ABSTRACT
This chapter responds to calls for business research to have practical impact by proposing an actor-reality perspective (ARP). In order to develop a practically valid management control topos, an actor-based management (ABM) approach is proposed. ARP represents a form of critical performativity, in that it is normative, pragmatic, takes an affirmative stance, provides space for respondents' views and seeks out organizational potentialities. ARP encourages dialogic between members of the organization and between researchers and the researched. Although it does not take an explicitly critical position by, for example, rejecting the profit motive, ARP supports a style of management that achieves its long-term financial goals through participatory rather than top-down models of management control. The theoretical and methodological concepts were illustrated with fieldwork from the hospitality industry. The paper urges practitioners, academics and other interested parties such as consultants to develop and embrace a discourse on the benefits of organizational tensions and conflicts.
