Drinking from the waters of Lethe: A tale of organizational oblivion

被引:17
作者
Ciuk, Sylwia [1 ]
Kostera, Monika [2 ,3 ]
机构
[1] Oxford Brookes Univ, Sch Business, Oxford OX33 1HX, England
[2] Vaxjo Univ, Vaxjo, Sweden
[3] Univ Warsaw, Sch Management, PL-00325 Warsaw, Poland
关键词
archetypes; double-loop forgetting; ethnography; identity; narrative; oblivion; organizational forgetting; IDENTITY; MANAGERIAL; DYNAMICS;
D O I
10.1177/1350507609355495
中图分类号
C93 [管理学];
学科分类号
12 ; 1201 ; 1202 ; 120202 ;
摘要
This article is a reflection on organizational oblivion, viewed as an archetypical antonym of learning. The consequences of this kind of forgetting for organizational identity construction are described as a narrative project. We refer to the image of Lethe, an archetype of forgetting, to depict how forgetting directly affects the process of identity narrative construction. In this perspective, drinking from the waters of Lethe implies not just the loss of knowledge or memories of how things are done, but the loss of identity so that the individuals do not know who they are anymore. In this context, forgetting disrupts organizational narrative which ceases to be a coherent story and results in organizational identity loss.
引用
收藏
页码:187 / 204
页数:18
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