CMS: A satirical critique of three narrative histories

Reflections on the 20th anniversary of Organization provide an opportunity for considerations of the role of the past and history in critical studies of management. Yet, why should we care? Arguably, the pages of Organization are replete with analyses that take into account the past and history. Indeed they are. However, as has been contended elsewhere, such accounts have been remarkably under-theorized for a field noted for its thoroughgoing critique of anything that moves. Nonetheless, it is not our intention to go over that ground so much as provide an appropriate example of the problem at hand. We do this through analysis of three selected accounts of how critical studies of management came into being as a field of study. Drawing on Hayden White’s approach to history, we analyse three histories of critical management studies through a focus on their respective narrative form, choosing to privilege our own narrative as satirical critique. Thus, the article does double duty by directly joining with the reflections on Organization and critical studies of management, while providing an argument for the need for greater theorization of the past and history. In the process we provide some clues to the development of the field of critical studies of management; problematize the associated notions of history and the past and make suggestions for future directions of what has become known as Critical Management Studies.