Monstrous reanimation: Rethinking organizational death in the UK financial services sector
Kelly, Simon Riach, K.
Kelly, Simon
Riach, K.
Publication Date
2014
End of Embargo
Supervisor
Rights
Peer-Reviewed
Yes
Open Access status
closedAccess
Accepted for publication
Institution
Department
Awarded
Embargo end date
Collections
Additional title
Abstract
This article presents a new perspective for analysing organizational death through the concept of reanimation. Mobilizing recent discussions of the monstrous in organization theory, we draw on the figure of the reanimated monster to analyse an apparent case of organizational dying in the UK financial services sector. Through this, we explore how organizations may neither live nor die, but instead constitute a continual process of reanimation in which organizational spaces and the materials, bodies and narratives surrounding them are recycled, reintegrated and reused to maintain the appearance of the immortal organization. However, reanimation is not merely the clean and efficient synthesis of old and new. There is an unsettling consequence to living and working within the reanimated organization and it is here that the article considers the value of the monstrous for challenging and rethinking established categories of continuity, change, death, life and loss in contemporary working life.
Version
No full-text in the repository
Citation
Kelly S and Riach K (2014) Monstrous reanimation: Rethinking organizational death in the UK financial services sector. Culture and Organization. 20(1): 7-22.
Link to publisher’s version
Link to published version
Link to Version of Record
Type
Article