Når ledelsen ler med: Om forholdet mellem magt og humor i samtidens ledelse

Mads Peter Karlsen, Kaspar Villadsen*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    Management and humor are becoming more closely interlinked in contemporary organisations. Whereas humor was conventionally viewed as a deleterious and alien element at the workplace, it is to day increasingly conceived as a positive management tool. This development makes pertinent the question of the critical or subversive potentials of humor in the current context. The article discusses three re search approaches to management and humor – an
    instrumental, an ideological critical, and a post­structural – and it considers their particular analytical forces. Furthermore, the article situates humor in a
    broader historical and cultural context and seeks to develop some suggestions on what a critical humoristic practice could imply in light of the current
    management context. Our point of departure is primarily Žižek’s critique of ideology and the way it has been applied in recent critical organization studies.
    Original languageDanish
    JournalNordiske Organisasjonsstudier
    Volume15
    Issue number1
    Pages (from-to)55-77
    Number of pages23
    ISSN1501-8237
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

    Keywords

    • Humor
    • Management
    • Critique of ideology
    • Cynical reasoning
    • Zizek

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