The Triumph of Emptiness
Consumption, Higher Education, and Work Organization
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 30 May 2013
- ISBN 9780199660940
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages254 pages
- Size 245x161x28 mm
- Weight 582 g
- Language English 0
Categories
Short description:
The book views the contemporary economy as an economy of persuasion, where firms and institutions assign resources to rhetoric, image, and reputation rather than production of goods and services. It examines critically phenomena such as the knowledge society, consumption, higher education, organizational change, professionalization, and leadership.
MoreLong description:
In this book, Mats Alvesson aims to demystify some popular and upbeat claims about a range of phenomena, including the knowledge society, consumption, branding, higher education, organizational change, professionalization, and leadership. He contends that a culture of grandiosity is leading to numerous inflated claims. We no longer talk about plans but strategies. Supervisors have been replaced by managers. Goods have become brands. Wealthy countries try to show that they are knowledge societies through mass higher education but with limited effect on real qualifications or qualified job opportunities for graduates. The book views the contemporary economy as an economy of persuasion, where firms and other institutions increasingly assign talent, energy, and resources to rhetoric, image, branding, reputation, and visibility.
Using a wide range of empirical examples to illuminate the realms of consumption, higher education, organization, and leadership, this provocative and engaging book challenges established assumptions and contributes to a critical understanding of society as a whole.
Alvesson finds grandiosity at work behind an array of disconcerting phenomena, from a narcissistic socialmedia culture, to a hyper-adrenalised yet helplessly inane 24-hour news media cycle, to the explosion of public-relations firms and branding efforts.
Table of Contents:
Introduction - Zero-Sum Games, Grandiosity, and Illusion Tricks
Consumption - the Shortcomings of Affluence
Explaining the Consumption Paradox: Why aren't People (More) Satisfied?
Higher Education - Triumph of the Knowledge Intensive Society or a Statistical Cosmetics Project?
Higher Education - an Image-Boosting Business?
Modern Working Life and Organizations - Change, Dynamism, and Post-Bureaucracy?
Organizational Structures on the Beauty Parade: Imitation and Shop-Window Dressing
A Place in the Sun - Occupational Groups' Professionalization Projects and Other Status and Influence Ambitions
Leadership - A Driving Force or Empty Talk
The Triumph of Imagology - A Paradise for Tricksters?
The Costs of Grandiosity
