Multiplicity and reflexivity in organizational research

Abstract

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 acknowledged but ground-breaking research presentations, identify aesthetic strategies to perform multiplicity and reflexivity in research accounts, and question the ways that research accounts are written and published in organization and management studies by acknowledging the consequences of a performative approach to the visual.

The Visual Dimension in Organizing, Organization, and Organization Research: Core Ideas, Current Developments, and Promising Avenues

“…Similarly, visualization provides vast potential for presenting scientific results: It is an ideal way of reducing complexity and making the interpretive processes of researchers transparent for the audience. However, the issue of how to address visuality in verbal terms has only been insufficiently addressed (for a notable exception, see, for instance, Steyaert, Marti, & Michels, 2012). The institutionalized academic publication format is predominantly verbal.…”

“…Scholars have dealt with this issue differently: from a complete verbalization of their visual data (e.g., Phillips & Brown, 1993), the exemplary reproduction of visuals (e.g., , the presentation of a selection of images to support verbal arguments (e.g., Czarniawska, 2010), to the extreme of strongly reducing verbal text in favor of a more visual storyline (e.g., Hjorth & Steyaert, 2006;Preston & Young, 2000). Future endeavors might be dedicated to identifying the optimal presentation of visual research (e.g., Steyaert et al, 2012). Existing literature also points at several other challenges related to visual research (e.g., Bell & Davison, forthcoming;Ray & Smith, 2012).…”

The role of design in the repositioning of a corporate brand

“…Organizational research has typically viewed artifacts and other visual elements as symbols, focusing on the organizational and cultural values that artifacts are intended to communicate (Gagliardi 1992, Trice & Beyer 1993. However, an increasing number of studies have started to acknowledge that organizational practices can be regarded as sociomaterial (Orlikowski 2007) or visual , Steyaert et al 2012) and that contemporary brands can be regarded as a conjunction of material and immaterial elements (Moore 2003, Diamond et al 2009, Karjalainen & Santos 2014. Much of this research is inspired, or at least, influenced, by studies of technology and science (e.g.…”

“…In connection to research on sociomateriality, the visual dimension of organizations has also started to attract scholarly attention at an increasing speed , Steyaert et al 2012. For a long time the visual was used in anecdotal fashion to support something that was said verbally, but during the last few years we have been witnessing an emerging interest on bringing the visual to the core of organizational theorizing and analysis.…”

“…For a long time the visual was used in anecdotal fashion to support something that was said verbally, but during the last few years we have been witnessing an emerging interest on bringing the visual to the core of organizational theorizing and analysis. Furthermore, there is also a growing stream of research approaching the visual from a performative perspective (Bolt 2004, Steyaert et al 2012; that is to say, performativity assumes that the visual (be it an image, a presentation, a logo, for example) not only represents reality, but it also participates in constructing and shaping it. By assuming that images and other visual material have performative power or potency we are acknowledging their capability to contribute to organizational theorizing.…”