| 1. |
- Alvesson, Mats, et al.
(författare)
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Grandiosity in contemporary management and education
- 2016
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : SAGE Publications. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 47:4, s. 464-473
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contemporary practitioner and academic discourses of organizations and management have developed a tendency to discuss everyday organizational phenomena in overblown and remarkable ways. It is now commonplace to view organizations in terms of visions, missions, strategies, charisma, entrepreneurship, best practice and so on. A hyped-up language is becoming endemic to ordinary discussions of ordinary organizations doing ordinary things. This calls for some critical attention. One way of capturing this tendency to hype is through the idea of grandiosity that is taking over the ways mundane organizational phenomena are constructed and debated. In this essay, we argue that grandiosity is the product of the narcissism of our times, reinforced by contemporary consumerism; we suggest that grandiosity not only affects adversely critical reflection of organizations and management, but more importantly that it undermines organizational performance and learning.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Berglund, Martina, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Scaling up and scaling down : Improvisational handling of critical work practices during the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2024
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : SAGE Publications Ltd. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 55, s. 305-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this article is to explore improvisational handling of critical work practices during the COVID-19 pandemic and interpret these practices from a learning perspective. Based on an interview study with representatives of private, public and intermediary organisations, the study identified three different types of improvisational handling as responses to the pandemic crisis involving ‘scaling up’ and ‘scaling down’ critical work practices. By ‘scaling up’ and ‘scaling down’, we refer to practices for which, due to the pandemic, it has been imperative to urgently scale up an existing operational process or develop a new process, and alternatively extensively scale down or cease an existing process. The types of improvisational handling differed depending on the discretion of involved actors in terms of the extent to which the tasks, methods and/or results were given beforehand. These types of improvisational handling resulted in temporary solutions that may become permanent after the pandemic. The framework and model proposed in the article can be used as a tool to analyse and learn from the changes in work practices that have been set in motion during the pandemic. Such learning may improve the ability to cope with future extensive crises and other rapid change situations. © The Author(s) 2022.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Borg, Elisabeth, et al.
(författare)
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Liminality competence : An interpretative study of mobile project workers’ conception of liminality at work
- 2015
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : Sage Publications. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 46:3, s. 260-279
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study focuses on individuals working under transient and mobile conditions and the specific competences that they develop to deal with such work conditions. The article examines a specific type of knowledge worker, namely, the mobile project worker who is employed by a technical consultancy but who performs work on various client projects together with members from client organizations. The overall aim of this article is to improve our understanding of the differences among people’s abilities to handle fluid and flexible work conditions. We elaborate on the notion of “liminality” to denote a particular element of flexible work conditions, which consists of continuous movement among assignments and of simultaneous engagement with several organizations. Based on qualitative and interpretative research involving a combination of interviews, diaries, and workshops, this article identifies three levels of specific “liminality competence” that mobile project workers develop to deal with liminality at work.
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| 6. |
- Buchanan, David A., et al.
(författare)
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Surviving a zombie apocalypse : Leadership configurations in extreme contexts
- 2019
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : Sage Publications. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 50:2, s. 152-170
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What can the classic zombie movie, Day of the Dead, tell us about leadership? In our analysis of this film, we explore leadership behaviours in an extreme context - a zombie apocalypse where survivors face persistent existential threat. Extreme context research presents methodological challenges, particularly with regard to fieldwork. The use of films as proxy case studies is one way in which to overcome these problems, and for researchers working in an interpretivist perspective, 'social science fiction' is increasingly used as a source of inspiration and ideas. The contribution of our analysis concerns highlighting the role of leadership configurations in extreme contexts, an approach not previously addressed in this field, but one that has greater explanatory power than current perspectives. In Day of the Dead, we observe several different configurations - patterns of leadership styles and behaviours - emerging, shifting and overlapping across the phases of the narrative, each with radically different consequences for the group of survivors. These observations suggest a speculative theory of leadership configurations and their implications in extreme contexts, for exploring further, with other methods.
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| 7. |
- Butler, Nick, et al.
(författare)
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Academics at play : Why the “publication game” is more than a metaphor
- 2020
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : SAGE Publications. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 51:4, s. 414-430
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 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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| 8. |
- Crevani, Lucia, 1977-
(författare)
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Organizational presence and place : Sociomaterial place work in the Swedish outdoor industry
- 2019
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : SAGE Publications. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 50:4, s. 389-408
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this article is to explore the relation between organizational presence and the place in which such a presence is enacted. To this end I mobilize Doreen Massey’s processual conceptualization of place as an event consisting of a bundle of trajectories. By following the presentification of a Swedish company, Fjällräven, in the natural environment in the North of Sweden during Fjällräven Classic, I show that the organization is not made present in place, but through place production. I propose the concept of place work to express the work done by representatives of the organization, but also by other humans and nonhumans, to make the throwntogetherness of the place result in a rather coherent and stable construction through which the organization is made present. Place work is therefore work through which organizational presence and place are recursively co-creating. The concept of place work expands what we can learn about the “where” of an organization when building on an ontology of performativity.
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| 9. |
- Crevani, Lucia, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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Performative narcissism : When organizations are made successful, admirable, and unique through narcissistic work
- 2017
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : SAGE Publications Ltd. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 48:4, s. 431-452
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dramatic stories of corporate crises appear in newspapers and magazines all over the world; one explanation offered by scholars has been that the affected organization suffered (literally) from narcissism. As responsible, ethical, non-narcissistic behavior is claimed to be crucial for management, the purpose of this article is to advance our knowledge about narcissism in organizations by developing an understanding of which organizational work enacts organizations as successful, admired, and unique. The dominant use of narcissism as a pathological condition limits the possibility to learn about organizing processes since it provides simplistic explanations. By introducing the notion of performative narcissism, we re-focus attention from the pathological condition of organizations to potentially pervasive organizational practices. Thus, we see that narcissistic work is a sociomaterial process not limited to organizational borders, but connecting and enrolling people, artifacts, animals, and places into mutually dependent, shifting, and composite assemblages that emerge through practices reproducing the organization as successful and unique.
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| 10. |
- Czarniawska, Barbara, 1948
(författare)
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Reflexivity versus rigor
- 2016
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Ingår i: Management Learning. - : SAGE Publications. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 47:5, s. 615-619
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although both rigor and reflexivity are counted among scientific virtues, following these virtues in practice—whether the practice of management or the practice of research—is more complex than it might seem. In what follows, I discuss some of those complexities. © 2016, © The Author(s) 2016.
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