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Article
Publication date: 26 July 2019

Anders Christian Buch

The purpose of this paper is to critique the metaphor of “shadow organizing” in relation to researchers’ allegedly ontological commitment to processual metaphysics.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critique the metaphor of “shadow organizing” in relation to researchers’ allegedly ontological commitment to processual metaphysics.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper focuses on the association of “shadow organizing” with post-epistemologies that are grounded in process ontology. The investigation examines aspects of relational thinking and is guided by John Dewey and Arthur Bentley’s genealogical reconstruction of modes of inquiry.

Findings

Inquiry is construed in either substantialist or relational ways by researchers. By using the metaphor of “shadow organizing,” the relational aspects of organizational phenomena are prioritized for explorative purposes. Other research objectives are aided by substantialist modes of inquiry. It is the argument of the paper, however, that relational research approaches need not make commitment to process ontology, and that the relational ambitions imbued in the metaphor of shadow organizing are in fact better honored for their methodological virtues.

Originality/value

The paper’s original contribution consists in critiquing post-epistemological attempts to ground organization studies in ontological first principles of process metaphysics. The paper argues that the metaphor of “shadow organizing” is a promising concept that is better appreciated as a methodological move than an ontological commitment.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 March 2017

Silvia Gherardi, Karen Jensen and Monika Nerland

The purpose of this paper is to conceive “organizing” as an indeterminate process taking place in the interstices of intra-acting elements, beyond visible/rational/intentional…

3363

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to conceive “organizing” as an indeterminate process taking place in the interstices of intra-acting elements, beyond visible/rational/intentional organizing. The term intra-activity refers to relationships between multiple elements (human and more-than-human) that are understood not to have clear or distinct boundaries. The paper aims at reframing organizing, as the effect of multiple intra-acting elements, by introducing the metaphor of shadow organizing. It offers examples as diverse as knowledge spillover, evidence-based medicine and improvisation, and the mafia’s organizational rules.

Design/methodology/approach

The frame of reference is metaphorical theorization, based on the metaphor of shadow organizing, and is explored through three metonymies: the forest and its sheltered spaces in penumbra; the shadow as a grey zone between canonical and non-canonical practices; and secret societies, hidden in the shadow. The shadow is the symbol of what is “betwixt and between.”

Findings

Shadow organizing focuses on the way that situated elements (people, technologies, knowledge, infrastructures, society) intra-relate and acquire agency. Whilst organizing as the effect of intentional coordination, planning, and strategizing represents a well-established theorization, shadow organizing sheds light on what happen in the interstices of intentional and structured processes. The paper identifies the dimensions of shadow organizing as performativity, liminality, and secrecy.

Originality/value

The passage from elements in interaction to intra-acting relations that form elements is a challenge both for theory and methodology. To face this challenge, metaphorical thinking proves useful since it enhances scholars’ imaginations and emotional participation.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 12 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 June 2023

Silvia Gherardi

The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are…

1086

Abstract

Purpose

The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are ephemeral and elusive – like affect, aesthetics, atmosphere, intensity, moods – and proposes to explore affect as spatialized and space as affective.

Design/methodology/approach

Fluidity is proposed as a conceptual lens that sits at the conjunction of space and affect, highlighting both the movement in time and space, and the mutable relationships that the capacity of affecting and being affected weaves. It experiments with “writing differently” in affective ethnography, thus performing the space of representation of affective space.

Findings

The article enriches the alternative to a conceptualization of organizations as stable entities, considering organizing in its spatial fluidity and in being a fragmented, affective and dispersed phenomenon.

Originality/value

The article's writing is an example of intertextuality constructed through five praxiographic stories that illustrate the multiple fluidity of affective spacing in terms of temporal fluidity, fluidity of boundaries, of participation, of the object of practice, and atmospheric fluidity.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 18 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 18 December 2020

Marcelo Bispo

489

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

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