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Today, global competition and rapid market developments preoccupy top management. They have less time for internal issues. If not checked, this preoccupation with the external world will leave top management in the same position as the military commander who may have a brilliant battle plan but does not know or understand the nature of his own troops. To be successful, top management requires in‐depth and quality knowledge of the company′s people and the corporate culture which binds them together. Typically, top management does not get quality information. They work on unchecked hunches and shallow, filtered information. By retooling the frequently underutilized human resource manager with the analytical skills for cultural analysis, general management can be strengthened with skilled and knowledgeable co‐pilots and internal change agents. Discusses these issues and some of the basic concepts of cultural anthropology useful for analysis in both domestic and multinational corporations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what “critical” could mean in “critical management studies” (CMS) in the current (Dutch) regime of re‐commodification.

Conflicts that typify the context, within which “criticalness” does or does not emerge, are examined. The specific circumstance of “criticalness” in organizational studies within the Dutch political and intellectual circumstance is appraised.

The critical management studies of experimentation (“essai”) can respond to de‐solidarization and the need for ethical democratic governance; but it can also lead to philosophizing without contextual engagement.

CMS has to be judged for what it tries and how it engages with its context and not the cleverness of its ideas.

CMS is examined not idealistically but in terms of current social and intellectual conditions