Working Paper 2019/53/OBH (Revised version of 2019/35/OBH) The Return of the Oppressed: A Systems Psychodynamic Approach to Organization Studies Gianpiero Petriglieri INSEAD,
[email protected] Jennifer Louise Petriglieri INSEAD,
[email protected] [Joint first authorship] Draft, November 26th, 2019 Please cite as: Petriglieri, G. & Petriglieri, J.L. 2020. The return of the oppressed: A systems psychodynamic approach to organization studies. Academy of Management Annals, forthcoming This article reviews the history, foundations, development, and position of systems psychodynamics scholarship in organization studies. Systems psychodynamic scholarship focuses on the interaction between collective structures, norms, and practices in social systems and the cognitions, motivations, and emotions of members of those systems. It is most useful to investigate the unconscious forces that underpin the persistence of dysfunctional organizational features and the appeal of irrational leaders. It is also well equipped to challenge arrangements that stifle individual and organizational development. The article documents the tension, in this body of work, between an “outside-in” perspective, focused on institutions’ influence on individuals, and an “inside-out” perspective, focused on leaders’ influence on institutions. It also interrogates the marginalization of systems psychodynamic scholarship, positing that its marginality is both a social defense for organization studies as a whole and a generative feature of the systems