Research is intended to move knowledge forward. One of the ways that happens is by putting ideas forward and collectively discussing them.

A new article in the academic journal Academy of Management Perspectives asks the provocative question: Why Do Companies Go Woke? It’s extremely troubling that research mostly based on broad generalizations and selective interpretations has been published in such a high-profile journal – particularly one with the stated mission of “inform[ing] current and future ‘thought leaders’”.

Before anyone starts screaming “censorship” – the authors of the article, like any researchers, have a right to research whatever they think is worth researching, and to write about the results of that research. However, no researcher has the right to have their research published, and journals are not required to publish every submission they receive. The editors of Academy of Management Perspectives have affected the journal’s credibility by choosing to publish this article, thus legitimizing its inaccurate and divisive positions.

Analyzing how companies choose to react to events in society is an extremely valuable research topic. Understanding these reactions can generate further insights, and possibly assist other companies in reacting appropriately or productively. However, one of the many problems with the article’s approach to this topic is the article’s fundamental concepts: the definition of “woke”, and the categorization of certain actions as “woke”.

The authors state in a footnote:

Warren (2022) suggested the more neutral term “corporate social initiatives”, arguing that “woke” has a negative (stigmatizing) connotation. While “woke” is sometimes used ironically to criticize these initiatives, it has become the standard label in popular discourse. Proponents of “woke” ideas often happily embrace the label (e.g. Hunt, 2020), which, of course, also has a prehistory in the civil rights movements. We use “woke” as a neutral term to describe the phenomenon described in the paper.

Let’s unpack that reasoning. At the start of the article, the authors uncritically accept New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s concept of “woke capitalism”. One of the basic principles of research is: examine your sources. Are your data coming from a source that might be biased, and might that bias then affect the outcomes of your own research? Bias may be unavoidable, but being aware of it allows researchers to be mindful of its effects, and acknowledge them if necessary.

Douthat is not a researcher, or an academic. He’s an opinion columnist whose job is to write provocative articles.  He’s also biased. Douthat is an unashamed conservative who promotes a free market ideology. Thus, his views on the issue of “wokeness” are not neutral.

The source for the authors’ assertion that proponents of “wokeness” embrace that label is also an opinion piece. However, that piece says much more than what the authors portray it as saying  – including:

Woke has been weaponised, used in conservative media circles as an insult, often placed within quotation marks, to mean rigid, uptight and socially and politically puritanical.

This assertion is easily verifiable by Googling the term and looking at the contexts in which it is used.

So, no. “Woke” is not a neutral term. Saying it is a neutral term does not make it a neutral term. It cannot be credibly or reliably used as a neutral description.

The history of “woke” is also much more than “the civil rights movements”. There are many online sources explaining the origins of the term (this is a good summary). The usage of “woke” goes back to the early 20^th century, starting in Black communities as a reminder to be aware of what was going on, not only nearby but  around the world. Since then, the term has been co-opted, mostly by those whose political views lean to the right, to describe anyone who (allegedly) takes offense at even the smallest action or word that they perceive as discrimination.

Proceeding on the unproven and questionable assumption that there are such things as a “woke movement” and “woke causes”, the authors then characterize recent diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) programs in organizations as an example of wokeness.

[DEI programs] redefine concepts like racism and sexism to refer not [to] the preferences and actions of individuals, but to ‘structural’ features of society that cannot be fixed by punishing overtly racist or sexist acts or by persuading people in power not to make racial or gendered distinctions. (p. 354)

They then attribute “the woke worldview” to the influence of critical theorists.

Like the foundational thinkers in critical theory, wokeism is radically egalitarian and moralizing and usually manifests politically as left-wing activism, calling for ‘deconstructing’ established beliefs and systems to bring about a new social order. (p. 354)

This analysis is shockingly shortsighted. When decades of affirmative action and similar workplace plans have failed to make much significant change in combating racial and gender bias, it’s not too surprising that members of oppressed groups might be calling for more substantive action on a larger scale. The causes of system-wide discrimination aren’t always individual, and societal discrimination can’t always be solved by organizations acting in isolation.

Characterizing calls for a new social order as “moralizing” is not only biased but also hypocritical. Free market capitalism is also based on moral assumptions, such as the assumption that society benefits when businesses operate with minimal government oversight. When Starbucks engages in union-busting, it’s acting on the moral assumption that unions unfairly interfere with management’s right to run its workplaces. But when companies promote free-market philosophies, and try to influence legislation to promote that model of business – which is also a form of trying to change the social order – they aren’t accused of radicalism or “moralizing”.

The authors give several other examples (p. 352) of what they consider “woke” actions by companies.

• “Nearly 1000 companies pull[ing] their ads from Facebook to protest the social network’s refusal to remove a post by then-President Donald Trump” [this was the post saying “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”].
• “Most major corporations (as well as universities, professional sports leagues, and other institutions announc[ing] support for the Black Lives Matter movement”.
• “Every June, dozens of Fortune 500 companies chang[ing] their social media logos to incorporate a version of the Pride flag”.

It’s entirely reasonable to question whether actions such as these are meaningful. Companies may engage in them to look good or look concerned, and then go right back to their usual business. They may also carry out these kinds of actions while ignoring unethical or immoral problems inside their own operations, such as using suppliers whose factories are staffed with forced labour.

However, when the US President issues a statement threatening to shoot protesters, it isn’t “woke” to respond negatively to that – unless you want to live in a country where the President has the power to unilaterally order citizens to be murdered.  Being appalled at a Black citizen being killed by White police officers, captured on video, is completely understandable.  Acknowledging that not everyone is heterosexual, and advocating for acceptance of that reality, is also completely understandable. Labelling these actions as evidence of being “woke” is absurd.

The authors then identify some of the internal and external forces that, they claim, influence companies’ decisions to undertake these kinds of actions. They point to middle managers as “internal advocates” who seize on these situations as opportunities to build their own specializations and knowledge within the organization, and thus solidify their own power.

And here is more hypocrisy, in how this scenario is characterized.

 One way in which woke middle managers maintain control and hierarchical position is by using idiosyncratic vocabulary and constructs (“microaggressions”, “Whiteness”, “centering”, “cisgender”, “BIPOC”, etc) [that]  make it difficult for outsiders, including top managers, to understand, and hence challenge, woke beliefs, pronouncements, and instructions. (p. 359-60)

If “microaggressions”are an “idiosyncratic construct” that “outsiders” don’t understand, that might be news to McKinley, one of the largest consulting firms in the world, which used that term in a major report on the status of women in the workplace. And should someone even be a “top manager” if they don’t know what “BIPOC” means, or can’t be bothered to find out?

It’s very telling that the authors don’t criticize “top managers” for using specialized vocabulary like “ROI”, “KPI”, “CSF”, or “balanced scorecard”. Every area of a business or organization has its own terminology, and can use that terminology to build its internal power and influence. This is not new. It has been studied in organizational behaviour and in sociology for decades. The authors don’t provide any credible evidence as to why these actions should be considered “woke”.

After running through some more generalizations without any supporting evidence, such as “companies are increasingly committed to pursuing social justice” (if only), the authors conclude that “corporate wokeness has a number of potentially harmful effects”. They summarize these effects (p. 360-361) as:

• limiting the range of acceptable discourse within organizations;
• employees “shirking” because they feel morally superior;
• and a “quickly advancing woke frontier” forcing companies to engage in games of “purer than thou”.

The example the authors provide of “acceptable” discourse being limited is a Google employee being fired after he wrote and circulated an internal memo. The memo claimed, among other things, that biological differences between men and women made women less suitable for tech work, and that Google was hurting itself by striving for better gender representation in its workforce. The employee was fired. He later sued Google for wrongful dismissal, but the case was settled out of court.

It’s selective, at best, to characterize this as an organization “limiting the range of acceptable discourse”. No one stopped the employee from writing the memo. No one stopped him from circulating it. But the right to free speech doesn’t include the right to not be criticized, or the right to not suffer consequences for what you’ve said. The points in the memo were based on many faulty assumptions and misrepresentations, and the company’s actions were entirely appropriate, especially in an industry that is notorious for racial and gender discrimination. This is not an example of a “woke” organization unduly restricting internal discourse.

The authors conclude that “the emergence of the woke corporation (and the broader phenomenon of woke capitalism) is one of the most important phenomena of the last decade, but it remains poorly understood” (p. 363). Perhaps that’s because this phenomenon doesn’t exist.  “Woke” is an insult used by a particular demographic against another demographic, and that is particularly problematic in these divisive times. There are extremists on both sides of this argument, but choosing to use a loaded term and pretending it’s a neutral term – and not providing reliable evidence for subsequent assertions using the term – does not advance our understanding of organizations and how they operate.

Judging by this response to a previous article published in the same journal, it appears that some researchers are determined to push the idea that “wokeness” is real, and that it’s potentially damaging to businesses. What’s more damaging is weakly supported research with questionable reasoning being given a veneer of respectability by well-regarded academic journals. Editorial choices like this damage the credibility of the journal, and damage the credibility of management and organizational research as a whole.