Critical management education typically assumes that management courses that emphasize critical reflection—that is, courses that critique problematic systems and structures, and ask students to dialogue about and actively reflect upon these critiques—will foster student transformation. In contrast, critical theory typically suggests that transformation requires praxis, that is, critical reflection plus practical action where students enact their new knowledge in their everyday lives. We empirically test these assumptions by measuring student transformation in management classes that emphasize critical reflection and in other (...) classes that emphasize praxis. We find no significant differences in three measures of student transformation in classes where only critical reflection is emphasized, but significant differences in all three measures when praxis is emphasized. In a content analysis of student praxis assignments, we find further evidence of the link between praxis and student transformation. Specifically, the majority of students value praxis, describe changes in their self-understanding/consciousness thanks to assignments that emphasize praxis, and plan to continue new behaviors that address concerns raised by critiques of problematic systems and structures. Finally, we find that the greater a student’s self-described effect of praxis, the greater that student’s transformation. Taken together, the results suggest that the practical application dimension of praxis is a key “missing ingredient” in the teaching of business ethics as students move from critically reflecting on ethical issues, to actually becoming transformed by their knowledge. (shrink)

Introduction: Foucault and political philosophy -- Marx: antinormative critique -- Lenin: the invention of party governmentality -- Althusser: the failure to denormativise Marxism -- Deleuze: denormativisation as norm -- Rorty: relativising normativity -- Honneth: the poverty of critical theory -- Geuss: the paradox of realism -- Foucault: the lure of neoliberalism -- Conclusion: What now?

The purpose of this article is to help educators and managers learn about a variety of win—win solutions to problems with ethical dimensions. The hope is that the larger the variety of win-win solutions we can consider, the higher the probability that we can find at least one that satisfies both ethical and material concerns. This article is motivated by the experiences of managers who have found that they need win-win solutions because it is very difficult to effectively advocate ethical (...) solutions to problems that lose money or do not make money for their organizations. The purpose of the article is not to build theory or a theoretical taxonomy of winwin solutions, but to gather from eclectic theoretical and applied sources a variety of win-win solutions that can help solve problems with ethical dimensions. Examples of the types of win—win solutions are illustrated. Ethical problems with win—win solutions are also considered. (shrink)

It is well established within the ethics and institutional theory literatures that institutions can have conflicting logics with ethical dimensions and that there are solutions to the conflicts. Within institutional, ethics, and change leadership theory, quantitative, mixture solutions such as distributive solutions have been frequently considered. The ethics, institutional, and change leadership theory literatures have recognized that there are qualitative transformational solutions that are different than quantitative mixture solutions. However and for the most part, with the notable exception of the (...) Thornton et al. :801–843, 2012) typology of solutions, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered typologies of transformational solutions. And more specifically with respect to this article, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered different types of transformational solutions to institutional logic conflicts with ethical dimensions. This article: develops a typology of transformational solutions; applies the typology with historical examples of conflicting institutional ethics logics within factory, cultural, and institutional social change leadership cases; and, considers practical and theoretical implications for institutional ethics change leadership for achieving and/or resisting different types of transformational solutions. (shrink)