Heather Höpfl

Becoming a (Virile) Member: Women and the Military Body

This article seeks to examine the process by which women are incorporated into the military body and considers the extent to which this is achieved both by demonstrating mastery and by the acquisition of the metaphorical penis. Specifically, the article puts forward the view that incorporation into the military body is achieved via a cancellation of the feminine. Women, it is argued, can either be playthings or else quasi men. The point is, and this is the meaning of the title, that either way women are dis-membered to maintain good order. To become a member of the military body, a woman must either conform to the male projection offered her or else acquire a metaphorical ‘member’ as the price of entry into ‘membership’. Women who do conform are assumed into the body and made homologues/homomorphs of men. However, in order to achieve this status of honorary man, they must accept impotence. They are not and do no possess real members. They are rewarded for not re-membering the body.

Accounting for the Bhopal disaster: footnotes and photographs

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to find the relationship between the purely representational aspects of the statements of account and the everyday lived experiences of those who were directly affected by the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India in 1984. The paper seeks to consider the rhetorical force of photography in capturing the tragic and to compare this with the position adopted by Union Carbide in accounting for the catastrophe. Design/methodology/approach - The paper reviews the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and draws on the works of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Julia Kristeva to examine the relationship between photographic representation and statements of account. Findings - The rhetorical character of the ways in which the tragedy has been represented and the impact of the photographic image when set against the statement of account is considered. The photographic image is an attempt to restore the body to the text, to bear in mind that, in the face of inevitable abstract, it is important to remember the body, albeit with the caveat that the image too succumbs to the force of rhetoric. Nonetheless, the image reminds one that one is dealing not only with figures and statements but also with life and death. Originality/value - The paper contributes to discussions about the need for a dialogic approach to accounting. Frequently, in disaster analysis, the co-existence of multiple perspectives and fragmented stories i.e. a dialogic approach, is paramount to gaining an insight into the complexity of the system which has failed. The paper demonstrates how images can complement cosy, coherent, monologic statements of accounts and help to retain the human character of disaster.

“The lady vanishes”: some thoughts on women and leadership

Purpose – This paper is concerned with some speculations and observations on the position of women in relationship to leadership roles in organizations.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a theoretical piece. It attempts to analyse some of the reasons why women find it difficult to attain leadership roles and reflects on the costs to them when they do.Findings – It considers why women are considered a threat to organizations and why organizations seek to subject women to the therapeutic imperative of rationality as the price of membership and of “success”. Put simply, it considers how women have to demonstrate male characteristics in order to “succeed” as leaders and must set aside feminine qualities: to live hyper‐abstractly “in order thus to earn divine grace and homologation with the symbolic order”. This results in an irresolvable lack in terms of what the organization desires for its completion.Originality/value – Leadership is defined by the phallus and womens leadership by its absence. The ...

On being moved

All transient things are but a parable; the insufficient here becomes actuality; here the ineffable is achieved; the Eternal-Feminine draws us onwards. Goethe, Faust Part II Lines 12104 – end. Translation Luke, D. 1964 Goethe, Selected Verse, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörst du nicht, Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht? My father, my father, do you not hear, What the Erl King is quietly promising me? Goethe, The ErlKönig.

The Organisation and the Mouth of Hell

FLESH ‘We are now beginning a two week consultation period—but let me say this [finger raised for emphasis)—if you are not for this project [dramatic pause) you ought to be looking for a move elsewhere’. (Announcement preceding a post‐1992 university restructuring, April 2002) ‘Hang on. I am just parking the car. I am walking into the building. I am now entering the mouth of hell…’ (Conversation with a friend who was calling from his mobile phone as he entered his workplace) ‘My heart sinks every time I have to go there. It takes away your spirit’. (Former colleague writing about her experiences of going to work) ‘I am nailed to the desk at the moment…’. (My email to friend in another institution) ‘Your email was full of Catholic imagery’. (Reply) ‘We live on that border, crossroads beings, crucified beings’. (Kristeva, 1987: 254)

Performance and customer service: the cultivation of contempt

The theatrical analogy in descriptions of organisational life has enjoyed a prominent position over many years and continues to offer insights into behaviour in a wide variety of roles and contexts. In this paper, the use of the dramaturgical accounts of organisational behaviour is subjected to specific scrutiny in order to give attention to the construction of the theatrical persona and its implications for performance. The paper provides insights into the nature of the organisational role, its cultivation and its fragility. Moreover, awareness of the audience, the desire to change consumer (and competitor) perceptions, and the acquisition of a “service ethic” is considered in relation to a conscious performance orientation and a belief in the importance of well rehearsed actors and appropriate staging and setting. However, the most important implication for organisational behaviour of the argument presented in the paper rests on the regulation of behaviour via manipulation of the role. Ultimately, the r...

A Question of Membership

Recently I was invited to be the external examiner for a PhD where the candidate was a member of staff and so had two external examiners. The other external was a man, like me a professor, and the supervisor was also a man, also a professor. We assembled in a small room to discuss the thesis and the supervisor began by asking the other external, ‘Well, how many PhDs have you examined?’ Prof X pondered for a moment and then said, ‘How many have you?’ to which the supervisor replied, ‘Four’. ‘I have examined seven’ was the response. To this the supervisor said, ‘But, if you count internal examinations, I have examined eight’. ‘I have examined seven external PhDs’ was the confident riposte. A pecking order was established and the male external examiner had announced himself as the chief cock. They didn’t ask me. They weren’t at all interested in how many PhDs I had examined. This was purely a male game and I wasn’t invited to play. Later, after the viva had taken place and when we were summing up the report I did say, ‘Actually, having examined over fifty PhDs, I would like to comment ...’ but it didn’t mean anything to either of them. I was irrelevant to their game. I could have examined five or 500 for all it mattered to them. This was a male competition. They were totally oblivious to excluding me from their power play.

The Paradoxical Gravity of Planned Organizational Change

Addresses the notion of “phoria” in organizational change. Uses the device of the myth of the Erl Konig to explore the appropriation of emotion in organizations and considers the role of rhetoric, liturgy and ritual in the preparation for changes. Argues that organizations trivialize the significance of change via a range of techniques which attempt to alleviate the experience of the burden of change. Argues for greater discernment between enlightenment and levity.

Sacred Heart: a comment on the heart of management

The literary and artistic image of the Sacred Heart is well known within Roman Catholic iconography and more generally. It is the object of a special devotion and symbolizes love and compassion. In the context of the special issue, this article is concerned with some aspects of the imagery of the heart. It briefly traces the history of the symbolism of the heart from ancient times and then gives specific attention to the imagery of the Sacred Heart. It looks at the ways in which this image has been used in both religious and secular art and to the political uses of the symbol. In particular, the study gives attention to the iconography of the Sacred Heart in contemporary imagery including representations of Elvis Presley, tributes to Princess Diana and the way that the image has been employed by the Australian political artist Deborah Kelly, who on Good Friday 2002, produced an image of Jesus with barbed wire around his heart as a complex symbol of Jesus’s status as a refugee from Herod. This article considers the appeal of the image of the heart and its significance, both political and psychological. It considers the way that the heart has been used as a symbol in management, its significance in terms of emotional labour and, by recursion to the Sacred Heart, its role in the restoration of the body to the management text.

Objects in exile: the intimate structures of resistance and consolation

Purpose – This paper looks at small spaces. In particular, it aims to focus on small gestures of resistance and the objects which accompany them. It takes its inspiration from Goffmans “secondary adjustments”, in other words, from reactions to organizational socialization, but draws most of its theoretical support from the literature of exile and architectural concepts of structure.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is located in the interpretative paradigm and draws on Goffmans observations, photographic approaches, and artistic and literary works on exile. It does not work with psycho‐analytic approaches to object‐relations and has merely an affinity with science and technology studies.Findings – The primary findings concern the relationship between work and its other. At a time when work has extended to define all areas of life, the paper considers the relationship between exile and homeland, between memories and aides memoires. The paper examines the intimate relationship between the prevailing...