Mal du Siècle. From the Disenchanted Youth of the Romantic Age to the Disillusionment of Today’s Young Graduates

Abstract

Organisational absurdity is an emerging field of study in management sciences. Often described in conceptual terms in the existing literature as a loss of meaning arising from the collapsing frontiers of rationality, there have been few attempts to engage empirically with this absurdity, particularly from the perspective of new recruits joining organisations, and more specifically those who have recently completed their studies. Our research seeks to explore the ways in which young graduates respond to organisational absurdity and its consequences. To do this, we use an original empirical approach, which has been recognised elsewhere as a pertinent means of tackling absurdity, namely, fictional analysis. We thus propose an analogy between today’s young graduates and the young Romantics of the 19th century, invoking a number of literary references for heuristic ends, in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon in question. Now as in centuries past, upon coming face-to-face with absurdity, a considerable number of young people respond by retreating from their professional responsibilities. This state of affairs is illustrated by a series of 35 interviews, revealing a profound sense of disenchantment, which, in many cases, can lead young professionals to turn inwards and withdraw from their professional environments. In the face of this distress, our research invites organisations to rethink the way they manage young graduates.