Critical Management Studies: Introducing A New Perspective

Abstract

The Critical Management Studies, as an emerging perspective and research topic in management, has helped scholars to investigate management topics and issues with the perspective of Critical Theory of Frankfurt School. The Critical Theory itself is a synthesis of philosophy and social science which pioneered by several german philosophers in the beginning of 20th century. Although this perspective regained its relevancy and popularity recently, in Indonesia, the Critical Management Studies is quite alien and rarely be employed as a discussion topic or a research perspective. Therefore, in this study we want to offer Critical Management Studies to be an important alternative and it will be very relevant to the development of management theory and research in Indonesia. We conduct a literature-based research and our results are appeared in four themes: (1) The explanation about the birth and the thought of Frankfurt School thinkers, (2) The description about the development of Critical Management Studies, (3) The critiques against Critical Management Studies from the mainstream management thought, (4) The evaluatiion of the concept of  Critical Management Studies from the researchers own perspective. We advise several potentialities and prospect for implementation of Critical Management Studies in the context of management theory development and research practice in Indonesia. However, as a conceptual study further effort still needed to apply this perspective.