The public pursuit of closure: losses, fictions, and endings
International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior
ISSN: 1093-4537
Article publication date: 10 September 2018
Abstract
Purpose
This paper raises the possibility that closure is a myth, both in the sense of a narrative guiding a quest and in the sense of a social fiction. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines parts played by public administration practice in quests with subtexts of death, love, and loss, and suggests that overlapping administrative and narrative fictions have their comforts and uses for grieving persons, for organizations, and for the social order.
Findings
The paper confesses ambivalence about the actual existence of closure in historical rather than fictional time.
Originality/value
Using the metaphor of “closing the books,” the paper situates particular public reckonings with human loss in the context of justice-seeking and other public sector companions of “closure,” but resists the narrative closure of the authoritative answer and the happy ending.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
No institutional review board review was necessary for any of these research activities. An early form of this paper and of its findings on usage was previously presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Public Administration, in Dallas, TX in March of 2008. Further details, tables, or data are readily available on request from the author.
Citation
Patterson, P. (2018), "The public pursuit of closure: losses, fictions, and endings", International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 171-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-05-2018-0055
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited