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- Alvesson, Mats, et al.
(författare)
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Pre-understanding : An interpretation-enhancer and horizon-expander in research
- 2022
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Ingår i: Organization Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0170-8406 .- 1741-3044. ; 43:3, s. 395-412
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pre-understanding – our presuppositions of reality – underlies all research. Many researchers probably also draw productively on their pre-understanding in their studies. However, very few rationales and methodological resources exist for how researchers can enrich their research by mobilizing their pre-understanding more actively and systematically. We elaborate and propose a framework for how researchers more actively, systematically and visibly can bring forward their pre-understanding and use it as a positive input in research, alongside formal data and theory. In particular, we show how researchers, in dialogue with data and theory, can mobilize their pre-understanding as an interpretation-enhancer and horizon-expander throughout the research process, including stimulating imagination and idea generation, broadening the empirical base, and evaluating what empirical material and theoretical ideas are interesting and relevant to pursue.
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| 3. |
- Alvesson, Mats, et al.
(författare)
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Honorable Surrender : On the Erosion of Resistance in a University Setting
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Management Inquiry. - : SAGE Publications. - 1056-4926 .- 1552-6542. ; 30:4, s. 407-420
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article addresses the temporality of resistance in the work context. We focus on the challenge of increasingly diminishing professional autonomy in higher education institutions as well as the vulnerability of staff subjected to academic managerialism. A case where a lecturer is exposed to the requirements to revise grading by senior administration is investigated. Power is understood from the “target’s” perspective and viewed as the erosion of resistance. We introduce the concepts honorable surrender and smoothers to capture the process of giving up of resistance. We argue that these concepts are of special significance in autonomy-espousing work contexts where multiplicity of power resources are employed to subordinate employees and influence their professional identities. We contend that de-subjectification is key in understanding the erosion of resistance.
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- Alvesson, Mats, et al.
(författare)
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Philosophical Minds or Brotgelehrte?
- 2022
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Ingår i: Organization Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1741-3044 .- 0170-8406. ; 43:11, s. 1839-1852
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this essay, we discuss basic orientations and ways of being among us, the academics, especially in the context of research. Using German poet, scholar and author Friedrich Schiller’s distinction between ‘der philosophische Kopf’ (‘philosophical mind’) and ‘Brotgelehrte’ (‘bread-fed scholar’), we contrast ideal-typical figures in academia. We find these forgotten 18th-century characters inspirational to help us understand some troublesome contemporary developments of academics and academia and to remind us of the perhaps perennial nature of the ongoing controversies and debates. We further develop and nuance these figures and bring them to the 21st century. Like Schiller in his time, we want to highlight the importance of each of us in shaping what academia is and what it becomes. The contrast may help us think through who we are, what is driving us in our work, and how we can (re)construct ourselves in the light of dominant normalizations and templates for being in contemporary academia.
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| 6. |
- Paulsen, Roland, 1981-
(författare)
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Empty Labor : Subjectivity and Idleness at Work
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about how and why employees spend large proportions of their working hours on empty labor, i.e. private activities on the job. It is written against the backdrop of a highly debated subject within critical theory, namely the possibility of individuals resisting taken-for-granted power asymmetries. Critical theorists' stress on ideological power and the internalization of submission calls the idea of a free subject into question. Since labor often appears as the hub of instrumental reason in which all acts of resistance are suppressed, this stress becomes particularly obvious when worker subjectivity is discussed. Yet international statistics suggest that the average time of empty labor per employee is between 1,5 to 3 hours a day. With the overarching goal to understand if these statistics emanate from undercover employee resistance in the form of time appropriation, I interviewed 43 employees who spent around half of their working hours on empty labor. Four types of empty labor could be discerned depending on the employee's sense of work obligation and how much work the job actually entailed: soldiering is the active withdrawal of the employee despite high potential output; slacking is a combination of little to do and weak sense of work obligation in the employee; coping is when the employee wants to perform and there is much to do, but when empty labor is used as stress relief; enduring is when the employee is motivated to work, but work tasks are lacking. Although simulating work is essential to all types of empty labor, only soldiering represents resistance in the sense that subjective motives challenge the organization of labor. Among those with a weak sense of work obligation, the motives for time appropriation varied from personal to more political reasons. However, if empty labor can be incorporated into the organization of work, and the maximal efficiency that sometimes is ascribed to the capitalist production system is unwarranted, one might ask whether any type of empty labor signifies resistance. I conclude by pointing out how the phenomenon of empty labor challenges the very concept of work and its relation to production.
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| 7. |
- Alvesson, Mats, et al.
(författare)
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A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organizations
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Management Studies. - : Wiley. - 1467-6486 .- 0022-2380. ; 49:7, s. 1194-1220
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we question the one-sided thesis that contemporary organizations rely on the mobilization of cognitive capacities. We suggest that severe restrictions on these capacities in the form of what we call functional stupidity are an equally important if under-recognized part of organizational life. Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications. We argue that functional stupidity is prevalent in contexts dominated by economy in persuasion which emphasizes image and symbolic manipulation. This gives rise to forms of stupidity management that repress or marginalize doubt and block communicative action. In turn, this structures individuals' internal conversations in ways that emphasize positive and coherent narratives and marginalize more negative or ambiguous ones. This can have productive outcomes such as providing a degree of certainty for individuals and organizations. But it can have corrosive consequences such as creating a sense of dissonance among individuals and the organization as a whole. The positive consequences can give rise to self-reinforcing stupidity. The negative consequences can spark dialogue, which may undermine functional stupidity.
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| 8. |
- Alvesson, Mats, et al.
(författare)
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Accomplishments in consultancy work: ambiguity and distribution of praise and blame
- 2010
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Ingår i: Discourses of Deficit.
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter addresses identity constructions in the context of consultant-client relations in consultancy work. The focus is on how consultants and client managers use the image of each other as negative mirrors of themselves, making collaboration tension-ridden and complicated. In particular we emphasize identity dynamics around the attribution of credit and blame, drawing attention to the evaluatory and moral aspects of identity constructions in ambiguous, boundary-spanning work contexts.
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