Managing intensity and play at work
Subtitle: transient relationships
By: Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen
Contributors: Edward Elgar Publishing
Publisher: Edward Elgar Pub. Ltd.
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Cheltenham
Language: eng
Number of pages: 280
ISBN-13: 9781782545958; 9781782545965
Subjects: Interpersonal relations; Personnel management; Work environment; Social aspects; Organizational behavior
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Table of contents: title: 1. Diagnostics of the present and second-order observation; title: 2. Adapting to adaptability : the machine of transience; title: 3. From membership to self-enrollment : the production of the employee who creates herself in the organizational image; title: 4. Management of authentic feelings : the trembling organization; title: 5. Managing interpenetration and intensity; title: 6. Loving layoffs : the intimate strategies of the break-up; title: 7. Unbound binding : from employee contracts to partnerships; title: 8. The organization as a nexus of partnerships.