This article presents findings from longitudinal ethnographic research of a mega-project alliance. For five years we followed the leadership team of a large Australian Alliance Program made up of a large public and several private organizations, analyzing `practice' as novel patterns of interaction developed into predictable arrays of activities, changing and transforming while at the same time continuing to be referred to as `the same'. In this article we focus on three such arrays of activities: authoring boundaries, negotiating competencies and adapting materiality. We suggest that these are essential mechanisms in becoming a practice. While most studies of practice deal with already established practices, the significance of our research is that we develop a notion of practice as it unfolds. In this way we can provide a better account of the constant change inherent in practices.

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational induction as socially situated learning processes. It presents an empirical study of inductees going through an induction program in a medium sized bank and discusses their induction as a dual process of becoming a practitioner and constructing practice. Design/methodology/approach -The research performed is qualitative: ethnographic methods including participant observation and interviews are used, and analysed through an interpretative methodology. Findings -The paper suggests that the divide between the teaching curricula in the induction course and the learning curricula in real life banking contribute to the inductees' ability and desire to engage in the construction of customer service officer practice; the divide itself legitimizes differences in particularities of the practice, and enhances the inductees' ability to enact, accomplish, and construct practice actively.Research limitations/implications -The paper suggests induction should be viewed as opportunities for organizational learning as much as the training of newcomers to adhere to organizational standards. Originality/value -The paper presents a novel empirical case exploring socially situated learning. Looking at the confluence of authoring and performative acts allows us to expose the agentic dimension of practices; thus emphasising the construction involved in any practising.

In this study we focus on coaching in the context of small and medium enterprises in the creative industries. We draw on data collected from five business coaching organizations over numerous coaching encounters with their clients. Using detailed conversational data drawn from these coaching encounters we analyze the ways in which business coaches practice 'active listening' and 'reflective questioning' in order to reduce the uncertainties they and their clients face when working together. We show that they do so through the strategy of positioning 'performance' as central to their practice. Successful performances depend on the ability to convince clients that one's performance is what it represents itself as being, a performance that is brought off by detailed everyday language work, mimicking the client's language back on to the client. As such, coaches demonstrate themselves to be skilled analysts of everyday life and listening.

We argue that practical endeavours towards mobilising and recreating knowledge is an integral part of value increasing activities, and expose how this dependency can be utilised in ameliorating practice. This bridging of knowledge and value creation constitutes organisational activities as knowing.The paper exposes the efforts of Telenor, a large telecom firm, to create an enduring agenda for non-financial issues in management. We expose the development process and initial use of their new Integrated Management Business Model. This involves identifying financial and non-financial drivers of future performance within and across several business units, as well as negotiating on appropriate indicators of both status and change. The paper pays special attention to the iterative approach to development in order to highlight a shift from an attempt to enable knowledge in autonomous processes secluded from everyday activities, towards an understanding of knowledge and knowing as intrinsic to the value creating activities performed. By entering the issue of intangibles through the knowing activity perspective, it was evident that the purpose of the management system was not to determine the status of intangibles in the corporation, it was to improve it. Painting a Landscape