I have been asked to write a piece for Org Science, a response to an  
article I reviewed and rejected at Academy of Management Review. The  
article I rejected was accepted without one single change to it.  
Another reviewer at AMR also had rejected it. We were amazed Org  
Science would take it without changes.

On Steve's topic of how beautiful to write a review for Org Science.  
I think it begs the question of whether beauty of discourse is what  
the ways of discourse of organizations are about.  To me, and  
strictly by personal view, is org discourse is pretty ugly, spam- 
ridden, over-simplified, sales hype, spin and more spin that dare i  
say is quite manipulative, even if some ad agency and pr firm says  
its 'beautiful.'  Perhaps I walk on the dark side of critical theory,  
critical discourse, and every other critical discipline.  I am  
reminded of Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man book where only the  
discourse of positivity (& beauty) and only the Org Sci discourse  
that trashes all critical social science is admitted into the  
official arena (exceptions are made, I exaggerate for effect, yet I  
do not believe OS has much a critical aesthetic currency, yet it is  
very highly rated among journals of appreciative positivity).

It would be neat to establish a beautiful organization. Sorry all I  
see and experience are organizations making people miserable, people  
caught up in psychic prisons of shame (a move from Morgan's metaphor  
paradigm to Chris Poulson's shame paradigm). To me, and this is me,  
my two cents, are organizations full of process addictions and  
process addicts, where the biggest addict sits a top what someone  
once called the Phrog Farm, the biggest addict rules the co- 
dependents, in spaces of workaholism, ragaholic, and what Ken Smith  
and others call the inter-group.

How is writing on beauty of organization possible in a society  
addicted to war, fear, greed, the Wal-Mart effect, Disneyfication  
(the production of spectacle as beauty substitute), barbie-driven  
body surgery, and what sociologist George Ritzer calls  
McDonaldization.  I drive down the streets seeing this spectacle of  
horror, and how could anyone write of beautiful.  More writing like  
Upton Sinclar, more Rachael Carson, more Dante, and more Rabelais.

There is too much beauty writing, too much deference to Org Science,  
too little walking on the darkside.  I am turning from Kantian to  
Aristotle ethics. Aristotle in his book on ethics, asked about taking  
the middle path, not a compromise path, but a way in-between good and  
evil, virtue and vice, rash and cowardly --- to find the courageous

I miss the Fringe Cafe, and did not go to last to Academy of  
Management. I protest their refusal to have an Art's division, a  
place for a critical aesthetics, amidst what Debord calls the  
Spectacle (Baudrillard appropriated as simulacra). Who needs science  
without art?  Who needs academy science that cannot come up with a  
position on ethics in the Enron era.  Too much celebration of beauty,  
not enough critical studies.  Yes, there is a Critical management  
studies area, some, on the fringe work in critical aesthetics, but  
the main ballroom, the main theatre stages of Org Studies, and  
Academy are devoid of critical art.

My answer, and it's just me, to Daved's question, is a Business Arts  
Academy would deploy the art of the Situationist, critique the way  
way the business of corporatization that ruined health as a place of  
care in the U.S. is not doing corporatization of the university. My  
university is as state university, and under the corporatization  
model, is converting line faculty positions to money-raising  
positions, doing 'sanding' of janitor positions in possible and  
alleged retaliation to employees unionizing the university.  
Administrators are expanding and bloating budgets. Its a crazy  
system. Class sizes getting bigger, fewer faculty, more let's patent  
some science-types invention, or write a grant to bring in federal  
dollars to increase surveillance in the climate of fear.

I am not allowed to use university email to be a voice in my own  
university. I violate policy just by sending this message.

Yet, it is worth that risk

David Boje
speaking as private citizen, not as member of my own university, not  
as member of Academy, just as human being.
My university reads and audits our email. So be it.


On Apr 12, 2007, at 8:30 AM, Steve Taylor wrote:

> I recently had the experience of a reviewer (for Organization Science)
> telling me that my writing should be more beautiful.  The reviewer was
> suggesting that if I was serious about aesthetics than the  
> reviewers should
> be judging the writing on beauty.  I tend to agree.  Unfortunately  
> for me
> that didn't mean they weren't also applying more traditional  
> criteria, so it
> translates into the bar being that much higher.  But I have to say  
> that I am
> okay with this because it does open the door for including artistic  
> criteria
> in the assessment.
>
> Personally, when I hear Daved's question, I find myself more  
> interested in
> what would businesses that have taken seriously the idea of  
> management as an
> art look like?  I have dreams of leaders and managers caring as  
> much about
> whether their actions are beautiful (or comic or sublime or whatever
> aesthetic category they aspire to) as they care about whether they  
> will
> produce profit and are doing the right thing.  For me that would be  
> a really
> interesting triple bottom line - artistic, moral, and aesthetic  
> results.
>
> Just waiting for today's snow storm,
>
> Steve
>
>
> On 4/9/07 1:38 PM, "Daved Barry" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure what other things might change. I'd really welcome  
>> more of
>> these 'what would/could a Business Arts Academy look like?'  
>> scenarios from
>> the rest of you--it's a good exercise I think. And maybe it will  
>> help whisk
>> things on their way. Teike, Philippe, Henrik, Claus (and others of  
>> you who
>> are professionally trained artists getting MOS PhDs) . . . you're  
>> in a good
>> position to say something about this! Lucy? Deborah? Vicki? Brad?  
>> Eric? Some
>> of you other SCOS denizens as well ;-)--Steve Linstead, Heather? D
>>
>
>
> Steven S. Taylor, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> Worcester Polytechnic Institute
> Department of Management
> 100 Institute Rd
> Worcester, MA 01609
> USA
> +1 508-831-5557
> [log in to unmask]