Theory as Fantasy: Emotional Dimensions to Grounded Theory

In this paper we discuss emotions and fantasies that inform and influence the project of theory building. Our argument is that theory building can be improved by engaging directly with emotions and with fantasies that are defensively and creatively generated by the researcher. Once acknowledged, these can be transformed into ideas and insights. We provide an example of the emotional dynamics surrounding a novice researcher's use of grounded theory within her doctoral research. We highlight three distinctive researcher fantasies of containment, coherence and purity associated with her experience of the method. We discuss how engagement with these fantasies deepened the researcher's analysis and thereby enhanced the process of building theory from the data. Therefore, our paper contributes to an understanding of how fantasies mobilized by such an open‐ended research method can help to refine our thinking about emerging theory.     

Anxiety, Politics and Critical Management Education

The focus of this paper is a discussion of anxiety and politics as they relate to business school pedagogy. Using ideas from critical management education (CME), the paper explores why and how to engage with the anxiety mobilized through attempts to learn. The aim is to discuss emotional and political dynamics that are generated, and too often avoided, in management education. Making these dynamics overt in the classroom can help managers to comprehend the political context within which management takes place. Examples informed by CME are presented, as well as reflections from the author on the anxiety and politics that emerge for the critical management educator in a business school context. The contribution in the paper is to show the way that anxieties and politics within the business school classroom offer opportunities to change how business schools approach the teaching of managers. CME adds value to management education because it challenges what and how individuals and groups expect to learn, and consequently it challenges assumptions about how learning takes place within business schools. Such challenges are seen as an important and integral part of 'making the business school more critical'.     

The hybrid self and the ambivalence of boundaries

The paper outlines the main features of the contemporary discourse on hybrid subjectivity, a discourse which is internally differentiated along ‘organic’, ‘intentional’, and critical social theory lines. It then examines how these discourses can be applied to our understanding of hybrid cultures and identities. The article focuses on two central claims underlying the intentional approach: one, that cultural boundaries are theoretically and empirically problematic; and secondly, that a hybrid position provides the potential for an enlightened and critical world-view. In response, two contentions are articulated that will provide a more nuanced understanding of the hybrid self. Drawing on the work of Simmel and Park, the paper, in contrast to the intentional account, highlights the ambivalence of boundaries; secondly, a critical investigation of the enlightened hybrid consciousness is offered which suggests that this new form of consciousness underplays the role of prejudice and ambivalence. As a result of these discussions, the article demonstrates that the discourse on hybrid identity raises key theoretical issues either ignored or insufficiently addressed by existing scholarship.     

The impact of emotion on organizational learning

This paper addresses an aspect of organizational learning that has not been extensively developed - the impact of emotion on organizational learning. The study of emotion in organizations is seen as an important part of the development of organizational learning. The paper argues that attention to the emotional dynamics of organizing, and to the links between emotion and organizational politics, will increase the possibilities for understanding organizational learning. Awareness of the impact of emotion on organizational learning can be developed through an investigation of two areas. First, organizational learning is more than a product of organizational responses to individual learning. Emotion contributes to a broader understanding of systemic learning. Second, emotion is important to strategic aspects of organizational learning. There is a link between the emotional and the political within organizations. The paper contains a discussion of these themes using brief case examples to illustrate and develop the issues.     

FOOD AWAY FROM HOME AND CALORIC INTAKE: THE ROLE OF RESTAURANT MENU LABELING LAWS

We analyze whether local and state mandates to post calorie information on restaurant menus change the effect of consuming food prepared away from home (FAFH) on total caloric intake. Information on area demographics and the local food environment were used to construct a comparison group. For identification, we use differences in two days of dietary intake and timing variations in policy implementation. We find the effect of FAFH meals on total daily intake is reduced by 21 calories among adults and by 34 calories among young children for each year the mandate is in place. (JEL I12, I18, H75)     

That Unwanted Feeling: A Psychodynamic Study of Disappointment in Organizations

This paper explores the emotion of disappointment in organizations and develops a new line of theorizing inspired by psychoanalytic object‐relations theory. Existing literature frames disappointment as a threat to organizational effectiveness, as both a response and an anticipation of failure and as an emotion that needs to be managed in order to prevent it from damaging organizational morale and performance. This only captures part of the complexity of disappointment and leaves unexplored its potential contribution to organizational and individual learning and even creativity. The paper develops a theoretical framework which depicts disappointment in three configurations or positions, and it establishes the potential of disappointment acting as an integrative emotion within organizations. The framework accounts for an apparent contradiction in organizational members' experience of disappointment – that it is, at the same time, seen as ‘of little concern’ to individuals, and yet viewed as capable of undermining stability and destroying positive feelings. The paper shows how disappointment is connected to the dynamics of blame in organizations but, when fully appreciated, can offer a way of moving beyond these dynamics by recognizing partial failure within an organization and turning it into the basis for organizational learning.