Are organizations bicycles? On hosophobia and neo‐gnosticism in organizational thought

Abstract

Organization has a very complex relationship with contamination in the sense that they both need and fear it. We define this ambivalent or paradoxical characteristic of organization as hosophobic and argue that some forms of contamination are deemed to be dangerous whereas other forms, most notably the contamination of people, are considered as more than welcome. Using some philosophical sources (Deleuze, Sloterdijk, pataphysics, neognosis), we explore the organizational ambivalence towards contamination and ask whether other, new, unexpected forms of contamination are imaginable in organizations. We claim that the hosophobic nature of organizations should be understood within the broader context of a cultural ambivalence in our society towards dirt, hygiene, infection, and immunity.