This study uses a novel situation of organizing, bicycle commuting, to develop an argument regarding the requirements for collective action and increased autonomy for the material in constituting organizations. We found that through individual material and spatial practices, bike commuters constitute themselves as a collective, making their presence known and creating possibility for change. However, bike commuters' discourses indicate that they do not experience a collective identity or sense of community of practice. We use this study to extend two areas of theory. First, we suggest that collective action can take place without organization or organizing: individual activities can aggregate to have an effect even if they are not officially coordinated or members do not acknowledge membership in a collective. Second, we suggest that this example moves beyond previous work on the communicative constitution of organizations to suggest that the material can constitute a collective, even without human, discursive recognition of it.

Many studies of organizational resistance have focused on a knowing agent who intends to challenge power. In contrast, we suggest that resistance is the product of many agents of varying ontological statuses acting together. Using a study of bicycle commuting in the American Midwest (an activity that takes place at the edges of organizations), actor-network theory, and Cooren’s theory of ventriloquism, we demonstrate that resistance has a relational ontology. We show that bike commuters do not intend to resist through biking to work, decentering human action and intention in resistance. We then highlight three aspects of a relational understanding of resistance. First, bike commuting (and other resistive activity) is produced by a plenum of agencies of all ontological statuses, making resistance a hybrid activity, not limited to human agents. Second, activities of resistance and control come to have these meanings through their relationship with one another. Third, actions that come to mean resistance and control are put into conversation with each other to gain these meanings through ventriloquism. Through these arguments, we expand what can count as resistance, how resistance is produced, and who produces it, demonstrating that resistance is a relational production.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use an affordance approach to understand how university faculty use and value their workspace and respond to proposed spatial changes. Design/methodology/approach A mixed method survey was given to faculty in the college of engineering at a large public American university. Data were analyzed using an affordance lens. Findings The analysis indicates that the majority of engineering faculty highly value private offices and appears resistant to non-traditional workspace arrangements. Research limitations/implications The authors performed the analysis with a relatively small sample (n=46). Practical implications University administrators need to communicate with faculty and take their opinions on spatial changes seriously. Changes to space may affect STEM faculty retention. Social implications This paper could affect the quality of work life for university faculty. Originality/value The paper provide needed research on how faculty use and value their workspace while discussing the implications of alternative workspaces within the academy. Theoretically, the authors contribute to ongoing research on relationship between material and social aspects of organizational spaces.

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Since the term appeared in 2003, popular media and academics have been interested in the phenomenon of 'opting out' -elite women choosing to leave their jobs to stay at home with their children. Although it is unclear whether the opt-out revolution actually exists, this conversation has resulted in a wealth of scholarship on women leaving successful jobs to care for their children, particularly how maternity might be a graceful time to exit gendered organizations. However, there is not scholarship considering women without children who opt out of the dominant career model. In this study, I look at three popular autobiographies of women who left successful careers to pursue alternative work (farming, baking). I found that the women sought meaning in their work, control over their labour process, and a new definition of success. These narratives provide broader insight into the constraints of the dominant career model and gendered organizations as well as the particular difficulties for non-mothers to opt out.