Space and Process the Organizational Importance of What We Leave Behind
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Space and process The organizational importance of what we leave behind A dissertation presented by Fabio James Petani Supervised by Prof. Jeanne Mengis Submitted to the Faculty of Communication Sciences Università della Svizzera italiana for the degree of Ph.D. in Communication Sciences July 2016 ii BOARD Supervisor: Prof. Jeanne Mengis (Università della Svizzera italiana) Reviewers: Prof. Laurent Thévenot (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) Prof. Chris Steyaert (University of St.Gallen) Officially submitted to the Ph.D. committee of the Faculty of Communication Sciences, Università della Svizzera italiana in July 2016. © 2016 Fabio James Petani, Università della Svizzera italiana. All rights reserved. iii This study was generously supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under grant numbers 138105 and 152272 iv I. ABSTRACT Organizational research recently advocated an attention to space (Kornberger & Clegg, 2004), examining how space both produces and is produced by complex relationships of materiality, identity and power (Dale & Burrell, 2008). This literature widely turned to the founding book The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre (1991/1974) to show how organizational practices resist (Wasserman & Frenkel, 2011), or are enchanted by (Hancock & Spicer, 2011) particular corporate architectures. Research on the role of spatial legacies (De Vaujany & Vaast, 2013), showed how corporate spaces of the past are differently remembered over time to signify the solidity of evolving intentions (Decker, 2014). These studies well capture how practices transform previously planned and already existing spaces, charging them with different meanings after construction. Less we know about how space is produced before and during the phases of organizational planning and construction. Tracing sacrificed planned spaces and missed compromises, I inquire into what is left behind in the discursive and material testing processes that excluded alternative possibilities. A first part of this dissertation focuses on the role of history and remembering in space planning practices. I empirically analyse the narratives surrounding the planning of an important culture centre. The introduction of the concept of lost space specifies how urban planning organizes sociomaterial and spatiotemporal narratives of loss to articulate the need to regain certain spaces (and not others) and design a continuity with a selected past that should not be left behind. Lost space allows planners to narratively “remember the future”. This section contributes a processual interpretation of the interplay between Lefebvre’s (1991/1974) three moments of conceived, perceived and lived space, through a processual focus on conceiving (i.e. planning). By reviewing Lefebvre’s work on everyday temporality (2004/1992, 2014a) and history (1970, 1975), I balance an organizational analysis of space with a sensitivity towards time and remembering. A second part of this dissertation engages in a theoretical discussion and empirical illustration of the representational problem of space and time, which pervades organizational literature and practices. I review longstanding debates on the spatialization of time (Bergson, 2001/1889) and on the principle of simple location, calling for a more space-balanced approach to phenomena in process organization studies. The attention process studies devote to temporality (Helin, Hernes, Hjorth & Holt, 2014; Langley & Tsoukas, 2010, 2016) risks not accounting adequately for space. I suggest space as a processual dimension inseparable from time, and while calling for spatiotemporal representations of space’s plural simultaneity of durations (Massey, 2005), I warn on the need to address the performativity of conflicting organizational representations of space. Space-time integrated representations can account for the complex web of multiple lived organizational dimensions, and process organizational analysis is well positioned to analyze the performativity of all spatial representations. This section addresses different assumptions of time and space by illustrating, through empirical examples, how opposed (dynamic or static) representations of space performed change in construction management practices. The third paper of this dissertation addresses the topic of how values pragmatically justify spaces under construction. Coordination practices and conventions in construction management involve the skillful trade-off process of testing and compromising, with a retrospective reasoning on the sacrifices incurred to grasp how costs could have been (and could still be) avoided. By analysing the composition of values through a new methodology that traces in various data sources the abstract and pragmatic construct of what could have been, the study contributes a processual interpretation of the economies of worth (EW) framework (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006/1987). Challenging the equilibrium assumptions of sacrifice underlying the value-based action framings of the EW, the core organizational and managerial sacrifice of compromising extends the model’s horizon of critique and uncertainty. I review the growing organizational literature on EW compromises. The analyzed interplay of tests and compromises in everyday building site controversies shows how coordination conventions act together and relationally over time, across different situations, shaping the actors’ critical awareness of the possibilities unduly left behind. Keywords: space, time, process, representation, coordination, economies of worth, compromise v vi To Manuela and Emiliana Gillian vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I know this is the place of any thesis that gets read the most. It is quite simply what you cannot forget, part of what I just could not leave behind. This work is the result of an intense intellectual and human journey that could never have taken place without my supervisor Jeanne Mengis. Over the years, her passion for time has definitely spoken to my interest in space in a complementary way. As our endless discussions keep going on, I appreciate that her patience has proven no less than prodigious. Jeanne’s tolerance of my ramblings and often purposeless digressions was simply beyond words, except perhaps just the two: thank you. I thank architects Claudia Scholz and Louise Brand Realini, and economists Prof. Rico Maggi and Dr. Marco Scagnolari of the Urban Relation research project. I learnt a lot from our interactions. I wish to thank a number of scholars from whom I greatly profited during my exchange year in Paris: these include Laurent Thévenot and Luc Boltanski, Laurence Créton-Cazanave, Laura Centemeri, Giovanni Matera, Olivier Coutard, Pascal Ughetto and Valérie November. I thank also all the great colleagues from my Institute: Alessandra and Simone, Marta and Ana, Antonella, Federica and Nicola, Roland, Lisa and Lakshmi, and all the rest of the crowd. Amongst IMCA professors, I owe special gratitude to Ivan Snehota and Francesco Lurati for their friendly support and reading advice (the former especially for suggesting authors like Harry G. Frankfurt and Arthur Koestler). From outside my institute, I thank Prof. Balbi for indulging my routine “off-duty Negroni-intake” (and verbose table football deadly challenges at Oops), and our friendly debates on literary fiction (leading notably to the discovery of Berto’s novel Il Male Oscuro). I cannot omit a mention to colleagues and friends of other faculties and institutes like Gloria, Marta, Chiara and Elena, Enrico the Milanese and Claudio (gcp), Paolo and Philip, Eleonora and Colin. I thank all of my informants from the city council and general contractor, all the architects, engineers, lawyers, politicians and construction professionals that greatly helped my ethnographical effort. A colleague that deserves special thanks is a friend so close to me, to have been dubbed (very inappropriately) “my husband”. Yes, that would be loud GIGI. Thanks, pal. Finally, thanks to all of “my women”. My mother and sister provided innumerous services, assistance and affectionate support connected with this work. My mother-in-law has to be thanked for many reasons, but particularly for a lucky closer participant observation of the Casino of Lugano, a space I had more theorized about than actively practiced until lately. Last but by no means least, thanks to my wife Manuela, who endured over these PhD years many sacrifices as I have been perhaps unduly married to ethnographical fieldwork, and engaged in untimely readings, writings and largely unjustified anxieties. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS I. ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... v II. PRELUDE................................................................................................................... xiii III. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... xviii 1. PAPER 1 In search of lost space: The process of space planning through remembering and history ....... 1 1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Lefebvre’s Spatial Triad and its Translation in Organization Studies ................................. 3 1.3 The Temporality of Space in Lefebvre: The Role of Remembering ................................... 5 1.5 Findings.............................................................................................................................