Michał Zawadzki

Humanistic problems of management discourse, education and public sphere in Poland

The purpose of this article is to analyze whys and wherefores of disappearance of the public sphere in Poland: processes of instrumentalization of culture, education and humanities, which are connected with domination of consumerism and economism in public life, and also with scientism and positivism in management sciences and pedagogy. The article has a form of a review essay about the book “What kind of culture? What kind of discourse? Public sphere and disputes about education, pedagogy and management” (edited by Monika Jaworska-Witkowska).

Many recent publications hold a dark view of contemporary business administration and its context. The current state of capitalism and corporate management is described as zombie (Harman, 2009), ghostly (Roy, 2014) or, in the most benign appraisal, sick but not dying (Tomlinson, 2010).  At the same time, business schools, textbooks and popular management books remain wedded to a reductive view of social interactions, drawing inspiration as well as authority from a century of socioeconomic triumph as well as from the rigid definitions of management relations as handed down by the founding figures of the discipline. Drawing inspiration from Walter Benjamin’s (1969) refiguring of Charles Baudelaire’s flâneur, we revisit the haunted spaces of popular management books, using the situationist method of dérive to invoke the ghosts of foundational thinkers for  inspiration and, possibly, exorcism. The aim of this excursion is to propose strategies for communication about some old ideas of management which still can be regarded as vital, even though the contemporary forms may have become morbid (Fleming, 2017). 

Fashionable, but dangerous nonsense. Management gurus from a critical perspective

The objective of the article is a critical diagnosis of the hazards which may result from being deluded by universal prescriptions for success which are smuggled by management gurus. ‘Corporate culturism’ as an example of a management panacea and corporatization of higher education as a main power for guru’s industry were analysed in detail.