Other possibilities? The contribution to management education of alternative organizations

Abstract

Business education tends to reinforce the neo-liberal view that the best, perhaps the only desirable model of organization is the managed corporation. Furthermore, in competing to attract students, business schools frequently stress that lucrative careers and personal success can be achieved through management qualifications. All this arguably encourages the competitive and individualistic pursuit of wealth, status and power that reflects the dominant values underpinning much of contemporary western society. Our article suggests an antidote to these developments by proposing the more prominent study of `alternative organizations' within business schools. Alternative organizations pursue very different ends, in different ways from mainstream business corporations, so studying them has the potential to stimulate debate and raise questions about the individualistic and instrumental attitudes implicit in much business education and research. Importantly, the study of alternative organization also suggests a range of possibilities for radically rethinking organization(s)—including business schools—and the place of managers, along with others, within them.