What Killed Moritz Erhardt? Internships and the Cultural Dangers of “Positive” Ideas

Bogdan Costea; Peter Watt; Kostas Amiridis

doi:10.31269/triplec.v13i2.611

Bogdan Costea Department of Organisation, Work and Technology Management School Lancaster University, UK
Peter Watt University of York St John
Kostas Amiridis Department of Organisation, Work and Technology Management School Lancaster University, UK

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v13i2.611

Keywords: Moritz Erhardt, internships, management, culture

Abstract

Moritz Erhardt’s tragic death as an intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in August 2013 provides an illustration of the cultural intensity and complexity that has come to imbue internships in higher education degree schemes. We offer an analysis of internships as part of a wider process of dissemination and proliferation of managerial vocabularies and images that underpin certain hyper-performative practices that permeate the powerful cultures stimulated by and sustained in many organizations. We analyze the cultural ground from which such practices might be seen to arise and present an interpretation of how certain “positive” themes and motifs—such as “potentiality,” “self-expression,” or “self-realization”—can become dangerous. These categories become dangerous once they are constituted as ideal measures of an unattainable level of performativity which can then become destabilizing and disorienting for any individual’s sense of self. In this sense, the paper contributes to the growing body of literature investigating the significance of internships in the new cultures of work characterizing the broader context of neoliberalism.

Author Biographies

Bogdan Costea, Department of Organisation, Work and Technology Management School Lancaster University, UK

Bogdan Costea is a Reader in the Department of Organisation, Work, and Technology at Lancaster University’s Management School. He pursues three main lines of investigation: subjectivity, work, and managerialism in the context of modernity. They are connected by a common thread linking the growth of Human Resources Management during the past three decades with wider developments in the social sciences and the humanities.

Peter Watt, University of York St John

Peter Watt is a Lecturer in Business Management at York St. John University. His current research draws on contemporary literary fiction to explore the way in which the figure of “the graduate” has become an exemplary theme in which managerial tropes and popular understandings of value come together and intersect.

Kostas Amiridis, Department of Organisation, Work and Technology Management School Lancaster University, UK

Kostas Amiridis is a Lecturer in the Department of Organisation, Work, and Technology at Lancaster University’s Management School. His research focuses on the evolution and limits of business ethics, human resource management, and the history of management thought.