This module will explore more advanced management and organisational theory to facilitate students' examination of the challenges that face managers in contemporary organisations. As well as considering these challenges from a mainstream managerial perspective, the module will also draw on the perspective of critical management studies as a means of providing an alternative viewpoint on contemporary management issues. Indicative areas to be covered may include:
• Identity in organisations and how the construction and performance of it requires managers to cope with existential challenges around anxiety and freedom.
• The uses and abuses of managerial power and the inequality and insecurity that comes with it.
• Neoliberal capitalism and its various consequences for organisational life.
• Pressures to make organisations more sustainable, socially responsible, equal, diverse, and fair.
• Organisational cultures based on entrepreneurialism.
• The performance of gender in organisations.
• New organisational forms and their emphasis on Speed.
• The intensification of the control of Bodies, Spaces, and Time in contemporary organisations.
Total contact hours: 21
Private study hours: 129
Total study hours: 150
Main assessment methods:
Examination, 2 hours (60%)
Essay 1 (1000 words) (20%)
Essay 2 (1000 words) (20%)
Reassessment method:
100% exam
Hancock, P. and Spicer, A. eds., 2009. Understanding corporate life. London: Sage.
Dyer, S., Humphries, M., Fitzgibbons, D. and Hurd, F., 2014. Understanding management critically: A student text. London: Sage.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes:
- critically evaluate advanced theories of management;
- critically evaluate contemporary management practices and organisation structures;
- critically assess managerial responses to contemporary organisational challenges
- critically assess the relevance of critical management studies to our knowledge of management and organisations;
- critically evaluate the dynamics of power and identity as they shape the experiences of managers in contemporary organisations.
The intended generic learning outcomes:
- critically assess and evaluate the impact of contemporary problems like "sustainability" on management and organisations;
- demonstrate developed analytical skills by connecting advanced theories of management to contemporary management situations and concerns;
- demonstrate enhanced ability to write coherently and critically;
- demonstrate enhanced ability to draw on social science concepts and theories and to articulate complex arguments;
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