Passions in Context
Linda Price
Eric Arnould
AMA Doctoral Consortium Summer 2002
"You mean they pay you to do that?"
Ski
River raft
Visit Uganda nature preserves
Football games
Visit Century farms
Go shopping in Budapest
Passions
Any kind of feeling by which the mind is powerfully affected or moved
An eager outreaching of the mind toward something
Pleasurable passion
Our Anti-Passionate Organizational Culture
Work v. leisure
Labor v. fun
Control v. chaos
Atomization v. plenitude
Passionate Positions
Mathematics
"A Beautiful Mind"
Architecture
"The Fountainhead"
The Arts
"Lust for Life"
Physics
"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out"
What Contexts Can Do
Inform your lifeworld
Inspire passion
Stimulate discovery
Invite description
Provoke comparison
Frame difference
Surprise and elude
What Contexts Can’t Do
Transcend description
Guarantee scientific merit
Substitute for theory
What Makes a Good Context?
Varies perspective
Overturns theoretical assumptions
Facilitates unlikely phenomena
Speaks to evolving interests
Qualities of Good Contexts
Accessible
Presence of natural boundaries
Varying range of phenomena
Culturally, socially, existentially rich
Studying in, not Studying
"Oh, you’re the one who studied white water river rafting"
"What do hair dressers have to do with relationship marketing?"
"Studying old people—that must be depressing"
"You studied the Florida Classic?"
Generalizing: Howie Becker’s Trick
Tell me what you’ve found out
Use none of the identifying characteristics of the actual case
Instead of using particulars use social science constructs
Deriving Theory from Context
Bulk up on theory
Decompose theory
Pay attention to clues in data
Know what constitutes evidence
Build/orchestrate a story
Iterate
Passions and Contexts
Pursue your passions
Question much, obey little
Make rules don’t follow them
Someone’s already studied that
Nobody’s ever studied that
Everyone already knows about that
That’s trivial