Art of Management & Organization Conference 2018 University of Brighton

“Performing Organizational Atmosphere – an ontology of the in-between”

Lydia Jørgensen, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Inspired by the call for papers for the stream ’Performance ”In-between” Time and Space’ at the 9th AoMO Conference 2018, I hereby submit an abstract. The starting point of the paper is a view on organization as an atmospheric phenomenon, drawing on understandings of the notion of atmosphere as presented by the neo-phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz and the new aesthetics of Gernot Böhme. Viewing organization as an atmospheric phenomenon takes an interdisciplinary approach building on aesthetics, space, embodied perception and sociality relating to research done on organizational aesthetics, the affective and performative turn in organization studies. My ongoing PhD-research centers on organizational atmospheres examining theoretically and empirically how they work and can be purposefully shaped, whereby considering a.o. the claim by Böhme that architecture stages atmospheres.

The aim of the paper is to present organizational atmosphere as a potential ontology of the in-between, emphasizing the interplay of designed space and the daily performance of organization. Based on the neo-phenomenological apprehension of atmosphere as going beyond the dualist divide and instead focusing on the relational, it thematises the in-between resonating with Klee’s idea of ‘Zwischenwelt’ and Guillet de Monthoux’ 3^rd aesthetic space. The argument is that conceiving the atmospheric as an in-between accentuates a dynamic perspective on time-space constituting a sensory process-oriented performance to be situationally unfolded. This in-between may, already and always, be seen as both a being-in (In sein) and a co-being (Mitsein), however also holding the promise of a becoming. Accordingly, it reflects into a dynamic understanding of organizational performance and the process of performing. Discussing performance in relation to organizational atmosphere as the in-between giving attention to the affective and moving qualities, leads itself to an ontological questioning of rather ‘how and where organizations are’ than ‘what they are’. The paper intends further to develop the argument of an ontology of the in-between by integrating ethnographic material gathered from the fieldwork of the PhD project. The fieldwork done in an architectural firm and a public sector organization is being finalized in December 2017. Through ethnographic methods architectural design processes and the movement of an organization into new facilities have been followed as a way to explore organizational atmospheres.

Keywords: organization, atmosphere, ontology of in-between, performance, architecture.

It’s time for organizations to be on stage as collectively produced sustainable artefacts!

Saadet Cetinkaya, University, Istanbul, Turkey
Fikret Korhan TuranIndustrial University, Istanbul, Turkey

Aristotle divides existing things into those that exist by nature (naturefacts) and products of art (artefacts) (Aristotle, 1930). An artefact has an intended goal, character and style based on the intention of its author/s, and is produced through the acts of separation (removal), reshaping (forming), conjunction (assembly), and replication (reproduction) applied to the naturefacts or other artefacts (Oswalt, 1973 and 1976). Even though an artefact’s intended goal and its technical, social and aesthetic functions are beneficial for its author/s (Crilly, 2010), the production actions performed to produce the artefact or its usage may also cause some unintended by-products called residue, which may be harmful for some naturefacts and other artefacts, and ultimately cause the extinction of the artefact at hand. Based on these arguments, an artefact can said to be sustainable if it is in a dynamic balance with its natural and artifactual environment (Jorna, 2006).

In this context, to determine the role of the art and aesthetics for organizations and sustainability, we propose a model that integrates concepts from performing arts and stakeholder theory. In the model proposed, we conceptualize organizations as collectively produced sustainable artefacts that perform on a complex multi-period stage, entailing naturefacts and stakeholder groups as interactive/participative audiences, with their various organizational practices having technical, social and aesthetic dimensions. We claim that organizations might be more successful in meeting the challenges of sustainability and prevent “ugliness” which will damage to their image and reputation or even threat their existence if they gain technical, social and aesthetic acceptance from the nature and their stakeholder groups.

A university is a special type of organization with a potential to have lasting influence on society. The principal product of this organization is, probably, its graduates – people who are equipped with technical knowledge in certain disciplines, but who may have also acquired a special (ethic and aesthetic) understanding of life. By its nature, a university has multiple missions driven by the interests of different stakeholders. It can be considered a stage where actors get together and perform repeatedly in diverse settings, ranging from relatively formal and planned environments such as a course lecture to chance encounters in a coffee shop, providing ample space for improvisation.

In our research, we try to understand the role of performance and aesthetic for the university as an organization. We explore whether there is diversity in the aesthetic of universities as organizations. We consider the possible organizational sources of such diversity – life cycle stage, time of founding, founders or senior management, founding mission, etc.

To this end, we have worked on an exploratory study by performing in-depth interviews with the executives of higher education institutions including presidents, vice-presidents and deans about the social and aesthetic dimensions of organizational practices in their universities. Based on our findings, we are proposing a model of organizations as collectively produced sustainable artefacts.