ABSTRACT
Death is a subject that absorbs, provokes, and fascinates. Mortal death and organisational death share a great deal: both involve loss and change, both can be painful, and both can elicit mourning and melancholia. Organisations believe in their immortality and, like humans, find it difficult to engage with the prospect of their own death, Sigmund Freud would describe this as an impossibility. The notion of the impossibility of death, even when facing death, as captured in Damien Hirst's shark preserved in formaldehyde, can be translated to a denial of organisational death. Organisations persist with narcissistic notions of organisational survival. The research found that even when the end was nigh, individuals within the organisation resisted death; they adopted defences against death. These were found to manifest themselves in a number of ways. The death drive in a dying organisation is present in both its manifestations.
