The Triumph of Emptiness

The Triumph of emptiness  - GROUP ??

Previous studies in Business Administration

Grandiosity 

When scrutinizing the differences between the courses FEKA and FEKB, several things in which grandiosity plays a role can be found. For instance, when regarding the courses’ names, the word strategic has been added to the courses organization and marketing. Of course, the contents of the courses may be on a more advanced level with perhaps practical recommendations, tips and tricks, on how to act or manage within an organization. But still, one can argue, what makes a course (or anything at all) strategic? Is there any certain criteria, or substance, to fulfill in order to make it strategic or is it just a word that gives an attractive yet dramatic attribute of greater importance just for the sake of it? In this case, regarding the ongoing courses, having the name strategic might also make the course somewhat more exciting and perhaps more attractive in the eyes of its entrants. The logic seems to be that adding fine words into the name of a course and giving it an English name will create a sense that the course is a little more advanced and can be perceived as a way to raise the status of an education without actually changing anything fundamentally. 

Illusionary arrangements 

In the introductory course to Business Administration, the main focus in Marketing and Organization (at least in our opinion) was on models and aspects in a theoretical manner of the two subjects. This offered us a view of what to come in our working life, what the configuration of an organization would look like and what tasks will be of importance. However, this may not be the case. In fact, the theoretical framework presented to us through the introductory course may have little in common with or not be applicable within “real-life” organizational circumstances. The same goes with the ongoing courses in these subjects. The course contents and curriculum offers us a certain idea of how to solve problems presented to us in that particular field, where as in a real life situation, the opposite might be true. That being the case, the illusionary arrangements described by Alvesson can here be seen in the opposite direction – there is a discrepancy in-between what students believe is management and marketing and real life practice.  

This is not necessarily a critique of how we're being taught various things, but a reflection on how difficult it is to simulate problems that arise in everyday business life. In light of this, our previous courses have given us a stable foundation (but not a key to the solution of) from which we can address problems we are being presented to. 

Zero-sum games 

Within the previous course in Business administration signs of Zero-sum games are not as visible as the signs of grandiosity might be. A zero-sum game is a phenomenon where one’s gain entail another one’s loss of the same magnitude – success on someone else’s expense, that is. In turn, this is somewhat connected to grandiosity. For instance, imagine me being the only one with a bachelor degree in Business administration - this would be great for me. I have an education greater than the ones without an education of same sort - higher status, that is. Following, the ones without my degree feel inferior regarding their education and then decide to get a masters degree in Business administration instead to (re-) gain their status. Suddenly, my Bachelor has become “worthless” in a status seeking sense relatively their education. Therefore I then decide to do a PhD in Marketing, thus outdo and excel the ones with the MSc in order to gain the wanted status or job eligibility  (or whatever the goal might be).  

As long as there is improved knowledge for instance, or anything substantive at all to the titles, higher education and promotions should perhaps be exhorted when regarding prosperity and growth on a national level. However, what often seems to be the case, there is supposedly fallacious “title-mania”, which pushes fellow students and workers to obtain certain titles just to signal prosperity regardless anything new (except for the title) in order to, as earlier mentioned, excel their peers. 

Discussion of the view presented by Alvesson

To a certain extent, we agree with Alvesson on that Grandiosity almost has infected today's modern organizations where title-inflation is more rule than exception and therefore makes an excellent example of this phenomenon. But, although Alvesson may have good reasons for the points being made in the book, we find his portrayal of the phenomena and the effects of it a little to dramatic. It might be no reason to call an employee assistant manager who is not performing tasks that are in the boundaries of such a title. But in a situation like this, the "real" assistant manager would be called something else with a higher degree, perhaps manager. Point being made, the titles would just have been shifted up one level. Yes, inflated and unnecessary, but no worse than that. 

Furthermore, Alvesson suggests that grandiosity characterizes our society as a whole. This, we do not concur with. Although, we can find signs of Grandiosity within other domains than organizations and government officials, there are still ones where the tone is more realistic and down to earth such as the legal system.   

What we do concur with, however, is that problems may arise when businesses (and organisations in general) force themselves to seek candidates with a specific title or education, instead of testing candidates for their knowledge of performing the tasks within the particular positions. This tends to build a grandiose cover of an non-substantive core.