PhD-defence: Anders Raastrup Kristensen

In order to obtain the PhD degree Anders Raastrup Kristensen, Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies, has submitted his thesis entitled:

‘Metaphysical Labour:

Flexibility, Performance and Commitment in Work-Life Management’

The thesis ‘Metaphysical Labour’ offers a critical contribution to the theories of work-life balance. Within the contemporary theoretical perspectives on work and life the individuals are constructed as being responsible for work-life balance by turning it into a problem of the personal behaviour, decisions, psychological traits and family condition of the human subject. Drawing on Deleuzian philosophy the thesis offers a different perspective that is not based on the individual constitution of the boundary between work and home. Instead, it is argued that the constitution of the relation of work and life is to be found in its individuating effects such as how the employees gives expression to flexibility, performance and commitment. In this sense the perspective of work-life management turns the theories of work-life balance on their head, because it begins with the constituting effects and not the constituting cause of the human subject. This transformation is shown and analyzed in two case studies.

The thesis is funded as an Industrial PhD project by Rambøll Management and the Danish Research Council.

Supervisor:

Professor Sverre Raffnsøe

Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, CBS

Assessment Committee:

Dr. Campbell Jones (Chairman)

University of Leicester

Professor René ten Bos

Radboud University Nijmegen

Professor David Knights

Keele University

The PhD thesis is available here:

http://openarchive.cbs.dk/cbsweb/handle/10398/7973