1st Edition
Marx in Management and Organisation Studies Rethinking Value, Labour and Class Struggles
This book introduces new approaches that deploy concepts from Marx’s critique of political economy to renew the study of labour, value and social antagonisms in the broad area of management and organisation studies.
Exploring established and emergent strands of Marxian theorising inside and outside management and organisation studies, it delves into, beyond and behind the ‘hidden abode’ of production to examine a range of issues including: the relationship between the workplace and the market; the relationship between conflicts at work and wider social and political movements; the role of class, gender and race in capitalist society; and the interconnection of work and labour with the environmental crisis.
The book will be of interest for academics, postgraduate students and researchers interested in radical perspectives on work, organisation and economic life. Representing both a critical introduction to existing theories and a theoretical contribution to the development of the field of study in its own right, it condenses challenging ideas into a short, readable volume without losing their complexity or sophistication.
1. Introduction: From Critical Management Studies to the Critique of Political Economy 2. Into the Hidden Abode: From the Labour Process to the Valorisation Process 3. Beyond the Hidden Abode: From Class Composition to the Crisis of Value 4. Behind the Hidden Abode: From Primitive Accumulation to the Metabolic Rift 5. Conclusion: From the Politics of Value to the Politics of Work
Biography
Frederick Harry Pitts is Senior Lecturer in Work, Employment, Organisation and Public Policy at University of Bristol, UK.
“Demonstrating the value of a robust history of ideas framework in management learning, this book can help management scholars learn a great deal about the origins, development, and deficits of management theory.” David Jacobs, American University, USA
"Value has long remained absent or at best marginal in critically-oriented organization studies. In this timely book, Frederick Harry Pitts argues that we cannot avoid addressing this notion to confront the current multiple crises of capitalism. He then guides us into recovering Marx's critique of political economy to grasp how objects, people and relations acquire worth (or not) under capitalism. This exciting journey into valorisation, class composition, metabolic rift, and social reproduction sets up a renewed intellectual and political agenda that no organizational scholar committed to struggles for change should miss." Patrizia Zanoni, Professor and Chair in Organisation Studies, Utrecht School of Governance, Netherlands
