Work isn’t where it used to be

Blakstad, Siri Hunnes

doi:10.4337/9781783477920.00009

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…In line with the recent spatial and material turn in organization studies, the findings emphasize the extent to which now, more than ever, the workplace contributes to the constitution of perceived identities and meanings and is involved in questions of legitimacy and organizational politics (Blakstad, 2015;de Vaujany & Vaast, 2014;Väland & Georg, 2018), which are crucial to the construction of the role and identity of managers. Although liquidity (Bauman, 2000), flexibility, and distantiation have ironically distracted researchers from the importance of spatial and material issues (Dale, 2005;Dale & Burrell, 2008;Halford, 2005), they paradoxically have also increased the meaning of materiality (e.g., the physical place at work) in managerial relations (Blakstad, 2015) and identity construction processes.…”

Section: The Meaning Of Management: a Spatio-materials "Management Of Meaning"supporting

confidence: 67%

“Seeing to be seen”: The manager’s political economy of visibility in new ways of working

Leclercq‐Vandelannoitte

2021

European Management Journal

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Recent changes in the world of work have modified the conditions of the exercise of management in ways that challenge managers' traditional authority and identity, both symbolically and physically. In this context, we analyse the "visibilizing process" of managers, through which they attempt to make themselves more visible, in ways that reaffirm their authority and restore their identity as managers. To that end, we develop a Foucauldian framework on power and visibility, which sheds light on the "political economy of visibility" of the manager. We apply this framework to a case study that encouraged a re-spatialization of remote work in coworking spaces. The findings show how the manager in our case study staged his own visibility, by enhancing managerial control, to manage his invisibility and shape his intertwined identities. Through the visibilizing process, the manager legitimated his role, materialized his function, and restored his authority.

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Section: The Meaning Of Management: a Spatio-materials "Management Of Meaning"supporting

confidence: 67%

“Seeing to be seen”: The manager’s political economy of visibility in new ways of working

Leclercq‐Vandelannoitte

2021

European Management Journal

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“…In suggesting that workplaces can be understood to be exposure and protection places, we aim to contribute to the literature dealing with the interrelation of social spaces and physical places in processes of knowledge generation. Possible research strands that could benefit from the conceptualisation of protection and exposure are research on the benefits of peripheries for creative processes that raised importance in recent time (GlüCkler 2014; hAutAlA 2015; GrAbher 2018) and research on the multi-locality of work arrangements (felsteAd et al 2005;felsteAd 2012;nAdler 2014;blAkstAd 2015). Research on the benefits of peripheries for creative processes deals with temporal withdrawal to work in remote places, allowing focusing on the creation process in knowledge-based work or in creative processes, and the development of controversial ideas protected from disturbances.…”

Section: Tab 3: Protection and Exposure In The Four-stage Creative Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing workplaces in the creative process in creative industries – the case of advertising and music

Growe¹,

Mager²

2018

Erdkunde

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Based on qualitative interviews with senior executives from advertising and the music industry, this paper argues that the organization of creative work is shaped by specific and varying workplace geographies. Work in creative industries can be understood as trans-local processes, making specific use of the physical environment of different workplaces and relating workplaces embedded in different logics to one another. The results of the study show that in the creative process, work is carried out in multi-local work arrangements. Starting with the differentiation of team and individual workplaces -derived from the literature dealing with physical environments of creativity supporting workplaces -the paper argues that a relational understanding of multi-local work arrangements should focus on the relation of 'exposure' and 'protection' provided by each workplace. Exposure and protection are densely interwoven in creative work processes, and mainly refer to the protection of working processes and thoughts from disturbances and a planned exposure to inspirational surroundings that can be realised at specific locations. The paper develops protection and exposure as mutual dependent concepts, influencing the multi-locality of workplaces.Zusammenfassung: Auf der Grundlage qualitativer Interviews mit Geschäftsführern und leitenden Angestellten aus Werbeagenturen und Musikunternehmen wird in diesem Beitrag argumentiert, dass kreative Arbeitsprozesse durch spezifische physische Arbeitsorte sowie durch den Wechsel zwischen unterschiedlichen Arbeitsorten beeinflusst sind. Arbeit in der Kreativwirtschaft wird als trans-lokaler Prozess konzeptualisiert, der in mehrere Logiken eingebunden ist und Vorteile unterschiedlicher physischer Arbeitsumgebungen nutzt. In diesem Beitrag werden Arbeitsorte mit den Konzepten "Schutz" und "Ausgesetzheit" verbunden. Einerseits ermöglicht Schutz konzentrierte Arbeitsprozesse und die Entwicklung eines kreativen Flusses durch die Bereitstellung einer störungsfreien Arbeitsumgebung oder eines Rückzugsraumes. Andererseits können Orte Arbeitende auch sozialen Konstellationen oder eher ungewöhnlichen und inspirierenden Atmosphären aussetzen, die neue Eindrücke vermitteln und Interaktionen ermöglichen, welche die Entwicklung neuer Ideen unterstützen. Schutz und Ausgesetztheit werden als relationale Facetten von Arbeitsorten konzeptualisiert, die zugleich gegenseitig voneinander abhängig sind.

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“…Paradoxically, despite the importance of space in work practices (Halford, 2005), it has long been absent from research in organization studies (Sewell and Taskin, 2015). Hypermobility (Urry, 2007), liquidity (Bauman, 2000), flexibility, and the ability to work "anytime, anyplace, anywhere" may have distracted researchers from the importance of spatial and material issues (Dale, 2005;Dale and Burrell, 2008;Halford, 2005;Sassen, 2000), even though, ironically, such practices have increased the meaning of physical places, at work and in managerial relations (Blakstad, 2015).…”

Section: Conceptual Framework: a Narrative Material And Experienced Foucauldian Trypticmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Knowledge work has liquefied and is taking place elsewhere (Bauman, 2000;Bauman and Lyon, 2013;, so that "work isn't where it used to be" (Blakstad, 2015). In a context of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2000), several interrelated factors break down the classic frontiers of organizations, including the increased importance of knowledge work and service industries (Drucker, 1988), the development of collaborative and networking information technologies and digitization (Castells, 1996;Orlikowski, 1991), the dematerialization of processes, greater awareness of employees' expectations and well-being, mobility and sustainability issues (Urry, 2007), cost and space pressures (Halford, 2005), and work "projectification" (Spinuzzi, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Coworking Spaces Promise a Revolution or Spark Revenge? A Foucauldian Spatio-Material Approach to the Re-spatialization of Remote Work in Coworking Spaces

Leclercq‐Vandelannoitte

2021

Technology, Work and Globalization

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Beyond virtualization and anytime-anywhere rhetoric, the movement toward the "respatialization" of work in various workplaces and new spaces for work, such as third workspaces, results in hybridation. This spatial reconfiguration of work has been poorly theorized, failing to address the meaning and implications of such re-spatialization of work and its consequent re-regulation. This study focuses on the re-spatialization and re-regulation of remote work in coworking spaces, increasingly used by companies to rematerialize the activity of their remote employees. In contextualizing this re-spatialization according to organizational politics, this chapter proposes a symbolic/narrative, material, and experienced tryptic, based on the thought of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. This framework supports an investigation of the re-spatialization of work along three dimensions (discursive construction, instrumental materialization, and embodied experience). An illustrative vignette applies this framework to an example of a real company that has encouraged a policy of part-time work in coworking spaces for remote knowledge workers. The case shows how the re-spatialization (using coworking spaces as business centers) produces a specific disciplinarization of managerial norms. These findings suggest the need to rethink the relations among organizational space, materiality, and management control in a workspace hybridation context. In particular, this essay challenges the conventional contrast of corporate and coworking values, by showing that coworking spaces sometimes implicitly materialize business values.

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Work isn’t where it used to be

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

“Seeing to be seen”: The manager’s political economy of visibility in new ways of working

“Seeing to be seen”: The manager’s political economy of visibility in new ways of working

Changing workplaces in the creative process in creative industries – the case of advertising and music

Do Coworking Spaces Promise a Revolution or Spark Revenge? A Foucauldian Spatio-Material Approach to the Re-spatialization of Remote Work in Coworking Spaces

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