Towards an organisational suicidology

Abstract

Suicide is often presented in contemporary popular discourse as an individualistic act of self-destruction, but when academic sociology emerged as a discipline in the nineteenth century, it was initially studied as a cultural phenomenon. Contemporary studies of suicide in the context of organised work, however, have taken a psychologistic turn and increasingly disregard the tradition of studying suicide from cultural perspectives. A culturally informed organisational suicidology has the potential to provide new understandings of how people relate to organisations and work in contemporary societies, as well as providing resources to assist individuals affected by this issue. This article utilises a bibliometric analysis to inform how the research literature has treated suicide as an organisational phenomenon. A definition of organisational suicidology is proposed and future research is suggested with a view to assisting the development of the field.

Keywords:

• organisational suicidology
• suicide
• culture
• death