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This paper introduces this special issue and initially provides some contextual background to the field of psychodynamics, its significance to organisational studies and the understanding of behaviour in organizations. The internationally-based papers in this special issue are then introduced and summarised.

The article questions what is meant by the term critical theory and discusses some common misconceptions that have arisen about the meaning of this term. The dialectic logic that was championed by the group of scholars collectively known as the Frankfurt School is outlined and a number of implications for the field of organization and behaviour are discussed.

The objective of this conceptual paper is to synthesise psychodynamics and paradox inherent in complex situations to investigate the cause and effects of identity shifts and self-organisation particularly apposite expatriation. The methodology used will be to find intersections and parallels among psychodynamic theories1 to demonstrate that inside the paradox of expatriation is other-organisation, which is basically defined as the unorganised becoming organised in ‘good’ or ‘bad’ ways and with formal and planned interventions. We will also see that self-organisation works with other-organisation to keep one safely ‘held’ between feelings of being isolated or engulfed. Whether real or imagined, perceptions of being isolated and engulfed lead to the confusion or pain of becoming encapsulated.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the manner in which storytelling has become an increasingly common part of management development, and to highlight some of the use and abuse of storytelling as a management development tool.

The paper adopts an initial warning about the way storytelling is being used, particularly by management and leadership coaches, questioning whether the term “storytelling” is an appropriate term to use for what is occurring. The notion of “storyselling” is introduced in such a context and, in so doing, stimulates critical reflection about storytelling. A summary of key ideas of other papers is also presented to assist the reader in better understanding the broader trajectories contained in the papers as a whole.

Many are now starting to question practical guidance that is emerging from organization and management literature. Multiple paradigms have yielded not complementary perspectives on management problems, but less than unambiguous voices and guidance. Storytelling has become increasingly popular because it fills a void left by the current state of the organization and management literature. The practical guidance that “preaches” how an approach worked for others in similar situations makes storytelling a big business. Often wrapped up in the rhetoric of management and leadership coaching, storytelling becomes a core educative tool – a tool that this paper, and volume, suggests needs to be carefully examined.

The paper, and the volume as a whole, represents an opportunity for readers to join with the authors in a reflexive consideration of storytelling. The paper and volume also represent a cautionary note to those who rely upon what is dubbed “storytelling” as a core educative tool.

In this paper, the authors act as leadership development coaches who show that how a story is constructed, reconstructed and circulated in and through organizations make stories themselves active “players” in creating relationships. In turn, these relationships create leadership development opportunities. The authors also explain why some people need to listen to the whole story before they can draw conclusions about its parts, about why some people do not care about others', stories and about why some storytellers do not care about the characters in the story. The combination of these characteristics gives a more detailed view of storyselling that, necessarily, works with storytelling as tools used in coaching for leadership development. The purpose of the paper is to describe further the origins of storytelling and storyselling and their relationship to leadership development coaching, and to demonstrate how the movement of a story told and sold create leadership development opportunities.

This paper is informed by a psychodynamic understanding of organizations and examines a case study to illustrate the theoretical views that are advanced.

The employment of sociograms is found to be a useful way to chart and understand the relational dynamics of stories as quasi‐objects and their fragile and ephemeral nature. The authors find that stories can be usefully considered as both quasi and transitional objects.

Psychodynamic theory informs the process of storytelling and storyselling. The implied art of storytelling and storyselling derived from research analysis are the catalysts for understanding why and how researchers put forward their findings and conclusions in scientific study.

The pracademic approach evident in this paper makes theory more accessible and useable in the field of practice. One branch of psychodynamics informs storytelling theory as it applies to the practice of coaching for leadership development.

The paper's originality lies in the development of potential time and the application of this concept in the creation of leadership development opportunities and leadership development coaching.

The aim of this paper is explore consequences of ambivalence and ambiguity on self‐concept, decision‐making, and quality of interrelationships between management and employees in one for‐profit organisation.

Data were re‐read to reveal that organisational members were constantly engaged in the process of changing their perceptions of “who” and “what” were “good” and “bad” in reaction to environmental change impacts.

The paper finds that philosophically, “splitting” is an age‐old form of decision‐making; psychodynamically, “splitting” is not necessarily a signal to a pathology but instead is merely an initiator of ambiguity and ambivalence that leverages change; from a change management perspective, “splitting” can reinforce polarisation that can impede the desire to engage in continual change; and predictions and perceptions of change consequences underscore both the quality and quantity of “splitting” in regard to polarisation. “Splitting” is an integral defense and offense change mechanism that occurs in all decision‐making, so practical implications are that its affects on self and other concepts need to be understood. To establish equalising and non‐polarised interrelationships between “employer” and “worker” and to negate the line between management and employee, exercises in recognition of mutual causation such as servant leadership practises can be introduced.

Unparalleled synthesis of seemingly divergent theoretical and practical studies, this paper is a valuable ontological and epistemological tool for ongoing investigation into complexity theory, including self and other organisation.

The paper aims to introduce the manner in which management and organization theory have viewed space and time as significant resources and to put forward a number of more contemporary views as to how space and time is both managed and experienced.

The paper adopts a postmodern approach in assembling what it regards as “fragments” from a variety of disciplinary discourses on space and time. Each fragment presents, putatively, a different voice, theme or motif which are intended to help the reader better understand the trajectories contained in the other papers in the volume.

The paper finds that conceptions of space and time are fundamental to the manner in which organizations are managed and organized and are a symbolic order inter‐related to themes of power and control. The manner in which we experience space and time is open to manipulation and specifically a form compression that displaces critical reflection and may make individuals prone to external locus of control. The manner in which time and space are linked to the suppression of human agency and the imperatives of capitalism cannot be overestimated and require reflexive consideration.

The paper, and the volume as a whole, recognises time and space as social constructions and thus open to “reconstruction”. Space and time are not simple a priori categories that are fixed, immutable absolutes and knowable entities. The recognition of the intersubjective “nature” of space and time is shown to help us better appreciate the different manner in which space and time is experienced and the manner in which space and time are used in the management of change.

The special issue aims to look into what it means to be critical in relation to international business.

Gives an overview of articles submitted by experts in the field.

Finds that old practices of international trade are out of touch in the modern world and that new practices need to be agreed in order to make international trade work for all.

Collectively, these papers provide a response to what it means to be “critical” in relation to international business and in doing so will provide a useful touchstone to those who wish to make contributions to this new journal.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the usage of the word critical in the social sciences, to review how being critical is a process through which criticism is a positive act, and to highlight the relevance of such a perspective in relation to international business.

International business is viewed through the critical optic of the work of a group of scholars, collectively known as the Frankfurt School. Critical logic is shown to be a “destructive” and “disrobing” act to reveal buried presuppositions. It is argued that a form of negation occurs that carries an important reflective function through a modality of estrangement – it is destructive, but the destruction is revealed to re‐emerge in a positive act.

The term critical is revealed as a constructive processual activity. The pretentious nature of positivism that seems to pervade thinking in international business is disrobed as being some kind of science and instead revealed to be a discourse firmly in the realm of values.

A paper that is among few that rigorously interrogates the meaning of being critical in relation to international business.

To show the reader that storytelling can be seen as a form of seduction based on emotional response and thereby preventing a change process within the organisation.

Case study in relation to a psychoanalytic approach to text as a place for emotional control.

Storytelling without psychodynamic analysis becomes easily storyselling.

Text is seen as carrier of emotions that can be corrected through psychodynamics which implies that there remains hope for enlightment by the text.

Every form of storytelling is a form of addressing an audience that needs to be made aware of the psychodynamics of the text as part of the author.

The worst stories that are sold are those we sell best to ourselves.