Reconstituting the centrality of power in management and organization studies

Chris Carter University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom Abstract This dialogue engages in some reflection on the role of power in management and organization studies, prompted by the publication of the second edition of Frameworks of Power, by Stewart R. Clegg (2023). The dialogue includes contributions by Chris Carter, Richard Badham and Andrea Whittle and some thoughts in response by Stewart Clegg. The dialogue begins with an overview by Chris Carter, and then the further contributions both denounce the 'forgetting of power' in current views of organizational phenomena—such as leadership, team behaviour and resilience—in which differences in interests and in freedom of choice seem to be missing in action. Andrea Whittle first introduces the relationship between power and leadership, as a neglected topic, followed by Richard Badham, recalling lessons from the past that should not be forgotten. Reflecting on the dialogue, Stewart Clegg responds by relating power's salient dimensions and types to the model of circuits of power and calls for a resuscitation of some classically European management and organization theory ways of thinking about power and democracy. Keywords: circuits of power, democracy, dimensions of power, future-making, leadership, organizations, power relations Absences Over the past 30 years, management and organization studies' theory has expanded considerably, becoming more sophisticated in its theoretical and methodological range. Yet, it often sidesteps crucial aspects of power and politics. Given the undeniable and urgent presence of power and politics in everyday organizational life, this oversight is surprising. Whether it is a profitable business school facing budget cuts from the central university in which it is situated, a government slashing arts' spending to balance the books, a significant supermarket chain squeezing the margins on one of its suppliers, or wealthy polluting countries blocking strong measures to mitigate climate change, these are all demonstrations of power and politics. Power creates winners and losers. Within the broad canon of organization and management theory, there are researchers addressing these issues, but it is rarely the go-to explanation. Instead, our research often fails to confront issues of power and politics directly. As Hardy Pettigrew 1972). Their contributions remain relevant 50 years after their publication. Antecedents This new generation of scholars mirrored developments within social science's central boulevards of theorizing, which were busily escaping Parsons' intellectual straitjacket. Giddens (1971) rediscovered the sociological classics, examining the implications of Marx, Weber and Durkheim for modern society. In particular, he was acutely aware of how social structures reproduce themselves. The community power debates emanating from North America provided significant conceptual and empirical contributions. Most notably, Bachrach Hodgson 2003; Knights et al. 1994; Knights Knights O'Doherty Clegg's (1989/2023) work is no different. His framework is a synthesis, in the same way as is Giddens's (1984) seminal Constitution of Society; he reprised the classics of power and embraced new developments, including Foucault, new institutionalism and actor-network theory, breaking new ground. Seemingly retaining a commitment to different levels of power, his work did so in a way that was both processual and interpretive, rather than structural. It centred on flows rather than structural determinations. Clegg's framework conjures up power as a series of interlocking circuits, it points to the interconnections, contingencies and the pervasiveness of power. Clegg's work is deeply concerned with the ethics and morality of power, something he views as stripped out of overly rationalized accounts, or those relying on engineering or biological metaphors. But his analysis is interested in the world as it is, not as it should be, voiced in a constant dialogue between theoretical concepts, history and the present. Little goes unanalysed. The premise of his work is simple: if one wants to understand organizations and their actions, it is crucial to understand power and politics. If the message was simple, the content was somewhat more complex. Clegg's book quickly became a classic; it caught the zeitgeist of a changing world and added new concepts to complement the old. It put power firmly on the agenda for the study of organizations in the 1990s and contributed more widely to debates on power across the social sciences. For instance, Flyvbjerg (1998) and Haugaard's (1997) theorizations of power, shared a close resonance with Clegg's work. These works offered an agenda for the future. Organization Theorists, primarily in Europe and Australia, set on a new path, which, in time, took on the form of Critical Management Studies. Clegg's work was one of the foundation stones of this movement. In 1996, Clegg co-edited the Sage Handbook of Organization Studies (Clegg et al. 1996). This was a radical statement, as it reshaped the canon of organization studies, providing a new centre of gravity for the field. It also signalled the post-war generation's control of the discipline. It provided a much-needed re-set. The 1990s and noughties were a fertile period for sociologically oriented, organization studies. There was a flowering of creative and critical work. Clegg was undoubtedly one of the central figures of this period, with younger researchers following the path he outlined (Clegg et al. 2007; Cunha et al. 2006; Gordon et al. 2009; Kornberger et al. 2006; Kornberger Pitsis et al. 2003). This author was one of them (Carter et al. 2008 Clegg et al. 2000, 2004). From the vantage point of 2024, this now looks like a golden age: creativity and passion are now dwarfed by a desiccated form of institutionalism coupled with an obsession with publishing in 'A' journals (Carter it needs to address theories from sociology of the rules, norms and values generating social structure and order; theories from science studies on the workings of networks; theories of ideology and hegemony from neo-Marxist thinkers; and theories from post-structuralist thinkers about historical shifts in the construction of systems of thought and the subject positions they open up. It was such insights that were integrated into a theoretical model of a 'circuit' of power relations by Clegg (2023), akin to an electrical circuit board directing flows of electricity around the components of the circuit. The first circuit is the 'causal' power relations, comprising episodic power struggles (i.e. particular episodes where conflict or power plays can be observed). The second circuit is the 'dispositional' circuit. Here, overt conflict and struggle is not observed because this circuit provides the social rules and 'passage points', which create relations of meaning and membership and which creates social integration. The third circuit is the 'facilitative' circuit, comprising the systems of domination enacted through techniques of discipline, such as the system of surveillance. The study of power: Taking stock I will address the present status of teaching and research into power and organizations in business schools. The present state is both reassuring and alarming at the same time, in my opinion. The reassuring aspect is that discussions about power remain alive and kicking, albeit in some regions, some journals and some subject areas more than others. European Management Review has been among those journals playing a key role in pushing the frontiers of knowledge about power forward, with articles exploring power relations in settings as diverse as change initiatives in multinational corporations (Drori & Ellis 2011) and the employment of knowledge workers (Panico 2010). That said, scholars differ on the extent to which managerialism is uncritically accepted, with its tendency to regard power as an illegitimate 'dirty' word and its tendency to view managerial and corporate actions as 'normal' and 'natural' unless they breach established laws or expectations. Scholars also differ on the extent to which 'critical' ideas about managerial and corporate power are tolerated or permitted. It is therefore not always easy for researchers or educators working in particular institutions or writing in particular journals to speak of 'power'. One such 'alarm bell', in my eyes, is found in the current state of teaching and research into leadership—a topic I have been exploring in recent years in my own research. Leadership is arguably one of the most popular and alluring concepts circulating in business schools today. Business school academics are told they are not educating future managers, but rather the 'business leaders of the future'. PhD students and research associates around the world are being funded to advance knowledge about how to create more, or better, leaders. Even long-established journals are being re-titled to remove the word 'manager' and replace it with the term 'leader' or 'leadership'. 3 One effect of this discourse of leadership is that scholars seem to sidestep the fact that those in 'leadership positions' in organizations—in other words the 'managers', 'superordinates' or 'administrators' as organizational scholars used to call them in the past (Mautner & Learmonth 2020)—exercise particular forms of power that their authority position in the organizational hierarchy and the system of formal laws and established meaning systems in society enables them to exercise. Bosses can sack, discipline or demote workers, but it is considerably harder for the reverse to occur, for instance. The result is that discussion of power is absent from all but a few critical texts on leadership (Learmonth & Morrell 2019). 4 It is as if these other writers imagine that employees at work are just like the protestors who join Greta Thunberg on a climate protest: inspired and motivated by their leader's vision and values but never subjected to any systems of surveillance or forms of implicit or explicit threat found in contemporary organizations. It is also as if these writers imagine that employees could simply change their minds and decide not to 'follow' what their bosses tell them to do, with no repercussions on them and their families and their communities, in the same way as someone could decid