2014
DOI: 10.1177/1350508414527253
|View full text |Cite
|
Sign up to set email alerts
|

Talking objects: Towards a post-social research framework for exploring object narratives

Abstract: In this article, we examine how to give objects a voice in organizational narrative. We track our encounter with a 914 Xerox copier, a redundant technological object that was scripted into a desired historical narrative within a corporate exhibit. Despite the 914’s apparent mnemonic and institutional efficacy, we questioned whether it might constitute more than a narrative repository. Might material objects in organizations also participate in narrative production? In this article, we advocate a post-social ap… Show more

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...
2
1

Citation Types

0
80
0

Year Published

2016
2016
2024
2024

Publication Types

Select...
6
2

Relationship

0
8

Authors

Journals

citations
Cited by 54 publications
(80 citation statements)
references
References 71 publications
0
80
0
Order By: Relevance
“…More specifically, the author focussed on how the actors proceeded, what retained their focus, what they built on, and, more generally, how they gave meaning and direction (Corvellec and Risberg, 2007) to their project. The Hervé Corvellec Sustainability objects as performative definitions of sustainability 9 purpose was to write a biography (Humphries and Smith, 2014) of the project to transform food waste into biogas and biofertilizers, with a focus on the singularity (Passeron and Revel, 2005) of the case, but also with an ambition to bring forth how this singularity can shed light on other efforts that go in the same direction.…”
Section: Case Company Fieldwork and Methodologymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…More specifically, the author focussed on how the actors proceeded, what retained their focus, what they built on, and, more generally, how they gave meaning and direction (Corvellec and Risberg, 2007) to their project. The Hervé Corvellec Sustainability objects as performative definitions of sustainability 9 purpose was to write a biography (Humphries and Smith, 2014) of the project to transform food waste into biogas and biofertilizers, with a focus on the singularity (Passeron and Revel, 2005) of the case, but also with an ambition to bring forth how this singularity can shed light on other efforts that go in the same direction.…”
Section: Case Company Fieldwork and Methodologymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Finally, a third concern, or perhaps even meta-concern, that we want to address through our engagement with these questions and issues relates to the recent emergence of so-called Object-Oriented Philosophy (OOP) as a source of inspiration for organizational studies (for example Humphries & Smith, 2014;Pierides & Woodman, 2012). From our way of approaching things, we find many of the carrying metaphysical ideas underpinning this approach, and the consequences that come with them, deeply troubling.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…12 11 Here it should also be duly noted, that although drawing upon OOP as a source of inspiration, Kärrholm (2013) is quite aware of the strong ontological assumptions underpinning OOP and is highly suspicious of them, and his topological approach is very closely related to our own. 12 In relation to Humphries & Smith's (2014) we are deeply sympathetic to the task they set before themselves, but we nevertheless find their reading of Harman's philosophy (over)generous. While they quite sensibly suggest that an "object biography is comprised of the sum of relationships that constitute it" (Humphries & Our fear is that we may otherwise end up in a place where we risk displacing the possibility of free and wild ontological experimentation based on careful empirical work with the -in our eyes potentially stifling -reductionist project of 'identifying the really real' and squabbling over who has got the picture more right that OOP appears to lead towards.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
See 1 more Smart Citation
“…Here, narratives and accounts are created through the mediation of objects which produce organisational memory (Brown, 2010). Or in Humphries and Smith's (2014) study of the 914 copier, the machine provides a basis for understanding the constitutive influence of non-human actors, and the complex interconnection of objects, time and organisational reality.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%