This page provides an opportunity to share some of our reading of and about creative writing in business (based on the same ‘loose’ definitions outlined on the home page).
It will probably take a while to build a meaningful bibliography – this is largely dependent on readers sharing their own reading with us, using the same upload link in the Information for contributors page.
Initially we will include items alphabetically, by author surname.
When you submit an item, please do so with normal bibliographic information. If possible, please include an abstract or summary of the material, ideally from the original source. Next, please provide your own reaction. Try to keep this relatively brief and constructive. It is not about providing a full critique (this can be done for full posts). Rather, share one or two ideas insights that the source raised in your mind. So, we’re hoping for a bibliography that provides readers with a short note that can be used as a guide or inspiration. One shortish paragraph is normally plenty – and we hope other can add their own notes/comments to provide alternative perspectives. As with all creative writing, there won’t be a single ‘true’ interpretation, so we would welcome sensitive, if provocative, disagreements here.
Don’t forget to include your own name and contact email. Your email will not be shared on the website.
Alphabetical List:
Elangovan, A. R. & Hoffman, A. J. (2021) The pursuit of success in academia: Plato’s ghost asks “What then?” Journal of Management Inquiry, 30(1), 68-73. DOI: 10.1177/1056492619836729
Notes
What do we pursue as we seek success in academia? For most, the path to academic success focuses narrowly on A-level journal publications, which according to Elangovan & Hoffman (2021) has caused a stealthy but steady erosion in the very essence of academia. In this essay, Elangovan & Hoffman explore that erosion by drawing on the poem by William Butler Yeats titled “What then?” to highlight the questions, doubts, and perils that lie at each of the four stages of academic life: doctoral student, junior professor, senior professor, and professor emeritus. They then offer a new set of questions that academics may ask at each stage of their careers to remain true to their sense of scholarly identity and calling. Their hope is to shine a critical spotlight on the modal journey and inspire a confident and courageous few to deviate from that well-trodden path and chart a course that is truer to the essence, purpose, and potential of academia. As a mature-age PhD student, who has spent most of my adult-life as either a student, a lecturer, or a researcher, I was moved by the deep philosophical questioning raised by Plato’s ghost repetitively asking us “What then?” This essay has made me question whether the current trend towards metrics, citations, and top-tier journal publications is a road that I want to travel or instead should I bravely follow Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”?
Contributed by Stacey Tabert (stacey.tabert@adelaide.edu.au), 11-03-2025
Maddock, L. (2017). A quartet of poems. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 30(3), 756-758. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-11-2016-2778
Notes
This was the first example of an accounting journal publishing poetry that I came across; that, in itself, is striking. As a methodologist, it is great to find any such work being published – especially as it provides an opportunity to share alternative methods across different business disciplines with students. Over the last few years, students in my classes have reacted differently to this series of poems – some excitedly, seeing value in this sort of dissemination, others have been bewildered or even a little angry, as it is obvious to them that this isn’t ‘real’ research (my experience of other colleagues is that they tend to polarise in a similar way). Maddock saw verse as a way of engaging readers by going beyond the ‘fashionable clichés’ of ecological discourse and ‘tick-the box’ exercises in CSR reporting and practice, encouraging readers to look at an issue through ‘new eyes’ (2017, p.756). I’d go beyond this and suggest these poems represent a different voice (as well as eyes) for raising concerns; the voice here is not pretending to know something objectively, nor is it presenting a data-led argument, nor is it particularly preachy. Rather it presents an informed, scholarly and personal perspective without apologising for any of these traits. Maddock’s apparent celebration of the metaphysical through various mythologies enables us to think about a key 21st century social challenge in (paradoxically) more real terms than most technical (and jargon filled) scholarly articles in business could ever do. The full text is available at the link above)
Contributed by P. J. Sandiford (the Grumpy Poet), 22-03-2025
Ramsey, C.M. (2006) Provocative Learning: Narratives of Development in Pedagogic Practice, PhD Thesis, Universiteit van Tilburg, accessed 4 October 2019 from pure.uvt.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/747723/185019.pdf.
Notes:
Dr Ramsey’s PhD thesis includes several examples of poems that she used in her teaching. She had a significant influence on my thinking early in my career; I have used one of the poems that features in her thesis (‘the leaders’, Ramsey, 2006, 204-206) in organisational behaviour courses ever since I first came across it. It provides a robust critique of leadership thinking that particularly calls to my mind the rather superficial assumptions made in transformational and transactional theories. Ramsey features a doubter who suggests that both approaches to leadership are problematic. I am particularly drawn to the rote chorus of secretaries, who seem to resemble a certain type of business undergraduate ‘wannabe’… these secretaries’ aspirations colour their attitude towards their bosses, coming across as akin to hero worship. To me, it’s fascinating to hear how students perform the chorus in class, when asked to do so – cautiously and with faltering rhythm, worried that they might speak before anyone else, somewhat like primary school children reciting together. This poem, as with any good poetry, is rich enough to always give classes much to talk about if they can overcome their initial discomfort at being asked to read poetry in a business school course.
Contributed by P.J. Sandiford (the Grumpy Poet), 26-01-2025
Roberts, Bruce (1992). Captive to the Process, Devonport: Food Preservers Union of Australia.
Notes
If you can get your hands on this slim volume of poetry, you’re in for a treat. A few decades ago, Bruce Roberts spent several weeks with the Food Preservers Union in Tasmania and this resulted in a collection of poems that capture the voices of food processing workers. Personally, it brings to mind my own long-ago experience working in a poultry processing factory in England. Even more so, the poem ‘the Shifts Rotate’ reminds me of long nights working in hotels, holiday camps and nightclubs across three continents. Although short (perhaps because is it short), it offers insight into shift work; the voices here are not negative about night shifts or management. Rather they look for instrumental benefits; they value an afternoon ‘out’ as much as a night at leisure. These workers are clearly not passionate about their work. They see it as transactional, a means to an end – and perhaps todays managers and management researchers need to remind themselves of that occasionally, rather than attempting to shoe-horn everyone into their own middle-class sensibilities and expectations.
Contributed by P.J. Sandiford (the Grumpy Poet) 8-03-2025
Upper, D. (1974). The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block”. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 7(3), 497.
Notes
Perhaps the here clue is in this website’s title, but I rarely seem to smile in genuinely happy amusement when reading a scholarly paper for the first time. This article provided just such an opportunity, indeed I am sure a giggle sneaked out. Even my most anti-study students couldn’t give this one the excuse-label TLDNR.
However, I think this novel example of creative writing (although there is little any actual writing) could have various implications. In the same way that employee silence should never be interpreted as simple agreement, scholarly silence could carry many different types of message, interpretations and insights. Not least, to me, is that I cannot imagine any of today’s (too?) serious editors and reviewers would allow this gem of creativity to reach the giddy height of publication in an academic journal.
I hope you get as much pleasure from this article as I still do. I’d love to hear any of your thoughts about it.
Contributed by P.J. Sandiford (the Grumpy Poet) 2-06-2025
Creative Writing for Business 
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