Abstract
By employing a critical perspective toward a broad range of organizational subjects, Mats Alvesson has managed to challenge much of the conventional understanding of modern organizations and, subsequently, produce a series of alternative insights that has substantially developed organizational research and potentially enabled both organizational and societal change. While this has included the establishing of a critical approach to management studies and several novel methodological ideas, it has also involved unpacking a variety of popular concepts such as culture, control, brand, identity, power, leadership, gender, method, and organizational change as such. Mostly based on in-depth empirical studies Alvesson has repeatedly shown the value of critically acknowledging the process by which these phenomenon are understood and acted upon in real-life complex and ambiguous organizations, an approach that have enabled not only a variety of alternative understandings of organizational life but also a sense of optimism about accomplishing progressive change. Consequently, Alvesson acknowledges the value of seeing the construction of knowledge as a combination of a technical, interpretative, and critical approaches.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alvesson, M. (1987a). Organization theory and technocratic consciousness. Rationality, ideology and quality of work. de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110883916.
Alvesson, M. (1987b). Consensus, control and critique. Avebury. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110900569.
Alvesson, M. (1992). Leadership as social integrative action. Organization Studies, 12(2), 185–209. https://doi.org/10.1177/017084069201300202.
Alvesson, M. (1993a). Cultural perspectives on organizations. Cambridge University Press.
Alvesson, M. (1993b). Organization as rhetoric. Ambiguity in knowledge-intensive companies. Journal of Management Studies, 30(6), 997–1015. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1993.tb00476.x
Alvesson, M. (1995). Management of knowledge-intensive companies. de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110900569.
Alvesson, M. (1996). Communication, power and organizations. de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110900545.
Alvesson, M. (2000). Social identity and the problem of loyalty in knowledge-intensive companies. Journal of Management Studies, 37(8), 1101–1123. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00218.
Alvesson, M. (2001). Knowledge work. Ambiguity, image and identity. Human Relations, 54(7), 863–886. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726701547004.
Alvesson, M. (2002). Understanding organizational culture (2nd ed.). SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446280072.
Alvesson, M. (2003). Beyond neo-positivism, romanticism and localism. An reflexive approach to interviews. Academy of Management Review, 28(1), 13–33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30040687
Alvesson, M. (2004). Organizational culture and discourse. In D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick, & L. Putnam (Eds.), Handbook of organizational discourse (pp. 317–335). SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781848608122.n15.
Alvesson, M. (2010). Self-doubters, strugglers, storytellers, surfers and others: Images of self-identities in organization studies. Human Relations. pp 193–217. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726709350372.
Alvesson, M. (2013). The Triumph of Emptiness. Consumption, higher education, and work organization. Oxford University Press.
Alvesson, M. (2019). Extra allt! När samhälls- och människoförbättrandet slår tillbaka. Fri Tanke.
Alvesson, M. (2011). De-essentializing the knowledge intensive firm. Reflection on skeptical research going against the mainstream. Journal of Management Studies, 48(7), 1640–1661. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2011.01025.x.
Alvesson, M., & Berg, P. O. (1992). Corporate culture and organizational symbolism. de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110136074.
Alvesson, M., & Billing, Y. D. (1994). Gender, managers and organizations. de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110850499.
Alvesson, M., & Deetz, S. (2000). Doing critical management research. SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849208918.
Alvesson, M., & Empson, L. (2008). The construction of organizational identity, comparative case studies of consulting firms. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 24, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2007.10.001.
Alvesson, M., Gabriel, Y., & Paulsson, R. (2017). Return to meaning a social science with something to say. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198787099.001.0001.
Alvesson, M. & D. Kärreman (2000a). Taking the linguistic turn in organizational research: challenges, responses, consequences. Journal of Applied Behavioural Science 36(2), 134–156.
Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D. (2000b). Varieties of discourse: On the study of organizations through discourse analysis. Human Relations, 53(9), 1125–1149. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726700539002.
Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D. (2007). Constructing mystery: Empirical matters in theory development. Academy of Management Review, 32, 1265–1281. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.26586822.
Alvesson, M. & Kärreman, D. (2011a). Qualitative research and theory development: Mystery as method. Sage.
Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D. (2011b). Decolonializing discourse: Critical reflections on organization discourse analysis. Human Relations, 64, 1121–1146. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726711408629.
Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D. (2016). Intellectual failure and ideological success in organization studies: The case of transformational leadership. Journal of Management Inquiry, 25(2), 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492615589974.
Alvesson, M., & Robertson, M. (2006). The best and the brightest. The construction, significance and effects of elite identities in consultancy firms. Organization, 13(2), 195–224. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508406061674.
Alvesson, M. & Robertson, M. (2016). Money matters: teflonic identity manoeuvring in the investment banking sector. Organization Studies. 37(1), 7–34.
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating research questions through problematization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247–271. http://aom.metapress.com/link.asp?id=wk06164407056581.
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2013). Constructing research questions: Doing interesting research. SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446270035.
Alvesson, M. & Sköldberg, K. (2017). Reflexive methodology (3rd ed.). SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315688404.
Alvesson, M. & Spicer, A. (2011). Metaphors We Lead By understanding leadership in the real world. Routledge.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2003a). The good visions, the bad micro-management and the ugly ambiguity: Contradictions of (non-)leadership in a knowledge-intensive company. Organization Studies, 24(6), 961–988. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840603024006007.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2003b). The great disappearance act: Difficulties in doing ‘leadership’. Leadership Quarterly, 14(3), 359–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1048-9843(03)00031-6.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2003c). Managers doing leadership: The extra-ordinarization of the mundane. Human Relations, 56(12), 1435–1459. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267035612001.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture. Routledge.
Alvesson, M., & Thompson, P. (2005). Post-bureaucracy? In S. Ackroyd, R. Batt, P. Thompson, & P. S. Tolbert (Eds.), Oxford handbook of work and organization studies (pp. 485–505). Oxford University Press.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Producing the appropriate individual. Identity regulation as organizational control. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 619–644. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00305.
Alvesson, M. & Willmott, H. (2012). Making sense of management: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446251782.
Alvesson, M., Jonsson, A., Sveningsson, S., Wenglén, R. (2015). När ledarskapet krackelerar. Studentlitteratur.
Ashforth, B. E. (2016). Exploring identity and identification in organizations: time for some course corrections. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 23(4), 361–373.
Asplund, J. (1970). Om undran inför samhället. Argos Förlags AB.
Brown, A. (1995). Organizational culture. Pitman. https://doi.org/10.5172/jmo.1995.1.1.57.
Brown, R. H. (1977). A poetic for sociology. University of Chicago Press.
Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of domestication. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? (pp. 196–233). Routledge/Kegan Paul. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x.
Chia, R. (1995). From modern to postmodern organizational analysis. Organization Studies, 16, 579–604. https://doi.org/10.1177/017084069501600406.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books.
Kärreman, D., Sveningsson, S., & Alvesson, M. (2002). The return of the machine bureaucracy? Management control in the work settings of professionals. International Studies of Management and Organizations, 32(2), 70–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/00208825.2002.11043661.
Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (Thomas Chicago: University of Chicago Press Ltd.
Kunda, G. (1992). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation. Temple University Press.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social. Oxford University Press.
March, J., & Olsen, J. (1976). Ambiguity and choice in organizations. Universitetsforlaget.
Morgan, G. (1980). Paradigms, metaphors and puzzle solving in organization theory. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25, 605–622. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392283.
Morgan, G. (1983). More on metaphor: Why we cannot control tropes in administrative science. Administrative Science Quarterly., 28, 601–608. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393011.
Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5, 14–37. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.5.1.14.
Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2012). Managing organizational change (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Parkinson, C. N. (1957). Parkinson’s law or the rising pyramid. Buccaneer Books.
Sandberg, J., & Alvesson, M. (2011). Ways of constructing research questions: Gap-spotting or problematization? Organization, 18(1), 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508410372151.
Sennett, R. (1998). The corrosion of character. Norton, 1998.
Smircich, L. (1983). Organizations as shared meanings. In L. R. Pondy et al. (Eds.) Organizational symbolism. JAI Press.
Starbuck, W. (1992). Learning by knowledge-intensive firms. Journal of Management Studies, 29(6), 713–740. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1992.tb00686.x.
Sveningsson, S., & Alvesson, M. (2003). Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle. Human Relations, 56(10), 1163–1193. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267035610001.
Sveningsson, S., & Alvesson, M. (2016). Managerial lives: Leadership and identity in an imperfect world. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316399026.
Thompson, P. & Alvesson, M. (2005). Bureaucracy at work: Misunderstandings and mixed blessings. In P. du Gay (Ed.), The values of bureaucracy (pp. 89–114). Oxford University Press.
Further Reading
Alvesson, M., Ashcraft, K. L., & Thomas, R. (2008). Identity matters: Reflections on the construction of identity scholarship in organization studies. Organization, 15(1), 5–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508407084426.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (Eds.). (2010). Metaphors we lead by: Understanding leadership in the real world. Routledge.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2014). Critical perspectives on leadership. In D. Day (Ed.), Oxford handbook of organization and leadership (pp. 452–465). Oxford University Press.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2016). The stupidity paradox. Profile.
Kärreman, D., & Alvesson, M. (2001). Making newsmakers. Conversational identity at work. Organization Studies, 22, 59–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/017084060102200103.
Kärreman, D., & Alvesson, M. (2004). Cages in tandem: Management control, social identity, and identification in a knowledge-intensive firm. Organization, 11, 149–175. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508404039662.
Latour, B. (1986). The powers of association. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief. A new sociology of knowledge? (pp. 264–286). Routledge/Kegan Paul. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00115.x.
Latour, B. (1988). The pasteurization of France. Harvard University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Sveningsson, S., Kärreman, D. (2021). Alvesson, Mats: A Passion for Critical Reflexivity and Rational Change. In: Szabla, D.B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38324-4_109
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38324-4_109
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38323-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38324-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences