Managing intensity and play at work : transient relationships 1. Diagnostics of the present and second order observation 2. Adapting to adaptability : the machine of transience 3. From membership to self enrollment : the production of the employee who creates herself in the organizational image 4. Management of authentic feelings : the trembling organization 5. Managing interpenetration and intensity 6. Loving layoffs : the intimate strategies of the break up 7. Unbound binding : from employee contracts to partnerships 8. The organization as a nexus of partnerships. This book treats seriously one of the fundamental trends characterizing contemporary institutions namely the inability to establish a ground from which purpose and direction can be defined. It questions the core trope of permanent change and exposes its emptiness in a thorough and considered manner which enriches the way we question organizational orders. Bogdan Costea Lancaster University UK What does it mean to organize when the only established premise is that everything is transient How is it possible for an organization to manage expectations based on the expectation of the unexpected In this thought provoking book Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen uses a unique combination of deconstruction systems theory and discourse theory to critically discuss topics such as the management of feelings partnerships as second order promises and worklife balance as an immune defense against over socialized employees. He assesses the parallels between layoffs in intimate organizations and modern professional divorce discourses and explores the dichotomy of double bounded management commanding both do as I say and be autonomous. In so doing Professor Andersen encourages the reader to look at relationships in the workplace in new ways. This unique book will prove invaluable for academics and students of human resource management organizational behavior and critical management studies