A few weeks ago, I greatly enjoyed seeing that Andre Spicer had published a new book titled simply “Business Bullshit”. There are no words to express how much I love the succinctness and poignancy of that title. If I might crudely summarize, Spicer’s argument is that the world of business is populated by a perverse repertoire of vacuous “Newspeak” that not only wastes organizational time and resources but (here I elaborate) presents us with a peculiar discourse that bars us from understanding organizational processes.

While it is not lost on me that critical management studies may indeed be said to have its own vocabulary of “bulllshit” which may well include a term like “discourse” (which is perhaps why Spicer largely avoids it), I have recently had frequent recourse to think about discourse because of a lecture that I recently gave on the topic. In it I cite the good work of Norman Fairclough on critical discourse analysis or a mode of study

“which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between a) discursive practices, events and texts, and b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony.” (Fairclough, 1993: 135)

I had cause to reflect on this recently as I attended an induction event for new staff at Kent Business School. Certain terms began to stand out to me as they were repeatedly used: “innovative”, “research narrative”, and  “student voice” all used in a quasi-branding/marketing sense to speak to how KBS might distinguish itself from other schools either in the next REF, to potential people seeking consultancy services, or as a centre for “teaching excellence”. I found it interesting to reflect on Spicer’s descriptions of “bullshit” as divorced from “reality” and indeed, the reality of academic workaholism, the increasing precarity of academic work (temporary and short term contracts) and the marketization of the university  seemed far removed from the cheerful presentations given by colleagues and support staff.

It should go without saying that I have enormous respect for my colleagues and by no means seek to imply that their complicity in this discourse is the product of intellectual underdevelopment or moral bankruptcy. The clawing logic of neoliberalism and its effects are worth tracing, especially here at the university.

I found myself thinking about a particularly interesting passage where Spicer says “the great task of the business bullshit spotter is simply to stay awake”; to resist the urge to gloss-over corporate nonsense and to reject the desire to be lulled into a sense of security about corporate misbehaviour. Put another way, the task is to keep analyzing the discourse that advertises the university as “student-centric” or providing skills for “employability” in order to understand the relationships of power and the social inequalities that they produce/rely upon.

I enjoyed Spicer’s book and so might one day write a more substantive and meaningful review of it than this passing mention, but for the moment it has become part of a heightened and growing suspicion of the language around me in the contemporary business school.

PS: It is with great joy that I recently discovered that “Business Bullshit” has its own twitter page. Enjoy.