Enrolling deceased founders in times of change or discontinuity: The evocative powers and perils of presentification

Abstract

Scholars have given increasing attention to the uses of the past in organizational life, with several studies considering how founder figures, may be drawn on in sensegiving to help promote organizational change. Yet most research has been one-sided, neglecting the possibility that leaders’ sensegiving attempts might be contested. Based on three contrasting case studies, we identify four modalities through which deceased founders may be presentified (i.e., made present, despite their physical absence) in leaders’ sensegiving attempts and we examine how and why such efforts may be authenticated or contested by others. Our study contributes by showing how deceased founders may not be powerful figures in themselves, but are made powerful, by being presentified in evocative ways that reach beyond citing words to calling up emotions, memories and vivid imagery. The study highlights how audiences develop complementary strategies to either oppose leaders (through counter-presentifications) or to support them (through amplifying presentifications), adding friction or fluidity to the communicative process. Finally, the study illuminates contextual facilitators that explain how actors’ relative positioning with respect to founders and audiences allows certain individuals to tap into more privileged memory sources to presentify founders in more evocative ways