Sub-theme 40: Affect at Work: Psychosocial Approaches to Organizations and Organizing
Call for Papers
The 30th anniversary of The Managed Heart (Hochschild, 1983) marks the explosion of interest in emotions in management
and organization studies. Emotion is central to the process of organizing and integral to the participation in organizational
life (Putnam & Mumby, 1993: 36). To date however, the social and political dimensions of emotion tend to be missing from
these conceptualizations. This sub-theme aims to redress this imbalance by proposing a psychosocial approach, which holds
the potential of bridging the gap between the psychic and social; organization and policy, and public and private dimensions
in research about organizations and organizing.
Our aim is to breathe life into previous conceptualizations of
emotion, which have been critiqued for yielding an a-political, individualized worldview, by drawing on the vibrant and passionate
traditions of psychodynamic and psychosocial inquiry. A diverse field, psychosocial studies encompasses Lacanian approaches
(Kenny, 2010; Fotaki, 2010), more Kleinian-inspired relational psychoanalysis, as introduced by Hollway and Jefferson (2000),
and other perspectives (Gabriel 1999; Frosh, 2010). Such approaches problematize the boundaries between traditionally dualistic
concepts, including individual versus society, and public versus private. What unites these perspectives in their theoretical
and methodological plurality is that they consider desiring human beings in all their contradictions as embedded in the social
structures that define them in important ways.
We propose to connect organization studies with a diverse range
of approaches from psychology, social sciences, cultural studies and feminist theory through the lens of affect.
We invite theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions from a variety of perspectives, including but not limited
to:
- Political dimensions of affect drawing on variety of traditions from social and cultural theory
- Changes in the positioning of affective economy from early bourgeois society to post-modernity
- Affective responses and implications of austerity in public and private organizations
- The materiality of life and its non-representational affective movements
- Emotions and learning in organizations
- New approaches to emotional labour to include leadership, service and caring work
- Gender, diversity and feminist theorizing on affect at work
- Emotional labour processes in health, social care and education
- The commercialization of emotions in contemporary organizations
- The 'dark side' of affect
- Emotional exploitation at the work place in the late capitalism, including collusion and self-exploitation in creative industries, academia and others
References
Fotaki, Marianna (2010): 'Why do public policies fail so often? Exploring health policy making as an imaginary/symbolic construction.' Organization, 17 (6), 703–720.
Frosh, Stephen (2010): Psychoanalysis Outside the Clinic: Interventions in Psychosocial Studies. London: Palgrave.
Gabriel, Yiannis (1999): Organizations in Depth. London: Sage.
Hochschild, Arlie (1983): The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Emotions. Berkley: University of California Press.
Hollway, Wendy & Tony Jefferson (2000): Doing Qualitative Research Differently. London: Sage.
Kenny, Kate (2010): 'Beyond ourselves: passion and the dark side of identification in an ethical organization.' Human Relations, 63 (6), 857–873.
Putnam, Linda L. & Dennis K. Mumby (1993): 'Organizations, emotions and the myth of rationality.' In: S. Fineman (ed.): Emotions in Organizations. London: Sage, 36–58.