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Teaching organizational power and politics through a critical pedagogical approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Fernanda Duarte
Fernanda Duarte*
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer, Organisation Studies, School of Management, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, Australia
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Abstract

Re-visiting the ideas of some key educational thinkers and critical management theorists, this paper re-affirms the need for a critical pedagogy of organizational power and politics to foster deeper levels of reflection and ethical attitudes among undergraduate management students. While prescriptive pedagogical approaches can impart knowledge that may be useful to future managers, they often encourage a shallow and instrumental view of power in which profits are placed above ethics, and expediency above morality. As argued here, a critical pedagogy will encourage a more productive analysis of power-related phenomena in organizations, and will nurture attitudes and behaviours that can humanize management practice. The first part of the paper examines the key theoretical concepts of the proposed approach, the second discusses a set of themes emerging from a critical analysis of organizational power and politics in a management subject, and the third discusses common challenges encountered by academics committed to critical approaches.

Keywords

powerpoliticscritical pedagogyreflectiontransformative education
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 16 , Issue 5 , November 2010 , pp. 715 - 726
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2010

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