Contingent support: exploring ontological politics/extending management

This paper is located within the critical management tradition of management education/development. The paper seeks to introduce the neglected area of Actor Network Theory and Mol’s anti-foundationalist ontological politics and demonstrates their potential to developing alternative critical pedagogy and management practice. Following a discussion of problem-based learning, the paper goes on to introduce the emergent pedagogic practice termed contingent support. Through a series of vignettes drawn from fieldwork collected from a second year undergraduate decision making module, the paper discusses carefully how the practice termed contingent support is informed by Actor Network Theory and ontological politics in particular. The paper goes onto reveal the significance of contingent support sensibilities of materiality, situatedness and performance and shows how they can give a new vigour to educators interested in developing more responsible management. Finally, the paper considers contingent support’s transformational potential and sets an agenda for future research