- Lund University, Business Administration, Faculty Memberadd
- Business Administration, Leadership, Philosophy, Social Sciences, Critical Management Studies, Ethics, and 38 moreBusiness Ethics, Baruch Spinoza, Gilles Deleuze, Hannah Arendt, Hans Belting, Play, Sociology of Work, Work and Labour, Jean-Luc Marion, Organization Studies, Organization Theory, Political Economy, Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sociology, Innovation statistics, Academic Writing, Research, Organizational Theory, Critical Mangement Studies, Leadership Studies, Giorgio Agamben, Continental Philosophy, Image Studies, Academic Publishing, Sociology of Organizations, Philosophy of Management, Philosophy of Organization, Literature, Management, Management Studies, Theology, Theology and Organization, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Social Science, Michel Foucault, Environmental Sustainability, and Michael Hardtedit
This book is a philosophical exploration of the relationship between leadership and organization. Each chapter in the book sheds light on this relationship by exploring leadership with respect to a particular theme: charisma, authority,... more
This book is a philosophical exploration of the relationship between leadership and organization. Each chapter in the book sheds light on this relationship by exploring leadership with respect to a particular theme: charisma, authority, religion, language, authenticity, image and followership. These themes are linked to popular notions of leadership, such as transformational leadership, authentic leadership and servant leadership.
Offering insight into the ways in which leadership is understood in contemporary culture, the main thesis of Leadership and Organization is that understandings of leadership today are still shaped by the figure of the charismatic leader, even though charismatic leadership itself has lost much of its appeal. The clearest expression of this paradigm is the leadership-management distinction, where the leader is someone who transcends the organization and the manager someone who resides within the organization. Drawing on a broad variety of sources in continental philosophy, the author explores the central philosophical question of how leadership can be understood in relation to organization.
Offering insight into the ways in which leadership is understood in contemporary culture, the main thesis of Leadership and Organization is that understandings of leadership today are still shaped by the figure of the charismatic leader, even though charismatic leadership itself has lost much of its appeal. The clearest expression of this paradigm is the leadership-management distinction, where the leader is someone who transcends the organization and the manager someone who resides within the organization. Drawing on a broad variety of sources in continental philosophy, the author explores the central philosophical question of how leadership can be understood in relation to organization.
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This book is about the relation between philosophy and organization in so far as it concerns organization studies. The book, then, revolves round the interplay between philosophy, organization and organization studies. The purpose is both... more
This book is about the relation between philosophy and organization in so far as it concerns organization studies. The book, then, revolves round the interplay between philosophy, organization and organization studies. The purpose is both to ask philosophically the question ‘What is organization?’ and to question the importance of this kind of philosophical questioning for the field of organization studies.
The central argument of the book is that philosophy performs two radically different roles in organization studies, each based upon a different conception of philosophy. The first role corresponds to the under-labourer conception of philosophy in which philosophy is of value because it performs functions for organization studies: philosophy offers different paradigms, methods or frameworks in which one can perform organizational research. The second, contrasting, conception of philosophy is philosophy as the creation of concepts. In this conception, which is presented through a reading of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, philosophy has a positive dimension which is lost when it is understood in terms of its usefulness for the social sciences. Philosophy of organization, in this sense, means asking the question ‘What is organization?’ philosophically, i.e. by creating concepts of organization.
It is this second conception of philosophy that is developed in the book; by asking what it is (part I) and by exploring philosophy of organization through readings of Spinoza, Robert Cooper and Michel Foucault (part II). Taken together, the two parts argue for a more important role of philosophy of organization in organization studies, as distinguished from a philosophy for organization studies.
The central argument of the book is that philosophy performs two radically different roles in organization studies, each based upon a different conception of philosophy. The first role corresponds to the under-labourer conception of philosophy in which philosophy is of value because it performs functions for organization studies: philosophy offers different paradigms, methods or frameworks in which one can perform organizational research. The second, contrasting, conception of philosophy is philosophy as the creation of concepts. In this conception, which is presented through a reading of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, philosophy has a positive dimension which is lost when it is understood in terms of its usefulness for the social sciences. Philosophy of organization, in this sense, means asking the question ‘What is organization?’ philosophically, i.e. by creating concepts of organization.
It is this second conception of philosophy that is developed in the book; by asking what it is (part I) and by exploring philosophy of organization through readings of Spinoza, Robert Cooper and Michel Foucault (part II). Taken together, the two parts argue for a more important role of philosophy of organization in organization studies, as distinguished from a philosophy for organization studies.
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Today, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to harness the spirit of play in order to increase worker engagement and improve organizational performance. This paper examines the ethics of play in a business context, focusing... more
Today, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to harness the spirit of play in order to increase worker engagement and improve organizational performance. This paper examines the ethics of play in a business context, focusing specifically on the phenomenon of workplace gamification. While critics highlight ethical problems with gamification, they also advocate for more positive, transformative, and life-affirming modes of organizational play. Gamification is ethical, on this view, when it allows users to reach a state of authentic happiness or eudaimonia. The underlying assumption, here, is that the 'magic circle' of play-a sphere that exists entirely for its own sake-should be protected in order to secure meaningfulness at work. However, we argue that this faith in play is misguided because play, even at its most autotelic, is ethically ambivalent; it does not lead inexorably to virtuous work environments, but may in fact have an undesirable impact on those who are playing. Our study thus contributes to research on the 'dark side' of organizational play, a strand of scholarship that questions the idea that play always points toward the good life.
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Today, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to harness the spirit of play in order to increase worker engagement and improve organizational performance. This paper examines the ethics of play in a business context, focusing... more
Today, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to harness the spirit of play in order to increase worker engagement and improve organizational performance. This paper examines the ethics of play in a business context, focusing specifically on the phenomenon of workplace gamification. While critics highlight ethical problems with gamification, they also advocate for more positive, transformative, and life-affirming modes of organizational play. Gamification is ethical, on this view, when it allows users to reach a state of authentic happiness or eudaimonia. The underlying assumption, here, is that the 'magic circle' of play-a sphere that exists entirely for its own sake-should be protected in order to secure meaningfulness at work. However, we argue that this faith in play is misguided because play, even at its most autotelic, is ethically ambivalent; it does not lead inexorably to virtuous work environments, but may in fact have an undesirable impact on those who are playing. Our study thus contributes to research on the 'dark side' of organizational play, a strand of scholarship that questions the idea that play always points toward the good life.
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There are plenty of books and articles on research methods, but few discuss the nature and purpose of method sections in academic journals. Based on interviews with critical and interpretivist researchers, this short paper examines the... more
There are plenty of books and articles on research methods, but few discuss the nature and purpose of method sections in academic journals. Based on interviews with critical and interpretivist researchers, this short paper examines the nature and purpose of method sections in management and organization studies. We show how researchers make sense of, and struggle with, positivist expectations about the form and content of method sections. Ultimately, we call for greater openness about what method sections might look like and ask whether all academic articles need method sections.
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This short paper explores the gamification of an online academic conference. At the conference, digital gamification was meant to stimulate increased levels of participation among attendees. Instead, it resulted in a series of unintended... more
This short paper explores the gamification of an online academic conference. At the conference, digital gamification was meant to stimulate increased levels of participation among attendees. Instead, it resulted in a series of unintended consequences. Precisely because it was all too easy to score points and ascend the virtual leaderboard by means of machine-like grinding, the "Conference Challenge" posed a moral dilemma for its players: each participant had to determine for themselves where the border lay between playing the game and gaming the system. We use this case to raise questions about the ethics of game-playing in an academic context. In particular, we suggest that the Conference Challenge is a distorted reflection of what's already happening in the broader "publication game" in the university.
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In business discourse, the leader is often portrayed as the one who changes the current order. Leaders stand above the organization, and from that elevated position they can bring about the necessary change that offers a way out of... more
In business discourse, the leader is often portrayed as the one who changes the current order. Leaders stand above the organization, and from that elevated position they can bring about the necessary change that offers a way out of whatever crisis afflicts the business. In this paper, I consider the paradoxical fact that leaders, in our popular understanding at least, do not use orders when creating order: leadership is generally thought to exclude the coercive force that we associate with the giving of orders or commands. I explore this distinction between leading and commanding through a reading of Elias Canetti's chapter on 'The command' in his book Crowds and power. My overall argument is that the violence of the command (its 'sting', in Canetti's terms) can also make itself felt in seemingly benign models of leadership that challenge various forms of authoritarianism. My suggestion is therefore to put the sting back into leadership research by giving up on the idea that it is possible to conceive of leadership as operating without any coercive force.
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Why is theorizing important? What does it do? This note reflects on the broad question of what we do when we theorize, taking its starting point from the Greek notion of theoria. The argument is that theorizing as an uncertain journey,... more
Why is theorizing important? What does it do? This note reflects on the broad question of what we do when we theorize, taking its starting point from the Greek notion of theoria. The argument is that theorizing as an uncertain journey, i.e. as a form of travelling along a path towards the unknown or unfamiliar, has unjustly fallen into disrepute. The notion of 'theory' is today primarily associated with methodology and the ideas of a fixed path or a stable position. But this is not the only type of theory that critical organization studies needs. In this paper I consider how the notions of 'strong' and 'weak' theory can help us understand the role of theorizing in organization. Theory's best practice involves making us see and think differently, and this, in a sense, is as practical as it gets.
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Over the last three years, the idea of a 'post-truth society' has become a common talking point. Politicians from around the world, from Europe to South America to the United States, have been labelled as 'post-truth leaders', with Donald... more
Over the last three years, the idea of a 'post-truth society' has become a common talking point. Politicians from around the world, from Europe to South America to the United States, have been labelled as 'post-truth leaders', with Donald Trump being portrayed as the standard bearer for this new kind of political discourse. This article suggests that post-truth leadership is nothing new. Ever since Max Weber developed his notion of charismatic leadership in the early 20th century, Western societies have been infatuated with the idea that leaders ought not concern themselves too much with factual reality. In a sense, leadership has been post-truth all along.
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It is increasingly common to describe academic research as a "publication game," a metaphor that connotes instrumental strategies for publishing in highly rated journals. However, we suggest that the use of this metaphor is problematic.... more
It is increasingly common to describe academic research as a "publication game," a metaphor that connotes instrumental strategies for publishing in highly rated journals. However, we suggest that the use of this metaphor is problematic. In particular, the metaphor allows scholars to make a convenient, but ultimately misleading, distinction between figurative game-playing on one hand (i.e. pursuing external career goals through instrumental publishing) and proper research on the other hand (i.e. producing intrinsically meaningful research). In other words, the "publication game" implies that while academic researchers may behave just like players, they are not really playing a game. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we show that this metaphor prevents us, ironically, from fully grasping the lusory attitude, or play-mentality, that characterizes academic work among critical management researchers. Ultimately, we seek to stimulate reflection about how our choice of metaphor can have performative effects in the university and influence our behavior in unforeseen and potentially undesirable ways.
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From its inception, leadership studies has embraced the positivist tradition of hypothesis testing. In this tradition, psychometric instruments are meant to ward off belief from scientific practice by testing theories against empirical... more
From its inception, leadership studies has embraced the positivist tradition of hypothesis testing. In this tradition, psychometric instruments are meant to ward off belief from scientific practice by testing theories against empirical facts. While leadership scholars purport to conform to the standards of value-neutral science, this paper tells a different story. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 39 positivist leadership researchers, we argue that leadership studies is heavily invested with faith in two main ways: (a) faith in leadership concepts, even when their accompanying measures fall short of methodological standards and (b) faith in leadership studies as a science, even when it is tainted by commercial interests and professional rewards. Ultimately, we suggest that positivist epistemology is accepted in leadership studies as an article of faith. By exploring the interconnection between science and belief in the business school, we draw attention to the “secular religion” of scientism in leadership studies.
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This invited contribution is a reflection on my motivation for writing the book Leadership and Organization: A Philosophical Introduction (Spoelstra, 2018). The premise of the book is that popular leadership adjectives, e.g.... more
This invited contribution is a reflection on my motivation for writing the book Leadership and Organization: A Philosophical Introduction (Spoelstra, 2018). The premise of the book is that popular leadership adjectives, e.g. ‘transformational’, ‘authentic’ and ‘servant’, are much more interesting
than the corresponding leadership constructs suggest. The book claims that these popular leadership concepts are shaped by the figure of the charismatic leader, even though the concept of charisma in leadership studies has lost much of its appeal. In this paper, I further suggest that
popular leadership concepts create a followership that deserves to be critically interrogated.
than the corresponding leadership constructs suggest. The book claims that these popular leadership concepts are shaped by the figure of the charismatic leader, even though the concept of charisma in leadership studies has lost much of its appeal. In this paper, I further suggest that
popular leadership concepts create a followership that deserves to be critically interrogated.
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Critical scholars in the business school are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of their research beyond the confines of academia. This has been articulated most prominently around the concept of 'critical performativity'.... more
Critical scholars in the business school are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of their research beyond the confines of academia. This has been articulated most prominently around the concept of 'critical performativity'. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with critical leadership scholars, this article explores how academics engage with practitioners at the same time as they seek to maintain a critical ethos in relation to their external activities. While proponents of critical performativity tend to paint a frictionless picture of practitioner engagement - which can take the form of consulting, coaching, and leadership development - we show how critical scholars may end up compromising their academic values in corporate settings due to practitioner demands and other institutional pressures. Taken together, these pressures mean that critical scholars often need to negotiate a series of (sometimes insoluble) dilemmas in practitioner contexts. We argue that the concept of critical performativity is unable to contend meaningfully with these tensions because it replicates the myth of the 'heroic-transformational academic' who is single-handedly able to stimulate critical reflection among practitioners and provoke radical change in organizations. We conclude with a call for further reflection on the range of ethical dilemmas that can arise during academic-practitioner engagement.
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In this short paper I explore the rise of ‘special sections’ in academic journals (such as this ‘Note’ section in ephemera). Prior to the 1990s, management journals had two major sections: peer-reviewed articles and book reviews. There... more
In this short paper I explore the rise of ‘special sections’ in academic journals (such as this ‘Note’ section in ephemera). Prior to the 1990s, management journals had two major sections: peer-reviewed articles and book reviews. There was very little published that did not fit into these categories: the occasional obituary, an erratum or retraction, a call for papers, some announcements, and very little else. All this started to change in the 1990s and 2000s with the emergence of special sections, i.e. a designated space within journals designed to host papers that fall outside the purview of a regular article (for an overview, see figure 1).1 This note reflects on the rise of these special sections: what explains their popularity, and what do they accomplish? I argue that behind their various forms is a collective shame about what journal publishing has become.
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In 2014, leadership studies saw the retraction of a number of journal articles written by prominent researchers who are closely associated with popular concepts such as transformational leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership... more
In 2014, leadership studies saw the retraction of a number of journal articles written by prominent researchers who are closely associated with popular concepts such as transformational leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership and spiritual leadership. In response, The Leadership Quarterly published a lengthy editorial that presented these retractions as a sign of health in a mature scientific field. For the editors of The Leadership Quarterly, there is no crisis in leadership studies. In this paper, we suggest that the editorial is a missed opportunity to reflect on positivist leadership studies. In our view, leadership ought to be in crisis because this would stimulate the community to question its guiding assumptions and reconsider its methods and objectives. We therefore hope to open up a critical discussion about the means and ends of mainstream leadership studies – not least of all its scientific pretensions.
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In recent years, the awareness of academic misconduct has increased due to high-profile scandals involving prominent researchers and a spike in journal retractions. But such examples of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP)... more
In recent years, the awareness of academic misconduct has increased due to high-profile scandals involving prominent researchers and a spike in journal retractions. But such examples of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP) serve to obscure the less flagrant, more subtle cases of possible misconduct - what some have called 'questionable research practices' (QRPs). While FFP is seen as inherently negative, QRPs fall into an ethical 'grey zone' between permissible and impermissible. In this paper, we draw on semi-structured interviews with business school scholars to explore the occurrence of QRPs. Prevalent QRPs include playing with numbers, playing with models and playing with hypotheses. Scholars explain the existence of QRPs in three ways: the inadequate training of researchers, the pressures and incentives to publish in certain outlets, and the demands and expectations of journal editors and reviewers. We argue that a paradox is at work here: in order to live up to the positivist image of 'pure science' that appears in academic journals, researchers may find themselves - ironically - transgressing this very ideal. Ultimately, this challenges the individualistic account of academic misconduct by drawing attention to the role played by institutional actors such as academic journals in encouraging forms of QRPs.
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The regime of excellence – manifested in journal rankings and research assessments – is coming to increasing prominence in the contemporary university. Critical scholars have responded to the encroaching ideology of excellence in various... more
The regime of excellence – manifested in journal rankings and research assessments – is coming to increasing prominence in the contemporary university. Critical scholars have responded to the encroaching ideology of excellence in various ways: while some seek to defend such measures of academic performance on the grounds that they provide accountability and transparency in place of elitism and privilege, others have criticized their impact on scholarship. The present paper contributes to the debate by exploring the relationship between the regime of excellence and critical management studies (CMS). Drawing on extensive interviews with CMS professors, we show how the regime of excellence is eroding the ethos of critical scholars. As a result, decisions about what to research and where to publish are increasingly being made according to the diktats of research assessments, journal rankings and managing editors of premier outlets. This suggests that CMS researchers may find themselves inadvertently aiding and abetting the rise of managerialism in the university sector, which raises troubling questions about the future of critical scholarship in the business school.
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The leadership literature is full of stories of heroic self-sacrifice. Sacrificial leadership behaviour, some scholars conclude, is to be recommended. In this article we follow Keith Grint’s conceptualization of leadership as necessarily... more
The leadership literature is full of stories of heroic self-sacrifice. Sacrificial leadership behaviour, some scholars conclude, is to be recommended. In this article we follow Keith Grint’s conceptualization of leadership as necessarily pertaining to the sacred, but—drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s notion of profanation—we highlight the need for organization scholars to profane the sacralizations embedded in leadership thinking. One example of this, which guides us throughout the article, is the novel A Wild Sheep Chase, by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. By means of a thematic reading of the novel, we discuss how it contributes to profaning particular notions of sacrifice and the sacred in leadership thinking. In the novel, self-sacrifice does not function as a way of establishing a leadership position, but as a way to avoid the dangers associated with leadership, and possibly redeem humans from their current collective urge to become leaders. Inspired by Murakami’s fictional example, we call organization scholars to engage in profanation of leadership studies and, in doing so, open new vistas for leadership theory and practice.
Research Interests: Leadership, Change Leadership, Critical Management Studies, Organization Studies, Heroism, and 11 moreGiorgio Agamben, Sacred (Religion), Sacrifice (Philosophy), Global Leadership, Leadership Development, Sacrifice (Anthropology Of Religion), Theology of Sacrifice, Myth, Leadership Studies, Ethical Leadership, and Profanation
This paper draws on Jean-Luc Marion’s notion of non-objective phenomena to discuss the difficulty of studying leadership. Marion conceptualises non-objective phenomena as phenomena that cannot be captured by scientific methods. Attempts... more
This paper draws on Jean-Luc Marion’s notion of non-objective phenomena to discuss the difficulty of studying leadership. Marion conceptualises non-objective phenomena as phenomena that cannot be captured by scientific methods. Attempts to do so result in a poor understanding of the phenomenon as it gives itself. Put differently: non-objective phenomena remain invisible to the gaze of the researcher. The paper shows how leadership scholars are indecisive about the question of whether leadership is to be understood as an objective or as a non-objective phenomenon. Or more precisely they tend to understand leadership as a non-objective phenomenon, but study leadership as if it were objective. This mismatch, the paper suggests, explains why leadership studies tends to oscillate between objectivist science and (pseudo) religious image making and why it struggles to find a foothold in either sphere. In light of this problem, the paper suggests ‘leadership image studies’ as a possible way forward.
Research Interests: Religion, Theology, Research Methodology, Leadership, Spiritual Leadership, and 12 moreCritical Management Studies, Organization Studies, Transformational Leadership, Jean-Luc Marion, Leadership (Political Science), Leadership Theory, Transactional Leadership, Objectivity, Leadership Studies, Authentic Leadership, Ethical Leadership, and Leadership styles
The idea of ‘excellence’ has become widespread in the modern university, in part due to UK assessment exercises such as the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and the Research Excellence Framework (REF). As a result, academic careers are... more
The idea of ‘excellence’ has become widespread in the modern university, in part due to UK assessment exercises such as the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and the Research Excellence Framework (REF). As a result, academic careers are becoming increasingly oriented around publications in highly ranked journals. For critical management scholars, this poses a particular difficulty: how to negotiate the demand for excellence at the same time as maintaining a critical ethos in relation to one’s work. Our study, which is based on interviews with members of the editorial board of Organization, examines this tension by outlining the ‘secrets of excellence’ according to some of the most excellent critical management scholars in the field. Although our tone is at times ironic and provocative, the paper arises from a genuine concern about the risks involved in playing the publication game. Ultimately, we argue that the game of excellence tends to master its players, rather than the other way around.
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The interest in organizational play is growing, both in popular business discourse and organization studies. As the presumption that play is dysfunctional for organizations is increasingly discarded, the existing positions may be divided... more
The interest in organizational play is growing, both in popular business discourse and organization studies. As the presumption that play is dysfunctional for organizations is increasingly discarded, the existing positions may be divided into two camps; one proposes ‘serious play’ as an engine for business and the other insists that work and play are largely indistinguishable in the postindustrial organization. Our field study of a design and communications company in Denmark shows that organizational play can be much more than just functional to the organization. We identify three ways in which workplaces engage in play: play as a (serious) continuation of work, play as a (critical) intervention into work and play as an (uninvited) usurpation of work.
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This paper consists of two parts.The first provides a philosophical history of the concept of wonder, taking Heidegger’s reading of the Greek verb thaumazein (‘to wonder’) as its point of departure. It shows how the Greek sense of wonder,... more
This paper consists of two parts.The first provides a philosophical history of the concept of wonder, taking Heidegger’s reading of the Greek verb thaumazein (‘to wonder’) as its point of departure. It shows how the Greek sense of wonder, under- stood as a dwelling in the everyday, has changed over time.Wonder becomes under- stood as curiosity and amazement, and gradually turns into something suspicious in the modern age.The second part illustrates how the modern loss of wonder that Heidegger speaks of can also be seen in the history of the Western museum, in par- ticular its transition from Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, to the birth of the modern museum at the end of the eighteenth century.The paper argues that the modern museum has developed a way of organis- ing its objects that destroys their singularity, and that thereby the experience of won- der in the Greek sense of thaumazein is lost.The tentative conclusion suggests that the hostility to wonder as manifested in the modern museum can also be found in forms of modern organisation in general, and that it is embodied in organisational figures like the manager, the professional and the knowledge worker.
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Drawing on the concepts of the miraculous in theology and philosophy, this paper makes a distinction between transcendent miracles, human miracles, and immanent miracles. The first find their origin in a deity that resides above our... more
Drawing on the concepts of the miraculous in theology and philosophy, this paper makes a distinction between transcendent miracles, human miracles, and immanent miracles. The first find their origin in a deity that resides above our world, the second arise from the interactions of people, and the third emerge from an earth that constantly reinvents itself against its own laws. The paper starts off by showing how these three concepts of the miraculous manifest themselves in business literature on creativity and innovation. Next, it discusses different possible reasons for the importance of the miraculous within business texts. The paper suggests that business authors often ‘miraculate’ their object of study, that is they attribute mysterious powers to much less mysterious phenomena. The paper concludes by suggesting that miraculation does not have to be negative: it might well be a necessary road to successful business knowledge. This would explain why so much of what counts as business science today is based on the mixed methods of objectification and miraculation.
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Gift, leadership, economy: what, if anything, is the nature of the relationship between the three? And how might this relationship be thought? In this essay, we describe leadership as a phenomenon that requires social scientists and... more
Gift, leadership, economy: what, if anything, is the nature of the relationship between the three? And how might this relationship be thought? In this essay, we describe leadership as a phenomenon that requires social scientists and philosophers alike to think the philosophi- cal-phenomenological discussion of the gift alongside the sociological-economic analysis thereof. The paper, to be clear, is not as much an attempt to comment upon the interrelation- ship between a philosophy and a socio-econ- omy of the gift as such, so much as it is an at- tempt to illustrate how a particular phenomenon, in this case leadership, demands the inauguration of a deliberate and ongoing dialogue between social science and philosophy, on the topic of the gift.
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Seeing, one might say, is everything between black blindness and white blindness: between not seeing because of the absence of light and not seeing because of the blinding quality of light; between seeing nothing and “seeing” only that... more
Seeing, one might say, is everything between black blindness and white blindness: between not seeing because of the absence of light and not seeing because of the blinding quality of light; between seeing nothing and “seeing” only that which produces vision (usually the sun or God). Within organizational literature, organizations have often been linked to black blindness. The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea of organizations as places of white blindness.
This paper finds its inspiration in Saramago’s novel Blindness but it does not offer an analysis or interpretation of the novel. It seeks an understanding of contemporary organizational phenomena by freely drawing upon some of Saramago’s literary achievements. Findings – Black blindness, e.g. the absence of vision through an extreme division of labour, is an important phenomenon in organizations but white blindness is getting more prevalent. Three causes of white blindness are identified and briefly discussed: the brilliant leader, the brilliant product and the brilliant employee.
This paper finds its inspiration in Saramago’s novel Blindness but it does not offer an analysis or interpretation of the novel. It seeks an understanding of contemporary organizational phenomena by freely drawing upon some of Saramago’s literary achievements. Findings – Black blindness, e.g. the absence of vision through an extreme division of labour, is an important phenomenon in organizations but white blindness is getting more prevalent. Three causes of white blindness are identified and briefly discussed: the brilliant leader, the brilliant product and the brilliant employee.
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In het Verenigd Koninkrijk is Critical Management Studies in een relatief korte tijd uitegroeid tot een institutie van formaat. Door de term 'kritiek' op te nemen in haar naam, heeft CMS zich echter geïnstitutionaliseerd rond een begrip... more
In het Verenigd Koninkrijk is Critical Management Studies in een relatief korte tijd uitegroeid tot een institutie van formaat. Door de term 'kritiek' op te nemen in haar naam, heeft CMS zich echter geïnstitutionaliseerd rond een begrip dat normaal gesproken verbonden wordt met verzet tegen institutionalisering. In dit artikel staat de relatie van CMS tot kritiek centraal: Wat wordt binnen CMS met 'kritiek' bedoeld? Hoe verhoudt kritiek zich tot institutionalisering? Hoe heeft CMS zich rond kritiek kunnen institutionaliseren? Verschillende concepten van kritiek, met name die van Immanuel Kant en Michel Foucault, worden besproken in een poging om zicht te krijgen op de relaties van CMS tot kritiek. Daarbij wordt in het bijzonder ingegaan op de relatie van CMS tot de universiteit en business school.
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Can unpublished papers from decades ago help us think about contemporary critical theories of organization? In this special issue, we bring together six papers by the social philosopher, organization theorist and poet Robert Cooper... more
Can unpublished papers from decades ago help us think about contemporary critical theories of organization? In this special issue, we bring together six papers by the social philosopher, organization theorist and poet Robert Cooper (1931-2013) that were hitherto not widely available. Cooper was a prominent theorist of organization, known for introducing postmodernism and post-structuralism to organization studies. He has also been highly influential in process studies of organization. We think that what Cooper learned from avant-garde poetry was that form ought to reflect the content, and this is evident in his writing. The content finds its form in the text – and it can only find this form through an openness that lies at the heart of research, in organization studies and elsewhere.
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Numbers do much more than just count what exists. Numbers reveal, but they also hide; they tell us who we are, but also who we ought to become; they show us how happy and healthy we are, but also urge us to adjust ourselves to the norm.... more
Numbers do much more than just count what exists. Numbers reveal, but they also hide; they tell us who we are, but also who we ought to become; they show us how happy and healthy we are, but also urge us to adjust ourselves to the norm. Numbers manage us and we, in turn, manage ourselves through numbers. At the same time, the rationale behind these metrics remains inaccessible to us, stored safely away in a locket, kept secret from all but the few who have access to these systems of enumeration and computation.
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The neoliberal notion of employability has risen to prominence over the past 20 years, having been positioned as the crux of national, organizational and individual prosperity. To be employable, individuals are increasingly called upon to... more
The neoliberal notion of employability has risen to prominence over the past 20 years, having been positioned as the crux of national, organizational and individual prosperity. To be employable, individuals are increasingly called upon to be self-reliant; aligning themselves to the conditions of an ostensibly fast-moving and precarious global economy. This special issue of ephemera calls attention to the way this current preoccupation with employability tethers questions of equality and human development to the instrumental capitalist obsession with growth and renewal. The 13 contributions to this issue ‘give notice’ to employability as a colonizing attribute of human resourcefulness that promotes marginalization, exploitation and stigmatization. By exploring the type of ‘self’ employability demands, and analysing the consequences of its required engagement, we hope employability will be both noticed and acted upon.
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The contributions collected in this special issue of ephemera question the underlying ideologies and assumptions of carbon markets, and bring to light many of the contradictions and antagonisms that are currently at the heart of ‘climate... more
The contributions collected in this special issue of ephemera question the underlying ideologies and assumptions of carbon markets, and bring to light many of the contradictions and antagonisms that are currently at the heart of ‘climate capitalism’. They offer a critical assessment of the political economy of carbon trading, and a detailed understanding of how these newly created markets are designed, how they (don’t) work, the various actors that are involved, and how these actors function together to create and contest the ‘atmosphere business’. In 5 notes, 6 articles, 1 interview and 3 book reviews, some of the most prominent critical voices in debates about the atmosphere business are brought together in this special issue.
Research Interests: Environmental Science, Corporate Social Responsibility, Climate Change, Sustainable Development, Critical Management Studies, and 8 moreOrganization Studies, Environmental Sustainability, Carbon Market, Global Warming, Climate Capitalism, Carbon Markets, Climate Change and Food Security, and Atmosphere Business
This special issue focuses on the interconnections between work, play and boredom in contemporary organizations. The contributions seek to shed light on the way in which play is becoming increasingly incorporated within the world of work... more
This special issue focuses on the interconnections between work, play and boredom in contemporary organizations. The contributions seek to shed light on the way in which play is becoming increasingly incorporated within the world of work and open on to the question of how we might problematize this phenomenon. Boredom emerges as a prominent theme that provides a critical - if ambiguous - counterpoint to the management of fun and frivolity within modern-day corporations. Encompassing both sociological and philosophical reflections, the papers in this special issue add to ongoing debates around the politics of play currently taking place in the field of organization studies.
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Holding on to alternatives, i.e. always being on the look-out for the other, and by implication another, is rooted in hope and faith. When the hope for something else and better perishes, the alternative dies with it. Far from being... more
Holding on to alternatives, i.e. always being on the look-out for the other, and by implication another, is rooted in hope and faith. When the hope for something else and better perishes, the alternative dies with it. Far from being (merely) the position of the assumed naïve and energetic teenager engaged in the adolescent’s revolution and emancipation from the parent generation, the search and production of alternative questions and problems is the stance of the believer. However, belief is necessarily accompanied by doubt. Without doubt belief turns into conviction and blindness. Conversely, without belief doubts very easily develop into cynicism and dejection. The alternative thinker, writer, speaker and practitioner is one who is full of faith but far from faithful.
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Too often critique simply works as a safety valve; too often it becomes a logo. Indeed, we have seen an explosion of this logo in recent years: there are Critical Management Studies conferences and critical journals appearing everywhere.... more
Too often critique simply works as a safety valve; too often it becomes a logo. Indeed, we have seen an explosion of this logo in recent years: there are Critical Management Studies conferences and critical journals appearing everywhere. It seems as if there is a critical bandwagon that everybody feels they need to jump onto. But how much has the ‘critical’ logo really changed; how critical has our critique really been? We feel that too often the ‘critical’ signifier simply stands in for any real critique to be practiced. It is before this background that the editorial collective of ephemera has decided to change the subtitle of the journal. A minor gesture, perhaps. But also significant in the sense that through this gesture we are not simply getting rid of critique but, instead, affirming the tradition of critique. A Kantian move perhaps.
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The relationship between freedom and work is a complex one. For some, they are considered opposites: ‘true’ freedom is possible only once the necessity of work is removed, and a life of luxury attained. For others, work itself provides an... more
The relationship between freedom and work is a complex one. For some, they are considered opposites: ‘true’ freedom is possible only once the necessity of work is removed, and a life of luxury attained. For others, work itself provides an opportunity to achieve a sense of freedom and authenticity. In recent years for example, advances in human resource management have promoted hard work, a deep sense of commitment to one’s job, and the acceptance of working conditions that are ostensibly exploitative, as offering the promise of freedom. Recent corporate and entrepreneurial celebrations of playfulness also provide examples of the deep entanglement of contemporary forms of knowledge work with ideals of freedom.
In this issue of ephemera, our contributors inquire into the relation between freedom and work. They ask, for example, whether it is even possible to free oneself from ideals of freedom? Or is the fantasy of an imagined place of freedom, the utopia in which no work taints our lives, simply too prevalent? It may be the case that in contemporary life, we fool ourselves yet further when we ask for freedom within our working life. But can we free ourselves from the very prospect of freedom?
In this issue of ephemera, our contributors inquire into the relation between freedom and work. They ask, for example, whether it is even possible to free oneself from ideals of freedom? Or is the fantasy of an imagined place of freedom, the utopia in which no work taints our lives, simply too prevalent? It may be the case that in contemporary life, we fool ourselves yet further when we ask for freedom within our working life. But can we free ourselves from the very prospect of freedom?
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We often understand institutions as some kind of durable structure that transcends human lives and their intentions. The walls of the institution protect its inhabitants from the dangers of the outside world, but at the price of... more
We often understand institutions as some kind of durable structure that transcends human lives and their intentions. The walls of the institution protect its inhabitants from the dangers of the outside world, but at the price of immobility of body and mind. Institutionalization is not merely a wall that separates the inside from the outside; it also guides the way we think and act. The university is perhaps the modern institution par excellence, and its walls are crumbling fast. ‘Excellence’, the main qualifier of academic activity today, has little to do with old academic ideals of reason or Bildung. It is a self-referential system that has posited its own success as its primary goal. The protecting walls surrounding universities are now seen as barriers to developing forms of useful expertise that fit the demands of the knowledge economy. This open issue continues ephemera's engagement with the crucial theme of the changining nature of the university. It specificially explores new forms of academic institutionalization as well as attempts to escape from them.
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In the first editorial of this journal, the founding editors expressed their hope that ephemera would not be concerned with what it can do for or with organization studies, but what it can do to organization studies (Böhm, Jones and Land,... more
In the first editorial of this journal, the founding editors expressed their hope that ephemera would not be concerned with what it can do for or with organization studies, but what it can do to organization studies (Böhm, Jones and Land, 2001: 10). Seven years down the road, it is perhaps apposite to pause a moment and ask how to understand ephemera’s relation to organization studies today; perhaps with some risk of reflecting our life away...
This issue of ephemera is an open issue – by its very nature not a consistent whole. Yet the contributions that you are about to read have one thing in common: they all address marginal themes in organization studies. They are all about themes that are somehow related to organization studies but in experimental ways or about themes that arguably deserve more attention in organization studies. In short: this issue of ephemera clearly demonstrates our preoccupation with the margins of organization studies.
This issue of ephemera is an open issue – by its very nature not a consistent whole. Yet the contributions that you are about to read have one thing in common: they all address marginal themes in organization studies. They are all about themes that are somehow related to organization studies but in experimental ways or about themes that arguably deserve more attention in organization studies. In short: this issue of ephemera clearly demonstrates our preoccupation with the margins of organization studies.
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This Introduction argues for the importance of theology for the study of organization. It also draws the contours of a possible ‘theology of organization’. Theology of organization, as we use it here, does not refer to a study of... more
This Introduction argues for the importance of theology for the study of organization. It also draws the contours of a possible ‘theology of organization’. Theology of organization, as we use it here, does not refer to a study of organization that is rooted in faith, nor does it refer to a study of religious practices in organizations. Instead, theology of organization recognizes that the way we think about and act in organizations is profoundly structured by theological concepts. In this editorial to the special issue we have three aims: to outline what theology of organization is, to show how it builds upon Carl Schmitt’s ‘political theology’ and Giorgio Agamben’s ‘economic theology’ and finally to propose three different forms that theology of organization can take. These forms of theology of organization respectively (1) analyse organizational concepts as secularized theological concepts, (2) show how theological concepts have survived unaltered in organizational contexts and (3) show how theological concepts have been corrupted or lost their original meaning when deployed in organizational contexts. In the final section of this editorial, we introduce the five contributions to this issue and indicate how they connect to the three forms of theology of organization that we have proposed.
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The contributions to this issue reflect upon the meaning of a symptomatology of organization and explore its possible practice. The idea of symptomatology itself originates from medicine and refers to the study of the signs of a disease.... more
The contributions to this issue reflect upon the meaning of a symptomatology of organization and explore its possible practice. The idea of symptomatology itself originates from medicine and refers to the study of the signs of a disease. In medicine, the general task of the symptomatologist is to interpret and organize different symptoms in such a way that they designate a more or less coherent disease. Given this medical sense of ‘symptomatology’, it might sound like we are trying to hand over the theory and politics of organization to the ‘management doctors’ of the world: the management gurus, motivational experts and self- improvement writers who offer diagnoses and cures for organizational problems.
This is not what we have in mind when we speak of a symptomatology of organization. For us, symptomatology of organization is about the relation between organization studies and philosophy. It refers to a distinct approach to philosophy which differs from current uses of philosophy in organization studies in two main ways. Firstly, symptomatology makes philosophy a part of organizational research. This approach differs from the use of philosophy in organization studies as an epistemological foundation upon which organizational research can stand. Secondly, philosophy has also been used in organization studies to search for the cause of organizational diseases (e.g. capitalism causes alienation) and for their cures (e.g. the need for a social and economic revolution). But this is not what symptomatology is about either: a symptomatological approach to organizational research does not turn to philosophy in the hope of finding guidance to tackle real-life problems.
This is not what we have in mind when we speak of a symptomatology of organization. For us, symptomatology of organization is about the relation between organization studies and philosophy. It refers to a distinct approach to philosophy which differs from current uses of philosophy in organization studies in two main ways. Firstly, symptomatology makes philosophy a part of organizational research. This approach differs from the use of philosophy in organization studies as an epistemological foundation upon which organizational research can stand. Secondly, philosophy has also been used in organization studies to search for the cause of organizational diseases (e.g. capitalism causes alienation) and for their cures (e.g. the need for a social and economic revolution). But this is not what symptomatology is about either: a symptomatological approach to organizational research does not turn to philosophy in the hope of finding guidance to tackle real-life problems.
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Research Interests: Plato and Leadership
This paper examines forms of game-playing in the business school by focusing on the way that the regime of excellence – understood primarily in terms of journal rankings and research assessments – comes to modify academics’ relationship... more
This paper examines forms of game-playing in the business school by focusing on the way that the regime of excellence – understood primarily in terms of journal rankings and research assessments – comes to modify academics’ relationship to scholarship. Following Bristow (2012, p. 238), we aim to show how academics, when faced with ‘the daily seduction of opportunities’, may find themselves ‘compromising just a little, and then a little bit more’. We do so by presenting a series of vignettes that illustrate how excellence is not simply a force majeure that is imposed on academics from the outside, but a set of relations they voluntarily maintain with themselves and others.
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This chapter argues that leadership is a religious phenomenon. It makes this case by drawing on some of the most popular leadership concepts: charismatic leadership, transformational leadership, spiritual leadership, servant leadership,... more
This chapter argues that leadership is a religious phenomenon. It makes this case by drawing on some of the most popular leadership concepts: charismatic leadership, transformational leadership, spiritual leadership, servant leadership, authentic leadership and distributed leadership.
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Apart from one short book on work design, Robert Cooper exclusively wrote articles and book chapters. This early book (Cooper, 1974) and other works from the 1960s and early 1970s (e.g., Cooper, 1966; Cooper and Foster, 1971; Cooper,... more
Apart from one short book on work design, Robert Cooper exclusively wrote articles and book chapters. This early book (Cooper, 1974) and other works from the 1960s and early 1970s (e.g., Cooper, 1966; Cooper and Foster, 1971; Cooper, 1973) were part of a programme at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, whose object was to translate some of the theoretical ideas from sociotechnical systems thinking into practical language.
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In this chapter we critically reflect upon the growing concern with relevance within CMS. In particular, we take issue with the idea of critical performativity. We argue that critical performativity, if practiced, could signal the end of... more
In this chapter we critically reflect upon the growing concern with relevance within CMS. In particular, we take issue with the idea of critical performativity. We argue that critical performativity, if practiced, could signal the end of Critical Management Studies.
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This chapter shows how business through play has come to portray knowledge work as a moral good, by associating it with a specific sacralized version of play.
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The main idea is that transformational leadership is believed to inspire radical transformation in followers, especially through charisma. This theory of leadership has striking similarities to religious concepts like conversion, in which... more
The main idea is that transformational leadership is believed to inspire radical transformation in followers, especially through charisma. This theory of leadership has striking similarities to religious concepts like conversion, in which a follower is transformed from a lower morality to a higher one. It also echoes the concept of redemption, in which people, organizations, business and the world are being redeemed from corruption and made more ethical.
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In this chapter we explore the relationship between business ethics and faith. We show how business ethics is largely motivated by a now shattered faith in the capitalist entrepreneur. But this does not mean that business ethics is... more
In this chapter we explore the relationship between business ethics and faith. We show how business ethics is largely motivated by a now shattered faith in the capitalist entrepreneur. But this does not mean that business ethics is faithless. The shattered faith in the capitalist entrepreneur has made way for a number of newly created figures and concepts, including social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, and responsible leadership. The belief is that these figures and concepts are capable of correcting business’ dark sides, without disrupting the faith in business itself.
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In this chapter we explore the relationship between business ethics and faith. We show how business ethics is largely motivated by a now shattered faith in the capitalist entrepreneur. But this does not mean that business ethics is... more
In this chapter we explore the relationship between business ethics and faith. We show how business ethics is largely motivated by a now shattered faith in the capitalist entrepreneur. But this does not mean that business ethics is faithless. The shattered faith in the capitalist entrepreneur has made way for a number of newly created figures and concepts, including social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, and responsible leadership. The belief is that these figures and concepts are capable of correcting business’ dark sides, without disrupting the faith in business itself.
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This chapter starts with a discussion of the way leadership scholars and business ethicists have discussed moral and immoral aspects of leadership. We will argue that seemingly descriptive research on leadership is oftentimes normative in... more
This chapter starts with a discussion of the way leadership scholars and business ethicists have discussed moral and immoral aspects of leadership. We will argue that seemingly descriptive research on leadership is oftentimes normative in nature. In other words, what some leadership scholars portray as leadership is rarely a description of the way business leaders actually behave. Instead, it offers images of the way leadership ought to look like. Drawing on Zizek, we will then go on to suggest that this confusion between what leadership is and should be tells us something about the nature of leadership itself: for leadership to exist, we must believe that it is good, even when it is not.
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Apart from one short book on work design, Robert Cooper has exclusively written articles and book chapters. This early book (Cooper, 1974) and other works from the early 1970s (eg, Cooper, 1972; 1973) were part of a programme at the... more
Apart from one short book on work design, Robert Cooper has exclusively written articles and book chapters. This early book (Cooper, 1974) and other works from the early 1970s (eg, Cooper, 1972; 1973) were part of a programme at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London, whose object was to translate some of the theoretical ideas from sociotechnical systems thinking into practical language. Although interesting in its own right, it is Cooper’s later work, roughly starting with his 1976 essay ‘The Open Field’, which is of greater interest for the study of organization, primarily because it raises profound the- oretical questions concerning the ontological underpinnings of organization. In this chapter I am concerned with these later works, in which Cooper turns away from the core concerns of the Tavistock programme to address more general philosophical and sociological questions concerning the nature of organization.
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Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing workplaces and careers one truth at a time, HarperCollins: New York, 2015
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Book review of: Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life, 2013.
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Movie review of: The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (2020, documentary), directed by Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, Grant Street Productions.
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From a historical perspective there is something rather unusual about today’s close alliance between scientists and politicians. In western culture, we have long been trained to understand the role of the scientist as standing in stark... more
From a historical perspective there is something rather unusual about today’s close alliance between scientists and politicians. In western culture, we have long been trained to understand the role of the scientist as standing in stark contrast to that of the politician. But the idea that politics and science reside in distinct realms is the cause of significant problems. In the end, we don’t want bureaucrats or scientists who evade responsibility in the name of objectivity. Nor do we want leaders who consider themselves above the law. Different professional groups perform different roles in society, but those roles cannot and should not be thought in terms of rule-following versus rule-breaking behaviour, or in terms of facts (scientists) versus values (politicians).
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Research Interests: Sportsmanship and Dilemma
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Stupidity is generally thought of as a hindrance to learning: an epistemic vice that stands in the way of knowledge and understanding. In this article, I challenge this idea by exploring some of the meanings of stupidity that place it in... more
Stupidity is generally thought of as a hindrance to learning: an epistemic vice that stands in the way of knowledge and understanding. In this article, I challenge this idea by exploring some of the meanings of stupidity that place it in a positive relation to learning. In this light, the article discusses two notions of stupidity: stupidity as unfinished thought and stupefaction through study. I show how these forms of stupidity, rather than indicating a lack of learning, can be considered as a crucial part of the learning process. These types of desirable stupidity have come under increasing threat in academic cultures that are dominated by performance criteria. On the basis of this analysis, the article argues for the importance of academic practices that make room for these positive forms of stupidity and thereby facilitate what it means to be a student.
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There are plenty of books and articles on research methods, but few discuss the nature and purpose of method sections in academic journals. Based on interviews with critical and interpretivist researchers, this short paper examines the... more
There are plenty of books and articles on research methods, but few discuss the nature and purpose of method sections in academic journals. Based on interviews with critical and interpretivist researchers, this short paper examines the nature and purpose of method sections in management and organization studies. We show how researchers make sense of, and struggle with, positivist expectations about the form and content of method sections. Ultimately, we call for greater openness about what method sections might look like and ask whether all academic articles need method sections.
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This short paper explores the gamification of an online academic conference. At the conference, digital gamification was meant to stimulate increased levels of participation among attendees. Instead, it resulted in a series of unintended... more
This short paper explores the gamification of an online academic conference. At the conference, digital gamification was meant to stimulate increased levels of participation among attendees. Instead, it resulted in a series of unintended consequences. Precisely because it was all too easy to score points and ascend the virtual leaderboard by means of machine-like grinding, the “Conference Challenge” posed a moral dilemma for its players: each participant had to determine for themselves where the border lay between playing the game and gaming the system. We use this case to raise questions about the ethics of game-playing in an academic context. In particular, we suggest that the Conference Challenge is a distorted reflection of what’s already happening in the broader “publication game” in the university.
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Numbers reveal, but they also hide; they tell us who we are, but also who we ought to become; they show us how happy and healthy we are, but also urge us to adjust ourselves to the norm. Numbers manage us and we, in turn, manage ourselves... more
Numbers reveal, but they also hide; they tell us who we are, but also who we ought to become; they show us how happy and healthy we are, but also urge us to adjust ourselves to the norm. Numbers manage us and we, in turn, manage ourselves through numbers. At the same time, the rationale behind these metrics remains inaccessible to us, stored safely away in a locket, kept secret from all but the few who have access to these systems of enumeration and computation. In our special issue, we open up this locket and explore questions around measurement in relation to management, organization, and politics –namely, how do processes of quantification intervene in our lives, sideline other modes of judgement and decision, and lead us astray with a trail of numbers. The title oft he special issue, ‘Beyond measure’, signals an attempt to denaturalize measurement, to peel back the layers of commensuration to see what lies beneath
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In B. Carroll, J. Ford and S. Taylor (2015). 'Leadership: Contemporary critical perspectives.' Sage Publications, pp. 69-86
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In this chapter we critically reflect upon the growing concern with relevance within CMS. In particular, we take issue with the idea of critical performativity. We argue that critical performativity, if practiced, could signal the end of... more
In this chapter we critically reflect upon the growing concern with relevance within CMS. In particular, we take issue with the idea of critical performativity. We argue that critical performativity, if practiced, could signal the end of Critical Management Studies.
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From a historical perspective there is something rather unusual about today’s close alliance between scientists and politicians. In western culture, we have long been trained to understand the role of the scientist as standing in stark... more
From a historical perspective there is something rather unusual about today’s close alliance between scientists and politicians. In western culture, we have long been trained to understand the role of the scientist as standing in stark contrast to that of the politician. But the idea that politics and science reside in distinct realms is the cause of significant problems. In the end, we don’t want bureaucrats or scientists who evade responsibility in the name of objectivity. Nor do we want leaders who consider themselves above the law. Different professional groups perform different roles in society, but those roles cannot and should not be thought in terms of rule-following versus rule-breaking behaviour, or in terms of facts (scientists) versus values (politicians).
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Movie review of: The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (2020, documentary), directed by Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, Grant Street Productions.
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Why is theorizing important? What does it do? This note reflects on the broad question of what we do when we theorize, taking its starting point from the Greek notion of theoria. The argument is that theorizing as an uncertain journey,... more
Why is theorizing important? What does it do? This note reflects on the broad question of what we do when we theorize, taking its starting point from the Greek notion of theoria. The argument is that theorizing as an uncertain journey, i.e. as a form of travelling along a path towards the unknown or unfamiliar, has unjustly fallen into disrepute. The notion of ‘theory’ is today primarily associated with methodology and the ideas of a fixed path or a stable position. But this is not the only type of theory that critical organization studies needs. In this paper I consider how the notions of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ theory can help us understand the role of theorizing in organization. Theory’s best practice involves making us see and think differently, and this, in a sense, is as practical as it gets.
This chapter shows how business through play has come to portray knowledge work as a moral good, by associating it with a specific sacralized version of play.
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Over the last three years, the idea of a ‘post-truth society’ has become a common talking point. Politicians from around the world, from Europe to South America to the United States, have been labelled as ‘post-truth leaders’, with Donald... more
Over the last three years, the idea of a ‘post-truth society’ has become a common talking point. Politicians from around the world, from Europe to South America to the United States, have been labelled as ‘post-truth leaders’, with Donald Trump being portrayed as the standard bearer for this new kind of political discourse. This article suggests that post-truth leadership is nothing new. Ever since Max Weber developed his notion of charismatic leadership in the early 20th century, Western societies have been infatuated with the idea that leaders ought not concern themselves too much with factual reality. In a sense, leadership has been post-truth all along.
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It is increasingly common to describe academic research as a “publication game,” a metaphor that connotes instrumental strategies for publishing in highly rated journals. However, we suggest that the use of this metaphor is problematic.... more
It is increasingly common to describe academic research as a “publication game,” a metaphor that connotes instrumental strategies for publishing in highly rated journals. However, we suggest that the use of this metaphor is problematic. In particular, the metaphor allows scholars to make a convenient, but ultimately misleading, distinction between figurative game-playing on one hand (i.e. pursuing external career goals through instrumental publishing) and proper research on the other hand (i.e. producing intrinsically meaningful research). In other words, the “publication game” implies that while academic researchers may behave just like players, they are not really playing a game. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we show that this metaphor prevents us, ironically, from fully grasping the lusory attitude, or play-mentality, that characterizes academic work among critical management researchers. Ultimately, we seek to stimulate reflection about how our choice of metaphor can ha...
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Critical scholars in the business school are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of their research beyond the confines of academia. This has been articulated most prominently around the concept of ‘critical performativity’.... more
Critical scholars in the business school are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of their research beyond the confines of academia. This has been articulated most prominently around the concept of ‘critical performativity’. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with critical leadership scholars, this article explores how academics engage with practitioners at the same time as they seek to maintain a critical ethos in relation to their external activities. While proponents of critical performativity tend to paint a frictionless picture of practitioner engagement—which can take the form of consulting, coaching, and leadership development—we show how critical scholars may end up compromising their academic values in corporate settings due to practitioner demands and other institutional pressures. Taken together, these pressures mean that critical scholars often need to negotiate a series of (sometimes insoluble) dilemmas in practitioner contexts. We argue that the concept ...
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In 2014, leadership studies saw the retraction of a number of journal articles written by prominent researchers who are closely associated with popular concepts such as transformational leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership... more
In 2014, leadership studies saw the retraction of a number of journal articles written by prominent researchers who are closely associated with popular concepts such as transformational leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership and spiritual leadership. In response, The Leadership Quarterly published a lengthy editorial that presented these retractions as a sign of health in a mature scientific field. For the editors of The Leadership Quarterly, there is no crisis in leadership studies. In this paper, we suggest that the editorial is a missed opportunity to reflect on positivist leadership studies. In our view, leadership ought to be in crisis because this would stimulate the community to question its guiding assumptions and reconsider its methods and objectives. We therefore hope to open up a critical discussion about the means and ends of mainstream leadership studies – not least of all its scientific pretensions.
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In this paper, we argue that knowledge production in the business school is increasingly governed by a ludic imperative – namely, the idea that ‘the game must be played’. Illustrating our argument ...
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In this paper, we argue that knowledge production in the business school is increasingly governed by a ludic imperative – namely, the idea that ‘the game must be played’. Illustrating our argument ...
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... work interestingly questions the orthodoxy in management and organization studies concerning the “very assumption of unity” (Thygesen and Andersen ... Bruno Latour, interviewed by Tomas Sánchez-Criado, explains his search for a Ding... more
... work interestingly questions the orthodoxy in management and organization studies concerning the “very assumption of unity” (Thygesen and Andersen ... Bruno Latour, interviewed by Tomas Sánchez-Criado, explains his search for a Ding (or thing) politics as was expressed in ...
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This paper was published as Philosophy Today, 2010, 54 (1), pp. 66-77. It is available from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7696/is_201004//ai_n53082248/?tag=content;col1
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The leadership literature is full of stories of heroic self-sacrifice. Sacrificial leadership behaviour, some scholars conclude, is to be recommended. In this article we follow Keith Grint’s conceptualization of leadership as necessarily... more
The leadership literature is full of stories of heroic self-sacrifice. Sacrificial leadership behaviour, some scholars conclude, is to be recommended. In this article we follow Keith Grint’s conceptualization of leadership as necessarily pertaining to the sacred, but—drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s notion of profanation—we highlight the need for organization scholars to profane the sacralizations embedded in leadership thinking. One example of this, which guides us throughout the article, is the novel A Wild Sheep Chase, by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. By means of a thematic reading of the novel, we discuss how it contributes to profaning particular notions of sacrifice and the sacred in leadership thinking. In the novel, self-sacrifice does not function as a way of establishing a leadership position, but as a way to avoid the dangers associated with leadership, and possibly redeem humans from their current collective urge to become leaders. Inspired by Murakami’s fictional exa...
Research Interests: Sociology, Literature, Leadership, Change Leadership, Critical Management Studies, and 15 moreOrganization Studies, Heroism, Giorgio Agamben, Sacred (Religion), Sacrifice (Philosophy), Global Leadership, Leadership Development, Theology of Sacrifice, Myth, Leadership Studies, Organization, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Ethical Leadership, Profanation, and Reading Process
The interest in organizational play is growing, both in popular business discourse and organization studies. As the presumption that play is dysfunctional for organizations is increasingly discarded, the existing positions may be divided... more
The interest in organizational play is growing, both in popular business discourse and organization studies. As the presumption that play is dysfunctional for organizations is increasingly discarded, the existing positions may be divided into two camps; one proposes ‘serious play’ as an engine for business and the other insists that work and play are largely indistinguishable in the postindustrial organization. Our field study of a design and communications company in Denmark shows that organizational play can be much more than just functional to the organization. We identify three ways in which workplaces engage in play: play as a (serious) continuation of work, play as a (critical) intervention into work and play as an (uninvited) usurpation of work.
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The idea of ‘excellence’ has become widespread in the modern university, in part due to UK assessment exercises such as the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and the Research Excellence Framework (REF). As a result, academic careers are... more
The idea of ‘excellence’ has become widespread in the modern university, in part due to UK assessment exercises such as the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and the Research Excellence Framework (REF). As a result, academic careers are becoming increasingly oriented around publications in highly ranked journals. For critical management scholars, this poses a particular difficulty: how to negotiate the demand for excellence at the same time as maintaining a critical ethos in relation to one’s work. Our study, which is based on interviews with members of the editorial board of Organization, examines this tension by outlining the ‘secrets of excellence’ according to some of the most excellent critical management scholars in the field. Although our tone is at times ironic and provocative, the paper arises from a genuine concern about the risks involved in playing the publication game. Ultimately, we argue that the game of excellence tends to master its players, rather than the other w...