GABRIEL YIANNIS

Yiannis Gabriel is Professor of Organizational Theory at the University of Bath. He has previously held posts at Imperial College and Royal Ηolloway, University of London. Yiannis has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London, where he also carried out post-graduate studies in Industrial Sociology. He has a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Yiannis is well-known for his work into organizational storytelling and narratives, management learning and the culture and politics of contemporary consumption. He has used stories as a way of studying numerous social and organizational phenomena including leader-follower relations, group dynamics and fantasies, nostalgia, insults and apologies. More recently he has explored the education of managers and leaders in institutions of higher education and the ways in which MBAs influence professional practice. One part of this research has addressed the phenomenon of “learning shock” experienced by some mature students returning to higher education and various learning group dysfunctions resulting from the internationalization of management education.

Yiannis is currently researching the darker side of organizational life and, in particular, a phenomenon to which he refers as “organizational miasma”. This is a concept that describes a contagious state of pollution, material, psychological and spiritual, that affects all who work in particular organizations. Members of such organizations experience a paralysis of resistance, an experience of uncleanliness, and feelings of worthlessness and corruption. In such organizations, all critical faculties are directed towards the individual rather than the system.

Yiannis has made his own contribution to pedagogy as author and co-author of several textbooks on organizations. He is the author of Freud and Society, Working Lives in Catering (both Routledge), Organizations in Depth (Sage), and Storytelling in Organizations (OUP) and co-author of Organizing and Organizations, The Unmanageable Consumer: Contemporary Consumption and Its Fragmentation and Experiencing Organizations (all Sage). His most recent publications include the edited collection Myths, Stories and Organizations (OUP, 2004) and articles in the journals Organization and Leadership. His enduring fascination as a researcher lies in what he describes as the unmanageable qualities of life in and out of organizations.