Research summary: Video‐based methods can help researchers explore the significance of the human body in the practice of organizational strategy. We present a toolkit for the analysis of video data. The toolkit consists of three techniques: the detailing of significant forms in visual data, the sequencing of movement around such forms, and the patterning of movements across episodes. We employ these techniques on video recordings of middle managers engaged in a large‐scale strategic change effort. By revealing and analyzing the practices of “top‐down” and “bottom‐up bridging,” we show how the embodied cognition of middle managers supports strategy implementation by influencing nascent behavioral and cognitive changes among their subordinates. We conclude our account by suggesting a research agenda for video‐based work in strategy research. Managerial summary: We explore video-based methods as a means to understand how middle managers incorporate strategic change in their practice. During strategic change efforts, a lot of what is taken to be the buildup of “shared understanding” is more appropriately viewed as emotional contagion. The success of middle management change agency is thus measured, not only by their successful elaboration of strategy content to others, but also whether or not organizational members invest themselves emotionally to the change endeavor. Such contagion is founded on the interaction of human bodies as well as their verbal discourse. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The topic of fiction is in itself not new to the domain of organization studies. However, prior research has often separated fiction from the reality of organizations and used fiction metaphorically or as a figurative source to describe and interpret organizations. In this article, we go beyond the classic use of fiction, and suggest that fiction should be a central concern in organization studies. We draw on the philosophy of fiction to offer an alternative account of the nature of fiction and its basic operation. We specifically import Searle's work on speech acts, Walton's pretense theory, Iser's fictionalizing acts, and Ricoeur's work on narrative fiction to theorize about organizations as fictions. In doing so, we hope that we not only offer an account of the "ontological status" of organizations but also provide a set of theoretical coordinates and lenses through which, separately or together, the notion of organizations as fictions can be approached and understood.

No abstract