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On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools

Matt Wilson Orcid Logo, Daniel Sage Orcid Logo, Jennifer Robinson, Sean Farmelo

Social Sciences, Volume: 15, Issue: 5, Start page: 303

Swansea University Author: Matt Wilson Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.3390/socsci15050303

Abstract

In this mostly conceptual article, we address calls to promote heterodox thinking within business schools to develop alternative approaches to management, alternative economies and organizations that can better address societal-level ‘grand challenges’ from social justice to ecological sustainabilit...

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Published in: Social Sciences
ISSN: 2076-0760
Published: MDPI AG 2026
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71910
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last_indexed 2026-06-06T12:38:57Z
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spelling 2026-06-05T15:19:09.2777838 v2 71910 2026-05-15 On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools 2f52fc48733d840a44ba122da34337a7 0000-0002-6351-7723 Matt Wilson Matt Wilson true false 2026-05-15 CBAE In this mostly conceptual article, we address calls to promote heterodox thinking within business schools to develop alternative approaches to management, alternative economies and organizations that can better address societal-level ‘grand challenges’ from social justice to ecological sustainability. We illustrate our thinking by discussing the ideas behind a project: Re-Organise. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, we consider the performative dimensions of introducing critical ideas in business and management schools; we argue that students will often have an affective form of resistance to new and challenging ideas, not because of their content per se, but because they are unknown and therefore experienced as challenging. To counter this resistance, we suggest there is value in introducing heterodox ideas in low-level but widespread ways in order to acclimatize students to them. We explain how within Re-Organise we have started developing this approach in three universities in the UK, by asking lecturers and professional services staff to introduce references to heterodox ideas such as cooperatives—into their work. Put simply, we want to expose students to these ideas as frequently as possible, even if this often means only superficial engagement. Whilst this approach is not intended to replace the more far-reaching change in business school pedagogy which we believe is necessary, we think that working towards what we call subtle ubiquity can help slowly produce more positive affective responses. Journal Article Social Sciences 15 5 303 MDPI AG 2076-0760 critical performativity; affect; cooperatives; subtle ubiquity; heterodox economics; critical pedagogy; critical management studies; positive performativity 8 5 2026 2026-05-08 10.3390/socsci15050303 COLLEGE NANME Management School COLLEGE CODE CBAE Swansea University Another institution paid the OA fee 2026-06-05T15:19:09.2777838 2026-05-15T10:59:20.1977948 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Management - Business Management Matt Wilson 0000-0002-6351-7723 1 Daniel Sage 0000-0003-0797-3879 2 Jennifer Robinson 3 Sean Farmelo 4 71910__36868__e03ad697ac2f474989fa1d169800b412.pdf 71910.VOR.pdf 2026-06-05T15:17:05.9766294 Output 329734 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2026 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools
spellingShingle On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools
Matt Wilson
title_short On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools
title_full On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools
title_fullStr On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools
title_full_unstemmed On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools
title_sort On Your Mind, Not in Your Face: Encouraging Heterodoxy with Subtle Ubiquity in Business and Management Schools
author_id_str_mv 2f52fc48733d840a44ba122da34337a7
author_id_fullname_str_mv 2f52fc48733d840a44ba122da34337a7_***_Matt Wilson
author Matt Wilson
author2 Matt Wilson
Daniel Sage
Jennifer Robinson
Sean Farmelo
format Journal article
container_title Social Sciences
container_volume 15
container_issue 5
container_start_page 303
publishDate 2026
institution Swansea University
issn 2076-0760
doi_str_mv 10.3390/socsci15050303
publisher MDPI AG
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Management - Business Management{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Management - Business Management
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description In this mostly conceptual article, we address calls to promote heterodox thinking within business schools to develop alternative approaches to management, alternative economies and organizations that can better address societal-level ‘grand challenges’ from social justice to ecological sustainability. We illustrate our thinking by discussing the ideas behind a project: Re-Organise. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, we consider the performative dimensions of introducing critical ideas in business and management schools; we argue that students will often have an affective form of resistance to new and challenging ideas, not because of their content per se, but because they are unknown and therefore experienced as challenging. To counter this resistance, we suggest there is value in introducing heterodox ideas in low-level but widespread ways in order to acclimatize students to them. We explain how within Re-Organise we have started developing this approach in three universities in the UK, by asking lecturers and professional services staff to introduce references to heterodox ideas such as cooperatives—into their work. Put simply, we want to expose students to these ideas as frequently as possible, even if this often means only superficial engagement. Whilst this approach is not intended to replace the more far-reaching change in business school pedagogy which we believe is necessary, we think that working towards what we call subtle ubiquity can help slowly produce more positive affective responses.
published_date 2026-05-08T06:16:17Z
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score 11.107367

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