We have never been Deleuzians:

Desire, immanence, motivation, and the absence of Deleuze in

organization theory

Alexander Styhre

Dept. of Project Management/Fenix Research Program

Chalmers University of Technology
Aschebergsgatan 46, Vasaområdet Hus 3,
S-412 96, Göteborg, Sweden
Phone: +46 31 772 44 28
e-mail:
Alexander.Styhre@fenix.chalmers.se

Paper submitted to the 2nd Critical Management Studies Conference, The

passion of organising stream, Manchester, July 11-13, 2001

Abstract

Organization life and organization theory are based on technical-instrumental reason.

Consequently, theories of motivation are constructions that depict motivation as a
latent human quality that can be put into use through various techniques, methods, and
practices. Motivation is therefore, in general terms, an effect from either pecuniary
stimuli (as in scientific management) or emotional/relational manipulations (as in the
human relations tradition). This paper aims at discussing the idea of motivation from a
Deleuzian perspective. Deleuze has been largely neglected in organization theory.
However, this negligence is not excluding one single author, but very much an entire
mode of thinking, the immanent, empiricist, post-transcendental thinking running
adjacent to various forms of Platonism throughout history. The Deleuzian use of
desire as an immanent principle of creativity and movement enables for a new view
on motivation that does not assume external stimuli but sees motivation as the
continuous process of becoming.
Introduction

Intelligence thinks and says the unexpected.

Michel Serres

Today it’s hard to imagine the kind of demagoguery that reigned at Vincennes and in those
milieus: ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘I don’t get it,’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘Why use
complicated words like that?’ Deleuze’s course was continually interrupted by unbelievable
idiots. A real circus. Such is the price of history…

Félix Guattari

… we are not yet Deleuzian.

Ian Buchanan

Organization theory has developed from being either based on functionalistic thinking such as
transaction cost economics or agency theory, or on meaning-constructing perspectives
provided by cultural, symbolic, and narratological theories on organizations, to a broader
recognition of phenomenological and embodied theories of organizations (Hassard, 1993;
Jermier and Clegg, 2000; Deetz, 2000). In general, theories of immanence recognizing
concepts such as joy, happiness, pleasure, motivation, and transgression have been overtly
overlooked, ignored or marginalized (Brewis and Linstead, 2000; Hancock and Tyler, 2001).
Theories of motivation (e.g. Maslow’s [1987] pyramid of needs or Herzberg’s [1966] two-
factor model) are either functionalistic or de-politicized, and do not discuss their ontological
and epistemological assumptions (cf. Katz & Kahn, 1966; Thompson, 1967).
The aim of the paper is to discuss the notion of desire from a motivational perspective
and to base this discussion within a framework of Deleuze’s thought. The paper is structured
as follows: First, Deleuze’s philosophy is introduced. Second, the use of Deleuze in
organization theory is examined. Third, the idea of motivation is organization theory is
discussed and the notion of desire is introduced. Fourth, a theory of motivation based on
desire is sketched, and finally some implications and conclusions are examined.

On Deleuze

The philosophy of Gilles Deleuze has been largely neglected in organization theory. Deleuze
does not, just as, for instance, Derrida (see Kilduff, 1993), offer a single view or a master
model for analyses, but rather provides a package of concepts, textual fragments, ideas,
notions, and perspectives that can be employed in the study of organizations. In addition, the
philosophy of Deleuze is most personal and idiosyncratic and it operates primarily on the
ontological, “pre-empirical” level. Buchanan (1997: 388) writes: “It is hard work being
Deleuzian . . . he did not write anything with the specific intent of instructing us how to do
philosophy” (cf. Stivale, 1997). Badiou (1999: 96) writes on Deleuze: “He was neither a
phenomenologist not a structuralist, neither a Heideggerian nor an importer of Anglo-
American analytic ‘philosophy,’ not again a liberal (or neo-Kantian neohumanist) . . . As with
all great philosophers, and in perfect conformity with the aristocraticism of his thought and
his Nietzschean principles of the evaluation of active force, Deleuze constitutes a polarity all
by himself.” The philosophy of Deleuze is, I believe, most complex and includes (1) highly
personal accounts and comments on philosophers as diverse as Hume, Bergson, Leibnitz,

2
Nietzsche, Kant, and Spinoza (Deleuze, 1983, 1984, 1988a, 1988b, 1990a, 1991, 1993), (2)
his “own” philosophy that he labeled “transcendental empiricism,” based on a profound anti-
Platonist stance and a will to develop an empiricism based on notions such as desire,
immanence, and becoming (Deleuze, 1990b, 19994), (3) a “social theory,” co-authored with
the Lacanian psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and presented in the massive two-volume
Capitalism and Schizophrenia (published in France in 1972 and 1980; Deleuze and Guattri,
1983, 1988). In addition, Deleuze has also written books on cinema, art and literature
(Deleuze, 1986, 1989, 1997, 2000; Deleuze & Guattari, 1986). Numerous commentators
debate whether Deleuze’s philosophy is primarily based on Nietzsche, Spinoza, Bergson, or
Leibniz’s (or someone else’s) thinking, and whether Deleuze suggests a unified ontology or
an ontology based on difference (see e.g. May. 1994; Colombat, 1997). However, it is
questionable if it is meaningful and useful to try to fix Deleuze’s philosophy within the
tradition of specific thinkers (Ansell Pearson, 1999: 1). Deleuze was after all a master in
making use of philosophy, to take bits and pieces of thought and put them together with the
intent to create something new: “He’s an excellent example of the dynamic movement of free
and inventive thinking” (Serres and Latour, 1995: 39). Hayden (1998) writes:

Although Bergson, Nietzsche, and Spinoza are radically different thinkers whose philosophies are often
vastly divergent, for Deleuze they are all united on these points at least: The critique of transcendental
realms, causes, values, and principles, and the affirmation of a dynamic, fluid, and immanent world
within which human beings exist and create diverse ways of living. In this respect, all three thinkers are
regarded by Deleuze as belonging to a philosophical tradition that affirms immanence and criticizes
supernatural, divine, or mythical versions of transcendence. (Hayden, 1998: 68-69)

To be Deleuzian is perhaps, then, to have the courage and the capacity to construct new
images of thought on basis of divergent passages and philosophies, i.e. to create new
opportunities for thinking, to do the unexpected.
In general, Deleuze operates within what is often called a poststructuralist tradition
(Best and Kellner, 1991); Deleuze criticizes the idea of essences, the Cartesian separation
between mind and body, and emphasizes creation, novelty, and becoming over criticism and
analytical thinking (in the Anglo-American sense). Deleuze points out in numerous texts that
philosophy is aimed at creating new, useful concepts that enables for new forms of thinking
(e.g. Deleuze and Parnet, 1987; Deleuze, 1989; Deleuze, 1991; Deleuze and Guattari, 1992).
In brief, philosophy is a “box of tools,” a series of concepts and statements aimed at bringing
forth new thinking. Thus, Deleuze is a philosopher of becoming and creation, a thinker
staunchly resisting to do “state philosophy” in the Hegelian sense, a writer that constructs
fundamentally open-ended systems (rhizomes, multiplicities, assemblages) that enables for a
thinking of change. All the paradoxes (e.g. “transcendental empiricism,” “unity and
difference”) and subtle elaborations on classic philosophy (the “close” readings of Nietzsche,
Hume, Leibniz, and others) make Deleuze challenging to read. It is an oeuvre that
continuously unfolds before the reader. Surin (1997) points out the originality of this
philosophy and claims that “even though he [Deleuze] had precursors (especially Nietzsche),
he was the first to invent a truly ‘post-dialectical philosophy’” (Surin, 1997: 10). In a similar
manner, Braidotti (1997) writes: “I think that it is to the credit of Deleuze’s thought that he
provides us with the valuable inroads into the contemporary imagination, in its conceptual,
political and aesthetic manifestations . . . Deleuze’s philosophy constitutes . . . a rigorous and
tightly argued attempt to reverse Platonism and undo classical theories of representation,
while avoiding relativism by grounding his theory of subjectivity in a concept of radical
immanence. Nothing could be further from the ‘pop’ image that is often given of his
philosophy” (Braidotti, 1997: 77)

3
 As opposed to other influential French thinkers of his generation (i.e., Foucault,
Lyotard, Derrida, and Baudrillard), Deleuze has not been very much recognized in
organization theory, and in those cases where Deleuze is referred to, it is primarily his social
theory of Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus that are invoked (see e.g. Hassard, Holliday
and Willmott, 2000; Bougen and Young, 2000; Chia, 1999). This paper does not aim at
presenting a conclusive introduction to Deleuze´s philosophy. There are a number of well-
written and informed book and papers that serve that purpose, for instance, Bogue (1989),
Massumi (1992), Goodchild, (1996), Stivale (1998), Marks (1998), or Schérer (2001). The
complex and highly idiosyncratic thinking of Deleuze might be of interest for various reasons.
First, Deleuze provides a post-binary image of thinking (Surin, 1997, p. 10) that can help to
reconcile or mediate the actor-structure problem (and other Platonist binary machines such as
truth/opinion, knowledge/belief, managers/managed) inherent to organization theory.
Following Spinoza’s parallelism, Deleuze does not give primacy to the mind over the body,
but rather conceptualize a plane of immanence wherein various bodies (in its broadest sense)
are related to one another. Second, Deleuze opens up for a radical critique of what Spinoza
calls the two illusions; the illusions of psychological freedom and theological finality
(Deleuze, 1988a), which corresponds to the two master-narratives of modernity, the belief in
rationality and progress. For Deleuze, there are no transcendental end or finality but only
movement and changes within, what he calls, following Spinoza, the plane of immanence.
Third, Deleuze presents a theory of becoming that put the notion of desire into focus; if there
are no transcendental values or ends as such, there must be some innate forces that produces
changes and movements (Badiou, 1999). Thus, a motivation theory based on Deleuzian
thinking would both problematize the ontological and epistemological assumptions in
traditional motivational theory and enable for re-conceptualizations of the idea of motivation
and change.
A possible path for a new theory of motivation is thus to discuss the notion of desire in
detail. In Aristotelian metaphysics the notion of orexis, desire, is seen as an initiator for
movement, the movement from actuality to possibility (Aristotle, 1986, 1998). Desire is here
an immanent force, capacity, or quality that are at the very heart of entelechism, the doctrine
of immanent teleology provided by Aristotle. The Aristotelian notion of desire is thus not of
psychological or behavioural origin, but is rather an immanent force enabling entities to
continuously develop and change. In everyday language and in psychoanalysis, desire is, as
opposed to the Arististotelian view, something more like a will or ambition. In an age
characterized by the belief in personal mastery and possibilities for agency, desire is
something that should remain under personal control. Therefore, the notion of desire operates
between the endpoints of being a brute force or a personal dispositional quality. When
thinking of desire as a component of a motivation theory, the problem of agency become
central. Two question arises: (1) what does the notion of desire mean in terms of motivation,
(2) is it possible to construct a Deleuzian theory of motivation that recognizes the idea of
desire.

The absence of Deleuze

Brewis and Linstead (2000: 23) write: “The work of Deleuze and Guattari has had relatively little
impact in organization theory.” Chia (1999: 222) says that “[o]utside of French post-structuralist
interests, many may not have even heard of Deleuze, let alone read and understood his works.”
However, Goodchild (1997: 1) believes in a newly awaken interest in the philosophy of Deleuze
and claims that “Deleuze and Guattari have again attained renown, this time mainly in diverse
fields among younger generations of scholars.” Even though Deleuze (and Félix Guattari) is at

4
times depicted as being notoriously complicated to read (see e.g. Murphy, 1999: 546), there have
been some attempts to make use of Deleuze’s philosophy in social science. For instance, Braidotti
(1994, 1997), Grosz (1994, 1995), and Olkowski (1999) employ Deleuze’s philosophy in a gender
theory perspective, Bay (1998) presents a study of the derivate financial market based on Deleuzian
thinking, Bougen and Young (2000) discuss bank fraud from a rhizomatic perspective, Chia (1999)
makes use of Deleuze as a process thinker in his criticism of organization change theory, and
Brewis and Linstead (2000) speaks of sex work and sexualities in organizations partly based on
Deleuze. Still, Deleuze remains a peripheral character in organization theory for various reasons.
The criticism raised toward Deleuze is similar to that toward Derrida (see Rorty, 1982: 90-110);
they are both claimed to be complicated to read; they do not put forth straightforward propositions
or theories; they demonstrate a frivolous disrespect for (mainstream) philosophy; and, at worst,
their intentions and objectives are not made explicit and must therefore be doubted (see e.g.
Habermas, 1985). Both Deleuze and Derrida use their writing skills as a major tool for
philosophizing. Therefore readers unable or unwilling to handle complex texts demonstrate litte or
no patience with their philosophy. Goodchild characterizes Deleuze’s (and Guattari’s) philosphy in
the following very Deleuzian formulation: “Deleuze and Guattari’s critique is nomadic in style: it
does not aim at simple destruction, but aims to bring all fixed identities down back to earth, forcing
them to flee across the desert” (Goodchild, 1996: 48).
While the non-reductionistic view on the aggregate subject-knowledge-power provided by
Foucault have attained interest among critical organization theorists (e.g. Knights and Vurdubakis,
1994; Townley, 1994; McKinlay and Starkey, 1998; Chan, 2000), and the deconstructionism of
Derrida have been, at least partially, adopted by organization theorists that contributes to the
discourse on the end of the finite subject (Sotto, 1998), and thinker such as Baudrillard and Virilio
provide conceptual frameworks that are used in organization theory (Hancock, 1999), the
philosophy of Deleuze is still largely unexplored in organization theory. Part of the explanation for
this may be that Deleuze operates on what could be called a pre-empirical, ontological and
epistemological level. Foucault’s texts are filled with detailed empirical material and Derrida’s
earlier writings (prior to his “political turn,” see Howells, 1998) were based in the
phenomenological-hermeneutical discourse (e.g. Derrida, 1973, 1974) that has always been close to
the interpretative methodologies favoured in (European) organization studies. Deleuze, on the other
hand, makes use of a number of philosophers that are not (to make a speculative statement) very
much read by social scientists; Metaphysicians such as Bergson, Spinoza, and Leibniz paired with
canonical thinkers such as Kant and Hume, and “outsiders” such as Nietzsche and Sacher-Masoch
constitute a rather idiosyncratic corpus of influences. The absence of Deleuze in organization
theory does not only say something about the complicated and challenging efforts needed when
reading and understanding (if there is such a thing) Deleuze’s thinking, but also something about
the proclivity towards adopting new theory and new thinking in social science in general, and
organization theory in particular. However, as Fanon remarks: “We speak of the glory of Greece,
Artaud says, but, he adds, if modern man can no longer understand the Choeporoi of Aeschylus, it
is Aeschylus who is to blame” (Fanon, 1986: 121). It is not organization theorists that are to blame
for the absence of Deleuze, it is better problematized as an indication of a scientific community
being only modestly interested in novelty and change.

Desire: motivation or immanence

The idea of motivation assumes agency; motivation is a set of qualities or characteristics that
can be instilled, manipulated, or nourished through various techniques and methods, i.e.,
through management. The idea of motivation has been a perennial issue in the management

5
literature. At the dawn of modern management, Frederick W. Taylor’s (1913) main ambition
was to transfer the spirit of the dedicated Rugby-players that he observed into the workplace.
For Taylor, the outcome from the use of his principles of scientific management was the
construction of win-win situations, beneficial to labour as well as capital. Taylor’s pièce de
resistance, the impressive productivity improvements of workman Schmitt (cf. Wrege and
Hodgetts, 2000; Bahnish, 2000), is depicted as a just arrangement in terms of productivity
growth and increased income. If Taylor’s implicit theory of motivation was architectural in
character and monetary/instrumental in nature, the studies within the Human Relations School
took into account the social, relational side of motivation (Mayo, 1946; Whyte, 1964,
O’Conner, 1999). In the classic Hawthorne experiments (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1934),
motivation is an outcome from the interest shown to the workers by management; motivation
became of socio-psychological origin. In contemporary management discourse, motivation is
still seen as being a human faculty that is possible to manipulate through a number of input
variable that are both tangible (e.g. bonuses, salaries, career opportunities) and intangible and
socio-psychological (e.g. recognition, attention, feedback) (Herzberg, 1966; Maslow, 1987;
Brief, 1998). In most cases, motivation is seen as mediating variable between input and output
and is thus affecting performance. In general, motivation is examined in terms of “how to
improve,” and only a few studies actually investigate into the mechanisms that produce
motivation and commitments. The most wellknown study is perhaps Burawoy’s (1979) study
of why workers in a manufacturing setting work as hard as they actually do. In this case,
motivation is, which supports both Taylor’s belief in monetary benefits and the Human
Relation School’s emphasis on socio-psychological factors, both dependent on the design of
the piece rate system and on the informal competition between workers to achieve their
bonuses. Motivation is thus something that is situational (Haraway, 1991), it is produced
within the local setting.
The discussion on motivation in contemporary management literature emphasizes
notions such as empowerment (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Ripley & Ripley, 1992; Kerfoot &
Knights, 1995; Quinn & Davies, 1999), self-efficacy (Wood & Bandura, 1989), emotional
management in terms of personal involvement (Fineman, 1991; Hochschild, 1983; Mumby &
Putnam, 1992; Hancock and Tyler, 2001), and sense-making (Weick, 1995; Gioia &
Chittipeddi, 1991) as being potential input variables/management techniques and methods that
can enhance motivation among organizational members. The proponents of empowerment
suggest that the increased possibility to make decisions and act autonomously in day-to-day
work situations will produce more motivated and dedicated workers. The skeptics claim that
there are no evidence of empowerment programs that are substantial and not just includes the
most basic decentralization of administrative operations and routines. To develop a feeling of
self-efficacy, to be able to align personal beliefs and interest with the objectives of the
employing company’s activities, to promote mechanisms that make sense out of complex and
ambiguous situations, are all aimed at increasing motivation. However, all these diverse
perspectives share the view that motivation is something that derives from outside of the
individual and is thus subject to possibilities for managerial activities and manipulations.
Motivated and dedicated workers are an outcome from successful and well designed
management programmes; Motivation need to be instilled in workers just as software
programs are installed in a computer.

Motivation and rationality in hypermodernity

The notion of motivation as it is conceived of in organization theory textbooks is firmly resting on

the Enlightenment idea of rationality and human reason. Motivation must promote rational

6
solutions to practical problems. However, it is worth asking what rationality stands for in
late/post/hyper-modernity. Lyotard (1991: 69) argues: “What are called the human sciences, for
example, have become largely a branch of physics. Mind and even soul are studied as though they
were interfaces in physical processes, and this is how computers are starting to be able to deliver
simulacra of certain mental operations.” To Lyotard, scientific rationality is nomological, i.e.
promotes predictability and thus serves as a tool for social organization. To many social scientists
(and scientists in general, for that sake), this position is perfectly unproblematic. Critics of
scientific rationality, technical and instrumental reason, raise important questions that derive from
our lack of self-reflexivity regarding scientific practices. Castoriadis writes: “almost all societies
we know have instituted themselves in and through the closure of meaning. They are
heterogeneous; they cannot put into question their own institutions and they produce conformal and
heteronomous individuals for whom putting into question of the existing law is not just forbidden
but mentally inconceiveable. These individuals are ‘conscious’ but not self-reflective
subjectivities” (Castoriadis, 1997). Self-reflexivity is not something that is Vorhanden (Lynch,
2000). However, the criticism on the limited view on rationality that predominates contemporary
society is pivotal. For instance, Gephart, Thatchenkery, and Boje (1996: 364) claim that
“[r]ationality must take its role alongside other human capabilities such as love fear, pain, and
hope.” The instrumental reason of scientific thought cannot remain unreflected in an age where it is
our own mastery over our mastery of nature that is the main challenge for mankind (Serres &
Latour, 1995). This continuous reflection need to comprise all taken-for-granted and assumed
theories, models, theorems, and axioms that constitute our body of theory and culture. For instance,
from a post-colonial perspective, Spivak writes: “there is an affinity between the imperialist subject
and the subject of humanism” (Spivak, 1996: 211); the ideas of Enlightenment’s humanism need to
be critically evaluated in order to promote new thinking. Thus, rationality does not always rest on
what Heidegger (1966) calls calculative thinking, but also includes experiences of joy, pleasure,
and transgression. A post-instrumental theory of motivation must recognize the qualities and
experiences that derive from desire.

Joy, ecstasy, pleasure

Nietzsche says: “No life without pleasure; the struggle for pleasure is the struggle for life”
(Nietzsche, 1984: 73). He adds, in a similar vein: “The champions of truth are hardest to find,
not when it is dangerous to tell it, bit rather when it is boring” (Nietzsche, 1984: 237). To
Kierkegaard (1992), “boredom is the root of all evil.” Deleuze says: “Spinoza did not believe
in hope or even in courage; he believed only in joy, and in vision. He let others live, provided
that others let him live. He wanted only to inspire, to waken, to reveal” (Deleuze, 1988: 14).
Pleasure and joy is the mark of humanity; without joy, happiness, and pleasure, there is no
human culture. Bataille (1988) talks of inner experiences as the experience of being outside of
oneself, transgressing the subject. Bataille (1998: 48) writes that “progress negates ecstasy,
sin — equates life with project, sanctifies project (work): in the world of progress, once
project is recognized as the serious side of existence, life is nothing but permissible
childishness.” Inner experience is ecstasy; in ecstasy, “one can let oneself go — this is
satisfaction, happiness, platitude” (Bataille, 1988: 52). Following Deleuze and Guattari’s idea
of conceiving of desire as being the immanent force that produces creativity, novelty, and
changes, desire could be pinpointed as the plane of immanence for any motivational theory;
without desire, no motivation. Desire produces motivation as it produces subjects. The
assemblage of activities causing pleasure, joy, and transgression may seem “theoretical,”
abstract, or removed from everyday managerial practices. Organizational and managerial life

7
is firmly grounded in intellectual, instrumental rationalities. Nevertheless, there is no desire
isolated from everyday life; it is in the middle, always present (Styhre, 1998).

Desire

“Everything needful is always a bore” Euenus says (cited by Aristotle). Similarly, Bachelard
writes that ‘the conquest of the superfluous gives us a greater spiritual excitement than the
conquest of the necessary. Man is creation of desire, not a creation of need’ (Bachelard, 1964:
16). If need corresponds to actuality, the superfluous, excessive corresponds to potentiality;
the Aristotelian dichotomy is distinguished by movement, the movement from the actual to the
potential. Preceding movement is desire: “All desire [orexis] is . . . purpose directed. The
object of desire is the point of departure for action . . . Thus there is really one thing that
produces movement, the faculty of desire” (Aristotle, 1986: 214). To Hegel (1999), self-
consciousness is based on desire, while to Lacan, desire is the perpetual will for what cannot
be fulfilled, a production of absence from what is present (Frank, 1995: 38). Deleuze rejects
this Lacanian view on desire: Desire does not depend on lack, i.e. is an outcome from a
feeling of lack or absence; rather, desire produces (Guattari, 1995: 76). In Deleuze’s transcen-
dental empiricism, the notion of desire is primarily invoked in Anti-Oedipus. In brief, desire is
a complex notion. Marks (1998: 99) says that it is complicated to pin down desire in lexical
definitions, but prefers to talks of desire as “a principle of creativity, invention and
possibility.” Olkowski (1994) claims that Deleuze notion of desire corresponds to Nietzsche’s
will to power, i.e. that it is a force of creation. For Grosz (1995: 195), “[d]esire is an
actualization, a series of practices, actions, production, bringing together, making machines.”
(Grosz, 1995: 195). Brewis and Linstead (2000) also emphasize the idea of desire as being an
act of creation rather than a desire to fulfill a lack as in the Lacanian conceptualization. They
write: “Desire is here radically reworked, not as a drive that is directed at the fulfillment of a
need, a drive that works towards extinguishing lack, but as one that seeks to proliferate, to
reproduce, to improvise, to diversify, to create or to explore, to be curious, to play” (Brewis &
Linstead, 2000: 23). Thus, desire can be understood as being “immanent, endless, rhizomatic”
(Brewis & Linstead, 2000: 204). Deleuze and Guattari argue that modern capitalistic society
does not produce unified subjects prior to desire. Desire is the underlying social force similar
to that of the libido in Freudian thought: “social production is purely and simply desiring-
production itself under determinate conditions” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983: 29. Emphasis in
the original). They continues:

If desire produces, it produces the real . . Desire does not lack anything; it does not lack its object: it is,
rather, the subject, that is missing in desire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject; there is no fixed subject
unless there is repression (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983: 26).

Desire is thus preceding the subject and its various relations. The subject that is produced in
contemporary, modern society is schizophrenic, it resists categories based upon presence, i.e.,
identities as fixed essences and stable dispositions (see Braidotti, 1994). In the words of Clifford
(1988): “Intervening in an interconnected world, one is always, to varying degrees ‘inauthentic’;
caught between cultures, implicated in others.” (Clifford, 1988: 11). In modern, capitalistic
societies, the subject becomes a nomad, a vagabond, an assemblage transgressing boundaries and
categories. Deleuze and Guattari say that this production of schizophrenia is inherent to capitalist
society: “our society produces schizzos the same way it produces Prell schampoo or Ford cars, the
only difference being that the schizzos are not saleable” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983: 245). The
subject is no longer unified and based on fixed essences, but is “cracked” [Je fêlé], split into pieces,
and assembled of various entities (Boundas, 1994) — Orson Wells’ citizen Kane passing through

8
the hall of mirrors: “Transcendental empiricism, concerned with the issue of what it takes to
become a subject, is in flight from any notion that subjectivity might be innate” (Buchanan, 1997b:
494). In this respect, Deleuze’s Spinozist thought (for instance in terms of the notion of the plane of
immanence) is contrasting against for instance Žižek (1993) who claims that Spinozist thought is
the logic of capitalism — the principle of one substance and unity, the One over the Many. For
Deleuze, the notion of presence is firmly resting in Platonist thought and is thus a fundament for
what he, in a most Nietzschen formulation, refers to as “state philosophy,” philosophy aimed at
control and enslavement of the mind in terms of affirming “what is”, and not at creation (Ansell
Pearson, 1997: 6).
The most important consequence of the thinking of Deleuze and Guattari is the radical
criticism of transcendental categories and “extra-social” explanations for activities and events. A
post-binary, de-dichotomized, smooth space (Deleuze and Guattri, 1988) opens up, enabling for
new ways of conceiving of phenomena. Goodchild writes: “Deleuze and Guattari bring into
question by means of their immanent approach is that between words and things, theory and
practice, meaning and matter, mind and body, the artificial and the neutral, the social and the
physical: there can no longer be any transcendental principle maintaining a distinction”
(Goodchild, 1996, p. 82). Desire is not outside of our relations between one another and artifacts,
but is rather the substance that constitutes our being-in-the-world and produces us as the
enterprising, accountable, and customer-value-adding agents that are the favoured outcome from
the pursuits of good (i.e. legitimate) management. In summary, motivation does not derive from
instrumental reason but from the totality of human values, norms, wills, etc, in short, from desire.
Motivation is thus embedded in humanity, in human practices and procedures. Therefore,
motivation is not just an outcome from a number of managerial operations, techniques, activities,
and so forth, but is an ontological and epistemological grounded notion that must be examined as
such, unconcealing its assumptions and axioms. Motivation is a primordial concept.
A motivation theory of desire

A theory of motivation based on the idea of desire as being an immanent constitutive principle
needs to departure from the view on motivation as being produced through manipulations and
operations on the individual’s body. Motivation is thus not of external, transcendental origin, but is
rather seen as an immanent principle, a principle of creativity and potentiality. Second, such a
theory of motivation must acknowledge the notion of movement, the effects of Aristotelian orexis,
the movement from actuality to potentiality. Desire is always movement, albeit movement at one
place, outside of teleology and finality, and motivation must therefore be in a perpetual process of
becoming as the world unfolds before the subject. Motivation can never be at rest, awaiting
external stimuli, but is a force that can be used in various ways. Third, a theory of motivation based
on desire must dissociate itself from technical-instrumental reason in order to embrace hithereto
neglected human faculties and needs for joy, pleasure, happiness, and transgression, the transient
phase between the sacred and the profane. What is today seen as rational is very much a blueprint
of scientific operating procedures; the belief in reductionism, modest witnesses, collective
reasoning, and emotional, political, and socio-cultural attachement from its object (Haraway, 1997;
Shapin & Sheffer, 1985), in short, an almost complete dissolution of what are common sense
attitudes towards investigation. A theory of motivation based on desire must recognize that even
extra-scientific rationalities matters. The carnevalistic excesses in consumption, laughter, and role-
playing are also rational, even though they might not appear as such, investigated from a view of
instrumental reason. Leisure societies, “exotic” or historical (cf. Clastres, 1994; Veblen, 1994) will
always appear as deviant from our own, hyper or late modern social organization. However, a
reminiscent of the since long gone leisure societies remain in the form of the search for pleasure,
joy, and transgression.

9
 The most important point vis-à-vis traditional theories of motivation is that desire, as being
a principle of immanence, does not only affect the subject (as Taylor “affected” his subjects
through monetary awards and the Human Relation researchers “affected” their subjects through
various forms of manipulations) in terms of producing outcomes, but precedes the subject and thus
constitute a plane of immanence, a surface of operations, wherein desire operates. A theory of
motivation based on desire is therefore not only a theory of motivation as being a state, position, or
attitude towards the work routines and operations, but is equally a theory of the subject and the
relation between subjects and objects and artifacts. Desire is, in Deleuze’s account, not only a
personal trait (like libido), but is an ontological and epistemological principle. Desire produces, and
it produces the real (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983).

Discussion

Chia (1996) distinguishes being-realism, the “fundamental ontological posture which asserts
that reality pre-exists independently of observation and as static, discrete and identifiable
‘things,’ ‘entities,’ ‘generative mechanisms,’” and becoming-realism, an ontology that “gives
priority to a processual view of reality” (Chia, 1996: 33). Most mainstream organization
theory, Chia suggests, is based upon being-realism that assumes a representationalist
epistemology wherein classifications, typologies, and categories of “extra-theoretical
phenomena” are the main outcome from organizational theory. This view is rejected by Chia
who claims, drawing on Heidegger (1971), that “social entities, events and things do not first
pre-exist and then suffer descriptive distortions through language. Instead, language actively
configures such entities and events in the very act of representing. In our case of language we
do not just ‘write about’ our objects/subjects of analysis, but bring these objects into existence
through representational acts of writing” (Chia, 1996: 37). The becoming-realism suggested
by Chia is closer to a Deleuzian transcendental empiricism with all its becoming, fluxes and
breaks, bifurcations and ruptures, than the being-realism of traditional organization theory. In
general, the impact of process thinking in the tradition of Bergson (1998) and Whitehead
(1978) is growing as the process view on events and entities enables for new perspectives on
organization. Deleuze’s ambition to promote an image of thought that is not “striated,” but
“smooth” and open-ended is fundamentally based on Bergson and Whitehead, explicitly
acclaimed by Deleuze. The notion of desire is here thus seen as a processual force that
constitutes a surface on which entities and events develop. Motivation can thus be seen, not as
a libidinal force since the Freudian framework easily lead us astray into psychoanalysis (see
Derrida, 1998), but as an ontological category, to speak with Heidegger, an existential.
Motivation is thus what is developed in tandem with the subject. The subject and motivation
are both based on desire. In terms of becoming-realisms, the aggregate of subject-motivation
is producing subjects of becoming, not fixed and per se, but continuously becoming.
Subscribing to becoming-realism is to acknowledge that there is no last word to be said about
motivation since motivation is always situational, local, and contextually dependent. The
instrumental reason and phronesis (Aristotle, 1996; Townley, 1999) underlying the majority
of motivation theories in modern organization and management theory are therefore indexes
of the favoured interpretation schemes of economism and calculating thought of the late-
/hyper-/post-modern society, and its reliance on monetary awards and other tangible stimuli.
Stimili that are, in short, rewards and benefits produced within our particular regime of
rationality, conspicuously excluding and marginalizing joy, pleasure and transgression. In
mainstream theory, the motivational factors are always external to the subject, belonging to
the tangible physical realm; motivations are never based on inner experiences.

10
Conclusion

For various reasons, the thinking of Gilles Deleuze has had a limited impact on organization
theory. Deleuze’s philosophy is complex, highly idiosyncratic and demands a considerable
degree of familarity with a corpus of key philosophers’ ideas. However, the conceptual body
of Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism can be employed in the analyses of various
organizational practices. In this paper, the notion of motivation has been aligned with the
notion of desire as being an immanent force preceding equally subjects and events. A theory
of motivation based on the idea of desire must dissociate itself from the technical and
instrumental reason that guides most management programs. Motivation is not something
wholly dependent upon external stimuli, but becomes embedded in the human need for joy,
pleasure, and transgression. The post-binary, anti-Platonist thought of Deleuze provides a
framework for a theorizing and problematizing an immanent theory of motivation. Therefore,
hopefully, Deleuze’s thinking will be recognized within organization theory.

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