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Management in Conversation with Agamben. A Governmental-Political Interpretation of Modern Management

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Abstract

In this article, I place management theory in conversation with Giorgio Agamben’s political theology with the dual scope of offering (a) a critical examination of the Agambenian interpretation of management, and (b) an application of such interpretation to illuminate and eventually explain the nature of some decisive and persistent limitations of the discipline. The main argument is that Agamben’s theological genealogy of economy transforms the discourse on management from a matter of value to one of control. In the first section, I introduce Agamben’s political theological project and a couple of fundamental elements of Agamben’s interpretation of management. In the second, I discuss three fundamental shortcomings of management as a discipline that an Agambenian interpretation of management can make intelligible.

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  1. Notre Dame de Namur University, 1500 Ralston Avenue, 94002, Belmont, CA, USA

    Enrico Beltramini

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Beltramini, E. Management in Conversation with Agamben. A Governmental-Political Interpretation of Modern Management. Philosophy of Management 22, 187–203 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-022-00216-1

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