Papers by Bernadette Loacker
sometimes shapes work which announces that it is ‘critical’, as it rediscovers concepts such as i... more sometimes shapes work which announces that it is ‘critical’, as it rediscovers concepts such as identity, narrative and discourse like the absent minded goldfish.) It seems that ‘new stuff’ is generally more useful than ‘old stuff’ at the present moment in time. Probably the most important contribution this book could make is its unstated assumption that all worthwhile work on organizations (and perhaps on anything else) is informed by a long view, both in terms of the maturation of ideas but also a certain distance from impact. The classics have been there for a while, and the elitist ivy now grows around them. But precisely because of the cultural capital that attaches to the word, and the very existence of this Oxford University Press book, it is difficult to argue that they aren’t classics without sounding boorish, or even to suggest that we should dispose of them in the skip behind the library. Best of all, it might be embarrassing for some B-School employees with high salaries and opinions of themselves to have to admit that they need to do some more reading and thinking. This big sober book stands as a rebuke to speed, to the assumption that we are the cleverest people ever, and to the idea that an academic study of organizing should be replaced by a profitable science for managers.
Emerald Publishing Limited eBooks, 2016
Journal of Business Ethics
Furthering an integrative ethics-as-practice framework, this paper explores the professional prac... more Furthering an integrative ethics-as-practice framework, this paper explores the professional practices, self-understanding and ethics of lawyers working in the Germanic legal context. Existing studies of the legal profession often argue that changing conditions in law have led to a ‘constrained morality’ and an ‘erosion of ethos’ among lawyers. While the current study acknowledges shifts in lawyers’ ethos, it challenges the claim of an erosion or ‘lack’ of morality. The narratives of the interviewed practitioners rather suggest that socio-discursively constituted professional practices, identity and ethics are complex and contingent. Focusing on the ‘moral rules in use’ and how lawyers negotiate ethical matters ‘from within’ evokes ongoing ambiguities and struggles inscribed in ethical (self-)positions, pointing, as such, to the limits of assessing lawyers’ conduct as ‘ethical’ or ‘unethical’. The study thereby extends both normative and practice-based business and professional ethi...
Künstlerische Arbeit und Subjektivität im Postfordismus
Künstlerische Arbeit und Subjektivität im Postfordismus
A newcomer entering the professional context of academia as a doctoral student or an early career... more A newcomer entering the professional context of academia as a doctoral student or an early career researcher may not necessarily realise that navigating power imbalances and inequalities based on our sociologically ascribed categories – such as gender, sexuality and age – is going to be a key task. At least for two of us, reflecting back on the first few years of our academic socialisation, a strong memory emerges of a certain naivety about what it would take to start feeling that we belong in this environment, and in particular about how gender-related issues manifest in different aspects of the profession. For the other, there was a sense of resigned acceptance that there were inequalities but a lack of strategy to tackle them. This naivety is understandable in a profession that pursues knowledge and is predominantly marked by a focus on scholarly ideas and pedagogy, as well as having a reputation for collegiality and an interest in the social good. Why one should feel disempowere...
Critical Management Studies (CMS) has developed a global presence over the last two decades. Yet ... more Critical Management Studies (CMS) has developed a global presence over the last two decades. Yet the literature is dominated by writings from the UK and Scandinavia in particular, and the tendency is to treat this literature as constituting CMS. However, the meaning, practice, constraints and context of CMS vary considerably between different countries, cultures and language communities.This volume surveys the various countries and regions where CMS has acquired some following and seeks to explore the different ways in which CMS is understood and the different contexts within which it operates, as well as its possible future development. Critical Management Studies: Global Voices, Local Accents brings together the leading academics in each region by focussing on those countries where CMS has a more or less extensive presence, the volume seeks to bring to light various issues. One is just to gain some understanding of the development of CMS within those countries. How extensive is it? How well-established? The second main theme will be an explanation of the institutional and political context of CMS in each country, to what extent does the nature of universities enable CMS? In what ways do national politics intersect with CMS? More profoundly, each contribution will elucidate what CMS means within that country – what are the key issues and debates? Finally, the way that CMS in each country relates and responds to the emergent CMSAimed at scholars and researchers in the field of both CMS and Organizational Studies, this new research volume will prove essential reading.
Inspired by Foucault’s (1967/1986) notion of ‘heterotopia’, this note reflects on ephemera as a ‘... more Inspired by Foucault’s (1967/1986) notion of ‘heterotopia’, this note reflects on ephemera as a ‘site of otherness’ that challenges modes of thinking and organizing, predominating within the field of organization studies. It thereby illustrates how members of the editorial collective seek to integrate the idea of an affirmative ‘critique from within’ in their various activities and practices. The note suggests that, at ephemera, critical, challenging thought cannot be separated from the practices of its production. Thinking differently is for ephemera and its members irreducibly entangled with organizing and producing differently.
The broad themes of work and consumption have received substantial attention in ephemera (e.g. Be... more The broad themes of work and consumption have received substantial attention in ephemera (e.g. Beverungen et al., 2013; Bradshaw et al., 2013; Chertkovskaya et al., 2013). Following concomitant debates, this special issue aims to bring together these two realms. While work, understood as the process of production, and consumption, understood as the consummation of objects of production, have always been related to each other (Baudrillard, 1998/1970), the intensity of their interconnectedness and the plethora of its forms have lately captured particular attention among organisation studies scholars and social scientists more generally (e.g. Dale, 2012; Gabriel et al., 2015; Pettinger, 2016).
In recent years a familiar mantra has been recited through media channels, government reports and... more In recent years a familiar mantra has been recited through media channels, government reports and related sources, namely that of austerity. By now, the images of protest movements of various stripes have been well-documented, which has given the Left a renewed notion of opposition and resistance to a seemingly unperturbed neoliberal encroachment on almost all areas of life (e.g. Bonefeld, 2012, this issue; also Hamann, 2009; Read, 2009).
This paper is grounded in a thematic reading of Robert Musil's (1933/1997) novel The Man With... more This paper is grounded in a thematic reading of Robert Musil's (1933/1997) novel The Man Without Qualities. Combining literary, social, and economic theory, the discipline-spanning novel engages with some of the central questions and conflicts of our age, such as the search for order and coherence, seeking to overcome the fragmentation of life. Specifically, we suggest that Musil refers to the advent of entrepreneurship and the ‘enterprising spirit’ as an example evocative of these pursuits, as well as their concomitant ambiguities and frictions. Our analysis therefore engages with the role of Austrian economic theory in consolidating entrepreneur/ship as an ideal socio-economic model and order. By discussing the complexities inscribed in seemingly unifying orders such as entrepreneurship, the paper contributes in particular to critical and process entrepreneurship studies in MOS. It responds to calls for further literary, inter-disciplinary, and historical analyses in entrepren...
This paper is interested in investigating the complex nexus of sites of organizing and absurdity ... more This paper is interested in investigating the complex nexus of sites of organizing and absurdity emerging from the persistent undermining and intermingling of common orders, logics and conventions. In its analysis the paper refers to an example from popular culture – the detective series Twin Peaks – which presents a ‘city of absurdity’. The series is discussed utilising Foucault’s (1970) concept of heterotopia which allows us to convey the ‘other side’ of ‘normal’ order and rational reason, immanent in sites of organizing. Fundamentally, the sites in Twin Peaks evoke an understanding of organization as a dynamic assemblage in which heterogeneous orders, conventions and practices interrelate and collide. Analysed through a ‘heterotopic lens’ the TV series Twin Peaks contributes to the exploration of absurdity as a form of humour, and more generally to a sensitive and vivid knowing and experiencing of organization, organizational ‘otherness’ and absurdity.
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Papers by Bernadette Loacker