Putting management knowledge in perspective: Education as an ethical and political endeavor

This article investigates the integration of critical pedagogical frameworks into management education, focusing on how these frameworks can improve students’ critical consciousness and agency while acknowledging the shortcomings of management knowledge. Accepting the political nature of knowledge invites a political pedagogy and opens space for topics and people who were left out of the dominant Western-centric paradigms. Dialogical learning and critical suspicion against the canon can encourage participation and critical reflection among students. This approach enables students to analyze received structures and assumptions within which conventional management theories are framed. This practice could foster a welcoming learning environment open to new inputs from varied perspectives. The article discusses how incorporating the idea that all knowledge is situated allows for developing contextually informed managerial knowledge. Finally, it suggests how challenging the idea of universalistic approaches toward management may open up space for investigations that, by embracing their contextualized conditions, are also better suited for a complex and changing world.