An editorial notes people are witness to the metamorphosis of late capitalism, the interpenetration of post-industrialism with postmodern culture. The athletic apparel industry is a Tamara of stories.

From contingency theory, resource-dependency theory, evolutionary theory, and institutional theory, it is learned that organizations respond to their external environment. In a postmodern, fluid, and continuously changing capitalism, there are few stable, fixed, and determined positions that can be taken by an organization.

Since the publication of Braverman's (1974) Labour and Monopoly Capital, the role that changes in aggregate worker skills play in the development of capitalist employment relations has been controversial amongst labour process theorists in particular and critical theorists of work more generally. Contra "orthodox" Labour Process Theory perspectives (cf. Thompson, 1990) this paper argues that skills do play an important role in understanding global capitalist development and that an account of that role is critical to the usefuless of critical theories of work. To make this argument, the intellectual history of this line of inquiry within labour process theory is outlined, starting with the initial post-Braverman interest in explicating his de-skilling thesis, to latter work that cast serious doubt on its validity, and the consequent loss of interest in skills as a major driver of capitalist development. Then the recent revival of interest in skills (cf. Adler, 2004; Littler & Innes, 2003) is analyzed in conjunction with Thompson and Newsome's (2004) agnostic perspective on the importance of skill change to argue that skill change remains a significant motive force, one critical to understanding global economic change. The implications drawn are that researchers should focus on (a) understanding interactions amongst multiple levels of skills dynamics and (b) studying the barriers to concertive action amongst workers.

The relation between the development of theories of management and organization, on one hand, and the notion of time, on the other, is perhaps best characterised by the role taken by time researchers to develop and educate the research field of management and organization.

The topic of managerialism has in recent years received significant attention in the critical management studies field. However, this paper proposes that there are largely unrecognized conceptual disagreements hampering progress in understanding the nature of managerialist influence at work and in society in general, and in developing political strategies to combat the negative effects of managerialist ideology in those domains. The 'expansive' view presents managerialism as a sweeping hegemonic force that dominates society, whereas the 'focused' view argues for a much more limited scope of influence and focuses on a more empirical view of managerialism's effects. The purpose of this paper is to argue for the existence of these two points of view, to describe their differences, and also common ground between them that can constitute the basis for productive engagement between them that might lead to a critical perspective on managerialism that will help further CMS's emancipatory mission.

The aim of this paper is to point to the potential value of an approach to management based on the idea of the common good, as opposed to classical capitalism based on private ownership. Such an approach makes it possible to resist a pursuit of short term oriented gains and a maximization of narrowly defined profits, and, instead, to focus on humanistic values, as to adopt a long term perspective. The much cited notion of the “tragedy of the commons” was based on deficient material and argumentation, but, most of all, it completely disregards of the issue of management. Using a case study developed through a longitudinal action research project in a big service enterprise we call “Soplicex”, we present the strategic process grounded in learning, as well as the building of a strong structure centred on teams. The engagement of the employees was, originally, strongly oriented towards the idea of the common good. The consultants and researchers adopted this principle as the guiding rule in their work with the organization. Even though the process was interrupted by the takeover by a foreign investor, we show how the findings of the study remain relevant for alternative organizing and managing today and in the future. The conclusions of this paper reach further than just being reflections on a historical case study: a model of management is presented, concerned with the care and protection of the common good.

The ethical consumer occupies a significant position in the current capitalist system as the market-based answer to a whole range of negative externalities. Unfortunately, she has been proven to behave out of sync with her ethical values and thus has been taken apart by scholars as a mere myth. Yet, businesses and politicians continue to believe in her abilities. This, we argue, is not caused by them being blind to her failures but because the category of the ethical consumer represents an ideal solution in the neoliberal discourse that embraces the holy trinity of an unregulated market, personal emancipation and the freedom of choice. Unfortunately, the ethical consumer has turned out to be a poorly suited solution to the negative externalities as ecological and social critiques continue to emerge. In response, a neocommunitarian discourse seems to gain strength, replacing the neoliberal version of the market as a bifurcation point between customers and suppliers instead bringing together businesses and consumers in a new type of network formation overcoming the bifurcation between consumers and producers.

Once upon a time I made a promise to my dad (Daniel Q. Boje), to study the relationship between the presidency and the oil industry. This was before the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and before Enron became scandalous. It turns out that Enron was a major contributor to the Bush campaign (for governor, then President), than Enron executives wrote much of the U.S. energy policy, and that Bush's wildcat oil ventures induded Enron as a financial partner. All this is now well known.

A sense of loss of identity exists in modern Kronos capitalism with its constant need to devour its own reproductions in order to survive. Discovery of identity comes through deconstruction and techniques of mysticism which are seen as similar processes. Identity is defined in terms of awareness of multiple levels of being. Understanding of identity lies in the successive abandonment of all kinds of schema or conditioning processes which we summarize by the term organizational grammar.

Boje feminism is an alternative to Foucault feminism. One difference is Foucault feminism is discursability formation, whereas Boje feminism is storyability formation of the body, its discipline, and the power/knowledge relationship. A second difference is where as Foucault Feminism is about micropolitics of power/knowledge, Boje Feminism is far wider focus on macropolitics, even global sociopolitics of late modern capitalism. This parallel storytelling develops the differentiation between collective memory groups (gender, race, socioeconomic, class, etc) construct out of direct experience, and what Hirsch (1999) calls 'postmemory,' such as the trauma children of survivors of Holocaust live with. My feminism enters into investigation of trauma events women endure in sweatshops is possible for me, because of its resonance with my own trauma as a soldier in the Vietnam War. I explore here why this is so for me. This article is presented in left and right column, my column and her columns. After a bit of standard introduction. the columns are meant to intervibrate, to resonate, to interpenetrate, one another, as two voices, as many voices within me and her

In this paper we discuss the meaning of newness in research in the times when new paradigms of science are emerging and the sciences have become more and more fragmentary. In the positivistic and monolithic era of social science, before Kuhn and year 1966, methodologies and methods interpreting newness were simpler. In this paper it is argued the newness is more and more in the text itself, and that the dynamics of texts comes from interrelations between the subject of the text (the researcher self) and the object of it (the research audience). Scientific knowledge becomes new when it is substantiated and connected to the prior one.

Writing the research reports is political by nature but so is also its reading. While citation index makes researchers powerful, in gaining decisions whom to refer the colleagues make political choices that are bound to some political contexts they live and career. Building a theoretical frame is not a pure and objectivistic thing but many ways a path of choices that build the research field. Behind is a lot of social capital of the academia and at the same time the text shows and even builds it. Again, it is less and less the empirical facts itself that contributes to newness, but the ways to conceptualize and contextualize empirically based knowledge.

In the times when subjectivity is grown into science and pure empirical data does not work in the same way it used to be, becoming a researcher with the right to access science text publishing is not only professional but more and more narrative by nature. The credibility and trust is of a lot of worth at the society of today, not least in academia. Personality, biography and social context of a researcher are perhaps becoming more important than it used to be and that makes the issue that the impact of the researcher on has grown. Gatekeepers of science and administrational processes that they guide form criteria according to which researchers are selected and promoted further. That way individual background issues like gender and ethnicity may either grow or diminish the credibility of the individual researcher and have a lot of impact on the fact on who passes the gate of becoming a knowledge holder in the future.

In the paper we also argue that subjectivity is more and more compensated by inter-subjectivity in writing because of joint texts. In gate-keeping about who enters the knowledge holder-limit this states as well.

A theoretical perspective has been developed in Brazil, based on literary criticism and psychoanalysis, which proposes that there is a “perverse” subjectivity in Brazilians, in contrast to the classic European neurotics. Such subjectivity, forged throughout the 19th century, comes from the shaping of different social systems, as a function of the way in which Modernity was installed as a project. From literary pages to an academic interpretation of Brazil, this results in a country of contrasts, in which the “myth” of “cordial man”, which defines the Brazilian people as being generous and placid, is mixed with the harsh reality of its social inequality and violence. In the field of alterity, while internally such contrasts lead to a relationship that annuls the difference, the invisibility of the “other”, externally the relationship with foreigners is one of full acceptance that everything comes from outside, even in the field of ideas, the impacts of which are felt, for example, in Brazil’s business administration schools that are totally influenced by the American model. Starting with a reconstitution of the objective shaping of “perverse Brazil”, supported by both Brazilian and international works from the philosophic, psychoanalytical and literary fields, this article intends to show how, paradoxically, a contemporary reflection has been developing that points to the perversion of advanced modern societies, which leads to a questioning of why, despite such different cultural bases, these societies are also pointed out as being perverse nowadays. Although it is not intended to reach any definitive conclusions, this article starts from the hypothesis that this happened because local perverse features embraced universal enlightenment ideals that proved to be unsustainable with the globalization process of the modern capitalist project.

The interest in societal forms of entrepreneurship has increased in recent decades, emphasizing different kinds of prefixed such as ―social‖ ―ecological‖, ―sustainable‖, ―regional‖. In this article societal and social is at stake. Taking a point of departure in the prefix stories of entrepreneurship we read a wish to break with the grand narrative of entrepreneurship as well as attempts to feed into and draw legitimacy from the grand narrative. In this article we take a point of departure in an initiative taken in Sweden to introduce and finance a program labeled ―Societal entrepreneurship‖. The purpose is to create knowledge about, as well as conditions for, initiatives aiming at improving what is missing or does not work in public structures, and finding new and innovative solutions in order to create an economically, socially and ecologically sustainable society. Applying Burke‘s pentad it is illustrated that the grand narrative of entrepreneurship consists of the heroic entrepreneur (agent) who creates a kingdom (act) by way of establishing a company (agency) on the market in order to make a profit and contribute to growth (purpose). Applying the concept of Tamara, introduced by Boje, it is further illustrated how the grand narrative of entrepreneurship emphasizes capitalism, rationality and hierarchy in line with the epoch of industrialization, whilst the antenarrative of societal entrepreneurship gives priority to both premodern and postmodern discourses. The importance of community, of non-economic values, artisan craftsmanship is stressed, but also of how societal structures must be changed. The story of societal entrepreneurship thus de-centers human agency seeking to create instability as well as openings for enactment.

In the form of hip hop lyrics, this research-creation tells the story a grant application writing process as a feature of neoliberal, academic capitalism. The lyrics draw attention to institutional and organizational features of the modern academic workplace, including the effects of performance evaluation structures and the financialization (Billig, 2013; Giroux, 2015) of academic work. It also highlights the intensification of work caused by bureaucratization – not only by the workplace, but by external granting agencies who exert varying degrees of control over academic labour.

This article reports the author's experience of working in telesales. Through a call center, the case study company sells home improvements. The article describes the everyday organizational life of the telesales unit. Using this autoethnographic experience, the article analyses the organization of work-time in call centers. In particular, the article probes how commission constitutes a form of piece-wage. This piece-wage assists the manipulation of working hours. It does so by masking their extension. To understand this, the article appliesthe conceptual tools of Marx’sCapital. Marx directs attention to how
capitalists organise time in the pursuit of surplus-value. The autoethnographic account explores the application of this to call-center work. Flexible working arrangements and zero-hour contracts extend work-time. A pay framework based around commission and performance-linked piece-wages conceals this.In the case study, there is an absence of technology as productivity-raising measure or means of control. This challenges existing Foucauldian approaches to call-center work. It suggests that traditional forms of capitalist domination-the contract, the wage, time organization- are highly relevant to the call-center context.

This short essay will be an attempt to analyze the exchange of money and commodities in terms of framework offered by phenomenology. Marx’s Capital is an utterly phenomenological work in the Hegelian sense of this notion. Marx conceptualizes henomenology as a method of exposing the real-world phenomena that is prior to abstract philosophical inquiry. In the first volume of Capital Marx introduces explanatory categories of the German Idealism to “purely” economical and social issues. This sense his analysis is close to the one found in Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things. Foucault, who is mainly preoccupied with understanding the establishment of certain subject (in this context the modern economic subject), deals here with the notion of wealth and elaborates changing relations between money and prices between 15th and late 17th century, as well as such issues as mercantilism, utility and creation of value. There are significant differences between Marx’s and Foucault’s approach. Whereas Foucault’s analysis is oriented towards the hermeneutics and deconstruction of the notion of exchange as a constitutive activity of the subject, Marx is mainly preoccupied with the description of the activity of exchanging and its consequences. However, even though conclusions of Capital and The Order of Things differ significantly, the method of analysis reveals many similarities. Thus, both texts operate with a structure of deeper understanding of exchange as a multi-layer process of signification, accumulation, and transformation. The essay is an attempt to briefly analyze all of these functions of the exchange process as well as to indicate a new interpretation that arises from the framework offered by both authors.

Storytelling is important for understanding business plans, risk taking, and venture capital. Narratives can limit the entrepreneur’s ability to dynamically change. Friendship is when entrepreneurs can focus on antenarratives and living stories instead of static narratives. Friendship happens in the future before it becomes a narrative past. In this article we outline fore-having, fore-telling, fore-structure, and fore-conception. These relate to four antenarratives before, bet, beneath, and between. We do this is so that we can answer the questions "how can we understand entrepreneurial storytelling processes in moments of friendship?" and "How can entrepreneurial storytelling overcome narrative degradation of living story?" At its core, the answer is is that in the entrepreneurial storytelling moments of friendship can allow living story interactions by creating new fraternity.