Organizational magical realism

This paper seeks to conceptually explore the role of magic, enchantment and mystery that exist as an organizational phenomenon in counterpoint to the often over articulated economically rational views within modern organizations. We introduce the term “organizational magical realism” to sensitize the reader to the phenomenal world that underpins the hegemonic framing of economic rationality that permeates most management discourse and to capture the dialectic between the manifest objective framing of most organizational interaction and its latent subjective meaning and context. Drawing from the use of the term magical realism in literary theory, we draw together disparate threads of academic research scattered throughout management scholarship that support five core tenets of magical realism. We briefly outline these tenets and discuss what they mean for the world of organizations. We conclude with a discussion of the managerial and research implications of this perspective.