Organizing Conflict

Abstract

In this essay, we study the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from the theoretical perspective of the “rhizome” coined by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. We understand organizing in general and conflict emergence in particular through the becoming of the rhizomatic ontology of organizing. In our view, the emergence of organizing is a manifestation of a rhizomatic basis of things, seen in nomadic strategies of pursuing revolutionary aims and resisting power hegemonies. We discuss how armed resistance groups relate to time and duration, and their stark contrast to Western professional, expeditionary armies operating in a clearly defined space and time. We complement the established philosophical and organizing-theoretical approaches to being and becoming in understanding conflict emergence with the rhizomatic perspective. We conclude our essay by discussing both theoretical and practical implications for understanding and managing conflict.

The Interpretation of Organizational Ontologies

“…Ethnographies produce extensive descriptions of overlapping social phenomena, and organizational ethnographies capture the rich and unique features of organizational existence (see, for instance, the bibliography compiled by Yanow & Geuijen, 2009). As such, they are suitable for supporting the development of organizational theory (Azevedo, 2020;Hatch & Yanow, 2003;Rosen, 2013;Van Maanen, 1979, 1988, 2010 and have been used to study organizational ontology (Kuronen & Huhtinen, 2017;Pelly, 2017). Moreover, to build an interpretation of the ontology of the studied organization, this article relies on the cultural interpretation proposition (Geertz, 1973;Turner, 1974), which is a well-established method of inquiry in cultural anthropology.…”

“…Moreover, they reinforce the notion that organizational ontologies are fundamentally intersubjective, for they shape the shares perceptions of the members of an organization. An organizational ontology thus "emerges from the collective want of the social system" (Kuronen & Huhtinen, 2017) and should, therefore, provide the enabling conditions for individuals to form common assumptions about their organizational 8 reality and to act accordingly. Furthermore, if Weick's (1993) cosmology episodes can be considered as events of ontological failure, the premise that organizations have ontologies can be extended to support the argument that organizations without a minimally consistent ontology are unlikely to survive.…”

“…Therefore, by opening the black box of what constitutes an organizational ontology and of how to access it, this article provides forthcoming studies with novel conceptual and methodological possibilities. Pertaining to extant research, by equipping researchers with a more systematic and comprehensive understanding of how the implicit existential conventions of organizations are perceived by their members, this study allows a more fine-grained revisitation of how organizational ontologies vary in their temporalities and states (Kuronen & Huhtinen, 2017), of what happens to their constituent elements when distinct ontologies meet (Pelly, 2017), and of how ontologies evolve and how different versions of an ontology may coexist within the same organization. Moreover, it also opens avenues of inquiry to investigate the new questions evoked throughout the paper, notably, those related to the instances of ontological failures, to organizational ontologies being non-homogeneous, to the relation between organizational 30 ontologies and explicit value systems, to possible typologies of ontological configurations, and to the consequences of distinct organizational ontologies to industries and societies.…”

“…Management Research of the Unseen, Tacit, or Implicit Organizational Foundations Management research has a long tradition of studying the unseen, tacit, or implicit organizational aspects that, nevertheless, are deemed fundamental because they guide collective action. The current emergence of an organizational ontology literature (Kuronen & Huhtinen, 2017;Lips-Wiersma & Mills, 2014;Pelly, 2017;Salovaara & Statler, 2019) can be thus considered as part of a much longer tradition, which I briefly revisit here.…”

“…Moreover, researchers in our field have addressed the question of whether and how divergent organizational ontologies can be bridged (Pelly, 2017), and have made the case that disclosing ontological assumptions offers us a better understanding of organizations and their members (Lips-Wiersma & Mills, 2014;Salovaara & Statler, 2019). 2 3 organizational ontology literature (Kuronen & Huhtinen, 2017;Lips-Wiersma & Mills, 2014;Pelly, 2017;Salovaara & Statler, 2019) can be thus considered as part of a much longer tradition, which I briefly revisit here.…”