 Activist conference, that opened my eyes to revaluate my history with a critical stance. Taking a whakapapa approach to critical theory means actively engaging in how you fit into colonisation, not in terms of “white guilt” but in terms of discovering the colonisation that has happening to your ancestors, how their lives were changed, not in the words of the mainstream history but in terms of the histories that have been erased. This to me, not only provides a means for non-Māori, European or Pākehā researchers to engage with Māori research appropriately, but also for any research topic that deals with colonisation or as it has been termed critical theory. This is directly linked to what many Māori researches at OIL have been demonstrating with; Kaupapa Māori, colonisation theory and research by Bourdieu, to understand where they stand in their history (Ruwhiu & Wolfgramm, 2006; Kent, 2009; Rautaki Ltd., 2009). However, western researchers have become so disconnected from their history and this widens the gulf between western researchers and indigenous research. It is taken for granted often that we know our history, this however is just our history in the context of the mainstream voice and taught in schools. But every family has its own history, and more importantly as a critical researcher, a story that often will have elements that run counter to the mainstream and one that can only be understood by self reflexivity.

Colonisation of life

Colonisation is already a double edged word, in the past colonization has been used to describe the expansion of the western European people into new lands of hope and prosperity, or for missionary work and the civilization of native people (Wakefield, 1837; Hale, 1993). Colonisation has also meant to the people whose land was confiscated, not just that their land being stolen, but their way of life, their ability to self determine their people’s future (Bell, 2006). For many, colonisation has become to mean a brutal attack on indigenous people and for some genocide (Churchill, 1994; Lee, 2003). With colonisation has come the means to resist the invasion and to reclaim their traditional ways.

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However the concept of colonisation in critical theory goes back to the particular point in history where a new system of universal management was dreamed up, created, and often forcefully implement in peoples lives. Foucault (Danaher, Schirato, & Webb, 2000; Faubion, 2002) who has been noted as being a fundamental contributor to this concept, and inspiration for the book Orientalism (Said, 1979), talks of endo and exo colonisation. That the peasant’s lives were colonised in western Europe to form the labour force for the industrial age. This new system was built on the idea of ever growing profits, which depended on this new labour force and also raw resources and technologies. Colonisation of non European countries became the primary means to ensure this (du Gay, 2005). Research has shown western success was not due to inventions but to the stealing of land, raw materials and people (Hale, 1993; Lee, 2003). For instance, the slave trade created much of Europe’s wealth. Technology was stolen from other cultures too, for instance, the concept of vaccines came from black slaves who traditionally knew how to use inoculations to fight small pox.

The next sections will firstly look at European peasants and their colonisation in the industrial age, then indigenous colonisation, and lastly colonisation of woman’s lives in the age of modernity.

European colonisation

Colonisation for European peasant began with the change from rural to city life, as their land or access to it was confiscated (Hale, 1993). The then king, George III and government aided and abetted the confiscation of land and the amalgamation of farms into large land tracks for increased financial gain (Watson, 1960; Ross, 2010, p.1),

Under the Enclosure Acts of the late 18th century wealthy landowners built large farms and introduced improved farming methods. This meant that fewer agricultural workers were needed, so most moved to the towns and became the work force of the Industrial Revolution.

This mass of unemployed rural workers saw governmental changes implemented to nurture these peasants into the workforce for the industrial age. At the heart of this process was the idea of the model citizen and that all should be civilized to become an ideal citizen in this new “Modern” age (Danaher, Schirato, & Webb, 2000). From hygiene and sanitation, to control of the mentally ill, to education - all were parts of the new systems implemented to ensure a healthy workforce.

As too was the nuclear family, the concept of the male bread winner and woman to stay at home and raise the next workforce/children (Faubion, 2002). This is stark contrast to the families of the past, where several generations may have lived in the same house or village. Family and work life coincided, an apprentice broke bread with his master family, cried and laughed and fell in love, sharing all parts of human life (Sennett, 1998). In the new factory model, home and work became separated for rational efficiency. This new system used the factory model to manage all aspects of human life. There was little difference between how the people were managed in a factory, a school, a hospital or a prison (Danaher, Schirato, & Webb, 2000; Faubion, 2002).

This again was in contrast to the traditional craft apprenticeship, where an apprentice learnt his trade so one day he could become a master. In the industrial age the worker now was now doomed to repeat a small task as part of a larger production line. Never having the joy of handing over the finished product to the happy customer. Forgoing, the ability to innovate in his craft. This was the colonisation of creativity, the loss of job satisfaction and loss of craft identity for many. But as we see this was a loss of a way of life too.

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Foucault has been a significant contributor to understanding colonization of life in the system that perpetuated the industrial age. He used historisation to reanalyze history to understand the power structures that try to determine how people live (Danaher, Schirato, & Webb, 2000; Faubion, 2002). Foucault did not stand alone from history, his work was very much embedded in his life. His first work “Madness and Civilization” were from his time working in mental institutions, as were his times working for and politically advocating for change to the penal and justice systems in France. Like Foucault, as a researcher I too I am driven to critical research due to issues that arise in my locality of New Zealand/Aotearoa – as such, two areas I would like to briefly discuss are, that of indigenous colonisation and colonisation of woman’s lives. I will use these to show how this helped me understand my whakapapa in terms of colonisation of my life.

Indigenous colonisation

The colonisation of far off lands, such as, Africa, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few, was a continuation of the process that began colonising peoples live in Europe, to fuel the growth of profits and the expansion of capitalism. However, colonisation became even more aggressive as often these people were very different and the task of civilization so much more difficult (Danaher, Schirato, & Webb, 2000). Here whole alternative traditions beyond the cooption of home and work life were seen. Now indigenous people’s languages, some would say the center of cultural identity - were lost, families separated, people isolated forever from their tribes/iwis and extended families.

Like other indigenous people only in recent times have the majority of Māori people begun to rediscover their culture. Many have not grow up with an understanding of their heritage and its unique language. This new process has begun to reverse the effects of colonisation. It has helped with the establishment of Kohanga Reo’s and the mainstreaming of elements of Māori culture into New Zealand schools and government institutions. This process of is know as decolonisation (Bell, 2006).

Understanding how indigenous colonisation was part of a wider plan of a universal system of management, and how European colonisation impacted Māori was part of my paper last year. This helped unravel the myth of Māori as the great unemployed who were also disproportionally represented in the prison system. It highlighted their plight to them being first on the firing line during each recession (Richardson, 2009). The mass colonisation of white people brought in new knowledge that Māori were not privileged with and systems of education that eliminated their cultural skill as uneconomical. Only in recent times with the rise of New Zealand tourist industry and creative industries, and the recognition of the importance of Māori knowledge by government in the health and social welfare sectors, has Māori cultural knowledge allowed them to complete successfully and regain some of their lost position in society.

A second area of colonisation I would like to talk about is that of the colonisation of woman. This overlaps with indigenous colonisation, as indigenous woman also have been second rate citizens in this colonisation process.

Colonisation of woman

Both European and indigenous woman were deemed to be lower level citizens (Lee, 2003). There are many stories that show how woman’s history has been erased. This includes the stories of woman and their commercial achievements too. The Igbo woman of Nigeria had a separate woman’s council, and their own business and commerce. The Beguine communities that had their own houses, they had control of their own religious, commerce and sexuality. After the crusades the woman whose husbands were killed and became proficient at business

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woman (Hale 1993; Lee, 2003). These are all stories that our daughters do not get told in the school system. Another example is my own “empty” search last year for my OIL paper on the history of creativity in New Zealand. I tried unsuccessfully to find research that made mention of inventions by colonial woman. I am sure there must have been some simply due to the isolation and hardship, as natural as it was for men to invent tools to make life easier, woman too would have innovated (Richardson, 2009). The closest I got was to finding the friendship cakes cooked in water heater cupboards.

New Zealand feminists have had a long history of political resistance; suffragettes through to the 1970’s , radical anti war protests, gender and sexual equality, anti violence and sexual abuse, and also Māori woman’s role in the indigenous struggle for self determination (Aikman, 1966; United Nations, 2002; Seuffert, 2002; O’Keefe, 2003; Winitana, 2008). However there have been changes in how woman are approaching protests, unlike my mothers generation, the next generation have realized that their skills are something to be proud of, and this has seen resurgence in craft, relabeled craftivsm, which has been used for political action. From revolutionary cupcakes to cross-stitch graffiti, this a lighter example of woman reclaiming their history, for the suffragettes also used woman’s craft in their struggle. However, this resurgence in craft community for some is not just ensuring political voice but enabling them to be independent business women too (Fahey, 2009). So too Māori woman have had a voice from radical movements like Mana Wahine (the movement that provided a unique voice of issues that specifically impact Māori woman, such as, family violence to other academic issues, such as, research methodology). To the other extreme, where Māori woman have become successful business woman, for example, Charmaine Love, who has her own international fashion label “Kia Kaha”, which fuses traditional Māori designs with contemporary fashion (Kai Kaha, 2005; Turner, 2007; Winitana, 2008). Although the suffragette struggles are part of mainstream education many of the other achievements, communities and collectives that have existed and do exist in New Zealand are omitted from mainstream education and media

My Colonisation

As I stated earlier in this paper I am very aware of my family history, of my female ancestor sitting on the hills with her children watching her husband fight in the battle of Waterloo. To my name sake bringing her children form England to settle in New Zealand. What is missing is the wider critical history of how this genealogy fits into colonisation. My family unlike many New Zealand families have had a long history of embracing Māori culture. My great uncle was fluent in Māori, my grandfather was respected enough by his local iwi that he was offered a tangi. My brother-in-law’s mother taught children Māori in her class in Newtown long before any official intervention programs began to rectify the loss of Māori language.

So when at the 2009 Anarchist Conference a Māori activist talked on the issue that many Pākehā activists struggle with, the “white guilt” of colonization, and then, pragmatically suggested that one means to overcome this boundary was for Pākehā activists to firstly engage in your own culture. This surprisingly for me had an immediate and powerful connection, as I realized my children who are half Lithuanian (decedents) had their lives affected by colonisation. The USSR annexed Lithuania at the end of WWII. Since this time Lithuanian culture has been under threat of continued attempts to erase their history and way of life, usurped by the dominant communist doctrine of the USSR. Lithuania had a very old culture, the last pagan country in Europe, they have a unique language, rich folk law and they are renowned for their artistic abilities. My children do not know this language, their folk dances and traditions. As refugees both their paternal great grandmothers as young woman escaped their farms when Russian soldiers took them over and escaped to Britain. Their children were eager to throw away any vestige of this culture to fit into the British class system much of

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their cultural knowledge and ways of life were lost. Also until recently my children have been cut off from knowledge of the continued revolutionary struggles that the people of Lithuania maintained during their occupation. One overseas cousin told us how his family has stood in front of the Russian tanks pushing them back. Other pertinent stories relate to the shameful history of Lithuania’s collaboration during the war with Nazi’s. In contrast there are also stories are of hope when Jewish people had helped my children’s great grandmother escape by hiding her as she passed through various European countries. To their other grandmother who had joined a gambling train and gambled her way across Europe to freedom. All these stories were almost lost.

But this was only beginning of realizing the scope of the colonisation project and how I fitted into this.

When reading of Foucualt’s theory on endo and exo colonisation I realized that European people were also the unhappy benefactors of the colonisation process. This was reinforced by my PhD’s exploration of creativity, which involved attending folk music evenings. Many of the songs of English worker still held the tale of the lost life. There were songs about the Luddites- telling how the hearts ached of their ancestor for the loss of their traditional ways, songs about the day the factory closed and the solace workers found in beer. Of course as a talk on craftivism reminded me many of the Luddites were woman who lost their jobs in the stocking weaving factories (Fahey, 2009). These were real connections to some of the colonisation that happened half way across the world.

Lastly, exploring colonisation in terms of women, I began reading the book by Lee “The Military Strategy of Women and Children”. Contrary to the title this was about reanalyzing what it is to be a successful woman, and provide examples of colonisation and alterative history of woman erased from the mainstream. Here I connected personally on how woman coped with abuse, how they have had their own autonomy and commerce. This has also flowed naturally into my craftivism and when construction my page for the annual Aotearoan feminist calendar. But more importantly when discussing with women we found connections to what had happened when patriarchal system had failed us. How our careers and lives were not as the system had said, but despite this that we can find new ways together. Colonisation happens all the time; when a woman has four children her husband leaves her and does not pay child support, despite having his own business. She was unable to regain her highly successful programming career having done what the system said was “the right thing” and left work to raise her children. Another time I discussed colonisation with a friend from Malaysia. We both worked teaching Indian student’s management and communication, and were again reflective on how imbedded colonizing management theory was. We noted the irony of the course material which was telling them of the rich culture of ancient Greece and its contributions to theory. However, India too have an equally rich culture and intellectual history but this has been silenced by the mainstream.

There are also stories from my Māori family and friends. These are far too personal to include in this paper, but the reality of growing up Māori, is to be aware of a race based system in New Zealand. Much more are they under the eye of the police, and judged on appearance not abilities.

My family on my mother side, were early settlers to New Zealand, they struggled to farm and tame this land. On one side they were pioneers on the other side they were soldiers. My family, were busy fighting Māori wars with the British, in the East Coast. Unlike most tribes the East Coast Māori were main members involved with signing the treaty. However despite holding onto their land, colonisation was a hard process. In recent history those like many other Māori who formed the backbone of the New Zealand labour force were the first victims of the 1980’s recession, with the loss of jobs when the main freezing works closed down.

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There are many stories of racism at school and police persecution. There are many Māori youth can tell, of wrongful arrest, wrongful imprisonment, and these are stories ignored by the mainstream media. On a grander scale there were arrests in Wellington as part of the raids centering on Tuhoe. When you are aware of these issues is becomes apparent why art is so important to Māori people, to restore their history and crafts but also to find a voice to resist political and social colonisation.

Summary

This paper hopes to provide a new insight on how non-Māori can approach research dealing with Māori issues. For this process is not just important for researchers engaging in Māori issues but for all critical researchers. In this way researchers will know where they stand and can better relate to the issues of other colonised people. As this paper has shown, all cultures have relationships to one another, not just in the immediate evident power relationship as colonisers, but also in that the pervasive universal system of management that dominates today’s society and their ancestors too. Colonisation has impacted many of us, but the connections have been erased and result in researchers accepting the status quo of being the dominant people and the “white guilt” that goes with this. Thus understanding these connections will help researchers better engage with the struggles of the Māori people and I believe also in any critical theory topic.

Workshop activity

I would like to stimulate discussion on the issues raised in this paper by getting stream attendees to fill in whakapapa sheets and to share these with other seminar members where appropriate so that they can begin to reflect on our own cultural histories in terms of colonisation and critical theories.

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‘Critical Competence in the Health and Social Sciences: A Preliminary Discussion.’ Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia Introduction Diversity management theory has developed over the past three decades into a popular applied and theoretical form of dealing with human differences. However, the differences with which diversity management deals are largely Western folkloric categories of socio-political identification and analysis (Kertzer, 2004). In this paper we argue that categories rising from the social sciences, such as class, gender, race/ethnicity represent specific and reductive forms of category formation and identification developed over time and for specific purposes by the modernising state, its systems and servants (Starr, 1992; Scott, 1998: Latour, 2007). Diversity management claims to address the problem of diversity when it more accurately reflects the problems the modern state and contemporary organisations have with the plural nature of human beings individually and collectively. Grey (2005) has referred to the rise in interest in the ‘types’ of people we employ as a sign of the managerial focus shifting from what we do as employees to who we are as people, meaning that the managerial focus is increasingly on managing identity. Background Diversity management is presented to us as a natural, neutral and unexamined meta-category which uncritically groups together a variety of other categories into an assumptive framework. This is problematic as each social taxonomic category and domain has its own history, processes and issues. Race, for example is presented as normative when it is in fact constitutive and has no direct relation to any ‘science’ of population other than the historical. Class and gender have their own social constitutions. The focus on ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ differences in diversity management also illustrates the constitutive nature of the concept. In addition, models of diversity management tend to vary significantly in their scope and construction, raising the problem of how we address the issue of the particular categories included in any given model and those left out, how those choices are made and by whom. Diversity management is also presented as universalising the issues associated with the categories it captures and manipulates. Yet the specific articulation of social categories varies widely from culture to culture, history to history and state to state. The pretence in management theory and elsewhere that these categories are universal and scientific has to be contested. The very fact of human plurality has been a pivotal political and organisational issue for more than 150 years. The current de-historicising of diversity management as a ‘business imperative’ also has to be viewed from a critical perspective as it endorses management’s right to act on differences in an overtly political way. Categories and Control The ontological relevance of ‘diversity management’ is directly related to the imposition of controls on and over diverse, living and dynamic human identities. Social categories are however epistemic devices used to capture, formalise and control the fluidity of social relationships, more so than collective and personal identities. The messy diversity of the real world is simplified by the state, and organisations that draw their authority from the state and state-like processes (Starr, 1992). The categories so common to social analysis are not merely analytic, they are also epistemic because they shape what we come to accept as the reality of

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our social and organisational worlds. A critical perspective needs to unpack the assumed stability of these concepts and map their developmental progress over time. The ‘diversity management’ concept is neither an emancipatory, democratic or, even, representative practice in management but a derived form of ordering and controlling identity elements rooted in processes associated with the formation of the modern state. This can be seen in how diversity management articulates the theme of diversity as primarily a problem for organisations, one requiring a solution. Diversity management serves to constitute the very problem for which it purports to have the solution. The legitimising claims of neutrality and objectivity are also political in their (1) origin, (2) constitutive processes and (3) enaction in organisational settings. In this sense diversity management lacks explanatory value and is, instead, ideological in scope because it serves to instantiate a particular set of value-laden perspectives about the (real) people being managed. For countries like New Zealand, where a colonial state form emerged from the super-structure of a larger empire, both of which imposed themselves on a pre-existing people, the use of categories has been both constitutive and controlling in the pursuit of a specific socio-political order. The development of wider social and economic orders, including the growth in immigration patterns in recent decades, also illustrate how local conceptual and categorical systems can be influenced by more internationalised systems of ordering and control (‘race’, ‘whiteness’ etc). The epistemology of social categories Social categories act not only to describe what is ‘out there’ in society but they also shape and delimit our knowledge and understanding of the things categorised. Hacking’s work on social construction and ‘natural kinds’ provides a useful departure for discussions about human social diversity and critiques of concepts, taxonomic structures and their associated categories. Much of the discussion about human ‘diversity’ draws together a wide range of conceptual and categorical thinking into the one generalised group of ideas and practices, often referred to as ‘difference’. The assumption some observers make is that the constituent concepts and categories one sees in ‘diversity’ fit neatly together because they cover broadly social forms of knowing about people – especially people as abstract entities. The key idea we take from this linkage process is that ‘diversity’ is positioned as sitting above these other categories and concepts in a way that naturalises them and makes them both tangible and manageable in human social and organisational contexts. In this sense, ‘diversity management’ is presented to us as default ‘meta-category’ which links, but does not explain, these social processes and their political and organisational consequences. Categories that count Another issue with social category use is the need to quantify these stated relationships and their subjects as though the process of quantification lends science and objectivity to the concept-category relationship. The idea that quantification makes something significant is itself less about science and much more about the epistemological influence of science on contemporary socio-political processes. Another Victorian bequest, the counting of social phenomena and social ‘types’ is presented as smoothing away underlying issues in the original categorisation processes and the implicit moral judgements couched in social category use (Porter). Starr points to the different types of categorising processes that exist and their ontological domains: folk/or cultural systems; socio-political systems and; scientific systems. More important, we suggest, is to examine the processes by which certain categories and taxonomic

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systems come to prevail over others. The stability of particular category interpretations can only be sustained by active processes (racism for racial categories, classism for the class categories, sexism for the gender categories etc). Then we need to look at the ways in which such systems engage with each other and influence our processes of knowledge production, and claims to truth, centred on these and how these are developed and used in management and organisational theory. How is diversity management constitutive? We are suggesting that diversity management is not simply a descriptive or analytically neutral concept. Instead, it is constitutive of the environments within which it is deployed. We therefore need to critique our own received and imported assumptions about the social reality on and through which managers and associated organisational practitioners are educated and trained to act. Concepts like diversity management aren’t problematic simply because they are imported but because they constitute an unexamined, value-laden set of assumptions about the nature of the social world and how we should address the issues to which living in that world give rise. More than that, in the context of this event, is the issue of how our local reactions to such imports may reflect our own assumptions about our local social order(s) and the things we choose to believe about our own concepts and categories. Conclusion These conceptual technologies need to be questioned and interrogated more effectively and thoroughly. Local and subaltern critiques that go beyond rewriting internationalist and universalising discourses need to look not only at what is problematic about imported conceptual taxa like diversity management, but also consider and critique local reactions to these imports. What do our reactions and responses to these newly packaged or presented constructs also tell us about ourselves and what light might they help to throw on our own established views of our local world? How do we work to develop a localised corpus of knowledge in systems that increasingly commodify knowledge as meeting some ‘world standard’ that supports and promotes these uncritical conceptual exchanges? How do we envision our knowledge practices following our emergence as independent nations – do we simply have a local version of empire or do we renegotiate our shared views of the world in a collective manner? We suggest that the process of continually unpacking the ‘givens’ (the reified, naturalised and ‘taken-for-grantedness’ of what we are taught and teach) of our knowledge base is a core issue for and contribution to critical management theory. A key focus for localising this critique should be the continuing negotiation processes between Maori and Pakeha, as a contribution to the development of a managerial and social view of the local. This is the genuinely local version of the issues of pluralism that plagued the 20th century (Arendt, ). With continuing shifts and changes in immigration, trade and cultural imports and exports, the particular and specific context of New Zealand’s historical and contemporary engagements have implications for international organisational theory and practice. References Arendt H. (1958) The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Fields, Barbara Jeanne (1989) “Categories of Analysis? Not in My Book “American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper No. 10

Grey C. (2006) A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Organizations, Sage, London

http://archives.acls.org/op/op10fields.htm�

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Grey, Chris (2009) “Licence to Think”, Management Learning 40; 353 Hacking, I. (2006) “Making Up People”, London Review of Books 28:16, August 17 Kertzer, D. I. (2004), Foreward. 5 in S. Szreter, H. Sholkamy and A. Dhannalingam (eds), Categories and Contexts: Anthropological and Historical Studies in Critical Demography. Oxford: Oxford University Press Latour, B. (2007) “How to Think Like a State”, SciencesPo. Lecture delivered the 22nd of November 2007 at the occasion of the anniversary of the WRR in presence of Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, http://www.bruno-latour.fr/poparticles/poparticle/P-133-LA%20HAYE-QUEEN.pdf Starr, P. (1992) "Social Categories and Claims in the Liberal State," Social Research 59 (Summer): 263-95;

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n16/contents�

http://www.princeton.edu/~starr/articles/articles90-92/Starr_Social_Categories_and_Claims.pdf�

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‘A Sense of Place: A contribution from astrocartography.’ Damian Ruth

Dr Damian Ruth, Massey University [email protected]

Graham Ibell, independent astrologer [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the value of an astrocartographical perspective on identity and locale. It addresses the metaphor of mapping in management and the criteria for validating knowledge. It then provides two illustrations of astrocartography in practice, and concludes that there is a reasonable case for considering the contribution of astrological knowledge for the making of meaning in a post-modern world. Introduction The map is one of the most pervasive metaphors in strategic thinking and the story of soldiers who used a map of the Pyrenees to make their way out of the Alps is widely told. We draw two implications from the soldiers’ story. Firstly, the value of a map derives from its capacity to provide a sense of orientation, and this is more important than its factual accuracy. The second is that we create our sense of place, and a map is an aid to do so – the map is not the territory. We do not use a map in order to make sense of where we are – we create maps in the process of making sense of where we are. In this light a process which aids map-making is potentially valuable. A map is a metaphor. Through mini-metaphors and organizational stories we create, shape and make sense of where we are and where we may go. The map is not only an artefact, but a metaphorical construction and metaphors, like maps, are orientation devices. A strong theme in management metaphors is the invocation of archetypes as in Myers-Briggs, Morgan’s images of organization, and Handy’s gods of management. Astrology provides a rich source of archetypes in human affairs, but reference to astrology in management is problematic. Therefore, after exploring the nature of mapping and metaphor, we address problematics of knowledge criteria followed by the use of astrology and astrocartography. This is followed by two illustrations; one involves a reading of the chart of the famous New Zealander Sir Edmund Hilary, the other a reading of Fonterra, New Zealand’s largest company. This allow us to make what we think is a reasonable case for suggesting that astrology can provide a resource for theorising about organization, identity and locale in the Antipodes. Mapping and metaphor Cummings and Wilson (2003) quote the story of the lost soldiers who used a map of the Pyrenees to find their way out of the Alps. They point out that how people are animated and orientated by maps justifies a more respective attitude to ‘pre-modern’ knowledge. In their discussion of pre-modern maps and mapping, they speak of a “subjective web” and then go on to discuss modern maps and mapping wherein they speak of “the triangle” and “objective grid”. The crux of the issue is the 17th Century creation of the scientific gaze under which all

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objective knowledge would be organized into an arboreal hierarchy with all its implications for stabilization and standardization. Management knowledge has been fashioned in this image. Concepts related to maps can also be treated as metaphors; terrain, territory, position, orientation, the high ground, coordinates, contours, scenario, and so on. In each instance though, unless we are aware of the metaphorical implications of our ‘map’, we are as likely to create dust storms and cloudy conditions as we are likely to find ‘True North’ (George, 2007). The point is to do the work of mapping with a sense of its provisional and creative nature. Huff and Jenkins (2002) regard ‘mapping work as an especially strong vehicle for moving between theory and practice’ and the increase in work on cognitive mapping, fuelled by advances in mapping methods, has ‘highlighted the limitations of remaining rigidly within a cognitive perspective’ (page 2). They define a map as

• a visual representation that, • establishes a landscape, or domain, • names the most important entities that exist with that domain, and • simultaneously places them within two or more relationships.

A more complex map has two further characteristics. It • facilitates images of being ‘within’ the established domain, and • encourages mentally moving among entities. (page 2)

We suggest that this could serve as a description of a natal chart. We link Huff and Jenkins’ description of a map, and the idea of entities and their relationship within a domain to the use of archetypes in management theory. Handy (1995) is one of many theorists (and he acknowledges that he is not original) who uses gods as archetypes. He uses the ancient Greek gods to symbolize four distinct management cultures or philosophies; the club (Zeus), role (Apollo), task (Athena), and existential (Dionysus) cultures. There are many other examples of archetypes in management theory, some of them consciously created, for example; the portfolio organization of stars, cash cows, question marks and dogs; the organization as machine, brain, computer, and so on; the leader as priest, artist, manager. Of interest to us is that organizations and strategies are designed on the basis of perceived givens, and that this process of design and the assumptions that shape perceptions are rarely made explicit enough. We accept that this kind of analysis and use of imagery is a creative act, a kind of storytelling. The stuff of management is symbolic and the act of management is the telling and enactment of stories. Knowledge criteria Barnett (198?) asks why astrology and witchcraft can or cannot be taught at university in order to discuss how certain domains of knowledge are acknowledged or excluded as legitimate in higher education. Invoking polemical philosophers of science like Latour and Feyerabend, he deconstructs the criteria for admission, and discovers that they are far from consistent or secure. Insofar as they are understandable, it is our view that astrology passes the test. We have referred to the 17th Century creation of the scientific gaze under which all objective knowledge would be stabilized, categorized, and standardized. In this world, that which could not be subjected to stabilization, categorization and standardization was not knowledge. This attitude disallows certain stances towards dealing with the world. Case and Phillipson (2004) describe astrology and alchemy in organizationa theory as ‘insurrection of subjugated knowledges’ and remark on the fact that astrology and other forms of alternative knowledge

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and cosmology resurgent in the business world are rooted in non-European and pre-modern worlds. Scientific rationality is just one of many forms of knowledge. Liz Greene (1984:13) in her work on astrology and fate observes that ‘Any symbol, astrological or otherwise, cannot be truly grasped by the intellect alone. There are many more elusive yet equally productive roads by which the “map of the heavens” may be approached’ and on this basis she brings to bear ‘fairy tales, myths, dreams and other oddities, along with more respectable references from philosophy and psychology’ (page 14). Like the astrologer Cornelius (2003), she is impatient with those astrologers who seek in vain for statistical verification of astrology’s claims, and insist that its value lies in its symbolic value. Organization and strategy theory is understood as a symbolic process of story-telling and is also replete with the use of ‘fairy tales, myths, dreams and other oddities’. We may change our language and labels, but in practice management remains an art of divination, and its prima matera is the written word, especially story. The use of astrology Casey (2004:67) observes how senior, expertly skilled and successful organizational employees are exploring ‘additional, contested rationalities’;

I have observed crystals, Native American ‘dream-catchers’, and statuettes of the Buddha displayed, oftentimes together, in corporate cubicles... pictures of Sai Baba, yoga gurus and Hindu goddesses… artifacts of pagan traditions, alchemy and Wicca… employees consulting tarot cards, astrological charts and divination devices.

Case and Phillipson (2004:474) cite many references on the use of astrological knowledge in organizations. Marketing executives are drawn

...by the possibility that astrological knowledge might enable companies better to target their products and services (Mitchell, 1995; Mitchell and Hagget, 1997; Mitchell and Tate, 1998; Phillipson, 2000)... similar interest amongst the financial fraternity (Anon., 1996; Brooker, 1998a, 1998b; Galarza, 1999)... books with a business focus published by professional astrologers (Bates and Chrzanowska-Bowles, 1994; McEvers, 1989)

Astro-Cartography Astro-Cartography is a somewhat technical branch of astrology that is described in detail by Lewis & Irving (1997), Cozzi (1988) and Davis (1999). It displays an astrological chart (a geo-centric mapping of planetary positions of longitude, normally for the birth moment of a human, enterprise or similar) on a geographical map in such a way that it shows where on the earth each planet (in astrology this refers to the conventional planets with the addition of the moon and sun) was found at each one of the four key ‘cardinal’ points in the diurnal cycle: precisely on the eastern horizon (rising), on the zenith (culminating), on the western horizon (setting) or on the nadir (anti-culminating) at that moment of birth. These four cardinal points have been seen for millennia as key positions of manifestation, where the qualities and energies associated with the specific planet are likely to be experienced externally in someone’s life. These are places where one is more likely to meet the god. In archetypal astrology, linked with the school of archetypal psychology and with strong neoplatonic origins, the planets are seen as gods, or ‘living’ representations of archetypal qualities. So, for example, the line of Mars (the archetype associated with assertion, will, power, passion, competition etc.) culminating on a person’s astro-cartography map shows where on the earth

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Mars was at the zenith, and therefore where the person is more likely to find an external focus for their assertion, will, power and so on. For this paper we focus on only one of the four

cardinal points, the zenith position which is most associated with public, visible, career, and goal-oriented expression. Cozzi (1988: 111) says of such a position “An untiring effort toward goals is promised”. Lewis & Irving (1997:178) say “A powerful drive for success and social accomplishment urges you on… though … you will not get where you are headed without encountering the real danger of accidents and injury”. This ‘god’ or ‘force’ is expressed as line, exactly where the planet is on one of these cardinal points. Convention extends the planet’s influence to include a band of several hundred kilometres either side of each line. In the next two sections we illustrate the symbolic and story-telling power of astro-cartography. We first provide a natal reading, which is the most familiar use of astrology, and then

an example of the more contentious organizational natal reading. Sir Edmund Hilary To show how we might use astrocartography at a personal level, we will begin with the birth chart of Sir Edmund Hillary. There is some controversy as to his exact time of birth, necessary for absolute confidence in astro-cartographical work, but even allowing for this he serves as an appropriate and example. For this chart we will ignore everything except the conjunction (the longitudinal positioning of planets in the same part of the zodiac) between Mars and Pluto. According to the literature this combination in a birth chart brings “superhuman power”, “the attainment of success through excessive effort”, and “the ability to demonstrate extraordinary force and vigour, great self-confidence, the obsession to work without any break, great ambition” and “has the reputation for being singularly ruthless and fiercely competitive” producing “a person who might say to themselves, unconsciously if not consciously: ‘I will win, I will fight, I will survive at all costs’” (Ebertin,1940:162-3). Moreover, “people with this combination are usually capable of extraordinary courage and powers of endurance… and [it] is useful for those who physically push themselves to and beyond the limit: dancers, athletes, mountaineers and the like” (Tompkins, 1989: 222-5).

The natal, or birth, chart of Sir Edmund Hillary showing the conjunction of Mars and Pluto circled.

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This is a quality inherent in the psyche of Hillary, and given it’s in his birth chart it is something he must work with throughout his life. Seeking an appropriate vehicle for expression of such a strong combination is always important, and clearly for him this was mountaineering. We can demonstrate now is how this tough combination was, for Hillary, focused more acutely on particular parts on the globe, places in which would probably meet these qualities- either in himself or in his immediate world. These are the ‘lines’ that encircle the globe where these two planets are on one of the four cardinal positions mentioned above. As noted, of the four lines it is the zenith that suggests the greatest likelihood of publicly oriented or visible expression of this most tough archetypal combination. According to Lewis & Irving (1999:186-7), the places on the globe that bring together Mars and Pluto suggest areas “where you may encounter extreme situations”, and involve yourself “in a battle for supremacy over powers which at times seem almost superhuman in nature”. “Everything”, they suggest, “becomes a contest and a compulsive concern with the masculine image… and proving yourself”. “The military and intensely demanding athletics are career areas which can focus this otherwise unmanageable energy productively”. With these lines crossing within only a few kilometres from Mt Everest one can see how clearly Hillary’s astro-cartography reading gives a specific and historically significant

indication of where he is most likely to deliver this “almost superhuman power” through an “untiring effort towards [a] goal” as indicated in his natal chart. This is a line of longitude, so of course one asks why does it manifest at that specific latitude? This is where the interplay of the personal and the archetypal come into consideration. Hillary was a mountaineer. Had

he been a sailor, he may have met his ‘god’ (his Mars-Pluto conjunction) somewhere in the ocean on that line of longitude.

Mt Everest

Map of northern Nepal and surrounding countries showing the Pluto and Mars lines (zenith) for Edmund Hillary’s natal chart.

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Fonterra The chart of the New Zealand dairy giant, Fonterra, will provide another example of the precision of astro-cartography. The astrology of organization and nations is called mundane astrology (Baigent, Campion and Harvey, 1984). Fonterra’s birth chart is drawn for the date and place of the co-operative’s incorporation, with the time of 12:00 midnight, as is the convention in incorporation charts (Stathis, 2001). At the time of the Sanlu milk scandal in September 2008, in which the Sanlu dairy company, 43% owned by Fonterra, a chemical was added to milk powder in order to increase its protein content unbeknownst to Fonterra. Neptune, the planet symbolising deception, deceit and

obscuration was in moving through a part of the zodiac at a highly significant geometric relationship with the company’s Sun, symbolising its leadership. Astrologers would interpret this as a likely time for the company to suffer from something confusing or shady, in which the leadership may not thinking clearly nor be able to see things as they are.

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What astro-cartography adds to this simple but exciting demonstration of the dynamics of a corporation’s birth chart is that it can point out where such confusion or deception is likely to come from. In the astro-cartography map for China we can see the Neptune (zenith) line passing within about 400km of the Shijiazhuang, base of the Sanlu Group. This would suggest that Fonterra at this time could have done well to put extra-special effort into investigating all operations relevant to its business carried out within this eastern portion of China. A related example is given in Phillipson (2000), where a business astrologer, using the techniques of location astrology, was able to prevent major fraud in her client’s business through recommending thorough investigation of the company’s stores that were found along a similar Neptune line.

Astro-cartography map of NE China and the Koreas for Fonterra Co-op Group Ltd. showing the site of the factory at the centre of the Sanlu scandal, in Shijiazhuang, and the position of the Neptune (zenith) line.

Neptune line

Discussion: To be held at the conference Conclusion: There isn’t one. (Or, consult an astrologer...) References Baigent, Michel, Nicholas Campion and Charles Harvey (1984): Mundane Astrology: an

introduction to the astrology of nations and groups. Antiquarian Press, Thorsons, Wellingborough, UK.

Cornelius, Geoffrey (2003): The Moment of Astrology: origins in divination. The Wessex Astrologer, Bournemouth, England.

Cozzi, Steve (1988): Planets in Locality: exploring local space astrology. Llewellyn Publications, Minnesota, USA.

Cummings, S., & Wilson, D. (2003). Images of Strategy. Oxford: Blackwell. Davis, Martin (1999): Astrolocality Astrology: A guide to what it is and how to use it.

The Wessex Astrologer, Bournemouth, England. Ebertin, Reinhold (1940): The Combination of Stellar Influences. Translated by Dr Alfred

Roosendale and Linda Kratzsch, American Federation of Astrologers, Arizona. George, Bill & Sims, Peter (2007) True North : Discover Your Authentic Leadership Handy, C. (1995). Gods of management: The changing work of organizations. New

York: Oxford University Press Ibell, Graham (in press) A tale of two cities: the birth charts of Auckland and Wellington,

New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Astrology Lewis, Keith & K. Irving (1997): The psychology of Astro*Carto*Graphy. Arkana,

Penguin, London. Phillipson, Gary (2000): Astrology in the Year Zero. Flare Publications, London, UK. Stathis, Georgia (2001): Business Astrology 101: weaving the web between business and

myth. Star Cycles Publishing, California, USA. Tarnas, Richard (2006): Psyche and Cosmos: intimations of a new world view. Viking

Penguin, New York, USA. Tompkins, Sue (1989): Aspects in Astrology: a comprehensive guide to interpretation,

Element Books, London.

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‘“We have to be cautious in what we say”: Finding critical agency within a context of neoliberal hegemony.’ Fiona Shearer Fiona Shearer Doctoral Candidate Department Communication, Journalism and Marketing Massey University Wellington Email: [email protected] Tel: 04 801 5799 ext 62363 Mobile: 027 351 5614 In this time of marketization, driven by the neoliberal philosophy of our time where the market is at the centre of social relations, critical scholars in Business Schools, NGOs and activist groups face similar challenges in that the discursive space in which to be ‘critical’, is limited. My doctoral research addresses the problem of how a critical organisation publicises itself in a time of marketization. By a time of ‘marketization’ I take my cues from Fairclough who describes this phenomena as the permeation of promotional discourse into new domains of social life (1993). To explore this issue, I have undertaken a case study of an adult literacy organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this paper I give an overview of some early analysis in this research, demonstrating how I have used Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory (1985, 2001) to research the organisation’s publicity. I then go on to ask how CMS can respond to the pragmatic issue that faces the organisation in negotiating both ‘critical’ and ‘functional’ discourses of adult literacy. 1. Organisation X and discourses on (adult) literacy The NGO that I am researching, Organisation X (name to be kept confidential) articulates, or attempts to articulate, a ‘critical’ discourse on (adult) literacy. Their mission is to work towards New Zealanders being critically literate and they strongly advocate student-centred practice. Their discourse is influenced, amongst others, by Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator who argued that literacy could either empower or oppress people (1970, 1993). He argued for a ‘critical’ literacy in that literacy should be much more than reading or writing, but it should also be about being able to critically evaluate your world. The articulation of a ‘critical literacy’ challenges hegemonic discourse on literacy, which tends to limit literacy to being about reading and writing. This ‘functional’ discourse is linked to the need, in the knowledge economy, for skilled and flexible workers. The counter-hegemonic literature criticises the ‘functional’ articulations of literacy as being too narrow. There are several other bodies of related literature such as new literacy studies and multiliteracies (see for example Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Quigley, 1997) and literacy and indigenous people (Nakata, 2000; Rawiri, 2005; Yates, 1996) which advocate for expansive definitions of literacy.


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However, the most dominant articulation on literacy by the state in Aotearoa New Zealand is functional literacy. The history of the New Zealand adult literacy movement shows that government, when it saw the need for skilled workers, started working with and funding some adult literacy programmes (Hill, 1990). Organisation X began as an umbrella group for community adult literacy programmes over 30 years ago. Now it has a fairly large number of member groups throughout the country and is now being significantly funded by the state. However, it still sees its community roots as very important to its identity and practice. 2. Using discourse theory to explore the problem I have used Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory (1985, 2001) as a methodological guide in this research. The most pertinent aspect of their theory for this case study is how they conceptualise hegemonic identification. This paper explores how in its publicity, Organisation X identifies with the key signifier ‘literacy’. The discursive field available to the organisation, as mentioned above, tends towards either a critical discourse of literacy or a narrow, functional discourse. With regard to discourse, for Laclau and Mouffe, this is the ‘structured totality’ (2001, p. 105) resulting from articulatory practice. It is chains of equivalence that structures this practice. This chain is the ‘glue’ that links various signifiers into an ideologically coherent structure. It is a simplifying mechanism. This chain of equivalence exists in a dialogical relationship to a chain of difference which instead of emphasising the similarities between signifiers, it emphasies the differences. Therefore, I look at what signifiers are made equivalent to each other in the chain of equivalence that the organisation’s publicity constructs around literacy. As I demonstrate below, this chain of equivalence has significantly narrowed in more recent publicity. From more expansive articulations of literacy in the 1990s, the organisation has reduced its definitions of literacy in its latest publicity to representing more functional skills. I can also see that using Discourse Theory to investigate communication and public relations practice could add something to the abundant literature on these topics. In prioritising the meaning-making manoeuvres that occur in the macro level of society, Discourse Theory can help make more political sense of the stakeholder relationships that Organisation X negotiates. The creation of discourse, for Laclau and Mouffe occurs, not because of any essential or ‘given’ rules about who is in power or who decides meaning, but because of relationships and alliances made both over time and in response to current threats and opportunities. Therefore, discourse theory can add a macro-longitudinal level of analysis that is often missing in literature around such practice. 3. Publicity over time I look at the problem of articulating a critical identity by tracing the organisation’s publicity over time. There has been a journey of marketization and professionalisation whereby the organisation has gone from producing publicity that seems to represent a community organisation to now distributing glossy, professional material designed by a

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high profile advertising agency. In addition, the signifiers linked to literacy have moved from being fairly abstract and Freirean in style in the 1990s to now representing a much narrower, functional literacy. In the early 1990s, Organisation X produced a brochure that stated: “Good literacy skills help us to be independent. Literacy enables us to make sense of the world, be part of the world and change the world”. This has had clear influence from Freire. He co-wrote a book with Macedo in 1987 named ‘Reading the word, reading the world’ (Freire & Macedo, 1987) However, in 2009, Organisation X produced print advertisements which explicitly link literacy with reading and writing and work-based skills. The publicity also exemplified conventional advertising techniques in that it used fear appeals. In showing a road sign that indicated danger of buried cables, the message was that if people can’t read or write adequately, their life could be at risk. In addition the publicity produced in the 1990s has gone from a typical community organisation type feel to a glossy, professional finish, sponsored by NZ Post. Quotes from the senior management team demonstrate an ambivalence about the publicity they produce. The quote in the title of this paper comes from the following quote by a senior management team member: “we have to be cautious in what we say, you have to be careful about the way you promote your services because if you’re seen to be advocating too much, or you are seen to be off this planet with your arguments, then you get left out. So, there is a conservatism that comes in, in at that point which is about trying to make sure you do the best for the organisation you don’t lose the money etc…I mean and that’s the way you get drafted into the whole neo-liberalism project and that’s the problem with having money from the government. To some extent you’re actually buying some of their discourses with it.” In this quote there is an anxiousness around adhering to the government’s agenda on adult literacy. In talking to other workers in the organisation it appears there has been much discussion about funding from government and especially what this has meant in terms of providing more work-based programmes. All participants said that this had now been resolved though. Senior management added that offering work-based programmes meant that they could reach a wide range of people as most adults are in work. Their feedback on receiving early analysis has also been that they acknowledge that they are articulating literacy in a work and functional context, but these are the needs that their target audience can identify with. Then, when they engage with students on a practice level they work with individual students in addressing their needs outside of just work. 4. Further questions and areas for exploration Later publicity has seen a narrowing of the discourse on adult literacy where ‘functional’ accounts are taking precedence. However internally the organisation, could be said to be risking an over-extension of the chain of equivalence. As Laclau and Mouffe (1985,

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2001) and Thomassen (2005) have said, not all differences in the chain of equivalence can be dissolved. Therefore there is a danger that the discourse that Organisation X articulates could be confusing. As is shown in this paper, there is a tension between what the organisation practices or articulates internally and what it ‘brands’ externally. There is a significant issue in which identities are being addressed by Organisation X. They are appealing to those in need of reading and writing skills, especially for work, but in doing this are there some target audiences who are being left out? This early analysis begs a series of questions that I am considering. The most obvious being, can an organisation articulate key elements of the hegemonic discourse and still be critical? In addition, I look forward to discussion with OIL participants on the ‘messiness’ of research. In the case study described here, there are two critical identities, those being Organisation X and the researcher. Being a critical researcher and engaging in an advocacy project (Jones, 2009), how can one negotiate the role and responsibilities to the academy whilst also being responsive to the immediate and pragmatic needs of the organisation? References Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.). (2000). Multiliteracies. Literacy Learning and the

Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketization of Public

Discourse: The Universities. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 133-168. Freire, P. (1970, 1993). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. Hill, K. (1990). From this fragile web. An informal history of the adult literacy

movement in New Zealand 1974-1988. Wellington: ARLA Federation. Jones, D. (2009). A study of biculturalism and three problems. Paper presented at the

Organisation, Identity and Locality (OIL) V. Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985, 2001). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a

Radical Democratic Politics (2 ed.). London: Verso. Nakata, M. (2000). History, cultural diversity and English language teacher. In B. Cope

& M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies. Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures (pp. 106-120). London: Routledge.

Quigley, B. A. (1997). Rethinking Literacy Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Rawiri, A. H. (2005). Nga Whiringa Muka: Adult literacy and employment. Whanganui

Iwi research project: literature review and annotated bibliography. Whanganui: Te Puna Matauranga o Whanganui.

Thomassen, L. (2005). Antagonism, hegemony and ideology after heterogeneity. Journal of Political Ideologies, 10(3), 289-309.

Yates, B. (1996). Striving for Tino Rangatiratanga. In J. Benseman, B. Findsen & M. Scott (Eds.), The Fourth Sector. Adult and community Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand (pp. 95-111). Palmerston North, NZ: Dunmore Press.

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‘Discerning a path in tricky ground: Finding ways in local, interpretive, and critical research.’ Mary Simpson

What does ‘critical management studies’ (CMS) mean to me – an organisational communication scholar with interests in elders’ work (paid and unpaid); the impact of organisation on elders; elders’ roles in organisations; and in this locality, where issues of ‘western’ models ageing, management, and research dominate the research landscape? These are questions I asked myself when I read the CFP as I contemplated how to ‘write up’ a paper on a current research project. I reflected on what it means to be ‘critical’.

A critical issue may be one that is crucial, important, or significant, intrinsically and/or because of its relationships with others. One critical issue in my research is the researcher’s insider-outsider role, and relationships between participants, research process, and researcher. Another is the inter-play between the researcher, and locality as physical and as ‘discipline’, and the lived experiences. A critical perspective may be one “with an attitude” (after van Dijk, 2001, p. 96), actively interrogating, in my case, organisational power, structures, and practices that privilege some groups and simultaneously disadvantage others who naively participate in them. A critical position may be one where through motivation or circumstance, one finds oneself with choices to act—a view, information, opportunity, challenge—with multiple ramifications and therefore responsibilities. Each of these came to bear as I feel my way in local, interpretive, and critical, ethical research.

One critical debate is the role of ‘outsiders’ in research; outsiders bring a different point of view, but they also do not have the knowing that comes from the contextually immersed experience. One knack for negotiating “tricky ground” (Smith, 2005) could be to find steps that enable openness to difference—something along the lines of Gadamer’s (1975) ‘positive prejudices’—as well as an acceptance that there will be “non-assimilable differences” (Liu, cited in Barclay, 2005, p. 126 ) that cannot be recognised let alone knowable to the un-immersed. But how is this done! This paper attempts to use allegory to explore a recently commenced research journey where I find myself engaged in critical issues, holding critical perspectives, and, right now, in a critical position.

An allegorical story

About 12 years ago I visited Kīlauea, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I arrived in the late afternoon at the only hotel situated on the Caldera’s edge, and went straight to the ranger’s information centre. Just on closing I asked a ranger how long it would take “to get around” (indicating the Crater Rim Trail, see attached); “a couple of hours, depending on how often you stop”. So I set off at 8.30am with my boxed lunch from the hotel kitchen, and walking leisurely, arrived at the Thomas Jaeger Museum after about an hour. Spent another hour there, bought a poster, and then set off again. I saw no-one on the path—which I thought was a bit strange—but heck, it was still early. After yet another hour, and I had not yet reached the Halema’uma’u Lookout, I finally figured that my pace indicated something funny about the map and my other reference, the ranger’s words: I

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was a quarter-way through and had already done the ranger’s “couple of hours.” Still trying to work out the map, I continued on the path and came upon the biggest car park (I’d seen) in the world—mostly empty, but indicative all the same: The ranger had meant driving around the Caldera. I sat down, and worked out it would take me until 4.30pm to get back, less if I retraced my steps. I desperately wanted to walk across the centre of Kīlauea Caldera, I was not turning back.

The desert path soon changed into crunchy black-meringue spotted every so often with fluorescent orange paint: the path. Each spot I had to stop, discern the next one, and step out. It was slow going, and HOT!—and that was not weather! No-way would I, or could I turn back. The short horizon meant I could see only black meringue with vents popping steam at random. This was surely tricky ground; discernment not decision enabled my progress. I reached the centre of the Caldera, and looked into the distance to see a speck that was the hotel perched on the ridge. I sat on a flat rock –that turned out to be nice warm vent. I remembered the sign at Thomas Jaeger museum: In 1993, Halema’uma’u had erupted with less than 2 hours warning. From my current position, two hours would not be enough to get out—even if I knew what a warning looked like! To boot, the boxed lunch was not made for my kind of journey; I had to ration 1.2 litres over the following 4 hours until I reached the lava caves.

I walked across the Caldera, up and onto the ridge, then down across the Kīlauea Iki Crater of hot, dry desert and crumbly rock. I got to the lave tubes—water has never felt that good. Before taking off on the last leg, I stood at the lookout with bus tourists. Some guy asked me where I was from “you’re not on our tour.” “New Zealand—and I walked.” Looking down at where I had walked, he said, “You New Zealanders must be adventurous people.” Hardly, I reflected later, just believed what I heard as I understood it and got creative with map reading.

This story is real, and I will now use it as allegory for exploring my experiences, challenges, and emerging issues in a research project with Māori elders and their reflections on work. The story concerns my traversing the tricky ground of Pākehā research with Māori.

A research story

The project: In 2008 I was a member of a three-person research team that conducted research on encore careers—purposeful paid or unpaid work in later life. At the end of November, we had interviewed Pākehā men and some women, so I asked a close friend (G; name and Iwi affiliations confidential) if she would consider using her networks to invite Māori men and women to participate. The journey began; four Māori women and one Māori man participated in semi-structured interview that lasted between 50 minutes and 2 hours. For two interviews, G was present but not verbally participating; she was not present for two, but in the house or grounds; and one she participated verbally.

Map and other references: The exploitation of Indigenous Peoples by Western researchers is a well documented warning (e.g., Smith, 1999; 2005) and was the first reference point for the research. The second map was the Treaty of Waitangi principles “are a moral compass to facilitate effective bicultural [research] practice” (Authors, 2009,

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p. x), and a third, Smith’s (2005) guidelines for researcher conduct in “tricky ground”. Each of these only became ‘real’ to me in the experience.

The point of no return: As with Kīlauea, once the research journey began there was no going back; it started when G consented. We—G and I—reworked the interview schedule to account for Māori values and world views. We planned each car-trip, prepared food, and bought fresh produce on the way. However, the full realisation that this was ‘different territory’ came at different times during the process.

Short horizons—working with the ‘now’: As we travelled in the car, we discussed the things I must speak near the beginning of our first conversation with the people we were going to see. There was to be no formal pōwhiri or whakatau, but there were protocols to follow and each was different.

Discerning the path: I experienced one ‘disastrous’ interview, where it was just me and the participant present. As G and I reflected on what had happened and compared previous sessions where G had been either in the room or very close-by, it became clear that there would be no more lone interviews. G’s relationships with the person and me were held together by her physical presence—and the relationships were the critical dimension of the research.

Other signs on the trail and interpreting them: I sent each participant a copy of the transcript for them to edit as they saw fit. They each wanted to add things that had been forgotten in the moment, or change things because “I write better than I speak”. It seemed that the written word somehow distorted the memory of the experience in some way. Maybe they needed the benefit of audio-recording (which I listened to multiple times).

Realising other dangers: I sat in the middle of Kīlauea Caldera and remembered that Halema’uma’u had erupted with less than 2 hours warning. As we go into data-analysis, I am aware that something may yet blow-up in this research. Keeping ourselves safe—everyone—is critical.

Talking past each other—the different journey: This research journey is not over. The hot desert of writing is just about upon us. How to navigate this next stage on short-rations—i.e., knowing ‘I don’t know what I don’t know’—and ensuring the participants and G get to say what is written, is challenging and critically important. I am reminded in the process of reflecting on participants’ talk about their experiences of work that it is not for Pākehā to “tell Māori who they are”’ (Margaret Mutu in McRae, 2007). Therefore, the next (and different) part of this journey is how to draw on Māori values and concepts as available to me, in interpreting data without appropriating values and concepts.

Critical discussions

I have attempted to relate my experience navigating the tricky environment of Kīlauea with my navigating the tricky ground of Pākehā research with Māori. Both journeys required me to discern and (re)interpret new as well as known signs, to (re)evaluate my place in that place, and to (re)assess available resources. Both environments command respect. The ranger and I talked past each other, and neither of us knew it. I reaped the consequences—but it wasn’t bad, just different. However, Aotearoa New Zealand is a

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very different setting: stories abound of rescued visitors deceived by the rugged bush. Pākehā setting out on the path of research with Maori is one thing, but discerning how to proceed and ‘survive’ is another; for as Gadamer (1975) wrote “to understand is to understand differently, if we understand at all” (p. x).

As I wrote in the introduction, I am an organisational communication scholar with interests in elders’ work and elders’ relationships with organisations, in this particular locality. I am concerned about ‘western’ models ageing, management, and research dominating the landscape, but am equally cautious about how to engage with the ‘other’ in the local. The issues raised in my allegorical representation must also exist for other Pākehā involved in ‘critical' work in this country. I would like to talk with others about risks of and paths through this territory.

Questions for discussion:

How do you feel about the issues raised here?

What issues emerge from your reading of this paper?

How is trust constituted in Pākehā-Māori/Māori-Pākehā research?

References

Authors (2009)

Barclay, K. (2005). Rethinking inclusion and biculturalism: Towards a more relational practice of democratic justice. In J. H. Liu, T. McCreanor, T. McIntosh & T. Teaiwa (Eds.), New Zealand identities: Departures and destinations (pp. 118-139). Wellington: Victoria University Press.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method. London: Sheed and Ward.

McRae, C. (Executive Producer). (2007, August 12). Being Pākehā, in Native Affairs. New Zealand: Māori Television.

van Dijk, T. A. (2001b). Multidisciplinary CDA: A plea for diversity. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 95-120). London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage.

Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (8th impression, 2005 ed.). London; New York; Dunedin: Zed Books Ltd and University of Otago Press.

Smith, L. T. (2005). On tricky ground: Researching the native in the age of uncertainty. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (5th ed., pp. 85-107). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

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‘Critical Competence in the Health and Social Sciences: A Preliminary Discussion.’ Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia Hamish Robertson, Ageing Research Centre, Prince of Wales Hospital Joanne Travaglia PhD, Faculty of Medicine, University of NSW Introduction The sciences make claims to producing knowledge that is not only factual and objective but also truthful. In a variety of sciences, where their ontological focus is quite specific, these claims are highly defensible. It is reasonable to say they are not always defensible (we are thinking here of issues such as deliberate scientific fraud, excessive promises, failed forecasts and related problems) but nonetheless, the theoretical and practical applications of much scientific knowledge are such that we can say they are true or true enough at the time the claims are made. In the more inflected work of the social and health sciences, truth claims are a much more fraught activity. Not only is knowledge production in the social and health sciences influenced by past dogmas and present socio-political circumstances but the very concepts, theories and methods that scientists in these fields use have their own implications for the truth claims of knowledge production. In this paper, we take issue with a number of contemporary phenomena in social science knowledge production, with a view to advocating for a critical competence agenda as being fundamental to productive and ethical social and health science knowledge and praxis. The aim is to look at why and how a level of critical competence in the health and social sciences might be useful, and make some suggestions about how we might better achieve that outcome. Developing a critical stance Our contention is that for any researcher or analyst producing and/or using social data that the development of a critical stance towards knowledge production and use is both essential for and fundamental to the practice of the social and health sciences. The reason for this, we argue, is that the traffic between the various social and health sciences, funding bodies, government and industry is growing at such a rate that there is no basis on which to claim that knowledge production is an independent process. Even if we could reasonably assert that this was the case, the complexity of current circumstances requires of us the development of a more critical stance than has been the case in the past. The need for a critical stance and critical skills of analysis goes beyond concern for the often compromised circumstances in which much social knowledge production occurs. Industry is becoming more sophisticated in influencing research funding and social knowledge through media management and the development of more nuanced approaches to issues such as corporate social responsibility. Even when industry can be seen to be acting ethically, this is often via a more strategic and textured discourse than was commonly the case in the past. The language of corporate ethical practice, for example, has both broadened and deepened in ways that make the interrogation of organisational knowledge production and practice in these fields a more complex process, one requiring more developed skills and methods than were the norm.

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Reality versus knowledge versus beliefs At this stage we would like to make some passing comments about the ontological and epistemological divide in social science knowledge production. This is because we believe that a clear understanding of the distinction between ‘reality’ and the various epistemologies utilised in producing knowledge about reality is a key critical competency and one which needs to be emphasised much more than it is in social and health science activity. Historically, ontology was seen as falling in the domain of philosophy where such abstract musings more properly belonged. The sciences and medicine had initially grown out of an empirical tradition (Baconian empiricism etc) which has continued to be emphasised in engineering and technology studies more broadly. However, the institutionalisation of science in universities saw a significant shift towards a focus on theoretical knowledge, methodological development and, as noted elsewhere here, quantification. In this sense, epistemological musings were seen to be subsumed by empirical practices and the application of, particularly, quantitative methods to analysis and knowledge production. However, in recent years this artificial separation has begun to unravel. The development of science studies and feminist approaches to the practice of the sciences has seen a growth in the range and depth of sociologically inflected analyses of scientific activities and knowledge processes. Some of this work has pointed to the ways in which scientific epistemologies and, more particularly, scientific concepts and metaphors have been poorly translated into the broader public social arena (Dupre, 2002). The key critical competencies we draw from this are (a) the need for practitioners to understand that their truth claims, especially those based on abstracted linear models, produced in laboratories or using narrow inductive samples, may be highly context-specific and thus not inherently generalisable and unlikely to be universal in their application; secondly (b) that the ontological commitments of practitioners need to be made more explicit than they usually are. The implicit assumptions and beliefs of researchers are only rarely stated publicly, even when we can readily identify them in the way a methodology is explained or analysis and conclusions are presented. Epistemology and hegemony An awareness and understanding of Foucault’s power-knowledge coupling is a major critical competency for any social researcher or practitioner of the human sciences. Knowledge and power work together, regardless of the pretensions to objectivity that social scientists, policy specialists, health professionals and others make claim. It is in this sense that we make the assertion that epistemology and hegemony have to, therefore, be seen as working together and that it is both necessary and practically useful for academics and others to consider the significance of the way knowledge produces power and power produces, shapes and often delimits knowledge production – especially in the social and organisational sciences. We can see in the development of applied social policy that what is frequently represented as being in the interests of marginalised groups is, in actuality, serving the

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interests of the state, organisations (including businesses), the institutionalised professions and their associated class interests (Stone, 2001). Thus, the production of socially ‘useful’ knowledge tends to focus on the needs and interests of those who already possess social authority and, relatively speaking, greater autonomy and freedom from social policy actions. The ‘poor’, the ‘disabled’, the ‘mentally ill’ and other vulnerable individuals, and groups, tend to remain the objects of research and the subjects of hegemonic activities and processes. The links between knowledge production and the framing of social reality (and moral value) has been well-covered by Bourdieu (1989; Everett, 2002) in his analysis of habitus and ministerium. The critical competency in this is for researchers and practitioners to ask ‘whose interests does this knowledge serve?’ and “what effects will the application of this knowledge have on the people it is being directed at?” It remains an enduring feature of much social policy the it s designed by the middle classes to address their concerns about the inadequate lives and behaviours of those further down the social ladder and then presented to the social body as a series of virtuous engagements with no negative outcomes. Knowledge not only equals power but the ability to shape, order, legitimise and present knowledge in an authoritative manner are pragmatic forms of power in action. The universalising mythology of the (social) sciences While the sciences may be seen as working towards a universal knowledge of their objects of study, the social and health sciences are by definition focused on matters that are often particular and context-specific. That is, social phenomena and the people and processes that produce social phenomena do not lend themselves to a universal body of knowledge and certainly not to universal social laws in any way close to the claims made by and for the natural sciences. In addition, where multiple disciplines meet this problem becomes more exaggerated as a series of reductive processes are required to produce a generalised body of knowledge that those disciplines can ‘agree’ on. This can be seen to involve a reliance on abstracted knowledge where the true variations in theory, practice and disciplinary knowledge are glossed over in the effort to produce an acceptable common ground. In some fields, such as geography, the ability to maintain disciplinary cohesion and interdisciplinary validity has been severely undermined by this type of universalising knowledge production. A second problem is that the deliberate aim of producing a corpus of ‘universal’ knowledge in fields with a strong human social component, often leads to an emphasis on one epistemological approach and a side-lining of genuinely diverse perspectives and content. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV, for example, supports the validity of a concept of psychological knowledge as a science in the specific sense of commonly shared concepts, knowledge, techniques and, consequently, knowledge production. However, the specificities of particular cultures and the interactions between cultures and behaviour (including both ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’) means that there is a long list of ‘culture-specific’ syndromes appendicized to each version of the DSM illustrating the lack of an adequate and sufficient basis for the production of a ‘universal’ corpus of psychological knowledge

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that goes beyond the culturally-bounded, inflected and relational nature of human social experiences and behaviour. Hacking’s Engines of Knowledge and Organisational Theory The philosopher Ian Hacking proposed that contemporary knowledge production relies on several specific ‘engines’ which drive the ways in which knowledge is produced in contemporary society and the type of knowledge that we come to invest with objectivity and truth. These engines are as follows: 1. Count 2. Quantify 3. Create Norms 4. Correlate 5. Medicalise 6. Biologise 7. Geneticise 8. Normalise 9. Bureaucratise 10. Reclaim our identity The last of these is somewhat suspect given the enormous power and authority of the proceeding nine engines. However, from a critical perspective it is unreasonable to write individual and collective agency out of the equation and to position the observer as being above or superior to people whose identities are often claimed and manipulated via these engines (see Krippendorff, 2009). Furthermore, if a genuinely critical approach is the aim of our analyses, we must also inquire on the claims to knowledge, objectivity and truth that are invoked through the use of these knowledge engines in the social and health sciences. Quantification for its own sake Expanding on a point made earlier, one of the most favoured forms of knowledge production in the current age is quantification. Indeed, the popularity of applying mathematical and statistical techniques outside of those specific disciplines has become what Hacking called one the major engines of knowledge of our time. We can and do quantify almost everything to the point where unquantified data has become suspect simply because of the lack of numbers. The whole notion of a distinct separation between ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ data analysis and associated knowledge production is an extremely suspect one which should have ceased its dominance with the critique and decline of the more simplistic positivist positions that became common in the social sciences. However, the ideology of objective knowledge that has attached itself to any quantitative analysis has had a variety of detrimental effects to knowledge production in the social and health sciences. Causality and the Flow of Knowledge Quantification is a process that has led to a number of negative outcomes in knowledge production. One of note in this discussion and which has important implications for critical competency, is the problematic nature of causality in social and health science

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analysis and those applied fields drawing their authority from such analyses. Krieger (2008b) recently pointed out in a critical analysis of the relationships between health and race that the causal attributions in health sciences research were often completely about the category of race. Researchers would find a correlation between racial category attributes, as instantiated in American society, and negative health sequelae and draw the inference that, in some way, race was a causal factor. Their lack of interrogation of the race construct led them to uncritically view the socially and politically constituted categories of ‘race’ as scientifically causal. Krieger (2008a) suggests that racism, as a social process, is the causal explanation for the link between negative health outcomes and people positioned in particular racial categories. This preference in uncritical social and health science practice for investing the virtue of objective knowledge in what are clearly socio-political categories clearly distorts any claim to scientific validity, objectivity and truthfulness across a range of disciplines, social policy and beyond. Conclusion If the purpose of knowledge production in the health and social sciences is to be both ethical and emancipatory, or even democratic, then a critical praxis is of enormous importance. By this we mean that critical praxis supports the development and application of knowledge that is sound in its values and in its application. Given the vested knowledge inherent in much social and health science knowledge production, any practitioner must ask themselves the key questions “on what basis do they make these claims”, “where is the voice of the people being studied” and “whose interest does this knowledge production serve?” References Bourdieu, P. (1989), “Social Space and Symbolic Power”, Sociological Theory, Vol. 7, No. 1. (Spring,), pp. 14-25. Dupre, J. (2002) Humans and Other Animals, Oxford University Press, Oxford Everett, J. (2002), “Organizational Research and the Praxeology of Pierre Bourdieu”, Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 5 No. 1, January 56-80 Hacking, I. (2006) “Making Up People”, London Review of Books 28:16, August 17 Krieger N. (2008a) “Proximal, distal, and the politics of causation: what's level got to do with it?” Am J Public Health. Feb;98(2):221-30. Krieger N. (2008b), Does racism harm health? Did child abuse exist before 1962? On explicit questions, critical science, and current controversies: an ecosocial perspective. Am. J. Public Health. Sep;98(9 Suppl):S20-5. Krippendorff, K. (2009) On Communicating: Otherness, Meaning, and Information, Routledge, New York

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Stone D. (2001), Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, Revised Edition W. W. Norton & Company

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To Challenge or Conform? - Strategies for Coping with life in a Business College as an Enthusiast for Critical Management Studies.’ Marianne Tremaine

Then

As an inhabitant of a business college in Aotearoa New Zealand since the late 1980s, I can report that the environment has changed greatly in 20 plus years. Back in those distant times the business college was the academic frontier, with no respect for ‘the way things are done around here’. Courses were introduced at dizzying speed and there was a heady sense of innovation and entrepreneurship. Rules were often flouted and there was little concern about the sense of disdain the rest of the university felt for the grubby world of business.

Although it was a lively place to be, with the unexpected happening daily, it was somewhat shocking to read what passed for an academic article within business. In my field, communication, the colleague I worked with most closely could only agree when I pointed out that most of the articles we were considering for inclusion in students’ study guides were at best formulaic and in most cases totally vapid in terms of depth of content. “You’ll get used to it,” she said sadly, “They’re all like that.” Both of us had come from academic backgrounds where we were used to some theory, or at least an underpinning idea as a kind of conceptual anchor. The free-floating world we were in where papers took the form of introduction, statement of problem, checklist of pointers to follow for a solution, was a little too breathtakingly oversimplified.

Nevertheless, it was good to be in a place where no one was precious about disciplinary boundaries and where people were interested and accepting of each other because most had come from widely different backgrounds - some from recent experience in business, some from overseas, some from a particular profession, some from the public service. We were in an academic melting pot without the rigidity of the more established areas of the university. After being in situations where colleagues from other faculties argued for 20 minutes over the placement of a semi-colon, it was refreshing to be in meetings where in less time, the whole structure of a new major would be plotted. There was a pride in being innovative risk-takers and free from the stultifying conservatism of some of the older universities in other countries.

Now

How things have changed. Now, in 2010, we are deeply in the grip of the new managerialism and conform to globalised constraints which standardise what a business college should be. Far from embracing variety and difference, we are trying to make everything the same according to a decontextualised, assumed ideal which has been imported from America. Whether an ideal can function without a context is somewhat dubious, as an ideal ‘X’ is considered to be ideal only in relation to its context and function. Yet the accreditation regime requires the business school in New Zealand (or Korea, South Africa or Texas) to conform to a set of guidelines developed in the USA, assuming these guidelines to be universally relevant.

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Alongside the restrictions imposed on one’s teaching by AACSB (Association of American Colleges and Schools of Business) accreditation, there is also the looming threat of having the quality of one’s research assessed in the next PBRF (Performance Based Research Funding) round in 2012 when we will once again be judged as ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’ or ‘R’ (research inactive) and our institutions will receive government funding based on these evaluations. Since the first round in 2003, PBRF has rapidly developed into a mechanism that is encouraging sameness. For articles to be accepted readily by journals, it is better for them to be relatively predictable in their approaches, rather than innovative. With the time constraint of the six year cycle of PBRF, academics are encouraged to take on a uniformly pragmatic strategy of publishing at speed. Everyone is expected to work towards quantity of outputs rather than commit to longer-term projects. For example, the late Harry Orsman’s ten years’ of committed work in producing the Dictionary of New Zealand English would be unlikely to be supported these days by a Head of Department.

Comparing Then and Now

My view of the past is not accompanied by a nostalgic yearning for a bygone era. The bizarre unpredictability of the frontier mentality in the emerging business college was refreshing and presented many opportunities for the intrepid pioneer, but it did need to grow to academic maturity. Nevertheless, the space for difference in that environment was valuable. By comparison, the degree of conformity required by the processes surrounding accreditation and PBRF is disturbing. My concern is to find ways of retrieving the potential for difference, even within the pressures of the current climate.

Unsurprisingly, the competitive, personal achievement-based grading scheme of PBRF, which privileges sole-authored work over collaborative publications, has fostered an increasingly individualistic outlook amongst academic staff. The sense of community, the collective approach, has been difficult to retain. There is also a lack of recognition of the implications of the power structures and coercion within the mechanisms introduced to police conformity to AACSB and PBRF requirements.

How can CMS help?

Critical Management Studies is valuable within the current environment in several ways. As a tool for analysis, it provides ways of clarifying what is actually going on, so that one can progress from an isolated feeling of impotence and confusion to at least recognising that the feeling is shared, has a rational basis and can be justified by an explanation of the underlying processes at work. This sense of having been rescued from my solitary lunatic asylum, where I tried vainly to understand how and why the unquestioning acceptance of PBRF had changed our values and priorities so completely by privileging ‘international’ research and recognition was my response to the OIL II paper by (Prichard, Sayers and Bathurst, 2006).

The paper analyses ‘franchise’ and ‘locale’ as different responses to relating academic research conducted in New Zealand, to the ‘mainstream’ of work published in refereed international journals. The franchise metaphor apart from being extremely business-relevant, was such a clear metaphor for the application of a research technique used

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overseas to the local context that it exposed the limitations of this kind of research, in spite of its seductive ease as a way of appealing to overseas editors and reviewers.

This sense of recognition I felt in reading that paper brings me to a second way that Critical Management Studies can help academics in business schools in the current environment. CMS does help to create and support a community of scholars and the OIL conferences enhance and build that sense of community. Although OIL and CMS create a space where one can articulate concerns, in the day-to-day reality of the business school, it is far more difficult to influence managerialist strategies and the mechanisms introduced to ensure that individual staff members comply with regulatory regimes.

To Challenge or Conform?

Within this reality, a full frontal challenge to AACSB or PBRF on an individual basis is not an option. I was pleased that I was not present at a meeting where, in preparation for an accreditation panel visit, those present were instructed to chant the College Mission Statement in unison. Those who attended obviously felt they had to comply, but considered it demeaning and did not see how it could possibly enhance our accreditation prospects. So, people are reluctant to risk challenging the status quo - even in minor ways, and potentially becoming marked as difficult, nonconformist or a possible target for redundancy.

Yet, although a highly visible challenge is best avoided, slavish conformity is not acceptable either. Last year, as a member of a writing group with colleagues from other disciplines, the meetings often turned into whingeing sessions with a focus on PBRF. Finally, we decided to write a joint paper analysing our individual experiences of PBRF and discussing possible responses. Our suggestion for a partial solution to the need to counter negative effects of existing in the PBRF environment was resistance. We felt it was vital to resist each becoming atomised individual units of ‘human resource’ within the academy. As a group we had benefited from building a community with a trusting, supportive climate for discussing our writing and our organisational environment. Our experience demonstrates that one way to counteract the individualising effect of PBRF is simply to build supportive alliances of like-minded people - and work towards change together.

Reference

Prichard, C.; Sayers, J. and Bathurst, R. (2006). Dancing with the stars: notes on constructing a critical management studies locale in Aotearoa/New Zealand in Prichard, C.; Jones, D and Jacques, R. Eds. Proceedings of Organization, Identity, Locality (OIL) ll conference, held 10 February, 2006 at Victoria University Business School, Wellington, published Palmerston North: Department of Management, Massey University.

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Expressions of Interest

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“Who is ‘the public’ we are the servants of?” Bronwyn Boon

Bronwyn Boon Dept of Management University of Otago

In 2008 I had the privilege of participating in a research project conducted by Presbyterian Support Otago (PSO) on the experience of living with poverty in Dunedin. The timing and motivation of this project was initially designed to transmit the ‘voice’ of those living with poverty to the New Zealand political parties as they developed their 2008 election manifestos. Although the report of this research15 was released after the election, it was presented to an audience of local Third Sector participants –including Government funding representatives. In addition, it received some media coverage16 and it features in the 2009 New Zealand National Bibliography17

On the surface we have a perfect blending of agendas. The PSO needed researchers to produce the research for their report. We need research projects to write about in order to satisfy our academic performance outcomes. The reason I made myself available to engage in this research however, was as the result of a mid-life crisis over my academic life. I wanted to feel good about the research I engaged with. Rather than conjuring up something that would satisfy reviewers and editors of some distant Northern Hemisphere journal I wanted to engage in research that was meaningful or I felt would contribute to my local community (defined as Dunedin or Aotearoa/New Zealand). At another level then, this poverty project for PSO provides me with a meaningful engagement in research. In return, I can say to myself, the conference papers and the journal articles facilitate the hearing of these voices of ‘the poor’ in more places. And that must good. The more they are heard the greater the chance that they are listened to, or at the least not forgotten about...So why my feelings of unease?

. With the approval of PSO, the empirical material a co-researcher and I participated in gathering during our involvement in this multi-staged research project has also generated three conference papers and one and-a-half journal articles to date, and the possibility of more in the future (if we get our act together).

These annual OIL gatherings provide a timely prompt for us as critical management/organisation academics to reflect upon our practice – in all its guises. Late last year I attended the Australia & New Zealand Third Sector Research Conference in Auckland where Marilyn Waring was a Key Note speaker. In reflecting critically on my

15 Presbyterian Support Otago (2008) “Can we do better? Voices of Poverty”, Dunedin, http://ps.org.nz/Site/Otago/Library/Default.aspx 16 Otago Daily Times http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/dunedin/31806/poverty-problem-city-study 17 NEW ZEALAND NATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY TE RARANGI PUKAPUKA MATUA O AOTEAROA, February 2009 http://www.natlib.govt.nz/files/nznb/NZNB-0209.pdf

http://ps.org.nz/Site/Otago/Library/Default.aspx�

http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/dunedin/31806/poverty-problem-city-study�

http://www.natlib.govt.nz/files/nznb/NZNB-0209.pdf�

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experience of listening to the people as they talked of battling with the consequences of living in poverty -the deprivation, the social isolation, the shame and frustration of having to deal repeatedly with the WINZ system- I’m drawn back to Marilyn Waring’s observations about researching within the third sector space. What does it mean to work with and for people living in poverty, as opposed to researching over them? As Marilyn Waring argues, research is a political site; there is power, resistance and a ruling class. Am I a member of the ruling class in this context? On yet another level therefore, I have to acknowledge the tension within this seemingly shared agenda. In other words, how is it that when I look up from my computer I find that the agenda to create social change has morphed into a body of research data for processing into PBRF ranked journal publications?

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‘A discussion of the contribution of a critical perspective to business and management school curricula.’ Alison Henderson Globally and locally, individuals, organisations, and governments struggle to manage increasingly scarce resources, such as fresh water, safe food supplies, energy sources, and medical services, and this has resulted in escalating social change. Controversial issues involving the environment, health, and human rights have received increasing public attention, particularly given the rapid development of a range of new technologies. At OIL VI, I seek the opportunity to act as a discussant in a session focusing on innovative teaching methods and content in critical management and organisational studies, and the ways in which our teaching can lead strategic themes such as ‘sustainability’, ‘peace studies’, and ‘social change’. I would like to present ideas from a new paper I shall be teaching for the first time in 2010, and to encourage participants to contribute ideas from their own teaching, to foster healthy critique and discussion. The paper is titled “Communicating Social Change” and will be offered to students at third year level in their undergraduate study. It takes an explicit communication perspective on social change, and examines a range of theoretical and practical approaches, including emerging perspectives of risk communication and communicating for collective action. It focuses on the role of communication in both change management and issues management, and considers the ways in which individuals, interest groups, not-for-profit and corporate organisations, and government groups communicate about social change. Increasingly, scientists have recognised the need for specialised approaches to communicating science, and similar specialised roles exist for specialists in health communication and environmental communication. Biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, for example, are challenging accepted world views about health and the environment and as we communicate about these new technologies we construct new social meanings. At the same time, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have begun to change our means of communication, with implications for information access and participation in both public and private decision making. Such challenges make it increasingly important that we examine the role of communication in managing social change. The paper is open to students completing undergraduate study as part of the Bachelor of Communication Studies and the Bachelor of Management Studies, and can be taken as an elective by other undergraduate students throughout the University of Waikato. It takes a critical perspective of social change and represents a significant move to expand current business and management curricula. It seeks to facilitate new understandings of social change at individual, organisational, and societal levels, with the aim of empowering students to take an active role in local debates, and to engage proactively with change initiatives in the professional roles they will move into on completion of their study. The paper will create opportunities for students to work collaboratively with activist and not-for-profit organisations, as well as corporate organisations, in their final research assignment. The specific attributes that successful students will acquire are:

• an understanding of the key dimensions of social change, especially those associated with sustainability, risk, and well being.

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• the ability to understand, analyse and develop a range of strategies for implementing social change, including large scale public campaigns, as well as activist strategies at grassroots and organisational levels.

• skills in managing social change in a range of organisational settings; for example, government agencies, not-for-profit organisations, pro-bono work, and community groups.

I look forward to an opportunity for this discussion at OIL VI in Wellington in February 2010. Dr Alison Henderson Department of Management Communication Waikato Management School University of Waikato

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‘A Critical Look at the PhD Process’, Deborah Jones

I am director of a management PhD programme. I also dropped out of a PhD in English as a young student, and came back to complete one in management studies, many years later. As a result I am perhaps more than usually tuned in to the personal and political struggles of PhD students. I am keen to discuss the issue of how can or does CMS influence the research agendas of business studies, in relation to the PhD process. This process is a site where research meets teaching. The PhD is the central professionalisation mechanism for academics. It is a crucial site for the legitimation of research topics, epistemologies and methods. It is also a peculiarly intense teaching and learning process, embedded in the increasingly managerialist processes of the university. It therefore also addresses the issue, what can critical perspectives contribute to business school curricula?

In my research generally, I am interested in how gender, race, locations and other kinds of difference can be written into the practices of CMS. This means scrutinising the power relations inherent in both the writing and organising practices of CMS as it is increasingly institutionalised internationally. I see the PhD process as a key site where versions of CMS take local forms, and I am aware that not all our students want to be associated with ‘CMS’, although their research and social concerns could be located within this field. I want to encourage a more diverse range of PhD scholars – more women, more ethnic minorities – while not imposing my one idea of ‘critical work’ upon them. I also want to encourage students to do work that they really care about, rather than to treat the PhD purely instrumentally. This advice goes against the grain of the increasing managerialism of PhD process in institutions, with its focus on aggressive recruitment of international students and on just-in-time completions.

In New Zealand we also sit in a strange neocolonial relationship with CMS scholars in the ‘North’, in that we are required to have at least one ‘international’ examiner for our PhD theses. In effect this usually means an examiner from the United Kingdom or the USA. In our theses and in related publications we are required to either in effect erase location and to seamlessly ‘universalise’ our topics through writing and citation processes, and/or to present New Zealand as a ‘special’ case for international readers. When I first came into my job I was informed that we did not need a PhD programme because our ‘best’ students would go outside New Zealand to study. This attitude has been modified not by a resistant postcolonialism, but by the imperative to recruit from the Asia/ Pacific region to raise university funds. The implication lingers that local PhDs are inherently less adequate, and we are involved in brain drain relationships from both angles.

Points for discussion: In my EOI role I’d like to raise issues about how the PhD process brings up wider issues of the relationships between curriculum – teaching – and research.

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- How can CMS PhD programmes – and teaching programmes more broadly - open doors to a more diverse range of students, and enable them to do the work they really care about?

- How can CMS critically examine neocolonial relationships within its own institutional practices, especially ‘brain drain’ issues? What are the implications of these for the development of CMS in Aotearoa New Zealand?

Assoc. ProfessorDeborah Jones, Victoria Management School, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

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‘Participatory Action Research and working toward resolving gender equity uses in Business Schools’. Jayne Krisjanous

Jayne Krisjanous

School of Marketing and International Business,

Victoria University of Wellington

Email: [email protected]

The following Expression of Interest introduces a team research project currently underway at Victoria University and one which the researcher would enjoy sharing and receiving feedback on through this forum. The team is multi-disciplinary, made up of Deborah Jones (Victoria Management School), Amanda Reilly (School of Accounting and Commercial Law) and Jayne Krisjanous. Carla Rey Vasquez is also on the team as a research assistant, part of the Summer Scholarship Programme.

The submission fits well into the conference theme as the underlying approach of the study is one of learning and involvement together with research participants and answering research questions along the way. In particular a sub-theme for the conference is suggested as “exploration of how critical business school scholars can intentionally create social change”. The researcher would like to bring this project to the forum of that debate and discuss with fellow participants their experiences of research in this area using Participatory Action Research (PAR).

The purpose of the study entitled “Business as usual? Women staff in commerce programmes” is to investigate equity issues involving female staff within business schools. It aims to enrich current insights into the apparent persistence of inequity for female staff in universities, which is well established in the literature and continues, seemingly without resolution. The anticipated site of the study is to be Victoria University’s Commerce Faculty.

The research team plans to use PAR, as a methodology which explores complex organisational issues in a way that mobilises change. Our approach is centred on an iterative cycle of identifying issues, planning and carrying out an intervention, and evaluating the outcomes.

The study design involves several phases to be undertaken over eighteen months. Firstly, an extensive literature review and gathering of secondary data from a variety of sources is underway. This includes analysis of available statistics held by the university staff regarding career pathways, promotions and appointment levels for female staff and as compared to their male equivalents. A substantial amount literature is also available, although little that relates specifically to female staff in business schools.


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The next phase involves focus groups. Focus groups will be divided into general, short term and contract staff and academics. The results of these focus groups and subsequent issues identified will inform the survey tool to be designed and operationalised as the quantitative phase. Following synthesis of the different strands of data, an intervention will be designed and put forward as a proposal for change. Its purpose is to be a positive action that will cause a change in the present status of female staff and go some way to alleviating one or more of the equity issues identified. The change will be implemented, and following a period of time, evaluated through a follow-up survey. The informants to the research are vital participants in the formation and evaluation of the change intervention. It is important that their experiences, opinions and reflections are heard. A final evaluation of the study and report will then be undertaken as the final phase of the study.

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Critical Management Studies and Trade Unions: A Case of a ‘Missing Subject’? Colm McLaughlin – University College Dublin

I come to CMS as a scholar of industrial relations (IR) and something of a novice to CMS. My exposure to CMS has until recently been limited to lively debates with post-structuralist colleagues in the pub. Despite the clear overlap in the motivations underpinning our academic work – to highlight exploitation at work, to challenge the power of dominant and oppressive ideologies, to make some albeit small impact on public policy so as to improve both working conditions and the lived experience of work – we speak a different language. And despite claims by the editors of the recent Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies (Alvesson et al. 2009), that CMS is pluralistic, my own reading is that it has a narrow (though perhaps slowly widening) focus, with certain topics simply not featuring and others dominating the focus of analysis. One of those topics which is rarely mentioned is trade unions, and so I was surprised to see on the call for abstracts for this conference a call for discussion papers on the link between CMS and activist groups such as unions. A search of the CMS Handbook highlights the paucity of trade unions within CMS. In the 560 or so pages, unions are mentioned 13 times, and primarily in two chapters. In comparison, ‘identity’ (which seems something of a fetish within CMS) occurs 338 times.

Granted, unions are only one form of organised resistance and I am not suggesting they should be given a privileged position. And yet over the last 150 years, trade unions have played a significant role in resisting the exploitative power of capitalism. They may have only had limited success, and they can be criticised on a number of fronts, but there is no denying they have played an important part in reducing worker exploitation and advancing the interests of workers. In New Zealand, one only needs to look at what happened to the working conditions and work experience of many (particularly low-paid) workers when unions were sidelined under the Employment Contracts Act 1991.

Perhaps the absence of unions within CMS relates to the labour process theory (LPT) – post-structuralism (PS) schism. PS highlighted the “missing subject” in LPT (and in the wider field of IR). Issues of subjectivity and identity certainly raises challenges for unions and the study of unions, and unions have adapted in recent decades to take greater account of difference within their memberships (and would admit they could do more). The focus of IR study has also widened substantially over the last 30 or so years away from a narrow focus on large, male-dominated, blue-collar industries to investigate the employment relationships in a wide range of work settings and contexts, and to include both individual and collective employment issues.

PS also reminds IR that micro-level resistance is important. But at this level it would be unfair to accuse unions of being inactive. Collinson (1994), for example, in his discussion on resistance, power and subjectivity, bases much of his discussion around an example where the knowledge and strategies of the union official are key to management overturning their decision not to promote a woman on the basis that she was pregnant. However, despite clearly describing the influence of the union official, his argument that resistance through persistence is a more effective subjective orientation than one of resistance through distance, ignores both the identity of the woman as a union member and the power that the union official was able to exercise as a result of being an

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independent voice with the support of a national union office behind him. Individual resistance is an important subject of study, but individuals sometimes need support from a collective in their struggle. And union officials at the workplace level spend much of their time in dealing with individual members. The ‘collective’ and unions, it seems, are ‘missing subjects’ in the CMS literature.

Unitarist management ideology wishes to make unions redundant but it seems incomprehensible that CMS would do the same. So this ‘discussion of interest’ seeks to open up greater dialogue between CMS and the field of IR. Given many academics within these disciplines reside within business schools and often in adjacent offices, it is a well overdue dialogue.

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“Gaining research access to Māori women at executive management levels.” Zanele Ndaba

Zanele Ndaba Victoria Management School Victoria University of Wellington [email protected] For this Organizational, Identity and Locality (OIL) Conference, I will share and discuss my experiences about gaining access to my research participants- Māori women at executive management levels. In my presentation during the Conference, I will share the different strategies that I used to gain access to my research participants. To conduct this research, I had to understand the cultural and political contexts of Māori people and research issues in New Zealand. Yet, when I started my PhD journey and I informed people about my research topic, questions were asked about “how will you manage to find your research participants”? Or “why are you choosing to conduct research on such a sensitive area”? Or the comment would just be “this is a difficult area to study in New Zealand”. These comments illustrate the perceived difficulties and sensitivity around indigenous access and research. As a black woman from South Africa, I understood the sentiments that were articulated by these individuals, as previous research on indigenous people did not portray them in a positive light. As an indigenous woman researcher, I felt that I had a duty to ensure that my research was within the cultural context of Māori people. I wish to use the Conference forum to discuss my research experiences about gaining access to Māori women at executive management levels, and hope that will contribute to improved access for others.

This issue of access to indigenous participants was a vital factor in my wider Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) research. Currently, my PhD work concentrates on the intersection of gender and race, using both New Zealand and South Africa as case studies. I examine the experiences of indigenous women who occupy executive management roles in the European / white / Pākehā owned organizations, employing more than 50 people. I am interested in the organizations that have influence, drive policy issues, are the biggest employers, and those that have the capacity to implement changes within their internal respective branches or departments as well as having the effect on the economies of both New Zealand and South Africa. Within such organizations, I explore the experiences of indigenous women entering the executive management levels through promotion. I attempt to understand issues that affect their identities of being both a woman and indigenous person. I would like to understand how the combination of gender and race influence promotion to executive management levels. Also, I would like to identify the strategies these indigenous women implemented to enhance their opportunities to occupy their current executive management roles. These experiences occur as a consequence of belonging to both economically disadvantaged groups, women and indigenous. The research findings will, hopefully, provide an insight on how indigenous women move into senior management positions in these organizations, particularly in New Zealand and South Africa.

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I am interested in both the practical and theoretical viewpoint to improve the status of indigenous women, as they are one of the most marginalized groups. This research will also recommend practical issues to both business and academia on how to progress with the research to the next stage, post my PhD programme. From the business side, I hope to provide inputs to policy makers and Chief Executive Officers on how to incorporate indigenous women into executive management roles, based on the results of the research. For the academia, I hope to encourage similar research and forums across the globe, as well as extend the research to other countries, such as Australia. The research will, hopefully, add to the collaboration of researchers amongst different countries on similar topics to improve the status of indigenous women at executive management levels. Through this research project, I hope to establish opinions, views and alliances with both researchers and practitioners by establishing forums of debate or presentations towards the last stages of my research. Hopefully, these forums will create networks for both academic and practitioners of similar interests. Through this research, I attempt to bridge the gap between research and practice by understanding the problem from both points of views.

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‘Expression of Interest.’ Huong Nguyen

I would like to attend the 2009 OIL conference as a discussant. I am approaching the topic from a micro-level observation which emerges from my teaching experience in New Zealand.

I think one way critical management studies (CMS) can initiate social change is to first change the way new generations of students approach thinking and problem solving. Critical management lecturers should be encouraged to introduce students to a variety of texts reflecting different viewpoints. There are under-graduate courses that are based solely on one text book, which students may interpret as the bible. This leads students to accept what text books say rather than challenge it. Unfortunately, many times our text books come from outside the country, with theories that may be more relevant overseas. New Zealand is unique because of its historical and social circumstances. Thus, text books from elsewhere may not always be relevant. In dealing with the lack of text books written by New Zealanders and about New Zealand, students should be encouraged to look for examples of the peculiarities of New Zealand. Comparing and contrasting these with what is written in text books by international scholars will help students understand New Zealand better. At the same time, their knowledge of international practices will be improved. With a double understanding of international and domestic circumstances, students will be more informed about both theories and practices. A more thoroughly educated future workforce will stand a better chance of creating social changes. If students just learn what is already done in other countries from text books, they may just reinvent the wheel of knowledge. In such a way New Zealand will not be able to distinguish itself from many other countries. If, however, students are critical of their understanding of their home country and international practices, they will understand that particular circumstances require particular solutions. Their ability to think differently for New Zealand will improve. This could sound a little simple, but I believe by changing the way students are educated, business schools will groom new thinkers for New Zealand who can make a difference to the society.

Lecturers should evaluate necessary changes to education by simply collecting reflections from students. In many New Zealand universities, it is common practice for teaching evaluations to be form-based and conducted only 5 minutes before the end of the course. This practice does not leave much room and time for students to write meaningful comments. One way to overcome this and get real feedback is to ask them to write a reflection assignment as part of the course assessments/requirements. Knowing what should have been done or needs to be done in the future to cater for academic needs is a way to contribute to the sustainability of academic courses.

These are just my thoughts about how the teaching in business schools can influence students’ way of thinking. I also have other thoughts from my research which I plan to bring up at the conference.

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‘Not everything that can be counted counts.’ Judith K. Pringle ‘Not everything that can be counted counts18

Judith K. Pringle .’

Auckland University of Technology [email protected] “ . . . when we, as academics, plead powerlessness in choosing what we research . . .

because of incentive and reward systems. . . ,we dehumanize our careers and our lives.” (Rynes, Editor-in-Chief, Academy of Management Journal 2007 cited in Adler and Harzing, 2009, p.84)

Public-based research funding (PBRF) is the control mechanism for knowledge and creativity in our workplaces. It represents a clear example of a tight ‘inequality regime’ (Acker, 2006). In this short piece I quote heavily from Adler and Harzing’s excellent article (2009, published in a top ranked journal) because of Harzing’s open research on ranking systems. How refreshing that she now writes as a critic.

PBRF perpetuates the domination of the ruling classes in ways parallel to the feudal lords. Such rating schemes create narrow bounds of legitimacy pushing critical thought beyond the margins, to the outer paddocks. Historically, “the purpose of university-based scholarship was to ask important questions in rigorous ways so that the results could reliably guide society and future research” (Adler and Harzing, 2009, p.92). But the “very health and vibrancy of the field are at stake” (2009, p.72) and I would add, the health and vibrancy of the academic players- us. I fear for our loss of sanity and sense of perspective.

Auditing practices are replacing generative and even thoughtful evaluative feedback. The scourge of auditing is spreading beyond research outputs to business schools, MBAs and even Universities themselves. Will countries be next?

Not only is the arbitrary nature of ranking questionable but the process generates individualised competitive and time-wasting strategies, noted by Lawrence, a journal editor. “[S]cientists are increasingly desperate to publish in a few top journals and are wasting time and energy manipulating their manuscripts and courting editors. As a result, the objective presentation of work, the accessibility of articles, and the quality of research itself are being compromised.” (2003 cited in Adler and Harzing, 2009, p.73)

Why are journal articles chosen as the holy grail when book chapters (and books) offer a length that allows more considered reflections and analysis in a less formulaic structure?

18 “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted” —Albert Einstein (cited in Adler and Harzing, 2009, p.72).


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Tight structures to academic writing produce isomorphic responses and dampen creativity.

Ranked journals being only in English presented another form of colonial rule. We are blessed to be born in an English-speaking country and to not have to deal with that double jeopardy. Additionally we have noted at the very genesis of OIL the privileging of US and Euro-centric writings over ‘international’ [read marginal].

The capitalist notions of productivity are pervading academe- more is better; I have experienced exhortations to increase productivity by 10% a year. Is that humanly possible over a working life? Rather I treasure the approach from an Australian colleague, (Sinclair, 2009), “I’m not sure that the world needs much more writing from me. I want to resist the temptation to just sort of feel as though I need to keep churning stuff out”.

Gendered nature of academic ranking systems for publication has been known for some time (Wennerås and Wold, 1997), yet are steadfastly ignored. Yet as Özbilgin notes, “the greatest inequality of all is the intergenerational inequality in these systems. The professoriate in business schools hold newcomers to standards that the professors would not have met had they been held to them when they were junior scholars” (2009, p. 115).

The question remains why our leaders in the professoriate conform and roll over and submit while espousing discontent and scepticism in the outcomes of ranking research. As a noisy participant observer on our own Faculty research committee I speculate that it may be linked to the male sex-gene. Does the inherent drive to be viewed positively in the pecking order overturn logic and ethical responses? My comments may be too general for Özbilgin more moderately asks, “Why the rankings should be considered part and parcel of a broader game of White masculine domination that excludes research that matters?” (2009, p.113).

Questions to trouble us

How can we sub-vert and re-verse the strait jacket of PBRF (and its cousins) to open up knowledge creation and enhance intellectual freedom?

“What is our scholarship actually contributing?” (Adler and Harzing, 2009, p.92)

Why do we valorise consider knowledge in journals that are published at least two years after submission, in an electronic age?

How do we create “environments that support research that matters” (Adler and Harzing, 2009, p.91)

How can we be rewarded for being the critic and conscience of society?

References

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ACKER, Joan (2006) Inequality regimes: Gender, class and race in organizations.

Gender and Society, 20, (4), 441–464.

ADLER, Nancy J. and HARZING, Anne-Will (2009). When knowledge wins: Transcending the sense and nonsense of academic rankings. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8, (1), 72–95.

ÖZBILGIN, Mustafa F. (2009). From journal rankings to making sense of the world. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8, (1), 113–121.

Wennerås, Christine and Wold, Agnes (1997). Nepotism and sexism in peer-review. Nature, 387, May: 341-343.

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‘Expression of Interest.’ Suze Wilson

I am a first year PhD student. My main area of interest is leadership, which I am intending to analyse from a Foucauldian perspective. I am thus quite familiar with both the mainstream leadership literature and the small body of critical literature on leadership. I also have more than 20 years experience as a practitioner, mostly in senior positions. I have worked in student unions and trade unions, and well as in government, SOE and private sector settings. This has given me a depth of understanding of the realities facing organisational actors in the current era.

While I am particularly interested in any discussion that may arise on critical perspectives on leadership, I believe that I may be able to make a wider contribution because of my grasp of CMS perspectives generally and because of my experience in working in organisations at a senior level. Within the list of potential topics there are three where I think I may be able to contribute ideas: the potential contributions CMS could make to both local debates and social change, and how CMS could work with unions and NGO’s. In each of these areas my understanding of practitioner perspectives could potentially assist in identifying practical strategies to build connections. I would also hope that participating in such a discussion would assist me to deepen my appreciation of the theoretical issues involved.

The other topics on the agenda are also of interest to me as I hope to secure an academic job on completion of my degree. Understanding how CMS scholars intend to influence business school curricula, provide leadership on strategic themes, influence research agendas, critique managerialist practices within universities and build new interdisciplinary relationships would all be extremely useful in helping me better understand the place of CMS scholars within business schools.

Finally, attending this event would be an excellent opportunity for me to meet CMS scholars from other NZ universities and to benefit from the informal discussion and networking that occurs at events such as this.

organization, identity and locality (oil) vi: critical ...cprichar/oil proceedings 29-01-10...

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