Journal articles
Böhm S (2023). Tree flexing: Forest politics and land struggles in the green economy.
Journal of Tropical Futures: Sustainable Business, Governance & DevelopmentAbstract:
Tree flexing: Forest politics and land struggles in the green economy
Planting trees is widely regarded as a positive contribution to combating climate change and establishing a future-proof, green economy. Yet, there is mounting evidence from many tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions of the world that tree plantations can have multiple negative economic, social and environmental impacts. These are not always accounted for by the private and public institutions who have heavily supported the forestry sector in recent decades. This ‘tropical provocation’ reports from a recent fieldtrip to the Wallmapu, the region the Mapuche Indigenous people call their ancestral homeland. There, I saw with my own eyes that the so-called green economy does not work for Mapuche communities, as they experience extreme water shortages, wildfires and other plundering from what they regard as their territory.
Abstract.
Valenzuela F, Manolchev C, Böhm S, Agar CC (2023). Working through (mis)recognition: Understanding vulnerability as ambivalence in precarious worker subjectivity.
Human RelationsAbstract:
Working through (mis)recognition: Understanding vulnerability as ambivalence in precarious worker subjectivity
Most workers around the world are part of the precariat, characterized by non-permanent, informal, short-term, low-pay, low-skill, and insecure jobs. While there have been many socio-economic critiques of the negative impacts of precarity on workers, the literature has increasingly asked how precarious workers actually live their lives and how their subjectivities are produced on a daily basis. We contribute to this literature by providing a psychosocial account of the ambivalent experiences of precarious workers. We contend that the interplay of recognition and misrecognition plays a crucial role, as the vulnerable, working subject becomes entangled in a complex web of recognizability. We present insights from 104 in-depth interviews, providing a Lacanian analysis of how precarious workers develop unconscious attachments to neoliberal values that are central to the logic of precarity. Understanding this ambivalence helps us develop a more nuanced view of an ethics of precarious workers’ vulnerability.
Abstract.
Böhm S, Carrington M, Cornelius N, de Bruin B, Greenwood M, Hassan L, Jain T, Karam C, Kourula A, Romani L, et al (2022). Ethics at the Centre of Global and Local Challenges: Thoughts on the Future of Business Ethics.
J Bus Ethics,
180(3), 835-861.
Abstract:
Ethics at the Centre of Global and Local Challenges: Thoughts on the Future of Business Ethics.
To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Ethics at the centre of global and local challenges. For much of the history of the Journal of Business Ethics, ethics was seen within the academy as a peripheral aspect of business. However, in recent years, the stakes have risen dramatically, with global and local worlds destabilized by financial crisis, climate change, internet technologies and artificial intelligence, and global health crises. The authors of these commentaries address these grand challenges by placing business ethics at their centre. What if all grand challenges were framed as grand ethical challenges? Tanusree Jain, Arno Kourula and Suhaib Riaz posit that an ethical lens allows for a humble response, in which those with greater capacity take greater responsibility but remain inclusive and cognizant of different voices and experiences. Focussing on business ethics in connection to the grand(est) challenge of environmental emergencies, Steffen Böhm introduces the deceptively simple yet radical position that business is nature, and nature is business. His quick but profound side-step from arguments against human-nature dualism to an ontological undoing of the business-nature dichotomy should have all business ethics scholars rethinking their "business and society" assumptions. Also, singularly concerned with the climate emergency, Boudewijn de Bruin posits a scenario where, 40 years from now, our field will be evaluated by its ability to have helped humanity emerge from this emergency. He contends that Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth) v. Royal Dutch Shell illustrates how human rights take centre stage in climate change litigation, and how business ethics enters the courtroom. From a consumer ethics perspective, Deirdre Shaw, Michal Carrington and Louise Hassan argue that ecologically sustainable and socially just marketplace systems demand cultural change, a reconsideration of future interpretations of "consumer society", a challenge to the dominant "growth logic" and stimulation of alternative ways to address our consumption needs. Still concerned with global issues, but turning attention to social inequalities, Nelarine Cornelius links the capability approach (CA) to global and corporate governance, arguing that CA will continue to lie at the foundation of human development policy, and, increasingly, CSR and corporate governance. Continuing debate on the grand challenges associated with justice and equality, Laurence Romani identifies a significant shift in the centrality of business ethics in debates on managing (cultural) differences, positing that dialogue between diversity management and international management can ground future debate in business ethics. Finally, the essay concludes with a commentary by Charlotte Karam and Michelle Greenwood on the possibilities of feminist-inspired theories, methods, and positionality for many spheres of business ethics, not least stakeholder theory, to broaden and deepen its capacity for nuance, responsiveness, and transformation. In the words of our commentators, grand challenges must be addressed urgently, and the Journal of Business Ethics should be at the forefront of tackling them.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Howard M, Yan X, Mustafee N, Charnley F, Böhm S, Pascucci S (2022). Going beyond waste reduction: Exploring tools and methods for circular economy adoption in small-medium enterprises. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 182, 106345-106345.
Howard M, Boehm S, Eatherley D (2022). Systems resilience and SME multilevel challenges:. A place-based conceptualization of the circular economy. Journal of Business Research, 145, 757-768.
Ehrnström-Fuentes M, Böhm S (2022). The Political Ontology of Corporate Social Responsibility: Obscuring the Pluriverse in Place.
Journal of Business Ethics,
185(2), 245-261.
Abstract:
The Political Ontology of Corporate Social Responsibility: Obscuring the Pluriverse in Place
AbstractThis article examines corporate social responsibility (CSR) through the lens of political ontology. We contend that CSR is not only a discursive mean of legitimization but an inherently ontological practice through which particular worlds become real. CSR enables the politics of place-making, connecting humans and nonhumans in specific territorial configurations in accordance with corporate needs and interests. We discuss three CSR mechanisms of singularization that create a particular corporate ontology in place: (1) community engagements that form ‘stakeholders’; (2) CSR standards and certifications that produce singular sustainable environments; and (3) CSR reporting that erases ontological conflicts and enables the singularized representation (of the environment and the community) to travel to other locations of the corporate world. We argue that these ontological CSR practices obscure the pluriverse of other world and place-making practices that would create different kinds of sustainabilities based on less extractive and non-corporate ways of being in place.
Abstract.
Ho C, Böhm S, Monciardini D (2022). The collaborative and contested interplay between business and civil society in circular economy transitions. Business Strategy and the Environment, 31(6), 2714-2727.
Henriques I, Böhm S (2022). The perils of ecologically unequal exchange: Contesting rare-earth mining in Greenland. Journal of Cleaner Production, 349, 131378-131378.
Ramirez J, Böhm S (2021). For more pluralistic critiques of colonialism: a response to Dunlap. Energy Research & Social Science, 82, 102303-102303.
Ramirez J, Böhm S (2021). Transactional colonialism in wind energy investments: Energy injustices against vulnerable people in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Energy Research & Social Science, 78, 102135-102135.
Flores RK, Bōhm S, Misoczky MC (2020). Contesting extractivism: international business and people’s struggles against extractive industries.
critical perspectives on international business,
18(1), 1-14.
Abstract:
Contesting extractivism: international business and people’s struggles against extractive industries
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce the special issue “Extractivism and the Links between International Business and People’s Struggles,” which is part of our joint research efforts oriented to advance critical knowledge on the impacts and strategies of extractive transnational corporations and social struggles against them.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents and discusses contemporary aspects of extractivism and their impacts on nature and livelihood. In a second moment, it introduces and reflects on the four articles that compose the special issue “Extractivism and the Links between International Business and People’s Struggles”.
Findings
Extractivism is destructive of nature and livelihoods. As reaction to its destructive logic, millions of people have organized to struggle against extractivist projects around the world. The publication of this special issue is part of authors’ joint research efforts oriented to advance critical knowledge on the impacts and strategies of extractive corporations and social struggles against them. The lessons that the authors learned in their research and their experiences in these struggles were the key motivating factors that led them to organize this special issue, exploring radical alternatives to extractivism, alternatives that have as fundamental criterion the production and reproduction of life.
Originality/value
The value of this introduction is to present and discuss the four articles of the special issue “Extractivism and the Links between International Business and People’s Struggles,” which compose a rich mosaic of themes that emerge in the struggles against extractive projects worldwide, creating a relevant picture of the main defies imposed by extractivism and its negative impacts, from political corporate social responsibility to discourses, from relational ontology to the relations among state, corporations and social movements.
Abstract.
Joosse S, Powell S, Bergeå H, Böhm S, Calderón C, Caselunghe E, Fischer A, Grubbström A, Hallgren L, Holmgren S, et al (2020). Critical, Engaged and Change-oriented Scholarship in Environmental Communication. Six Methodological Dilemmas to Think With. Environmental Communication, 14(6), 758-771.
Lestar T, Böhm S (2020). Ecospirituality and sustainability transitions: agency towards degrowth. Religion, State and Society, 48(1), 56-73.
Corvellec H, Böhm S, Stowell A, Valenzuela F (2020). Introduction to the special issue on the contested realities of the circular economy. Culture and Organization, 26(2), 97-102.
Boehm S, Pascucci S (2020). It’s not just about the Mafia! Conceptualizing business-society relations of organized violence. The Academy of Management Perspectives
Maher R, Monciardini D, Boehm S (2020). Torn between Legal Claiming and Privatized Remedy: Rights Mobilization against Gold Mining in Chile. Business Ethics Quarterly, 31(1), 37-74.
Böhm S, Spierenburg M, Lang T (2019). Fruits of our labour: Work and organisation in the global food system.
Organization,
27(2), 195-212.
Abstract:
Fruits of our labour: Work and organisation in the global food system
This is the first special issue of any organisation studies journal on food labour. Why is this a big deal? in this Introduction, we argue that the field should pay much more attention to the agri-food system and the work that goes into producing, distributing and consuming foodstuff. Food is such an all-important, basic ingredient to human existence, incorporating a vast web of organisational processes that are constantly changing, being contested at all scales. Whether subsistence peasants, new-age community foodies, massive food logistics companies, Deliveroo dark kitchens or Uber Eats cyclists – there is a huge amount of labour everywhere in the agri-food system. Food labour is so vast, this special issue can only begin lifting the lid. In this Introduction, we provide an overview of the current scholarly work on food labour. We identify some of the historical contexts and struggles that have led to the agri-food system in existence today. We identify food labour types, particularly focusing on those that are vanishing or emerging, crucially asking why these transitions are taking place. We also engage with the various resistances expressed by people against the ever globalising agri-food system, outlining logics for the emergence of alternative food movements. Finally, we introduce each of the seven papers collated in this Special Issue, all of which, we hope, will provide food for thought to all of us who tend to have three meals a day without thinking too much about the labour that goes into our grub.
Abstract.
Boehm S, Spierenburg M, Lang T (2019). Fruits of our labour: Work and organisation in the global food system. Organization
Bharucha Pervez Z, Weinstein N, Watson D, Boehm SG (2019). Participation in local food projects is associated with better psychological well-being: Evidence from the East of England. Journal of Public Health
Skoglund A, Böhm S (2019). Prefigurative Partaking: Employees’ Environmental Activism in an Energy Utility.
Organization Studies,
41(9), 1257-1283.
Abstract:
Prefigurative Partaking: Employees’ Environmental Activism in an Energy Utility
The separation between an ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of organizational politics has become untenable in a rapidly changing political landscape, where people engage in environmental activism in many different domains. To understand contemporary environmental activism, we situate ourselves empirically within an energy utility, Ordalia [pseudonym], a large corporation active across Europe and heavily criticized by external activists for its carbon emitting operations. By merging Rancière’s method of equality and notion of ‘partaking’ with literature on prefiguration in social movements, we analyse everyday green actions pursued by Ordalia’s employees, which we conceptualize as ‘prefigurative partaking’. By focusing on six characterizing themes of prefigurative partaking – aspirational, individual, professional, critical, loyal and communal – we have found that employee activism is incremental, horizontal and boundaryless. We discuss these findings in relation to recent calls for more fruitful exchanges between social movement theory and organization studies, arguing that Rancière’s conceptualization of politics can help us study actions that span civil society and business. This complements and expands our understanding of environmental activism as a dispersed set of actions that can take place anywhere, and hence also at work.
Abstract.
Maher R, Valenzuela F, Boehm SG (2019). The Enduring State: an analysis of governance making in three mining conflicts. Organization Studies, 40, 1169-1191.
Bo L, Boehm SG, Reynolds N-S (2018). Organizing the environmental governance of the rare-earth industry: China's passive revolution. Organization Studies
Agar CC, Boehm SG (2018). Towards a pluralist labor geography: Constrained grassroots agency and the socio-spatial fix in Dȇrsim, Turkey. Environment and Planning A, 50, 1228-1249.
Böhm S, Valenzuela F (2017). Against wasted politics: a critique of the circular economy. Ephemera : Theory and Politics in Organization, 17(1), 23-60.
Lanka SV, Khadaroo I, Böhm S (2017). Agroecology accounting: biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods from the margins.
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal,
30(7), 1592-1613.
Abstract:
Agroecology accounting: biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods from the margins
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a socio-ecological counter account of the role that agroecology plays in supporting the sustainable livelihoods of a co-operative of smallholder coffee farmers, where very little value is created at their end of the coffee commodity chain. Agroecology may be defined as the science that provides the ecological principles and concepts for the design and management of productive agricultural ecosystems that conserve natural resources.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a case study design of a coffee-producing co-operative in India using data collected from participant observation, focus groups and unstructured interviews with indigenous smallholder farmers. It combines the science of agroecology with the labour theory of value as a theoretical framework.
Findings
An agroecological approach supports agricultural biodiversity, while promoting sustainable livelihoods since members of the co-operative are able to reduce their use of external inputs. However, an agroecological transformation is curtailed by the continued dependence on corporate value chains. A framework using the labour theory of value is used to explain the extraction of surplus value from the labour of both the smallholder farmers as well as nature. This study provides evidence of the role of government policy and practice in perpetuating the status quo by not promoting either research on agroecology or direct consumer to producer value chains while providing subsidies for the inputs of industrial agriculture.
Originality/value
There have been very few studies that have provided an account of the limited value generated in agricultural commodity chains for smallholder farmers due to the need to purchase the inputs of industrial agriculture supported by government subsidies. This study extends the field of accounting for biodiversity into agriculture using the science of agroecology to explain the role played by biodiversity in increasing the amount of value generated by smallholder farmers. By utilising the labour theory of value, the authors have introduced the notion of the labour power of nature as represented by the environmental services that nature provides.
Abstract.
Misoczky MC, Dornelas Camara G, Böhm S (2017). Organizational practices of social movements and popular struggles: understanding the power of organizing from below. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: an International Journal, 12(4), 250-261.
Fontoura Y, Bharucha Z, Böhm S (2016). A Transnational Agri-Food System for Whom? the Struggle for Hegemony at Rio+20. Revista de Administração de Empresas, 56(4), 424-437.
Russi L (2015). Book review: Steffen Böhm, Zareen Pervez Bharucha and Jules Pretty (eds), Ecocultures: Blueprints for Sustainable Communities (Routledge, Abingdon 2014) 312 pp. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 6(2), 226-234.
Böhm S, Brei V, Dabhi S (2015). EDF Energy's green CSR claims examined: the follies of global carbon commodity chains. Global Networks, 15(1), 87-107.
Beverungen A, Böhm S, Land C (2015). Free Labour, Social Media, Management: Challenging Marxist Organization Studies.
Organization Studies,
36(4), 473-489.
Abstract:
Free Labour, Social Media, Management: Challenging Marxist Organization Studies
in this paper we explore how so-called ‘social media’ such as Facebook challenge Marxist organization studies. We argue that understanding the role of user activity in web 2.0 business models requires a focus on ‘work’, understood as value productive activity, that takes place beyond waged labour in the firm. A reading of Marx on the socialization of labour highlights the emerging figure of ‘free labour’, which is both unpaid and uncoerced. Marxist work on the production of the ‘audience commodity’ provides one avenue for understanding the production of content and data by users as free labour, but this raises questions concerning the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, which is central to Marx’s labour theory of value. The Marxist literature on ‘the becoming rent of profit’ allows for a partial understanding of how the value produced by free labour is captured, thereby developing the understanding of the economic dimension of ‘free labour’ as unpaid. It overstates, however, the ‘uncontrolled’ side of free labour, and neglects the ways in which this work is managed so as to ensure that it is productive. We therefore call for a return to Marxist labour process analysis, albeit with an expanded focus on labour and a revised understanding of control associated with digital protocols. On this basis, a Marxist organization studies can contribute to an understanding of the political economy of digital capitalism.
Abstract.
Pearse R, Böhm S (2015). Ten reasons why carbon markets will not bring about radical emissions reduction. Carbon Management, 5(4), 325-337.
Moog S, Spicer A, Böhm S (2015). The Politics of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: the Crisis of the Forest Stewardship Council. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(3), 469-493.
Bryant G, Dabhi S, Böhm S (2015). ‘Fixing’ the climate crisis: capital, states, and carbon offsetting in India. Environment and Planning A, 47(10), 2047-2063.
Sutherland N, Land C, Böhm S (2014). Anti-leaders(hip) in Social Movement Organizations: the case of autonomous grassroots groups. Organization, 21(6), 759-781.
Böhm S (2014). Book Review: JK Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron and Stephen Healy, Take Back the Economy: an Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities. Sociology, 48(5)(5), 1055-1057.
Dellagnelo EHL, Böhm S, Mendonça PMED (2014). Organizing resistance movements: contribution of the political discourse theory.
Revista de Administração de Empresas,
54(2), 141-153.
Abstract:
Organizing resistance movements: contribution of the political discourse theory
The main purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of articulating Political Discourse Theory (PDT) together with Organizational Studies (OS), while using the opportunity to introduce PDT to those OS scholars who have not yet come across it. The bulk of this paper introduces the main concepts of PDT, discussing how they have been applied to concrete, empirical studies of resistance movements. In recent years, PDT has been increasingly appropriated by OS scholars to problematize and analyze resistances and other forms of social antagonisms within organizational settings, taking the relational and contingent aspects of struggles into consideration. While the paper supports the idea of a joint articulation of PDT and OS, it raises a number of critical questions of how PDT concepts have been empirically used to explain the organization of resistance movements. The paper sets out a research agenda for how both PDT and OS can together contribute to our understanding of new, emerging organizational forms of resistance movements.
Abstract.
Brei V, Böhm S (2014). ‘1L=10L for Africa’: Corporate social responsibility and the transformation of bottled water into a ‘consumer activist’ commodity. Discourse & Society, 25(1), 3-31.
Beverungen A, Böhm S, Land C (2013). From the open road to the high seas? Piracy, damnation and resistance in academic consumption of publishing.
Prometheus,
31(3).
Abstract:
From the open road to the high seas? Piracy, damnation and resistance in academic consumption of publishing
Armin Beverungen conducts research on how universities retain their charitable status in a market environment, and on the teaching of ethics in business schools. Steffen Böhm has a particular interest in the economics and management of sustainability. He has also founded an open access journal and an open access press, MayFlyBooks. Christopher Land works on artists and the management of their creativity.
Abstract.
Misoczky MC, Böhm S (2013). Resistindo ao desenvolvimento neocolonial: a luta do povo de Andalgalá contra projetos megamineiros.
Cadernos EBAPE.BR,
11(2), 311-339.
Abstract:
Resistindo ao desenvolvimento neocolonial: a luta do povo de Andalgalá contra projetos megamineiros
A América Latina vem experimentando uma nova era de declarada fé dos governos no mito do desenvolvimento, em articulação com a expansão de políticas extrativistas exportadoras em um contexto de renovada dependência. A face mais dramática do extrativismo na região tem sido a crescente presença de corporações mineiras transnacionais apoiadas por governos nacionais e regionais e por instituições internacionais financeiras e de apoio ao desenvolvimento, e intensamente resistidas por movimentos sociais populares. Neste artigo apresentamos o caso de Andalgalá (uma pequena cidade na Província de Catamarca, na Argentina) e as lutas do povo contra corporações mineiras transnacionais e seus aliados. Na tradição da Filosofia da Libertação e do método ana-dialético de Dussel, nos engajamos com o que tem sido denominado "comunidades argentinas do NÃO", expressando sua oposição a formas neocoloniais de desenvolvimento e gestão. Neste artigo estamos especificamente interessados em compreender como dois dispositivos gerencialistas usados pelas corporações mineiras, responsabilidade social corporativa (RSC) e pactos de governança, impactam a luta do povo. Acima de tudo, este artigo oferece instantâneos de batalhas na linha de frente do extrativismo. Esperamos ter dado voz àquelas pessoas que normalmente não são ouvidas, criando um espaço para suas visões sobre um tipo diferente de desenvolvimento.
Abstract.
Misoczky MC, Böhm S (2012). Do desenvolvimento sustentável à economia verde: a constante e acelerada investida do capital sobre a natureza.
Cadernos EBAPE.BR,
10(3), 546-568.
Abstract:
Do desenvolvimento sustentável à economia verde: a constante e acelerada investida do capital sobre a natureza
Informado por uma perspectiva teórica marxista, o propósito deste ensaio é refletir criticamente sobre a relação entre capital e natureza e, especificamente, sobre o 'processo Rio', que se iniciou em 1992 e continuou com a recente Conferência Rio+20. Neste processo constata-se uma evolução do discurso do desenvolvimento sustentável à economia verde relacionando-os a práticas fundamentalmente similares e contínuas que permitem ao capital cooptar conceitos inicialmente radicais, tais como sustentabilidade, de modo a incluí-los em sua lógica de acumulação. Neste ensaio discutimos uma variedade de autores para refletir criticamente sobre as tentativas recentes de organização do capital e seus contínuos avanços sobre a natureza, de modo a preservar o crescimento contínuo e contrarrestar a crise em que está imerso.
Abstract.
Böhm S, Misoczky MC, Moog S (2012). Greening Capitalism? a Marxist Critique of Carbon Markets.
Organization Studies,
33(11), 1617-1638.
Abstract:
Greening Capitalism? a Marxist Critique of Carbon Markets
Climate change is increasingly being recognized as a serious threat to dominant modes of social organization, inspiring suggestions that capitalism itself needs to be transformed if we are to ‘decarbonize’ the global economy. Since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, carbon markets have emerged as the main politico-economic tools in global efforts to address climate change. Newell and Paterson (2010) have recently claimed that the embrace of carbon markets by financial and political elites constitutes a possible first step towards the transformation of current modes of capitalist organization into a new form of greener, more sustainable ‘climate capitalism.’ in this paper, we argue that the institutionalization of carbon markets does not, in fact, represent a move towards the radical transformation of capitalism, but is better understood as the most recent expression of ongoing trends of ecological commodification and expropriation, driving familiar processes of uneven and crisis-prone development. In this paper, we review four critical Marxist concepts: metabolic rift (Foster, 1999), capitalism as world ecology (Moore, 2011a), uneven development and accumulation through dispossession (Harvey, 2003, 2006), and sub-imperialism (Marini, 1972, 1977), developing a framework for a Marxist analysis of carbon markets. Our analysis shows that carbon markets form part of a longer historical development of global capitalism and its relation to nature. Carbon markets, we argue, serve as creative new modes of accumulation, but are unlikely to transform capitalist dynamics in ways that might foster a more sustainable global economy. Our analysis also elucidates, in particular, the role that carbon markets play in exacerbating uneven development within the Global South, as elites in emerging economies leverage carbon market financing to pursue new strategies of sub-imperial expansion.
Abstract.
Böhm S, Land C (2012). The New ‘Hidden Abode’: Reflections on Value and Labour in the New Economy.
The Sociological Review,
60(2), 217-240.
Abstract:
The New ‘Hidden Abode’: Reflections on Value and Labour in the New Economy
In a pivotal section of Capital, volume 1, Marx (1976: 279) notes that, in order to understand the capitalist production of value, we must descend into the ‘hidden abode of production’: the site of the labour process conducted within an employment relationship. In this paper we argue that by remaining wedded to an analysis of labour that is confined to the employment relationship, Labour Process Theory (LPT) has missed a fundamental shift in the location of value production in contemporary capitalism. We examine this shift through the work of Autonomist Marxists like Hardt and Negri, Lazaratto and Arvidsson, who offer theoretical leverage to prize open a new ‘hidden abode’ outside employment, for example in the ‘production of organization’ and in consumption. Although they can open up this new ‘hidden abode’, without LPT's fine-grained analysis of control/resistance, indeterminacy and structured antagonism, these theorists risk succumbing to empirically naive claims about the ‘new economy’. Through developing an expanded conception of a ‘new hidden abode’ of production, the paper demarcates an analytical space in which both LPT and Autonomist Marxism can expand and develop their understanding of labour and value production in today's economy.
Abstract.
Beverungen A, Böhm S, Land C (2012). The poverty of journal publishing.
Organization,
19(6), 929-938.
Abstract:
The poverty of journal publishing
The article opens with a critical analysis of the dominant business model of for-profit, academic publishing, arguing that the extraordinarily high profits of the big publishers are dependent upon a double appropriation that exploits both academic labour and universities’ financial resources. Against this model, we outline four possible responses: the further development of open access repositories, a fair trade model of publishing regulation, a renaissance of the university presses, and, finally, a move away from private, for-profit publishing companies toward autonomous journal publishing by editorial boards and academic associations.
Abstract.
Sullivan S, Spicer A, Böhm S (2011). Becoming Global (Un)Civil Society: Counter-Hegemonic Struggle and the Indymedia Network. Globalizations, 8(5), 703-717.
Böhm S, Dhabi S (2011). Commentary: Fault lines in climate policy: what role for carbon markets?. Climate Policy, 11(6), 1389-1392.
Frenzel F, Böhm S, Quinton P, Spicer A, Sullivan S, Young Z (2011). Comparing Alternative Media in North and South: the Cases of IFIWatchnet and Indymedia in Africa.
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space,
43(5), 1173-1189.
Abstract:
Comparing Alternative Media in North and South: the Cases of IFIWatchnet and Indymedia in Africa
Alternative media form an important part of the global mediascape. Research on this phenomenon is, however, often drawn from studies in the ‘global North’. In this paper we discuss alternative media in the ‘global South’, by exploring two case studies of cooperation between Northern and Southern partners: IFIWatchnet in South America, and Indymedia Centre in Africa. We highlight how Northern and Southern partners differed in identity, organizational forms, and accountability. We find that Northern partners were oriented to more ‘marginal’ identities, fluid organizational structures, and informal structures of accountability. In contrast, Southern activists articulated more ‘mainstream’ identities, relied on more structured forms, and linked to formalized modes of accountability. The result was often significant clashes over what it meant to be alternative media, how alternative media should be organized, and how people should be held to account. This meant that North–South cooperation was often fraught with struggle. These difficulties are reminiscent of the limitations of creating global cooperation through seeking to spread modes of activist organization developed in the North, which emphasize autonomy, networks, fluidity, and, in some instances, direct action.
Abstract.
Brei V, Böhm S (2011). Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water.
Business Ethics: a European Review,
20(3), 233-252.
Abstract:
Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water
To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so‐called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three‐step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo‐liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories.
Abstract.
Boehm S (2011). Discourse and Economy: Discourse-analytical perspectives of markets and organizations.
ORGANIZATION,
18(3), 410-415.
Author URL.
Böhm S, Dinerstein AC, Spicer A (2010). (Im)possibilities of Autonomy: Social Movements in and beyond Capital, the State and Development. Social Movement Studies, 9(1), 17-32.
Böhm S, Batta A (2010). Just doing it: enjoying commodity fetishism with Lacan.
Organization,
17(3), 345-361.
Abstract:
Just doing it: enjoying commodity fetishism with Lacan
Despite prolonged resistance campaigns against what are regarded as unethical production practices of companies such as Nike, people around the world still seem to be happy to spend a lot of money buying expensive consumer products. Why is this so? in this article we discuss this question through the lens of the concept of fetishism. By discussing texts by Freud and Marx, amongst others, we first explore the genealogy of the concept of fetishism. We then develop a Lacanian reading to understand how processes of fetishization dominate today’s capitalist society, producing a modern subject that constantly desires to consume more in order to constitute itself. We argue—with Lacan—that at the heart of this process of the constitution of the subject through consumption is enjoyment or, what Lacan calls, jouissance. Capitalism—as any other socio-economic regime—can thus be understood as a system of enjoyment.
Abstract.
Fotaki M, Böhm S, Hassard J (2010). The failure of transition.
Journal of Organizational Change Management,
23(6), 637-650.
Abstract:
The failure of transition
PurposeThis paper aims to link the process of “transition”, which started in the former Soviet system about 20 years ago, to the recent global financial and economic crisis. The paper considers “transition” as a shift from one socio‐economic “dreamworld” to another, rather than as a real change towards freedom and democracy, as most mainstream commentators would have it. The argument is that this “transition” to a capitalist, free market society was bound up with a host of dream‐like imaginations of social and economic progress, which were also found on the imaginary horizon of the Soviet system. It is argued that the two systems, and hence also the recent global capitalist crisis, can be understood as being determined by complementary economies of desires, which, however, cannot be fulfilled.Design/methodology/approachThe paper combines a critical theory perspective, influenced by Buck‐Morss and Benjamin, with a Lacanian analysis of subjectivity to critically analyze collective fantasies as the key organizational principle behind the workings and eventual demise of the socialist utopia as well as the more recent downfall of the neoliberal discourse.FindingsThe paper demonstrates why both socialism and capitalism can be understood as “real existing” systems where social processes, institutions, ideologies and identities are organized at the interface of political‐agonistic and symbolic‐imaginary dimensions.Social implicationsThe paper calls for assuming responsibility for our work as public intellectuals and academics, aiming at the continuous unmasking of illusions, fantasies and ideologies at work in society, which we see as politics proper.Originality/valueThe paper uses critical‐theoretic, psychoanalytic and post‐structuralist frames in order to unravel the fantasmatic kernel at work of both socialist and capitalist utopias. These fantasies do not only struggle to uphold their hegemonic grip on the economy but on the very production of subjectivity.
Abstract.
Essers J, Böhm S, Contu A (2009). Corporate Robespierres, ideologies of management and change.
Journal of Organizational Change Management,
22(2), 129-140.
Abstract:
Corporate Robespierres, ideologies of management and change
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an introductory overview of this special issue highlighting some of the distinctive features of Žižek's Lacan‐inspired thought relevant to the role of ideologies in organizational change management.Design/methodology/approachThe approach used aims to show how ideological and ethical ramifications of Žižek's recent analysis of a “Jacobin” change paradigm can affect thought on everyday change practices in business and management.FindingsSome parallels are drawn between current change practices and narrative tactics employed by Robespierre during the Jacobin reign of terror to “extort” the commitment of participants in the change process.Practical implicationsThis paper/special issue invites reconsideration of our late capitalist intellectual/practical “reflexes” in change management, i.e. to reassess their ideological mechanism.Originality/valueŽižekian/Lacanian approaches to organizations and change are especially suitable for this purpose but have only recently begun to emerge.
Abstract.
Böhm S, Land C (2009). No measure for culture? Value in the new economy.
Capital & Class,
33(1), 75-98.
Abstract:
No measure for culture? Value in the new economy
This paper explores articulations of the value of investment in culture and the arts through a critical discourse analysis of policy documents, reports and academic commentary since 1997. It argues that in this period, discourses around the value of culture have moved from a focus on the direct economic contributions of the culture industries to their indirect economic benefits. These indirect benefits are discussed here under three main headings: creativity and innovation, employability, and social inclusion. These are in turn analysed in terms of three forms of capital: human, social and cultural. The paper concludes with an analysis of this discursive shift through the lens of autonomist Marxist concerns with the labour of social reproduction. It is our argument that, in contemporary policy discourses on culture and the arts, the government in the UK is increasingly concerned with the use of culture to form the social in the image of capital. As such, we must turn our attention beyond the walls of the factory in order to understand the contemporary capitalist production of value and resistance to it.
Abstract.
Misoczky MC, Flores RK, Böhm S (2008). A práxis da resistência e a hegemonia da organização. Organizações & Sociedade, 15(45), 181-193.
Böhm S, Spicer A, Fleming P (2008). Infra-political dimensions of resistance to international business: a Neo-Gramscian approach. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 24(3), 169-182.
Böhm S, Brei V (2008). Marketing the hegemony of development: of pulp fictions and green deserts. Marketing Theory, 8(4), 339-366.
De Cock C, Böhm S (2007). Liberalist Fantasies: Žižek and the Impossibility of the Open Society. Organization, 14(6), 815-836.
Spicer A, Böhm S (2007). Moving Management: Theorizing Struggles against the Hegemony of Management. Organization Studies, 28(11), 1667-1698.
Paterson M, Böhm S, Jones C, Land C (2006). Acknowledgements. The Sociological Review, 54(1_suppl), vii-vii.
Böhm S, De Cock C (2006). Everything you Wanted to Know about Organization Theory … but were Afraid to Ask Slavoj Žižek. The Sociological Review, 53(1_suppl), 279-291.
Böhm S, Jones C, Land C, Paterson M (2006). Introduction: Impossibilities of Automobility. The Sociological Review, 54(1_suppl), 3-16.
Bohm S, Jones C, Land C, Paterson M (2006). Introduction:: Impossibilities of automobility.
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW,
54, 3-16.
Author URL.
Otto B, Böhm S (2006). “The people” and resistance against international business.
Critical perspectives on international business,
2(4), 299-320.
Abstract:
“The people” and resistance against international business
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to analyse the organisation of the Bolivian “water war” in Cochabamba that saw a social movement resist international business and the privatisation of public goods. The implications for the study of resistance in management and organisation studies will be evaluated.Design/methodology/approachLaclau's discourse theory is used to analyse the organisation of resistance and the establishment of a new discourse of “the people”. A range of primary and secondary data are drawn upon.FindingsThe study shows how the resistance movement was successfully organised in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Through various “horizontal” and “vertical” methods of organising, the Coordinadora, the overarching resistance organisation, was able to unite formerly disparate discourses into a single demand. This establishment of a united front was a key element in the formation of the discourse of “the people”, which successfully challenged neo‐liberal privatisation and management discourses put forward by the government, multinational companies and international finance institutions.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was primarily focused on studying the discursive shift that occurred during the Bolivian “water war” in 1999 and 2000. The paper was not able to discuss the aftermath of the successful resistance movement, and the various problems the new municipal water organisation ran into after it regained control of the water resources in Cochabamba.Practical implicationsThe primary audience of practitioners are participants in social movements that are engaged in resistance struggles against multinational companies and governments. Drawing on the experiences from the Bolivian “water war”, the paper offers a range of practical insights into how to effectively organise resistance movements. This paper might also be useful to policy makers and managers in the area of water management.Originality/valueThis is one of the first papers that analyses the Bolivian “water war” to consider its implications for the study of resistance within management and organisation studies.
Abstract.
Böhm S, Cairns G (2005). Academia, the G8 and other misfortunes: notes on two journeys.
Critical perspectives on international business,
1(4), 277-284.
Abstract:
Academia, the G8 and other misfortunes: notes on two journeys
PurposeAims to discuss the relationship between the recent G8 summit of 2005, held at Gleneagles, Scotland, and events occurring around the same time in the world of academe and in the global media.Design/methodology/approachDraws upon personal experience and interpretation in order to raise issues for critical discussion and reflection, in relation to the impact and effectiveness of resistance movements within academe, activist counter‐movements, and in society at large.FindingsIt is argued that high‐profile media presentations of “big wins” and of major change to “first world” policy in relation to “third world” poverty and development mask a situation of no real change to structural factors of global economics and political power, and that this is an area which should be addressed by the academic community.Originality/valueDiscusses issues of contemporary relevance, and seeks to stimulate further debate and discourse in the academic arena.
Abstract.
De Cock C, Böhm S (2005). An Encounter with Zizek. SSRN Electronic Journal
Böhm S (2003). Introduction to the special book review section. Information Technology & People, 16(2).