The working dead: crossing the boundaries between life and death in organizations through the zombie myth

Organization and management scholars have recently adopted the notion of the zombie as a lens through which to analyze workplace phenomena. Although previous studies have used the zombie primarily as a metaphor, in this essay we invoke the full force of the zombie myth underlying the metaphor to examine contemporary labor issues. We explore the origins of the zombie myth in the Haitian Vodou tradition and its roots in the island's history of colonial domination and labor enslavement. We then examine some of its subsequent cinematic portrayals, from classic zombie films to more recent films set in the workplace, to illustrate how the myth has evolved and adapted over time. Finally, we contrast the possibilities envisioned by the metaphor and the myth, suggesting that, rather than escaping it, the myth invites us to inhabit the threshold and experiment with the zombie condition, remaining with the persistent contradictions that labor entails.