Making health services management research critical: a review and a suggestion

This piece reviews the qualitative research literature on NHS management published since 1990. It suggests that much of the established work in this field takes for granted managerial assumptions that are consequently not subjected to sustained critical examination. It is argued therefore that this research has tended to create a version of the world that supports elite interests whilst appearing to be disinterested. A framework for seeing management in a radically different manner is also proposed - Critical Management Studies. Its approaches to analysing management and organisation are offered in the belief that they articulate the kind of challenges to orthodox views that many with an interest in health care are likely to find attractive and perhaps emancipatory.