Yiannis GABRIEL

University of Bath, School of Management, Emeritus

Lund University, School of Economics and Management, Faculty Member

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I am Professor of Organizational Theory at the School of Management at Bath University and Visiting Professor at the University of Lund, Sweden.. Earlier, I held chairs at Imperial College and Royal Holloway, University of London.

I have taught and written on organizational storytelling and narratives, leadership, management learning, psychoanalytic studies of work, and the culture and politics of contemporary consumption. I use stories as a way of studying numerous social and organizational phenomena including leader-follower relations, group dynamics and fantasies, nostalgia, insults and apologies.

I have contributed to the use of psychoanalytic concepts and theories in social and organizational analysis, focusing on leader-follower relations, group dysfunctions and organizational identities and narratives.

I am co-founder and co-ordinator of the Organizational Storytelling Seminar series, now in its tenth year (See http://www.organizational-storytelling.org.uk/).

I am currently carrying out research into leadership and management and on unemployed professionals and senior executives in the 50s.

My enduring fascination as a researcher lies in what he describes as the unmanageable qualities of life in and out of organizations.

I blog regularly at yiannisgabriel.com
Address: School of Management
University of Bath
Bath BA2 7AY

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Papers by Yiannis GABRIEL

The Unmanageable Con-sumer

Narrative ecologies and the role of counter-narratives: The case of nostalgic stories and conspiracy theories

This chapter argues that narratives and counter-narratives depend on each other, need each other ... more This chapter argues that narratives and counter-narratives depend on each other, need each other and co-create each other. By examining two particular types, nostalgic stories and conspiracy theories, the author proposes that narratives and counter-narratives are elements of narrative ecologies and proposes a number of distinct narrative ecologies fostering different configurations of narrative patterns.

The consumer as citizen

Narrative Ecologies in Post-truth Times: Nostalgia and Conspiracy Theories in Narrative Jungles?

What Political Science Can Learn from the Humanities, 2021

A Picture Tells More Than a Thousand Words Losing the Plot in the Era of the Image

Routledge, Jun 17, 2013

Return to Meaning: A Social Science with Something to Say

This book argues that we are currently witnessing not merely a decline in the quality of social s... more This book argues that we are currently witnessing not merely a decline in the quality of social science research, but the proliferation of meaningless research, of no value to society, and modest value to its authors - apart from securing employment and promotion. The explosion of published outputs, at least in social science, creates a noisy, cluttered environment which makes meaningful research difficult, as different voices compete to capture the limelight even briefly. Older, more significant contributions are easily neglected, as the premium is to write and publish, not read and learn. The result is a widespread cynicism among academics on the value of academic research, sometimes including their own. Publishing comes to be seen as a game of hits and misses, devoid of intrinsic meaning and value, and of no wider social uses whatsoever. Academics do research in order to get published, not to say something socially meaningful. This is what we view as the rise of nonsense in acade...

Geschichten und Geschichtenerzählen in Organisationen

Der narrative Ansatz hat in der Organisationsforschung bereits eine langere Tradition. Geschichte... more Der narrative Ansatz hat in der Organisationsforschung bereits eine langere Tradition. Geschichten verknupfen personale und soziale Identitaten und sind so ein zentrales Medium der Sinnstiftung in Organisationen und der Entwicklung organisationaler Identitat. Der Aufsatz gibt einen Uberblick uber das noch sehr begrenzte, aber vielversprechende Feld narrativer Organisationsforschung.

Book review: Emancipation through Emotion Regulation at Work

Organization, 2017

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‘So much choice and no choice at all’

Marketing Theory, 2015

Psychoanalytic concepts and theory have long served studies of consumption, from exposing unconsc... more Psychoanalytic concepts and theory have long served studies of consumption, from exposing unconscious motives to elucidating contemporary consuming desire. Sharing with psychoanalysis an interest in symbolic meanings, anthropological approaches have also contributed to the study of contemporary consumption and social life. In this article, we draw on both Freudian psychoanalysis and Douglas’s structural anthropology to examine the field of non-consumption or the ‘choice’ not to buy. Based on detailed interpretations of interview data, we argue that consuming less at the individual level is not always the result of purposeful acts of ideological, anti-consumption protest or the outward expression of countercultural sentiments. Rather, forms of non-consumption can have deeper psychological origins that are located in a view of consumerism as a threatening force and a potent source of toxic contamination to mind and body, ‘dirt’ in Douglas’s conceptualization. We argue that this outloo...

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Moral Emotions and Ethics in Organisations: Introduction to the Special Issue

Journal of Business Ethics, 2016

The aim of our special issue is to deepen our understanding of the role moral emotions play in or... more The aim of our special issue is to deepen our understanding of the role moral emotions play in organisations as part of a wider discourse on organisational ethics and morality. Unethical workplace behaviours can have far-reaching consequences-job losses, risks to life and health, psychological damage to individuals and groups, social injustice and exploitation and even environmental devastation. Consequently, determining how and why ethical transgressions occur with surprising regularity, despite the inhibiting influence of moral emotions, has considerable theoretical and practical significance to management scholars and managers alike. In this introduction, we present some of the core arguments in the field; notably, the effect of organisational life and bureaucracy on emotions, in general, and moral emotions, in particular; the moral standing of leaders, managers and followers; moral challenges raised by obedience and resistance to organisational power and ethical blindspots induced by what may appear as deeply moral emotions. These issues are explored by a collection of geographically diverse articles in various work contexts, which are thematically organised in terms of (i) moral emotions, ethical behaviour and social pressure, (ii) moral emotions and their consequences within/across levels of analysis, (iii) psychoanalytic perspectives on the management of moral emotions, (iv) virtue and moral emotions and (v) moral emotions and action tendencies. We end by suggesting certain avenues for future research in the hope that the endeavour initiated here will inspire improved practice at work.

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Storytelling in Organisations

Organizations in Depth

Love: A guide for amateurs

This event will be an informal and loving discussion between amateurs on the subject of love. Usi... more This event will be an informal and loving discussion between amateurs on the subject of love. Using different aspects of love in Greek philosophy - agápe, éros, philía, and storgē - and Freud’s conceptualisations of Eros, we will think about why it’s so difficult to love. David Morgan will look at the profound experiences we face with intimacy, in learning deeply about ourselves. Candida Yates will look at ‘new intimacies’ in our representations of love, jealousy and flirtation in popular culture. Matt Gieve and Milena Stateva will think about love as the interplay between emancipation and resistance in an economic view in contemporary notions of love. Steve Fuller will ask, as the sphere of human concern extends beyond Homo sapiens to other animals and even machines, is our capacity for agape, a ‘higher love’ increased as well? Yiannis Gabriel will look at what happens when all love is sucked out of a community in the grip of a contagious pathogen which dissolves bonds of solidarit...

Fast Food Enterprises

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

The rapid growth of fast food enterprises across cultural, national, and geographical frontiers a... more The rapid growth of fast food enterprises across cultural, national, and geographical frontiers as well as their high visibility have established it as an area in which numerous social science theories have been developed and rehearsed. First, this expansion indicates fundamental changes in consumer tastes and lifestyles, associated with changing family structures and employment patterns. Second, it is viewed as a feature of cultural and economic globalization, marking the colonization by transnational organizations of people's eating habits. The implications of this globalization are frequent targets for social, cultural, economic, and environmental critiques. Third, fast food enterprises seem to offer a prototype of the transition of the service industries from people-based technologies to Taylorist approaches. It is further argued that the fast food industry has become a paradigm for profound changes in the nature of contemporary societies. The term McDonaldization has been used to indicate the increasing dominance of the core principles embodied by the fast food restaurant in virtually every sector of society. Fourth, lying at the meeting point of work and leisure, fast food enterprises represent a vital area on which to develop theories regarding the formation of contemporary identities and the interface between customer and employee.

Experiencing Organizations

T.(1995) The Unmanageable Consumer. Contemporary Consumption and its Fragmentations

Storytelling in organizations

The unmanageable consumer

Using Stories in Organizational Research

Storytelling in Organizations, 2000

The Unmanageable Con-sumer

Narrative ecologies and the role of counter-narratives: The case of nostalgic stories and conspiracy theories

The consumer as citizen

Narrative Ecologies in Post-truth Times: Nostalgia and Conspiracy Theories in Narrative Jungles?

What Political Science Can Learn from the Humanities, 2021

A Picture Tells More Than a Thousand Words Losing the Plot in the Era of the Image

Routledge, Jun 17, 2013

Return to Meaning: A Social Science with Something to Say

Geschichten und Geschichtenerzählen in Organisationen

Book review: Emancipation through Emotion Regulation at Work

Organization, 2017

Download

‘So much choice and no choice at all’

Marketing Theory, 2015

Download

Moral Emotions and Ethics in Organisations: Introduction to the Special Issue

Journal of Business Ethics, 2016

Download

Storytelling in Organisations

Organizations in Depth

Love: A guide for amateurs

Fast Food Enterprises

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

Experiencing Organizations

T.(1995) The Unmanageable Consumer. Contemporary Consumption and its Fragmentations

Storytelling in organizations

The unmanageable consumer

Using Stories in Organizational Research

Storytelling in Organizations, 2000

Job loss and its aftermath among managers and professionals: wounded, fragmented and flexible

by David E Gray and Yiannis GABRIEL

Work, Employment & Society 27(1) 56-72, 2013

""Based on longitudinal fieldwork with unemployed managers and professionals in their 50s, the ar... more ""Based on longitudinal fieldwork with unemployed managers and professionals in their 50s, the article examines the meaning of job loss to these people and charts their subsequent efforts to restore their lives. The article identifies core similarities in their experiences and discerns different narrative strategies through which they have tried to make sense of their dismissal and
sustain their selfhood. For all, job loss was a considerable trauma leading to a fragmentation of identity; this was compounded by subsequent rejection and perceived discrimination. Few were
able to resume their earlier careers; the majority had to adjust their expectations downwards and opt for either virtual deskilling in less well paid and less demanding jobs or for an assortment of
part-time, casual and voluntary work. Best ‘adapted’ (and least fragmented) were those who were prepared to forsake hopes of a return to high-powered jobs and display flexibility, resourcefulness
and opportunism in adapting to their reduced circumstances.""

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Temporary derailment or the end of the line? Managers coping with unemployment at 50

by David E Gray and Yiannis GABRIEL

Organization Studies 31(12) 1687-1712 , 2010

Based on fieldwork conducted at the outset of the 2008 economic downturn, this paper examines the... more Based on fieldwork conducted at the outset of the 2008 economic downturn, this paper examines the experiences of a group of unemployed managers and professionals in their fifties. Following a review of existing literature, the authors use a narrative methodology to explore how these people incorporate the experience of job loss into their self-images and identities. They identify certain core similarities in the experiences of unemployed professionals and then discern three narrative strategies through which unemployed professionals tried to make sense of their dismissal and sustain their sense of selfhood. The term ‘narrative coping’ is proposed as a way of describing each unemployed professional’s struggle to construct a story that offers both meaning and consolation. The study reveals that individuals expressing the most profound despair (those for whom job loss was the ‘end of the line’) were those whose stories had achieved ‘closure’. By contrast, most of those who maintained more open-ended narratives were better able to contain their emotions, either by holding on to the belief that unemployment was a temporary career aberration or by abandoning the idea that life is the same as career and by moving on to a new stage of experimentation and bricolage akin to an identity moratorium.

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Love: A Guide for Amateurs

by Steve Fuller, Elizabeth Cotton, Milena Stateva, and Yiannis GABRIEL

This eBook has been produced by the Freud Museum London to explore our collective capacity for lo... more This eBook has been produced by the Freud Museum London to explore our collective capacity for love. It is part of a series of events on the theme of Freud and Love. Freud & Eros: Love, Lust and Longing is a new exhibition at the Freud Museum London, running from 22 October 2014 – 8 March 2015. The exhibition looks at Sigmund Freud's revolutionary ideas on love and the libidinal drive through Freud's own art collection and his passionate courtship of his wife Martha Bernays.

The exhibition is accompanied by an exciting programme of talks, performance, classes and events, including this ebook, event and conference. From January 2015 we will be asking you what you know about love - from how to get on with your family to how to turn your office into a love grotto. You are cordially invited to join us on this journey which we are calling #LoveAmateurs on @survivingwk and www.survivingwork.org.

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From chaos to purgatory, resignation or recuperation: stories of unemployed managers and professionals

by David E Gray and Yiannis GABRIEL

Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism, 2010

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Gabriel EGOS Subplenary Return to meaning

The emperor isn't wearing any clothes. Social science publications are largely formulaic, jargon-... more The emperor isn't wearing any clothes. Social science publications are largely formulaic, jargon-ridden and meaningless. Everyone knows this, yet the academic publishing machine endlessly churns out more texts on which careers and rankings hang. Is the publishing game sustainable? Who pays our salaries during the 2, 3, 4 or 6 months that we toil in revising and resubmitting a paper, likely to be read by a tiny handful of people in our micro-tribes?

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