The extension of strategic management discourse into public education administration: A critical analysis

Abstract

Strategy has become ubiquitous in contemporary societies. Accordingly, the expansion of strategy discourse beyond corporate management and its colonization of various aspects of economic and organizational life are important phenomena for critical management research. In this study, we explore how strategy discourse is ushered into and naturalized in the realm of educational administration. Taking a critical approach to discourse analysis, our study reveals the nature and functions of a set of texts representing a discourse that expands strategic management to public K-12 education produced by a key institutional entrepreneur in the United States. Our findings disentangle how this expansion of strategy discourse into public education administration is accomplished through the discourse’s different building blocks. They expose and denaturalize the discourse’s ideological position and exercise of power in its normative construction of the necessity of strategic management for public education. We conclude with a discussion of our study’s contributions to theory and research on the expansion of strategy discourses. In doing so, we cultivate a discussion of alternative discourses and highlight possible future research directions.