Abstract

GOLDMAN, Geoff A.. Is it worthwhile pursuing critical management studies in South Africa?. Acta Commer. [online]. 2016, vol.16, n.2, pp.204-240. ISSN 1684-1999.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ac.v16i2.419.

Since the so-called paradigm wars of the 1980s and 1990s, many social sciences, including business management, have entered a state of methodological tolerance where positivists and anti-positivists are involved in an uneasy truce. The aftermath of these paradigm wars have highlighted the necessity for a multi-paradigmatic approach to social sciences. Against this backdrop, critical management studies (CMS) has made its way into the business-management discourse in the early 1990s. However, in South Africa, there seems to be a marked lack of a coherent body of knowledge on and awareness amongst business-management academics of CMS. Based on this, Chapter 7 sets out both to establish the level of familiarity amongst businessmanagement scholars regarding CMS and to assess the prevailing climate in the domain of business management. By means of a two-stage qualitative survey, data were firstly gathered regarding the level of familiarity with CMS from 88 senior South African academics at 16 higher-education institutions. In stage two of the qualitative survey, data were solicited from 21 senior academics at 13 higher-education institutions. This data were subject to content analysis, employing Creswell's (2003) coding principles. Findings revealed that, although individual academics were open to exploring a paradigm such as CMS, the paradigmatic dominance of the positivist tradition in South Africa has resulted in institutional challenges that hinder a coherent effort to expand CMS as an emergent paradigm in South Africa.

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