The management field has been subdued by the cold principles of behaviorism on one hand, and the calculating "laws" of Chicago school economics on the other, since its very beginning. It seems that ideas of "efficiency" and a bottom-line mentality have blended in perfectly with the notion that observable behavior can be monitored, analyzed, and consequently changed towards "optimal performance" or a "norm," any departure from which signifies a dangerous aberration to be nipped in the bud.
In the presence of this mainstream outlook, the majority of management scholars uncritically take up the studies began by others, explicitly anti-philosophical researchers mesmerized by the "ideal" of productivity at any cost, and continue developing them without perceiving the need to stop and take into consideration the bigger picture, the world beyond the organization, its supply chain, or competitors. Moreover, the even less visible aspects of the environment we all share, such as social norms and conventions, and cultural specificities, remain even more hidden. The socioeconomic and political structure of the West is considered as a given, even by foreign scholars, and instead of searching for possible alternatives, they appear to be perfectly content with adapting to it, as opposed to looking to integrate the idiosyncrasies of their own milieus into the current system, or otherwise subvert it in even more radical ways.
To say that there are no attempts to do this out there, would be a lie - there exists a branch of management science, critical management, which tries to unmask these situational factors we often take for granted, and which seeks to apply the philosophies of critical theory and postmodernism in order to constructively critique the shortcomings of the present order of things, but I argue that a step further is gravely needed in order to put these criticisms on the radar not just of the academic community, but also of the business world.
Inspired by the radical investigations begun by Michel Foucault in the 1960's, and brought to tremendous depths by Judith Butler in the 1990's, which today comprise the ever growing literature of queer theory, I argue for the urgency for a new approach to management, namely Queer Management, which sees every business transaction and every company operation as an act, a performance, in which how we want to present ourselves and how we actually feel and what we suppress, may not, and most often do not coincide. Queer management looks at today's world marked by the "ideals" of efficiency, productivity, performance, and agility mentioned above, and notes that even though they are so widely spread in theory, their applications are far less promising, and sometimes even backfiring. Queer Management sees that as a proof that textbook examples of the perfect alignment of wants and their fulfillment are just that - theory-based possibilities that don't necessary come true in the messy reality of a humanity which is not always, if ever, rational, as behaviorists want us to believe.
On the contrary - if we imagine that the world economy starts out as a giant bus with empty seats and many stops ahead, it is naive, at best, to think that each newcomer will fill the first available spot, so there will be no deficiencies and no gaps in this arrangement. No, some passenger prefer to sit way in the back, away from everyone, so they can read their book or listen to their music in peace, whereas others like it better when they stand in the very front of the bus and talk to the driver. Still others like the middle better. Some need a lot of room, others are happy with as little as possible. Because of these endless differences, the bus-metaphor underscores one of the fundamental ideas of queer management - looking for a logic behind many of the events in the business world is bound to be a daunting and fruitless task, which, however, doesn't mean that we shouldn't look for the reasons behind these happenings.
In the presence of this mainstream outlook, the majority of management scholars uncritically take up the studies began by others, explicitly anti-philosophical researchers mesmerized by the "ideal" of productivity at any cost, and continue developing them without perceiving the need to stop and take into consideration the bigger picture, the world beyond the organization, its supply chain, or competitors. Moreover, the even less visible aspects of the environment we all share, such as social norms and conventions, and cultural specificities, remain even more hidden. The socioeconomic and political structure of the West is considered as a given, even by foreign scholars, and instead of searching for possible alternatives, they appear to be perfectly content with adapting to it, as opposed to looking to integrate the idiosyncrasies of their own milieus into the current system, or otherwise subvert it in even more radical ways.
To say that there are no attempts to do this out there, would be a lie - there exists a branch of management science, critical management, which tries to unmask these situational factors we often take for granted, and which seeks to apply the philosophies of critical theory and postmodernism in order to constructively critique the shortcomings of the present order of things, but I argue that a step further is gravely needed in order to put these criticisms on the radar not just of the academic community, but also of the business world.
Inspired by the radical investigations begun by Michel Foucault in the 1960's, and brought to tremendous depths by Judith Butler in the 1990's, which today comprise the ever growing literature of queer theory, I argue for the urgency for a new approach to management, namely Queer Management, which sees every business transaction and every company operation as an act, a performance, in which how we want to present ourselves and how we actually feel and what we suppress, may not, and most often do not coincide. Queer management looks at today's world marked by the "ideals" of efficiency, productivity, performance, and agility mentioned above, and notes that even though they are so widely spread in theory, their applications are far less promising, and sometimes even backfiring. Queer Management sees that as a proof that textbook examples of the perfect alignment of wants and their fulfillment are just that - theory-based possibilities that don't necessary come true in the messy reality of a humanity which is not always, if ever, rational, as behaviorists want us to believe.
On the contrary - if we imagine that the world economy starts out as a giant bus with empty seats and many stops ahead, it is naive, at best, to think that each newcomer will fill the first available spot, so there will be no deficiencies and no gaps in this arrangement. No, some passenger prefer to sit way in the back, away from everyone, so they can read their book or listen to their music in peace, whereas others like it better when they stand in the very front of the bus and talk to the driver. Still others like the middle better. Some need a lot of room, others are happy with as little as possible. Because of these endless differences, the bus-metaphor underscores one of the fundamental ideas of queer management - looking for a logic behind many of the events in the business world is bound to be a daunting and fruitless task, which, however, doesn't mean that we shouldn't look for the reasons behind these happenings.
