Professional blinders? The novel as an eye-opener in organizational analysis
(2019) In Culture and Organization 25(2). p.146-158- Abstract
- Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our... (More)
- Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our experiences to the growing literature about using fiction in scholarly work and discuss the potential of such genre-bending work when we bring in flesh and blood into the analyses. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our... (More)
- Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our experiences to the growing literature about using fiction in scholarly work and discuss the potential of such genre-bending work when we bring in flesh and blood into the analyses. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/10d0a1cc-079d-48bd-b8f8-98e6317b8867
- author
- Grafström, Maria and Jonsson, Anna LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2019
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Culture and Organization
- volume
- 25
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 13 pages
- publisher
- Routledge
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85051953337
- ISSN
- 1477-2760
- DOI
- 10.1080/14759551.2018.1508212
- language
- Swedish
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 10d0a1cc-079d-48bd-b8f8-98e6317b8867
- date added to LUP
- 2018-08-21 11:05:37
- date last changed
- 2022-04-25 08:24:00
@article{10d0a1cc-079d-48bd-b8f8-98e6317b8867,
abstract = {{Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our experiences to the growing literature about using fiction in scholarly work and discuss the potential of such genre-bending work when we bring in flesh and blood into the analyses.}},
author = {{Grafström, Maria and Jonsson, Anna}},
issn = {{1477-2760}},
language = {{swe}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{146--158}},
publisher = {{Routledge}},
series = {{Culture and Organization}},
title = {{Professional blinders? The novel as an eye-opener in organizational analysis}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2018.1508212}},
doi = {{10.1080/14759551.2018.1508212}},
volume = {{25}},
year = {{2019}},
}