The purpose of this essay is to examine psychoanalytically Argyris and Schon's contributions to organization theory and intervention. The author focuses his attention on the problem of individual and organizational resistance to change in the light of Argyris and Schon's cognitive psychological assumptions about learning, reasoning, and effectiveness.

Recent accounting scandals have brought into question the efficacy of accounting education and research and the relationship of accounting educators to the profession. This paper calls for a comprehensive reassessment of accounting education, especially in terms of: undergraduate accounting programs; the development of an approach to accounting research and scholarship that is more closely focused on impact rather than purely methodological rigor; and the establishment of significantly more interaction between the profession and accounting educators. These changes, some of which could be painful and disruptive to the current structure of accounting departments, must begin to occur or we as accounting educators run the risk of being marginalized as the accounting profession tries to respond to the needs of society.Accounting education, liberal arts, life-long learning, curricula reform, research relevance, societal impact, USA, international experience,

We start with the premise that organizations are processes of human behavior that are experienced as experiential and perceptual systems governed by unconscious processes. This starting point leads us to discuss psychoanalytically informed organizational perspectives as a means of understanding how psychological reality shapes organizational dynamics. In particular, we argue that psychoanalytic organizational diagnosis requires a central role for transference and counter-transference. That is, interpreting data through the lens of transference and counter-transference assists in unpacking organizational identity and culture by relying upon an `experience near' stance for examining the narratives of organizational life. This introspective and empathic stance makes transference and counter-transference one of the core elements of a psychoanalytically informed organizational consultation. We provide a case illustration and conclude with some thoughts on how leaders and members of organizations can improve organizational performance by attending to the complex nature of psychological reality in the workplace.

No abstract