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Doing Free Jazz and Free Organizations, "A Certain Experience of the Impossible"? Ornette Coleman Encounters Jacques Derrida

Griffin, M.; Humphreys, M.; Learmonth, M.

Doing Free Jazz and Free Organizations, "A Certain Experience of the Impossible"? Ornette Coleman Encounters Jacques Derrida Thumbnail


Authors

M. Humphreys

M. Learmonth



Contributors

MA Griffin rsjf35@durham.ac.uk
Other

Abstract

Many scholars have attempted to make jazz relevant to an organizational audience. We seek to extend this literature by considering a more radical version of improvisation associated with the jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Inspired by an encounter between Coleman and the philosopher Jacques Derrida, we juxtapose the radical collective responsibility associated with Coleman’s Free jazz improvisation and Derridean deconstruction. We especially emphasize a phrase used by Derrida, ‘a certain experience of the impossible’ as an expression of a particular experience of doing management. The overall contribution of the paper is to explore the possibility of responding to issues within organizations in more participative and improvisational ways, without losing an appreciation of the inherent impossibility (perhaps even absurdity) of the managerial condition.

Citation

Griffin, M., Humphreys, M., & Learmonth, M. (2015). Doing Free Jazz and Free Organizations, "A Certain Experience of the Impossible"? Ornette Coleman Encounters Jacques Derrida. Journal of Management Inquiry, 24(1), 25-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492614532316

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date May 11, 2014
Publication Date Jan 1, 2015
Deposit Date Mar 17, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 17, 2014
Journal Journal of Management Inquiry
Print ISSN 1056-4926
Electronic ISSN 1552-6542
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 24
Issue 1
Pages 25-35
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492614532316
Keywords Coleman, Collective improvisation, Deconstruction, Derrida, Free jazz, Organizational democracy.
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1458264

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Accepted Journal Article (299 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
Griffin, M. and Humphreys, M. and Learmonth, M. (2015) 'Doing Free jazz and free organizations, "a certain experience of the impossible"? Ornette Coleman encounters Jacques Derrida.', Journal of management inquiry., 24 (1). pp. 25-35. © The Author(s) 2014. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.




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