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The practice of attention in the workplace - Phenomenological accounts of lived experience

von B�low, Charlotte

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Authors

Charlotte von B�low



Abstract


In this very moment, our attention is being captured, tracked and traded as a commodity in the commercial market. As a global community, we are facing one of the most serious cultural crises of our time yet we are too distracted to be aware of it and for that simple reason we are ill-prepared to deal with its consequences. This is the challenging landscape of the Attention Economy where managers are expected to make responsible, ethical decisions every day and where organisations are fighting a battle to maintain focus on what matters. This reality is the backdrop of this study and the environment in which I explore what a deliberate practice of attention means for the development of self and others in the workplace.

I present a case for why a conscious engagement with attention is essential for management learning and how the development of a deliberate practice plays an important role for human self-transformation and connection to purpose. It starts with a review of historic and contemporary academic literature on different aspects of attention and proceeds to present the findings of an eighteen-month longitudinal study comprising the stories of ten managers as they explore their emerging practice of attention in the context of everyday life. A five-year record of autoethnographic accounts weaves through the research and reveals that not only is a regular, rigorous self-examination a necessary condition for maintaining a deliberate practice of attention – the deliberate practice of attention is a necessary condition for being on a path to self-knowledge. In exploring the epistemic significance of attention, this study reconstructs the bridge between attention and ethics – a connection that, in light of our current situation, is far too rarely made explicit.

This study is, itself, an exercise in attention practice. Through the reflexive engagement with the literature, the lived experience of the participants and the autoethnographic accounts, the reader is invited to experience the phenomenology of being on a path to self-knowledge by attending to attention in a deliberate manner. This research is a contribution to management learning and a call for a new ethics of attention in which managers develop ways of choosing and discerning to what and to whom they attend as they go about their daily lives in the workplace.

Citation

von Bülow, C. The practice of attention in the workplace - Phenomenological accounts of lived experience. (Thesis). University of the West of England. Retrieved from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/4750905

Thesis Type Thesis
Deposit Date Dec 2, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/4750905
Award Date Feb 17, 2020

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