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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a Foucauldian concept into the theory and practice of OD and change management. The piece challenges Habermasian a priori assumptions about organizational diagnosis and intervention.

This is a conceptual paper.

Literature points to the benefit of considering the possibility of parrhesiastic behavior in change management and organization development as part of a broader set of diagnostic tools.

Future research should engage in practice driven test cases, interview practicing change managers, and refine the concept for use as a diagnostic tool.

Including discussions of parrhesia in change management and OD study and practices can better prepare change professionals for the realities of contemporary organizational practices.

To date, the links developed in this manuscript have not been made in the management literature, though it builds upon emerging literature in critical management studies and human resource management. It has the potential to influence both theory and practices of both OD and change management.

This paper examines how contemporary workplace surveillance can simultaneously incentivize and commodify workforce behavior. Specifically, workplace surveillance is reconceptualized as rent-seeking, which offers a framework for analyzing novel employer-employee relationships stemming from alternate views of risk and reward.

The case of workplace microchipping is studied qualitatively as a backdrop for theorizing emergent labor relations in the context of surveillance capitalism and biopolitics.

Reconsidering surveillance within the context of personal risk and entrepreneurial lure offers much to 21st century discourse on labor and supervision. It is imperative that the public sector engages in appropriate regulatory protocols to manage emergent behavior in organizations.

This study departs from the popular conceptualization of human microchipping as an intersection of legal and ethical considerations of surveillance. Instead, the authors examine a different aspect of the microchipping phenomenon, taking into account employee creative reactions to employer surveillance in the context of risk and return.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2022-0009

This study aims to theoretically contextualize the liquefied natural gas (LNG) issue using Bauman and Debord. More generally, this research provides a theoretical and qualitative context to understand the LNG issue in discussions of environmental management, globalization and local government.

This study uses Boje’s narrative case study approach to analyze the politics around localized resistance movements to LNG production in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Specifically, this study examines the data collected from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, personal interviews and public declarations (newspapers, blogs, social media) to create an historiographical account of LNGs in the RGV to analyze the Laguna Madre resistance case regarding three LNG companies.

The development of LNG in Laguna Madre has been at least temporarily halted. This is considered partially because of the pandemic, reduced demand and local resistance. In the Laguna Madre case, controlling narratives by the LNG resistance appeared to be an essential component of their overall strategy.

Understanding the impact of energy development locally and globally becomes increasingly important, as access to fossil fuels become more limited. This case helps understand the overall adverse actions taken by LNGs to exploit communities, individuals and the environment while illustrating practical tools being used to resist the less desirable elements of energy development.

The purpose of this paper is to adapt the research conducted on subclinical psychopaths in the private sector and applies it to the public sector to build a conceptual frame for further research on subclinical psychopaths in public organisations. General characteristics of entrepreneurs often run counter to democratic values, and are more often aligned with private sector values. Public managers who display one of the dark-triad personalities, i.e., psychopathy, can pose a greater threat to democratic values and the state.

The approach of this paper is theoretical with the aim of proposing a conceptual framework that utilises Downs’ five types of officials governing bureaucracies, to illustrate a relationship between public entrepreneurs and subclinical psychopaths.

The conceptual framework presented in this paper suggests that psychopathic entrepreneurs can be identified within Downs’ bureaucratic framework specifically as climbers (due to inherent personality traits) and as zealots (heroic and altruistic behaviour for organisational causes, yet motivated by power, domination, and self-interest). The implications of psychopathic public managers who engage in entrepreneurial activities may be escalating public distrust, hostility, and dissatisfaction in government.

This theoretical paper adds to the growing body of criticism for public entrepreneurship by conceptualising how psychopaths, as climbers and zealots, affect public trust in terms of accountability and democratic values.

Literature on critical and institutional theories are often perceived to be incompatible, despite a shared conceptual grounding. By clearly defining and understanding the concepts of “hegemony” and “role obligations” one might address this misconception of incompatibility, and allow the development of a framework to bridge the concepts of institutions and critical theory. This bridge allows the two streams of literature to meaningfully benefit from each intellectual space. This bridge can ultimately be used to inform both theory and practice in the study of organizations.

The Road to Wellville is a useful allegory to describe the consequences a therapeutic approach to Public Administration can have on citizen participation. A therapeutic approach assumes that the citizens in an administrative state, are sick, and therefore need intervention by the government to heal them, regardless of whether we want it or not. In The Road to Wellville, Kellogg, though well intentioned, relied on alternative, unconventional therapies to try to cure health problems. This paper uses The Road to Wellville to illustrate how public organizations that adopt a therapeutic approach can broadly undermine legitimacy

The purpose of this paper is to explore and critically assess the potential value and effectiveness of massive open online courses (MOOCs) for public administration education.

The research in this conceptual paper offered a critical examination of MOOCs using the work of Baudrillard, Debord, and others to re-frame and reconsider our understanding of this emerging educational strategy.

Baudrillard’s simulacrum and Debord’s spectacle concepts can inform the discussion and understanding of MOOCs in higher education.

This is an emerging area that needs further study and development.

MOOCs might contribute to the blurring of lines between educational products that are needed and products for which a need is manufactured by corporate interests.

MOOCs might contribute to the commodification of knowledge in higher education.

This is the first conceptual paper exploring MOOCs and their issues using Baudrillard and Debord.

Public management is moving towards more control by executives in the name of the people. Executive knowledge is privileged by initiatives such as new public management and collaborative public management that promote the market spectacle. The purpose of this paper is to employ a “radical,” or critical, interpretation based primarily on concepts and social critiques developed by Marx, by Weber and by Debord, to offer a position, polemic, and perspective regarding the nature and effects of public management on the American polis.

The authors develop a social critique of bureaucracy and government towards domination governance of the polis primarily by developing and using the theoretical work of scholars such as Marx, Weber, and Debord for this analysis.

These developments towards more control by executives are corrosive to the last vestiges of representative democracy in the USA.

The question remains as to whether it is too late to reform, or turn back, the onset of the new public managerialism and whether the current condition of public administration is a symptom of the overall market spectacle trend.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework to integrate emergent management theory into graduate coursework using media and film.

The paper presents a qualitative and multi‐year case study.

Media used to teach management theory must not remain static. It should be updated periodically to remain effective as a pedagogical tool.

Further research should be conducted to examine long‐term retention rates for information covered. Larger empirical studies should be conducted to verify findings.

There appear to be generational differences that suggest trainers, instructors, and professors need to match media‐based pedagogical tools to their audience.

Few, if any, studies have addressed the need to update media imagery used as part of a comprehensive approach to teaching management theory and concepts.