Laurent Marti

Multiplicity and reflexivity in organizational research : Towards a performative approach to the visual

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is, first, to assess the potential of the visual to enact multiplicity and reflexivity in organizational research, and second, to develop a performative approach to the visual, which offers aesthetic strategies for creating future research accounts in organization and management studies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews existing visual research in organization and management studies and presents an in‐depth analysis of two early, almost classical, and yet very different endeavors to create visual accounts based on ethnography: the multi‐media enactments by Bruno Latour, Emilie Hermant, Susanna Shannon, and Patricia Reed, and the filmic and written work by Trinh T. Minh‐ha and her collaborators.Findings – The authors’ analysis of how the visual is performed in both cases identifies a repertoire of three distinct and paradoxical aesthetic strategies: de/synchronizing, de/centralizing, and dis/covering.Originality/value – The authors analyze two rarely acknow...