Rhodes Carl - Humour, organization and work

Humour, Work and Organization explores the critical, subversive and ambivalent character of humour and comedy as it relates to organizations and organized work. It examines the various individual, organizational, social and cultural means through which humour is represented, deployed, developed, used and understood.

The book considers the relationship between humour and organization in a nuanced and radical way and takes the view that humour and comedy are pervasive and highly meaningful aspects of human experience.

The richness and complexity of this relationship is examined across three related domains:

How humour is constructed, enacted and responded to in organizational settings

How organizations and work are represented comedically in various types of popular culture media

How humour is used in organizations where there is a more explicit relationship between the comedic and work

An exciting and controversial text, Humour, Work and Organization will appeal to students of all levels as well as anyone interested in the full complexities of human interactions in the workplace.

Robert Westwood is Reader in Organization Studies at the University of Queensland Business School.

Carl Rhodes is Associate Professor of Organization Studies in the School of Management at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Edited by
Robert Westwood and
Carl Rhodes

First published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Transferred to Digital Printing 2008

2007 Robert Westwood and Carl Rhodes for editorial selection and
material; individual contributors, their own contribution

Typeset in Perpetua and Bell Gothic by
HWA Text and Data Management, Tunbridge Wells

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Humour, work, and organization/edited by Robert Westwood and
Carl Rhodes.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Humor in the workplace. 2. Work-Humor. 3. Organizational behavior
Humor. 4. Organization in popular culture. 5. Organizational sociology.
I. Westwood, Robert Ian. II. Rhodes, Carl, 1967 III. Title: Humor, work,
and organization.
HF5549.5.H85W67 2006
302.35-dc22 2006021381

ISBN10: 0-415-38412-5 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-415-38413-3 (pbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-38412-4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-38413-1 (pbk)

ROBERT WESTWOOD AND CARL RHODES

SIMON CRITCHLEY

HEATHER HPFL

ROBERT WESTWOOD

MARTIN PARKER

SAM WARREN AND STEPHEN FINEMAN

ALLANAH JOHNSTON, DENNIS MUMBY AND ROBERT WESTWOOD

MEREDITH MARRA

CARL RHODES AND ALISON PULLEN

DAMIAN P. O'DOHERTY

STEPHEN LINSTEAD

DONNCHA KAVANAGH AND DON O'SULLIVAN

DAVID M. BOJE, YUE CAI-HILLON, GRACE-ANN ROSILE AND ESTHER R. THOMAS

ROBERT WESTWOOD

David M. Boje is Professor, and former Robert Owens Anderson Professor in Business Administration in the Management Department at New Mexico State University. His main research is the interplay of story, strategy and systemicity. He has published articles in the Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, Management Communication Quarterly, Organization Studies, Leadership Quarterly, and other fine journals. He is President of Standing Conference for Management and Organization Inquiry (Sc'MOI), editor of the journal Tamara, and associate editor for Qualitative Research in Organization and Management (QROM). He serves on thirteen other editorial boards.

Yue Cai-Hillon is lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Central Oklahoma. Her teaching and research interest include global strategic competence, storytelling/narrative strategy, business consulting and organizational behaviour. She has published a number of articles in journals such as: Metamorphosis, Tamara and Culture and Organization. She is a member of the Academy of Management, as well as an active board member of Sc'MOI. Her current research involves the reconciliation of the predominant western strategy paradigm with the ancient traditions of the east.

Simon Critchley is Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research and at the University of Essex. During 20067, he is a Getty Scholar in Los Angeles. He is author of many books; On Humour (Routledge, 2002) has been translated into eight languages. His next book is called Infinitely Demanding, forthcoming from Verso.

Stephen Fineman is Professor of Organizational Behavior in the School of Management, University of Bath. Recent interests focus on emotion in organizations, especially critical approaches. Publications include Understanding Emotion at Work (Sage, 2003), Emotion in Organizations, 2nd edn (Sage, 2000) and Organizing and Organizations, 3rd edn (Sage, 2005).

Heather Hpfl is Professor of Management at the University of Essex, UK. She has worked as a schoolteacher, a tour manager for a touring repertory company and in the R&D department of a large engineering company. She is editor, with Robert Westwood, of Culture and Organization, a former chair of SCOS, Visiting Professor at UvH Utrecht and the University of South Australia. She is interested in poststructuralist approaches to organizations, in theatre and performance and she has published widely in these areas. Recent relevant articles include Hitchcock's vertigo and the tragic sublime, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Organizations and the mouth of hell, Culture and Organization, and, with Georg Schreyoegg, a special issue of Organization Studies, on Theatre and Organizations.

Allanah Johnston is doing her PhD in the School of Business at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her thesis explores how humour is implicated in processes of gender identity construction within organizations. She is also interested in the theorization and practices of consumer culture, critical approaches to emotions in organizations and the organization of aesthetics. Currently she is concerned with exploring and sustaining any sense of humour she may have while writing her thesis.

Donncha Kavanagh is Senior Lecturer in Management at University College Cork, the National University of Ireland. He has published in the fields of management, marketing, organization studies and engineering. His research interests include the history of management thought, and the sociology of knowledge and technology. He is currently researching the translation of management technologies into higher education.