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Rasmus Johnsen

Copenhagen Business School, CBS, Institut for Ledelse, Politik og Filosofi, Faculty Member

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I’m a philosopher working at the intersection of phenomenology, social philosophy and organization studies. My current research focuses on the affective dimension of time. I am interested in the pathologies of temporal experience - boredom, stress, depression - and how they affect and influence human existence. In particular, I focus on subject-formation and social interaction, exploring links to recent work in philosophy, literature and cultural studies. One aim is to develop a broader account of 'time-pressure' beyond the lack of time proper and thus to explore the affective force exerted by time in the interface between individual mental and personal capacities and social, cultural and technological infrastructures (organizations).

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Papers by Rasmus Johnsen

Culture and Organization Hidden in full view: the organization of public secrecy in Miéville's The City and the City

by Justine Grønbæk Pors and Rasmus Johnsen

Culture and Organization, 2018

In this article, we explore China Mieville’s novel The City and the City as a literary experiment... more In this article, we explore China Mieville’s novel The City and the City as a
literary experiment for analyzing the dynamics of public secrecy. We
explore public secrets as an intrinsic part of organizational life and as a
framework for paying attention to the politics of organizing. First, we
focus on the novel’s invention and use of the verb ‘unseeing’ to bring
out the embodied and sensuous aspects of public secrecy as part of
organizational processes. Second we unfold how, although the content
of public secrets may turn out to be less spectacular than expected, it is
exactly their mundaneness which is key to their political importance.
This is important because in an increasingly disorganized and uncertain
world, secrecy proliferates and the visibility of secrecy is often a strategic
move to justify certain hidden actions.

Time and Organization Studies

by Robin Holt and Rasmus Johnsen

Organization Studies, 2019

We argue that the more time is being attended to in organization studies, the more it is conceale... more We argue that the more time is being attended to in organization studies, the more it is concealed. The time being concealed is not the time of clocks or the linear passage of past, present and future, it is not the time of temporal structures, and it is not the time of processual flow by which all substance is held as little more than a temporary arrest. In all these understandings time is treated as something available and, potentially, affirmative. Rather, it is a time that barely a few hundred years ago was considered a force always present and yet always against us. What, we ask, has happened to this time, the time beyond organization?

Serving time: Organization and the affective dimension of time

by Rasmus Johnsen and Christina Berg Johansen

In this article, we explore the affective dimension of human temporality. Drawing on the work of ... more In this article, we explore the affective dimension of human temporality. Drawing on the work of Michael Theunissen in his Negative Theologie der Zeit (Negative Theology of Time), we suggest that understanding time as affect may help shed light on how people in organizational settings are influenced by and react toward time, once it comes to appear as an obstacle, rather than a resource to the unfolding of life. To capture such situations, we introduce the notion of 'chronopathic experience' and proceed to explore such experiences empirically among men incarcerated in Helsinki Prison. Here, we identify chronotelic behavior as a modality of activities directed toward dealing with the affective pressure exerted by time, as it comes to appear given, external, and meaningless. We argue that the affective dimension of human temporality can be drawn upon in other organizational contexts to clarify the notion of time pressure and to better understand temporality-related institutional pathologies like stress, boredom, and depression.

Bringing the Body Back into the Study of Time in Consumer Research

Research in Consumer Behavior, 2013

Om viden, socialitet og immaterialitet

by Rasmus Johnsen and Sverre Raffnsøe

Slagmark Tidsskrift For Idehistorie, 2008

Om viden, socialitet og immaterialitet

On boredom: A note on experience without qualities

Weariness of the Self

Alain Ehrenberg (2009) The weariness of the self: Diagnosing the history of depression in the con... more Alain Ehrenberg (2009) The weariness of the self: Diagnosing the history of depression in the contemporary age, with a preface by Allan Young. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. (HB, pp. 345, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-7735-3625-6) review of: ephemera 11(1): 93-96 Weariness of the self reviews Rasmus Johnsen

Melancholy and the Somatic Subject of Stress Management

This article explores the curious relation between the Aristotelian concept of melancholy and the... more This article explores the curious relation between the Aristotelian concept of melancholy and the contemporary concept of stress and stress management in organizations. Through a symptomatological reading of the most important Aristotelian text on melancholy, Problems XXX, I, it identifies the mélaina cholé – the black bile – as the somatic subject of a higher order of self-management among extraordinary individuals and discusses how the conceptualization of this somatic subject has been popularized in the contemporary presentation of stress and stress management in popular literature. It discusses this popularization and its effects on three levels: the individual, the organizational and the managerial, suggesting that the properties, which used to be reserved for the extraordinary in character among politicians, poets, philosophers and artists has been popularized under the assumption of an anthropology, which subsumes the great, culturally constructive achievements under a general idea of Arbeitskraft, of labour power.

The frantic gesture of interpassivity: Maintaining the separation between the corporate and authentic self

Lacan and the lack of humanity in HRM

This article offers to the field of organization studies and the critique of Human Resource Manag... more This article offers to the field of organization studies and the critique of Human Resource Management (HRM) important theoretical insight implied by the 'practical anti-humanism' in Jacques Lacan's theory of subjectivity. Drawing on Lacan's notions of ontological lack and fantasy, it suggests that this anti-humanism may provide a challenge of the critical aspirations found in the studies of HRM that have maintained an insurmountable gap between the humanity of the human subject and the inhumanity of the managerial prescription. Turning the traditional critique on its head, the article explores the consequences of confronting the inhuman core of humanity itself instead of maintaining the humanity of the human by exposing the inhumanity of HRM. Following Lacan it questions the idealization of 'the human' and asks what it would mean to critical management studies to focus instead on the fallibilities and shortcomings of subjectivity.

Boredom and Organization Studies

Even if people may always have been bored, 'boredom' as a phenomenon is not a universal feature o... more Even if people may always have been bored, 'boredom' as a phenomenon is not a universal feature of human existence. Rather it is deeply connected to organization as a reaction to the gradual emergence in Western culture of the management and administration of time. As an acquired capacity of those able to tell and endure time in an organized manner, boredom is a perceived loss of meaning inferred by the lived experience of a discrepancy between the involvement with transient means in everyday life and their value in a larger vision of existence. But boredom also signifies a concurrent protest against such a loss, which potentially leads new possibilities with it. In this essay, I explore the connection between boredom and organization, focusing on these two interrelated aspects of the phenomenon: how boredom can be understood as an experience of a loss of meaning, but also how this loss itself can be viewed as an imperative towards meaning that remains the source of new forms of organizing.

Lidelsens billedbog - diagnosernes brug i hverdagslivet

Knowledge you can't google - teaching philosophy at a business school.pdf

Kedsomhed - På sporet af den tomme tid

Menneskelig motivation of værdiskabelse - Den humane vending indenfor ledelse og organisation

Love will tear us apart – transformational leadership and love in a call centre

Call centres are organised around the control and surveillance of employee performance, which nat... more Call centres are organised around the control and surveillance of employee performance, which naturally suggests the relevance of transactional leadership. In our case study, however, we find that leaders in a call centre pursue transformational leadership to the point where employees relate to their leaders, each others and their jobs in terms of love. To be able to encourage emotions of love in call centre workers can be seen as very successful transformational leadership, while challenging our basic assumptions about love as an authentic, higher order feeling. We use Plato's classic work on love to provoke and develop our common sense understanding of love and conclude that to see love as artificiality provides new possibilities in a transformational leadership practice.

'Is Your Manager a Psychopath? ... Are you?' - The human-animal divide at work..pdf

Books by Rasmus Johnsen

The Great Health of Melancholy

Culture and Organization Hidden in full view: the organization of public secrecy in Miéville's The City and the City

by Justine Grønbæk Pors and Rasmus Johnsen

Culture and Organization, 2018

In this article, we explore China Mieville’s novel The City and the City as a literary experiment... more In this article, we explore China Mieville’s novel The City and the City as a
literary experiment for analyzing the dynamics of public secrecy. We
explore public secrets as an intrinsic part of organizational life and as a
framework for paying attention to the politics of organizing. First, we
focus on the novel’s invention and use of the verb ‘unseeing’ to bring
out the embodied and sensuous aspects of public secrecy as part of
organizational processes. Second we unfold how, although the content
of public secrets may turn out to be less spectacular than expected, it is
exactly their mundaneness which is key to their political importance.
This is important because in an increasingly disorganized and uncertain
world, secrecy proliferates and the visibility of secrecy is often a strategic
move to justify certain hidden actions.

Time and Organization Studies

by Robin Holt and Rasmus Johnsen

Organization Studies, 2019

We argue that the more time is being attended to in organization studies, the more it is conceale... more We argue that the more time is being attended to in organization studies, the more it is concealed. The time being concealed is not the time of clocks or the linear passage of past, present and future, it is not the time of temporal structures, and it is not the time of processual flow by which all substance is held as little more than a temporary arrest. In all these understandings time is treated as something available and, potentially, affirmative. Rather, it is a time that barely a few hundred years ago was considered a force always present and yet always against us. What, we ask, has happened to this time, the time beyond organization?

Serving time: Organization and the affective dimension of time

by Rasmus Johnsen and Christina Berg Johansen

In this article, we explore the affective dimension of human temporality. Drawing on the work of ... more In this article, we explore the affective dimension of human temporality. Drawing on the work of Michael Theunissen in his Negative Theologie der Zeit (Negative Theology of Time), we suggest that understanding time as affect may help shed light on how people in organizational settings are influenced by and react toward time, once it comes to appear as an obstacle, rather than a resource to the unfolding of life. To capture such situations, we introduce the notion of 'chronopathic experience' and proceed to explore such experiences empirically among men incarcerated in Helsinki Prison. Here, we identify chronotelic behavior as a modality of activities directed toward dealing with the affective pressure exerted by time, as it comes to appear given, external, and meaningless. We argue that the affective dimension of human temporality can be drawn upon in other organizational contexts to clarify the notion of time pressure and to better understand temporality-related institutional pathologies like stress, boredom, and depression.

Bringing the Body Back into the Study of Time in Consumer Research

Research in Consumer Behavior, 2013

Om viden, socialitet og immaterialitet

by Rasmus Johnsen and Sverre Raffnsøe

Slagmark Tidsskrift For Idehistorie, 2008

Om viden, socialitet og immaterialitet

On boredom: A note on experience without qualities

Weariness of the Self

Alain Ehrenberg (2009) The weariness of the self: Diagnosing the history of depression in the con... more Alain Ehrenberg (2009) The weariness of the self: Diagnosing the history of depression in the contemporary age, with a preface by Allan Young. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. (HB, pp. 345, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-7735-3625-6) review of: ephemera 11(1): 93-96 Weariness of the self reviews Rasmus Johnsen

Melancholy and the Somatic Subject of Stress Management

This article explores the curious relation between the Aristotelian concept of melancholy and the... more This article explores the curious relation between the Aristotelian concept of melancholy and the contemporary concept of stress and stress management in organizations. Through a symptomatological reading of the most important Aristotelian text on melancholy, Problems XXX, I, it identifies the mélaina cholé – the black bile – as the somatic subject of a higher order of self-management among extraordinary individuals and discusses how the conceptualization of this somatic subject has been popularized in the contemporary presentation of stress and stress management in popular literature. It discusses this popularization and its effects on three levels: the individual, the organizational and the managerial, suggesting that the properties, which used to be reserved for the extraordinary in character among politicians, poets, philosophers and artists has been popularized under the assumption of an anthropology, which subsumes the great, culturally constructive achievements under a general idea of Arbeitskraft, of labour power.

The frantic gesture of interpassivity: Maintaining the separation between the corporate and authentic self

Lacan and the lack of humanity in HRM

This article offers to the field of organization studies and the critique of Human Resource Manag... more This article offers to the field of organization studies and the critique of Human Resource Management (HRM) important theoretical insight implied by the 'practical anti-humanism' in Jacques Lacan's theory of subjectivity. Drawing on Lacan's notions of ontological lack and fantasy, it suggests that this anti-humanism may provide a challenge of the critical aspirations found in the studies of HRM that have maintained an insurmountable gap between the humanity of the human subject and the inhumanity of the managerial prescription. Turning the traditional critique on its head, the article explores the consequences of confronting the inhuman core of humanity itself instead of maintaining the humanity of the human by exposing the inhumanity of HRM. Following Lacan it questions the idealization of 'the human' and asks what it would mean to critical management studies to focus instead on the fallibilities and shortcomings of subjectivity.

Boredom and Organization Studies

Even if people may always have been bored, 'boredom' as a phenomenon is not a universal feature o... more Even if people may always have been bored, 'boredom' as a phenomenon is not a universal feature of human existence. Rather it is deeply connected to organization as a reaction to the gradual emergence in Western culture of the management and administration of time. As an acquired capacity of those able to tell and endure time in an organized manner, boredom is a perceived loss of meaning inferred by the lived experience of a discrepancy between the involvement with transient means in everyday life and their value in a larger vision of existence. But boredom also signifies a concurrent protest against such a loss, which potentially leads new possibilities with it. In this essay, I explore the connection between boredom and organization, focusing on these two interrelated aspects of the phenomenon: how boredom can be understood as an experience of a loss of meaning, but also how this loss itself can be viewed as an imperative towards meaning that remains the source of new forms of organizing.

Lidelsens billedbog - diagnosernes brug i hverdagslivet

Knowledge you can't google - teaching philosophy at a business school.pdf

Kedsomhed - På sporet af den tomme tid

Menneskelig motivation of værdiskabelse - Den humane vending indenfor ledelse og organisation

Love will tear us apart – transformational leadership and love in a call centre

Call centres are organised around the control and surveillance of employee performance, which nat... more Call centres are organised around the control and surveillance of employee performance, which naturally suggests the relevance of transactional leadership. In our case study, however, we find that leaders in a call centre pursue transformational leadership to the point where employees relate to their leaders, each others and their jobs in terms of love. To be able to encourage emotions of love in call centre workers can be seen as very successful transformational leadership, while challenging our basic assumptions about love as an authentic, higher order feeling. We use Plato's classic work on love to provoke and develop our common sense understanding of love and conclude that to see love as artificiality provides new possibilities in a transformational leadership practice.

'Is Your Manager a Psychopath? ... Are you?' - The human-animal divide at work..pdf

The Great Health of Melancholy