In this book, Mats Alvesson aims to demystify some popular and upbeat claims about a range of phenomena, including the knowledge society, consumption, branding, higher education, organisational change, professionalisation, and leadership. He contends that a culture of grandiosity is leading to numerous inflated claims. We no longer talk about plans but strategies. Supervisors have been replaced by managers. Goods have become brands. Wealthy countries try to show that they are knowledge societies through mass higher education but with limited effect on real qualifications or qualified job opportunities for graduates. The book views the contemporary economy as an economy of persuasion, where firms and other institutions increasingly assign talent, energy, and resources to rhetoric, image, branding, reputation, and visibility.
Using a wide range of empirical examples to illuminate the realms of consumption, higher education, organisation, and leadership, this provocative and engaging book challenges established assumptions and contributes to a critical understanding of society as a whole.
By:
Mats Alvesson (Lund University Lund University Department of Business Administration)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 245mm,
Width: 161mm,
Spine: 28mm
Weight: 582g
ISBN: 9780199660940
ISBN 10: 0199660948
Pages: 254
Publication Date: 11 June 2013
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
1: Introduction - Zero-Sum Games, Grandiosity, and Illusion Tricks 2: Consumption - the Shortcomings of Affluence 3: Explaining the Consumption Paradox: Why aren't People (More) Satisfied? 4: Higher Education - Triumph of the Knowledge Intensive Society or a Statistical Cosmetics Project? 5: Higher Education - an Image-Boosting Business? 6: Modern Working Life and Organizations - Change, Dynamism, and Post-Bureaucracy? 7: Organizational Structures on the Beauty Parade: Imitation and Shop-Window Dressing 8: A Place in the Sun - Occupational Groups' Professionalization Projects and Other Status and Influence Ambitions 9: Leadership - A Driving Force or Empty Talk 10: The Triumph of Imagology - A Paradise for Tricksters? 11: The Costs of Grandiosity
Mats Alvesson is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Lund, Sweden and at University of Queensland Business School, Australia. Recent books include Qualitative Research and Theory Development (Sage 2011, with Dan Kärreman), Interpreting Interviews (Sage 2011), Metaphor We Lead By: Understanding Leadership in the Real World (Routledge 2011, ed with Andre Spicer), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies (Oxford University Press, edited with Todd Bridgman and Hugh Willmott), Understanding Gender and Organizations (Sage, 2009, 2nd ed, with Yvonne Billing), Reflexive Methodology (Sage, 2009, 2nd ed, with Kaj Skoldberg), Changing Organizational Culture (Routledge 2008, with Stefan Sveningsson), Knowledge Work and Knowledge-Intensive Firms (Oxford University Press, 2004).
Reviews for The Triumph of Emptiness: Consumption, Higher Education, and Work Organization
<br> The author, a leading management scholar and a major sociological thinker, punctures the grandiosity and narcissism of our times when we succumb to the illusions that image, hype, and empty talk create value, when everyone must claim to be cutting edge and a world leader. Alvesson succeeds brilliantly in demonstrating that behind such grandiosity lurks an emptiness of meaning, of value, and of imagination. His powerful critical discussions of modern consumption, higher education, professionalism, and leadership insinuate that our current malaise goes far deeper than the economic crisis in which we find ourselves. This is a book that breaks loose of the management publication ghetto and demands to be read by everyone. --Yiannis Gabriel, Chair in Organizational Theory, University of Bath<p><br>