Making room for change: Spatial tactics and the micropolitics of inhabiting organisational space
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/politik.v21i2.111413Keywords:
Organisational space, Change, Spatial tactics, MicropoliticsAbstract
Literature on organisational space has pointed at the political nature of space. In this article, we explore the relation between the physical space of organisations and change. Through a case study of a media company that successfully designed a new headquarters with the aspiration to become an open, coherent and transparent organisation, we describe and analyse the micropolitics of organisational space. Using the concept of ‘spatial tactics’, we explain how initial intentions with the building design were resisted and renegotiated at the micro level as employees began inhabiting organisational space, by which, we argue, room for change was made. The study contributes to the literature on space and organisational change by providing an empirical account of how spatial tactics matter for making buildings work in change initiatives.
References
Courpasson, D., Dany, F., and Clegg, S. (2012). Resisters at Work: Generating Productive Resistance in the Workplace. Organization Science, vol. 23(3), pp. 801-819.
Courpasson, D., Dany, F. and Delbridge, R. (2017). Politics of Place: The Meaningfulness of Resisting Places. Human Relations, vol. 70(2), pp. 237-259.
Dale, K. (2005): Building a Social Materiality: Spatial and Embodied Politics in Organizational Control. Organization, vol. 12(5), pp. 649–678.
Dale, K. and Burrell, G. (2008): The Spaces of Organization and the Organization of Space: Power, Identity and Materiality at Work, Basingtoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Denzin, N. K., and Lincoln, Y. S. (2011). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
De Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dent, E. B., and Goldberg, S. G. (1999). Challenging “Resistance to Change”. The Journal of applied behavioral science, vol. 35(1), pp. 25-41.
de Vaujany, F. X. and Vaast, E. (2013). If These Walls Could Talk: The Mutual Construction of Organizational Space and Legitimacy. Organization Science, vol. 25(3), pp. 713-731.
Du Gay, P. (1996). Consumption and identity at work. London: Sage Publications.
Elmholdt, K. T., Clausen, R. T. and Madsen, M. (2018). Seductive Atmospheres: Using Tools to Effectuate Spaces for Leadership Development. Journal of Change Management. Available at: DOI: 10.1080/14697017.2018.1453856.
Elsbach, K. D., and B.A. Bechky. (2007). It's More Than a Desk: Working Smarter Through Leveraged Office Design. California Management Review, vol. 49(2), pp. 80-101.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five Misunderstandings about Case-study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 12(2), pp. 219-245.
Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W., and D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to Change: The Rest of the Story. Academy of management Review, vol. 33(2), pp. 362-377.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Bos-ton: Northeastern University Press.
Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. (eds.). (2002). Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
Halford, S. (2004). Toward a Sociology of Organizational Space. Sociological Research Online, vol. 9(1), pp. 1-16
Hernes, T. (2004). The Spatial Construction of Organization. Amsterdam: John Benja-mins Publishing Company.
Holloway Cripps, K. G. (2013). Art Imitates Life: Art and Architecture as a Driving Force for Change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 26(1), pp. 49-63.
Kornberger, M. and Clegg, S. (2004): Bringing Space Back in. Organization Studies, vol. 25(7), pp. 1095-1114.
Lancione, M. and Clegg, S. (2013). The Chronotopes of Change: Actor-Networks in a Changing Business School. Journal of Change Management, vol. 13(2), pp. 117-142.
Latour, B. (2003). What if We Talked Politics a Little?, Contemporary Political Theory, vol. 2(2), pp. 143-164.
Latour, B. (2013). An inquiry into modes of existence. Cambridge, Massachu-setts: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B and Yaneva, A. (2008). Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move: An ANT’s View on Architecture. I: Geiser, R. (red.) (2008). Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, pp. 80-89, Basel: Birkhauser.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of Space, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Leonardi, P. M., and Barley, S. R. (2008). Materiality and Change: Challenges to Building Better Theory about Technology and Organizing. Information and organization, vol. 18(3), pp. 159-176.
Massey, D. (2005). For space. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
Morgan, G. (2006). Images of Organization (updated edition). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
Munro, I. and S. Jordan. (2013). Living Space at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Spatial Tactics and the Politics of Smooth Space. Human Relations, vol. 66(11), pp. 1497-1525.
Pink, S. (2007). Doing visual ethnography: Images, media and representation in research. London: Sage Publications.
Silverman, D. (1993), Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction, London: Sage Publications.
Taylor, S. and Spicer, A. (2007). Time for Space: A Narrative Review of Research on Organizational Spaces. International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 9(4), pp. 325-346.
Thomas, R., and Davies, A. (2005). Theorizing the Micro-politics of Resistance: New Public Management and Managerial Identities in the UK Public Ser-vices. Organization studies, vol. 26(5), pp. 683-706.
Thomas, R. and Hardy, C. (2011) Reframing Resistance to Organizational Change. Scandinavian Journal of Management, vol. 27, pp. 322-331.
Thomas, R., Sargent, L. D., and Hardy, C. (2011). Managing Organisational Change: Negotiating Meaning and Power-resistance Relations. Organisation Science, vol. 22(1), pp. 22–41.
Van Marrewijk, A. H. (2009). Corporate Headquarters as Physical Embodiments of Organizational Change. Journal of Organization Change Management, vol. 22(3), pp. 290-306.
Van Marrewijk, A. and Yanow, D (eds.) (2010). Organizational Spaces: Rematerializing the Workaday World. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Våland, M. S and Georg, S. (2018) Spacing Identity: Unfolding Social and Spatial-material Entanglements of Identity Performance. Scandinavian Journal of Management, vol. 34, pp. 193-204.
Zhang, Z. and Spicer, A. (2013). ‘Leader, you First’: The Everyday Production of Hierarchical Space in a Chinese Bureaucracy. Human Relations, vol. 67(6), pp. 739-762.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Forfattere, der publicerer deres værker via dette tidsskrift, accepterer følgende vilkår:
- Forfattere bevarer deres ophavsret og giver tidsskriftet ret til første publicering, samtidigt med at værket er omfattet af en Creative Commons Attribution-licens, der giver andre ret til at dele værket med en anerkendelse af værkets forfatter og første publicering i nærværende tidsskrift.
- Forfattere kan indgå flere separate kontraktlige aftaler om ikke-eksklusiv distribution af tidsskriftets publicerede version af værket (f.eks. sende det til et institutionslager eller udgive det i en bog), med en anerkendelse af værkets første publicering i nærværende tidsskrift.
- Forfattere har ret til og opfordres til at publicere deres værker online (f.eks. i institutionslagre eller på deres websted) forud for og under manuskriptprocessen, da dette kan føre til produktive udvekslinger, samt tidligere og større citater fra publicerede værker (se The Effect of Open Access).
