Space and process: the organizational importance of what we leave behind

Organizational research recently advocated an attention to space (Kornberger & Clegg, 2004), examining how space both produces and is produced by complex relationships of materiality, identity and power (Dale & Burrell, 2008). This literature widely turned to the founding book The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre (1991/1974) to show how organizational practices resist (Wasserman & Frenkel, 2011), or are enchanted by (Hancock & Spicer, 2011) particular corporate architectures. Research on the role of spatial legacies (De Vaujany & Vaast, 2013), showed how corporate spaces of the past are differently remembered over time to signify the solidity of evolving intentions (Decker, 2014). These studies well capture how practices transform previously planned and already existing spaces, charging them with different meanings after construction. Less we know about how space is produced before and during the phases of organizational planning and construction. Tracing sacrificed planned spaces and missed compromises, I inquire into what is left behind in the discursive and material testing processes that excluded alternative possibilities. A first part of this dissertation focuses on the role of history and remembering in space planning practices. I empirically analyse the narratives surrounding the planning of an important culture centre. The introduction of the concept of lost space specifies how urban planning organizes sociomaterial and spatiotemporal narratives of loss to articulate the need to regain certain spaces (and not others) and design a continuity with a selected past that should not be left behind. Lost space allows planners to narratively “remember the future”. This section contributes a processual interpretation of the interplay between Lefebvre’s (1991/1974) three moments of conceived, perceived and lived space, through a processual focus on conceiving (i.e. planning). By reviewing Lefebvre’s work on everyday temporality (2004/1992, 2014a) and history (1970, 1975), I balance an organizational analysis of space with a sensitivity towards time and remembering. A second part of this dissertation engages in a theoretical discussion and empirical illustration of the representational problem of space and time, which pervades organizational literature and practices. I review longstanding debates on the spatialization of time (Bergson, 2001/1889) and on the principle of simple location, calling for a more space-balanced approach to phenomena in process organization studies. The attention process studies devote to temporality (Helin, Hernes, Hjorth & Holt, 2014; Langley & Tsoukas, 2010, 2016) risks not accounting adequately for space. I suggest space as a processual dimension inseparable from time, and while calling for spatiotemporal representations of space’s plural simultaneity of durations (Massey, 2005), I warn on the need to address the performativity of conflicting organizational representations of space. Space-time integrated representations can account for the complex web of multiple lived organizational dimensions, and process organizational analysis is well positioned to analyze the performativity of all spatial representations. This section addresses different assumptions of time and space by illustrating, through empirical examples, how opposed (dynamic or static) representations of space performed change in construction management practices. The third paper of this dissertation addresses the topic of how values pragmatically justify spaces under construction. Coordination practices and conventions in construction management involve the skillful trade-off process of testing and compromising, with a retrospective reasoning on the sacrifices incurred to grasp how costs could have been (and could still be) avoided. By analysing the composition of values through a new methodology that traces in various data sources the abstract and pragmatic construct of what could have been, the study contributes a processual interpretation of the economies of worth (EW) framework (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006/1987). Challenging the equilibrium assumptions of sacrifice underlying the value-based action framings of the EW, the core organizational and managerial sacrifice of compromising extends the model’s horizon of critique and uncertainty. I review the growing organizational literature on EW compromises. The analyzed interplay of tests and compromises in everyday building site controversies shows how coordination conventions act together and relationally over time, across different situations, shaping the actors’ critical awareness of the possibilities unduly left behind

Integrating knowledge in the face of epistemic uncertainty : dialogically drawing distinctions

In this article, we contribute to a processual understanding of knowledge integration in interdisciplinary collaboration by foregrounding the role of dialogue in dealing with epistemic uncertainty. Drawing on an ethnographic study of collaboration among scientists involved in developing a highly novel bioreactor, we suggest that knowledge integration is not a homogeneous process but requires switching between different knowledge integration practices over time. This is particularly notable in the case of ‘epistemic breakdowns’ – deeply unsettling events where hitherto-held understandings of the nature of problems appear unworkable. In such cases, it is not sufficient to deal solely with coordination issues; collaborators need to find ways to address generative knowledge integration processes and to venture, collectively, into the unknown. We demonstrate how this generative quest of knowledge integration is achieved through a dialogical process of drawing and testing new distinctions that allows actors to gradually handle the epistemic uncertainty they face

EXPRESS: Towards a practice-theoretical view of the situated nature of attention

In this paper, we examine how a practice-theoretical perspective may complement and expand the central tenet of the attention-based view (ABV) that attention is contextually situated. We put forward three main arguments. First, the components that make a practice possible and that locates it in history and context (practice architecture) also prefigure a situated horizon of relevance and possibilities (pragmatic field of attention). Attention thus often befalls organizational members outside the realm of discursive consciousness as a consequence of being engaged in socio-material practices. Second, attention is situated at the crossroads of multiple practices, each with its practice architecture and local pragmatic field of attention. Organizational attention implies tensions, conflict, and contradictions and emerges from the interaction and negotiation of multiple individual and group pragmatic fields of attention. Finally, attention is situated in the temporal dynamics of sustaining and turning attention. This allows us to distinguish between inattention, dysfunctional distraction, and potentially productive attention turning. We argue that by focusing on the ordinary and routinized nature of attention, a theoretical practice view complements and enriches the ABV by offering a less voluntarist and top-down view and proposing a richer view of situatedness. A practice-theoretical approach also distributes attention among a broader set of elements, offering resources to theorize how these elements are connected. The approach also establishes a link between paying attention and caring, thus bringing emotions back into the study of organizational attention. In turn, the ABV helps the practice-theoretical perspective to recognize the central role of attention in organizational matters and the importance of engaging in full with the organizational unit of analysis when dealing with attention-related issue

Recovering the performative role of innovations in the Global Travel of Healthcare Practices : is there a ghost in the machine?

This chapter discusses the global travel of a specific approach to incident investigation (Root Cause Analysis or RCA for short). We assess how knowledge of the technique was mobilized, from the United States to Australia, the United Kingdom and beyond. We argue that the globalization and world spanning circulation of this set of practices was sustained and facilitated by the construction of an “anxiety-reassurance” package. This package raised public and professional anxiety about patient safety and created reassurance by proposing a new management solution to solve this problem. Playing together these two seemingly opposite discourses, the innovation generated a wave of interest and urgency that it then rode and that allowed rapid globalization. We suggest that a focus on the innovation as a well-oiled piece of discursive machinery helps us to understand the active role of innovations in fuelling their own translation without reverting to the old idea that innovations are “diffused.

Understanding the role of objects in cross-disciplinary collaboration

In this paper we make a case for the use of multiple theoretical perspectives – theory on boundary objects, epistemic objects, cultural historical activity theory and objects as infrastructure - to understand the role of objects in cross-disciplinary collaboration. A pluralist approach highlights that objects perform at least three types of work in this context: they motivate collaboration; they allow participants to work across different types of boundaries; and they constitute the fundamental infrastructure of the activity. Building on the results of an empirical study we illustrate the insights that each theoretical lens affords into practices of collaboration and develop a novel analytical framework that organizes objects according to the active work they perform. Our framework can help shed new light on the phenomenon, especially with regards the shifting status of objects and sources of conflict (and change) in collaboration. After discussing these novel insights, we outline directions for future research stemming from a pluralist approach. We conclude by noting the managerial implications of our finding

Knowledge integration in face-to-face communication and the moderating effect of a collaborative visualization tool

This paper sheds light on the communication process through which experts and decision makers integrate their domain specific knowledge in decision making situations and argues for the benefit of software-supported visualization of contributions. Understanding both decision making and knowledge integration as communicative processes, we present a short review of literature on the concept of knowledge integration. Based on this review, we present a model for knowledge integration and discuss an experimental study which provides a first empirical evaluation of the model. In the proposed model, knowledge integration is reflected by the resolution of four conversational challenges – equal participation, big picture thinking, establishing common ground, and constructive conflict. We argue that the modality of the conversation impacts on the importance of the single elements of knowledge integration. We show that – when supporting conversations with an interactive visualization tool –- conversation partners rely more on the construction of the big picture and of the common ground, and less on conflict and equal participation. Furthermore, the handling of conflict is more constructive than in the nonsupported situation. An experimental study tests and confirms both the model for knowledge integration and the moderation effect of the use of the interactive visual tool

The video production of space : how different recording practices matter

This article examines how video recording practices excert an influence on the ways in which an organizational phenomenon—in our case organizational space—becomes available for analysis and understanding. Building on a performative and praxeological approach, we argue that the practical and material ways of conducting video-based research have a performative effect on the object of inquiry and do not simply record it. Focusing in particular on configurations of camera angle and movement—forming what we call the Panoramic View, the American-Objective View, the Roving Point-of-View, and the Infra-Subjective View—we find that these apparatuses privilege different spatial understandings both by orienting our gaze toward different analytical elements and qualifying these elements in different ways. Our findings advance the methodological reflections on video-based research by emphasizing that while video has a number of general affordances, the research practices with which we use it matter and have an impact both on the analytical process and the researcher’s findings