Paul du Gay, Copenhagen Business School: "Organization (Theory) as a Way of Life"

Location: TC.5.12

Time and Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2016, 16:30

To the extent that ‘classical organization theory’ is seen to possess any enduring interest it is mainly as a historic artefact. The idea that the principles, axioms, adages and devices elaborated by its proponents any longer possess traction in the present is rarely countenanced. In contrast to this customary view, the paper seeks to indicate the continuing significance of classical organization theory, for both analysing and intervening in organizational life. This necessitates a reconstruction of the conventional understanding of this received term, one in which classical organization theory is viewed less as ‘theory’ in the conventional sense, but rather as a geographically dispersed, institutionally disconnected, and historically discontinuous ‘stance’, characterised, inter alia, by a pragmatist call to experience, an antithetical attitude to ‘high’ or transcendental theorising, and, not least, an ethical focus on organizational effectiveness born of a close connection to ‘the work itself’ or ‘the situation at hand’. Deploying the term ‘classic organization theory’ in this way, to refer to a stance, attitude or comportment, and an associated persona that bears it, we are able to highlight the significant differences between this comportment and the increasingly ‘metaphysical’ attitude characterising many contemporary approaches to organization and organizing, not simply in organization studies, but also more widely in sociology and cultural economy.

Paul du Gay came to CBS in late 2008 as a 'Globaliseringsprofessor' at IOA. Prior to that, he was Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Warwick Business School, and Professor of Sociology and Organization Studies at the Open University, UK. His research interests have been and continue to be located on the cusp of sociology, politics, history and cultural studies, with a key focus on questions of organization and identity. Currently, Paul du Gay’s two main research foci concern (a) reviving Organization Theory (OT) as 'a practical science of Organizing', via an engagement with OT's own past, and (b) reviving notions of 'Office', 'Ethos', 'Persona' and practices of casuistical reasoning in the context of public administration and state service more generally. At CBS, he is Co-Director of the School's Business in Society 'Public-Private Platform’, Director of the collective Velux Research Programme 'What Makes Organization?’, and a member of the School wide appointments and promotion committee (CWAC).