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date: 23 February 2020

Abstract and Keywords

This article makes a long detour by taking multidisciplinary understandings of ‘development’ and ‘technology’ via Ethiopia and Somalia. It discusses several news items that illustrate the current state of organization studies and its prospects. Organization studies might tell postmodernist tales about these news items. For instance, a postmodern story might engage the contemporary discourse about time/space compression to observe that time and space seem to be compressed only on the side of the powerful — for ‘the other’ of this tale appears to inhabit an ever-moving space in which time travels backward. Foucauldian versions might genealogize the discourses and practices of ‘success’ and ‘development’. Or, perhaps, the discourses of globalization could be deconstructed by reading the binaries embedded in ‘Martian microbes waiting to bloom and blow up in our bellies’ through the blooming bellies of African populations whose life expectancy is going backward.

Keywords: Ethiopia, Somalia, organization studies, postmodernist tales, globalization

Marta B. Calás

Marta B. Calás is Professor of Organization Studies and International Management in the Department of Management at the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and adjunct faculty in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at the same university. She received the SAGE Award for distinguished scholarly contribution from the Gender, Diversity and Organization division of the Academy of Management. With colleagues from the UK, she was part of the founding editorial team of the interdisciplinary journal Organization, serving in the capacity of editor for more than 15 years.

Linda Smircich

Linda Smircich is Professor of Organization Studies in the Department of Management at the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She received the SAGE Award for distinguished scholarly contribution from the Gender, Diversity and Organization division of the Academy of Management. With colleagues from the UK, she was part of the founding editorial team of the interdisciplinary journal Organization, serving in the capacity of editor for more than 15 years.

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