Science Fiction and Organization

Science fiction can be seen as a diagnosis of the present, and a vision of possible futures. It therefore provides an excellent resource with which to interrogate both contemporary organizing processes and organizations as institutions. The marginal activity of science fiction has, however, been largely ignored in writing on organization theory. This international collection is the first book of its kind to explore how science fiction can enrich studies of organization by drawing on perspectives across the arts and social sciences.

List of contents

Introduction: More Amazing Tales
1. 'Give me your Mirrorshades': Science Fiction 'Mehtodology' Meets the Social and Organisational Sciences
2. Science Fiction and the Making of the Laser
3. Metropolis, Maslow, and the Axis Mundi
4. The Rape of the Machine Metaphor
5. Organizing Men Out in Joanna Russ's The Female Man and Fay Weldon's The Cloning of Joanna May
6. Drowned Giants: Science Fiction and Consumption Utopias
7. Spectacle and Inter-Spectacle in the Matrix and Organization Theory
8. Reading Star Trek: Imagining, Theorising, and Reflecting on Organisational Discourse and Practice
9. From the Borgias to the Borg (and Back Again): Rethinking Organisational Futures
10. Of Philip K. Dick, Reflexivity, and Shifting Realities: Organising (Writing) in Our Post-Industrial Society
11. 'I am a Man, and Nothing Human is Alien to Me': Alienation and Freakishness
12. 'Repeat Harlequin', Said the Ticktockman: Digesting Science Fiction
13. Cyberpunk Management

About the author

Matthew Higgins, Geoff Lightfoot, Martin Parker, Warren Smith

Summary

This international collection explores how science fiction can enrich studies of organization. The papers assembled draw upon perspectives from across the arts and social sciences.

Product details

• Assisted by: Matthew Higgins (Editor), Geoff Lightfoot (Editor), Lightfoot Geoff (Editor), Martin Parker (Editor), Warren Smith (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.08.2001
• EAN: 9780415215886
• ISBN: 978-0-415-21588-6
• No. of pages: 238
• Weight: 600 g
• Series: Routledge Studies in Human Resource Development
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Psychology > Applied psychology; Social sciences, law, business > Business > General, dictionaries; Business & Economics / General, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Management, Organizational theory & behaviour, Sociology: work & labour, Organizational theory and behaviour, Sociology: work and labour