The TV Series Severance as Speculative Organizational Critique: Control, Consent, and Identity at Work

Dag Øivind Madsen () and Marisa Alise Madsen
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Dag Øivind Madsen: Department of Business, Marketing and Law, USN School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway, 3511 Hønefoss, Norway
Marisa Alise Madsen: Independent Researcher, Roseville, CA 95747, USA

Administrative Sciences, 2025, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: The Apple TV+ series Severance (2022–present) offers a dystopian portrayal of workplace life that intensifies real-world dynamics of control, boundary management, and identity regulation. This paper analyzes Severance as a speculative case study in organizational theory, treating the show’s fictional world as a site for conceptual reflection. Drawing on critical management studies and labor process theory, we examine how mechanisms of control, the regulation of work–life boundaries, and the fragmentation of autonomy and subjectivity are depicted in extreme form. We argue that fiction—particularly speculative satire—can serve as a tool of theoretical production, not merely illustration. Rather than restating familiar critiques, Severance allows us to see workplace norms with renewed clarity, surfacing the moral and psychological consequences of surveillance, coercion, and instrumentalized consent. A methodological note outlines our interpretive approach to narrative fiction, and a discussion of implications situates the analysis within broader debates about organizational ethics, resilience, and critique.

Keywords: organizational control; work–life boundaries; speculative critique; identity at work; critical management studies; surveillance; fiction and organization theory; autonomy; narrative analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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