Toward an Ethics of Ambiguity in Critical Work and Organizational Psychology: From ‘Blank’ to ‘Troubled’ Subjectivity

Parisa Dashtipour (), Nathan Gerard () and Duarte Rolo ()
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Parisa Dashtipour: The Open University
Nathan Gerard: California State University
Duarte Rolo: University Paris Cité

Journal of Business Ethics, 2025, vol. 197, issue 2, No 1, 219-230

Abstract: Abstract In recent years, a scholarly movement has taken hold that is critical of work and organizational psychology (WOP). Referred to as critical work and organizational psychology (CWOP), this movement problematizes some of the foundational premises of WOP, including its lack of reflexivity on its own values and ethics. While bringing increased attention to reflexivity and ethics as vital to critical theorizing and praxis, CWOP has yet to concertedly engage with ethics. This conceptual paper has two aims. The first is to outline existing ethical approaches in CWOP. Reviewing the literature, we suggest there are currently three tentative critical–ethical positions: (1) a critique of mainstream WOP for its ethical failures, (2) espousal of a radical humanist ethics, and (3) an ethics of ambiguity. The latter is embedded in CWOP literature, but not yet articulated as such. Our second aim is therefore to make an ethics of ambiguity a recognized and explicitly embraced form of ethics that is rooted in a sustained engagement with the conceptualization of subjectivity as such. To clarify the risks inherent to theorizing ethics without a sufficiently robust understanding of subjectivity, we juxtapose ‘blank subjectivity’ with ‘troubled subjectivity,’ two notions informed by psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies. We argue that a theory of subjectivity as troubled is at the heart of an ethics of ambiguity. The paper concludes by discussing the contribution of an ethics of ambiguity to CWOP, while also pointing to some convergences between the different critical–ethical positions.

Keywords: Critical work and organizational psychology; Subjectivity; The ethics of ambiguity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-024-05760-6

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