Ch. 6 Critical Approaches to Organizations and Communication – Blog 3
I appreciated the authors’ comments on p. 166 in regards to profit vs. people: “… we find it more productive to ask how the varied needs of all organizational stakeholders, including managers, workers, workers’ families, host communities, and shareholders can be adequately addressed.” The authors of our text recognize the faults in both capitalism and critical theory. Companies must be profitable, otherwise they become non-existent which is not good for shareholders, company owners, or workers. Nevertheless, exorbitant amounts of company profit at the expense of workers’ mental and physical health is highly unethical and can eventually be unproductive. I commend the inclusive approach the authors take when stating that the needs of all members of an organization must be adequately addressed.
Critical theorists are criticized, again, on p. 188, as being “elitist” since they argue that oppressed individuals may not know they are oppressed – suggesting that scholars are better able to know the minds of individuals than the individuals themselves. Because of this, “critical scholars have often conceived of their task as one closer aligned with social activism than with traditional objective science.” Some argue that true objectivity is inaccessible. However, I am still a proponent of constant striving for objectivity in our personal and professional lives, and I welcome this critique of critical theory that our text presents.
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The critique of critical theorists as elitists is something that runs through any criticism of academia in general. It is also interesting to note that in much the same way the media might bring up a political issue and present in such a way as to make the viewer believe that in their righteous indignation they are just like the average working American. Alas these people, scholars and pseudo-journalists alike, are elite members of society but it does not make their criticism of the way the world works any less poignant. Critical theory does seem to straddle social activism which I do not necessarily believe is a bad thing. Companies should be concerned about the health and well being of their workers as much as they are about the bottom line. Eventually how an organization treats their workers does come back to haunt them whether it is through a drop in productivity or a mass exodus of qualified employees.
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