Power relations and critical management studies

Control in organizations has long been a topic of interest for researchers and practitioners, who generally recognize that control in some form is inescapable. In the managerial debate, the concept of control is normally used in broad, non-discriminating way to identify diverse ideologies and practices that have been developed to organize productive activity. Managerial interest in control mechanisms stems from their use as a means of securing the objectives attributed to organizations by their most influential stakeholders usually, owners, managers and administrators. The concepts of “control” and “power relations” have been a regular subject of analysis in Critical Management Studies (CMS) literature over the past twenty years (Willmott, 2005; Ezzamel et al., 2001). In the last years, our research group has explored the diversity of topics, views and perspectives focused on the power relations and control from a CMS perspective. The main goal of our studies is to interpret the organizational design - from organizational change to IS development, from diversity management to identity regulation - in the perspective of power and control, by analysing both the managerial discourses and the work practices in a critical view.