Management Learning

In this article, we use discursive qualitative interviews to explore identity challenges and opportunities experienced by younger academics in the business school environment. We frame identity construction and the influence of age as a reflexive and subjective process. We establish links between identity study and critical reflexivity and advocate for their benefits in supporting young academics in unpacking and navigating their fragile academic identities. Our analysis generates important insights into the sense-making process, where identity norms and definitions of young academics influence their engagement in shaping their identity and the extent to which they achieve confidence and credibility. Where internal and external perceptions of required identities were problematic, imposter syndrome arose, presented as accounts of marginalisation. We position the interplay of identity regulation and identity work as shaping the consequences of what were sometimes precarious outcomes of self-identity. Alongside this conceptual contribution, we provide practical avenues for support initiatives that may help young academics build legitimacy and overcome perceptions of marginalisation.

Presenting the backstage story of a non-traditional qualitative research project, I illustrate how a creative approach can stimulate participant dialogue and encourage researcher reflexivity. Working with an award-winning playwright and the staff and volunteers at a community garden, I explored the meanings of connections between people and nature, and how these connections impact well-being, through a collaborative performance ethnography. The aim of the study is to stimulate discourse around the role of community gardens in enacting social and environmental change for well-being. This article is an exploration of how the creative approach we adopted, incorporating arts-based inquiry and performance as method, contributed to every aspect of the research process. First, it facilitated relaxed communications with the members of the community organisation who participated. Their interest was immediately piqued by the idea of being involved in the development of a play, which led to relaxed, playful discussion. Second, the creative approach provided new perspectives on the collection and analysis of data. It expanded my thinking, in developing my methodological approach to the research and in working towards a radical reflexivity. I suggest that creative approaches are applicable to many areas of organisational research.

Business schools have played a significant role in creating and sustaining many of today’s grand challenges, including income inequality, the gig economy and climate change. Yet calls for change go unanswered. With a critical perspective on philanthropy, an understanding of power and historical reflexivity, this article helps develop our understanding of why business schools are so deeply rooted in managerialism and so resistant to change. Through archival research, I show how the Ford Foundation used its money and influence in the 1950s to embed a managerialist ideology in American business schools as part of its efforts to sustain and strengthen the capitalist system. Through its outward face of objectivity and neutrality, combined with targeted support of specific schools, individuals and research, the Ford Foundation went beyond shaping the structure and curriculum of business schools to shaping the ideology and identities of management scholars. The more that we, as business academics, understand the full histories of our own institutions and the often hidden or ignored sources of power that played a role in their development, the easier it will be to change business schools in ways that fit our current contexts and support our current and future needs.

Can spiritual practice encourage transformative learning? In this article, we unpack how spiritual practices from the Buddhist tradition—mindfulness—and the Quaker tradition—discernment—encourage the attainment of moral reflexivity and the capacity to transform self in individual and relational organizational contexts, respectively. We also show how moral reflexivity and self-transformation are mutually reinforcing and promote a transformational cycle of management learning. We propose that “mindful reflexivity”, a foundational model of spiritually informed moral reflexivity, can contribute to new ways of management learning through its context sensitivity and ethical orientation to foster the kinds of reflexivity needed for responsible management. Our article concludes with implications for management learning theory and practice, and we offer pathways for future research.

In this article, we advocate for a more balanced approach to the study of the past in management and organization studies. We define organizational mnemonics as a broader field of inquiry focused on theorizing the past as an integral part of organizational life, including three major epistemic communities—that is, functionalist, interpretive, and critical. We contend that much of organizational mnemonics research has been dominated by functionalism, at the expense of other approaches. To remediate this situation, we first characterize organizational mnemonics’ core epistemic communities. Second, we look at the boundary work at the interstices of these communities to explore possibilities of dialogue among them. We argue that the future of the study of the past in organizations should acknowledge different perspectives, the intersections among them, and make a conscientious effort to maintain diversity of scholarship in the field.