The Absurd Workplace: How Absurdity Is Normalized in Contemporary Society and the Workplace

The current world is absurd. Faced with climate change, health pandemics, and ever-growing inequality, it is striking how globally, governments and organizations are malingering to find effective responses to these crises, leading to absurd situations where we are facing the destruction of the planet, while humankind is not making the necessary transformation towards truly sustainable societies and workplaces.

Focusing on these grand, global challenges from an absurdity and hypernormalization lens, the book aims to elucidate what is happening in contemporary society and workplaces, why there is so little improvement being made in relation to the grand global challenges, and how a more sustainable social transformation can be made in organizations. It offers a wide, yet in-depth, perspective on absurdity in society and the workplace and presents a theoretical framework, as well as in-depth case studies of sectors or organizations where absurdity manifests itself.

Presenting an overarching new perspective on society and workplaces, this book helps students and academics make sense of what is currently unfolding, and what can be done. The book therefore bridges theory, science and the everyday practice of organizational life, and how individuals working in a variety of organizations can contribute to more sustainable economies and societies.

Matthijs Bal is a Professor of Responsible Management at the Lincoln International Business School, United Kingdom.

Andy Brookes is a Senior Lecturer at the Lincoln International Business School, University of Lincoln, UK.

Dieu Hack-Polay is a Professor of Management at Crandall University Canada and an Associate Professor in Organizational Studies at Lincoln Business School, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom.

Maria Kordowicz is Chartered Psychologist, and Director of the Centre for Interprofessional Education and Learning and Associate Professor in Organisational Behaviour at the University of Nottingham. I am an affiliate academic at King’s College London, Lincoln, London Southbank and Birmingham Universities, leading and advising on health services research and evaluation.

John Mendy is a Senior Lecturer at the Lincoln International Business School, UK.