The triumph of imagology—a paradise for tricksters?

Having addressed the three broad subject matters in Chapters 2–9—consumption, higher education, and working life/organizations—it is now time to connect these themes, to formulate additional ideas, insights, and results based on synthesis as well as summaries and conclusions. This will be done here and in the final chapter. Below I address further the significance of expectations and desire. The title of Kovel’s (1981) by now somewhat dated book, The Age of Desire, is probably much more appropriate today than 30 years ago. Recession and financial crises in some countries can temporarily attenuate the rampage of desire for some groups—with reduction in the material standard of living, concerns other than desire may require attention—but this does not disturb the overall picture of the dominant inclinations in post-affluent society. I start the chapter by addressing post-affluence and, in particular, how expectations of the good consumption and working life are gradually raised so that reality, when salient, may be a source of frustration and disappointment more often than delivering what it should. People in ads are always happier and more beautiful than the consumers trying to imitate them. The institution recruiting students seldom undersells the quality of its teaching, or the employment that may follow for graduates. The job title increasingly promises something better than the actual job tasks. Having pointed at the misfortunes of reality—or ‘shit happens’—I then make some specific links between education, work, and consumption, before moving quickly over to how statistics often support competitions in showing the right numbers to make things appear to be good, sometimes at the expense of the quality of the phenomena the numbers are supposed to say something about. I also address how the understanding of grandiosity and illusion tricks can be further developed through the use of Kundera’s concept imagology. Here, in particular, I draw upon Kundera’s claim that people occupied by imagology constitute a broad, diverse, but rapidly expanding set of occupations leading the road to grandiosity.

Leadership—a driving force or empty talk?

However, if, as we have seen, more education, training, and professionalization is not always the ideal way to improve society and its institutions, maybe leadership can do the trick and achieve fine results? And maybe this is the answer to the frustrations experienced by many groups and individuals? Perhaps good leadership can lead to a better working life and results that will satisfy shareholders and tax payers? This is what is claimed, on a broad front today—perhaps somewhat too widely. Leadership can be seen as a way of boosting the status and position of managers. Going from mere managers to becoming leaders parallels the efforts many occupations undergo to become more professional. ‘Leadershipization’ and professionalization can therefore be seen as parallel phenomena, triggering and reinforcing each other. The status boosting of groups of employees makes managers extra eager to add a new impressive quality to what they do. Recent decades have witnessed an enormous expansion of interest in ‘leadership’. Contemporary discussion and books about managerial leadership certainly cover a broad terrain, and there are no limits to what leadership is supposed to accomplish in terms of improving the feelings, thinking, values, ethics, change-mindedness, and the satisfaction and performance of followers (subordinates). The leader has become one of the dominant heroes of our time—even a mythical figure. When faced with major crises or even mediocre performances, cries for superior leadership are heard. All kinds of institutions, from firms to schools and universities to churches, are supposed to benefit greatly from more and better leadership. Whatever the problem, leadership has become the solution, and it is a standard recipe for success. Much of this interest in leadership revolves around change and development, and the ability of leaders to get people involved in and committed to opportunities beyond their everyday realities. Employees may be bored, tired, or alienated at work, but effective leadership is expected to address such problems. Followers are thought to be inspired and influenced by leaders, thus overcoming uncertainty, narrow mindedness, and low motivation.

The costs of grandiosity

A critical reader might well ask at this point: What is the real problem? Why is this author so worried about what most people may see as positive things in life: increased consumption, more education, promises about a working life with stronger ingredients of milk and honey? The sceptical reader may want to challenge this text and pose the following critical questions: . Why not just accept what people want? Isn’t it natural that people want more—and more? Of course, people are looking for more things and want to increase their consumption. And if they want to pay the earth for things with certain brand names, maybe they will be more satisfied with that? . So what if there is a lot of higher education, even if all the graduates do not get jobs? It’s good to keep people occupied and out of the way in a cheap and agreeable manner. And don’t the students always learn something in all these courses? They don’t perhaps become smarter, but education is better than unemployment. . Why not permit new and finer titles and labels? Why not make elites and others happy through using knowledge vocabulary to describe society, economy, and the population? And if all these university colleges, polytechnics, and other higher education institutions want to call themselves universities, why not be generous? The division between universities and university colleges only favours those snobs who work or study at the former places. And the liberal awarding of titles like ‘marketing director’ and ‘professor’ might give the people concerned a nice title on their business cards and make them happier, perhaps more motivated, and make their spouses proud. . Who cares about ‘real’ equality of opportunity for women and minorities if there are fine equal opportunity policies and programmes? If we have a sufficient number of women who are promoted to fill their quotas on the board and in higher education, we will have sufficient equality to comply with the statistics, and then everyone can be happy.

Organizational structures on the beauty parade—imitations and shop-window dressing

As we have seen, an excessive interest in change—or at least the initiation of more or less well-considered projects—is closely linked to a high degree of sensitivity for what people think others are doing. As there are frequent mass media reports about the strong need for change and organizations are often engaged in various change activities, it is vital to keep up—both with the general norm and with the signalled moves of others. The risk of deviating and, in particular, falling behind is a major motive force. A key factor here is the surface—what seems to be visible from a distance and without much deeper knowledge—in an organizational and management context. This chapter focuses on the links between these aspects, in which imitations and fashions have a particularly high impact at the shop-window level (i.e., the illusion level), and where an increasing emphasis on the shop-window factor encourages imitations and fashion-following behaviour. This chapter then takes the phenomenon of imitation seriously. But even if the desire to keep up with norms and fashions and the fear of lagging behind other organizations—in general or in one’s sector—play a role, how significant is it? It may only have a moderate impact, compared with efficiency concerns, for example. And surely responsible executives, politicians, and other policymakers are strong, independent, reasonably thoughtful, and rational actors, who generally have good reasons for their decisions and the organizational structures they are responsible for? Or is the almost caricature-like view of organizations as almost slavishly following fashions ‘true’? No precise answers are possible, but research and insightful observations by respected commentators may give important material for informed reasoning. In this chapter, I start with the phenomenon of imitation and convergence between organizations by exploring the impact of adapting new formal structures in organizations within a certain sector. There are reasons to believe that imitation of ‘leaders’ and following fashion are far from insignificant. Then this is related to the issue of the ‘depth’ of such imitation tendencies, where the window-dressing aspects are emphasized.

Higher education—triumph of the knowledge-intensive society?

‘Be something great’ and ‘fast track to top jobs’ were two headlines in advertisements for education that caught my eye some time ago. The specific message was that a specific school was offering a route to success and a brilliant career. In other words, education paves the way for success in life. With the passing of time, this has become a well-established truth. There are no other options—unless you have exceptional talents in the arts, sports, or the entertainment context. Fantasies and hopes for an outstanding career are encouraged on a broad front. The higher education sector has developed rapidly, even exploded, in recent decades and so have promises of a fantastic career resulting from a degree of the right kind and at the right place. In one UK university, the business school building is plastered with large posters claiming that ‘We create world-class minds’. And a Swedish university, located in a remote part of the country and with difficulties in recruiting faculty members and students, advertises heavily, claiming ‘research and education in world class’. If an institution is not ‘world class’ it is often described in terms of ‘excellence’. At my own university a few years ago, I saw a poster headed ‘Do you want to be President or Group CEO?’ for a course in commercial law specially designed for people who expect to reach the top in the near future. Since the target group consists of students, and most of them will probably have to bide their time for a decade or two before they can put ‘President’ or ‘Group CEO’ on their business cards, we may conclude that the department in question has realized the value of a long-term approach, and is assuming that many students have a high estimation of their potential. Perhaps education institutions support such more or less realistic self-images and career aspirations. If the department in question succeeds in recruiting a large number of students, it is perhaps primarily the less realistic self-images that will be reinforced. At a more collective level, education is now also considered to pave the way for national greatness.

A place in the sun—occupational groups’ professionalization projects and other status and influence ambitions

In an age of high—even galloping—expectations of better working and living conditions, higher status, and an active role in a ‘knowledge-intensive society’, it is hardly surprising that many employees and occupational groups want to advance their positions. They want to have the status, attractive working conditions, and influence that they feel they deserve. There are participants in various fields—researchers, popular authors, teachers, trade unions, and representatives of various professions—who are keen to launch ideas about the importance of their specific occupation or field of knowledge, and what the general public, organizations, and clients would gain if that occupation or field of knowledge had greater influence and status. Many of these attempts to advance positions take the form of launching and reinforcing such occupations by turning them into professions. Increased professionalization is broadly viewed as a good thing, in the interest of the specific occupation concerned as well as for society as a whole. This applies particularly to occupations in the public sector, where the achievements are often hard to determine, as previously mentioned. The absence or weakness of the market as a disciplinary mechanism—showing often more interest in what is delivered (or believed to be delivered) than in formal qualification and authorization of groups—also leads to a direction of energy into professionalization projects. Scoring high on signs of being a ‘profession’ becomes an indicator of success. Exceptions include such occupations as engineers, managers, consultants, and advertising experts are in most countries not certified or professionalized in any strict sense—and when they are targeted for certification efforts this is attributed little significance (Alexius, 2007). (Chartered accountants are a somewhat different matter.) However, generally, there is an increasing focus on regulating which occupational groups are to be entitled to do what, by applying statutory provisions and formal requirements for education and training. As is the case with many other popular concepts, the term ‘profession’ is used in different ways. But the general notion is that a profession is better than a ‘non-profession’ and professionalization is typically viewed as a way to bring an occupation forwards and upwards in the battle for status, respect, influence, and attractive job positions.

Higher education—an image-boosting business?

In this chapter, I continue to address higher education. A key question is the role and function of higher education, especially the universities, in contemporary society. Is it primarily a vehicle for the improvement of knowledge and intellectual qualifications? Or is it about other issues? As hinted at in Chapter 4, there seems to be a lot of variation and a lot of shakiness concerning learning and improvement of cognitive capacities for all or the vast majority of students. A second key question is what the signifier ‘university’ means (in the context of education). Does it mean anything particular or is it just a label intended to trigger positive responses and then work as an umbrella for all kinds of activities? This raises the question as to what extent the entire sector in itself, rather than merely certain arrangements within higher education institutions, can be viewed as an illusion (i.e., not accomplishing what it increasingly claims that it represents and achieves). Higher education is perhaps better at producing degrees, documentation for CVs, and keeping young people out of unemployment for a few years than producing knowledge and people who are good at critical and abstract thinking, seeing patterns, and analysing problems. A third key question concerns the benefits of higher education for individuals. Do people, on the whole, gain from higher education and, if so, in what ways? This chapter is rather broad in scope. It starts with critically examining to what extent higher education—here,meaning primarily university education— leads to qualifications and whether an academic degree offers a clear message about the graduate’s ability. These questions are related to, and trigger further consideration of, inflation tendencies in the entire educational sector, but in particular in universities. One potentially significant and problematic outcome of the inflation is over-education; i.e., the number of graduates strongly exceeds the number of jobs for which their formal education and degrees indicate they are qualified. A heavily expanded, and often dominating, area of education is business and management studies. I give this sector some extra attention in the chapter, as it is my own sector.

Explaining the consumption paradox— why aren’t people (more) satisfied?

Given an average of 2 per cent economic growth and a doubling of the material standard of living every 30–35 years, one would assume that most people would be more than satisfied by now, experience saturation, and not be particularly interested in greater consumption. However, this is hardly the case. Few, except a handful of ‘green’ activists portrayed as naïve and development- hostile, doubt the value of growth and increased consumption. Economic growth is broadly viewed as a self-evidently rational and positive objective, and any stagnation, or a mere 1 per cent growth, is viewed as problematic. This is partly a matter of securing employment, of course, but equally if not more important is the increase of consumption. Why is there no satiation? Why these continual complaints that many groups in society are not getting sufficient increases in pay or grants to have a satisfactory material standard of living? Such questions are addressed in a review of a number of theories and themes that cast doubt on the great consumption project: Why does higher consumption, on the whole, not lead to greater satisfaction in life? Among other things, I touch on the need problem, the difficulty of making wise decisions, and the role played by consumption propaganda in forming and, perhaps, distorting the priorities in life and driving up expectations and claims. All these create considerable ambiguity and uncertainty around wants and consumption as a way of meeting these. I also address the significance of fashion and brands, making consumer satisfaction temporal and contingent upon living up to rising standards for what is acceptable. Finally, I discuss the time aspect and how people with increased consumption possibilities run into time constraints. One could talk here about the time limits of growth. I will also be returning to this book’s principal thesis about the social limits of growth and the problem of much consumption in post-affluent societies being of a positional character and leading to zero-sum games about benefits and satisfaction. The concept of ‘need’ is tricky. It is certainly true that we need food, water, oxygen, warmth, and sensory stimulation.

Consumption—the shortcomings of affluence

My first main theme is consumption, which is the focus of this chapter and the next. However, since consumer culture also has a clear imprint on the other themes covered in this book—education, working life, and organizations— consumption orientations and logics make themselves felt throughout. Consumption development is strongly characterized by zero-sum games and the cultivation of grandiose notions and illusion tricks. And maybe such features are typically most marked in the consumption area (in its more restricted, traditional sense). Consumption is about the satisfaction of needs, desires, and wishes, but of course also about the generation of those orientations. All this involves complicated construction processes. Given the enormous increase in consumption, at least in economically advanced countries, one would expect people to have become more and more satisfied. And perhaps feel saturation. But this is simply not the case. An interesting question is whether economic growth and increased consumption are satisfaction-creating projects? If they are not, and many indicators suggest they are only marginally so, the meaning of increased consumption in the world’s most affluent societies and groups deserves exploration. I start with a discussion of consumer culture, the increasing scope of consumption, and the apparently insatiable demand for additional goods and services, even in the richest countries. Subsequently, I examine some common views about consumption and consumers. The consumer may be regarded as everything from a heroic political figure to an undiscerning fool, from an active creator of meaning to a passive victim of market ideologies, fashion trends, and consumer manipulation. Next, I demonstrate that a massive increase in consumption is paralleled by a continual growth in demand, without any corresponding increase in satisfaction. The question then arises as to whether consumerism can be viewed as a major failure or at least a somewhat unsuccessful political and individual project. This chapter also addresses the significance and effectiveness of efforts to control consumers and consumption. The analysis of consumption continues in Chapter 3, addressing how consumption involves so many aspects and logics other than meeting needs, demands, and wishes, and can only, to a limited degree, be viewed as an ultimately satisfaction-raising enterprise.

Modern working life and organizations— change, dynamism, and post-bureaucracy?

Today’s working life can be understood in terms of grandiose ideas, illusion tricks, and zero-sum games. These three concepts provide a rather different perspective than conventional understandings of working life phenomena suggested by signifiers such as leadership, visions, strategy, change, entrepreneurship, innovations, and human resource management. Chapters 6–9 deal with four key themes in current organizations and working conditions. The first theme, addressed in this chapter, is ideas about major, drastic changes. People refer to the demise of bureaucracy and mass production, a transition to new forms of production and work organizations characterized by flexibility, dynamism, networks, knowledge intensive work, flat organizations, and so on. This is worth investigating, which is what this chapter aims to do. The second theme, which is tackled in Chapter 7, is concerned with the way in which organizations try to create legitimacy in relation to the predominant norms and ideas through formal structures signalling ‘the right practice’, without necessarily affecting the latter to any appreciable degree—in other words, an illusion trick. The idea is that organizations are increasingly devoting their time and energy to developing shop-window arrangements—designed to satisfy various groups interested in what is going on in a given organization, but without deeper insights into its workings. The third theme, covered in Chapter 8, discusses how various occupational groups are trying to advance their positions and gain status as professionals (experts) in line with ideas about the increased importance of knowledge and expertise. They try to get a hearing for their claims for a unique and superior ‘competence’ that entitles them a higher status and monopoly of a given sector of the labour market. People who are not formally qualified are kept at bay. Advancing positions through professionalization is not always so simple, however, since other groups have the same ambition. This involves, for example, personnel specialists, marketers, and nurses. The fourth theme is leadership, or rather ‘leadership’, which is discussed in Chapter 9.