The Unending Quest for the Organizational Real: Lacanian Implications for Employee Socialization

• In Event: Alternative Models and Understandings of Organizational Socialization

Abstract

The managerial and communicative dimensions of organizational socialization for new employees are widely recognized. However, aspects that move beyond the current concepts managerial psychology call for further explication. We move toward a view of organizational positions and the socialization into these roles as constructions of Imaginary or Symbolic orders through a Lacanian lens. This approach posits that the processes and outcomes of new employee socialization will undoubtedly fail as long as they remain idealized through language.

Authors

• Carly Gieseler, University of South Florida

• Andrew Herrmann, University of Missouri, Columbia