Towards a Political Philosophy of Management: Performativity & Visibility in Management Practices

TY - JOUR

T1 - Towards a Political Philosophy of Management

T2 - Performativity & Visibility in Management Practices

AU - de Vaujany, François Xavier

AU - Aroles, Jeremy

AU - Laniray, Pierre

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2019/6/15

Y1 - 2019/6/15

N2 - Phenomenological, process-based and post-Marxist approaches have stressed the immanent nature of the ontogenesis of our world. The concept of performativity epitomizes these temporal, spatial and material views. Reality is always in movement itself: it is constantly materially and socially ‘performed’. Other views lead to a pre-defined world that would be mostly revealed through sensations (i.e. ‘representational perspectives’). These transcendental stances assume that a subject, although pre-existing experience, is the absolute condition of possibility of it. In this paper, we develop another view of performativity (either complementary or interrelated to an immanent stance), one that re-introduces transcendence in the analysis but sees in it something dialogical to the process itself. We draw from the notions of visibility-invisibility and continuity-discontinuity (Merleau-Ponty 1945/2013, 1964) in order to show how everyday activity both performs and makes visible the world. From that perspective, modes of visibility appear as conditions of possibility of performativity itself. We draw some implications for the conceptualization of management practices.

AB - Phenomenological, process-based and post-Marxist approaches have stressed the immanent nature of the ontogenesis of our world. The concept of performativity epitomizes these temporal, spatial and material views. Reality is always in movement itself: it is constantly materially and socially ‘performed’. Other views lead to a pre-defined world that would be mostly revealed through sensations (i.e. ‘representational perspectives’). These transcendental stances assume that a subject, although pre-existing experience, is the absolute condition of possibility of it. In this paper, we develop another view of performativity (either complementary or interrelated to an immanent stance), one that re-introduces transcendence in the analysis but sees in it something dialogical to the process itself. We draw from the notions of visibility-invisibility and continuity-discontinuity (Merleau-Ponty 1945/2013, 1964) in order to show how everyday activity both performs and makes visible the world. From that perspective, modes of visibility appear as conditions of possibility of performativity itself. We draw some implications for the conceptualization of management practices.

KW - Austin

KW - Management practices

KW - Merleau-Ponty

KW - Performativity

KW - Visibility

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064235800&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s40926-018-0091-4

DO - 10.1007/s40926-018-0091-4

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85064235800

SN - 1740-3812

VL - 18

SP - 117

EP - 129

JO - Philosophy of Management

JF - Philosophy of Management

IS - 2

ER -