City Research Online

Abstract

The concept of critical performativity–efforts to make critical research more relevant for groups outside academia and develop and communicate action-relevant critical insights with some potential effect–has received considerable interest. Much of this has focused on debates about the core concept and principles. This paper argues for the need to “do”–more than talk about–critical performativity and reports an intervention: a chronicle in a major newspaper about anxiety-driven, rule-bound public organizations and follow-up work in the form of a series of lectures to groups signalling responsiveness to the message. Some lessons and reflections are offered. Arguably critical studies can have a beneficial impact on the practices of managers and other employees, but this calls for researchers being more straightforward, deviating from academics’ inclinations of being cautious, mainly addressing colleagues and remote from experiences and concerns of organizational practitioners. Developing and effectively communicating relevant key insights is here crucial.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Publisher Keywords:	Critical, management, performativity
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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