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As a major concept in sociological theory, estrangement can be understood through a diversity of theoretical lenses. However, there is a tendency among sociologists to identify the idea of estrangement with a version of alienation. In this chapter, I counter this tendency to reduce estrangement to one of its conceptual possibilities. To provide a theoretical analysis of estrangement, I first examine the classical views of the issue. I argue that classical theories – both critical and interpretive – fail to theorize sufficiently self-estrangement, a dimension of the concept that remains underexplored. Thus, I move beyond classical sociology to reconstruct the idea of self-estrangement, drawing on more recent interpretive and critical theories, especially theories of social interaction and the self. Specifically, I discuss several interactional forms of self-estrangement, and the connection between self-estrangement, institutional contexts, emotions and the body. Finally, I consider this concept in the context of civil society. This discussion demonstrates the merits of a focus on self-estrangement applied to the study of political exclusion.

In the previous chapter, I introduced trauma-informed care as an approach to organisational change and a shift in culture to recognise that many employees and people attending services have past trauma experiences. In this chapter, I recast servant leadership (SL) as a trauma-informed leadership model that naturally operationalises some of the principles discussed in the TIA literature. The first section of this chapter addresses the societal need for a more ethical and moral leadership approach, before briefly outlining the prevalence of trauma experienced by service users and employees. The next section provides an overview and definition of SL in a general sense, before articulating a trauma-informed model of SL and its characteristics. Finally, some of the outcomes associated with SL are discussed with a key focus on how this approach operationalises the principle of psychological safety, trust and empowerment found in trauma-informed approaches, as they relate to employees.

Merger review policy among countries varies according to the weight given to consumers relative to producers. When both receive their full welfare weight it is said that the efficiencies defense is fully realized. No well-developed economic rationale has been given for giving more weight to consumers. Such a rationale is given here by considering equity and efficiency both as goods for which there is a willingness to pay. The willingness to pay approach not only provides a rationale for giving consumers greater weight as with, e.g. a price standard, but also shows how in principle the weight is to be derived. The merger of Superior Propane and ICG Propane in Canada raises issues of the tradeoff of equity and efficiency. The willingness to pay approach is applied to this merger as an illustration.

This chapter takes the form of an open feminist letter, a complaint and a manifesto presented to the Critical Management Studies (CMS) Academy. It is posted with urgency at a time when Patriarchy is resurging across the globe. My complaint is against the misogyny and the moral injury done to all of us and to our participants through our detached, disembodied, non-relation, pseudo-objective, masculine ways of becoming and being CMS scholars. Drawing on the thinking of Hélène Cixous, I offer five gifts as strategies to break with the masculine reckoning and open up our scholarship to féminine multiplicity and generativity: loving not knowing, return to our material bodies, rightsizing theory, knowledge made flesh-to-flesh and women’s writing. I visit, and suggest our scholarship will benefit from visiting, Cixous’s School of the Dead and her School of Dreams. I advocate for social theatre/performative auto/ethnography as a way to effect change in organisations. Finally, I present a manifesto for women’s writing that can help take our scholarship ‘home’ and contribute to the creation of flourishing organisations. This letter is a Call to Arms.

Love and force are thought of as the ultimate antithesis in human relations; the substitution of love for force is the utopian dream, the consummation devoutly to be wished but hardly hoped for, the far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves – perhaps – slowly if at all. It may therefore seem perverse to raise a question as to whether there is any fundamental or real difference between love and force. Yet consideration of that question will show that from a scientific, logical point of view, love is equivalent to force in human relations, and is in fact but a variety of force. It will show too, that force in the world in general, to be given any meaning at all, has to be regarded as a kind of love, as Empedocles contended long ago. This is no mere speculation or word-play; the point is of the most fundamental and practical significance in the field of social science, regarded as a project for improving the quality of social life.

This chapter describes the business goals, purpose, and strategy of public defense and military services. It reinforces defense and military organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public sector cultures. The bureaucratic culture of diplomacy is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. Additionally, the authors explain why focusing on the beliefs layer is the dominant layer and the essential starting point for analysis in military cultures. The public service culture (Tier 2) is a mediating and grounding culture for the military. It is firmly grounded in the foundational values of the state. The chapter outlines the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in the defense and military landscape. Finally, the potential value and challenges of developing internal knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) cultures are explored.