Alfons van Marrewijk

Retail stores as brands: performances, theatre and space

The scholars of Consumer Culture Theory studies as well as practitioners have recognised the potential power of spatial design in stores in constructing and communicating retail brands. Retail space and the aesthetic structuring of a range of expressive artefacts have become the stage on which shop attendants perform. This paper focuses on how management and shop attendants of Dutch menswear fashion house Oger communicate and construct the Oger brand, with a special focus on the spatial settings of the retail store. This study shows how the management carefully combines elements generally found in Italian ateliers, English gentlemens clubs and boardrooms. The symbolic message behind the spatial design of the Oger flagship store is that of human quest for wealth and fame removed from the everyday life. In addition to this earlier observed interplay between design, display and consumption processes, this study indicates the important role of shop attendants in constructing and communicating retail brands. By forging links with organisation studies, we show how retail management carefully designed, managed and orchestrated retail space, objects and shop attendants’ roles to construct and communicate the Oger brand. The selling of products through performances in designed theatres connects organisation and economic and aesthetic realms. Finally, the paper introduces “internal design proxemics” as an extra analytical concept of spatial settings.

Clash of the Titans: Temporal organizing and collaborative dynamics in the Panama Canal Megaproject

Recent studies of temporary organizing and project-based work explain how organizational actors establish and maintain clear role structures and harmonious relations in the face of precariousness by engaging in stabilizing work practices. This focus upon ‘order’ undervalues conflict-ridden negotiations and power struggles in temporary organizing. This paper demonstrates that in temporary organizing conflict and order may exist in tandem. Drawing close to the collaborative dynamics in a large-scale global project, we analyse the political struggles over role patterns and hierarchic positioning of client and agent in the temporary organization of the Panama Canal Expansion Program (PCEP). In such projects, the agent typically takes the position of project leader. In this case however, the client was formally in charge, while the agent was assigned the role of coach and mentor. The diffuse hierarchy triggered project partners to engage in both harmony-seeking social and discursive practices and to enter into conflict-ridden negotiations over authority relations in the everyday execution of the PCEP project. Our study contributes to existing literatures on temporal organizing by presenting a case of simultaneous practices of harmonization and contestation over mutual roles and hierarchic positions. We also show that studying collaboration between project partners involves, not merely analysing project governance structures, but also offering a context-sensitive account of everyday social and discursive practices. Finally, we reflect on a view of ‘permanence’ and ‘temporariness’ as themselves contested categories and symbolic sites for struggle.

Developing new knowledge in collaborative relationships in megaproject alliances: organising reflection in the Dutch construction sector

This paper describes the development of new forms of public- private collaboration by members of a project-based organisation as a Community of Practice (CoP) in the Dutch construction sector. Cost overruns, time delays and corruption have put pressure on the relationship between the government and the construction sector. Political and public actors are forcing the construction industry to develop new cultural practices of collaboration in public-private partnerships. The paper incorporates power relations and shows how public and private partners, together with the researchers, develop an innovative tendering process. Based upon the literature on project-based organisations functioning as CoPs, we show how temporal organisational settings can enable new forms of learning. The specific development of a CoP in the Dutch construction sector has resulted in a 3-D virtual simulation programme which can be used to experience new behaviour and to train people in new approaches.

Conflicting Subcultures in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Longitudinal Study of Integrating a Radical Internet Firm into a Bureaucratic Telecoms Firm

Media and telecommunications companies face the problem of how to integrate diametrically opposite radical internet firms after acquisition. Extant mergers and acquisitions (M&A) studies report that differences in the organizational culture are important in the cultural integration process. Frequently, M&A research assumes organizational cultures to be homogeneous and unified, but a large body of organizational literature suggests that organizations should be understood as heterogeneous living worlds in which employees construct their own subcultures. The paper focuses on the question of how such subcultures affect the long‐term cultural integration of merged firms. A 12‐year longitudinal field study in the Netherlands examined the integration of iPioneer into Telcom. The findings of the study show how three subcultures in iPioneer influenced the cultural integration process. The paper makes a contribution to the academic debate on cultural integration in domestic M&A by acknowledging that the numerous coexisting subcultures influence cultural integration in the complex process of post‐acquisition integration.

A storm is coming? Collective sensemaking and ambiguity in an inter-organizational team managing railway system disruptions

ABSTRACT This paper studies the ways in which members of inter-organizational teams collectively make sense of unexpected events and how they decide upon engaging in action. Frequently, ambiguity dominates such change processes aimed to create common understanding. Using the notion of the duality of intrinsic and constructed ambiguity, a detailed analysis of the collective sensemaking efforts of an inter-organizational team of railway coordinators in the Operational Control Center Rail was conducted. Building on team meetings observations during the days preceding a large and potentially disruptive winter storm in December 2013, the case study describes the process of collectively making sense of the disruptiveness of the storm. The findings show that contextual and temporal factors determine whether collective sensemaking unfolds as either a shared or a negotiated process.

The social construction of cultural differences in a Siberian joint-venture megaproject

Cross-cultural cooperation in joint ventures does not take place in a power-free context but is threatened by struggles between partners over cultural differences and conflicting interests. All project partners have their own perspectives, interpretations, intentions and practices, which challenge the undertakings of cross-cultural collaboration. Therefore, it is the aim of this paper to study how employees make sense of their cultural differences in a multinational joint venture. To do so, the cross-cultural collaboration between joint-venture partners Gazprom and Shell is studied over three months of fieldwork during the Sakhalin Energy II megaproject in Siberia. The contribution of this paper is the theorization of culture as socially constructed and the exhibition of how cultural differences are negotiated to create a system which is a cultural hybrid, securing Shell-based management practices and values while simultaneously localizing the project in the Russian framework. As such, hybridization can r...Cross-cultural cooperation in joint ventures does not take place in a power-free context but is threatened by struggles between partners over cultural differences and conflicting interests. All project partners have their own perspectives, interpretations, intentions and practices, which challenge the undertakings of cross-cultural collaboration. Therefore, it is the aim of this paper to study how employees make sense of their cultural differences in a multinational joint venture. To do so, the cross-cultural collaboration between joint-venture partners Gazprom and Shell is studied over three months of fieldwork during the Sakhalin Energy II megaproject in Siberia. The contribution of this paper is the theorization of culture as socially constructed and the exhibition of how cultural differences are negotiated to create a system which is a cultural hybrid, securing Shell-based management practices and values while simultaneously localizing the project in the Russian framework. As such, hybridization can represent an antidote to power struggles and cultural discrepancies.

Changing institutional practices in the Dutch construction industry

A parliamentary enquiry in 2002 forced Dutch construction firms to end collusive practices and build an innovative construction industry. Intervention programmes were started in the period of 2004-2012 to implement new cultural values. This paper explores which cultural interventions have been employed to stimulate innovation in the construction sector and how did they worked out in two megaprojects. The study exposes the shortcomings of the hyperculture approach to change in the construction industry as social mechanisms easily result in the replication of social structure and power relations. To prevent failure, intentions for change need to include cultural patterns at action and interaction level. In the studied cases, these levels were addresses addressed in which both commissioners and contractors discuss practices of tendering and collaboration. The findings in this study are based upon a longitudinal study of and presence in the cultural intervention programmes in the Dutch construction industry from 2006 to 2012 and the ethnographic study of the urban train and the renewal sluices megaprojects.

Exceptional Luck? Conducting Ethnographies in Business Organizations

Abstract Anthropological fieldwork methods are increasingly becoming popular with management and business. This paper discusses the experiences of business anthropologists with conducting ethnographies in organizations. Based upon a review of organizational ethnographies and three personal vignettes four issues have been found; access to business organizations, role taking, involvement versus detachment and freedom to publish. To deal with these issues other than traditional anthropological requirements are needed for business anthropologists. It is not so much exceptional luck, but rather a strategic use of one’s networks, negotiation skills and social skills to handle these issues. Therefore, business anthropologists need to develop networking and negotiating capacities and commercial sensitiveness to conduct ethnographies in business organizations

Projectscapes: the role of spatial settings in managing complex megaprojects

By definition, complex megaprojects involve large-scale activities at geographical dispersed spatial settings. However, little attention has been given to spatial complexity of megaprojects. To fill in this gap, literature on organisational spaces has been explored to learn about the relation between spatial settings and organisational development. Furthermore, data on two longitudinal cases is used to explore this relation in megaprojects; the Dutch High Speed Train megaproject and the Panama Canal Expansion Program. Findings indicate two different intersections of spatial design and organisational development; location of project head quarters and spatial distribution of project locations. At these intersections spatial settings shape actions of project employees which results in both processes of organisational integration and fragmentation. The practical implications for project managers are at the level of cultural risks and unintended consequences related to megaproject design.