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Shadow organizing refers to the emergence of parallel arrangements that sit alongside and imitate mainstream or conventional ways of organizing. It can be a response to challenges that require new ways of working without abandoning what is valuable about conventional arrangements. However, the processes through which shadow organizing is accomplished are not well understood; there is a need to go beyond traditional notions of mimicry and metaphor. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper demonstrates how a Tardean approach to imitation can address this gap. It deploys imitation as an explanatory concept, based on contemporary readings of Tarde, as well as understandings of organizing as an unfolding process. Child and Family Centres in Tasmania (Australia), are used as an example of shadow organizing, delivering integrated health and education services in an emerging parallel arrangement.

The analysis highlights an imitation dynamic which is far from straightforward mimicry. Rather, it comprises repetition and generation of difference. This dynamic is conceptualized in Tardean fashion as three patterns: the imitation of ideas before expression; the selective nature of imitation; and insertion of the old alongside the new.

The paper moves beyond metaphors of shadow organizing, and understandings of shadow organizing as mimicry. Conceptualizing imitation in an alternative way, it contributes fresh insights into how shadow organizing is accomplished. This enriches and expands the conceptual apparatus for researchers wishing to understand the betwixt and between of shadow organizing.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Shadowing is becoming an increasingly popular method in management and organization studies. While several scholars have reflected on this technique, comparatively few researchers have explicated the specific practices that constitute this method and discussed their implications for research on processes of organizing. The purpose of this article is to address these issues by offering a conceptual toolbox that defines shadowing in terms of a set of framing practices and provides in‐depth insight into the methodological choices and challenges that organizational shadowers may encounter.

In this article, the authors explicate the specific framing practices in which researchers engage when taking an intersubjective approach to organizational shadowing. To demonstrate the value of viewing shadowing as framing, the paper grounds the theoretical discussion in actual fieldwork experiences, taken from three different ethnographic studies.

Based on a systematic and critical analysis of fieldwork experiences, the paper argues that organizational shadowing is constituted by three interrelated framing practices: delineating the object of study; punctuating the process/flow of a given organizing process; and reflecting on the relationship between researcher and the object(s) or person(s) being observed. These analytical constructs highlight specific activities with which shadowers are confronted in the field, namely foregrounding and backgrounding particular aspects in defining a given object of study, trying to keep this object in focus as the fieldwork unfolds, and making decisions about the degree to which the relationship with shadowees should be taken into account in understanding this object.

This article provides an in‐depth reflection on the subtle practices that constitute organizational shadowing. It offers a useful conceptual toolbox for researchers who want to use this method and demonstrates its operational value to help them understand how knowledge construction is the outcome of a coconstructive process that depends on a series of decisions negotiated in ongoing interactions with the actors under study.

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

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.

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.

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.

This article explores theoretical assumptions regarding negative consequences of social capital in the empirical case of a failed cooperation project, and how these consequences are related to processes involving people, structures and environments.

The article is based on a case study of a cooperation project within municipal labor market services. The methodology followed a theorizing process, where data were collected through ethnographical methods and analyzed in relation to existing concepts from theories describing negative effects of social capital and shadow organizing.

The results highlight how the development of negative social capital in the project can be understood through three relational processes, namely the social dynamics of insulation, homogenization and escalating commitment. The authors conclude that the quality of social capital is conditional upon complex interactions within social structures. Moreover, the results highlight the importance of studying organizing practices outside explicit structures, in order to identify the development of non-canonical practices and their consequences.

Organizing cooperation projects that aim to bridge professional competencies or organizational boundaries have to be attentive toward informal organizing practices which if remaining unrecognized may grow and threaten the original intentions.

The study makes a theoretical contribution by combining a shadow organizing approach with literature on social capital. This combination proves especially useful for analyzing how organizational dynamics can influence the development of social capital into producing negative effects.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities opened up by those messy, unclear and indeterminate data in research situations that may be described as being in the shadow and may as such remain in a state of vagueness and indeterminacy.

The paper draws on the extant literature on shadow organizing and post-qualitative methodologies. It focuses attention on not-yet (or shadow data) in order to ponder over what researchers do to data when they are not (yet) black-boxed as such. At the same time, it investigates what it is that not-yet data do to researchers.

Four types of “not-yet” data – illegible, wondrous and disorienting, hesitant and worn out – are presented and discussed. Data are illegible when a researcher is in the position of not knowing how to interpret what is in front of her/him. A second illustration is constructed around wonder, and poses the question of the feelings of surprise and disorientation that arise when facing uncanny realities. In a third situation, not-yet data are narrated as hesitation, when a participant feels conflicting desires and the researchers hesitates in interpreting. The fourth illustration depicts not-yet data as data that have been corrupted, that vanish after time or are worn out.

Not-yet data belong to researchers practice but can also be found in other professional practices which are concerned with the indeterminacy of shadowy situations. It is argued that situations like these constitute opportunities for learning and for the moral and professional development, so long as indeterminacy is kept open and a process of “slowing down” both action and interpretation is nurtured.

This paper is of value for taking the metaphor of shadow organizing further. Moreover, it represents a rare attempt to bring the vast debate on post-qualitative research/methodologies into management studies, which with very few exceptions seems to have been ignored by organization studies.

This study builds on the extant research of the authors on illegal rural enterprise (IRE). However, instead of taking a single or micro case approach within specific sections of the farming and food industries we examine the concept holistically from a macro case perspective. Many IRE crimes simply could not be committed without insider knowledge and complicity, making it essential to appreciate this when researching or investigating such crimes.

Using data from published studies, we introduce the theoretical concept of “Shadow infrastructure” to analyse and explain the prevalence and endurance of such criminal enterprises. Using a multiple case approach, we examine data across the cases to provide an analysis of several industry wide crimes—the illicit halal meat trade; the theft of sheep; the theft of tractors and plant; and the supply of illicit veterinary medicines.

We examine IRE crimes across various sectors to identify commonalities in practice and in relation to business models drawing from a multidisciplinary literature spanning business and criminology. Such enterprises can be are inter-linked. We also provide suggestions on investigating such structures.

We identify academic and practical implications in relation to the investigation of IRE crime and from an academic perspective in relation to researching the phenomenon.

This study combines data from numerous individual studies from a macro perspective to provide practical solutions to a multifaceted problem.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel approach to the analysis of individual and co‐constructed change management narratives, utilizing a framework derived from the theory of complex responsive processes.

The research project explored change management through the analysis of narratives arising from participation in group conversation. This comprised a six‐month intervention with a group of six leaders from the Church of England. An action research method was employed that required the leaders to bring a case study from their work that required a change management intervention. The focus of the research study was not to “solve the problem” but to practice a particular method of conversation. Transcripts of the conversations were analyzed for change or continuity in the organizing narratives. The analytical framework employed comprises three paired categories of organizing narrative themes, namely Legitimate/Shadow; Formal/Informal; and Conscious/Unconscious.

The analysis focuses on both the interactions between these organizing themes and upon the iterations, over time, in the narratives. Following the theory of complex responsive processes, the practice of change management and its consequences are understood not as cause‐effect but rather as participation in emergent narratives. It is suggested that such narratives do not merely contribute to change management within an organization but that from the perspective of complex responsive processes theory such conversational life is change management.

The action inquiry method employed and the approach to data analysis from the perspective of complex responsive processes theory, together constitute a novel approach to researching and understanding change management.

Suggests that consultants have tended to understand organizational systems in terms of organic metaphors of equilibrium adaptations between system and environment. Examines the implications of ideas from the study of complex adaptive systems that suggest that living systems co‐evolve to far‐from‐equilibrium conditions, “at the edge of chaos”. Takes this perspective for understanding the interactions occurring simultaneously in an organization’s designed or formal network of relationships, and in its self‐organizing or shadow networks. Provides illustrations from the author’s consulting practice to suggest how such a perspective may inform OD intervention in organizational culture change.

This paper aims to provide a holistic view of infiltration behaviour by organised crime groups (OCGs), with a specific focus on the methods used to access the legal market, including factors that drive an organised crime group to pursue infiltration. The act of infiltration is examined as a business decision; therefore, factors such as the surrounding community, the availability of criminal opportunities and broader implications, are considered.

Initially, the concept of an organised crime group is explored by, where possible, identifying trends in behaviour and structure. The act of infiltration is dissected, including the infiltration behaviour of OCGs and their related decision-making processes.

Infiltration actions are complex; therefore, any countervailing combatting and preventative actions will need to follow suit. OCGs pursue infiltration only when deemed feasible and to their benefit in furthering their illicit actions. Criminal opportunities are pursued across the entire economic sector. When these groups participate in a legal market, their criminality infects the healthy market and leaves it ill and contagious to the rest of the licit economy.

Infiltration is organic, as it indicates growth or adjustment to changing market conditions. Criminal opportunities are widespread, and their creation is often unintentional–the legal economy casts a shadow. Combatting organised crime, entrenched in the lawful community, requires that the focus should be on the susceptibility of potential infiltration targets through the possible infiltration methods. Furthermore, a broader perspective is needed when considering the underlying motivation for infiltration–it may not only be to generate profit.