| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
- Butler, Nick, et al.
(författare)
-
Academics at play : Why the “publication game” is more than a metaphor
- 2018
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is increasingly common for academic work to be described as a ‘publication game’. For some, the idea of academic game-playing serves as a convenient metaphor for explaining concrete phenomenon such as professional advancement or instrumental careerism in the context of national research assessments such as the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK. However, we suggest that academic game-playing should not solely be understood in metaphorical terms. Rather, we propose that many of the attributes of play – as articulated by play theorists – can be usefully applied to understand and problematize academic research under the contemporary ‘regime of excellence’. Drawing on extensive interviews with critical management scholars, we argue that academia is characterized by a ‘lusory attitude’ towards research; this means that scholars relate to their work as players relate to a game. Ultimately, we seek to show how the separation between ‘mere’ game-playing and ‘real’ research is not possible to maintain in practice. In doing so, we also problematize the ‘separation thesis’ in play theory, which holds that play, by its very nature, is strictly separated from ‘reality’.
|
|
| 3. |
- Butler, Nick, et al.
(författare)
-
Academics at play : Why the “publication game” is more than a metaphor
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Management Learning. - : SAGE Publications. - 1350-5076 .- 1461-7307. ; 51:4, s. 414-430
-
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.
|
|
| 4. |
- Butler, Nick, et al.
(författare)
-
Beyond measure
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization. - 2052-1499. ; 20:3, s. 1-16
-
Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- 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.
|
|
| 5. |
- Butler, Nick
(författare)
-
Fantasies of strategy : Žižek, discourse and enjoyment
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Critical Perspectives on Accounting. - : Elsevier BV. - 1045-2354 .- 1095-9955. ; 53, s. 79-88
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper draws on the work of Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek to explore the ideological fantasies of strategy. Specifically, the paper argues that the academic field of strategy-as-practice (SAP) quilts a set of organizational activities and practices around the master signifier of 'strategy'. This means that SAP theory circles around a void that its proponents seek to fill through an endless search for the objet petit a, the paradoxical object-cause of desire. The paper demonstrates this by showing how the SAP literature conceptualizes the practice of strategy in a circular and self-referential way, i.e. as an effect that respectively posits its own cause. The illusion is that the practice of strategy appears to be present from the very beginning in the SAP literature, when it has been constituted post factum. Ultimately, the paper seeks traverse the fantasy of strategy and reveal the surplus enjoyment at the heart of SAP theory. The paper concludes by exploring alternative ways of understanding the practice of strategy from the perspective of the transgressive 'act' (passage a l'acte).
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Butler, Nick, et al.
(författare)
-
How to Become Less Excellent
- 2017
-
Ingår i: The Corporatization of the Business School. - Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. : Routledge. - 9781138191204 ; , s. 74-91
-
Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter 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. It offers some suggestions on how academic game-plays in the business school. The chapter reviews the literature on the rise of excellence, focusing on the impact of journal rankings and research assessments on academic working lives. In recent years, 'excellence' has emerged as a key discourse within the contemporary university. Originating in the private sector and the rise of New Public Management in the 1980s and 1990s, 'excellence' involves orientating academic knowledge production around metrics such as journal rankings, impact factors and league tables. To this extent, it is aligned with neo-liberal 'audit culture' that seeks to measure and assess the products of academic labour as discrete units of value rather than as primarily scholarly contributions.
|
|
| 9. |
- Butler, Nick, et al.
(författare)
-
How to become less excellent
- 2017
-
Ingår i: The Corporatization of the Business School: Minerva Meets the Market. - Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. : Routledge. - 9781317277484 - 9781138191143 ; , s. 74-91
-
Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)
|
|
| 10. |
|
|
