Scaling Out: Thinking About Sustainability, Food and Fashion
Senior Lecturer in Cultural Production and Consumption at the School, Jennifer Smith Maguire, considers the outgrowths of a recent School based workshop Several years ago I bought a schizostylis coccinea ‘Jennifer’ plant. I was attracted by the promise of autumn colour, and — embarrassing to admit — the cultivar’s name. I hadn’t anticipated the astounding […]
Tour du dopage: How do doping cyclists legitimate their cheating?
With the Tour de France about to get under way, Charlotte Smith, Lecturer in Management at the School, considers the tension between sporting success and good sportsmanship Whether your interests are in sport or in anything but sport, the Lance Armstrong case cannot have escaped your attention. Last year, when Oprah Winfrey interviewed him, he […]
Licence to Kill? Managing with Violence
Former Head of School, Professor Gibson Burrell, uncovers a series of uncomfortable parallels between managerialism and the militaRy At first sight, it appears as if the discipline of ‘business and management’ has no room for a debate on ‘the organization of destruction’ and the use of well-considered techniques of administration in acts of unspeakable violence […]
The Cinematic Spectacle that Class War has become
Our recently appointed Reader in Work and Organisation, Christopher Land, takes it upon himself to dethrone the anti-working class morals symptomatic within films such as, though by no means limited to, Kingsman Two weeks ago I saw Kingsman: a mash up of Shaw’s Pygmalion and a Roger Moore era James Bond movie, complete with insane […]
Raising a Glass to the English Wine Industry: Why we will be cracking open the English Fizz this Christmas
Senior Lecturers in Organisation Studies, Sarah Robinson and Elke Weik, get us in the seasonal spirit: Cheers! We are both wine lovers and organisational researchers, curious about the factors underpinning the growing success of English wine. How, we are interested in finding out, in the short space of 40 years, has this industry developed from […]
How to Sell Success, Failure and Fanaticism? Understand the Customer!
Georgios Patsiaouras, Lecturer in Marketing and Consumption at the School, draws sobering lessons from the popularity of the recent Hollywood Blockbuster, The Wolf of Wall Street. Martin Scorsese’s latest film is an adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s memoir of the same name. Critics have lamented the film’s unachieved goal of thematically and stylistically suffusing the fast […]
Thoresby Colliery and the Art of Minecraft
James Fitchett, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Research at the School, traces the historical evolution of socio-economic illness in a Midlands city UK Coal recently announced the closure of the last remaining coal mines in Britain. The proposal will see the pits face a phased shutdown, with UK Coal’s six surface mines being sold off […]
LEGO: The Anti-Corporate Corporation?*
Martin Parker, Professor and Culture and Organisation at the School, underlines the apparent paradox of the popularity of anti-corporate sentiment within contemporary culture. The tie-in merchandising costs HOW much?! julochka President Business is a bad guy. We know that because he is the chief executive of the Octan Corporation. He also has bad hair, control issues, […]
The Marketplace of Life? The Political-Economy of Emergent Water Markets
The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives (American Indian Saying) In 1776 Adam Smith introduced the paradox of value: diamonds are much more expensive than water, even though water is essential to human survival. Smith’s paradox, at that time, appealed to his contemporaries as little other than a […]
Buy Nothing Day: Critical Management in Action
On the day after Black Friday, Jennifer Smith Maguire, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Production and Consumption at the School, discusses the goals and history of ‘Buy Nothing Day’. Saturday 30 November is ‘Buy Nothing Day’, an annual one-day event that invites us to step off the shopping treadmill and think critically about the place of […]
Recent Comments