Citius, Altius, Fortius

Thibaut Bardon (), Andrew Brown and François-Régis Puyou ()
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Thibaut Bardon: Audencia Business School
Andrew Brown: University of Bath [Bath]
François-Régis Puyou: School of Management [University of St Andrews] - University of St Andrews [Scotland]

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Abstract: "In this paper, we draw on Foucault's concept "governmentality" to show how a cohort of middle-aged senior managers who engaged in competitive endurance sports fabricated (avowed) "heroic" leader identities drawing on this repertoire of discursive resources. Neoliberalism constitutes a form of governmentality which encourages people to regard themselves as autonomous and to aspire to personal fulfillment by investing entrepreneurially in themselves as "human capital." Healthism, which requires individuals be responsible for their own health and wellbeing, is one program by which this is accomplished. We analyze managers' talk about themselves as people who self-examined, and sought continually to transform (improve) themselves, to avow identities as superior (heroic) leaders. Our study contributes to the literature on governmentality by showing how in neoliberalism "healthism" constructs managers as enterprising selves."

Keywords: Enterprising selves; Foucault; governmentality; healthism; heroic leader identity; neoliberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-09-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03979326v1
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Published in Organization, 2023, 30 (5), pp.942 - 960. ⟨10.1177/13505084211030644⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03979326

DOI: 10.1177/13505084211030644

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