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This article explores the shadow dynamics of experiential learning using a psychodynamic perspective. It reviews the concept of shadow at the individual, group, and intergroup levels and draws on a short case from the author's experiences to consider how shadow dynamics may arise quickly and unexpectedly to take over the experiential learning classroom. It considers what the author learned about the shadow from the experience and how he conducts the experiential learning activity differently now to facilitate greater self-understanding and deeper learning.

This paper considers the Market Basket upheaval of 2013–2014 from the perspective of patriarchy, breach, workplace dignity, and social drama. It draws on Lingo and Elmes original data and analytic approach to their study of food workers in a family-owned, New England, supermarket chain who, after an unexpected change to the board, rose up to restore their patriarch and paternalistic institutional practices. It reimagines the Market Basket case through the lens of Victor Turner's social drama with a focus on key phases of the upheaval which included breach, crisis, redress, and reintegration. The paper considers the power of paternalism to unify and activate loyal, working class followers who benefit greatly from paternalistic practices and feel threatened by their removal. It also considers the risks of paternalism particularly under conditions where a charismatic patriarch has less benign intentions and workers follow with unquestioned loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uses psychodynamic perspective to explore tendency of small groups to regress to group mindlessness, where critical thinking is sluggish and individual differences are suppressed. Discusses dynamics of small group mindlessness and the emergence of dissenter role. Suggests ways of enhancing group mindfulness. (Author/TE)

Training programs designed to help managers and supervisors improve their communication skills often have the covert objective of manipulating the views of participants to ensure that the underlying system of domination is maintained. Three common ways by which mystification and manipulation is achieved during communication skills training are the use of the communication skills learnt to deflect resistance to control, the creation of a social drama to change the participants' interpretations of the nature of communication, and the development of a sense of indebtness among participants. Participant observation of one such training program confirms that there is a hidden side of communication skills training. Six techniques used to manipulate participants during this particular skills training program are also identified and analyzed.

Most models of large-scale change assume that only outside experts working closely with senior management can initiate and implement change successfully. Using the Polish Solidarity Trade Union case, a model is presented that explains how system insiders - who may or may not have formal status - have the potential to initiate and implement transformational change. The following two facets of the model are emphasized: legitimizing, whereby new beliefs, ideas and theories are legitimated; and reconstructive learning, whereby underlying beliefs and assumptions are explored and reformulated into new practices and ideologies. The article also addresses the relationship of legitimizing and reconstructive learning to implementing, the process whereby new practices, systems, and structures are set in place for the purpose of achieving desired objectives. Research propositions and implications for practitioners are presented. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Byline: Michael B. Elmes, Charles H. Smith This paper describes some of the problems that can arise in a mentoring relationship a relationship that is both power dependent and helping. It draws on Bateson's theory of double binds to consider ways by which mentors sometimes try to maintain a power imbalance in the mentoring relationship and how proteges try to resist that imbalance. It draws upon the spiritual insights from various wisdom traditions to offer ways to avoid and transcend those binds. The paper concludes with a short case to illustrate the key ideas from the paper. It calls for more research on the micro-dynamics mentoring relationships using clinical research methods.

This article explores the shadow dynamics of experiential learning using a psychodynamic perspective. It reviews the concept of shadow at the individual, group, and intergroup levels and draws on a short case from the author's experiences to consider how shadow dynamics may arise quickly and unexpectedly to take over the experiential learning classroom. It considers what the author learned about the shadow from the experience and how he conducts the experiential learning activity differently now to facilitate greater self-understanding and deeper learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how economic inequality in the United States has led to growing levels of poverty, food insecurity, and obesity for the bottom segments of the economy. It takes the position that access to nutritious food is a requirement for living and for participating fully in the workplace and society. Because of increasing economic inequality in the United States, growing segments of the U.S. economy have become more food insecure and obese, eating unhealthy food for survival and suffering an erosion of “equality of capabilities” that undermines their ability to play a “full and active part in the functioning of (their) community.” Unequal access to nutritious foods in the United States is attributable in part to an industrial food system that is designed to produce short-term profits for industrial food producers, processors, and distributors that extract surplus labor value through market concentration and opportunistic behavior at the expense of the long-term benefits for consumers, food workers (including farmers), and ecosystems. Economic inequality, food insecurity, and the erosion of equality of capabilities in the United States have given rise to protest movements, social movements, social innovations, and some modest strengthening of regulations to make access to and consumption of healthy food a right for every person. Implications for business and society research are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a conceptual framework for dissent dynamics in organizations. We integrate the dissent expression and management framework of Kassing with the dynamic institution composition structure of Saeed and Pavlov to construct a generic model for understanding organizational dissent. Our model hypothesizes the impact of dissent accumulation on organizational dissent climate, composition, and performance. Two performance measures comprise the performance grid to describe the current state of an organization and its dissent management policies—perceived management responsiveness and organizational productivity. We argue that dissent expression, tolerance, and management policies affect whether an organization is high or low performing. The conceptual model provides a future platform for experimentation and learning by simulating different policy scenarios and their influence on the paths of change and the new homeostasis eventually achieved by the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the critical role that food bank leaders play in sensemaking around the ethical and justice dimensions of hunger and food-related illnesses in the United States. It presents the discourses of industrial agriculture and food justice and, using an illustrative case study, proposes a preliminary model of ethical sensemaking. This model serves as a starting point for understanding how some (but not all) food bank leaders in the United States have been triggered to engage in ethical sensemaking and adopted a variety of innovative, sustainable, and just approaches to food banking that try to address the root causes of growing levels of hunger in the United States. The article concludes with an invitation to consider this investigation through the lens of Dewey’s moral imagination and Gergen’s forms of inquiry that generate practices to solve social problems and that invite researchers to participate in world-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]