Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995)

Gilles Deleuze is a French philosopher known for his ontological thinking. In the field of organization studies, Deleuze is associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism along with fellow thinkers such as Jacques Derrida. This chapter examines Deleuze’s philosophical views and considers how processual thinking has emerged as an important area of research within organization and management studies. It first looks at Deleuze’s understanding of metaphysics and the creation of concepts, along with the connection between process organization studies and the creation of concepts. It then discusses the process ontology that exists within process organization studies in the context of process thinking. It also describes the new spirit of capitalism and its implications for contemporary management thought and highlights some individual cases in which a certain, perhaps Deleuzian, philosophy of organization is developed. The chapter concludes by arguing that the deployment of Deleuze’s philosophy in process organization studies should be more normative and pragmatic.