We argue technology and organization are inherently spatial phenomenon. We conceptualize this conjunction as atmosphere: a gathering of mood, human practice, material and environmental conditions, and values that has sufficient coherence and distinction to constitute a distinct interior. Atmospheres, however, are not entirely stable and present: the interior is porous to outside influence, and the interior is never wholly ordered. We show this through the study of digitally mediated architectural design practice. We find the technological mediation of atmospheres is constituted in sensory and affective spatial arrangements, and not in rationally calculated configurations of assets and goals. An atmosphere is inherently aesthetic. This allows us to gesture toward a definition of organization as technologically mediated spatial struggle to reconcile interior coherence with outward exposure.

The chapter introduces Hermann Schmitz’s neo-phenomenology to explore what phenomenology can offer to organization studies. Taking a methodological perspective, the chapter reflects phenomenology as also always about method due to the inherent ontological link, as noted by Heidegger. What we can know is intrinsically linked with how we know. The neo-phenomenological perspective contributes to acknowledging everyday phenomena, like atmospheres, which have become of increased interest in organization studies. Schmitz’s neo-phenomenology seeks to reclaim everyday experience as a valuable source of knowledge forming as an embodied attunement. Within his neo-phenomenological thinking Schmitz calls for phenomenological revision as method—building on exploration and continuous questioning. Further, by understanding phenomena as always seen in relation to something, Schmitz proposes poetic explication to account for fluid phenomena. As such the ontological condition of method is being addressed. Accordingly researching fluid (organizational) phenomena, like atmosphere, offers a way to rethink research accounts in performative ways moving beyond representation. The chapter seeks to illustrate and reflect upon how the neo-phenomenological approach can provide alternative ways to engage with relational phenomena in organization studies through the example of organizational atmospheres.

The notion of atmosphere occupies an increasingly central role in present-day discussions of design, affect, architecture and sensory environments. It is mobilized in particular to emphasize and shed light on a pre-subjective, embodied apprehension of spatially discharged moods. This article especially focuses on how the notion of atmosphere offers new ways of understanding the relations between architecture and politics. Specifically, we explore such relations via the philosophical reflections on atmosphere as found in Gernot Böhme’s and Peter Sloterdijk’s work. We suggest that, in spite of significant difference between Böhme and Sloterdijk, they each offers important insights into how architecture and politics are entangled. After a brief outline of each of their general atmospheric projects, we demonstrate the different critical potential their analyses of architecture and the politics of space entail.

In recent years, it has been argued that the public sector should stage citizen experiences to put the human before the system. The paper explores how a public organization stages such citizen experience in practice. In order to do that, the paper builds on Gernot Böhme’s understanding of atmosphere as a scenographic practice, reflecting how aesthetic practices have become pivotal in an ongoing aesthetization process in society as an enhanced focus on experiental value. The paper engages with contemporary theatre to critically elaborate the theatricality of staging organizational atmospheres as both a social and political concern. While the paper studies how the staging of atmospheres can be theoretically understood and empirically investigated, the paper argues that the staging of organizational atmosphere contributes to thinking organization as an aesthetic phenomenon.