Passion of Organizing (Paperback)

Why do we work? Management practitioners and scholars have attempted to answer this question for more than a century, although 'new' responses often turn out be more of the same, recycled through new metaphors or methods. Indeed the 'usual suspects' of Maslow, Herzberg and Vroom continue to underpin managerial interventions like BPR and empowerment, and are still taught on business courses around the world. But 'the motivated' in this world view are deficient and needy, passively waiting for external stimulation or greedy calculators of behavioural outcomes. This is not just old-fashioned: it doesn't match reality. Motivation theory needs to change. This book rises to that challenge.The Passion of Organizing enriches motivation theory by showing how to rethink it in three moves. First, it considers the 'dark side' of motivation, including the roles of addiction, obsession, sex and death. Second, it revisits the suppressed roots of motivation in offering an alternative understanding of desire. Third, it embraces the full complexity of work experience beyond financial reward and instrumentality, from generosity, joy and laughter through anxiety, oppression and tedium to pain, violence and horror, to encompass the many possible meanings of passion at work. Seventeen authors from three continents bring powerful arguments to bear on topics as diverse as pizzas, football management and blowjobs. Their ideas are an exciting and a thought-provoking resource for anyone interested in understanding motivation in organizational contexts.