Science Fiction and Organization PDF
Preview Science Fiction and Organization
Science Fiction and Organization Science fiction can be seen as a diagnosis of the present, and a vision of possible futures. As such, it forms an excellent tool of interrogation for both contemporary organizing processes and organizations as institutions. To date, however, the mar- ginal activity of science fiction has been largely ignored in writing on organiza- tional theory. This international collection is the first book of its kind to explore how science fiction can enrich organizational studies by drawing on perspectives across the arts and social sciences. Key themes include: (cid:127) Examining the interrelation of organizational theory and developments in science fiction. (cid:127) Showing how immersion in science fiction can alter the reader’s perspective and how this, in turn, feeds an understanding of organization. (cid:127) Discussion of how the exploration of popular themes in science fiction (such as identity, the nature of reality, the place of technology, the all-powerful corporation, the creation and maintenance of meta-narratives) corresponds to approaches taken to similar themes within organizational theory. The range of sources and theoretical perspectives included in this text will ensure its importance for academics in the fields of organizational and social theory, particularly those interested in the relationships between art, theory and literature. Warren Smith is Lecturer in Organization Studies at the Management Centre, University of Leicester. Matthew Higgins is Lecturer in Management at the Management Centre, University of Leicester. Martin Parker is Reader in Social and Organizational Theory at the University of Keele. Geoff Lightfoot is Lecturer in Accounting at the University of Keele. Routledge Studies in Human Resource Development Edited by Monica Lee Lancaster University HRD theory is changing rapidly. Recent advances in theory and practice, in how we conceive of organizations and of the world of knowledge, have led to the need to reinterpret the field. This series aims to reflect and foster the development of HRD as an emergent discipline. Encompassing a range of different international, organizational, method- ological and theoretical perspectives, the series promotes theoretical controversy and reflective practice. 1 Policy Matters Flexible learning and organizational change Edited by Viktor Jakupec and Robin Usher 2 Science Fiction and Organization Edited by Warren Smith, Matthew Higgins, Martin Parker and Geoff Lightfoot Also available from Routledge: Action Research in Organisations Jean McNiff, accompanied by Jack Whitehead Understanding Human Resource Development Edited by Jim Stewart, Jim McGoldrick, and Sandra Watson Science Fiction and Organization Edited by Warren Smith, Matthew Higgins, Martin Parker ff and Geo Lightfoot London and New York First published 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 2001 Edited by Warren Smith, Matthew Higgins, Martin Parker and Geoff Lightfoot All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Science fiction and organization / edited by Warren Smith ... [et al..] p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Organization. 2. Science fiction. I. Smith, Warren, 1967– HD31 .S3428 2001 302.3′5 – dc21 2001019498 ISBN 0-203-40198-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-40838-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0– 415– 21588– 9 (Print Edition) Contents Notes on contributors vii Introduction: more amazing tales 1 MATTHEW HIGGINS PART I For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky* 13 1 ‘Give me your mirrorshades’: science fiction ‘methodology’ meets the social and organizational sciences 15 DAVID McHUGH 2 Science fiction and the making of the laser 31 CHRISTOPHER HALEY PART II Mirror, mirror* 41 3 Metropolis, Maslow and the Axis Mundi 43 JAMES M. TOLLIVER AND DANIEL F. COLEMAN 4 The rape of the machine metaphor 61 NANETTE MONIN AND JOHN MONIN 5 Organizing men out in Joanna Russ’s The Female Man and Fay Weldon’s The Cloning of Joanna May 73 MARIA ALINE FERREIRA vi Contents 6 Drowned giants: science fiction and consumption utopias 90 JAMES A. FITCHETT AND DAVID A. FITCHETT 7 Spectacle and inter-spectacle in The Matrix and organization theory 101 DAVID BOJE PART III Is there in truth no beauty?* 123 8 Reading Star Trek: imagining, theorizing, and reflecting on organizational discourse and practice 125 DONNCHA KAVANAGH, KIERAN KEOHANE AND CARMEN KUHLING 9 From the Borgias to the Borg (and back again): rethinking organizational futures 143 CHRIS LAND AND MARTIN CORBETT 10 Of Philip K. Dick, reflexivity and shifting realities: organizing (writing) in our post-industrial society 160 CHRISTIAN DE COCK 11 ‘I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me’: alienation and freakishness 177 WARREN SMITH PART IV The gamesters of Triskelion* 191 12 ‘Repent Harlequin!’ said the Ticktockman: digesting science fiction 193 MARTIN PARKER 13 Cyberpunk management 204 ERIK PIÑEIRO Index 215 * For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky, etc. are titles of episodes of Star Trek – The Original Series, 1966–9 Notes on contributors David Boje, Professor of Management at New Mexico State University, has published numerous articles in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Man- agement Journal, Management Communication Quarterly and other journals. He edits the Journal of Organizational Change Management and is founding editor of Tamara: The Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science. He serves on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review, Management Digest, Organization, Journal of Management Inquiry, Management, Organization Studies, EJ-ROT and Emergence and Management Communication Quarterly. Recent books include Narrative Research Methods for Communication Studies (London: Sage, 2000) and Spectacles and Festivals (Hampton Press, CA, 2001). Vita is at http://cbae.nmsu.edu/mgt/dir/faculty/ vita/boje/. Daniel F. Coleman (Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo) is a Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Administration, University of New Brunswick, Canada. His current research interests are the causes and con- sequences of organizational commitment, employees’ responses to privatiza- tion and leadership. He teaches courses in Organizational Behavior, Organiza- tion Design, Motivation and Leadership. Martin Corbett is Senior Lecturer in organizational behaviour and industrial relations at the University of Warwick Business School. His interest in researching, understanding (and perhaps transcending) the dualism of the social/organic and technical/mechanical has led to a number of papers and books over the past fifteen years. Currently Book Review Editor of the journal Organization, Martin dreams of becoming cyborg but has yet to own a reliable motor vehicle or demonstrate even rudimentary mastery of the modern personal computer. Christian De Cock is a Lecturer at the School of Business and Economics, University of Exeter. He received his first degree from the University of Antwerp (lic. T.E.W.) and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. Prior to joining Exeter University he worked as a research fellow at Manchester Business School and as a lec- turer at the University of London. Christian is Associate Editor of the journal viii Notes on contributors Creativity and Innovation Management. His research has appeared in such journals as Asia Pacific Business Review, Interfaces, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Man- agement Inquiry. He has also written several book chapters and teaching cases. Christian conducts research on organizational change, organizational creativ- ity and organizational storytelling. Maria Aline Ferreira has a first degree from the University of Oporto and a Ph.D. from the University of London (Birkbeck College). Since 1987 she has worked at the University of Aveiro, where she is now an Associate Professor. Recent publications include ‘The Foreigner Within: Teaching The Rainbow with the Help of Cixous, Kristeva and Irigaray’, ‘Approaches to Teaching D.H. Lawrence’, ‘Myth and Anti-Myth in Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve’ in the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, ‘D.H. Lawrence and Hélène Cixous: Unexpected Contiguities’ in Études Lawrenciennes and ‘Another Jouissance: Secular and Mystical Love in Kate Chopin’s “Two Portraits”’, Literature and Psychology. David A. Fitchett is currently preparing for submission of his Ph.D. thesis on the fiction of J.G. Ballard at Brunel University. His primary areas of interest include apocalyptic science fiction and utopian island spaces in British litera- ture of the twentieth century. James A. Fitchett was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Stirling in 1998. His research draws on social theory to consider issues including experiential consumption and the culture industry. He has published work on illicit recre- ational drug consumption, the relationship between consumption and environmentalism and consumer citizenry. He currently holds a lectureship in marketing and consumer research at the University of Exeter, UK. Christopher Haley is currently at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in Cambridge, where he is engaged in doctoral research concern- ing nineteenth-century æther physics. Besides this, one academic interest is the philosophy of physics – specifically, the attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics with special relativity. A further interest is the public understand- ing of science, and to this end he may be found working in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science on occasion. He enjoys the fiction of Iain M. Banks. Matthew Higgins is a Lecturer in Management in the Management Centre at the University of Leicester. His Ph.D. at Keele University explores issues of morality and engagements with marketing. Current research interests include critiques of marketing and cultural movements, ethics and marketing in the not-for-profit sector. Donncha Kavanagh is Lecturer in Management in University College, Cork. His research interests include the pre-modern, the history of management thought, actor-network theory and the sociology of technology. Notes on contributors ix Kieran Keohane Ph.D. (York, Canada, 1993), Statutory Lecturer in Sociology, National University of Ireland, Cork, is the author of Symptoms of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). Carmen Kuhling Ph.D. (York, Canada, 1998), Lecturer in Sociology and Womens’ Studies, Department of Government and Society, University of Limerick, is the author of The New Age Ethic and the Spirit of Postmodernism (Creskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, forthcoming). She is interested in the phil- osophy of the social sciences, postmodern theory, the relationship between creativity and subversion, and the relationship between popular culture and social transformation. Chris Land is an ESRC-funded research student at Warwick Business School. As part of his Ph.D., he is currently researching post-structural perspectives on the relationship between organization and information technology. This work brings together interests in actor-network theory, cyborg studies, popular cul- ture and Deleuze and Guattari. Other significant research interests include information warfare, time, cybernetics, William Burroughs and South Park. Geoff Lightfoot is Lecturer in MIS and Accounting at Keele University. His current research interests include the use of Darwinist metaphors in manage- ment and accounting literature and futures trading (both on capital markets and SF collectors’ fairs). Sadly, however, the weight of his own collection of SF books, videos and collectibles recently caused his house to overbalance. Although this does make getting in and out rather difficult, the postman is happier as he no longer has to make regular deliveries from Amazon. David McHugh is a Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour in the Department of Management at the University of Central Lancashire. He is a keen member of the International Brotherhood of Tooth Fairies and a staunch proponent of lecturer-centred teaching. He has an abiding interest in the issues of subjectivity and workplace identity but would rather read SF than organiza- tion theory. He is the co-author of a well-regarded critical organization studies text and very little else. He lives near Liverpool, is married to Chris Corcoran and has two daughters named Roia and Anya. Between them they have responsibility for a number of rats, tropical fish and a parrot called Goodison. Dave is an avid collector of SF books for which he gets no end of domestic gyp and will read or watch any old crap that can be remotely regarded as SF. He is a passable singer but an atrocious guitarist and would like to hear from anyone who has solid empirical evidence of the media conspiracy against Everton Football Club. John Monin is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Manage- ment and International Business at the Auckland campus of Massey Uni- versity, New Zealand. He read humanities subjects for his initial degrees, majoring in Latin, and his doctoral studies were in information systems. He has contributed chapters in books on a range on topics including information
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