Queer business: towards queering the business school

In this chapter then I consider how business schools might be made ‘queerer’ places to work and learn. I do so in the light of scholarly complaints about the ‘marketization’ of the business school which have ignited an explosion of debate about the future of the business school, and my concerns about business schools as sites of knowledge production and diffusion coded in heteronormativity. As one possible step forward here, this chapter aims to re-visit and extend Martin Parker’s ‘queer’ notion of a business school, one that ‘recognize[s] its own economy of secrecy and disclosure, its economy of repression and freedom…an institution that work[s] against itself in some rather playful and productive ways (2002a: 162). Adopting a queer theory lens and using lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) sexualities as a general focal point of analysis, this chapter moves to stimulate discussion about why we might wish to expose and problematize the heteronormativities within business schools. It then briefly considers the opportunities for engaging in ‘queer practices’ within the management classroom. Such practices could help make organisation theory queer, and thus open to revision and alternative interpretations from LGBT voices that have struggled to be heard. Before all of this, I begin by reviewing current themes and issues in academic debates on the business school.