Samantha Warren

Matter over mind? Examining the experience of pregnancy

Data collected from interviews with mothers and one mother-to-be characterized pregnancy as a time during which a woman has little jurisdiction over her body.Some respondents found this loss of control discomfiting and unpleasant, but others told of how much they had enjoyed their pregnancies for the same reason. On this basis, we suggest that pregnancy may represent a specific ‘body episode’ which belies the modern Western conviction that we have and possess our bodies and are able to mould them accordingly. Second, we propose that its physical transitions provided for some informants a disturbing testament to the fact that our influence over our bodies is in fact incomplete – that they are in many ways obdurate and ‘wayward’. Third, we suggest that the more positive descriptions of pregnancy could be attributed to the demands of the ‘body project’, the efforts that women especially invest in sculpting their bodies in culturally acceptable ways. Pregnancy therefore may represent for some women an opportunity to luxuriate in their materiality, because during this period they are unable to govern their bodies in the ways to which they are accustomed in more mundane physical circumstances.

Imag[in]ing accounting and accountability

Purpose - This paper aims to set out several of the key issues and areas of the inter-disciplinary field of visual perspectives on accounting and accountability, and to introduce the papers that compose this Design/methodology/approach - This takes the form of a discussion paper, exploring several key issues related to visual perspectives on accounting and accountability. Findings - The paper suggests that there has been some myopia with regard to the importance of the visual in accounting and accountability, and introduces a variety of theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches. Research limitations/implications - It is hoped that the issues and approaches explored in this paper, together with those of the various papers of this Practical implications - The analyses of the ways in which the visual is implicated in accounting are of interest to accounting researchers, practitioners, trainees and auditors. Originality/value - The paper surveys past work on visual perspectives in accounting and organization studies, provides an overview of challenges in the area, and sets an agenda for future research.

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...

Smell organization: Bodies and corporeal porosity in office work

This article contributes to a sensory equilibrium in studies of workplace life through a qualitative study of everyday smells in UK offices. Drawing on Csordas’ (2008) phenomenology of intercorporeality, we develop the concept of corporeal porosity as a way of articulating the negotiation of bodily integrity in organizational experience. We explore the corporeal porosity of workplace life through smell-orientated interview and diary-based methods and our findings highlight the interdependence of shared, personal, local and cultural elementals when experiencing smell in office-based work. Our analysis explores three elements of bodily integrity: ‘cultural permeability’; ‘locating smell in-between’; and ‘sensual signifiers’. This suggests that while the senses are part of the ephemeral, affective ‘glue’ that floats between and around working bodies, they also foreground the constantly active character of relationality in organizational life. Corporeal porosity, therefore, captures the entanglement of embodied traces and fragments – corporeal seeping and secretion that has hitherto taken a backseat in organizational studies of the body at work.

Human resource management practitioners' responses to workplace bullying: cycles of symbolic violence

In the United Kingdom the majority of those reporting being bullied at work claim their manager as ‘the bully’ (Hoel and Beale, 2006). A global phenomenon, workplace bullying is damaging to those involved and hence their organizations (Einarsen et al., 2003), justifying academic attention and a practical need to develop mechanisms that tackle the phenomenon. Bullying is typically a problem ‘owned’ by Human Resource (HR) departments, yet existing evidence suggests that targets perceive HR practitioners (HRPs) as inactive, hence ineffective, in response to claims (Lewis and Rayner, 2003). However, very little is known about how HRPs themselves interpret and respond to claims of bullying. We address this gap, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ to interpret experiential interview data. Our findings suggest HRPs enact symbolic violence on employees who raise claims of bullying against their managers by attributing managerial bullying behaviours to legitimate performance management practices. A critical discourse analysis identified four interpretive mechanisms used by HRPs that served to exonerate managers from bullying behaviours, thereby protecting the interests of the organization at the expense of an employee advocacy role. These data suggest that, rather than being solely a phenomenon perpetrated by individuals, workplace bullying is often a symptom of managerialist and capitalistic discourses of intensified performance management in organizations, reinforced by the embedding of existing professionalization discourses with the field of Human Resource Management in the UK.

Fringe benefits: valuing the visual in narratives of hairdressers' identities at work

In this article, we focus on the use of respondent-led photography, as a narrative method through which we may research identity at work. We base our argument on empirical data drawn from a wider research study, the aim of which was to explore the identities of hairdressers through the spaces and objects they experience and encounter in their everyday workplace; hair salons. After making a case for the value and benefits of using visual methods in identity research in a work context, we present four key methodological themes that emerged from our own reflection on the research project. The first discusses the ‘self-portraits’ captured by the respondents; the second explores how images reveal ‘spaces’ of identity construction in the background of the photograph; the third presents the unexpected and unusual objects of identity construction; and the fourth looks at those images ‘taken by accident’ and the important emotional narratives they produce. We argue that relying on solely textual narratives in researching identity at work misses vital performative and contextual data that enrich our understanding of organisational life.

Having an eye for it: aesthetics, ethnography and the senses

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss participant‐led photography as a response to the authors need for an “aesthetic approach” to ethnography during fieldwork, including the importance of an embodied, sensory orientation to ethnography in organizational contexts.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews a range of literature and draws on the authors experiences to support a conceptual argument.Findings – There is currently scant attention to the sensory dimension of ethnographic practice and the paper puts forward an agenda for future research.Research limitations/implications – Suggestions are made as to how aesthetic and/or sensory ethnography can support changing landscapes of organizational research.Originality/value – In drawing together multidisciplinary literature, the paper advances the agenda of ethnographic research in organizational life.

Pregnancy as Project: Organizing Reproduction

Abstract This paper uses the work of Georges Bataille to claim that we Westerners seek to stave off death by engaging in various future-oriented projects, by organizing ourselves, each other, and our environments in particular ways. Given that we organize to try to forestall death, we therefore suggest that organizing is a much more widespread and significant process than organizational theory usually acknowledges. Indeed, although we define both productive labour (work) and reproductive labour (pregnancy and childbirth) as projects in this sense, we deal here with the latter because we wish to foreground the ways in which organizing occurs beyond the work organization. We aim to identify organizing as a generalized social process by revealing how Western society has turned reproductive labour into a project, a means of extending life both psychologically (producing offspring) and physiologically (ensuring the health and longevity of baby and mother). We analyse pregnancy manuals, birth plans and reproductive technologies to illustrate our claims, and draw parallels with productive labour as project where appropriate.

Oppression, Art and Aesthetics

Marcuse’s words neatly encapsulate the aim of this special issue – what does art (and aesthetics) have to do with management and organization? Why, when capitalism still grows fat on the fruits of child labor, and squeezes its profits from the sweatshop, for example, are we concerning ourselves with frivolities such as art and aesthetics? In an age which is claimed to be characterized by an increasing aestheticization and where aesthetics are being heralded as prime arbiters of economic value and social worth (Featherstone 1991, Postrel 2004) the questioning of this process is of the utmost importance to a range of business disciplines. We started to open this debate with a fascinating and diverse track held in September 2004 in Paris at the 2nd Art of Management Conference. The papers that appear in this special issue build upon and/or were inspired by the conversations that began there.

Psychoanalysis, collective viewing and the “social photo matrix” in organizational research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to put forward an argument for the importance of social and situational dynamics present when groups of organizational members view images. This both enriches psychoanalytic theories of the visual previously brought to bear on this topic and adds a valuable psychoanalytical perspective to visual organization studies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper extends Burkard Sievers’ concept of the “social photo matrix” (SPM) through an interdisciplinary review of literature in psychoanalysis, audiencing, media studies and social theory.Findings – A socially nuanced variant of the SPM is put forward as a way to explore organizational members’ experiences of work and employment, as part of a nascent “visual methodological approach” to studying organization(s).Research limitations/implications – The ideas within this conceptual paper would benefit from empirical investigation. This would be a fruitful and interesting possibility for future research.Practical implications –...