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Roland Paulsen . Photo

Roland Paulsen

Senior lecturer

Roland Paulsen . Photo

Slipping into functional stupidity – the bifocality of organizational compliance

Author

  • Roland Paulsen

Summary, in English

Drawing on ethnographical work at the Swedish Public Employment Service, this article contextualizes functional stupidity in relation to other types of organizational compliance. Rather than seeing stupidity as a personality trait, I argue that it should be regarded as a transient unreflective mode of compliance one may yield to for a number of reasons but also reflect on in hindsight. Based on the empirical material, I distinguish 10 ‘stupidity rationales’ emanating from reflective types of compliance with which employees can motivate the practice of functional stupidity. Functional stupidity can be seen as the modus operandi of ego-dystonic compliance we enter in order to endure long hours of imposed work assignments we would rather not perform.

Department/s

  • Department of Business Administration

Publishing year

2017

Language

English

Pages

185-210

Publication/Series

Human Relations

Volume

70

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • conflict
  • motivation
  • organizational theory
  • psychology
  • stress

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0018-7267