Stephen Dunne
Biographic Data
| ID | 3584002 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen Dunne |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen |
| FAMILY NAME | Dunne |
| SIGNATURE | DUNNE S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leicester |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9924-6219 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1945 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Platonic Business Ethics: A Survey of the Past and a Discussion of the Future
This paper discusses the achievements, the possibilities, and the challenges of Platonic business ethics. Through a systematic scoping review of 695 articles published in 13 business and management journals, it undertakes a knowledge-stock analysis of the almost complete range of Plato’s written texts that have influenced business ethicists and identifies five prominent ways in which they have applied his work. It finds that Plato’s Republic has …
Marxism, marketing and consumer research
From Rating System to Thought Leadership: The Evolution of the Canada Green Building Council
Green Building Social Movement Organizations encourage the adoption of green buildings, primarily by promoting sustainability rating tools. While numerous papers have explored the market impact of these sustainability rating tools, very few have examined either the lengthy and protracted process of their selection and enrollment by organizations, or even their impact upon the structure and governance of organizations. This paper fills these gaps …
Architectural design and managerial control: Lefebvre, Latour and the process of enrollment
Organizational scholarship on architecture often applies Henri Lefebvre’s conceived, perceived , and lived framework. Karen Dale and Gibson Burrell, most notably, have illustrated how architectural design exploits each of these, exerting managerial control through processes of enchantment, emplacement , and enactment . Although this “3E framework” has been productively applied to buildings from the modern and postmodern periods, its weaknesses be…
From compliance to convening: The transformation of the Canada Green Building Council
Green Building Movement Organizations often advance their social change agenda through market transformation initiatives. Over the past 25 years, many such organizations have used Sustainability Rating Tools–for example green building certifications that guide and recognize the inclusion of sustainable elements–to pursue this objective. But the industrial adoption of these tools has become saturated within market niches and ignored in others, lea…
Time management between the personalisation and collectivisation of productivity: The case of adopting the Pomodoro time-management tool in a four-day workweek company
Time-management technologies and their adoption into daily working life have been discussed as solutions for managing individual productivity and as problems that intensify individualised productivity, enhance the norms of busyness and disconnect colleagues from one another. However, drawing on the case study of a company that implemented a four-day workweek, this paper argues that this is not always so. In our case company, a digital marketing a…
Habits, Infinite Jest and the recoveries of pragmatism
Behaviourists treat habits as thoughtlessly undertaken actions. Pragmatists, by contrast, emphasise the role intelligence plays in habit’s cultivation. Although organisational analysts have tended to prefer behavioural approaches to habit, pragmatism has been recently resurgent. This paper analyses how David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest dramatises this hermeneutical dichotomy. The novel, we demonstrate, represents the difference between termina…
To Be or Not to Be Governed Like That? Harmful and/or Offensive Advertising Complaints in the United Kingdom’s (Self-) Regulatory Context
This paper demonstrates how the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) governs advertising ethics with and on behalf of its members and stakeholders. Drawing on an archive of 310 non-commercial (i.e., not-for-profit and public) adjudication reports, we highlight the substantive norms and procedural mechanisms through which the ASA governs advertising complaints alleging offence and/or harm. Substantively, the ASA precludes potential normative…
Stephen Dunne reviews No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy by Linsey McGoey
Graham Harman, Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory
The philosopher Graham Harman argues that contemporary debates about the nature of reality as such, and about the nature of objects in particular, can be meaningfully applied to social theory and practice. With Immaterialism, he has recently provided a case-based demonstration of how this could happen. But social theorists have compelling reasons to oppose object-oriented social theory's 15 principles. Fidelity to Harman's aesthetic foundationali…
Organization studies of inequality, with and beyond Piketty
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21 st Century did much to bring discussions of economic inequality into the intellectual and popular mainstream. This article indicates how business, management and organization studies can productively engage with Piketty’s book. It does this by deriving practical consequences from Piketty’s proposed division of intellectual labour in general and his account of ‘super-managers’ in particular. There are organizatio…
Making ‘Making money: A discussion with Ole Bjerg
Stephen Dunne recently sat down with Ole Bjerg to chair a discussion about his new book Making Money: The Philosophy of Crisis Capitalism (Verso, 2014). We publish an elaborated version of the book's concluding chapter - ‘Life after Debt’ - within this special issue. This interview and question and answer session puts Ole's argument there, as well as the arguments of his book more generally, into a broader context
Hard cash: A post-disciplinary digest
May 6th 2010, 2.45pm. The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by nearly 1000 points, trillions of dollars were ‘wiped’ from the value of major US stocks and, for a few long minutes, the global economy was on the brink of a new catastrophe. Then ‘it’ all came back. It remains unclear what, exactly, caused the ‘Flash Crash’. More worryingly, it has always been unclear what, exactly, was ‘lost’ and ‘regained’ in those apocalyptic moments. This is as …
Response to Kilminster: Figurational sociology without the sophistry
Figurational sociology and the rhetoric of post-philosophy
Norbert Elias’s early work – specifically ‘Idea and Individual’ – offers a positive account of philosophy’s potential contribution towards historically oriented concrete sociological investigation. His later work, on the other hand, characterizes philosophical investigation as little more than a distraction from the myth-exposing vocation of the (figurational) sociologist. This later ‘post-philosophical’ account of figurational sociology predomin…
Duelling with dualisms: Descartes, Foucault and the history of organizational limits
Critical perspectives in organization studies often dismiss Descartes’ philosophical contribution because it is seen to legitimize a patriarchal and phallocentric mode of reasoning. In particular, the Cartesian mind–body dualism is said to reinforce gender inequality in organizations by privileging the rational mind over the emotional body. However, not only is this view incomplete and misleading, it also fails to consider the more significant di…
Exhibiting understanding: The body in apprenticeship
The Politics of Figurational Sociology
Figurational sociology is so often said to distance itself from the political issues of the day. Whilst this is certainly true with regards to the present day, it in no way follows that figurational sociology seeks to distance itself from politics as such. On the contrary, as will be shown within this paper, politics is and always has been a central concern for figurational sociologists. This political concern, however, is an exclusively long ter…
Speaking Out: The Responsibilities of Management Intellectuals: A Survey
This article discusses our analysis of over 2,000 articles published within 20 top business and management journals. The article empirically demonstrates how little attention is being paid by the work published within these journals to contemporary political issues across the globe. We also demonstrate the extent to which the same is true of `critical' journals such as Organization . To this end we argue that mass scholarly ranking mechanisms, su…
Corporate social responsibility and the value of corporate moral pragmatism
The question of corporate social responsibility today is widely acknowledged to have become a pragmatic one. That is to say that considerations over how corporate social responsibility should be have become prioritised over discussions concerning whether it should be. In this paper I evaluate whether this recently attained pragmatic disposition gives cause for enthusiasm. This evaluation begins by outlining the manner in which the notion of corpo…
I'd Prefer Not To’. Bartleby and the Excesses of Interpretation
This paper engages with Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener, as well as contemporary discussions thereof, so as to consider a peculiar concept of excess suggested to us by its main character. Our discussion focuses upon three of the most prominent contemporary Bartlebys: ‘The Politicized Bartleby’ of Slavoj Zizek, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; ‘The Originary Bartleby’ of Gilles Deleuze; and ‘The Whatever Bartleby’ of Giorgio A…
Church and State in Argentina
So many books and articles have been written during the past several years about Argentina that there would seem to be little reason, at the present time, for adding another weight to the already over-burdened press. There is a phase, however, of Argentine development both of the past and of the present which has not received a great deal of consideration, and that is the relationship between Church and State in the republic of the South. Circums…
Exhibiting understanding: The body in apprenticeship
The Politics of Figurational Sociology
Figurational sociology is so often said to distance itself from the political issues of the day. Whilst this is certainly true with regards to the present day, it in no way follows that figurational sociology seeks to distance itself from politics as such. On the contrary, as will be shown within this paper, politics is and always has been a central concern for figurational sociologists. This political concern, however, is an exclusively long ter…
I'd Prefer Not To’. Bartleby and the Excesses of Interpretation
This paper engages with Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener, as well as contemporary discussions thereof, so as to consider a peculiar concept of excess suggested to us by its main character. Our discussion focuses upon three of the most prominent contemporary Bartlebys: ‘The Politicized Bartleby’ of Slavoj Zizek, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; ‘The Originary Bartleby’ of Gilles Deleuze; and ‘The Whatever Bartleby’ of Giorgio A…
Figurational sociology and the rhetoric of post-philosophy
Norbert Elias’s early work – specifically ‘Idea and Individual’ – offers a positive account of philosophy’s potential contribution towards historically oriented concrete sociological investigation. His later work, on the other hand, characterizes philosophical investigation as little more than a distraction from the myth-exposing vocation of the (figurational) sociologist. This later ‘post-philosophical’ account of figurational sociology predomin…
Graham Harman, Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory
The philosopher Graham Harman argues that contemporary debates about the nature of reality as such, and about the nature of objects in particular, can be meaningfully applied to social theory and practice. With Immaterialism, he has recently provided a case-based demonstration of how this could happen. But social theorists have compelling reasons to oppose object-oriented social theory's 15 principles. Fidelity to Harman's aesthetic foundationali…
Duelling with dualisms: Descartes, Foucault and the history of organizational limits
Critical perspectives in organization studies often dismiss Descartes’ philosophical contribution because it is seen to legitimize a patriarchal and phallocentric mode of reasoning. In particular, the Cartesian mind–body dualism is said to reinforce gender inequality in organizations by privileging the rational mind over the emotional body. However, not only is this view incomplete and misleading, it also fails to consider the more significant di…
Church and State in Argentina
So many books and articles have been written during the past several years about Argentina that there would seem to be little reason, at the present time, for adding another weight to the already over-burdened press. There is a phase, however, of Argentine development both of the past and of the present which has not received a great deal of consideration, and that is the relationship between Church and State in the republic of the South. Circums…
I'd Prefer Not To’. Bartleby and the Excesses of Interpretation
This paper engages with Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener, as well as contemporary discussions thereof, so as to consider a peculiar concept of excess suggested to us by its main character. Our discussion focuses upon three of the most prominent contemporary Bartlebys: ‘The Politicized Bartleby’ of Slavoj Zizek, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; ‘The Originary Bartleby’ of Gilles Deleuze; and ‘The Whatever Bartleby’ of Giorgio A…
Speaking Out: The Responsibilities of Management Intellectuals: A Survey
This article discusses our analysis of over 2,000 articles published within 20 top business and management journals. The article empirically demonstrates how little attention is being paid by the work published within these journals to contemporary political issues across the globe. We also demonstrate the extent to which the same is true of `critical' journals such as Organization . To this end we argue that mass scholarly ranking mechanisms, su…
Corporate social responsibility and the value of corporate moral pragmatism
The question of corporate social responsibility today is widely acknowledged to have become a pragmatic one. That is to say that considerations over how corporate social responsibility should be have become prioritised over discussions concerning whether it should be. In this paper I evaluate whether this recently attained pragmatic disposition gives cause for enthusiasm. This evaluation begins by outlining the manner in which the notion of corpo…
The Politics of Figurational Sociology
Figurational sociology is so often said to distance itself from the political issues of the day. Whilst this is certainly true with regards to the present day, it in no way follows that figurational sociology seeks to distance itself from politics as such. On the contrary, as will be shown within this paper, politics is and always has been a central concern for figurational sociologists. This political concern, however, is an exclusively long ter…
Exhibiting understanding: The body in apprenticeship
Duelling with dualisms: Descartes, Foucault and the history of organizational limits
Critical perspectives in organization studies often dismiss Descartes’ philosophical contribution because it is seen to legitimize a patriarchal and phallocentric mode of reasoning. In particular, the Cartesian mind–body dualism is said to reinforce gender inequality in organizations by privileging the rational mind over the emotional body. However, not only is this view incomplete and misleading, it also fails to consider the more significant di…
Response to Kilminster: Figurational sociology without the sophistry
Figurational sociology and the rhetoric of post-philosophy
Norbert Elias’s early work – specifically ‘Idea and Individual’ – offers a positive account of philosophy’s potential contribution towards historically oriented concrete sociological investigation. His later work, on the other hand, characterizes philosophical investigation as little more than a distraction from the myth-exposing vocation of the (figurational) sociologist. This later ‘post-philosophical’ account of figurational sociology predomin…
Making ‘Making money: A discussion with Ole Bjerg
Stephen Dunne recently sat down with Ole Bjerg to chair a discussion about his new book Making Money: The Philosophy of Crisis Capitalism (Verso, 2014). We publish an elaborated version of the book's concluding chapter - ‘Life after Debt’ - within this special issue. This interview and question and answer session puts Ole's argument there, as well as the arguments of his book more generally, into a broader context
Hard cash: A post-disciplinary digest
May 6th 2010, 2.45pm. The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by nearly 1000 points, trillions of dollars were ‘wiped’ from the value of major US stocks and, for a few long minutes, the global economy was on the brink of a new catastrophe. Then ‘it’ all came back. It remains unclear what, exactly, caused the ‘Flash Crash’. More worryingly, it has always been unclear what, exactly, was ‘lost’ and ‘regained’ in those apocalyptic moments. This is as …
Organization studies of inequality, with and beyond Piketty
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21 st Century did much to bring discussions of economic inequality into the intellectual and popular mainstream. This article indicates how business, management and organization studies can productively engage with Piketty’s book. It does this by deriving practical consequences from Piketty’s proposed division of intellectual labour in general and his account of ‘super-managers’ in particular. There are organizatio…
Graham Harman, Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory
The philosopher Graham Harman argues that contemporary debates about the nature of reality as such, and about the nature of objects in particular, can be meaningfully applied to social theory and practice. With Immaterialism, he has recently provided a case-based demonstration of how this could happen. But social theorists have compelling reasons to oppose object-oriented social theory's 15 principles. Fidelity to Harman's aesthetic foundationali…
Stephen Dunne reviews No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy by Linsey McGoey
To Be or Not to Be Governed Like That? Harmful and/or Offensive Advertising Complaints in the United Kingdom’s (Self-) Regulatory Context
This paper demonstrates how the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) governs advertising ethics with and on behalf of its members and stakeholders. Drawing on an archive of 310 non-commercial (i.e., not-for-profit and public) adjudication reports, we highlight the substantive norms and procedural mechanisms through which the ASA governs advertising complaints alleging offence and/or harm. Substantively, the ASA precludes potential normative…
Habits, Infinite Jest and the recoveries of pragmatism
Behaviourists treat habits as thoughtlessly undertaken actions. Pragmatists, by contrast, emphasise the role intelligence plays in habit’s cultivation. Although organisational analysts have tended to prefer behavioural approaches to habit, pragmatism has been recently resurgent. This paper analyses how David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest dramatises this hermeneutical dichotomy. The novel, we demonstrate, represents the difference between termina…
Time management between the personalisation and collectivisation of productivity: The case of adopting the Pomodoro time-management tool in a four-day workweek company
Time-management technologies and their adoption into daily working life have been discussed as solutions for managing individual productivity and as problems that intensify individualised productivity, enhance the norms of busyness and disconnect colleagues from one another. However, drawing on the case study of a company that implemented a four-day workweek, this paper argues that this is not always so. In our case company, a digital marketing a…
From Rating System to Thought Leadership: The Evolution of the Canada Green Building Council
Green Building Social Movement Organizations encourage the adoption of green buildings, primarily by promoting sustainability rating tools. While numerous papers have explored the market impact of these sustainability rating tools, very few have examined either the lengthy and protracted process of their selection and enrollment by organizations, or even their impact upon the structure and governance of organizations. This paper fills these gaps …
Architectural design and managerial control: Lefebvre, Latour and the process of enrollment
Organizational scholarship on architecture often applies Henri Lefebvre’s conceived, perceived , and lived framework. Karen Dale and Gibson Burrell, most notably, have illustrated how architectural design exploits each of these, exerting managerial control through processes of enchantment, emplacement , and enactment . Although this “3E framework” has been productively applied to buildings from the modern and postmodern periods, its weaknesses be…
From compliance to convening: The transformation of the Canada Green Building Council
Green Building Movement Organizations often advance their social change agenda through market transformation initiatives. Over the past 25 years, many such organizations have used Sustainability Rating Tools–for example green building certifications that guide and recognize the inclusion of sustainable elements–to pursue this objective. But the industrial adoption of these tools has become saturated within market niches and ignored in others, lea…
Platonic Business Ethics: A Survey of the Past and a Discussion of the Future
This paper discusses the achievements, the possibilities, and the challenges of Platonic business ethics. Through a systematic scoping review of 695 articles published in 13 business and management journals, it undertakes a knowledge-stock analysis of the almost complete range of Plato’s written texts that have influenced business ethicists and identifies five prominent ways in which they have applied his work. It finds that Plato’s Republic has …
Marxism, marketing and consumer research
Sociology (15 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Economics (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Business (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works)