Henrika Franck

Fiction and Organization Studies

The topic of fiction is in itself not new to the domain of organization studies. However, prior research has often separated fiction from the reality of organizations and used fiction metaphorically or as a figurative source to describe and interpret organizations. In this article, we go beyond the classic use of fiction, and suggest that fiction should be a central concern in organization studies. We draw on the philosophy of fiction to offer an alternative account of the nature of fiction and its basic operation. We specifically import Searle’s work on speech acts, Walton’s pretense theory, Iser’s fictionalizing acts, and Ricoeur’s work on narrative fiction to theorize about organizations as fictions. In doing so, we hope that we not only offer an account of the “ontological status” of organizations but also provide a set of theoretical coordinates and lenses through which, separately or together, the notion of organizations as fictions can be approached and understood.

The International Expansion of an Art Museum: Guggenheim’s Global–Local Contexts

During the past decades, art museums have begun to open foreign outposts. Museums provide an interesting context to study how institutional complexity shapes internationalization. Although museums encounter strikingly similar challenges to multinational enterprises, they have largely been overlooked in international business research. Inspired by a narrative approach, we undertake a qualitative study of the internationalization of the Guggenheim Foundation. Examining the interplay between different narratives, we uncover a non-linear, irregular process of internationalization with “experimental” market entries. Our analysis shows how the Foundation’s past international market entries and heritage shaped its subsequent moves, and how its internationalization process was characterized by unpredictability and complex political negotiations where non-business actors had a powerful voice. We expand recent theorizing on non-profits as area of future research.