Abstract
This chapter engages with the question of how to help managers and leaders understand the emotional and political dynamics that surround and permeate their roles. Connecting learning, space, and the unconscious in the management classroom can stimulate creativity in the approaches that are used to educate managers and to underpin awareness of organizational dynamics that continuously affect management and leadership roles. A conceptual framework is presented to assist reflection on unconscious dynamics created in the relational space of management learning. The framework combines the group-analytic concept of relatedness with the spatial concept of throwntogetherness in order to reveal how conscious and unconscious emotional dynamics connect to political tensions inherent in relational space. An improved awareness of spatial relations and unconscious dynamics can provide insights into the complexities of relations that both support and undermine management and leadership roles.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bazelgette, J., Hutton, J., & Reed, B. (1997). The organization-in-the-mind. In J. E. Neumann, K. Kellner, & A. Dawson-Shepherd (Eds.), Developing organizational consultancy (pp. 113–126). London: Routledge.
Brocklehurst, M. (2006). Space, organization and management. In S. Clegg & M. Kornberger (Eds.), Space, organization and management theory (pp. 101–126). Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen Business School.
Carr, A., & Hancock, P. (2007). Paris, art, aesthetics, work and the unconscious. Tamara, 6, 5–11.
Clegg, S., & Kornberger, M. (2006). Space, organization and management theory. Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen Business School.
Coopey, J. (1995). The learning organization: Power, politics and ideology. Management Learning, 26, 193–213.
Dale, K., & Burrell, G. (2007). Spaces of organization and the organization of space: Power, identity and materiality at work. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Easterby-Smith, M., & Lyles, M. (2003). Introduction: Watersheds of organizational learning and knowledge management. In M. Easterby-Smith & M. Lyles (Eds.), The handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management (pp. 1–16). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Ford, J., & Harding, N. (2004). We went looking for an organization but could only find the metaphysics of its presence. Sociology, 38, 815–830.
French, R., & Vince, R. (1999). Group relations, management and organization. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Gabriel, Y. (1997). Meeting god: When organization members come face to face with the supreme leader. Human Relations, 50, 315–342.
Gherardi, S. (1999). Learning as problem-driven or learning in the face of mystery? Organization Studies, 20, 101–124.
Gherardi, S., & Nicolini, D. (2001). The sociological foundations of organizational learning. In M. Dierkes, A. Berthoin Antal, J. Child, & I. Nonaka (Eds.), The handbook of organizational learning and knowledge (pp. 35–60). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, D. (2005). Spaces of neoliberalization: Towards a theory of uneven geographical development. Hettner-Lecture: Vol. 8. Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner.
Hoggett, P., & Thompson, S. (2002). Towards a democracy of the emotions. Constellations, 9, 106–126.
Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue and the art of thinking together. New York: Random House.
James, K., & Ladkin, D. (2008). Meeting the challenge of leading in the 21st century: Beyond the ‘deficit model’ of leadership development. In K. James & J. Collins (Eds.), Leadership learning: Knowledge into action (pp. 13–34). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kornberger, M., & Clegg, S. (2003). The architecture of complexity. Culture and Organization, 9, 75–91.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Massey, D. (1993). Politics and space/time. In M. Keith & S. Pile (Eds.), Place and the politics of identity (pp. 141–161). London: Routledge.
Massey, D. (2005). For space. London: Sage.
McGill, I., & Beaty, L. (2001). Action learning (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page.
Meusburger, P. (2008). The nexus of knowledge and space. In P. Meusburger, M. Welker, & E. Wunder (Eds.), Clashes of knowledge: Orthodoxies and heterodoxies in science and religion (pp. 35–90). Knowledge and Space: Vol. 1. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Raelin, J. A. (2001). Public reflection as the basis of learning. Management Learning, 32, 11–30.
Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday.
Shapiro, E., & Carr, A. W. (1993). Lost in familiar places. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Stokes, J. (1994). The unconscious at work in groups and teams: Contributions from the work of Winfred Bion. In A. Obholzer & V. Z. Roberts (Eds.), The unconscious at work: Individual and organizational stress in the human services (pp. 19–27). London: Routledge.
Taylor, S., & Spicer, A. (2007). Time for space: A narrative review of research on organizational spaces. International Journal of Management Reviews, 9, 325–346.
Vince, R. (2001). Power and emotion in organizational learning. Human Relations, 54, 1325–1351.
Vince, R. (2002). The politics of imagined stability: A psychodynamic understanding of change at Hyder plc. Human Relations, 55, 1189–1208.
Vince, R. (2004). Rethinking strategic learning. London: Routledge.
Vince, R. (2008). ‘Learning-in-action’ and ‘learning inaction’: Advancing the theory and practice of critical action learning. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 5, 93–104.
Vince, R., & Martin, L. (1993). Inside action learning: The psychology and the politics of the action learning model. Management Education and Development, 24, 205–215.
Weinberg, H. (2007). So, what is this social unconscious anyway? Group Analysis, 40, 307–322.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vince, R. (2014). The Unexpected Neighbor: Learning, Space, and the Unconscious in Organizations. In: Berthoin Antal, A., Meusburger, P., Suarsana, L. (eds) Learning Organizations. Knowledge and Space, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7220-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7220-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-7219-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-7220-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)