Towards a sinthomatology of organization?

In this paper I attempt to further the emerging Lacanian-inspired study of management and organization by introducing his notion of the sinthome. The sinthome must be understood as a necessary support of subjectivity rather than a pathological formation. In the Lacanian conceptualization of subjectivity, it enables the registers of the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real to be knotted together in a specific way,and thereby regulates the distribution of jouissance that takes shape within their ?knot?. Therefore, the sinthome can be thought of as the specific constellation of the registers in a socio-historical context, by organizing jouissance and giving a superficial sheen of consistency to the subject. It reproduces itself in the registers and ensures the superficial coherence of an ideological discourse. I argue that the three functions by which the sinthome reproduces itself in the registers, namely consistency, hole and exsistence,provide a fruitful and novel theorization of how subjectivity, discourse and jouissance are entangled in organizational contexts.