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Faÿ, E., Riot P. (2007): "Phenomenological approaches to work, life and responsibility", Society and Business Review Vol.2 Issue: 2, pp.145 -152.

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Guest editorial

Phenomenological approaches to work, life and responsibility

Eric Faÿ EM LYON, France,

Philippe Riot, EM LYON, France

Translated by Susan Turbié

Correspondence:

Eric Faÿ,

EM-LYON

23 av. Guy de Collongue

69130 Ecully Cedex

France

Tel : 33 4 78 33 77 38

e-mail : fay@em-lyon.com

Philippe Riot,

EM-LYON

23 av. Guy de Collongue

2

69130 Ecully Cedex

France

Tel : 33 4 78 33 78 75

e-mail : riot@em-lyon.com

Over the past few years many people have experienced a profound sense of unease at the

succession of strategic movements carried out by companies, which has led them to question

the hidden meaning behind the torrent of management-speak. For the pursuit of critical size

and perfect economic ratios in the short term lends neither meaning nor legitimacy to the

actions of the economic players. There is, moreover, a contradiction between the aspirations

to a company’s social responsibility (or that of the company’s employees), aspirations to

sustainable development and practices widely used in management circles (Flipo, 2004). J.

Gaski (2001) argued that, by focusing on techniques aimed at optimising results in the short

term, marketing obliterates any sense of meaning or ethics in favour of rationalism and

utilitarianism.

The thematic issue « Phenomenological approaches to work, life and responsibility ” aims to

help us better assess the concerns evoked above. Since it was founded by Husserl (1859-

1938), phenomenology has treated the issue of “meaning” not from the perspective of a

philosophical system but rather as a method which aims at reestablishing a genuine

connection with the “world-of-life” that each of us can experience in our daily life. Several

scholars have used phenomenology to criticize the limitations of normative and positivist

research in organizational science and to promote an understanding of business situations

from the individuals’ viewpoint: how they see, feel, perceive, and give meaning to the world

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they are a part of. Pioneering phenomenological perspectives in organization research, N.

Norman (1967) studied decision making, R. Harvey Brown (1978) organization praxis, P.

Sanders (1982) strategy, J.G. Burgoyne and V.E. Hodgson (1983) management, H. Dreyfus

(1967), T. Winograd and F. Flores (1986) Information Technology, C. Thomson (1989)

marketing, M. Diamond (1990) organizational dynamics, R. Boland (1985) IT and

accounting, … This special issue “Phenomenological approaches to work, life and

responsibility” focuses on the ultimate purpose(s) of our business undertakings with respect to

our lives. How can we work in an ever more demanding professional context without loosing

the meaning of life and our sense of responsibility?

In order to introduce the contribution of phenomenology to the abovementioned concern, this

editorial will firstly emphasize the originality of its critical perspective. A presentation of the

concept of ‘epoche’ follows. For it is through the concept of epoche that Husserl (1970)

shows the way to astonishment, to a more immediate experience of the present, the others and

ourselves. Epoche is foundational, it means that we do not appropriate any perceptions that

precede our own relationship to the world: epoche gives us a truer experience of life, of the

real, and by doing so, opens up the way to critical thinking, to life of the mind, and to

responsible action. We shall then proceed to introduce the practices of epoche carried out by

the contributors to this issue

The critical side of phenomenology

Since The Crisis of European Science, one of Husserl’s major works, all the strands of

phenomenological thought – some of which the reader will find in this special issue– have

been suffused with a questioning concerning knowledge and action in the Western world.

Where did this questioning come from? Since Husserl, phenomenology has revealed and

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criticised a conception of knowledge that is based on an abstraction of the world of life

reduced to figures and mathematical models. Husserl’s objection to such a positivist kind of

knowledge is that it is disconnected from singular reality, the reality that each of us

experiences; and as such cannot help us to address the question of meaning:

In our vital need,…, this science has nothing to say to us. It excludes in principle

precisely the questions which man, given over in our unhappy times to the most

portentous upheavals, finds the most burning: question of the meaning or meaningless

of the whole of this human existence. (1970 :6)

Furthermore, points out Husserl, action which meets the criterion of optimisation of the model

may be rational yet is hardly likely to be reasonable, precisely because it is not rooted in

singularly experienced realities and not open to the dynamism of development of personal and

community life:

Reason is the specific characteristic of man, as being living in personal activities and

habitualities. This life as personal life, is in constant becoming through a constant

intentionality of development. What becomes in this life is the person himself. His

being is forever becoming ; and in the correlation of individual-personal and

communal-personal being this is true of both. (1970 : 338).

If we examine modern management techniques in the light of Husserl’s thought, we could

observe that certain practices and philosophies are not averse to resorting to organised

collective action via the abstraction, technical objectification and instrumentalisation of the

people concerned through forms of psychological manipulation (under the influence of,

among other techniques, behaviourism). Being involved in such management techniques

means being constantly focused on 1) abstract, calculable 2) outside of ourselves, 3) distant

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“objectives”. As such, if due care is not taken, all present experiences only take on value in

terms of their relationship with an anticipated, abstract, unreal future (meeting targets,

optimising the bottom line,…). This way of thinking turns away from the present and lends

importance to abstract, distant parameters. Thus the real world that we can experience now is

substituted by an abstract, unreal one and the freedom of our action, cut off from lived

experience and from the dynamism of present situations and encounters is singularly limited.

Yet Husserl and phenomenology cannot be reduced to a mere critique of, for example, what

has been called by some the financialisation of the economy, but is a critique of a form of

thought which has flourished in the West since Galileo: the paradigm of abstraction, of

objectification and relentless projection into the future. Phenomenology, after Husserl,

stresses that thinking and acting in this way means being cut off from meaning, from the

“world of life” (Husserl), from the “own body” (Merleau-Ponty), from Being (Heidegger),

from the face of the Other (Levinas), from life (Henry). Phenomenology reminds us that

aspiring to abstract, distant objectives means living in an unreal world, a “virtual reality”, or a

kind of “idealism” (which would come as a surprise to many managers who are convinced, on

the contrary, that they have “both feet on the ground”).

The other aspect of phenomenological critique consists in identifying the “abstraction-

sensation” couple. For in this “unreal” world, a world in which action is valued purely in

terms of abstract, future objectives, there can be no living action, no praxis (an action rooted

in the present and based on the dynamism of a life shared with others ). From now on, with no

meaningful action, what is no longer motivated from the inside must be so from the outside.

Motivation techniques produce an ersatz of meaning (Sievers, 1986) and action becomes an

artificially stimulated action, to the extent of the exciting playing of games in the workplace .

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Thus a form of sensuality is substituted for our emotional life. And yet sensations are not

feelings. Thus, our bodies are enlisted in the service of action with abstract, distant objectives,

and, disconnected from the meaning of our lived experience. And, it is in this hiatus, that the

pain at work occurs, says C. Dejours (1998), based on a long practice rooted in

phenomenological thought. Thus, in criticising the “idealistic”, abstract side of certain

common management techniques, phenomenology also condemns its “sensualist” side.

The propositional side of phenomenology

And yet phenomenology cannot be reduced to mere critical thought. The essential, key

concept we owe to Husserl is that of epoche, or suspension [1]. This means leaving aside the

perception of reality such as we perceive it through stereotypes and simplistic abstractions on

the one hand, or through what we perceive as sensational and exciting, on the other. This

means agreeing to appreciate the true value of the present moment, of singular experience,

and in particular the experience of encountering Others. What is at the centre of this opening

up to renewed perception of beings, things and situations is decisive. For Husserl, it is a

question of opening up to the lifeworld suffused with the dynamics of personal and collective

development; for Merleau-Ponty it is opening up to the significant intention which gives the

painter’s gesture his vivacity and creativity, or makes the speech a “speaking” speech; for

Levinas it is opening up to the face of the Other that refers to Infinity, and calls for

responsibility, for Henry, to opening up to experienced life and its internal teleology.

This epoche opens up to the source of new thinking (pushing aside all taken for granted

assumptions), opens up to the source of personal and communal dynamism. In more technical

terms, epoche is the opening up to the “originary”, the source of the original, creative,

singular answer. Epoche thus opens up an ethic of responsibility that is rooted in the deep

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resources of subjectivity. Hence, the various currents of phenomenology do not offer an ethic

that can be added to the different standardising constraints to which modern man is subjected.

The general strain of phenomenological thought says “you can want what is good, because

what you are makes you capable of that”. Thus, epoche is not a moral duty but an ability

which can be deployed. It enables and empowers one to open to the present Other, to seize

one of the facets of the unexpected, of the potential of situations.

Let us underline now, as Paul Ricoeur did, (1987) that phenomenology offers “less a doctrine

than a method that is capable of many incarnations of which Husserl only exploited a fraction

of the possibilities”. Phenomenology should therefore not be perceived as a “doctrine of

salvation” but as a promising method. This method, as we have presented it here based on the

central concept of epoche, and is inseparable from practice. Through epoche, we have seen

that phenomenology encourages us to “bracket” forms of thought whose aims are outside of

ourselves and predefined, and thereby experience a truer, more authentic and responsible way

of thinking and acting with others. It is a series of this kind of experience that the following

texts encourage us to live: all are based on a questioning of or an astonishment at various

management practices or situations and encourage us to ignore their superficial meaning and

consider their deeper meaning. What does management tell us– or forces upon us, more often

than not – about the meaning of life, about our relationship to the world and the others? Is that

really what we understand? And, more to the point, is that what we want?

The contributions to this special issue

The paper by Bogdan Costea, Norman Crump and John Holm, The Spectre of Dionysius:

Play, Work and Managerialism,” is a most enlightening and in-depth examination of modern

management. Has not modern management declared the end of soulless, dehumanised work

that is cut off from the world of life? Has this not been replaced by methods which focus on

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the individual, on his commitment, autonomy, and creativity? And by doing so, has it not

banished the boredom of what used to be known as the world of work to make way for a

paradise in which the motto is “Work hard / Play hard?” Yes… It is precisely by analysing the

role of fun and games in modern management philosophies that the authors have attempted to

answer these questions. By referring to Koselleck and the importance he places on certain

foundational concepts, they show the significance of games in the generation and deployment

of new managerial technology that focus on the self and its infinite potential in order to ensure

boundless, effortless productivity: “From self-affirmation economic value will emerge”. So, it

would seem, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds - or at least until you read

Costea, Crump and Holm more carefully!

In Reconsidering Community and the Stranger in the Age of Virtuality,” Lucas Introna and

Martin Brigham point out that in the era of Internet, email and electronic forums, we are

offered unprecedented opportunities to create and recreate human relationships on a planetary

scale. And yet why should we communicate with a stranger who greets us in the form of a

“pop up” on our computer screen? Why should we, by clicking on his message, open “our

door” to the stranger, or reply “Sorry I can’t help”, or delete the message? In order to answer

these very topical questions, Introna and Brigham invite us to an epoche of our way of

imagining and experiencing community: we have, after all, an idea of community that is

based on common interests, on a culture of the “same”. Lévinas, however, suggests we

consider an “ethical community”, one which is created each time we agree to another as an

Other, and thereby agree to be disrupted in our self-centred existence. And yet how can we

change our view of hospitality when we receive the Other in the tenuous form of yet another

email in our overflowing inbox? Lucas Introna and Martin Brigham offer us the key to a true

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opening, an opening that hinges on ethical closeness where differences can come together.

Ultimately, the issue of such opening is nothing less that the emergence of a new universality.

In Financialisation and the Ethical Moment: Levinas and the Encounter with Business

Practice, Malcolm Lewis and John Farnsworth have the courage to raise the dreaded yet

highly relevant question of how an ethical standpoint is possible in a world of financial

rationality based on calculation and dehumanising abstraction. They build upon Lévinas’s

ethical philosophy and test it by analysing the case of Telecom New Zealand, which went

through a series of fraudulent financial acrobatics in order to hide its debts. But what light

can Lévinas shed on the world of business? According to the authors, it is all about “holding

open and reinvestigating the ethical moment as it emerges without giving way to the insistent

closure of the said”. This means insisting on the necessity of keeping the moment of decision-

making open – of practising epoche, in other words – and not succumbing to financial

rationality. It is only through this openness that the search for an ethic for the Other, and for

justice for all others, is possible. Malcolm Lewis and John Farnsworth following Lévinas

show how attention to the emergence of ethical moments can motivate ethical action and, in a

broader sense, political action: they show the realistic, feasible way to truly responsible

action. This article is a salutary invitation to make the most of these ethical moments, and is

therefore worth our utmost attention.

How is it that in the West, figures and economical and financial calculations are generally

accepted as the truth, the “economic reality”? In A critical and phenomenological genealogy

of the question of the real in Western economics and management, Eric Faÿ, in order to

answer this question, looks at the emergence of rationality as we know it from a historical

perspective, and shows how it reduces our notion of what is real. By looking at the

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emergence of rationality with this hindsight and following on from Michel Henry, he asks

another question: are there not other ways of perceiving what is real and true? Is there not, for

example, something to be learned from the hardship of work? Is not our life, with its dynamic

of development, as we experience it, more real than economic figures which are, after all,

mere representations? Two extremely revealing examples support his argument: we will see

how two managers practise, in their own way, epoche, and abandon for a while the quest for

results and giving way to their deep feelings. For these managers, a relationship with the

living source of inner dynamism is introduced or restored, and a new, living and responsible

relationship with others is established.

In Phenomenology of life, Zen and Management, Etsuo Yoneyama examines the role of

phenomenology in the context of an encounter between East and West, an encounter which

more and more people are making. Such an encounter can give us some perspective of the

way we think and experience corporate life. In the West, according to the Fordist model,

good labour relations are made possible by economic success, whereas in the East, an

particularly in Toyotism, good economic results are produced by the quality of labour

relations. Could not these two great traditions, phenomenology and Zen, be compared to

develop a critical analysis of these two models? This very question is the premise of

Yoneyama’s work. By referring to Michel Henry’s phenomenology, Zen and the work of the

psychiatrist Bin Kimura, Etsuo Yoneyama shows the different possible ways of understanding

human life and then criticises the terrible reduction of work to a variable of the optimisation

formula of invested capital. He shows that work is the subjective and intersubjective

experience of the effort made by people trying to support themselves and their families; work

is therefore rooted in subjective life and communal life. This elicitation leads him to compare

Fordism and Toyotism in terms of the development of knowledge and community. This line

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of thinking can give us a frame of reference to assess the different ways of organising life at

work. Surely working with others to find a way of working that is closer to human life in its

very essence should be what sustainable development in corporate life is all about?

Each of these writings in their different ways advocate epoche, suspense, decentring, taking a

fresh look at the way we think about and experience our working life. They invite us to

question our relationship with abstraction, figures and the so-called “economic reality”. They

encourage us to concentrate on the present and what is new, unexpected and living. Epoche is

both essential and possible as it reopens the possibility of a living relationship with others,

ourselves and the real. It opens up to the deep resources of life, says Faÿ. It opens to the desire

for the distant Other and to justice, argue Introna and Brigham. Epoche gives us the

confidence to undertake a critical standpoint at the ethical moment and to undertake a

responsible action explain Lewis and Farnsworth. It inspires us to think of forms of

organisation which are sustainable because they are good for human life argues Yoneyama.

But, warn Costea, Crump and Holm, we must being neither lulled nor seduced by all the

enticements that are placed today before us at work. We are delighted to be able to offer this

food for thought to the readers of SBR and hope that the richness, variety and harmony of

these texts may encourage dialogue and exchanges.

Acknowledgements

This thematic issue is mainly based on contributions discussed within the framework of the

International Workshop Phenomenology Organization and Technology.

We would like to thank Yvon Pesqueux (CNAM Paris), Martin Brigham (Lancaster

University), Hervé Corvellec (Göteborgs Universitet), Norman Crump (Lancaster University),

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John Farnsworth (University of Otago), Anne Henry (Université de Montpellier), John Holm

(Lancaster University), Rolf Kuhn (Freiburg), Lucas Introna (Lancaster University), Malcolm

Lewis (University of Otago), François-Régis Puyou (EM Lyon), Etsuo Yoneyama (EM

Lyon), for their help in reviewing the articles herein and/or their contribution to this thematic

issue.

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About the authors

Eric Faÿ is a professor of decision making and IT management at the EM LYON Business

school. He holds a PhD in Management Science. His ongoing research interest in the

phenomenology of life and psychoanalysis is a way to account for the speech, suffering and

living dynamics of today's subject at work His recent publications include “Life, speech and

reason. A phenomenology of open deliberation” Ephemera 5 (3): 472-498 and Information,

parole et délibération. L’entreprise et la question de l’homme. Les Presses de l’Université

Laval, Québec, 2004.

Philippe Riot has been a professor of strategic management at the EM LYON Business

School for the past eleven years. His research focus area centres on general issues concerning

relations between MNCs and societies. More specifically he attempts to address the issues

concerning the legitimacy and responsibilities of top executives with respect to the political

and social consequences of their decisions. He was formerly a professor of philosophy.

[1] Patricia Sanders (1982), one of the first authors to suggest applying phenomenology to the field of

management and corporate research, reminds us that Husserl himself, a mathematician by training, describes

epoche as a sort of “bracketing”: “If one wants to bring another part of an equation (or observation) into focus,

other parts are bracketed, leaving them constant but out of consideration. (…) Bracketing, or epochè is the

essential attitude of phenomenologist. » (1931, p. 108, in Sanders, 1982 p. 355)