PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT

Interviewed by geographers in 1976, Michel Foucault expressed his irritation about the neglect of spatial thinking. How could space, he asked, be treated as “the dead, the fixed, the undialectical, the immobile”, while time would be seen as “richness, fecundity, life, dialectic” (Foucault, 1980/1976, p. 70)? Since then, things have changed. The question of space – space as ‘alive’, as fecund, multiple, contested, ever in movement – has become a primary matter of concern in philosophical and social thought, also with regard to how organizational space is produced, dominated, contested and appropriated.

This course is dedicated to organization, management and entrepreneurship as distinctly spatial phenomena: as made up of practices that produce space, and as influenced by spatial constellations. The course therefore taps into the recent ‘spatial turn’ in the study of organization, which is itself part of wider reconsideration of space and the spatiality of human life in philosophical and social theory. How can we understand, think and explore organization, management and entrepreneurship as spatial practices and phenomena? And how can we understand, think and explore everyday organizational power and creativity as invariably spatial?

On successful completion of the course, students should be able to:
• understand ‘space’ as central category of cultural and organizational theory and discuss the main theoretical questions pertaining to the relation of space, organization and management;
• develop a critical understanding of space as key issue in contemporary management thought and practice;
• think spatially, i.e. critically reflect on how organizational space is produced, and to reflect on management, entrepreneurship and creativity as spatial practices;
• develop core theoretical skills such as reconstructing and evaluating arguments, articulating theories, identifying and analyzing examples and cases and engaging with the critical and political dimensions such inquiry.

No prior knowledge required.

In week 1, we will get acquainted with the renaissance of spatial thought by way of human geographer Doreen Massey’s For Space, so as to consider the wide-ranging ‘spatial turn’ and its effects on the thinking of organization, management and entrepreneurship. In week 2, we will delve into the reception of the perhaps most important spatial thinker in the late 20th century, the philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, whose work on space and the urban has been particularly influential in the study of organization and management.
In week 3, we will ponder the notion of heterotopic space as invented by the philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, and trace its applicability to studying and understanding entrepreneurial and creative spaces. In week 4, we will be enveloped by the atmospheric and affective force of space by thinking (and feeling) with an approach to organizational spaces that emphasizes their embodied and emotional impact. In week 5, we will investigate the critical potential of spatio-organizational thought by reflecting the politics of everyday space and spaces of resistance.

Dashtipour, P. and N. Rumens (2018). ‘Entrepreneurship, incongruence and affect: Drawing insights from a Swedish anti-racist organisation’, Organization 25(2): 223-241.

Session 2 (04.03.): Consider the business school
Required reading: Beyes, T. and C. Michels (2011) ‘The production of educational space: Heterotopia and the business university’, Management Learning 42(5): 521-536.
Suggested reading: Beyes, T. and C. Michels (2014) ‘Performing university space: multiplicity, relationality, affect’, in Paul Temple (ed.), The Physical University: Contours of Space and Place in Higher Education. London: Routledge: 15-33.

English

Written paper