Affective and Effective Truths: Rhetoric, Normativity and Critical Management Studies

Parker, Simon; Racz, Marton

Abstract

The buzz of Brexit and Trump brought with it a new Oxford English Dictionary word of the year: ‘post-truth’. Defined as ‘denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2018), the notion of post-truth has ridden the wave of anti-expert discourse in Europe and the USA. As expected, the academic community, the metropolitan intelligentsia, those holding onto technocratic ideas of politics—and yes, some critical management scholars too, were up in arms against alternative facts within their own social media and journalistic bubbles. In this paper, we take the opportunity to raise a note of caution to our critical kin and provocatively ask: Is not the goal of critical management studies (CMS) to contest the idea that we live in a world of hard facts? If this is the case, our motivation for ‘speaking out’ stems from our concerns as to how to respond to a manager, student, Brexit-backer, or Trump-supporter if they confront us as CMS academics with what is their own peek behind the power dynamics of science, economics and management

Citation

Parker, S., & Racz, M. (2020). Affective and Effective Truths: Rhetoric, Normativity and Critical Management Studies. Organization, 27(3), 454-465 . https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508419855717

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 19, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jun 26, 2019
• Publication Date: May 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jun 24, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 25, 2019
• Journal: Organization
• Print ISSN: 1350-5084
• Electronic ISSN: 1461-7323
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 454-465
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508419855717
• Keywords: Management of Technology and Innovation; Strategy and Management; General Business, Management and Accounting
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2224162
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1350508419855717