An ethnographic study of organizational performances in business services: Space, staging and materiality

Cluley, Robert

Abstract

It is said that all the world is a stage. But how do organizations physically stage performances such as sales pitches and research presentations? Drawing on a 14-month-long ethnographic study at a Fortune 500 strategic research company, this article explains how. Emphasizing the active role of human and non-human actors, it uncovers three staging practices that organizations use to transform spaces into stages. Organizations theme stages by populating them with certain objects. They produce a style of performance by arranging relationships between performers and audiences. Finally, they order movements from one stage to others so that plots emerge. Theorizing these staging practices through a materialist dramaturgy, the article challenges existing organizational theory that tends to focus on the ways organizations control and script performances. The article shows that organizational performances in service and knowledge organizations can be improvisational. They are not preordained but they are organized.

Citation

Cluley, R. (2022). An ethnographic study of organizational performances in business services: Space, staging and materiality. Human Relations, 76(11), 1802-1826. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267221116865

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 6, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jul 18, 2022
• Publication Date: Jul 18, 2022
• Deposit Date: May 10, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 25, 2023
• Journal: Human Relations
• Print ISSN: 0018-7267
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-282X
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 76
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 1802-1826
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267221116865
• Keywords: ethnography, space, materiality, organizational dramaturgy, performance
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/8043142
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00187267221116865