Watch Your Back Reflections on Trust and Mistrust in Management Education

Case, Peter; Selvester, Ken

Abstract

This article attempts a critical reappraisal of the part played by 'trust' in management education. Our main contention is that trust is being perceptibly eroded by a range of factors that find their genesis in a wider set of social relations within contemporary capitalism. Accordingly, we set about trying to account for the diminution of trust in social theoretical terms. Having constructed an analytical matrix we then apply our reasoning to specific instances of mistrust in an educational context. Drawing on documented student reflections and other qualitative data we seek to demonstrate how broader social trends are being 'holographically' rehearsed and reproduced in the micropolitics of the university classroom. Our 'representative anecdotes' give the lie to the increasing regulation and legalization of educational relationships. The concluding section adopts a deliberately polemical tone and we end by asking some searching questions concerning the future of management education in universities.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2002
• Journal: Management Learning
• Print ISSN: 1350-5076
• Electronic ISSN: 1461-7307
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 231-247
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507602332005
• Keywords: management education, capitalism, critical management studies, McDonaldization, mistrust, modernization, rationalization, trust
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1077800
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350507602332005