AIMS

While global warming stimulates debate on how to make organizations greener, the overheating of the world economy urges us to reconsider the ways in which we conceive management and organizing practices both as researchers and teachers. Exploitation as we know it may be behind us, but does this entail ideating a revolution to prepare a brighter future? Or are we simply facing a time of evolution? To put it more simply: is it time to unplug an overheating system and start from scratch, or can we still fix management and organizing practices? The path between an abstract scientism disconnected from reality and our subjection to short-term managerial interests is a narrow one. Both criticisms offer insight into our responsibility as researchers and teachers in the world as it is today. They can help us to redefine our connection with managerial practices and define the path we can follow to play a part in securing a brighter future.
To contribute to this overarching debate, we have invited two preeminent scholars to stretch boundaries and set the agenda for forthcoming research and teaching. Stewart Clegg (University of Technology, Sydney) and William H. Starbuck (University of Oregon) disclose their thoughts on the misconceptions in which we have been trapped and the challenges we have to face in order to reinvent management. Bill and Stewart have both had incredible careers. They have been influencing research in organization and management for several decades through their prolific publications, communication and engagement with practice. They are also both closely connected to M@n@gement. Bill participated in the first advisory committee of the journal. Stewart is currently one of the editors of M@n@gement and very actively involved in it, with all the passion he shows towards the many projects in which he participates.
Both Bill and Stewart are also very critical of what is being done in the field of management in terms of teaching, research and the way we do or do not engage with practice. They have still not lost faith, however, and they both answered my questions and generously offered their views on what the narrow path towards a brighter future in organizing practices could be. This confrontation of an advocate of skeptical reflection and an advocate of incremental efforts was initiated in the form of a moderated conversation at the 2010 EGOS colloquium (video available online at http://www.management-aims.com/, and was then developed into the present dialogic essay. This exchange, sometimes a confrontation, sometimes a convergent dialogue, inaugurates our “Unplugged” series, in which we give world-class scholars a wild card to share their own perspective on novel ways in which to conceive of management today.