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In a detailed and illuminating analysis, Jackson (1987c) has shown that for now over a decade, management science has been witnessing "radical" developments in new directions, each with a spawning diversity of issues and concerns. This paper focuses on one of these new directions, namely, critical management science, in terms of the implications of this spawning diversity for the prospects of a coherent development over the next decade. The implication is whether there may already be a need for a more explicit thematic consolidation within the new critical approach. By way of illustration, the paper refers to a number of seemingly diverse thematic concerns in critical management science, where perhaps some more explicit attempts at consolidation could be fruitful. One such attempt, in the area of systems control, is provided as an illustration. The paper concludes by suggesting that, as interest in critical management science continues to grow, the need for thematic consolidation will perhaps become even more imperative, if the new critical approach is to sustain a coherent and meaningful development.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4613-0845-4_19

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