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2012/2013  KAN-CMF_F33  Organizational Philosophy

English Title
Organizational Philosophy

Course information

Language English
Exam ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Mandatory
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Semester
Course period Autumn
Time Table Please see course schedule at e-Campus
Study board
Study Board for BSc/MSc in Business Administration and Philosophy, MSc
Course coordinator
  • Bent Meier Sørensen - Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy
Main Category of the Course
  • Philosophy and philosophy of science
  • Management
  • Organization
  • Political Science
Last updated on 24-08-2012
Learning objectives
At the end of the course, the student must be able to:
  • Formulate problems within an organizational context
  • Relate problems to the concepts that are discussed in the course
  • Describe, classify, structure, and combine the concepts, theories, methods, and models of the course
  • Relate the texts of the course to their theoretical context
  • Exemplify the chosen problem through the use of case-material
Prerequisite
No special prerequisites, but an openness towards philosophical reflection as well as business practices is valuable.
Examination
Organizational Philosophy:
Type of test Home Assignment
Marking scale 7-step scale
Second examiner Second internal examiner
Exam period December/January
Aids Open Book, Written and Electronic Aid is permitted
Duration Please, see the detailed regulations below

Individual written essay of max. 10 standard pages.

 

Course content

Organizational Philosophy introduces to the student a specific philosophical practice in regards to the analysis of organizations, and maps out what differentiates this from both classical philosophy on the one hand and classical organizational analysis on the other hand.

 

The goal is to introduce the basic concepts and analytical tools that may become the student’s later professional profile. The predominantly contemporary curriculum mirrors the ambition of enabling the student to identify problems, conflicts, challenges and potentials within organizations of various kinds. This happens as the organization construes its images of itself in a culturally predicated context and delimits itself from its environment.

 

It is also and at the same time the intention of the course to enable the student to give a philosophical answer to the question which practices and social activities such problematic self-images and delimitations give rise to, and how these may be transgressed.

 

The course will give an introduction to organizational philosophy and demonstrate how philosophy provides fundamentally new and different ways of conceptualizing and analyzing organizations and organizational phenomena. The course will consist of lectures and cases, but the active participation of the students is a prerequisite for its success.

Teaching methods
Students that have participated in this course will be able to understand and analyze organizations and management phenomena as matter of concern and problems in relation to philosophical concepts that are suited in a time of change and flux. Students will also become acquainted with what a critical approach to organizations entails, and how that strengthens one’s analysis of contemporary conditions of work.
Student workload
Work 225 hours
Expected literature

Agamben, G. (2007): “In Praise of Profanation”, in: Profanation, New York: Zone Books
Agamben, G. (2010): “What is a Paradigm?”, in: The Signature of All Things, New York: Zone Books.
Castel R. (1994): “’Problematization’ as a mode of reading history”, in: Foucault and the Writing of History, Oxford: Cambridge  Mass.: Blackwell, p. 237–52.
Costea B, Crump N. & Holm J. (2006): “Conceptual History and the Interpretation of Managerial Ideologies”, Management & Organizational History, 1;1(2): 159–75.
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1994): “What is a concept?”, in: What is Philosophy?, London: Verso.
Deleuze, G. (1990): “The Simulacrum & Ancient Philosophy”, in: Logic of Sense, New York: Columbia University Press.
Foucault M. (1986): “Kant on Enlightenment and revolution”, Economy and Society, 15(1): 88–96.
Jones C. & Spicer A. (2005): “The Sublime Object of Entrepreneurship”, Organization, 12(2): 223–46.
Jones, C. (2002): “Foucault's Inheritance/Inheriting Foucault”, Culture and Organization, 8(3): 225-238.
Latour B. (2004): “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern”, Critical Inquiry, 30(2): 225–48.
May, T. (2005): “How might one live”, in:Gilles Deleuze - An introduction, Cambridge University Press.
Meindl J. R. (1995): “The romance of leadership as a follower-centric theory: A social constructionist approach”, The Leadership Quarterly, 6(3): 329–41.
Munro, I. (2005): “The Mythic Foundations of Organization”, in: S. Linstead and A. Linstead (eds.), Thinking Organization, London: Routledge.
Mintzberg, H. (1990): “The Manager’s Job – Folklore and Facts”, Harvard Business Review (March).
Serres, M. “Theory of the Quasi-Object”, in: The Parasite, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Sliwa, M; Spoelstra, S.; Land, C.; Sørensen, B. M. (forthcoming): “Profaning the sacred in leadership studies: A reading of Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase”, 20 s.
Sørensen, B. M. & Spoelstra, S. (2012): “Play at work: continuation, intervention and usurpation”, Organization, 19(1): 81-97.
Spoelstra, S. (2007): “Philosophy”, in: What is organization?, Lund: Lund Business.
Žižek, S. (2006): “From che vuoi? to fantasy - Lacan with Eyes wide Shut”, in: How to read Lacan, W.W. London: Norton & Company.

Last updated on 24-08-2012