The Triumph of Emptiness: Consumption, Higher Education, and Work Organization
Autor Mats Alvessonen Limba Engleză Paperback – 14 apr 2022
In today's world, considerable time and effort is devoted to appearance, both for individuals and organizations; the right look, an impressive title, a favourable connection. The focus is on the surface, with considerations of substance often overlooked. In this book, Mats Alvesson demystifies some popular and upbeat claims about a range of phenomena, including the knowledge society, consumption, branding, higher education, organizational change, professionalization,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 Supervisors have been replaced by 'managers', and managers are referred to as 'executives'. Management itself is about 'leadership'. Giving advice is'coaching'. Companies become 'knowledge-intensive firms'. This 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.This second edition uses a wide range of empirical examples to illuminate the realms of consumption, higher education, organization, and leadership in the 21st century. Exploring new areas such as strategic management in higher education, title inflation, and the increasing imbalance between knowledge, manual, and care work, this provocative and engaging book challenges established assumptions and contributes to a critical understanding of society as a whole.
| Toate formatele și edițiile | Preț | Express |
|---|---|---|
| Paperback (1) | 242.51 lei 31-37 zile | |
| OUP OXFORD – 14 apr 2022 | 242.51 lei 31-37 zile | |
| Hardback (1) | 302.83 lei 31-37 zile | |
| OUP OXFORD – 30 mai 2013 | 302.83 lei 31-37 zile |
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Livrare economică 08-14 martie
Specificații
ISBN-10: 0192865277
Pagini: 240
Dimensiuni: 155 x 234 x 14 mm
Greutate: 0.39 kg
Ediția:2
Editura: OUP OXFORD
Colecția OUP Oxford
Locul publicării:Oxford, United Kingdom
Recenzii
An engaging read that bravely tackles higher education orthodoxies
This is a well-written, powerful book that makes you think and reflect about some of the key issues of our time. You couldn't ask for more.
The Triumph of Emptiness pulls back the proverbial curtain on our current society to reveal the empty truth behind our illusions of grandeur. Mats Alvesson leads us on a critical, smart, and often amusing romp through a world in which everything is excellent, advice is known as coaching, and vice presidents are a dime a dozen. He shows the increasing gap between reality and fantasy, need and want, and product production and the illusions necessary to sell them. Higher education is not immune to these trends, with ideas of college for all and the pronounced dumbing-down of university study. If you are interested in the strange paradox in rich societies of how we can have so much but not be any happier, read this book.
The Triumph of Emptiness is a provocative, insightful, and highly ambitious (even grandiose) indictment of consumption, work, and the organizations in which it occurs, as well as higher education. They are all critiqued for their grandiosity, inflated and distorted images, and mindless competitiveness. This is an uncompromising work that is likely to both enlighten and infuriate the reader.
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.
Notă biografică
Mats Alvesson is a Professor in Organization Studies at Lund University. His research focuses on leadership, critical theory, gender, power, identity, and organizational image and culture.