Apologies for cross posting
Dear All,
Please find details of this terms Nottingham Trent University HRM seminar series - all welcome The sessions run from 4-6pm starting with a presentation from the speakers followed by open discussion. Food and drink (tea and coffee) are also provided.
If you would like more information or to book a place please email me
21st October Anne Keegan and Dr. Elaine Robinson; The strategic fit of Executive Coaching within the Talent Pipeline Architecture: leading coaching provision from the International Centre for Talent Management and Development - Bass Management Centre 328
11th November Professor Heather Hopfl; Title TBC - Bass Management Centre 307
2nd December Professor Martin Parker; Economic Outlaws: Towards a Cultural Studies of Organizing
Bass Management Centre 308
One of the common, but usually unrecognised, facts about twentieth century cinema is that it contains a parade of economically liminal characters. I'm not sure how such matters might be quantified, but think about films containing pirates, smugglers, bank robbers, highwaymen, the mafia, outlaws, bandits, jewellery thieves and, of course, Robin Hood and his merry men. Whilst it is certainly the case that cinema sells what cinema thinks that people will buy, there is an interesting question here. Why are representations of forms of economic resistance so common? The answer, I will propose here, is that this is a form of imagined resistance, in which the complexities and complicities of power can be broken, at least for a little while. These economic outlaws don't work for the man, they have lives which are mobile and authentic, and they are generally brighter and more ethical than the corrupt or inept forces of power which pursue them. In that sense, this is a paper which further romanticises an already romantic turn.
There are some structural matters at stake here too. Perhaps most interestingly for an organization theorist, these are films that are also resolutely anti-bureaucratic. They celebrate the individual, the bonds of friendship, the gang, the family - but never the formal organization. Business, in the sense of exchange, is not a problem in itself, but large scale concentrations of power are almost always seen as the generators of evil, or moral complacency. In this sense, these films are theories of organization too, and versions of business ethics might be derived from them.
But there is something else going on here too, because twentieth century cinema is only the latest version of this imagined resistance. For example, the celebration of Robin Hood could be said to begin with Martin Parker's 'Ballad of Robin Hood' in the sixteenth century. In time ballads were sung for pirates, smugglers, thieves and highwaymen; books were written about their exploits, and the emerging press thrived on a diet of stories about the extraordinary exploits of notorious criminals. By the eighteenth century, the representations and the realities were becoming intertwined. Pirates referred to themselves as 'Robbin Hoodes men', and thieves became famed for their exploits. Later, outlaws sold their stories to newspapers, and Mafiosi dressed like film gangsters. The point is that imagination is politically significant here, and that representations of economic outlaws shaped the way that 'real' outlaws behaved, and vice versa.
Of course I will acknowledge the highly gendered, and rather 'Western' version of the outlaw that I am trading on here, but I wish to use these dubious characters to blur some boundaries. Between economy and culture, legitimate and illegitimate, and between reality and possibility.
Dr Daniel King
Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour
Nottingham Trent University
+44 (0)1159418418
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