Christine McLean

Spacing and Timing

The aim of this special issue is to explore organizing processes in ways which do not assume an a priori existence of space and time. Rather than providing a summary of the papers collected here, this introduction illustrates how Spacing and Timing relate to issues of knowing, organizing, mediation, engagement, alterity and absence/presence. We examine how various actions and practices may be seen as seeking to achieve order but also concomitantly create further openings and orderings. Finally, while this introduction attempts to highlight a range of issues relating to this process, the development of alternative vocabularies, approaches, and insights are required to develop this work further.

Budgeting and strategy in schools: The elusive link

This paper examines the effects upon management control in schools following the assumption of responsibility for delegated budgets required by the Education Reform Act (ERA) 1988. The paper examines the process of construction, approval and amendment of school budgets drawing on a neo-institutionalist framework. Our investigation has drawn upon extensive interviews in 17 schools in three North West local authorities, supplemented by a postal questionnaire and inspection of relevant documents. We develop two main arguments. First, in order to satisfy their statutory duties LEAs supervised the introduction of internal systems of budgetary control and school development planning in schools. Thus, control procedures were largely designed by internal auditors, who sought to provide an audit trail and to ensure financial probity mainly to satisfy external legitimacy, rather than to influence internal decision-making. Second, the specific nature of the relationship between budgeting and strategy varies between schools as the extent of formalised planning differs, but in general there is a very loose coupling between strategic objectives and budget expenditures.

Exploring the visual in organizations and management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss how “the visual” might be conceptualised more broadly as a useful development of qualitative methodologies for organizational research. The paper introduces the articles that form the basis of this special issue of QROM, including a review of related studies that discuss the analysis of organizational visuals, as well as extant literature that develops a methodological agenda for visual organizational researchers.Design/methodology/approach – The Guest Editors’ conceptual arguments are advanced through a literature review approach.Findings – The Guest Editors conclude that studying “the visual” holds great potential for qualitative organizational researchers and show how this field is fast developing around a number of interesting image‐based issues in organizational life.Research limitations/implications – A future research agenda is articulated and the special issue that this paper introduces is intended to serve as a “showcase” and inspiration for quali...

Rethinking Stability and Change in the Study of Organizational Routines: Difference and Repetition in a Newspaper-Printing Factory

Organizational life consists of an ever-changing world of encounters, experiences, and complex sociomaterial relations. Within this context, standard routines can be seen as a solution to problems of inefficiency within organizations, especially when associated with images of stability, repeatability, and standardization. This can bring a sense of order where there is disorder, and stability in the face of change. However, whereas standard routines may be seen as providing solutions within complex and ever-changing organizational worlds, they can also be viewed as sources of organizational problems. Through an ethnographic examination of two routines within a newspaper-printing factory, our paper seeks to build on and add to contributions within routine dynamics (RD) by highlighting the emergence and coexistence of change and stability and the enactment of standard routines through a performative process of difference and repetition. In particular, our paper examines how organizational stability and change emerge through the dynamic relations underlying the enactment of difference and repetition and how these relations involve various—sometimes hidden—microprocesses that include the simplification and amplification of facts, scripts, and concerns. By drawing together the findings from our ethnographic research, studies within the area of RD, and concepts relating to a Deleuzian and Latourian perspective, our paper therefore contributes to the work on the repetition of routines by further unpacking the generative sociomaterial dynamics, creative forces, and microprocesses that underlie the emergence of stability and change through difference and repetition.

Looking back: ten years of visual qualitative research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the development of visual qualitative research in organizations and management over the past ten years, the experience of editing a special issue of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management entitled “Exploring the visual in organizations and management”, and the potential contributions this journal could make to the advancement of this significant area of research. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an overview and critical reflections on visual qualitative research in the study of organizations and management. Findings – The authors note that organization studies have been slow to develop visual research compared to other disciplines, especially the humanities and branches of the social sciences. However, development has been rapid over the past decade, and the authors comment on the diverse visual empirical material and the range of conceptual approaches. Research limitations/implications – The paper is a condensed reflectio...

Deciphering signs: An empirical apprenticeship

The aim of the article is to explore how an apprenticeship through signs can inform ethnographic inquiries. Upon engaging with signs, one can develop new empirical sensibilities that could allow for the appreciation of the flows, forces and intensities encountered during such research processes. In particular, it enables us to attend to those aspects of research that we may struggle to capture or illuminate. We suggest naming such endeavour nomadography in order to emphasize the move away from anthropocentric accounts and to reflect the iterative, polymorphic and experiential nature of this approach. We also draw on a brief extract from some fieldwork in Fiji that focused on the ‘discovery’ of a new plant species. In particular, we wish to explore how a nomadographic approach provides a way of rejuvenating our thinking conceptually, empirically and methodologically by rethinking these three interconnecting and overlapping aspects of the research process.

Making Organizational Facts, Standards, and Routines: Tracing Materialities and Materializing Traces

“One area where we are looking to cut waste and costs at the moment, is ink usage” described Peter, the Managing Director (MD) of a newspaper printing factory.1 He explained how ink usage had stood out as a particular issue when he was reviewing the monthly group figures that are centrally produced: “I noticed that others [other factories in the group] were performing better than us on ink usage. We needed to find ways of reducing costs and waste in this area, so I got Matthew to look at it in more detail”. In addition to raising questions about how certain issues become seen as a “matter of concern” within this organizational setting — a problem to be solved — it also draws our attention to how we might study these issues in terms of the practices and process of organizing. While reducing ink usage is just one example of the complex and heterogeneous practices and relations which underlie newspaper printing, it provides an ideal case to study the process of fact, truth, and decision-making within such a setting and how certain issues become translated into ideas of “good” and “bad” practices. Furthermore, through the concept of material memory traces, we can begin to rethink the ideas of materiality, space, time, and action in relation to the practices of organizing by unpacking and enhancing our sensitivity to these fact-making processes.

Critical Realism and Actor-Network Theory/Deleuzian Thinking: A Critical Comparison in the Area of Information Systems, Technology and Organizational Studies

Much debate has encircled studies of information systems (IS), technology and organizations with regards to ideas of process, stability and change, performance and materiality. This encapsulates different ways of viewing dualities (e.g. subjective/objective, social/technical, local/global, macro/micro, structure/agency, reality/construction, being/becoming, etc.) as well as alternative ontological and epistemological commitments underlying particular approaches and research perspectives. This paper seeks to explore two specific approaches by focusing on a comparison of critical realism (CR) and actor-network theory (ANT)/Deleuze-inspired forms of inquiry. In particular, we focus on the notion of morphogenesis in order to explore in greater detail how this concept conjures up rather different images in relation to approaches centred around CR and ANT/Deleuze.

Becoming, assemblages and intensities: re-exploring rules and routines

As we log into our computers, type in our passwords and connect to our extended world of networks, contacts and associations through email, the Internet and a wealth of applications, there can be a feeling that this electronic world appears automatically at our fingertips with an endless series of connections, standards and routines being performed effortlessly. When things fail or go wrong (e.g., network errors, hardware problems, etc.), we may begin to question ideas of agency, process and accountability as we explore problems and possible solutions. Even in these occasions, we can easily slip into deterministic accounts that rely on certain a priori divides (e.g., subject/object, structure/ agency, technology/society and nature/culture), simplistic cause-effect relations and a realist version of the ‘truth’ as existing out-there. Thus, in order to ‘explain’ or ‘account’ for the situation, certain object/subject positions, sets of relations and divides may be taken for granted and performed as such through this process. While such an approach has been evident in studies seeking to research the role of routines, procedures and standards within organizations, there is also an increasing number of approaches and theorists who seek to open up new spaces of enquiry by unpacking these divides and going beyond a realist representation of objectivity and ‘truth’.