Excess and Mimesis in Organization Theory: Emancipation from Within?

Abstract

In organizational analysis it can be argued that ‘radical separatism’—in the guise of the original ‘agenda’ for Radical Organization Theory (see Benson, 1977a; Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980) or more recently that for Critical Management Studies (see Alvesson and Willmott, 1992; Fournier and Grey, 2000; Casey, 2002; Grey, 2004)—has failed to breach the hegemony of functionalist orthodoxy, and notably so when it comes to practice. Given this failure, we speculate, upon the potential for a different emancipatory approach, one based theoretically on the fluid process of ‘undecidability’. Unusually our approach attempts to undermine the conventions of functionalist organization theory from within. In brief, we speculate upon the adoption and enactment of Luce Irigaray's (1985, 1991) strategy of mimicry as a means to illuminate the notion of ‘excess’ in organization theory. To liberate the feminine, Irigaray mimics the symbolic representation of the female body to excess so as to expose the contradictions of phallocentric discourse. When applied to organization theory, this sees a deliberate mimicking of critiques of radical separatism so as to make explicit the latter's imprisonment within functionalism. Through excessive mimicking of the functionalists' critique, the radical/critical organization theorist may become cognizant of, but perhaps not so subjugated by, the hegemony of functionalist discourse.

Key words:

• Excess
• Mimicry
• Oganization Theory
• Luce Irigaray
• Critical Management

Notes

1. This paper extends some earlier thoughts by the authors on radical separatism expressed in Boje, Gephart and Thatchenkery (1996).

2. At face value, however, the various radical perspectives do appear to possess a common commitment to social theories of the political left, and thus opposition to the managerialist pedagogy of functionalist organization theory. A commitment to political change is indeed basic to radical theory. The primary purpose of, for example, radical structuralism is to clarify the status of late capitalism. Knowledge gained is to be used in the interests of the ‘exploited social majority’, because radical theory ‘should always have discontinuous revolutionary change of such societies as [its] ultimate political goal’ (Burrell, 1980: 90).

3. In appropriating Derrida's work in this way, we note that considerable violence has been inflicted, as his concern is with a disruption of the Platonic notion of mimesis—as revealed truth—whereas our own is the hegemony of inter‐textual representation.

4. For organization theory, the conceptual imagery of systems orthodoxy is rendered from functionalist social theory. Through this association many of the criticisms made against functionalism also hold for systems theory.

5. Fundamental to the ethics of a responsibility to otherness is a sympathetic following of the texts of those who are themselves the other. This is necessary so as to explore the oppression of the other while respecting the integrity of political discourses from the margins. To terrorize the conventions of orthodox organization theory, we will appropriate the gestures of Irigaray's mimicry through which she retrieves the feminine other.