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Focuses on organizational change in a “first wave” NHS trust hospital. Examines the experiences of a group of clinical directors at this hospital as they respond to external pressures to change, instigated by recent Government policy. Analyses qualitative data, collected via in‐depth interviews with the clinical directors, using psychoanalytic concepts and theory.

Develops a critical perspective on organizations and psychoanalysis. Following a brief review of various strands of psychoanalytic theorizing about organizations, argues that psychoanalysis can make an important contribution both to recognizing and to restoring the human subject in the organization. However, psychoanalysis also runs the risk of becoming complicitous with the larger context of domination that structures and governs organizations, unless it explicitly acknowledges and incorporates this context. Discusses the importance of acknowledging relations of power, recognizing the normalization of dysfunctionality in organizations, and moving away from individualizing issues of emotion, resistance and control.

As institutional theory increasingly looks to the micro-level for explanations of macro-level institutional processes, institutional scholars need to pay closer attention to the role of emotions in invigorating institutional processes. I argue that attending to emotions is most likely to enrich institutional analysis, if scholars take inspiration from theories that conceptualize emotions as relational and inter-subjective, rather than intra-personal, because the former would be more compatible with institutional theory’s relational roots. I review such promising theories that include symbolic interactionism, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic perspectives, moral psychology, and social movements. I conclude by outlining several possible research questions that might be inspired by attending to the role of emotions in institutional processes. I argue that such research can enrich the understanding of embedded agency, power, and the use of theorization by institutional change agents, as well as introduce a hereto neglected affective facet into the study of institutional logics.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to discuss the relevance of Lacanian psychoanalysis for thinking on organizational functioning and organizational change.

First, the authors discuss basic Lacanian ideas with regard to the notion of the unconscious and its discursive status and with respect to the crucial difference between the ego and the subject. Subjectivity is linked to the notion of the lack. The authors then address implications of Lacanian theory for thinking about and intervening in organisations.

It is argued that the non‐satisfying nature of work needs to be recognised, that organizational intervention entails an intervention on discourse, and that subjectivity is an issue to be recognized in the context of organizational functioning.

In discussing the implications of this point of view, the authors address the possibility of a psychoanalytic ecology of human resources.

Sri Lanka was subject to a civil war of almost 30 years' duration which was won militarily by the Sri Lankan army in May 2009. Sri Lanka was also seriously affected by the Asian tsunami in December 2004 which affected three‐quarters of the country's coastline and caused considerable damage. In addition, in January 2011, the east of the country suffered from serious flooding. Many Sri Lankans have therefore lived through extremely difficult times. This paper seeks to briefly discuss some of the work undertaken by the UK: Sri Lanka Trauma Group (UKSLTG) over approximately 14 years.

The author of this paper views well‐being as multi‐faceted, and sees psychological health as influenced by familial, community, spiritual, cultural, socio‐political, and other factors. How an individual construes all these factors is likely to be important, particularly in the context of a civil war, a subsequent military victory by one side, and a recent return to peace. The ensuing legacy may be multi‐layered, and affect individuals, families, groups, and the multiple communities that people are part of in any number of ways. The lessons learned by the UKSLTG through work in a range of contexts and with a variety of groups are discussed.

The applicability of the knowledge and ideas generated through the work of the UKSLTG and their possible transferability to other contexts will also be briefly considered. The authors are not attempting to provide a definitive account of possible work but a description of what has been learned working in a war and post war situation.

The paper highlights the importance of working in real partnership, of community engagement, and of the need to be flexible and prepared to discount original plans and to be open to doing things differently as circumstances dictate.

Based on social learning theories, this conceptual paper attempts to develop a theoretical framework and testable hypotheses linking the relationship between certain personality traits and career success. Although there has been a long history of exploring the effects of personality on career development, its importance appears to be underestimated, and it is time to revitalize the psychological view of career studies. In this paper, we propose that several personality traits (locus of control, self‐monitoring, self‐esteem, optimism, and machiavellianism) along with job performance and person‐environment fit are determinants of career success. In view of social learning theories, knowledge of this relationship is of practical and theoretical value for individuals, organizations, and career consultants.

This paper contributes to a dialogue about the psychoanalytic concept of free association and its application in the context of qualitative research interviewing. In doing so, it also adds to wider discussion regarding the relationship between clinical psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and qualitative research.

Critical consideration of different perspectives on the application of free association in the qualitative research interview, extending earlier work addressing this issue. Differences and similarities in the way the concept of free association is articulated are examined regarding its framing in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.

Whether researchers see themselves as borrowing, applying or drawing inspiration from free association, there is scope for muddling distinct ways of viewing it as it is conceived in psychoanalysis.

Considerations are outlined for researchers interested in psychoanalytically informed methods to be mindful of.

Psychoanalysis and management are “strangers” to one another for epistemological reasons mainly related to their different spiritual fathers, scientific goals, validation criteria and dominant methodologies. However, some of these spiritual fathers did, in the early twentieth century, have the intuition of interesting partial convergence. Today, there is some good research, even if marginal, in both the managerial and psychoanalytic fields, being conducted at the intersection of psychoanalysis and management. This research focuses more on a psychoanalytical attentiveness to management acts than on a managerial use of psychoanalysis, which would, in fact, contradict basic psychoanalytic hypotheses and methodologies.

This paper aims to demonstrate the value of combining the strategic planning process with psychoanalytically informed interpretation through an exploratory case study.

The authors present their experiences and findings from a consulting engagement that began as a strategic planning assignment and soon evolved into an opportunity to explore unconscious forces inhibiting organizational change. The authors, trained in both areas, chose to infuse the two into a combined process that ultimately benefited the organization and suggested novel ways to think about the common process of strategic planning going forward.

The organization's strategic planning process was considerably enhanced, and its outcomes sustained, by illuminating the unconscious forces at work, particularly as they pertain to issues of power and authority in a male organizational culture found to have a profound negative influence upon the quality of the work environment and employee morale. Findings suggest that without a psychoanalytically informed approach, strategic planning would have failed to produce sustainable change.

While the findings reported are from a single case study, the themes explored are likely shared across multiple organizations. There is, therefore, significant potential in combining strategic planning with a psychoanalytic approach to improve organizational effectiveness and employee morale.

Although common in organizations, strategic planning is rarely augmented with psychoanalytic insights. This case study is the first of its kind to show how the two interventions may complement each other.

The analysis of organizations has a debt vis-à-vis the sociologist Max Weber who built its theoretical foundations. The concept of limited rationality was later proposed by Herbert Simon and then followed by sociologists of organizations. This paper tries to go beyond that approach. It uses a psychoanalytical perspective based on Jacques Lacan's work and on the case studies of two high-tech companies. We focus on signifiers and the role of the unconscious process inside organizations. We then propose an alternative model of interpretation of organizational dynamics different from the mainstream, which is dominated by the reference to instrumental rationality.