LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMNS
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.3 THEORITCAL AND ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
2.3.4 CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES
These concerns are expressed even in first world economies ( see Trupp and Willmont 2003) so one would expect that in a developing state like South Africa with its differing socio-economic contexts these concerns will be exacerbated.
In fairness to the IQMS policy, one must acknowledge that some of the assumptions underpinning it are inherently positive and progressive, for example, teacher
development and whole school development as well as professional growth and continuous improvement. The procedure manual for the IQMS states that evaluation is not apart from but part of the educational process. The IQMS also seeks to meet professional standards for sound quality management, including ‘propriety (ethical and legal)’, ‘utility (useable and effective’, ‘feasibility (practical, efficient and cost
effective)’, and ‘accuracy’, and promote the ‘individual professional growth of educator’s with development taking place within a Human Resource Development strategy and Skills Development’ (IQMS Collective Agreement Number 8 of 2003: 1). High standards and successful schools are worthy goals that one should be encouraged to pursue.
However, one must acknowledge that the IQMS’ managerial orientation has resulted in a tension between its ‘developmental’ goals and ‘accountability’ and how this tension is managed will be an imperative for its success.
justice, community, human development, ecological balance - should be brought to bear on the governance of economic activity.
CMS proponents argue that so long as the market is the dominant mechanism for allocating resources, community and government influences are forced into a subordinate roles and that this subordination is reinforced by the ‘financialization of contemporary capital’. Narrow goals like profit and in the case of service industries,
‘perfomitivity’ are held above all other interests and the shared commitment of CMS participants is to free people from this domination (Fround, Johal, Leaver & Williams 2006).
What are the implications of this approach for quality and performance management in education? CMS proponents challenge the view embedded in neo-liberalism and managerialism that social relations in the work place are merely instrumental. In mainstream views of management, the task of management is to organize the factors of production, including human labour power in such a way that ensures their efficient and profitable application. Accordingly, people (now re-classified as human resources) are evaluated in terms of their effectiveness in maximizing outputs. Goals, such as
improving working conditions or extending the scope for collective self-development and self-determination are not, therefore, justifiable as ends in themselves, but only insofar as they help improve performance or bestow legitimacy upon oppressive practices. This assumption is sometimes explicit in quality management systems which favour
accountability but it is often implicit even in ethically-framed ‘normative’ versions like the IQMS.
CMS argues that under neo-liberalism, the instrumentalist approach to management and organization, the goal of profitability- or in not-for profit sectors like education,
performance targets- take on a fetished, naturalized quality (Alvesson and Willmott 2003). Ethical questions concerning the value of such ends are excluded or suppressed, or assumed to be resolved. Other concerns such as ‘development issues and meaningful democracy are ignored or at best minimally accommodated by making token
adjustments’ (Ghoshal 2005: 14).
Much CMS analysis is concerned with showing that forms of knowledge that appears to
be neutral reflect and reinforce asymmetrical relations of power. An important tendency under CMS inspired by Foucault sees the indivisibility of power/knowledge relationship. On the Foucauldian understanding, power is not just a struggle between groups who have more or less of it; ‘for Foucault, as for Gramsi, power is much more pervasive, and it is also a positive force and not merely negative’ (Wray-Bliss 2005: 28).
Power is what enables neo-liberalists to enable certain possibilities to become actualities in a way that excludes other possibilities. It would, for example focus managers on accountability and performativity rather than the alternatives of training and
development. However, CMS argues that ‘in the exercise of power is the constitution of the other, for example the critiques of managerialism upon which forms of analysis within CMS have been built’ (Buraway & Wright 2002: 115).
Marxism appears in CMS in various guises but most notably as the foundation for the labour process theory. Marxism asserts the unity of interests of the capital classes in opposition to the working class. Labour markets are the means by which the capitalist class asserts its monopoly over workers. This brings into focus the exploitative role played by management practices and capitalist ideology. Work is not designed to express human needs and values but to maximize profit or to safeguard the privileges and control of managerial elites. There is a basic asymmetry of power embodied in the employment relation (Cohen 1978). Using key elements of Marxist theory, labour process theory (LPT) argues that market mechanisms alone cannot regulate the labour process and capitalist must actively control the labour process against potential worker resistance. LPT theory further argues ‘that capitalist imperatives of labour control and cost reduction create an inbuilt tendency towards deskilling and degradation- fragmenting of jobs, reducing skill-requirements, and replacing worker autonomy with management systems’ (Wray-Bliss 2005).
What are the implications of CMS for the IQMS. While acknowledging that it is difficult to ward off the effects of managerialism, CMS advocates the adoption of a critical stance towards it so that teachers do not become its victims (Alvesson and Willmott 2003). CMS also incorporates a postmodernist perspective towards the global changes occurring worldwide and suggests a hybrid system resulting in a compromise between opposing principles (Fournier and Grey 2000). In the case of the IQMS, it is suggested in this study
that there should be a balance between its accountability and development purpose and one should not over- shadow the other.
2.4 ACCOUNTABILITY, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TEACHER