Qualitative Research in Organizations and ManagementTable of Contents for Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. List of articles from the current issue, including Just Accepted (EarlyCite)https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1746-5648/vol/18/iss/5?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestQualitative Research in Organizations and ManagementEmerald Publishing LimitedQualitative Research in Organizations and ManagementQualitative Research in Organizations and Managementhttps://www.emerald.com/insight/proxy/containerImg?link=/resource/publication/journal/73894f8d2605001c8b0179e3e8ed2ce3/urn:emeraldgroup.com:asset:id:binary:qrom.cover.jpghttps://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1746-5648/vol/18/iss/5?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestThe fluid affective space of organizational practiceshttps://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-07-2022-2368/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestThe 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. 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. 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. 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.The fluid affective space of organizational practices
Silvia Gherardi
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp.1-19

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.

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.

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.

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.

]]>
The fluid affective space of organizational practices10.1108/QROM-07-2022-2368Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management2023-06-16© 2023 Silvia GherardiSilvia GherardiQualitative Research in Organizations and Management1852023-06-1610.1108/QROM-07-2022-2368https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-07-2022-2368/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatest© 2023 Silvia Gherardihttp://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Reclaiming space in family histories: impressionistic memory work as a feminist approach to historiography and storytellinghttps://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-11-2022-2446/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestThis article explores memory work and storytelling as an organising tool through family histories, offering theoretical and methodological implications and extending existing conceptualisations of memory work as a feminist method. This approach is termed as impressionist memory work. To illustrate impressionistic memory work in action, the article presents two family histories set during Second World War and invite the reader to engage in the “undoing” of these stories and dominant ways of knowing through storytelling. This method challenges the taken-for-granted roles, plots and detail of family histories to uncover the obscured or silenced stories within, together with feminine, affective and embodied subjectivities, marginalisation and social inequalities. This study argues that impressionistic memory work as a feminist method can challenge the silencing and gendering of experiences in co-constructed and co-interpreted narratives (both formal and informal ones). This study shows that engagement with impressionistic memory work can challenge taken-for-granted stories with prominent male actors and masculine narratives to reveal the female actors and feminine narratives within. This approach will offer a more inclusive perspective on family histories and deeper engagement with the marginalised or neglected actors and aspects of our histories.Reclaiming space in family histories: impressionistic memory work as a feminist approach to historiography and storytelling
Ilaria Boncori, Kristin Samantha Williams
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp.20-38

This article explores memory work and storytelling as an organising tool through family histories, offering theoretical and methodological implications and extending existing conceptualisations of memory work as a feminist method. This approach is termed as impressionist memory work.

To illustrate impressionistic memory work in action, the article presents two family histories set during Second World War and invite the reader to engage in the “undoing” of these stories and dominant ways of knowing through storytelling. This method challenges the taken-for-granted roles, plots and detail of family histories to uncover the obscured or silenced stories within, together with feminine, affective and embodied subjectivities, marginalisation and social inequalities.

This study argues that impressionistic memory work as a feminist method can challenge the silencing and gendering of experiences in co-constructed and co-interpreted narratives (both formal and informal ones).

This study shows that engagement with impressionistic memory work can challenge taken-for-granted stories with prominent male actors and masculine narratives to reveal the female actors and feminine narratives within. This approach will offer a more inclusive perspective on family histories and deeper engagement with the marginalised or neglected actors and aspects of our histories.

]]>
Reclaiming space in family histories: impressionistic memory work as a feminist approach to historiography and storytelling10.1108/QROM-11-2022-2446Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management2023-07-21© 2023 Ilaria Boncori and Kristin Samantha WilliamsIlaria BoncoriKristin Samantha WilliamsQualitative Research in Organizations and Management1852023-07-2110.1108/QROM-11-2022-2446https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-11-2022-2446/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatest© 2023 Ilaria Boncori and Kristin Samantha Williamshttp://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Early-career employees sensemaking strategies in organizationally constrained workplaces: a longitudinal multiple-case studyhttps://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-05-2023-2521/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestThis study aimed to investigate the sensemaking strategies employed by early-career employees working within organizationally constrained environments. Grounded in the sensemaking-as-accomplishment framework, a longitudinal multi-case study was conducted, involving three early-career employees. These participants were interviewed multiple times concerning tasks they themselves identified as anomalous and ambiguous. The study's findings illuminate how early-career employees utilize sensemaking strategies to accomplish anomalous-ambiguous tasks. These strategies are interwoven with deliberate efforts to mitigate organizational constraints that exist in the organization or arise during the execution of complex tasks. Notable limitation pertains to the time gap between task completion and the interviews. Conducting real-time interviews concurrently with task execution or immediately afterward was not feasible due to constraints in participant availability. This research has implications for organizational learning initiatives, particularly those encompassing employee-driven self-learning components. Insights derived from studies like this can inform the development of effective self-learning schemes within organizations. Previous sensemaking research focused on what takes place in high-reliability organizations. This study explored sensemaking strategies in workplaces that are organizationally constrained.Early-career employees sensemaking strategies in organizationally constrained workplaces: a longitudinal multiple-case study
Kedir Assefa Tessema
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-

This study aimed to investigate the sensemaking strategies employed by early-career employees working within organizationally constrained environments.

Grounded in the sensemaking-as-accomplishment framework, a longitudinal multi-case study was conducted, involving three early-career employees. These participants were interviewed multiple times concerning tasks they themselves identified as anomalous and ambiguous.

The study's findings illuminate how early-career employees utilize sensemaking strategies to accomplish anomalous-ambiguous tasks. These strategies are interwoven with deliberate efforts to mitigate organizational constraints that exist in the organization or arise during the execution of complex tasks.

Notable limitation pertains to the time gap between task completion and the interviews. Conducting real-time interviews concurrently with task execution or immediately afterward was not feasible due to constraints in participant availability. This research has implications for organizational learning initiatives, particularly those encompassing employee-driven self-learning components. Insights derived from studies like this can inform the development of effective self-learning schemes within organizations.

Previous sensemaking research focused on what takes place in high-reliability organizations. This study explored sensemaking strategies in workplaces that are organizationally constrained.

]]>
Early-career employees sensemaking strategies in organizationally constrained workplaces: a longitudinal multiple-case study10.1108/QROM-05-2023-2521Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management2024-01-16© 2023 Emerald Publishing LimitedKedir Assefa TessemaQualitative Research in Organizations and Managementahead-of-printahead-of-print2024-01-1610.1108/QROM-05-2023-2521https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-05-2023-2521/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatest© 2023 Emerald Publishing Limited
: Canada’s first indigenous dean of a law schoolhttps://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-08-2022-2379/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestThe goal was emancipatory, to characterise and dislodge oppressive management practices, to allow for the possibility of seeking an alternative organisational construction free of postcolonial/subaltern subordination and discrimination in a local, well-documented narrative. The study was informed by a postcolonial/subaltern perspective and drew on the employment experience of an Aboriginal woman, Canada’s first Indigenous Dean of a law school. The researcher employed a combination of case study and critical discourse analysis with the aim of advancing rich analyses of the complex workings of power and privilege in sustaining Western, postcolonial relations. The study made several conclusions: first, that the institution, a medium-sized Canadian university, carefully controlled the Indigenous subaltern to remake her to be palatable to Western sensibilities. Second, the effect of this control was to assimilate her, to subordinate her Indigeneity and to civilise in a manner analogous to the purpose of Indian residential schools. Third, that rather than management’s action being rational and neutral, focused on goal attainment, efficiency and effectiveness, it was an implicit moral judgement based on her race and an opportunity to exploit her value as a means for the university’s growth and status. Through a postcolonial/subaltern perspective, this study demonstrated how management practices reproduced barriers to the participation of an Indigenous woman and the First Nations community that an organisation was intended to serve. The study demonstrated how a Western perspective – that of a university’s administration, faculty and staff – was privileged, or taken for granted, and the Indigenous perspective subordinated, as the university remained committed to the dispossession of Indigenous knowledge and values.: Canada’s first indigenous dean of a law school
James D. Grant
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-

The goal was emancipatory, to characterise and dislodge oppressive management practices, to allow for the possibility of seeking an alternative organisational construction free of postcolonial/subaltern subordination and discrimination in a local, well-documented narrative.

The study was informed by a postcolonial/subaltern perspective and drew on the employment experience of an Aboriginal woman, Canada’s first Indigenous Dean of a law school. The researcher employed a combination of case study and critical discourse analysis with the aim of advancing rich analyses of the complex workings of power and privilege in sustaining Western, postcolonial relations.

The study made several conclusions: first, that the institution, a medium-sized Canadian university, carefully controlled the Indigenous subaltern to remake her to be palatable to Western sensibilities. Second, the effect of this control was to assimilate her, to subordinate her Indigeneity and to civilise in a manner analogous to the purpose of Indian residential schools. Third, that rather than management’s action being rational and neutral, focused on goal attainment, efficiency and effectiveness, it was an implicit moral judgement based on her race and an opportunity to exploit her value as a means for the university’s growth and status.

Through a postcolonial/subaltern perspective, this study demonstrated how management practices reproduced barriers to the participation of an Indigenous woman and the First Nations community that an organisation was intended to serve. The study demonstrated how a Western perspective – that of a university’s administration, faculty and staff – was privileged, or taken for granted, and the Indigenous perspective subordinated, as the university remained committed to the dispossession of Indigenous knowledge and values.

]]>
: Canada’s first indigenous dean of a law school10.1108/QROM-08-2022-2379Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management2024-03-18© 2024 Emerald Publishing LimitedJames D. GrantQualitative Research in Organizations and Managementahead-of-printahead-of-print2024-03-1810.1108/QROM-08-2022-2379https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-08-2022-2379/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatest© 2024 Emerald Publishing Limited
Understanding careers as translations: the importance of Bruno Latour for the study of careershttps://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-09-2023-2595/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestThis paper argues that Bruno Latour’s work on translation provides an alternative to dominant anthropocentric, individualistic and managerial approaches in career studies by considering careers as precarious effects of networks instead of the implicit assumption of individual strategic career actors in extant career research paradigms. The article first compares the three main current approaches to studying careers – structural functionalist, interpretivist and critical – illustrated by three exemplary empirical studies. Subsequently, three concepts from the sociology of translation that are relevant for the study of careers are introduced: career making as translating interests, careers as effects of networks and career action as dislocated and overtaken. Taken together, these three concepts allow us to conceive of careers as practices performed by human and nonhuman actors. Finally, an example from an ethnographic case study in the field of contemporary art illustrates how a Latourian approach can be used. Latour’s work on translation provides conceptual and methodological tools to investigate career processes and practices in an era of unpredictability. The paper introduces Bruno Latour’s work on translation to the study of careers.Understanding careers as translations: the importance of Bruno Latour for the study of careers
Hannelore Ottilie Van den Abeele
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-

This paper argues that Bruno Latour’s work on translation provides an alternative to dominant anthropocentric, individualistic and managerial approaches in career studies by considering careers as precarious effects of networks instead of the implicit assumption of individual strategic career actors in extant career research paradigms.

The article first compares the three main current approaches to studying careers – structural functionalist, interpretivist and critical – illustrated by three exemplary empirical studies. Subsequently, three concepts from the sociology of translation that are relevant for the study of careers are introduced: career making as translating interests, careers as effects of networks and career action as dislocated and overtaken. Taken together, these three concepts allow us to conceive of careers as practices performed by human and nonhuman actors. Finally, an example from an ethnographic case study in the field of contemporary art illustrates how a Latourian approach can be used.

Latour’s work on translation provides conceptual and methodological tools to investigate career processes and practices in an era of unpredictability.

The paper introduces Bruno Latour’s work on translation to the study of careers.

]]>
Understanding careers as translations: the importance of Bruno Latour for the study of careers10.1108/QROM-09-2023-2595Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management2024-04-01© 2024 Emerald Publishing LimitedHannelore Ottilie Van den AbeeleQualitative Research in Organizations and Managementahead-of-printahead-of-print2024-04-0110.1108/QROM-09-2023-2595https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-09-2023-2595/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatest© 2024 Emerald Publishing Limited
Watching Oppenheimer through Latour’s lens https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-10-2023-2605/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatestThis study aims to demonstrate what myths of and about science are reproduced in this popular cultural work (movie – “Oppenheimer”). This is done by examining the unconscious hegemonic positions supported by the reproduction of stereotypical and mythical images of science. Content/Text Analysis: The conceptual analysis of a cultural text – a film (“Oppenheimer”) – through a theoretical apparatus (B. Latour’s theory). The film demonstrates its reproduction of three distinct elements. Firstly, it exhibits classic scientistic clichés pertaining to technoscience. Secondly, it highlights the replication of the individualized monomyth about the (super) hero, leading to the exclusion of the intricate conditions of technoscience’s existence. Lastly, the film aligns with the Californian ideology, as proposed by Barbrook. The value of the text is twofold: (1) To show that the classical approaches of Bruno Latour are still relevant. (2) To show what hidden premises and myths about technoscience are being propagated through a work of pop culture (the film “Oppenheimer”) and, in effect, to show what kind of influence of cultural hegemony is at work here.Watching Oppenheimer through Latour’s lens
Andrzej Wojciech Nowak
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-

This study aims to demonstrate what myths of and about science are reproduced in this popular cultural work (movie – “Oppenheimer”). This is done by examining the unconscious hegemonic positions supported by the reproduction of stereotypical and mythical images of science.

Content/Text Analysis: The conceptual analysis of a cultural text – a film (“Oppenheimer”) – through a theoretical apparatus (B. Latour’s theory).

The film demonstrates its reproduction of three distinct elements. Firstly, it exhibits classic scientistic clichés pertaining to technoscience. Secondly, it highlights the replication of the individualized monomyth about the (super) hero, leading to the exclusion of the intricate conditions of technoscience’s existence. Lastly, the film aligns with the Californian ideology, as proposed by Barbrook.

The value of the text is twofold: (1) To show that the classical approaches of Bruno Latour are still relevant. (2) To show what hidden premises and myths about technoscience are being propagated through a work of pop culture (the film “Oppenheimer”) and, in effect, to show what kind of influence of cultural hegemony is at work here.

]]>
Watching Oppenheimer through Latour’s lens 10.1108/QROM-10-2023-2605Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management2024-02-07© 2024 Emerald Publishing LimitedAndrzej Wojciech NowakQualitative Research in Organizations and Managementahead-of-printahead-of-print2024-02-0710.1108/QROM-10-2023-2605https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QROM-10-2023-2605/full/html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_journalLatest© 2024 Emerald Publishing Limited