A critical overview on corporate mindfulness

Abstract

Examining and interrogating theories associated with institutional interests have shaped the contemporary understanding of mindfulness. Critical thinking offers new areas of reasoning; Mindfulness, for example, has not been criticized for its original purpose, core notions and values; critiques rose depending on where it has been positioned; in schools, military, corporate sphere or other settings. This paper discusses three theories. First, to understand how mindfulness training is thought of in a capitalist sphere generating neoliberal subjects and used as a ‘disruptive technology of the self’, Michel Foucault’s theories on power and governmentality are reflected on and connected to contemporary mindfulness trends in organizations. Secondly, to flag out the dynamization and speed of change witnessed in recent decades, a theory of societal acceleration, based on Hartmut Rosa’s, is connected to mindfulness within organizations featuring dynamic working environment to reflect on how stakeholders are affected by the phenomenon. Lastly, to actually perceive who are the organizations’ stakeholders and how they are affected by decisions taken by their organizations keeping in focus the social responsibility these organizations are claiming, stakeholder’s theory is mirrored on, with a clear mention to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to be investigated in connection to mindfulness.