Science Fiction and Organization (original) (raw)
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Reading Star Trek as an Expressive Good: a Resource for Management Knowledge.
This paper considers the parallels and intersections between Star Trek and contemporary management discourse. We show that the central issues of complex organisations and management are represented in fictional scenarios in Star Trek and that these find their 'real world' correspondences in the management literature.
Literary praxiphorical analysis: Using science fiction and fantasy to shape organizational futures
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2014
In the last two decades, organization theorists have sought to apply complexity theories developed in the natural sciences to the study of organizations. This article develops a fictional approach for critically interrogating two important complexity conceptsorderthrough-fluctuations and autopoiesis. Using these concepts in a metaphorical sense, this paper explores how science fiction and fantasy (SFF) can be used to prepare for and shape organizational analysis. Exploring the consequences of scientific innovation is a key purpose of SFF. The speculative nature of the genre makes it a fertile metaphorical ground for testing new management concepts. This article, therefore, uses two classic SFF novels to explore the metaphorical use of complexity concepts for organizational analysis: i. William Golding's Lord of the Flies is used to explore the dissipative structures model, a theory devised by Ilya Prigogine; and ii. Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars is used to explore autopoiesis, a theory devised by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The article outlines the theoretical modelling possibilities from embedding fictional constructs into critical organizational analysis. It concludes by summarizing the methodological guidelines and business contexts for implementing literary praxiphorical analysis.
The Problem of Power: Legitimate Authority and the Politics of Star Trek
This essay begins with an aphorism from Nicolás Gómez Dávila that reads: “It is no longer enough for the citizen to submit—the modern state demands accomplices.” The political themes of Star Trek are then used to illustrate how seductive and destructive this process of democratic incorporation can be. Star Trek has long struggled with power as a problem with no one answer, and stands in stark contrast to forms of culture that treat the leveling of power into democratic networks as an unproblematic solution to the tyranny of power. For what we actually see is that democracy has been an enormously successful strategy for the growth of a monolithic power structure. The Star Trek series "Voyager" is discussed in detail as a particularly interesting exploration of the problems of inclusive-styled authority, with the Borg standing not as a symbol of "collectivism" or totalitarianism, but of the dangers of networked power, and relational values unmediated by any culture transcending the managerial bureaucracy.
Utopian enterprise: Articulating the meanings of Star Trek's culture of consumption
In this article, I examine the cultural and subcultural construction of consumption meanings and practices as they are negotiated from mass media images and objects. Field notes and artifacts from 20 months of fieldwork at Star Trek fan clubs, at conventions, and in Internet groups, and 67 interviews with Star Trek fans are used as data. Star Trek’s subculture of consumption is found to be constructed as a powerful utopian refuge. Stigma, social situation, and the need for legitimacy shape the diverse subcultures’ consumption meanings and practices. Legitimizing articulations of Star Trek as a religion or myth underscore fans’ heavy investment of self in the text. These sacralizing articulations are used to distance the text from its superficial status as a commercial product. The findings emphasize and describe how consumption often fulfills the contemporary hunger for a conceptual space in which to construct a sense of self and what matters in life. They also reveal broader cultural tensions between the affective investments people make in consumption objects and the encroachment of commercialization.
Popular Culture Discourse and Representation of the Organizations' Dark Side
Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts, 2019
This chapter attempts to investigate how mainstream popular cinema creates and represents the dark side of organizational life. By integrating popular culture and organizational studies, it deconstructs the dark side of organizations and using a number of films that on the working life of societies and suggests that such an examination makes room for complex inquiries regarding the idea of this hidden aspect of organizations.
In this first of two essays on CBS's Star Trek: Discovery, this essay describes what we should want from this newest contribution to the Star Trek universe. The essay argues that Discovery should takes sides on important contemporary politics issues, in the tradition of the best of previous Star Trek shows and films. Specifically, Discovery needs: 1. a complex treatment of identity politics, 2. a critical presentation of internal cultural diversity and imperialism, and 3. a more nuanced and specific vision of the political economy of the Federation.
Drama of Organisation - A Kaleidoscopic Perspective on Organisational Culture
This research explored the phenomenon of culture in organisations as seen through the lens of complexity theory. This lens provides a kaleidoscopic perspective on organisational culture, i.e. a dynamic, changing and multifaceted phenomenon that emerges when people interact in unpredictable ways. Thus, organisational culture is lifted above the limits of the dominant organisational discourse, which is based on systems theories. Phenomenology was chosen as the preferred approach to this theoretical study and a wide range of academic literature served as the primary source of data. The study moved beyond description and an attempt was made to contribute to the development of organisational culture theory by presenting an alternative view on organisational reality and culture: drama of organisation. Drama of organisation challenges the dominant interpretation of organisational culture by rejecting the notion that culture can be controlled and handled as a tool in the hands of leaders. Instead this study concluded that culture in organisations is a complex and dynamic phenomenon that expresses the reality of human beings as they relate in organisations. The alternative view presented in this study invites leaders to rethink the nature of the phenomenon of organisational culture and join the drama of organisation rather than controlling and directing the play backstage. By stepping on stage and actively participating in the process of human relating the leader will restore the organisation to its original status of a human community.
Pragmatism and Meaning: Assessing the Message of Star Trek: The Original Series
2011
The original Star Trek television series purported to depict a future in which such evils as sexism and racism do not exist, and intelligent beings from numerous planets live in a condition of peace and mutual benefit. As many scholars have observed, from a standpoint of contemporary theoretical analysis, Star Trek: The Original Series contains many elements that are inimical to the utopia it claims to depict and thus undermine its supposed message. A different perspective may be gained by drawing on the American pragmatist movement, in which the value of an idea is judged by its effectiveness, how it 'cashes out' in terms of its impact in real life. Thus, the meaning and value of Star Trek: TOS can be assessed by observing its effects on its audience. This perspective coordinates well with Taylor's discussion of the necessary conditions for the realization of a protreptic moral order in the social imaginary, as well as a pragmatist understanding of audience engagement a...