
Mats Alvesson
Professor

Grandiosity in contemporary management and education
Author
Summary, in English
Contemporary practitioner and academic discourses of organizations and management have developed a tendency to discuss everyday organizational phenomena in overblown and remarkable ways. It is now commonplace to view organizations in terms of visions, missions, strategies, charisma, entrepreneurship, best practice and so on. A hyped-up language is becoming endemic to ordinary discussions of ordinary organizations doing ordinary things. This calls for some critical attention. One way of capturing this tendency to hype is through the idea of grandiosity that is taking over the ways mundane organizational phenomena are constructed and debated. In this essay, we argue that grandiosity is the product of the narcissism of our times, reinforced by contemporary consumerism; we suggest that grandiosity not only affects adversely critical reflection of organizations and management, but more importantly that it undermines organizational performance and learning.
Department/s
- Department of Business Administration
Publishing year
2016-09
Language
English
Pages
464-473
Publication/Series
Management Learning
Volume
47
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Topic
- Business Administration
Keywords
- Grandiosity
- management
- organizations
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1350-5076