This study applies an affordance lens to understand the use of management tools and how atmospheres for change and development are created and exploited. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a consultant-facilitated change intervention among a group of research leaders at a Danish Public Hospital, this study investigates how a business game is used as a tool to effectuate episodic spaces for leadership development. The study reveals three tool affordances and discusses how they enable and constrain episodic spaces for development and further develops the notion of seductive atmospheres as an important mechanism. The article suggests that a broader understanding of the use of tools and the role of atmospheres is essential for understanding how episodic spaces for development come to work in relation to organizational change and development.

How do organizations in creative industries renew creative work for business innovation? What challenges do they experience in the process? Drawing on an eight‐month ethnography in an architectural practice, this article suggests that renewal of creative work takes place in two main trading zones: a creative business trading zone of managers and architects trading with the conception of architectural practice as a business, and a creative process trading zone of architects and process facilitators trading with the process of architectural design. We show how resolving challenges within and moving across trading zones enables managers and architects to renew the architectural design process and establish renewal as a business innovation. The study advances the understanding of innovation in creative industries by proposing trading zones as arenas for negotiating art‐business tensions and ‘tools’ for renewing creative work, to make way for business innovation while preserving the autonomy of the creative professionals.

Literature on organisational space has pointed at the political nature of space. In this article, we explore the relation between the physical space of organisations and change. Through a case study of a media company that successfully designed a new headquarters with the aspiration to become an open, coherent and transparent organisation, we describe and analyse the micropolitics of organisational space. Using the concept of ‘spatial tactics’, we explain how initial intentions with the building design were resisted and renegotiated at the micro level as employees began inhabiting organisational space, by which, we argue, room for change was made. The study contributes to the literature on space and organisational change by providing an empirical account of how spatial tactics matter for making buildings work in change initiatives.

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