Call for Papers

As we problematize and rethink the various meanings of design, especially as a way of promoting discussion on new ways to view and to understand organizations and organizing, we believe that a potential starting point could be to explore the core of what de-sign implicates in terms of practices for organizations and organizing.

If we entertain the prefix 'de' as a mode of deconstruction and unpacking but not separating and dividing, we are already provided clues about the richness of 'sign' as a word but more so as an act.To sign is to authorise, to endorse, to signal, to indicate, to autograph (cf. Oxford Dictionary of English language). To make a sign is to express one's self and to be in motion. For us the "!" is a sign of the excitement in the possibilities that can be imagined especially when employing this lens to re-view but also to re-engage with the rhythm of organizing in motion.

The key question that drives our design of the proposed track is to explore creatively and imaginatively ways we understand organizations their processes and practices in motion? In other words: how can we think and study a reality that is movement? In essence, we care to move and be moved by the flow, time and duration, movement and motion that makes the possibility of organization and organizing possible. This for us means also seeking to move beyond current dominant conceptualizations of becoming often equated with references to change. We do not dispute the centrality of change processes in modes of organizing. Quite the contrary, we believe we have more scope to speak of 'change' by changing the very ways we speak of change, design change initiatives in organizations and engage in change practices that often lead to no change. In short, if we enter the sphere of changing change as a design principle we enter the sphere of action, judgement and decision, and the imperatives of practice. In classical Aristotelean terms, this is not the sphere of episteme, or even techne, but of phronesis – a wisdom in the doing (Eikeland, 2007; Antonacopoulou, 2010). In this sense, we are more concerned with ways in which we can engage with the ways changing is performed in action, interaction and transaction as social agents negotiate a multitude of tensions in the midst of managing ways of organizing for-to-with change.

We are mindful that references to managing change and organizational change are abundant in the extant literature. We note a significant progress in the multiple ways we have come to understand and engage with change as a phenomenon. What we are particularly inspired by, is that change maybe one of the first organizational phenomena that have been seen and studied as an open-ended flow or a continuity and in terms of rhythm, temporality or 'tempo'. For example, the literature review by Weick and Quinn (1999) asserts that "change never starts because it never stops", and they raise up a paradox that lot of researchers seems to face "to understand organizational change one must first understand organizational inertia …" So, they invite researchers to do a shift in vocabulary from "change" to "changing" and to focus on "changing". There is the same kind of idea in the notion of “organizational becoming” developed by Tsoukas and Chia (2002), and in the "improvisational model of organizational change" designed by Orlikowski (1996) from Escher's artwork on metamorphosis.

We want to follow on these footsteps and discover new possibilities for speaking and designing change practices in the context of work and organization specifically. We propose as a point of departure considering how to draw from organizational change study research and reflections on process ontology and processual methods (cf. processual theory, longitudinal and narratives methods, doing processual research, etc.) to explore how concepts such as movement and motion can be engaged with in our research practices. For example, the Bergsonian "Theory of Time" (1934; see also Chia, 2002) could fuel a better understanding of change, movement and rhythm in organizing. Thus, following Bergson (1934), we can explore organization and its processes in terms of flow, movement, duration, and becoming.

We also see exciting possibilities in changing change if we draw from the various meanings and understandings of design, as from new trends in design thinking and practice, such as motion design for example, to discuss concepts and perspectives engaging in studying fluidity.

In this spirit, this sub-theme calls for a cross-disciplinary dialogue to explore ways of seeing, engaging and understanding organizations and organizational processes in motion. We invite an engagement with questions such as:

• How can we represent – and "draw", "picture", "design" … – on-going processes, indivisible and open-ended continuity, "real lived time"?
• How can we see and understand organizations and organizing in motion, that is without reifying it and fixing it in a static form?
• How can we think and study a reality that is movement?

References

Antonacopoulou, E.P. (2010): "Making the Business School More 'Critical': Reflexive Critique based on Phronesis as a Foundation for Impact." British Journal of Management, Special Issue "Making The Business School More 'Critical'", 21, 6–25
Bergson, H. (1934): The Creative Mind (La Pensée et le Mouvant) (tr.1992)
Chia, R. & B. MacKay (2007): "Post-processual challenges for the emerging strategy-as-practice perspective: Discovering strategy in the logic of practice." Human Relations, 60 (1), 217–242
Czarniawska-Joerges, B. & G. Sevon (1996): Translating Organizational Change. Berlin: De Gruyter
Dawson, P. (1994): Organizational Change: A Processual Approach. London: Paul Chapman
Eikeland, O. (2007): The Ways of Aristotle – Aristotelian Phronesis, Aristotelian Philosophy of Dialogue and Action Research. Bern: Peter Lang
Emirbayer, M. (1997): "Manifesto for a Relational Sociology." American Journal of Sociology, 103 (2), 281–317
Feldman, M.S. & B.T. Pentland (2003): "Reconceptualizing Organizational Routines as a source of Flexibility and Change." Administrative Science Quarterly, 48 (1), 94–118
Gabriel, Y., S. Fineman & D. Sims (2000): Organizing and Organizations. London: Sage
Kanter, R.M. (1983): The Change Masters. London: Routledge
Kanter, R.M., B.A. Stein & T.D. Jick (1992): The Challenge of Organizational Change. New York: The Free Press
Orlikowski, W.J. (1996): "Improvising Organizational Transformation over Time: A Situated Change Perspective." Information Systems Research, 7 (1), 63–92
Tsoukas, H. & R. Chia (2002): "Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change." Organization Science, 13 (5), 567–582
Tyre, M. J. & W.J. Orlikowski (1994): "Windows of opportunity: Temporal patterns of technological adaptation in organizations." Organization Science, 5 (1), 98–118
Weick, K., & R. Quinn, R. (1999): "Organizational development and change." Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 361–386
Weick, K.E. & K. Sutcliffe (2001): Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity. Jossey-Bass
Zander, R.S. & B. Zander (2000): The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. Boston: Harvard Business School