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Book Review: The Triumph of Emptiness: Consumption, Higher Education, and Work Organization

The Triumph of Emptiness brings to fruition over 25 years of research and writing in organization studies by an author who is perhaps among the most prominent exponents and indeed originators of critical management studies (CMS). This distinctive and influential ‘school’ of business and management studies has grown to prominence in the past quarter-century as the growth of business and management schools has swept through higher education in the UK and Europe. In part born out of debates with labour process analysis, critical management studies has, however, escaped the rather provincial and parochial preoccupations of those still wedded to labour process analysis, a school of research made up of Marxist, neo-Marxist and radical Weberians, and characterized by one protagonist in the debate, doubtless unfairly, as an ‘M6 corridor’1 of academics. By contrast, CMS has in recent years established a strong presence at the Academy of Management whose current chair (Paul Adler) is schooled in the foundational theories of CMS and has done much to extend its appeal in the United States. Alvesson can make strong claims to have helped lay these foundations. His ground-breaking coedited volume with Hugh Willmott in 1992 introduced CMS to a wide audience in business schools and beyond, showing the relevance of Frankfurt School Critical Theory to the understanding of mainstream management specialisms (accounting, marketing, strategy, HRM etc.). Making Sense of Management, also co-authored with Willmott (1996), built on this by carefully laying out the underlying key theoretical principles and inspirations of CMS. Rooted in the critical theory of Adorno and Horkheimer, Habermas, and Marcuse et al., Alvesson and Willmott sought conversation, debate and hybridity with more contemporary and emerging currents of feminist and post-structural theory and, in their more recent edition (2012), have drawn more fully on critical race theory, and post-colonial and radical ‘green’ political theory. While post-2008 the mainstream curricula of the MBA continue to promulgate standard business models of growth, within a wider promotion of ‘business as usual’, only CMS can make credible claims to have offered a critical and alternative diagnosis of the now permanent economic crisis and state of exception. This is currently the cause of some discomfort among Deans of business schools, but in reading The Triumph of Emptiness they might achieve a better grasp of why their teaching programmes designed to assist the continued marketing of the business school as a place to train and credentialize corporate executives is dangerous and will ultimately fail socially, politically, culturally and environmentally. The Triumph of Emptiness offers a powerful explanation of these dangers and failures, and has already attracted impressive reviews. The distinguished Cary Cooper has written that this is a 601573OSS0010.1177/0170840615601573Organization StudiesBook Review research-article2015