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In this paper, I compare Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory, the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger upon whom Schatzki drew in its formation, and my own theory of institutional logics which I have sought to develop as a religious sociology of institution. I examine how Schatzki and I both differently locate our thinking at the level of practice. In this essay I also explore the possibility of appropriating Heidegger’s religious ontology of worldhood, which Schatzki rejects, in that project. My institutional logical position is an atheological religious one, poly-onto-teleological. Institutional logics are grounded in ultimate goods which are praiseworthy “objects” of striving and practice, signifieds to which elements of an institutional logic have a non-arbitrary relation, sources of and references for practical norms about how one should have, make, do or be that good, and a basis of knowing the world of practice as ordered around such goods. Institutional logics are constellations co-constituted by substances, not fields animated by values, interests or powers.

Because we are speaking against “values,” people are horrified at a philosophy that ostensibly dares to despise humanity’s best qualities. For what is more “logical” than that a thinking that denies values must necessarily pronounce everything valueless? Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism” (2008a, p. 249).

Phenomena are what we as researchers begin with, and to study phenomena is to appreciate how any determination of things and events always relates back to the context in which they appeared. Phenomenology is the study of such relations of appearance and the conditions of such relations. Appearance is an active rather than superficial condition, a constant bringing together of experiencing beings and experienced things (including sentient beings), in what the modern “father” of phenomenology Edmund Husserl called conditions of intentionality, and what his errant, one-time student Martin Heidegger called conditions of thrownness and projection. This chapter delves into the philosophical background of this mode of study, before opening up into consideration of, first, where phenomenology has been influential in organization studies, and, second, the potential of the approach. In so doing, we suggest much can be made of reorienting research in organization studies away from an entitative epistemology in which things are seen in increasingly causally linked, detailed isolation, and toward a relational epistemology in which what exists is understood in terms of its being experienced within everyday lives.

This paper extends our understanding of the concept and global practice of political economy.

The paper sets out the limits of conceptual analysis regarding political economy. It then applies Heidegger’s theory of metaphysics to the cultures of China and the West.

It is possible to construct an account of Confucianism metaphysics which contrasts with modern western metaphysics. The paper suggests some implications of the contrast.

The paper is exploratory and broad-brush. It suggests the potential of further systematic enquiries.

National and business leaders seek to understand the global business environment. This requires insights into the nature of culture and the foundations of cultures. The paper provides a way to make sense of national aspirations and global political/business responses to changed circumstances.

The paper continues a research programme which seeks to explicate Chinese decision-making and relate it to the western decision-making. It is the first paper to use Heidegger’s concept of metaphysics in relation to Confucianism.

Our aim in this chapter is twofold: first, to review briefly the history of the hermeneutic traditions; second, to examine its influence in organization studies. We begin with a review of hermeneutic philosophy including ancient Greek origins and Biblical hermeneutics. We then delve more deeply into the work of 20th-century hermeneutic philosophy, particularly Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur, to demonstrate how hermeneutics became a field that is concerned not only with texts but also with verbal and nonverbal forms of action and the preunderstanding that makes any interpretation possible. Finally, we explore how hermeneutic philosophers claim that interpretation is the mode by which we live and carry on with one another. In the third section, we suggest that the field of organizational studies has discovered the relevance of hermeneutic theory, a rarely explicitly acknowledged debt. In particular, we outline the influence of hermeneutic theory on several figural areas, including culture, sensemaking, identity, situated learning, and organizational dialogue.

This study is a queer autoethnography which deconstructs assumptions about a queer musical perspective and the associated heteronormative power and privilege. Using the lens of a Heideggerian interpretive phenomenology, it examines the request for and subsequent actualising or unfolding of musical compositions that respond to works of art. The request, being for a ‘queer compositional response’ to artworks occurred as personal; it touched my experience of being occurring as a kind of existential threat. As such, the personal is clearly political, positioning the experience of the request for queer compositions as a cultural experience which I am examining as socially unjust, or discriminatory. Furthermore, examining the intersectionalities of oppressive heteronormative and sexist attitudes and actions as queer in the world is an authentic mode of being in Heidegger's analytic of Dasein.

This chapter takes an unusual view of leadership development through the study of philosophies of phenomenology and the works of Martin Heidegger. By focussing on the three elements of space, place and time, Arthur explores their roles in providing a structure or scaffolding for innovative and interesting programmes of learning. Phenomenology allows us to see how leadership skills and behaviours are emergent and are part of a longer journey of development for both individuals and organisations where leadership exists in all parts of the company.

Of course, this treatment of the topics of space, place and time is partially conceptual, however, course designers and developers can now add these lenses and perspectives to their work and provide a better balance to programmes which might otherwise be too full of data, power-point slides and tutor-led discussions. By dovetailing theory with practice, the author seeks to forge a link between those diverse ideas articulated by Martin Heidegger and what really happens in real-life workshops and a wide range of training opportunities. The reader is taken through definitions, case histories, up-to-date theory (which includes the notion of un-leadership) and contemporaneous student feedback from an online programme completed in July 2021.

The chapter allows the reader to then contemplate their own journeys and to consider what they might do to undertake changes in their own approaches. These ideas are offered not as a prescription but as a stimulant to rigorous course design and consideration of the intangible aspects of our lives in leadership.

The focus of this chapter is quantum dialectical storytelling and its contribution to generate anticipatory knowledge of the future through the intra-play between the ante-narrative and the anti-narrative. The theoretical framework on quantum dialectical storytelling is based upon Boje’s triad storytelling framework interfused with Hegelian dialectics and Baradian diffraction. Through the inspiration of Judith Butler’s performative theory, Riach, Rumens, and Tyler (2016) introduce the concept of the anti-narrative as a critical reflexive methodology. By drawing on Hegel’s work on the dialectical phenomenology of critical reflexive self-consciousness, a dialectical pre-reflexive and reflexive framework emerges as intra-weaving modes of being-in-the-world toward future.

This chapter outlines the potential of phenomenology to illuminate how individuals experience the emotions replete within organizations. It employs one particular type of phenomenological approach known as Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The chapter considers how the hermeneutic and phenomenological foundations of this approach lend themselves to the study of affect. The chapter then clarifies and develops established IPA guidelines to render them more appropriate for research on emotions. In doing so, the chapter demonstrates how IPA can produce contextualized accounts that explore the role of emotions in individuals’ experiences of organizational events and processes.

Language emanates from the individual who articulates from a coding system, whether oral or written, a construct of relational and communicative devices that determines who they are and what they would like to be. The concept of Being or ‘to be’, foregrounds a diverse range of definitions and extrapolations into the attributes of individuals, individuality, communities, and societies. The aim of the chapter is to unravel issues in the theorising of the concept of Being and its relationship to Indigenous Knowledge Systems for research students, through a teaching framework. A further aim is to explore the correlation of Being and Indigenous Knowledge Systems with the changing face of research relationships in a contemporary global setting. I shall, firstly, draw on relevant conceptualisations of what is Being under a Western framework. I, then, problematise this concept through Indigenous Knowledge Systems with a review of the literature on the issues surrounding its use. In the third part of this chapter, I focus on the changing face of research relationships by exploring the alignment of Being with the principles of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and their connectivity within a global framework. In this way, I foreground a significance of differentials and a re-imaging of thought and perception in the way research into Indigenous and Aboriginal societies is positioned.