This course provides a space for students to critically examine the ethical, political, and philosophical dimensions of calculative practices and organisational life. In contrast to the technical orientation of the core curriculum, this course questions the cultural, ideological, and epistemological assumptions that underpin accounting, auditing, and managerial thinking. Drawing on philosophy, political theory, and critical sociology, the course interrogates how practices such as measurement, reporting, performance evaluation, and forecasting are not neutral instruments of control, but embedded in systems of meaning, power, and exclusion. Students are encouraged to reflect on the moral consequences of managerial and accounting routines and to understand the normative underpinnings of decisions that claim objectivity. By exploring themes such as legitimacy, transparency, compliance, and the construction of trust, the course equips students to act not only as competent professionals, but also as ethically aware organisational actors capable of recognising and challenging dominant logics and assumptions.
Contents
The course is structured in thematic sessions that invite students to explore management from a critical and ethical perspective:
Epistemology and Inquiry
Exploring the nature of knowledge and legitimacy in the production of accounting and management research.
The Taken for Granted
Revealing the hidden assumptions in accounting, audit, and managerial frameworks.
The Audience of Management Research
Who benefits from knowledge production? For whom do performance metrics and reports speak?
Modernity and Managerial Scientism
The moral rationality behind objectivity, standardisation, and performance measurement.
Postmodernism and Cultural Construction
Problematizing calculative practices as social and cultural artefacts that reinforce dominant ideologies.
Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School
Interrogating instrumental reason and its effects on autonomy, meaning, and human flourishing.
Ideology and Hegemony
Exploring how professional and organisational systems reproduce existing hierarchies and marginalise alternative ways of knowing.
Management as Discourse
Understanding how language and reporting produce "truths" and shape organisational behaviour.
Gender, Rationality and Identity
A feminist perspective on the moral limitations of calculative logics and the gendered assumptions in professionalism.
Governmentality and Control
How risk, compliance, and audit function as moral technologies of self-discipline and control.
Contents
The course is structured in thematic sessions that invite students to explore management from a critical and ethical perspective:
Epistemology and Inquiry
Exploring the nature of knowledge and legitimacy in the production of accounting and management research.
The Taken for Granted
Revealing the hidden assumptions in accounting, audit, and managerial frameworks.
The Audience of Management Research
Who benefits from knowledge production? For whom do performance metrics and reports speak?
Modernity and Managerial Scientism
The moral rationality behind objectivity, standardisation, and performance measurement.
Postmodernism and Cultural Construction
Problematizing calculative practices as social and cultural artefacts that reinforce dominant ideologies.
Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School
Interrogating instrumental reason and its effects on autonomy, meaning, and human flourishing.
Ideology and Hegemony
Exploring how professional and organisational systems reproduce existing hierarchies and marginalise alternative ways of knowing.
Management as Discourse
Understanding how language and reporting produce "truths" and shape organisational behaviour.
Gender, Rationality and Identity
A feminist perspective on the moral limitations of calculative logics and the gendered assumptions in professionalism.
Governmentality and Control
How risk, compliance, and audit function as moral technologies of self-discipline and control.
- Teacher: Fabrizio PANOZZO