Reclaiming critique: a historical-materialist intervention in the crisis of Critical Management Studies

Purpose Critical Management Studies (CMS) has entered a phase of stagnation in which reflexive critique risks collapsing into academic self-referentiality and losing sight of material inequalities. This article reclaims a historical-materialist perspective to reorient CMS toward the structural dynamics of capitalism, class struggle and labour exploitation, using platform-based gig work in Indonesia as an illustrative analytical site. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual article critically examines the recent trajectory of CMS, focusing on Alvesson and Spicer's proposal of “three-dimensional scepticism” and contrasting it with historical-materialist traditions of critique. Rather than advancing critique at the level of epistemic stance alone, the article develops a mechanism-based historical-materialist framework that specifies how organisational power is materially produced and reproduced under digital capitalism. The analysis links abstract debates in CMS to concrete organisational dynamics through a synthesis of existing literature on platform labour in the Global South. Findings The analysis demonstrates that reflexivity-centred approaches in CMS risk depoliticising critique by privileging scholarly subjectivity over material relations of power. A historical-materialist reorientation foregrounds key mechanisms of exploitation, including surplus extraction, algorithmic labour discipline, risk externalisation and ideological interpellation. The Indonesian platform-work case illustrates how algorithmic management intensifies capitalist contradictions while masking class relations through entrepreneurial discourse and fragmented forms of solidarity. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual study, the article does not present original empirical data and relies on secondary literature for illustration. Its implications are therefore analytical rather than empirical. Future research could extend the framework through comparative empirical studies across different institutional contexts, integrate worker-centred qualitative research and examine how historical-materialist mechanisms interact with gendered, racialised and postcolonial dynamics within contemporary organisations. Practical implications The article provides scholars and critical practitioners with an analytical toolkit for diagnosing material power relations within organisations, particularly in digitally mediated work. By foregrounding labour processes and exploitation mechanisms, it encourages more politically grounded forms of organisational critique that move beyond ethical or discursive interventions. The framework may also inform labour-oriented research, policy debates and worker advocacy concerning platform governance and algorithmic management. Social implications By re-centring labour and class, the article highlights how contemporary organisational forms contribute to precarity, inequality and the erosion of collective solidarity, especially in the Global South. It underscores the social consequences of algorithmic management and entrepreneurial ideology in normalising exploitation. Reclaiming historical materialism strengthens CMS's capacity to engage with broader struggles over work, social justice and democratic control in digital capitalism. Originality/value This article offers a systematic historical-materialist intervention in debates on the crisis of CMS by translating materialist concepts into an operational, mechanism-based analytical framework. It revitalises CMS by reconnecting critique with labour, class relations, and political economy, while bridging abstract theoretical debates with the lived struggles of workers in the Global South.