Space, Organizations and Management Theory [1 ed.] 9788763003094, 9788763001649

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SERIES EDITORS: Stewart R. Clegg & Ralph Stablein

A D VA N C E S I N O R G A N I Z AT I O N S T U D I E S

Edited by

Stewart R. Clegg and Martin Kornberger

Space, Organizations and Management Theory

Liber & Copenhagen Business School Press

Stewart R. Clegg and Martin Kornberger (eds.) Space, Organizations and Management Theory © CBS Press and the authors 2006 1st printed edition 2006 The e-book is published in 2013 Series editors: Stewart R. Clegg and Ralph Stablein E-book production: PHi Business Solutions Ltd. (Chandigarh, India) ISBN (e-book edition): 978-87-630-0309-4 ISBN (printed edition): 978-87-630-0164-9

CBS Press Rosenoerns Allé 9 DK-1970 Frederiksberg C Denmark [email protected] www.cbspress.dk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage or retrieval system – without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Advances in Organization Studies Series Editors: Stewart Clegg Professor, University of Technology, Sidney Ralph E. Stablein Professor, University of Otago, New Zealand Advances in Organization Studies is a channel for cutting edge theoretical and empirical works of high quality, that contributes to the field of organizational studies. The series welcomes thought-provoking ideas, new perspectives and neglected topics from researchers within a wide range of disciplines and geographical locations.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgements.........................................................................

7

1. Introduction: Rediscovering Space Stewart R. Clegg and Martin Kornberger ...................................

8

2. Space, Organisation and Management Thinking: a Socio-Historical Perspective Jean-François Chanlat.................................................................

17

3. Spaces as Process: Developing a Recursive Perspective on Organisational Space Tor Hernes, Tore Bakken and Per Ingvar Olsen ..........................

44

4. Moving Bodies and Connecting Minds in Space: a Matter of Mind over Matter Frank Go and Paul C. van Fenema ............................................

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5. Space, Organisation and Management Michael Brocklehurst ..................................................................

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6. Diversity Management as Identity Regulation in the Post-Fordist Productive Space Patrizia Zanoni and Maddy Janssens .........................................

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7. Organizational Space, Place and Civility Michael Muetzelfeldt ...................................................................

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8. Built Space and Power Thomas A. Markus ......................................................................

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9. Organising Space Stewart Clegg and Martin Kornberger ........................................

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10. Constructing Nomadic Organisations in Virtual Spaces? Nina Kivinen ...............................................................................

163

11. Electronic Stepping Stones: a Moasaic Metaphor for the Production and Re-distribution of Communicative Skill in an Electronic Mode Stephen Little and Margaret Grieco ............................................

174

12. Trains, Planes, Billboards and People at Kastrup Airport Station: Branding a Territorial Transformation from ‘Local’ to ‘Global’ Søren Buhl Pedersen ....................................................................

183 5

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13. Design, but Align: the Role of Organisational Physical Space, Architecture and Design in Communicating Organisational Legitimacy W. Trexler Proffitt Jr. and G. Lawrence Zahn ............................

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14. Organisations and Physical Space Cecilia Gustafsson.......................................................................

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15. Interface between Organisational Design and Architectural Jean Bellas ...................................................................................

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16. Cities as Heterotopias and Third Spaces: the Example of ImagiNation, the Swiss Expo02 Chris Steyaert ..............................................................................

248

17. Transcultural Encounters in Cities: Convergence without Becoming Coincident Nils Wåhlin .................................................................................

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18. Empty Spaces or Illusionary Images? “Stockholm as a Mobile Valley” Peter Dobers ................................................................................

6

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Acknowledgements Without the support of the many people involved in this project, this book would have remained an idea. First, we would like to thank the contributors to our session at EGOS 2003 in Copenhagen, and second, most especially, we must acknowledge the redoubtable contributions of Cleusa Lester – Cleo is simply essential and fantastic and without her assistance this project could not have unfolded as smoothly as it did. We must also acknowledge the input from people who inspired us in different ways, at different stages in this project: Andreas Maier from the architecture lab SUN; Simon Hoerauf and Johannes Weissenbaeck, Martin’s partners at PLAY; – all contributed, whether they know it or not, to the overall shape of this book. Finally, our biggest thanks, however, should go to the people in our lives that transform spaces into the places we enjoy: especially Lynne, Jonathan and William on Stewart’s side, and Jessica for Martin.

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Chapter 1

Introduction: Rediscovering Space Stewart R. Clegg and Martin Kornberger

Space is the machine Bill Hillier The idea of editing a book on space, management and organisation theory was born out of our shared interest and passion for artefacts, aesthetics and architecture, phenomena that contribute in many different ways to the social reality in which we work and live. As with every idea, this one only became real through its embeddedness in a productive and intriguing context. It all began when, one day, Martin suggested that we propose a session for the 2003 EGOS Conference in Copenhagen. We had many interests in common and it took a little discussion to zero in on something: there were just so many things we were interested in exploring. Eventually, we decided that we wanted to explore Space! The urge was borne out of a common perception that, as a result of a recent American Academy of Management theme, time had been systematically addressed. But who was really interested in space? Well, for a start, architects were, and so initially we thought that it would be interesting to bring together great architects and smart organisation and management theorists. But, on the whole, the life-worlds (and economics) are somewhat different. Not as many architects as we might have envisaged made the event – but those that did were able to make significant and interesting contributions. Eventually we got a group of like-minded researchers from different disciplines together. After three days of listening, discussing and reflecting on space and its relations, meanings, and implications for organising, we invited selected speakers, as well as a couple of colleagues who could not make it to Copenhagen, to submit the papers included in this volume. We then reviewed and edited the contributions that you will read here. After briefly delineating how we situate this volume on the wider map of organisation studies we will introduce the different contributions in more detail.

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Space, management and organisation theory Speaking generally, management and organisation theory is preoccupied with two related issues: first it focuses on processes unfolding in time, the management of these processes, and its critique. This view stresses the dynamic, fluid character of management opposed to its ostensibly more stable patterns, the focus of the discipline for much of the latter half of the twentieth century. The second preoccupation can be seen in the cognitive orientation many organisation theories have adopted in recent decades. Organisations are for the most part understood as cognitive entities that think, learn, make sense, and behave similarly to humans. In fact, at its extreme, the sensemaking approaches suggested a view of organisations that was almost entirely decorporealised and dematerialised: minds floating in equivocal spaces reduced the presumed conditions of their own cognitive existence with nary a thought for the facticities of materiality. Focusing on processes unfolding in time and on cognition as the core essence of organisations, management thinking turned away from concrete spatial and material reality. Largely ignoring the physical reality of organisations, especially their spatial features, researchers wrote about power, change, and organisations without referring to the spatial, material reality that constituted these phenomena. In editing this volume we have sought to explore this gap; more precisely, the contributions in this volume discuss the relation between space, architecture, management, and organisation theory, as introduced in the next section.

The contributions The book is divided in five parts: part one, Conceptualising Space deals more broadly with theories of organisations and their relation to space. Following this general introduction by the Editors, the book starts with Chapter Two, Jean-Francois Chanlat’s contribution Space, Organisation and Management: A Socio-Historical Perspective. A characteristically cosmopolitan piece of theorising by probably the most international of the current generation of Francophone scholars (which is to say, far more cosmopolitan than the majority of Anglophone contemporaries), Chanlat’s chapter is divided into three parts: the first briefly presents some key elements in the consideration of organisational space; the second presents how organisational space has been treated by the major currents of management thought (Taylorism, Fayolism, Fordism, Bureaucracy, Human Relations, etc.), while the third explores the main tendencies of the last few years. In Chapter Three Tor Hernes, Tore Bakken and Per Ingvar Olsen, outline an account of Spaces as Process: Developing a Recursive Perspective of Organizational Space. In their contribution they propose understanding 9

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organisations as recursive spaces of systems, teams, and technologies that are simultaneously stable and changing. They explore the recursive nature of space with the help of works by Luhmann, Giddens, Latour and Bourdieu, assessing these contributions in the light of Whitehead’s process philosophy. Their recursive perspective focuses on the interaction between space as a structure that shapes action and action that re-shapes and reinforces space. This approach avoids the fallacies of thinking organisation either in terms of structure (and stability) or change (and agency); rather, it reflects on their interplay as a driving force behind both. Looking at spaces of financial control and monitoring, as well as spaces of learning, they describe the dynamics at work in a tangible way. In Chapter Four, Frank Go and Paul C. van Fenema analyse transportation and information technology that have transformed human interaction with spaces. Their contribution, entitled Moving Bodies and Connecting Minds in Space: It is a Matter of Mind over Matter, argues that new technologies enable people to move their bodies almost effortlessly and continuously splitting their mental world from the physical time-space presence. Developing a typology of spaces, they suggest that people are included and excluded in multiple spaces, categorised as mind space, information space, material space, and social (relational) space. Interaction in these spaces or worlds leads to complex if not chaotic patterns and novel opportunities. Go and Fenema discuss three examples to provide a clear understanding of these new spaces: First, immigrants in Western Europe who remain partially connected to their home culture in Turkey or Morocco through satellite TV and cultural networks and artefacts. Second, professionals who engage in a virtual lifestyle of travelling while staying tuned to their business and social reference points. And third, offshore call centre services in India where people take on quasi American or British identities (such as an “Anglo” name and accent) and are fed with cultural knowledge (movies and news) and customer information (including local weather) to serve customers in the US and UK without customers knowing they are talking to someone from India. They conclude that new technologies enabling bodies as well as minds to move offer unprecedented access to “other” worlds, cultures, ideas and spaces. Researchers are challenged to explore, understand, and help make sense of these spaces and intricate patterns. The second part of the book explores the relation between Space, Power and Management. The chapters included in this section share a focus on the social implications of space and the power exercised through spatial organisation. In his chapter on engineering the landscape: engineering management? Michael Brocklehurst argues that the way in which space is partitioned and regulated is a significant factor in influencing which ideas are embraced within a given society. He supports his thesis by first, examining how the United States landscape came to be constructed during the nine10

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teenth century and second, by showing how that construction was mirrored both in the rise of industrial management during the twentieth century and in the particular form it took. Common to both the landscape and the ideas of industrial management was the desire to plan comprehensively, and measure in detail. But, as he shows, it is the form that the planning took in both cases that was crucial – notably the use of the “square”. The result was the standardisation and uniformity of land and labour, an outcome that was to prove crucial to their commodification. Patrizia Zanoni and Maddy Janssens take a different perspective on power, management and space. In their contribution Rethinking diversity through productive processes: space, time and the body on the car factory shopfloor they approach diversity management as a mode of managerial control through identity regulation within the post-Fordist productive space. According to them, such space is characterised by spatio-temporal discontinuities at the international, organisational and work levels, discontinuities that render traditional direct modes of control increasingly ineffective. Management increasingly controls labour indirectly by regulating workers’ identities as to make them develop a sense of self that is conducive to the attainment of organisational goals. Diversity management regulates identity in three main ways, by defining workers as: individual entrepreneurial subjects, members of specific socio-demographic groups, and members of the organisation. While the first and third ways draw respectively on HRM and organisational culture, the second way typifies diversity management. Management combines these complementary definitions in order to construct a flexible diversity management policy. However that is no reason for despair, as they argue: the simultaneous use of three definitions introduces tensions in the identity regulation process that can be exploited by workers to resist their subordination. Therefore, while it might hamper the development of class-consciousness across socio-demographic differences, diversity management does not prevent resistance tout court. Rather, it seems itself to provide conditions of possibilities for the emergence of new forms of workers’ resistance. In Chapter Seven, Michael Muetzelfeldt focuses on Organizational space and organizational civility, to explore the role of space in producing and reproducing organisational civility. He suggests that the functioning of organisational life depends upon civility between its members. This is obvious when looking at organisations that emphasize trust, shared vision, and congeniality as organising principles. As he argues, civility’s complex and contradictory features include constraint and interpersonal attunement, drawing on sentiment as well as reason, to govern relationships with others who are both allies and competitors. These features are characteristic of organisational life, as well as of society at large. Spatial arrangements in organisations establish distinctions and express meanings about organis11

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ational power and authority, but do so in ways that appear independent of the people as actors, who can then present themselves as familiar social equals. This applies to large spatial arrangements, as well as small-scale organisational spaces such as private offices, semi-public meeting rooms and public areas. Each has its markers, its rules of interaction, and its place in reproducing civility within authority by mediating their contradictory features and by providing resources for people to manage their difficulties. Chapter Eight features an essay by Thomas A. Markus entitled Built space and power that is, in many ways, intriguing. As an architect and social scientist Markus’ argues that buildings are, first and foremost, social objects that structure human relations. His contribution explores the concept of buildings as social objects – it describes and analyses three major discourses of architecture: form, space and function. It looks at the way these produce and reproduce social relations of two types in buildings: power and bonds. It elaborates formal critiques, the description of spatial structures using the methods of space syntax, and function-related texts, especially insofar as they create and use systems of classification. Moreover, he discusses the way that buildings may have a meaning by mapping the answers to questions from each of the three discourses into a common field: that of social relations. In doing so, he traces the history of the alternative discourses of buildings-as-art-objects and buildings-as-technical objects. This puts forward an explanation of how, in the last two hundred years, the concept of buildingsas-social objects has been suppressed, the reasons for this, and the purpose of this suppression for building developers, owners, and sponsors. Finally he analyses the effects on organisations, and their systems of space management, of not making adequate provision positive for social relations using the potential of the buildings form, its spatial structure and its functional programme. Chapter Nine is written by Stewart Clegg and Martin Kornberger. The simple title, Organizing Space, reflects its aspirations – to link organisation theory with concerns related and deriving from space and architecture. The contribution argues that the organisation of space still remains a relatively under-specified but nonetheless important question for the processes and practices of organising. While organising is often represented in immaterial, cognitive terms, when it is connected to a concern with space, then it has to concern the body of an organisation, that is, its materiality. Similarly to Markus, they suggest understanding space not just as a container waiting to be filled: for them, space and buildings are social objects creating social spaces whose forms provide implicit answers to crucial questions of power, order, classification, control and function, while simultaneously implying theories of aesthetics, creativity, innovation and freedom. Interestingly, they use architectural theory as well as short stories by Kafka to address questions concerning organisation and its spatial dimension as issues for organ12

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isation theory thinking that problematize the relation between inside and outside and central power and periphery. Employing Rem Koolhaas’ “strategy of the void”, they explore strategic implications for the ways in which space and organisation interact. The third part of the book explores Organizing New Spaces for Organization. Nina Kivinen opens this section with her chapter, entitled In Virtual and Other Spaces – Expressions of Nomadic Organisations, which discusses the spatiality of organisations on the Internet. She does so specifically in terms of websites and suggests that the nomadic expressions of organisations can be seen in and through the virtual spaces of the Internet. The “virtual” spaces of the Internet are analysed using Lefebvrian and Foucauldian notions, as these spaces can be described as material, imagined, and social. She finds parallels between the fluid boundaries of organisations today and the arguments by Rosi Braidotti on nomadic subjects. Taken that the Internet is a space within which people, as well as organisations, construct their identities, Kivinen explores tensions between a situated subject and a nomadic, travelling subject. In these new spaces people become more dynamic and fascinating. She concludes that the expressions on the Internet can perhaps be used to show the nomadic nature of organisations. Stephen Little and Margaret Grieco follow Electronic Stepping Stones: a mosaic metaphor for the production and redistribution of skill in electronic mode, in a chapter the purpose of which, is to draw attention to the creative flexibility provided by the new technical forms of communication. The metaphor of a mosaic is governed by the wish to draw attention to the relevance of each and every unit of creativity or patterning – the tile – available through the World Wide Web. Each web author places their “tile” in a space whose dimensions are beyond their control. “Tiles” lying adjacent to one another on a search engine at one point in time do not necessarily conserve this relation. At another time they may be fundamentally separated from one another. Space and informational adjacencies are subject to constant revisions of the kaleidoscope. As they argue, constant alertness and fine tuning can bring these segregating patterns into adjacency again: shadowing the action of others and shaping own “tiles” to achieve adjacencies to the desired target are also a pattern that they repeatedly have found in the use of the web by progressive social movements. The shape of the new knowledge mosaic is constantly shifting but the mosaic provides electronic steppingstones that continue to ensure the importance of “strategy” in communication. This chapter exemplifies, reflexively, the topics that it addresses. In Chapter Twelve Søren Buhl Pedersen analyses Trains, planes and people in a space of travel: Relating “the local” to “the global” in Copenhagen Airport Station. In his contribution he conceptualises the spatial aspect of place branding, that is, to capture the importance of a mundanely built environment to the production of social identity. As he argues, this aim is met 13

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through a theoretical grounding of brand management in the spatial trialectics bequeathed by Lefebvre, which constitute a theoretical argument for the organisational importance of spatial design. His Lefebvrian analysis points in two directions: first, towards the conflation of the expressive and functional aspects of built environment, and second, towards a consideration of the potential for users to inhabit or acquire the built environment in question. The empirical object of Pedersen’s study is the Copenhagen Airport Station. His analysis suggests that the station space communicates a particular relation between local belonging and global identity, linking the local to the global in a comprehensive brand ideology, both drawing from and breaking with established narratives of territory, gender, ethnicity and travel. The fourth part of the book has a practical focus on Managing organizations through space. The section is opened up by W. Trexler Proffitt Jr. and G. Lawrence Zahn’s contribution Design, but Align: The Role of Organizational Physical Space, Architecture and Design in Communicating Organizational Legitimacy. They argue that organisational physical space and architectural design have important, but often ignored impacts on organisational legitimacy. Through viewing space and design as communication, particularly nonverbal communication, the authors highlight the importance of consistency between the organisation’s verbal messages and the nonverbal messages conveyed through architecture and design. They suggest that integrating the physical and communication perspectives could provide a more complete appreciation for the impacts of design and architecture and clarify their relationship to organisational legitimacy. Proffitt and Zahn propose several postulates as direct effects of the impact of design and architecture on legitimacy, including: the credibility of organisational messages for internal audiences; the impact of claims made to external constituencies, and organisational claims of conformity and progressiveness. All of these have material and spatial dimensions. They conclude by suggesting that each of these propositions presents challenging research problems in need of empirical relating to issues of legitimacy. Chapter Fourteen by Cecilia Gustafsson argues for Triangulating Office Design: Towards an Eclectic Theory of Office Design. Gustafsson argues that while the relationship between organisation and physical space is evident, it has been left unquestioned in the organisational literature. Thus, in her contribution, she aims to open up a discussion about the relationship between organisations and physical space, and how to manage the physical space (especially office space) in an organisational setting. In doing so she addresses the apparent lack of a coherent theoretical framework and proposes a cross-disciplinary reading as a foundation for a more holistic theoretical framework based on three basic factors: the physical setting, the organisational factors, and the people factors. Aligned with the other con-

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tributions to this part of the book, she concludes by discussing practical implications and develops some practical guidelines. In Chapter Fifteen, Jean Bellas, founder and CEO of SPACE, an international leader in workplace strategy, design, and management consulting, offers insights into the Interface between Organizational Design and Architectural Space. In his essay he focuses on the interface between organisational design and architectural space. Using intriguing examples from his practice, Bellas offers a holistic perspective on the role that space, design and architecture play in organisation. We find this contribution from a highly reflective practitioner especially valuable – it moves us much closer towards the dialogue that we seek to initiate. The fifth and last part of the book is devoted to Other Spaces – heterotopias or spaces that might not exist on cartographically correct maps of the world yet are still real. In Chapter Sixteen, Chris Steyaert explores Cities as Heterotopias and Thirdspaces: The example of ImagiNation, the Swiss Expo02. In his contribution he departs from the question of how creative development is connected to and “takes place” in cities. His essay argues that specific, “potential” or “other”, spaces and timings, which stay out of the force of organising, allow transition and transformation: they allow becoming (instead of being), capturing creativity and decadence, life and death. These transitional or third spaces, which are conceptually connected to the notions of potential space and heterotopia, can be illustrated in relationship to the organising of cities, and how this connects to people’s everyday life practices. He uses Expo02, an exhibition on the future of Switzerland, which took place in 2002, as a concrete example. He establishes a research agenda defined through formulating three propositions for a so-called heterotopological analysis based on: deterritorialising, queering, and smoothing space. Chapter Seventeen is written by Nils Wåhlin and deals with Transcultural Encounters in Cities: Convergence without Becoming Coincident. His chapter aims to develop a critical sensitivity and a conceptual framework that bridges the tensions between identity and alterity construction. The text connects to a study of cross-cultural movements and special interest is dedicated to cultural encounters in cities. By travelling to other places Wåhlin suggests that we can acquire perspectives on ourselves. This encounter with a new environment generates reflection and review of ingrained understandings. Consequently, entering into dialogue with “the other” can illuminate the shadows of personal identity, especially as these may be narratives for a new belonging, which rebel against the discourses imposed on people. As people move through spaces they bring with them cultural sensitivities that are important to consider. Articulations and translations in critical boundary zones trigger a new vocabulary where reflexivity breaks out and fills the “discursive void”. Wåhlin defines one of the biggest challenges in studying 15

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emerging spaces of language transgression as being how they do justice to individual and cultural patterns in societal development. The two aspects are inextricably intertwined and it is important to understand transculturality and reflexive identity construction in spaces of flows that mix cultural influences. These spaces hold a dynamic and open-textured process of unifying that allows plurality and difference – convergence without coincidence. Last, but not least, Peter Dobers explores Empty Spaces or Illusionary Images? Stockholm as a Mobile Valley, in chapter eighteen he states that spatial areas such as Silicon Valley have a clear image, with both “silicon” and “valley” having been the source of many other creative city images. When hearing of “Mobile Valley”, for instance, it becomes harder to imagine which regions in the world we think of: Aalborg, SAN de Saint-Quentinen-Yvelines, Finland and Stockholm/Kista are regions at times imagined as a “Mobile Valley”. After discussing the use and travel of a few IT-related images of Stockholm in Lefebvrian spatial terms, Dobers argues that the creative use and imitation of regional images results in empty spaces. However, as he reminds us, an empty space at the disposal of other space fillers enables its user to be creative.

Conclusion At its inception, space was important for a discipline that first developed its ideas in architecture (with Bentham) and engineering (with Taylor). Yet, as the discipline developed, a concern with space seemed to recede. Space became increasingly marginal to its concerns – even when topics that were intrinsically spatial, such as globalisation, emerged for discussion (Parker 2003). In this volume, and a previous contribution to the same series of publications by Tor Hernes (2004), we announce, unequivocally, that it is time to bring space back in (Kornberger and Clegg 2004).

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Chapter 2

Space, Organisation and Management Thinking: a Socio-Historical Perspective Jean-François Chanlat

Introduction Space has always been a fundamental dimension of living beings and, of course, of the human experience. As a locus of biological survival, psychological existence and sociability, space is a key issue for human organisation. Despite its existential importance, it is interesting to see that it has not been, until recently, a central issue in management thinking (Chanlat 1990; Hatch 2000; Hernes 2003) even if we can register some footprints in the history of management literature. The chapter will consider how several schools of management and organisation thinking have treated space. It will be divided into two parts: in the first part I present some keys elements concerning Organisational Space and Social Behaviour; in the second part, the spatial conception of some main management schools (Scientific Management, Fordism, Bureaucratic thought, Human Relations, Cognitive, Systemic Theory, Culture and Symbolism, Critical Perspectives, Political and Psychosociological currents). In the conclusion, I discuss the tendencies we can observe in contemporary management thinking in terms of their spatial consequences for individuals, organisations and societies.

Organisational space: some key elements In the field of organisation studies, space has been the preserve mainly of researchers drawn from psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology and geography (Steele 1973; Moles and Romer 1977; Lefebvre 1974; Fischer 1980, 1989; Gagliardi 1990, 1996; Chanlat 1990; Fischer et Vischner 2000; Sundstrom and Sundstrom 1986; Duffy 1997; Hatch 2000; Strati 1992, 1999; Lautier 2000). Their reflections present some key characteristics of what constitutes organisational space. We can sum up these elements as representing themes that suggest that organisational space is best 17

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thought of as simultaneously divided, controlled, imposed and hierarchical, productive, personalised, symbolic, and social.

Organisational space as divided Every organisational space presents a double division: on one side, a division between internal and external worlds and on the other, a division inside the organisation itself. This divided universe is more or less apparent. If it was very clear in the past, when we think, for example, of the traditional automobile plant, it is not so apparent today, notably in the virtual organisation. In effect, this historical division was clearly embedded in space. There were doors, walls, barriers, guardians, clocks, buildings, etc. This separation between inside and outside was fundamental for the identity of the workers, foremen, employees and managers. Today, these physical limitations still always exist; nonetheless, one meets some differences in the division of organisational areas. We can think of people working at home or in a teleworking centre. They could work for an organisation without being inside it. But again, this reality is not new in the history of industrial capitalism. We can remember the putting-out system at the end of the eighteenth century. Division also exists within organisations: as we all know, when we are visiting an organisational setting, we face a spatial division, which is horizontal on the one hand, between offices, workshops, cafeteria, toilets, corridors, halls … and vertical on the other hand, between the different floors. These physical boundaries have always been at the core of management’s traditional practical reflections on space.

Organisational space as controlled Each organisational space is by and large controlled. There are different types of control: visual, in the presence of the working persons, as when the foreman surveys his work group; visual and distant as when a guardian looks at a video in a supermarket or a bank, or electronic, as when a manager remotely checks and controls the work of employees. We can also experience the three systems simultaneously, when, for example, we enter a supermarket. It has been suggested that the feeling of being controlled has been growing in work places in recent years. Some suggest that Orwell’s “Big Brother” metaphor is becoming a reality for many of us. Since Bentham’s Panopticon, the concept of surveillance has been a key element of the historical enclosing movement described by Foucault (1976). Such control organises and monitors communication, imposes specific circulatory routes and formal channels as it structures information on a functional basis. That we do not necessarily formally communicate with whom we want is the reason why we observe in every organisation other channels that are more informal, which structure information and communication on the basis of social and personal links. 18

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Organisational space as an imposed and hierarchical space When we work in a business firm, or in any organisation, people rarely have the choice of job location. The managerial hierarchy, perhaps in past time, imposes most spatial design on the work place, according to whatever criteria were once fashionable (function, status, unit, geographical location, etc). As we can see, this disposition of space is, furthermore, closely related to a hierarchical system. In effect, every organisation is more or less hierarchically divided and each hierarchy is visible in space. The location of an office, its size, the number of windows, the type of furniture, and the decoration are generally related to the status associated with the person. Of course, this aspect also relates to the culture of the organisation, the nature of the work, the philosophy of management, the regional or the national cultures (Hall 1978; Chanlat 1990; Hofstede 2002; Trompenaars 1994; d’Iribarne 1998; 2003).

Organisational space as a productive space All organising occurs in a productive space considered it is something that has to fulfil its objectives. Formal organisations are defined as goal oriented social systems (Blau and Scott 1962). So, in each organisational setting, the personnel produce goods or services to fulfil their goals. In that sense, a hospital, university, research centre, public office, or a plant are different productive spaces because of their own objectives. The organisation of the space will be designed in relationship with the requisites of the productive system of each of these organisations. For this reason a faculty will not be spatially organised in the same way as a plant or a medical clinic. In management, this element was largely taken into consideration because of the effectiveness orientation of any managerial process, but not always in a successful manner.

Organisational space as a personalised place If organisational space is designed and constrained by all the preceding aspects, it is also the locus of an affective investment. Historically, human beings have been territorial beings. So, workers or employees invest the workplace with personal meaning, trying both to live in it and transform it. Such a process of appropriation, where the person develops a sense of intimacy, is important to well being at work. The workplace can be personalised by territorial limits and through visible processes of appropriation, such as a name on the door or office, or by way of a particular decoration and styling of an office or workshop. Even in the most difficult situation, such as that of a worker on a production line, we can notice a form of spatial appropriation in the way of a photo pasted on a wall or a pillar nearby. In all these cases, we observe privatisation in a context in which, by and large, 19

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somebody else more or less always owns space. The individualisation process is a spatial regulation influenced by many things: the orientation of spaces, their size, and the presence or not of walls, the quality of materials used, as well as organisational norms and policies. For example, visual or acoustic isolation can create a kind of home feeling but can also be felt by others as a person making some distance evident between themselves and others. Every spatial change will have some of this kind of nesting effect (Fischer 1990). Now we can understand why the closing of a plant must be difficult not only for socio-economic reasons but also for spatial ones. People lose their social and personal inscription in a space that simultaneously contributes to the identity that others assume belongs to the person in question (Fischer 1990; Francfort et al. 1995).

Organisational space as symbolic Each organisation has its own culture. This culture is the product of many internal factors, such as the nature of the activity, its ownership (private, public or associative), the characteristics of the personnel (age, sex, level of qualifications, social origin, ethnic origin, etc.), technology, philosophy of management, personality of the key executives, and the result of influence by external factors (economic context, political regime, social structure, educational system, values and culture). The sense of culture feeds the organisational identity, spatial configuration, and aesthetics, which, together, participate to create the symbolic universe of the organisation (Turner 1990; Gagliardi 1992; Strati 2000). It is for this reason that the spatial forms, architecture, aesthetics and materials of the buildings, offices and plants are full of meaning. A Fordist plant in Detroit, a Chrysler Building in New York, or the European parliament in Strasbourg are all examples that illustrate this thesis. The organisational space contributes to the symbolic representation not only of the personnel but also of the people outside (clients, passers-by, competitors, suppliers, etc.). Space is an emblem, an icon, which produces the organisation, contributing to the universe of meanings that encode the organisation.

Organisational space as social Every organisational space is a social milieu. In it, we find different people organised in a social system. According to the nature of the organisation, we are going to find a certain type of division of labour (sexual, age-based, professional and ethnic) which not only plays a role in the production of an organisational culture as we have mentioned before but also very often structures the organisational space. We can regularly hear comments such as: “There is the black’s workshop; here, is the women’s corner, while this building is full of Portuguese and Arabs” or perhaps that “This Parliament 20

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is a men’s place”. Of course, such divisions of space will be influenced by some cultural categories (system of meanings) and by the power relationships that exist between the different social actors. It is the reason why, when we visit an organisation, we will discover through our circulation in it that there exists diversity in the social relations system. From this point of view, any space reveals something about the sociology and anthropology of the organisation itself. As we can see, each organisation can be understood according to a spatial reading. In the next part, we will discuss some of the main readings of space in management thinking since its inception.

Organisational space in management thinking: main readings Modern management thinking is now more than a century old. As we know, the first systematic forms and principles appeared at the end of the nineteenth century (Wren 1994; Lécuyer et Bouilloud 1994). It is related to the rise of what the American historian of Business, Alfred Chandler (1977) has qualified as the visible hand: that is management and the appearance of the social actor in charge of the enterprise – the manager. Since then, we have observed an institutionalisation of management as well as a variety of intellectual contributions to management thinking. We are going to analyse the place of space in the reflections of some main currents.

Space in the scientific organisation movement (Taylorism, Fayolism and Fordism) Some of the first systematic reflections on management were Taylor’s books: Principles of Scientific Management (1911) and Shop Management (1919). In the first book, Taylor proposed a method for improving work efficiency with which to resolve the problems of production, productivity and wealth. When we read his publications, we can easily see that space is not explicitly discussed except in terms of the physical setting. But, we can also notice that space in spite of everything is implicitly present. In effect, space in Taylor’s thinking is a productive, controlled, divided, hierarchised space. Obsessed by optimisation and rationalisation of work through the analysis of tasks, Taylor organises the workshop space according to his views. This implies that we can observe a strict division of labour (specialisation of tasks, division between execution and conception), a control by the supervisor and the creation of the methods office. “The use of these scientific data requires the installation of an office where the elements are classified and where the person who uses them can settle down quietly to determine the elements he needs” (Taylor 1911:93). The treatment of space in Taylor’s writings emphasises the productive element and the necessity for management to organise 21

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scientifically the work in a physical context. Its space of reference is the workshop in a discontinuous process of production. The power figure is the methods engineer, who organises the labour process precisely. As some specialists of the scientific movement have noticed, Taylorism is a political economy of the workshop (Hatchuel 1994). This economic vision has produced some great results from a productivity point of view. But, as a utopian, Taylor had a social goal too. Because of the use of scientific method, the workshop could become a space where a reconciliation of interests between the workers and the bosses occurred. We know how Taylor strongly criticised bosses who did not give salary rises when productivity increased. As an American engineer with great scientific hopes, Taylor was a good representative of the scientism evident at the turning point of the nineteenth into the twentieth century. In a period of class struggles, workshops organised scientifically were his hope for a more rational and less conflictual future. At the same period of time as Taylor in the US, in France, another engineer, Henri Fayol was active in the field of management thinking also. As a general and successful director of a mining company, he was illustrative of the rise of the managers in business firms described by Chandler (Saussois 1994). In his most well known book, Administration industrielle et générale (1956), Fayol presents his main managerial ideas. Unlike Taylor who focused on workshop management, he put the emphasis on the firm as a whole. His focus is on the general manager and the administrative function: the organ and instrument of the administrative function is its social body (Le corps social). While matter and machines may be brought into play, the administrative function acts only on personnel. As with Taylor, space is implicit in Fayol’s thinking but he widens the conception of organisational space from the shop to the enterprise. We can also notice the appearance of a social concern. The firm maintains a corporate spirit through providing stable jobs and by the paternalist attitude of the boss. The organisational space is of course a divided, controlled, disciplined, hierarchised space but over all, an administrative and social milieu in which the obligation is to put the right person in the right place. So, we find a strong preoccupation with social harmony. Fayol, even though he was an engineer, thought like a manager, with a conception of space clearly embedded in the administrative vision through which he tries to bring the whole staff together. Space is implicitly an element of this policy. As in other French companies of that period, personnel were housed by the business, close to the plant or the mine, as in Fayol’s case. In other words, there was a spatial inscription of the firm outside its physical limits. Paradoxically, Fayol’s thinking was less popular among the French engineers than Taylor’s, in part because of the role played by the Taylor Society in France, animated by a very influential French engineer, Henri Le Chatelier (1928; Hatchuel 1994). It was the English translation by Urwick that pop22

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ularised Fayol’s management thinking in North America (1949). As we know, his main principles were at the basis of American management introductory books from the fifties onwards (Koontz and O’Donnell, 1955; Wren, 1994). If Taylor was the task analyst of the workshop and Fayol, the administrative thinker of the business firm, Henry Ford was the man who changed not only the production system but also the whole society (Boyer, 1994). With Fordism, we have the apparition of the huge plant and mass consumption society. In effect, the creator of the production line work system has produced one of the great organisational space figures of the twentieth century: the automobile plant. In doing so, Ford built a divided, controlled, hierarchised space but he has also founded a new manner of production and a new industrial space. Unlike Taylor’s spatial reality, which was essentially one of workshops in relation to each other in a discontinuous process (Hatchuel 1994), Ford’s spatial universe was a big plant in which we find thousands and thousands workers doing their jobs in a fixed place on a production line and watched by a hierarchy. Chaplin, in Modern Times, immortalised this image. Because of its massive size, the Fordist plant also produced a social density associated with such a size, which became the locus of union movements and the development of worker consciousness all over the industrialised world. Sartre’s famous sentence in the fifties: “Do not despair Billancourt”, is a good illustration of the importance of a big automobile plant at that time. Billancourt was the Paris suburb in which Renault was situated and was, for decades, symbolic of the worker’s struggle in France. Furthermore, the proximity and sharing of this human experience generated literature criticising the processes of domination, exploitation and alienation associated with this Fordist universe (Weil 1951; Friedman 1954). The plant was not only a productive building but also a place of suffering.

Space in bureaucracy Among the classics of organisation and management thinking, bureaucracy theory plays an important role (Mouzelis 1968; Séguin et Chanlat 1983; Morgan 1989; Clegg 1990). A product of the history of modern societies, bureaucratic thinking is an illustration of the process of rationalisation of the human modern experience (Weber 1947). Analysed by Max Weber at the turn of the twentieth century, this model has been very popular among not only public and state organisations but also large-size private and associative organisations. In the well-known description of the characteristics of the order of bureaucracy, what is the place of space? When we read the literature on the subject, we can notice some elements in common with classical administrative thinking, which result in a divided, controlled and hierarchised space. Also, however, we can see some distinctive themes. Bureaucracy as a model applied to public service creates some 23

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new things. First, it creates a new spatial representation, the bureau and its architectural envelope the office building. So, this spatial reality is quite different from the workshop, the plant or the firm. In comparison with the workshop and the plant, we are in a services-productive space. The more recently dominant image of a bureaucrat in a clean white shirt or blouse, seated behind a desk, contrasts with the older image of dirty, blue collar male workers with their mechanical tools, machines, and production line associated with the workshop and Fordist plant. Second, unlike family and private businesses, bureaucracy separates the private sphere from the public. Third, it insists on the neutrality of the bureau and on the impersonality of the bureaucrat according to the egalitarian rules prevailing in such a system. Fourth, it symbolises the defence of the common good and the general interest (du Gay 1994) in contrast with the private and commercial interests associated with the market system. Fifth, it helps create a social space, which produces new work identities: the public servant in the UK or in France, Le fonctionnaire. In other words, it is a space that gives personnel a professional identity, often in opposition to other identities: notably, it provides job security and impersonality. As Weber states: “Rather, entrance into an office, including one in the private economy, is considered an acceptance of a specific duty of fealty to the purpose of the office in return for the grant of a secure existence. It is decisive for the modern loyalty to an office that, in the pure form, it does not establish a relationship to a person” (Weber 1968). State bureaucracy is clearly related to a notion of protected space, a notion also extended to large size private or associative organisations after the Second World War. Finally, it is a space of efficiency founded on expertise in contrast to the ancient forms of administrative work based on family and money ties. The bureaucratic space, which was a reference during almost the entirety of the last century, has been criticised for its inefficiency or its numerous dysfunctions, especially in recent decades (Crozier 1964). As Paul du Gay (2000) has shown, however, we have to be careful with such a criticism. For, we can throw out the baby with the bath water if we do not come back to Weberian thinking on this issue. Bureaucratic space is not always an inefficient space. On the contrary, when we deal with public interest goods or services, it can be much more effective than its counterpart, the market (Kuttner 1999; Stiglitz 2002). Health, environment, water, urban metro and national train transportation systems are good examples of this (Chanlat 2003). The attitude towards it is also different in different societies. Historically, Europe in general, and France in particular, have a better appreciation of bureaucracy than the US. For in the construction of the nation state, bureaucracy has played a central role in the development of these societies, something that, by comparison, is lacking in the case of America (Meyer 1995; Zinn 2000). 24

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Space in the Human Relations School In the thirties, Taylorism was the object of criticism on the part of some organisational researchers (Mayo 1933; Roethlisberger and Dikson 1939). This criticism became an intellectual movement known as Human Relations (Mouzelis 1968; Séguin and Chanlat 1983). It started from the famous Hawthorne experiment at the Western Electric plant in a Chicago suburb and it developed a new vision of human beings in organisation, one that was very influential in the following three decades, from 1940–1970. This movement was very diverse. It included industrial and social psychologists, sociologists, ethnologists and managers (Mouzelis 1968; Desmarez 1987; Sorge and Warner 1997). Its spatial conception began with a Taylorist inspiration in the first Hawthorne experiments and from the first inconclusive results, and then built a new conception of human behaviour in organisational settings. Even though historians have discussed the data on the Hawthorne experiment critically for the last forty years (Lécuyer 1994), it is clear that the Human Relations movement was a key factor in the development of organisational behaviour. Its contribution has been diverse, influencing both the orthodox approaches of Mayo, Warner and the Chicago school as well as the interactionist current. The classic work of Mayo and his main collaborators, Roethlisberger and Dickson, introduced the idea of a relationship between work performance and group dynamics. Through the Hawthorne experiments and other studies, they showed that the formal organisation could not provide a real picture of what was going on in the organisation. They developed the idea of informal relations among workers and employees. While others may already have known that cliques and networks could exist in organisations, they were the first to link this aspect with morale and productivity. The values shared by group members became a key element of the social dynamics of an industrial organisation. So, the management must take into account this informal reality. By such an analysis, Mayo and his main collaborators focused on organisational space as a social space. The physical design of space became a factor in the construction of social links by spatially organising the formal and informal relationships in a plant. Moreover, it created a feeling of belonging that permitted a symbolic investment not only in the job done but also in working life more broadly. For Mayo, this knowledge leads to a better organisation that could realise social harmony. The firm becomes a locus of social integration and achievement and because of that, an efficient organisation. In the crisis of the thirties, we can understand such a preoccupation as being inspired by earlier Durkheimian and Paretian thinking. If Mayo played an important role in the emergence of the Human Relations School, bringing the concerns that he had already developed earlier in his career in Australia to bear on the social and human problems of industrial civilisation, other researchers also contributed to this movement. 25

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W. L. Warner and the Human Relations in Industry committee of the University of Chicago emphasised aspects linking the firm or the plant and its social environment (Warner and Low 1947). In effect, unlike Mayo, who did not look carefully at the social determinants external to the plant, Warner, an anthropologist and a former participant in the Hawthorne studies as well, was interested in seeing how technology, market and firm size, and social stratification influenced not only the community but also determined behaviour at work. His students widened the focus on family education, race, social class, religion, and workers unions, an important element for analysis. Neglected by Mayo and his collaborators, unions became accepted and integrated in organisational and managerial dynamics (Gardner 1957). By such reflection, Warner and his students widened the social space of the organisation and introduced the idea of negotiation in the internal space of formal organisation. From this point of view, organisational space is the result of a negotiated order. For the management, the social climate between the different actors is a consequence of this social negotiation and becomes a key factor of success and organisational performance. In other words, organisational space becomes a social and negotiating space, an idea that became the main characteristic of Fordism in terms of the interpretation of the French regulation theoreticians (Boyer 1994). Interactionist theory was also influenced by Mayo’s seminal work but it developed in another direction. It was developed first by Chapple and Arensberg at Harvard (1940). W. F. Whyte (1946, 1948), G. Homans (1951) and L. Sayles (1957) became the most famous scholars associated with interactionism in organisation theory. Even if we notice some differences in the adherents of this stream of thought, all of them agreed that Human Relations work had focused too much on thinking about people and too little on people’s activities or on the manner in which they interact. For them, interactions, activities and sentiments formed the social system. Any change in one has an effect on the other two. Interaction models played an important role in the internal dynamics. The most important work in this stream was to observe and identify the structure of the system interactions (identification of the actors, interaction order among the actors, measures of the interaction frequency and length). Whyte’s (1948) application of human relations in a restaurant is a good illustration. By observation, on a daily basis, Whyte shows how the interaction system relates to work organisation and technology. The physical conditions cannot be neglected any more than the insistence he places on interpersonal relationships – in marked contrast to Taylor. Space is a social interaction system conditioned by the physical and contextual settings. Changing worker attitudes involves the modification of the interaction and technological systems. By using ethnographic methods and by having a more global vision of the social system in an 26

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organisation, this current brought a greater sensitivity for spatial issues to the understanding of human behaviour at work. If among adherents of this diverse stream, the main vision of space is surely a social conception, one criticism was its functionalist vision and its micro-approach. Many theorists forget that the social system of a plant is also a power field in which conflicts of interest and values are common. From this point of view, change cannot be realized without a political process (Mouzelis 1967; Clegg 1989).

Space in the managerial thinking of Follett and Barnard In this section, we are going to present two key influential management thinkers. We begin with Mary Parker Follett who was rediscovered in the last decade in both the English (Graham 1995) and French (Mousli 2002) languages. Very well known in the early twentieth century, Mary Parker Follett’s thought disappeared almost completely after her death in 1933. Her writings became popular again in the second half of the nineties because of a new edition of her main articles in a book edited by the Harvard Business School Press (Graham 1995). In these collected papers Follett develops some ideas related to space even though space is not explicitly mentioned. For this political scientist, very involved in the social issues of her time and in political reflection on the state, management became a key idea. Influenced by pragmatism, she defends experimentation as a process of creation. For her, organisations appear as social experience spaces within which the observer is part of the experience in which one can never be a spectator because we are always part of life itself. But these experiments will be successful only if they are compatible with the organisational culture and the social system. In defining, formally, the law of situation, Mary Parker Follett placed emphasis on organisational contingency, a long time before contingency theorists. Contrary to Taylor and Fayol, she insisted on the role played by groups and the importance of knowledge that managers use. Considered today by many authors (Graham 1995; Mousli 2002) to have been far ahead of her time, Follett has developed a constructivist perspective on organisational space as a product of the actions of different actors, not only from the perspective of managers’ decisions. It is for this reason that she had a positive vision of conflict. So, Follett, by her modernity, deserves recognition in such an overview on space because this Bostonian lady, through her intense social and professional life, raised many contemporary issues. Barnard is another key figure of American management thinking. A business manager, as was Fayol and a great admirer of Mary Parker Follett, he wrote a very influential book, The Functions of the Executive in 1938. His work is still considered an important link between the classic school and post Second World War currents (Andrews 1971). Reedited regularly since then, he develops an implicit conception of organisational space. His great idea was to build a theory of organisation in which cooperation is given a 27

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central place. So, in his managerial conception, organisation is overall a cooperative space through which to achieve survival in a changing environment. For that, he became one of the defenders, with Alfred Sloan, of the multidivisional structure.

Space in systemic management thinking After the Second World War, we observe the development of a systemic current in management thinking. Inspired by the progress of the life sciences (Von Bertalanffy 1973), it imports the idea of organic systems and applies it to management and organisational analysis (Morgan 1986). Unlike the classical management thinking of the first part of the twentieth century, which uses a mechanical and closed conception of the organisation, the system theoreticians focus on the relationship between the organisation and the environment and on the relationship between the internal elements of each organisation. They emphasised notions of adaptation, homeostasis, requisite variety, entropy, and equifinality. In doing so, they changed the spatial vision of management. In effect, from now on, we have to think of different links uniting the diverse components of the organisational system and the relations of this system to its own environment. The systems view became very popular and generated numerous studies. We can think of the socio-technical systems approach (Trist and Bamforth 1955; Miller and Rice 1967), of contingency theory (Burns and Stalker 1962; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967; Pugh, Hickson, Hinings 1968; Donaldson 2001), of the Configuration school (Kwandallah 1977; Mintzberg 1979; Miller and Friesen 1984; Miller 1990) of population ecology (Hannan and Freeman 1977; Baum 1996). Additionally, the idea of system has been incorporated into common sense thinking about organisations. With ecological criticism, it once again has a growing popularity. The natural environment is not an unlimited resource space.

Space in cognitive managerial thinking Around the same period, we observe the rise of a new cognitive approach to management thinking. Herbert Simon, a psychologist, is a pre-eminent representative of this current. His first important publication Administrative behavior (1961) was influenced by Barnard’s conception of organisation. In successive publications, he reflects on artificial sciences (Simon 2003). He worked on decision-making, artificial intelligence and organisations. From this important work, we can select two reflexive elements on organisational space. The first one concerns the frontiers between market and organisations. Demonstrating that 80 % of human activities within the American economy are embedded into the organisation’s internal environment and not into the external environment or in the interorganisational relationships, 28

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Simon shows the strength of the internal organisational space (Simon 2003). The second deals with the cognitive role of the organisational context. It has also shown how loyalty, which he called organisational identification, played an important role in the organisational members’ cognitive framing. He was not alone in this process. With other important Carnegie school researchers such as March and Cyert, he founded the new administrative sciences in the fifties and gave a central role to cognition processes (March and Simon 1958; Cyert and March 1963). Since then, notably influenced by the enormous development of neurosciences, artificial intelligence and computer sciences (Dupuy 2000), others have followed in his footsteps to give to the management field a strong cognitive current (Weick 1995; Tenbrunsel et al. 1996). According to Hernes (2003), this movement can be broadly divided into three major streams. The first group worked on choice and managerial decisions. They proposed bounded rationality as a key notion. In doing so, they show that the decision maker is rational only in its own spatial context based on the information at his disposal. Decision-making is consequently a spatial embedded process (March 1978). The second group is interested in organisational learning. In this stream, learning and apprenticeship are also closely related to spatial considerations of knowledge. Can we go beyond the limits of our existing knowledge or not? This is the question raised by March, and Cyert when they contrast simple mind search behaviour with more complex search behaviour, which transforms the underlying goals (1963) or the distinction between single loop and double loop learning (Argyris and Schön 1978). The third group is related to the neo-institutional stream. As stressed by Hernes, they locate “explanations of organisational processes in the cognitive frameworks of actors rather than in their social context”. They include the consequences of the institutional environment, notably coming from state, markets, social movements, and professions (Scott 2001). As Hernes (2003) writes: “Neo-institutional approaches introduce their own form of spatiality into organisation studies through the notion of fields, which according to DiMaggio and Powell, consist of organisations that constitute a recognised area of institutional life by virtue of similarity.” For this stream, organisational cognition is a mental space that permits the emergence of new contexts. By sharing common mental space, actors can understand themselves and develop collective action. When mental space allows for transgression of physical and social spaces, new ideas and new possibilities can exist. But the mental space can be conservative too, when it contributes to the consolidation of existing patterns. Cognitive cartography is a means of discovering the thinking schemes of the organisational actors and managers (Weick and Bougon 1986; Cossette 1994), by which a reflexive process may be produced from among the actors in order to try and ameliorate managerial action (Audet 1994). 29

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Space in critical management thinking The history of management thinking is largely dominated by functionalist, utilitarian and instrumental reason. An external critique of management thinking has always existed, led by sociologists, philosophers and representatives of diverse social movements (workers, consumers, feminists, ethnic groups, ecologists). More recently, we have observed the development of internal criticism within management since the end of the seventies. Today, this movement is recognised and institutionalised in the English-speaking world under the designation of critical management studies (Casey 2002). This movement focuses on the negative aspects of organisation and managerial practices (Alvesson 2003). It exists in the French speaking countries as well (Chanlat and Dufour 1985; Aktouf 1989; Collectif 1987; Chanlat 1990; Le Goff 1996). As a movement, critical management thinking is very diverse. Only the most important elements, as they relate to space, developed by the most influential currents, will be discussed. We can select five great critical currents: anarchist, Marxian, feminist, ecological and postmodern. Organisational space has been mainly viewed as productive, functional and social. The main characteristics of organisational settings are based on production, division, control, imposition and hierarchical ideas. Critical management thinking discusses this functionalist and utilitarian vision of organisations. Historically, the first criticisms came from thinkers influenced by anarchism and Marxism. For the former, the capitalist firm is a nondemocratic organisation in which individual will and desires are forgotten. It is for this reason that the anarchists, inspired by nineteenth century thinkers such as Proudhon, Malatesta or Cesar de Paepe, supported new organisational democratic forms such as unions, cooperatives, credit unions, and socio-economic communities and fought for federalism against all market and state organisations conceived as undemocratic spaces. The objective of the revolution is to transform them into structures that permit the rise of democracy. These ideas have been influential in several countries, notably ones in which anarcho-syndicalism was strong. Cooperatives, Credit Unions, Communities and Workers Unions are some of the organisational creations of this movement. It is a stream that is not well known by organisation theoreticians because of the mainly Latin and Russian origins of this movement (Séguin and Chanlat 1983). Marxians were inspired by Marx, and by currents that, by and large, were influenced not only by some Marxist ideas but also by other twentieth century intellectual contributions, such as the Frankfurt School, Psychoanalysis, Existentialism, Foucault, etc. Marxian critics were pretty active in organisation theory at the end of the seventies and at the beginning of the eighties, notably in the UK (Clegg and Dunkerley 1977) and the US (Benson 1979). Even if they remained marginal in the field of organisation studies they 30

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brought with their thinking another vision of organisational space: business firms became seen as a space of domination, exploitation and alienation. If this vision was not original in social sciences, inside the field of management and organisation studies, it was clearly new. Another important critical group complemented this social criticism: the feminist movement. Inspired by different intellectual traditions (Calas and Smircich 1996), they emphasized gender issues. Prior to these works, organisation was an asexualised space, and management a masculine sphere. Even if much research, including the Hawthorne experiments, involved working women, it was rare to see gender in these classical works. So, feminist research has transformed the traditional vision of space. Now, the organisation man, to take a well-known book title of the fifties, also had to be considered as a woman! Consequently, organisational space is the locus of power relationships between the sexes. This contribution has changed many things in organisational behaviour teaching, notably in Scandinavian (Aaltio and Kovalainen 2003) and the Anglo-Saxon countries (Calas and Smircich 1996). Gender issues are nowadays integrated into management education. In Latin countries, except in Quebec, this movement seems to be slower in percolating into management spheres. If the feminists have sexualised organisational space, pushed also by a strong social movement among the most developed countries, the ecologist critics have brought another element into the discussion: the environment. This issue is not new as we can find it in the Meadows report or Club de Rome publications at the beginning of the seventies. Since then, ecological criticism has demonstrated the importance of the ecosystem and the influence of the firm’s activity on environmental equilibrium (Cromwell 2001). Such an issue is particularly legitimate today, and is discussed in many forums. By introducing this consideration, space has been brought outside into practical management thinking. Before this ecological criticism, which emerged during the Sixties and Seventies, it was totally ignored by management thinking (Clarke and Clegg 1998). Today, it is popularised under the name of sustainability, and brings ethics of responsibility into the business sphere. Critical management thinking is working mainly on organisational dominance (sexual, professional, social, and ethnic), on discourses (distortions, introversion, symbolic violence, ideology), on ethics and on subject alienation. Unlike a generally traditional positive vision of the firm, the works of this current insist on questioning and presenting organisational space as a social field, in Bourdieu’s sense of a terrain structured by the power of the actors in it, in relationships in which what it is at stake is socially legitimate dominance (1987). To achieve this goal, actors mobilise their different capital (economic, social, political, cultural, and symbolic). In the world today, we observe more and more conflicts around the role of these in processes of 31

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globalisation and positioning of national space. Social domination is always rooted in a territory. Postmodern thinking in organisation studies is a stream that emerged at the end of the Eighties, mainly in Scandinavian and British intellectual traditions (Burrell and Cooper 1988; Clegg 1990; Hassard and Parker 1993). Influenced by French philosophers such as Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Foucault, the organisation scholars deconstruct the modern conception of organisation and put the emphasis on representation, reflexivity, writing, différance, and decentring the subject. Thus, they want to move on from a conception of correspondence and precise reference as an unequivocal relation between forms of representation and an objective organisation. In their vision, as John Hassard stated “There is no real space for the voluntary actor as, instead, the actor’s space is found in the notion of action as ‘play’ rather than as ‘agency’” (Hassard 1993:2). In contrast with organisationally modern thinking, which promoted Reason, Objectivity and Progress, in organisational forms such as Bureaucracy, Taylorism, Fordism, etc., organisational social reality from the eighties, according to Postmodernist thinkers, began to change, promoting flexible specialisation, networks and post-Taylorism, post-Fordism and post-bureaucratic structures. From this observation as well as conceptual borrowings from Cultural Studies, Architecture, Art, Literature and “French Theory”, organisation becomes a textual space, subject to diverse interpretations, in which human beings play language games, a trend already anticipated in 1975 by Clegg’s Power, Rule and Domination, a pre-figurative discourse analysis. The space of formal structures cannot be controlled only by one meaning and be seen as fixed as they were before – instead, positions should be seen to exist in relation with the feeling of disorientation and disorganisation noticed by many analysts (Lash and Uurry 1987; Bauman 1988; Touraine 1990) and with the popular literature in management with its claims for decentralisation, flexibility, involvement, horizontality, initiative, and creativity (Handy 1989; Peters 1987). It is a new narrative on organisation and a criticism of the former modernist narratives of organisation, notably those stressing bureaucratic order. It insists on the market and new consumers’ requisites as a key factor in its changing trends. The movement, paradoxically, is almost invisible in the French-speaking organisation studies field, even though it derives from French philosophy and has gained some popularity within the English-speaking field in the last decade. It seems to have declined in recent years. Beyond the intellectual fashion we can notice how some reflections about space rejoin the cultural and symbolic current.

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Space in cultural and symbolic management thinking At the turning point of the eighties, there emerged a new current in management thinking, which gave culture and symbolism a central role. This movement followed two major streams: one managerial, the other anthropological. The first, mostly produced by American consultants and Business Faculty professors, put the emphasis on the link between culture and managerial performance (Deal and Kennedy 1982; Peters and Waterman 1982; Ouchi 1982); the second was diversified, according to the geographical sphere, and tries to understand what is going on in an organisation from a cultural and symbolic perspective. This interest gave birth to a movement in organisation studies – SCOS. Founded by Europeans, mainly British and Scandinavians, it groups a great number of non-conformist researchers coming from a variety of countries. Their works focus on myth, rituals, ceremony, discourse, architecture, aesthetics, subjectivity, etc. (Turner 1990; Gagliardi 1992; Strati 2000; Czarniawska 1998; Van Maanen 1998; Weick 1995; Linstead 2000). In the Francophone field, this movement has also produced important works, mainly in three directions: 1) the understanding of organisational cultures and identities (Sainsaulieu 1977; Francfort and Coll 1995), 2) the importance of language at work (Girin 1990; Boutet 1995; Pene, Borzeix, and Fraenkel 2001), 3) the influence of national cultures on management practices (d’Iribarne 1989, 1998, 2003; Chevrier 2000). Space is clearly and explicitly present in these works as a factor in identities and meaning construction at work. It is also the object of imaginary social projections and dreams. They are lieux de mémoire as we say in French (memory places), which means that they incorporate historical meanings attached to these places. Space organisation produces and structures social relations and also feeds the images of the organisational members as well as those of outsiders. Space is also aesthetic. Beauty, grace, harmony are elements of the organisational experience of every personnel member, just as are ugliness, disgrace and disharmony (Strati 2000). Unlike most of the classic works on management, such thinking places an emphasis on the meaningful universe peculiar to each organisation. This universe is a framework for interpreting the observed behaviour and space is an element of this framework. We leave the terrain of cold rationality and functionality to enter into the world of words and symbolic order. Space becomes an element of the organisational language and of the symbolic order. Spatiality enters into the world of management as an element of systems of meaning. From this point of view, we can better understand why different social spaces have produced different managerial discourses and thinking. Historically, the production of American management thinkers has been obsessed with contract, pragmatism, and market logic, giving pride of place to business firms. Scandinavian production put the emphasis on community 33

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organisation and a collective vision of the firm (Byrkjeflot 2003). German production focused on the social market economy and a power-sharing vision for the business firm, while the French remain sensitive to the state and public services. Given this variety of organisational modes, we can see how society, history, culture and social structure shape the mind of management thinkers. Such differences can also explain why there are so many misunderstandings between all these traditions and how the dream of there being only one management model is not ready to materialise in any near future (Inglehart, Basanez, and Moreno 1998; d’Iribarne 1998; Hofstede 2002; Chanlat and Barmeyer 2004).

Space in political organisation theory Organisation is a social and cultural system that is regulated by power relationships. Most management thinking is reluctant to integrate and discuss power (Chanlat and Séguin 1987; Clegg 1989; Chanlat 1997). Unlike social scientists (Crozier and Friedberg 1977; Lukes 1974; Courpasson 2000), management thinkers see power more as a problem than a necessity (Mintzberg 1983). For this reason they prefer, generally, to discuss authority. Largely inspired by a functionalist vision of organisation, they deny interest and value conflicts. Harmony is a slogan. Critical thought has shown how this discourse was masking social reality. But some non-Marxian researchers have developed a political vision of organisational space, which greatly influenced some management knowledge. In the Latin world, socalled strategic analysis has played an important role. Developed by Crozier and Friedberg in France, it presents organisations as a space of power relationships in which each person or each social group is an actor mobilising different resources, developing strategy in a context of uncertainty, according to the rules of the game, seeking to keep their position or realise their objectives (Crozier and Friedberg 1977; Bernoux 1985). It is a perspective that sees organisation as a political space. In the USA, Pfeffer and Salancik have developed an approach centred on the relationship between organisation and its environment (1978). Resource dependency theory tries to understand how the organisations can insure and maintain control of the resources they need. Any organisation needs a variety of resources (physical, financial, human, technological, etc.), which it must draw from its environment. To reduce their dependence, each organisation will develop strategies to realise this goal. Controlling materials, people, money, and techniques becomes an imperative. The means are diverse, too: social and interpersonal relationships, language and symbols, rules and structures. A recent work on the Cluny monastery has shown how organisational space was an element in reducing the dependence on the environment in the past. Historically, monastery space was positive and opposed to an external space under the sway of the Devil. There were “White Churches and Black 34

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Castles”, according to a time-honoured expression. It was also a space with a divine character. This positive space was also an expanding space. According to Clunisian authors, the word Cluny comes from the Latin cluere, which means increase. It is the reason why Cluny saw a large development in the western and oriental world. Another spatial element was the symbolism of the building (size, decoration, artefacts). Up until the construction of St Peters of Rome, it was the most important religious building in the Christian world. The goal was to exalt Clunisian potency in the stones and the decorative splendour. Anybody passing by would immediately be impressed by such a construction. Cluny used also horizontal integration and diversification to be more independent (Nizet 2003). As we can see, this spatial control was at the base of the first organisation too, and, in contrast with the closed traditional vision of the monastery system; Cluny was also an open system.

Space in the psychosociology perspective The last element to be introduced is work done by psychosociologists of organisations. The stream was introduced by disciples of the Human Relations movement, such as Likert, who defined the notion of morale, or Lewin, who developed the link between types of leadership and group performance. There were other sources of development such as the Tavistock research done by Bion (1959) on group dynamics or Elliot Jaques (1952) on socio-technical analysis. More recently, some researchers have used psychoanalytical concepts to build a psychodynamics of organisation life, work and managerial leadership (Sievers 1994). In France, such currents emerged at the end of fifties and have since constituted one of the most important Latin contributions to the field. Influenced by some American and British work, notably Lewin, Moreno, Bion, and Jaques, as well as by psychoanalysis and critical sociology, the French psychosociologists have produced important and diverse publications on the relationship between the individual and the organisation (Barus-Michel, Lévy, and Enriquez 2002). Some of them, regrouped under the appellation of pschodynamics of work, have explored the relationship between psychic life and work organisations (Dejours 1993, 2000). The psychosociologists, despite their diversity of thinking, bring a new element into the comprehension of organisations: the role of psychic processes in organisational and work dynamics. Organisational space is an important aspect of the individual psychic life. Organisational structures constrain individual desires but are also produced by affective and psychic dynamics. For example, a CEO can be a megalomaniac, paranoid or obsessive-compulsive; each of these profiles can lead to a distinct type of structure and influence the strategy (Zaleznick and Kets de Vries 1985; Schwartz 1990; Pitcher 1994; Lapierre 1995; Enriquez 35

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1997). Organisational space becomes an element of projection, identification, and idealisation by individuals (Morgan 1986). In these works, space is a psychic reality and organisations a production of the human psyche and social imaginary (Castoriadis 1979; Giust-Desprairies 2003). People become actors when managements address their subjectivity. As we can see, the diversity of management and organisation thinking has produced different representations of space. The world has experienced great changes in the past 15 years, and these changes have produced effects on organisational space, notably with the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Because of this historical event, capitalism has won new national spaces and became the only dominant economic space. Such a change has transformed organisational life and redesigned organisational parameters as well as economic geography. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is now interesting to conclude with some spatial reflections on recent management thinking.

Space, organisation and management in the last decade Most of the classical thinking on management we have mentioned developed its ideas in a very different socio-historical context; either in the first part of the twentieth century; or during the Glorious Thirties, as some analysts describe that period. From the end of the 1940s to the second part of the 1970s, we were in a virtuous circle in the industrialised world: economic growth, increased education, inequality reduction, rise of wealth, etc., but we were also in a competition with another system: communism. An iron curtain divided the world space into two parts: East and West. The other part of the planet, the third world, had to choose its camp. This division played a central role in the spatial structuration and representation of peoples and policies. Management was clearly engaged in this struggle through the Marshall Plan and all the productivity missions sent to America, notably in the Fifties. If the disappearance of the Wall in 1989 was a major event in modern history, the last fifteen years have been the theatre of other big changes in organisations management. The globalisation of exchanges by the creation of commercial unions, the strong development of communication and information technology, the weight of the financial markets, the change in consumer behaviours, the rise of new sites of production (China, India, Eastern countries in transition, etc.) have pushed many business firms to be more flexible at all levels (stock, production, manpower, technology). The main consequences are fragmentation of work, de-localisation of production, flexibility of structures and processes as well as massive uses of electronic information technology. New organisational forms such as network systems and virtual organisation are popularised (Bellier et al. 2002), and all the old forms are criticised. At the same time, we observe change at the workplace. 36

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The development of virtual offices and nomadic tools (telephone, computer, palm pilots, etc.) permits a fragmentation of work time-space. These effect not only human experience at work but also, more generally, organisational life and society. In his 1989 book Frameworks of Power, Stewart Clegg states: “The stabilisation and fixing of the rules of meaning and membership, and techniques of production and discipline, in an organisation field which is capable of extensive reproduction over space and time are the central issue.” The statement is certainly as true for today’s organisations as it was 15 years ago, but current trends make such a goal more difficult. In effect, unlike last century’s organisations and notably, those of 1950–70, the socioeconomic landscape has changed. The new imperatives of flexibility, reactivity, quality, financial value creation, and competitiveness have created a new atmosphere in many organisations, in particular among the stock business firms and their affiliates (suppliers). The development of externalisation practices, the rise of atypical employee contracts (part-time, temporary, casual, etc.) and the zero stock policy have transformed spatial relationships. Many organisations have developed fragmented organisational spaces. The issue and the challenge now are to build a collective dynamic in this divided organisational context. The changes are so rapid at all levels that it is not easy to develop social trust, keep experience and memory, while building a minimum of collective consciousness indispensable for ensuring good organisational performances. In many cases, industrial goals and client needs are sacrificed on the altar of finance. Recent economic scandals in North America and Europe are good illustrations. But some aspects of management thinking and training contribute to the process of this social disembeddeness. The over-financialised vision of the business firm and its teaching in Business School programs has developed an abstract conception of business activity. Enron is an example of such a vision. Electricity was only a question of buying and selling energy yet the material reality of being an energy producer (dams, plants, generators, water, gas, etc.) disappeared in favour of fluid and abstract relations in a virtual energy space. The result was a derealisation, pushed by greed and collective illusion about the reality of the model. Almost everybody involved shared beliefs in unlimited wealth growth in this new economic space. The dreams of some economist and financial executive came true: market mobility and fluidity were at their best. The dream became a nightmare, however, and the awakening was terrible: 7000 billions of dollars and Enron, the new model, disappeared in a few months. The concrete reality of economic activity came back, as a reality rooted in territory, dealing with real objects and real persons, re-emerged. Organisational dynamics have social implications, require cohesiveness, and involve long term time spans of discretion (Mintzberg 1989; Collins 37

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2003), which shape the spatial world in which we live and work. We come back to the basics even in a changing world: an embodied management rooted in society, industry, and professional experience is still needed. The management thinking of the twenty-first century must put the emphasis on social processes that keep management grounded and embodied. In a century that faces great challenges of social and environmental equilibrium, these are a requisite not only for wisdom, but also for our own survival.

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Chapter 3

Spaces as Process: Developing a Recursive Perspective on Organisational Space1 Tor Hernes, Tore Bakken and Per Ingvar Olsen

In the world of organisation, spaces in the form of systems, groups, teams and technologies are continually being created and re-created, where stability and renewal exist side by side. Contemporary sociology harbours schools that provide us with analytical frameworks for studying how spaces emerge, evolve and transform. This is what we refer to as a “recursive view” of space. A recursive view of space implies that we see space as existing through its production and reproduction. While space is what shapes action and inter-action, it is reshaped by actions and inter-actions in turn. Once produced it cannot be reproduced except through actions and interactions. Such a view encompasses both stability and renewal; in the sense that once produced, the space forms a context that previously did not exist, hence new understanding and insights will emerge. In other words, while the production and reproduction of space is done in order to create stability, the creation of stability contains the seeds of renewal. The idea of recursive processes has been prevalent in mathematics and has been carried further by cyberneticians such as von Foerster (2003) and Bateson (1972). Positions have developed in sociology to provide understanding of processes of production and reproduction. Examples are autopoietic theory (Luhmann), structuration theory (Giddens), the theory of habitus and reproduction (Bourdieu), as well as Latour’s work on scientific knowledge. Positions such as these differ considerably in aim, scope and substance, yet they converge upon the idea that systems exist through their own production and reproduction. We borrow from these schools in the present chapter and work from the idea that spaces are produced and reproduced recursively. At the same time, we acknowledge that space is not a privileged term for these theorists. Luhmann and Latour, for example, do not refer to space per se. For Latour, space does not seem viable as a concept for 1

The chapter is in part based on Hernes (2004).

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analysis. Instead, he draws upon the idea of networks, which are not perceived in a spatial sense. Still, Latour acknowledges that actors construct the contexts within which they operate, and it is primarily his ideas of actants and circular referencing that we draw upon in developing a recursive view of space. While Luhmann does not operate with the notion of space, he does, however, draw extensively on the idea of boundaries, which are drawn by systems to distinguish themselves from other systems. We analyse two types of space from a recursive perspective. First, spaces of regulation, from which we select more specifically budgets, financial monitoring and control systems. These are seen as regulatory spaces created to ensure some degree of functional stability, which again enables planning and prediction. Second, spaces of cognition and learning, which include the very spheres of meaning by which actions are conceived and interpreted. Finally, we discuss briefly how these two types of space may be seen to interact in producing organisational change.

Space and organisation Space forms as a result of boundary setting and from what we may call distinction-drawing operations. For example, identity formation is a way of forming a social space of belonging different from other social spaces of belonging. Identity, however, is not a mere thing in itself. It cannot exist except in relation to something else, and it cannot be sustained except through continuous operations that serve to uphold the distinction from something else. The army, for example, upholds its distinction through myths, through rituals, through uniforms, through technologies and many other types of operations. Whereas the example relates to identity, it can be extended to include several other organisational phenomena. For example, the collective knowledge from which organisation members operate may be understood spatially, in the sense that it forms a boundary differentiating what is important, meaningful and relevant in relation to a specific organisation from that which is not. The knowledge applied in a Wall Street broker firm, one would imagine, is largely that of how to make more money and to secure clients’ portfolios, and less about what is ethically right, what is good for the wider society or for the natural environment. We would expect routines and rituals in a Wall Street broking firm to support the particularities of the knowledge used by those working in the firm and to consistently draw lines between what should be practiced as knowledge from that which should not be practiced. The space in this case which we may perfunctorily refer to as the space of understanding – is repeatedly drawn and redrawn through a series of operations that serve to mark distinctions, not just in relation to the world outside the brokering profession but also in relation to competing broker firms. 45

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The argument in this chapter is premised on four tenets, which are interconnected and serve to demarcate a space for theorising about space and organisation.

Tenet 1: Organisation is essentially about stabilisation of actions and expectations We take the generative principle of organisation to concern, essentially, the stabilisation of actions and expectations over time and space. We contend that organisation can only be manifest as a stabilising mechanism. This does not mean that it is stable in the sense that it is immutable. What it means is that stabilising processes are at work all the time, but that these stabilising processes are not seen as finality converging towards some determinable state, such as what would be a tenet of an equilibrium view of organisation. What seems paradoxical in relation to most organisational literature concerned with imperatives of change is that stabilising processes, far from being inhibiting, actually offer scope for change. In other words, stability enables change, and it is not the antithesis to change. Others follow a similar line of argument, such as Feldman and Pentland (2003), who explore organisational routines as sources of change. Stabilising processes may take different directions. Therefore, when we speak of organisational change, we are not just talking about changing from something that is stabilised, but also about stabilisation around a new order. Nor do we see stabilisation as the antithesis to change. Rather, we see stabilisation as a prerequisite for change – even part of changing.

Tenet 2: Stabilisation takes place through space formation and reproduction Stabilisation may be conceptualised as the formation and reproduction of space, and space is a basic construct for understanding stabilising mechanisms. That action and inter-action is framed by context is a generally accepted axiom in the social sciences. Giddens (1984:17) refers to timespace, and ties “structure” to the “… binding of time-space in social systems, the properties which make it possible for discernibly similar social practices to exist across varying spans of time and space and which lend them ‘systemic’ form”. All action and inter-action, according to Giddens, is somehow framed by context. Context, in Giddens’ (1984:282) words, involves: (a) the time-space boundaries (usually having symbolic or physical markers) around interaction strips; (b) the co-presence of actors, making possible the

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visibility of a diversity of facial expressions, bodily gestures, linguistic and other media of communication; (c) awareness and use of these phenomena reflexively to influence or control the flow of interaction.

Giddens also uses the idea of “locales” as context. He refers to Garfinkel to bear him out in arguing that locales are not mere places, but also settings of interaction (Giddens 1984:xxiv). Moreover, for Giddens, settings are not neutral but are drawn upon by actors to sustain meaning in communicative acts. The latter point, about sustained meaning, comes close to what we mean about space stabilising not only actions but also expectations. When we expect future actions to be in line with past and current actions, the space within which we operate is of a stabilising character. Some stability of expectations is taken as a precondition for any social system to exist. This does, of course, not mean that there is no change. Change may come, either as a surprise when the system is jolted, or as a result of “teasing” over time (Luhmann 1995). Seen in this way, the system does not hinder change but exists as a precondition for such change to occur. Space, or context, may be associated with geometrical form, which has content and boundaries. Content gives meaning to the space. In organisation, for example, we operate in social spaces. A social space has a number of guiding principles – be they loose or firm – about what it means to belong to a certain group in terms of norms of behaviour, identity and social relations. You may be part of a group, say a management group, for a portion of the time in a month. The contents of the space provide direction for what you do and what you do not do, such as in the case of norms of behaviour. The boundaries of spaces indicate the condition under which specific actions and interactions are appropriate and under which conditions they are not. When you are physically outside this group you are not bound by its principles. The extent to which the guiding principles follow you into other contexts probably depends on the extent to which you identify with them – to which extent you wish to carry them with you. Guiding principles of Hells Angels or fundamentalist religious groups probably follow their members more than do those of other, less indoctrinating groups, whose culture is less totalising.

Tenet 3: Space may be substitutive of organisation Space may be substitutive of organisation. The term “organisation” as a noun was created to respond to the need to impose a Parsonian logic on analysis, directed towards the analysis of units tending towards equilibrium provided by social norms. Except in economic organisation theory, where the distinction signalled by the concept of organisational actors has its obvious use, we think that in a number of situations the organisation construct 47

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can usefully be replaced. There are two main reasons for argument. First, as a matter of necessity, organisations as bounded entities are almost impossible to define as objects of analysis, because there are no coherent sets of boundaries inside which we may talk of “the organisation” (Paulsen and Hernes 2003). Therefore, there are no actual “organisations” inside which there is space. On the other hand, we may talk of space that takes different forms and transcends organisational boundaries. Second, we see no obvious reason why the organisation should be treated as the only focus of analysis. Professions, to our eyes, are spaces of professional codes of behaviour, expertise and identity. In some instances it may be at least as useful to study a profession as an organisation, because it can be seen as a body of organised knowledge. Another space of activity of relevance is that of “standards”, discussed by Brunsson and Jacobsson (2000). Their argument is interesting particularly because they consider the possibility of standards actually substituting organisations. Standards, as Brunsson and Jacobsson see them, are rules on a global scale that regulate activities in organisations – they are essentially instruments of control. Examples are standards emitted by organisations such as the International Standards Organisation (ISO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Women’s Right Watch and the International Football Association (FIFA). Brunsson and Jacobsson do not assume that standards are necessarily adopted by organisations. Standards may be seen as a “regulatory space” (our interpretation) that exists beyond organisations. For organisations to be conferred a status above other systems is unjustified, in view of the above arguments. We find support in Luhmann’s (1995) systems theory in thinking that a hierarchical ordering of systems is not useful. Systems (such as spaces and organisations) may interfere with each other or intersect each other. They may also derive from one another. For example, organisations are likely to emerge in an area with deep traditions of craft. The basis for the majority of organisations in Silicon Valley must surely be the existence of a craft in IT. Organisation, in the meaning of the organised state of work processes, may be seen as a particular form of space. Therefore, we dare suggest that organisation is a subset of space. Weick (1979) suggests the alternative of “organising” as a satisfactory solution to the problems inherent in use of the noun of organisation. “Organising” as it is used in many writings by Weick and by writers influenced by him, is localised and takes place in the sphere of action and interpretation. It applies superbly to thick, inter-active situations. However, it lacks several elements that incorporate stabilised forms, such as rules, physical structure and material symbols. Organisation is necessarily a stabilised set of relations. Organisation may be seen as a macro actor, or a “Leviathan”, as Callon and Latour put it (1981). A macro actor, or a “Leviathan”, consists of a stabilised system of relations whose raison d’être is 48

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taken for granted. The quality of the macro actor (or organisation) resides in its ability to “… bring into play associations that last longer than the relations that formed them” (Callon and Latour 1981:283). This is what enables a macro actor to create lasting associations from an otherwise “natural state”. Callon and Latour then make the point that (1981:284): In the state of nature no one is strong enough to hold out against every coalition. But if you transform that state of nature, replacing unsettled alliances as much as you can with walls and written contracts, the ranks with uniforms and tattoos and reversible friendships with names and signs, then you will obtain a Leviathan.

Callon and Latour bear out our point that organisation consists of mechanisms that serve to stabilise localised actions. Weick’s model does not cater to such stabilising mechanisms.

Tenet 4: Spaces form and exist through recursive processes Spaces take and uphold their forms through recursive processes. We borrow here from the work on autopoiesis by Luhmann (1995) and Giddens (1984), but one can extend the idea, just as easily, to include work by Bourdieu (1991). The basic idea of a recursive view is that the system is not seen as a system a priori that exists in a transaction relationship with its environment. Systems are not seen to exist as “input-output” devices for the external environment as in much traditional organisation theory (e.g. Scott 1998). Such thinking suggests that systems can be seen as being more or less open to the environment, an idea that has formed the basis for a large body of writing in organisation theory (e.g. Scott 1998). To pretend that an organisation is more or less open to the environment is a potentially misleading simplification. For a start, it is impossible to speak of “one environment”. Second, it is quite possible, even likely, that an organisation, while being closed to some environments, is open to others. It is possible that army commanders may, for example, be far more alert to tactical moves on the part of the enemy than they are to the well being of their troops. We acknowledge that none of the four theorists that we draw upon work consistently with the notion of space. Giddens discusses the notion of context – hence, he skirts around the edges of what we refer to as space, while Bourdieu considers space only in relation to fields. Space lies outside the analytical foci of Luhmann and Latour. It should be stressed, however, that it is their conceptualisation of recursive processes that we apply to the study of space, and not their discussion of space. We consider that Luhmann’s

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work is relevant to the study of space because his systems have boundaries, just as do spaces. Luhmann’s autopoietic theory most explicitly formulates a framework oriented towards a recursive perspective. In Luhmann’s autopoiesis, systems are both open and closed simultaneously, and that openness and closure refer to different processes. Systems interact with their environments, which consists of other systems (i.e. they are open interactively). On the other hand they are closed by the boundaries of meaning as the meaning creation takes place through the systems auto-referencing. This is important to point out in order to understand the nature of the relationship between system and environment. There is no interaction, as in the usual interactionist theories within sociology. According to Luhmann, the system’s environment is internal to the system; social systems differentiate themselves by using communication as autopoietic operations and by reintroducing the difference between system and environment into the system. The system can only make sense of the outside world through the observation of its own experiences. In other words, the social system operates in the medium of meaning, and this operation is a closed one (Hernes and Bakken 2003). Hence, systems interact, not with the environment, but with their own interpretations of themselves and the environments. They interact with their own states, as it were, and it is through recursive interaction with their own states that they reproduce and uphold themselves. The basic tenet is that a system (the term “system” being taken to mean processes that exhibit some coherent pattern) that does not interact with its own state will dissolve and cease to be a system.

Whitehead and four perspectives on recursivity The idea of recursive processes is retained by Luhmann, Giddens, Bourdieu and Latour, although from different perspectives and with different emphases, as pointed out above. In spite of ontological and epistemological differences, a common trait among them is that recursivity is essentially seen as a process perspective, where the focus is on a system’s reproduction over time and space. A process perspective has roots in philosophy, represented in particular by Whitehead’s ([1929] 1978) classic Process and reality. Whitehead formulates the reproduction over time as follows: But there is reproduction; and hence the permanence which is the result of order and the cause of it. And yet there is always change; for time is cumulative as well as reproductive, and the cumulation of many is not their reproduction as many (Whitehead 1929/1978:238).

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There are two main questions related to recursivity that become pertinent. First, what is being reproduced, and does change come about? For if systems are a result of reproduction, how then can we explain change? If reproduction signifies repetition, for example, there is no apparent reason why the system should change, except that actors might change it out of boredom, or even desperation. Whitehead’s quote above suggests that the answer is given, at least partly, by considering unfolding over time. Over time there are many productions/reproductions and some of them converge, there is concrescence, whereby many turn into one. Put in spatial terms this implies that there are many precedents in terms of events that flow together in forming a space. This space is a “whole” that forms a reasonably stable context for action and inter-action. It forms a whole in the sense that it has boundaries and can be articulated, at least indirectly. Weick (1995:176), for example, suggests in the case of sensemaking that there are boundaries in organisations within which “explanations hold and outside of which they do not hold”. In other words, we may talk of the formation of a cognitive space that forms a context for organisational inter-action. Whitehead provides a cue to how systems change while reproducing themselves by pointing out “potentiality” as opposed to “actuality”. What he means is that processes embody potentiality that may or may not lead to change. He draws the distinction between “being” and “becoming”, and potentiality is manifest in that every “being” is a potential for every “becoming” (Whitehead ([1929] 1978:22). Whether something “becomes” depends on concrescence: in linguistic terms, “concrescence” refers to “growing together” or “coalescing” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary). In Whitehead’s work, concrescence stands for the transition of objective facts into subjective reality (Whitehead uses the expression from “objective lure into subjective efficiency” (Whitehead [1929] 1978:87)). Many objective facts (beings) have the potential for generating a certain “becoming”, but what determines a certain becoming is the positive subjectification of selected facts, the attained “satisfaction”. Satisfaction is central to a certain becoming, and forms an element of creative purpose (Whitehead [1929] 1978:87). It is worth noting that being something is seen as a basis for becoming something new, by providing subjects with a basis for creating something new. In brief, change resides in subjective selection from the process of “facts”. The facts (or beings) are reproduced in the process, hence they form contingencies for choice, because, as Whitehead ([1929] 1978:40) states: “for every clear and distinct conception (perceptio) is without doubt something, and hence cannot derive its origin from what is naught …”. Hence, there is a reproductive (recursive) basis for what we do next. On the other hand, what we do next may depart from this basis. What we do next, although it may be different from what has been, is guided from what has been done in the past. 51

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One interpretation of Whitehead is that the recursive forms stable resources from which change happens as a result of subjects’ selection. Our language, for example, is a limited range of words that enable us to express ourselves. Hence, on the one hand it is restraining in the sense that we express things for which we have no words. On the other hand, the words we are in possession of enable new meanings to be created, therefore the language also becomes enabling of change by making it possible to express new meanings. In social science, we recognise the change enabling capacity of stability in Giddens’ structuration theory. Structure, argues Giddens (1984), has been seen as one-sidedly constraining, notably through the influence of Durkheim. Giddens argues, for example, that Foucault’s treatment of confinement in locales as being exclusively oppressive is inadequate. Instead, Giddens seeks to expand on Foucault’s perception of space as a means of repression and, while drawing on Goffman’s analysis of institutions, and agreeing with the repressive potential of the use of space, he opens up the mobilising aspects of space. Space, seen this way, creates room for mobilising social action. With Giddens, the recursive properties of social systems are manifest mainly in encounters, in which structures are reproduced through the practices of agents. Hence, structural properties of social systems become both medium and outcome of the practices they recursively organise (Giddens 1984:25). Recursivity applies to structure, or the rules and resources that both constrain and enable practices. When it comes to change, Giddens is more cautious. He employs a relatively weak notion of practices as being reproductive (repetitive or reinforcing) rather than capable of change. Change comes about though domination and command of resources – authoritative and allocative resources (Giddens 1984:258). We can also recognise Whitehead’s thinking in Luhmann’s work, where Whitehead’s “being” becomes structure, while Luhmann and Whitehead’s notion of “becoming” is replaced with “processes”. The notion of “events” is central to Luhmann’s framework. The function of events is twofold; they are both mechanisms of reproduction and occasions for change. Structure reproduces itself through events. For example, as regards organisation, events correspond to decisions (Luhmann 2000:46). On the one hand, decisions reproduce the structural basis of the organisation. On the other hand, decisions are also occasions for change. Events (or decisions), however, have no duration in time, which means that they disappear as soon as they appear. A social system only persists by virtue of a structure that allows events to connect in time. Only when they connect in time can reproduction as well as change take place. Structure may be seen as the pattern of expectations that keeps old and new options open. Latour (1996, 1999) provides a process perspective on the transformation of events into scientific knowledge. Latour’s term for recursivity is “circular reference”. Circular reference denotes the process whereby phenomena 52

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evolve through chains of transformation, mediated by humans and nonhuman elements. “‘Reference’ does not designate an external referent (…), but the quality of the chain of transformation, the viability of its circulation” (Latour 1999:310) (italics added). The idea of circularity, then, is that which ensures continuity and comes quite close to Luhmann’s use of recursivity discussed above. Latour (1987) studies in particular how actors, interests and “facts” merge together and form what he calls “machines” that in turn become self-generating. In contrast to Luhmann and Giddens, who do not place emphasis on individual actors, Latour emphasises the role of individuals, as translators or fact builders (Latour 1987:131). Individuals (Latour has studied Pasteur and Diesel, among others) may enlist actors in their ideas to form networks. These networks are treated analytically as consisting of human as well as non-human actors, both types referred to as actants. Whereas networks may arise around an idea, once formed they tend to stabilise (they become “machines”). In his study of Louis Pasteur’s discovery of penicillin, Latour (1996:83) refers to entities travelling through the laboratory as stabilised practices. The stabilisation takes place in the form of recursive coalescing of relations around an idea, where the idea is also an actor (actant). It is important to keep in mind that we talk of continuous efforts of stabilisation, and not of stabilised entities. There are always tensions surrounding a network of relations, and stabilisation takes place through enrolment of new relations that serve to protect the rationale of the network. An example would be when management, in a situation of internal dissent about the strategic direction it should take, calls upon external consultants to review the strategy of the company. It is not unusual that the new strategy formulated by the external consultants is in line with central actors among the company management team or board. In such cases we may speak of the enrolment of new actors that serve to stabilise a network that exists between internal actors and the strategy (the strategy is also treated analytically as an actor in the actor network). Where Latour differs significantly from Luhmann and Giddens is on change. Whereas with Luhmann and Giddens, systems change, either as a result of the agent’s power (Giddens) or as the structure holds open a repertoire of possibilities for change (Luhmann), in Latour’s thinking the focus is primarily on how systems emerge and stabilise. Once stabilised, change takes place through the activation of other systems (networks). Thus, writes Latour (1999:71–72): “… phenomena are what circulates all along the reversible chain of transformations, at each step losing some properties to gain others that render them compatible with already-established centers of calculation.” If we were to see the organisation as space through this perspective, we would interpret space primarily as a stabilising process. With Bourdieu (1977), the overriding recursive, stabilising mechanism is 53

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culture, where power relations are maintained behind a veil of legitimacy. The system remains in place thanks to its ability to reproduce its internal relations and symbols over time and space. Reproduction over time is made possible through the training (indoctrination) of new generations. Educational institutions are able to reproduce themselves because they have the possibility of reproducing their structure into new generations of students (see, for example, Bourdieu and Passeron 1977:31). In their study of the French educational system they point out how agencies located in the hierarchy serve to perpetuate basic ideas of the pedagogy: [Pedagogic Authority] entails pedagogic work (PW), a process of inculcation which must last long enough to produce a durable training, i.e. a habitus, the product of internalisation of the principles of a cultural arbitrary capable of perpetuating itself after [the Pedagogic Authority] has ceased and thereby of perpetuating in practices the internalised arbitrary (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977:31).

Recursive processes in Bourdieu’s work may be perceived at two levels. First, there is institutional reproduction, which has a structural focus. Second, there is the level of “habitus”, where practices are reproduced. Rather, recursivity in itself reveals new horizons of opportunity, what Bourdieu (but also Whitehead ([1929]1978)) refers to as “potentiality”. Hence, recursivity signifies reproduction, but also change: The habitus, the durably installed generative principle of regulated improvisations, produces practices which tend to reproduce the regularities immanent in the objective conditions of the production of their generative principle, while adjusting to the demands inscribed as objective potentialities in the situation, as defined by the cognitive and motivating structures making up the habitus (Bourdieu 1977:78).

And therefore, Even when they appear as the realisation of the explicit, and explicitly stated, purposes of a project or plan, the practices produced by the habitus, as the strategy-generating principle enabling agents to cope with the unforeseen and ever-changing situations, are only apparently determined by the future. If they seem determined by anticipation of their own consequences, thereby encouraging the finalist illusion, the fact is that, always tending to reproduce the objective structures of which they are the product, they are determined by the past conditions, which have produced the principle of their production … (Bourdieu 1977:72).

Although change is mentioned by Bourdieu through the notion of potentiality, how recursive processes bridge over to change is not something that he

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really theorises (Swartz 1997). His treatment of social systems tends to see them largely as reinforcing practices. In the below table we attempt a schematic presentation of the four theorists’ work relating to recursivity. Basis of recursivity

Recursive mechanism

Luhmann

Structure of expectations

Strings of events creating occasions for selection

Recursivity through autopoiesis, or selfreference

Giddens

Rules and resources

Powerful agents

Reproduction of structure (structuration) through actions

Bordieu

Culture/structure transmitted to habitus

Potentialities of recursive processes

Reproduction of power concealed behind legitimacy

Latour

Networks and their connections

Translation from one system to another

Circular referencing over time and space

Figure 3.1. A table of comparisons – recursivity with Luhmann, Giddens, Bourdieu and Latour.

Summing up the theory side The brief review of the four theorists and aspects of their work having a bearing on recursivity brings to light 3 points: 1. Social systems (such as organisation) may be seen as emerging and reproducing themselves through recursive processes; 2. Recursive processes embody both stabilisation and change, although the relationship between the two is conceptualised differently by the four theorists; 3. Because a common trait of the four is that the basis for recursivity is structural (i.e. both enabling and constraining), we can refer to recursive structure as recursive space. We will in the following apply the basic insight of recursivity to organisation as space. Acknowledging that there are many processes that we could potentially label spatial, (Hernes 2004, for example, distinguishes between mental, social and physical space) we have chosen two. The first is the space of financial control. The second is the space of cognition and learning.

The space of finance control Fligstein (1990), in his study of the evolution of mechanisms of power in US corporations since 1880, notes that there have been principally four con55

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ceptions of control used by the leaders of the largest American firms: direct control of competitors, manufacturing control, sales and marketing control, and finance control. Financial control is basically an instrument of measurable indicators that forms a physical space for action and inter-action. As a physical space, it both sets the limits for what people can and should do and it forms the basis for assessing how well they perform. If financial control was important in order to control the early 20th century corporation, its importance has by no means diminished with the fragmentation of contemporary organisations. With organisations holding many activities together through common culture and common location, financial control is an auxiliary to other forms of control. In a fragmented reality where actors are interdependent while at the same time being institutionally and physically displaced from one another, financial control becomes an almost universal substitution for other forms of control. Spaces of financial control are tangible spaces, made by people, but consisting of non-human mechanisms. They are largely in the hands of management and they are both symbolically and materially charged. Budgets are decided upon in meetings (if we disregard for the moment all the informal manoeuvring, tactics and games that take place outside meetings). Once they have been decided upon, however, budgets form contexts for a great many decisions and actions. Moreover, the actions that take place in the budgeting period set the scene for new budgets, which are again decided in a localised context. In these localised contexts “local contingencies” enter the stage. However, they do so within the larger context created by the preceding period. So, what we see is that although localised contexts may be decisive, they take place within contexts of greater time-space extension. Bakken and Hernes (2003) formulate it thus: Whether we speak of budgets or other means of binding activity in timespace, it is nearly inconceivable that organisation can exist without any such binding. Organisation presupposes inter-action around some defined task and provides essential stabilisation of expectations among those who take part in the task (Luhmann 1995). It is equally inconceivable that structure (in this case budgets) should exist without activity. In the absence of activity there is nothing to inform the budget, hence, budget as a structure would not be able to reproduce itself.

Being mechanisms of binding, they are essentially regulative spaces. They are recursive over time due to the binding they impose on action and interaction. The frameworks form actions that take place inside resource-regulated frameworks. On the other hand, when frameworks, such as budgets, are modified, their modification is based on the actions that took place within their binding. Herein resides their recursive nature. Because regulative spaces are tangible they make measurement possible. 56

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This is evidently one of the reasons why they are so widespread – it seems nearly inconceivable that a modern organisation anywhere should not be managed on the basis of some kind of measurement. Measurability has two aspects to it. It makes change somewhat controlled, because arguments for change tend to be based on reasoning. There is a difference here with other types of spaces, such as spaces of identity, which are more feeling based, at least as far as argumentative behaviour goes. March and Simon (1958:156) support this point when they draw the distinction between operational and non-operational goals, arguing that the two types of goals give rise to two qualitatively different types of decision-making processes. Organisations with operational goals lend themselves to solving differences of opinion by means of predominantly analytic processes. (This would be the case with argumentation around regulative spaces.) In organisations with non-operational goals, however, March and Simon suggest that it is predominantly through bargaining processes that the decision is reached. For as change of regulative space goes, we expect it to be largely assessment based. Because indicators appear objective (or are at least presented as such), change will be interpreted as comparison with what has been measured, similar to what Argyris and Schön (1978) refer to as single loop learning, in other words based on deviation. Change of regulative space will therefore tend to be restricted. What changes, and how, will depend on the power relations, and in particular power related to the allocation of resources, which is close to Giddens’ idea of structuration through recursivity, where social change is assumed to be brought about principally by actors who carry authority by virtue of their access to resource allocation roles. A question is to what extent regulative spaces can be changed. At a practical level, they are easily changed because they are visible and measurable. A wealth of studies shows that new recipes for management and administration are introduced frequently to replace old ones. No doubt they are much easier to replace than, for example, the basic beliefs that people operate from. On the other hand, their visibility could also make them difficult to change. Regulative structures developed over years may in some cases be seen to form the administrative “heritage” – they constitute historicity and leaders may be reluctant to remove them for this very reason.

The space of cognition and learning Weick (1995) points out from the sensemaking literature that there are boundaries inside which explanations hold. Inside spheres of valid explanation we can reason and explain. We may compare explanations and we may make inferences, which we have dubbed the space of cognition and learning. An example of such space is the idea of communities-of-practice as we find

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it explained by Orr (1990) in his study of photocopier technicians at Xerox. The sphere that the technicians communicated within consisted of a number of dimensions: understanding, problem solving, and identity. Spaces of cognition and learning are basically articulated through language and imagery. They are formed through actions and inter-actions and their architects are both human and material. It is central to Latour’s work that artefacts, for example, are also seen as actors, as co-producers of phenomena along with humans. Orr observed in studying the photocopier technicians at Xerox that they “let the materials speak”. Materials, tools, or other relevant substances, can thus be seen as co-producers of the overall space of cognition and learning, because they form limits for what makes and what does not make sense to communicate. As such, they form spheres that regulate understanding that applies both to reproduction and change of organisation in a given place. It seems a fair assumption that recursivity takes place as experiences and events are interpreted through the medium of meaning that is formed by the space. This comes close to Luhmann’s idea of autopoiesis, whereby a system is closed to the external word in terms of the meaning it makes of information. Applied to communication, an autopoietic perspective suggests that communication is not understood as mere information transmitted from a sender to a receiver. The information is not seen as parcels that move from one to the other. Instead, information is created with the receiver through interaction in his existing cognitive framework (Maturana 1980:32). Communication happens essentially through a process where a system (in this case, the receiver) interacts recursively with itself, as new information only makes sense in relation to the structures created by previous information gathering. The idea can be found in Bourdieu and Latour. Whereas regulative space reproduces itself through binding, the space of cognition and learning reproduces itself through interaction, artefacts and mediation. Interaction is the medium of discourse, when prevailing patterns of meaning are used to interpret what happens. There is also a systemic aspect to it, as when systems of information and communication, which are conceived within the logic of the space, serve to stabilise the space in turn. For example, at our business school, there is a system of economically rewarding the publication of articles in refereed journals. In addition, there is an intranet system that informs everyone when someone has had a noteworthy article accepted or published in a journal. Both the rewarding and the information surrounding article publication are systemic processes that effectively reinforce prevailing beliefs that article publication is an important element for the reproduction of the school as a whole. The question is what we may see as change of spaces of cognition and learning. We suggest that change takes place through concomitant processes of unlearning and new learning. It is not obvious to organisation members what the space of cognition and learning actually represents. Finding 58

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out by asking them is not likely to be very successful. One reason is that the space of knowledge that we operate within develops from many influences over time, where multiple actors have been involved. The space that we operate within becomes similar to what Latour (1987:131) refers to as a “black box”. A black box is a result of many processes that works like an organised whole, but whose origins and composites are too complex for anyone to explain. The space of knowledge and learning works largely like this: it works as an organised whole in the sense that members of an organised space know largely what knowledge to practice in order to be members of the community they are in (Knorr-Cetina 1981:4). Unlearning takes place as the space ceases in its ability to provide a sense of meaning of what takes place. In the imagery of Argyris and Schön (1978) we could formulate it as what happens when “theories-of-action” lose their power to make sense of action. New learning takes place as discoveries are made, as members enter temporarily into other spaces and bring back new insights. The point is made by Greenwood and Hinings (1995), when they ask if members who cross the organisational boundary and come into contact with new ideas and possibilities are not more likely to question existing organisational arrangements. They act as what Latour calls “translators” of new ways of seeing things. Outsiders are often unlikely to achieve change of a space of cognition and learning because they lack the localised repertoire of meaning and terminology to act effectively as translators. Exceptions to these rules take place when outsiders are given a lot of formal power, such as in the case of a new managing director, who may be able to suspend current arrangements. Still, changes in ways of seeing things do not take hold before they become embedded, when they are legitimised through the prevailing schemata in the organisation, meaning that change is likely to be piecemeal, although always at work.

Spatial dynamics A distinction may be drawn between different types of space, such as we have made between regulatory spaces and spaces of cognition and learning. The distinction holds analytically, in the sense that it is possible to sort the complexity of organisational life into spaces that we see as being mainly cognition based or regulations based. We repeat that these are two categories of space that we use in this chapter merely for illustration purposes. However, for understanding how organisational processes emerge and evolve we need to conceptualise how spaces interact over time and space. A question is how, through recursive processes, spaces generate, melt together, and depart. Regulatory spaces and cognitive spaces cannot but

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connect, and a medium of connection is that of meaning. Regulatory structures are not just regulatory structures, but they are also structures that are charged with symbolism. Take, for example, a system of financial control. As regulation it binds activity over time and space, it influences what we do and how we organise what we do. On the other hand, it also sends a number of messages to people, not only inside the organisation, but also to outside stakeholders. It sends, for example, a message about the values by which the organisation operates. Take, for example, the difference between a public organisation and a firm of brokers. Public organisations tend to focus on the monitoring of expenses. The message to those working for the organisation is “to do what you are supposed to be doing and spend as little as possible”. The message to stakeholders, such as political authorities, is “we make sure we don’t overspend the budgets you allocate to us”. Brokers, on the other hand, will tend to measure profits. It matters less how much is spent, as long as earnings are acceptable. A message will be “make as much money you can for the firm (and for yourself)”. The differences in functional terms between two such systems are likely to be minimal. The symbolic differences, on the other hand, are enormous. The differences lie in the meaning that is conferred upon the two systems, and meanings reside essentially in the spaces of cognition and learning. Therefore, it does not make much sense to study a regulatory space without studying other spaces that interact with it. Nor does it make much sense without trying to understand how different spaces interact recursively with each other. In this example we might assume that the two types of spaces reinforce each other, in the sense that the measurements in the regulatory space correspond to an overall understanding about the nature of the organisation, namely, avoiding overspending in the public organisation and striving for maximum profits in the broker firm. Such would be the view from Selznick’s (1957:15) work, where physical structure becomes “infused with value” over time and takes on a value that goes beyond its purely instrumental value. However, to assume that two processes simply reinforce each other only provides us with half the story of organisational dynamics. Simple reinforcement between two types of space suggests that there is mutual adjustment and that they converge towards some equilibrium state. Such thinking would reflect a view of organisation as a monolithic entity evolving towards an ever better fit between its elements. It would hence serve to explain organisational stability, or, better, stabilisation. If we want to explain organisational change, however, a different view is needed. The critical reader may object at this point that we have already suggested that organisation is about stabilisation, and hence not about change. Our reply would be that the aim of organising is to strive for stability. However, in creating spaces of stability instability is induced. The reason is that the creation of space creates a situation that was not there before it was 60

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created, and whose consequences could not be foreseen in all its various aspects prior to creating the space. Production of stability, then, contains the seeds of instability. Hence space production and reproduction will always entail unforeseen consequences, and it is in the unforeseen consequences that change resides. Change happens as and when there is production or reproduction of space, and this is how change may be linked to the idea of recursive processes. We have suggested above that budgets are produced and reproduced as a result of recursive processes. It is when budgets are drawn up, or in the consequences of their implementation, (such as overspending or they are compared to profits), that the regulatory space confronts the space of cognition and learning. Budgets and financial planning are produced within a given space of cognition and learning. They are the result of processes of negotiations, power plays and insights, and they reflect to some extent the prevailing beliefs of what the organisation is about and what should be prioritised, and how. Over time, as actions and interactions take place within the budgetary space, new insights emerge, either through innovations, discoveries or as mismatches, dilemmas and paradoxes arise. When the budget comes up for reproduction, such as an extension for a further one- or twoyear period, there is realignment between the budgetary space and the evolved space of cognition and learning. A number of dynamics may arise as different spaces realign, which range from overt conflict to new, shared understanding.

Conclusion We have interpreted organisational space as recursive processes. From the theory review we have inferred that there is a “recursive basis” which is structural in nature. Working from the recursive nature of two types of space we have attempted to understand how the “recursive basis” may be perceived, and how it may lay the basis for change. The limited sample of two types of space suggests that change may take place through different kinds of processes depending on the type of space. We have discussed briefly how a recursive view of space enables change to take place as different spaces are brought into interaction with each other.

References Argyris, Chris & Donald A. Schön (1978). Organizational learning: a theory of action perspective. Philippines: Addison-Wesley. Bakken, Tore & Tor Hernes (2003). Autopoiesis and the macro-micro problem in organization theory: Luhmann’s autopoiesis as a way of handling recursivity. In

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T. Bakken & T. Hernes (Eds.) Autopoietic organization theory. Oslo: Abstrakt, Liber, Copenhagen Business School Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre & Jean-Claude Passeron (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage. Brunsson, Nils & Bengt Jacobsson (2000). A world of standards. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Callon, Michel & Bruno Latour (1981). Unscrewing the big Leviathan: How actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them to do so. In K. KnorrCetina & A. V. Cicourel (Eds.) Advances in social theory and methodology, 277–303. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Chia, Robert (2000). Time, duration and simultaneity: Rethinking process and change in organizational analysis, paper presented at the Academy of Management Conference, Toronto. Feldman, Martha S. & Pentland, Brian T. (2003). Reconceptualizing Organizational Routines as a Source of Flexibility and Change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48: 94–118. Fligstein, Neil (1990). The transformation of corporate control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Giddens, Anthony (1984). The constitution of society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Greenwood, Royston & C. Robert Hinings (1995). Understanding radical organizational change: Bringing together the old and the new institutionalism. Academy of Management Review, 21 (4): 1022–1054. Hernes, Tor (2004). The spatial construction of organization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hernes, Tor & Tore Bakken (2003). Implications of self-reference: Niklas Luhmann’s autopoiesis and organization theory. Organization Studies, 24 (9): 1511–1536. Knorr-Cetina, Karin D. (1981). Introduction: The micro-sociological challenge of macro-sociology: towards a reconstruction of social theory and methodology. In Advances in social theory and methodology – towards an integration of microand macro-sociologies, edited by K. Knorr-Cetina & A. V. Cicourel. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Latour, Bruno (1987). Science in action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Latour, Bruno (1996). Do scientific objects have a history? Common Knowledge, 5 (1): 76–91. Latour, Bruno (1999). Pandora’s hope – essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Luhmann, Niklas (1995). Social systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press (originally published in German in 1984). Luhmann, Niklas (2000). Organisation und Entscheidung, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. March, James G. & Herbert A. Simon (1958). Organizations. New York: John Wiley. Orr, Julian (1990). Sharing knowledge, celebrating identity. In D. Middleton & D. Edwards (Eds.) Collective remembering, 169–189. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

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Paulsen, Neil & Tor Hernes (Eds.) (2003). Managing boundaries in organizations: Multiple perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Scott, W. Richard (1998). Organizations – rational, natural and open systems (4th Ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Swartz, David (1997). Culture and power – the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: Chicago University Press. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (6th Ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press. von Foerster; Heinz (2003). Understanding understanding: essays on cybernetics and cognition. New York: Springer. Weick, Karl E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing (2nd Ed.) New York: Random House. Weick, Karl E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Whitehead, Alfred Norton ([1929]1978). Process and reality. New York: The Free Press.

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Chapter 4

Moving Bodies and Connecting Minds in Space: a Matter of Mind over Matter Frank Go and Paul C. van Fenema

Introduction Ever had the feeling that you wanted to be at two sites at the same time? That you had read and watched and communicated so much that you felt overwhelmed? Over the past decades, transportation and information technology have transformed human interaction with space. Physically, migration and travel have increased at a tremendous pace. Inventions like the wheel and later, engines and airplanes, have enabled (reasonably) comfortable mass transportation at high speeds. Information and communication technologies have connected people at different ends of the globe and accelerated sharing of information (news facts) and concepts. We finally seem capable of stretching the boundaries of life (Simon 1991). The use of these opportunities has further financed and accelerated technical development. People have created new forms of interacting and living, like telecommunication, teleworking, and virtual gaming (avatars, multiactor-distributed games across the Internet). They migrate and travel, live temporarily at different places (Golledge and Stimson 1987). Visits and information technology enable support of existing relationships and participation in communities. For instance, ethnic groups of immigrants in West European countries remain a part of their original home country, such as Turkey or Morocco, through punctuated visits and watching media from these countries (Robins 1998; Robins and Aksoy 2002). Professionals travel around the globe while remaining connected to their (virtual) office, files, peers, and communities (Wenger 1998). Offshore call centres in India and the Philippines offer remote services to North America and Europe. People in these centres are socialised in western culture and organisational routines. They have access to customer information. When they connect to customers in North America and Europe, it seems as if they are part of a company in these countries instead of serving them from thousands of miles away. 64

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These phenomena have modified existing spaces like airports, offices and homes. They have created new spaces that trigger our senses, such as TV channels, the Internet, and simulation environments. Current and past realities are represented in news shows, or modified and translated into partially fictional products. These different spaces have become interwoven. From the perspective of individual human beings, an intricate pattern has emerged of inclusion in multiple worlds or spaces. People travel while phoning to their office and watching a movie. Teenagers sit at home while playing multi-actor games with other unknown individuals all over the world. Migratory pressures are likely to increase substantially in the next 30 years. One reason is the projected shrinking of the industrialised world’s native labour pool as the developing world’s workforce doubles (National Geographic 1998). Another is the increase in travel for business, personal and leisure motives. The incline of projected world migration poses the issue of how to optimally unlock the potential of moving bodies and connecting minds. From a research point of view, many interesting questions arise. How can we conceptualise the new spatial arrangements? What patterns are emerging? How shall existing spaces change? What drives the success of these phenomena? How can we explain them? How are new spaces created and used? How are old and new spaces connected? How do people adapt to new spaces? In this paper we propose conceptual approaches that may help us to improve our analysis and understanding of the effects of the emerging polyinclusion patterns. Furthermore, we hope that such conceptual insight shall contribute to answering some of the aforementioned questions.

Moving and connecting We frame the impact of technology in terms of (1) moving bodies, and (2) moving and connecting minds. First, we move our bodies and physical artefacts at an unprecedented scale. Airplanes, cars, fast trains, and subways transport material things and people quickly and reliably to almost any place in the world. In the past, hot spots such as Paris emerged at the crossroads of major routes, or where natural harbours existed (New York, Rotterdam, London, and Singapore). Nowadays, airport cities temporarily capture people moving across a densely connected network of hubs. Airport cities serve as meeting venues, shopping malls and staging areas that allow “time-strapped” consumers temporarily to include closely situated local contexts for vacation purposes. Global nomads are people who work on temporary international projects. They connect with peers and customers in a punctuated pattern over time.

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For other groups, transportation has increased global migration as people were attracted by comparative improvements in physical, social, or political conditions. These transportation and migration patterns increase diversity of local spaces, which led Appudurai (1990) to suggest the mapping of human activity in a global space in terms of flows of people (migrants, international professionals, tourists, refugees), and political ideas and values. The cultural and cognitive diversity of their (temporary) citizens is reflected within particular ethnoscapes (e.g. Chinatown) and ideoscapes, including fundamentalist groups in society (Appudurai 1990). Second, Information Technology has enabled us to move and connect our minds. Primitive clans live in relative isolation, mainly in their local space and current time. Apart from some simple paintings, these groups use myths to convey their experiences from one to the next generation. With mythology, so it seems, everything becomes possible. However, Levi-Strauss (Jacobson and Brooke 1963) has indicated that “this apparent arbitrariness is belied by the astounding similarity between myths collected in widely different regions”. Nevertheless, there is little question that book-printing technology accelerated the sharing of representations and concepts across space and time. Digital information and communication technology multiplied the power of people articulating their experiences, thoughts, and concepts. TV and Internet for instance provide access to an unlimited range of facts, situations, and fiction. The new media empower those communities that developed a writing and visualisation culture to articulate their thoughts and share these expressions on a global scale. This means that while remaining at a single site, our mind can move in another world of factual representations or conceptual spaces like simulations. Our mind can include us in multiple spaces, such as watching the news and a movie at the same time, or typing an email while listening to the radio. We partition our mind, and wander in many directions while remaining physically in the same chair or room (see Figure 4.1 for an example).

Figure 4.1. Moving minds: Seeing the world through newspapers.

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Information technology enables people to move in information space and connect minds. People consume representations of events elsewhere. They interact with concepts-translated-into-artefacts, like software, movies, and interactive games. Global corporations absorb, modify and push scripts that appeal to mass audiences, like Microsoft, Nike, MTV, CNN and Nokia. These scripts reflect universal needs and expectations that are translated into concepts, advertisements, and artefacts. Through standard communication systems, these are distributed on a global scale, creating common knowledge, especially among younger generations, roughly in two different ways. Most support the existing forms of connecting minds. But others (Klein, 2000; Hertz 2001) regard the new economic order as “out of order” and have created their own language and common knowledge in opposition to that of global corporations. Together, these two dimensions lead to intricate patterns of spatial inclusion and exclusion. People travel (moving bodies) while watching movies (moving minds) and calling their office or home (connecting minds). Youngsters play all-consuming videogames that extend their mental presence independent of their physical location. Before elaborating on these patterns, we first need to categorise the spaces that are involved.

Spaces Cyberspace enables us to move ourselves to parallel worlds or in time. (de Mul 2002)

We propose four dimensions of space: material space, information space, mind space, and social space. We elaborate these here including their limitations. In the next section we will expand on interactions between spaces, and people’s interaction patterns. In the past, people used to live what we may consider local lives. They worked the fields, fished, built, and cooked. They interacted with other people, with artefacts (tools), and the land and sea. This material space can be considered their main environment for experiences. Technology has broadened our understanding and exploration of this physical space. We have mapped the globe, explored its depths and heights, and travelled in space. People meet in physical space at home, in office environments, at temporary sites (hotels, meeting centres). Material space has its limitations. As human beings we can only be present at a single site. We cannot split ourselves as a physical being. This means that we have to move sequentially to other places. It has given rise to international migration flows, global nomads and their social networks that link them to their places of origin and expatriates residing (temporarily) in dispersed locations. Studying whether 67

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and how these transnational networks of people and places interlock and their cultural construction may lead to spaces that give “birth” to new imagined communities (Anderson 1983), which represents an interesting area for research. Second, people interact with an information space that captures, represents and transmits. They are used to consuming a steady stream of news facts, stories, and audiovisual products that represent part fact and fiction (like soap series and movies). People share files that report on current or past realities, or that point to scenarios and future trends and visions. Technology captures and transmits meanings in audio-visual format (voice mail, phone) and textual and graphic expressions (emails, documents). Information or representation space glues people together wherever they are. It provides a real-time and asynchronous layer that connects people through electronic media. Information space is limited in time, not in terms of material space. We can simultaneously access web cams and watch real time events around the world without moving from our chair (Agre 2001). But information is only available on current (remote) situations (a remote phone call) or past events (a documentary about the year 2002). A third space people may be included in is mind or knowledge space. We develop and express routines and experiences that are communicated, processed and enhanced by other human beings. People have developed stories and scripts that transfer generic knowledge and help us communicate (Grant 1996; Orr 1996). We connect directly or through artefacts with other minds. Artificial intelligence has equipped machines with a mindset of their own, albeit on a limited scale. Information technology has exacerbated the role of artefacts: we talk to people on the phone, or read a book, an email, watch a movie, visit a web site, or use software. These artefacts enact or “materialise” a mindset; they help us absorb and appropriate stories to other human beings (Orlikowski 1991; DeSanctis and Poole 1994; Joerges and Czarniawska 1998). Due to the rapid rate of technological change and the quick obsolescence of knowledge, it is essential for us to increase our absorption capacity. Organisations have developed brand stories, concepts, and visions to ease the interpretation of communication between interlocking arenas, in which buyers and vendors may contest notions of price, quality and convenience and managers try to align the efforts of manpower to corporate operations and culture. Mind space has no limitations other than humankind’s fantasy. Human imagination should therefore be viewed as the growth-engine behind the creation and simulation of any concepts and reality. Such imagination can be both factual and fictional; it can exist in the past, present or future, and it may be either relevant or irrelevant. Such endless opportunities are reflected in virtual reality environments, advanced design and visualisation software, and an unprecedented exchange of concepts through the Internet. 68

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Fourth, social space exists when two or more individuals meet in some format on a relational basis (Gabarro 1990). People create unique interaction patterns and reciprocal knowledge (Schein 1992). They exchange efficiently by using their own protocols, symbols and common knowledge. This cultural and relational space has been associated with uncertainty. People can improvise around uncertain situations when they have established social space (Williamson 1991; Peplowski 1998). They create meaning in a joint process based on similar past experiences (Hall 1959). Social space involves only human beings (perhaps also some animals). It is independent of space, and evolves historically over time. People may be included in one or more of these spaces sequentially or in parallel (Figure 4.2).

Mind Space Inclusion

Inclusion Information Space




Inclusion Special Space

Inclusion Interwovenness of spaces

Figure 4.2. Polyinclusion.

Material Space

Connecting spaces The four spaces are connected as proposed in Table 4.1. The columns and rows present the four dimensions of space. The bold cells show connections between the same categories of spaces. From left to right, material space represents situations where artefacts and people exist together in the same context. Examples of information spaces that are joined together include web rings that link multiple web sites. Or people watch picture-in-picture television where they follow multiple information spaces at the same time. Mind spaces are connected when people and/or machines interact. Using the software for writing this paper means that we interact with the mindset of the program’s developers. Joining social spaces happens when people include themselves in multiple social contexts and relationships and they close struc69

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Table 4.1. Connecting spaces.

Material space

Information space

Mind space

Social space

Material space

Information space

Co-presence of people and material artifacts

Capturing and representing material space (picture)

Executing the design of an artifact

Co-presence of people

Joining together information spaces (hyperlinked web sites, web ring, picture-inpicture TV)

Articulating a mind space in information artifacts

Mediated copresence of people

Connecting mind spaces (people-people, peoplemachines, machinesmachines)

Collective thinking

Mind space

Social space

Connecting social networks (boundary liaison (Burt 1993))

tural holes (Burt 1993). Structural holes can be defined as where people function as an exclusive linking pin between social spaces. Put differently, they are the only ones working in their office environment and participating in social environments in their private time. Joining people from these groups implies the need to link social spaces, leading potentially to the creation of connected intelligence. The remaining cells show the relationships between different types of spaces. We discuss these from left to right, top to bottom. (The grey cells are redundant.) Material and information spaces come together when people read printed media, watch TV, or interact with computers. On the edge of these spaces, people capture pictures, shoot films, or print files. One cell to the right, mind space and material spaces join together. We can think of CAD/ CAM designs that are used to shape material artefacts. For instance, the Boeing 777 existed as a digital airplane and this design was subsequently translated into physical planes. When people meet face-to-face, social space and material space interact. One row lower, information space and mind spaces refer to an exchange process. People represent user requirements and translate these into software design. Conversely, a product of mindsets like Disney’s shaping of experiences is translated into information spaces (Disney films, TV broadcasting, 70

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Table 4.2. Framing the examples. Case 1 European immigrants Material space

Case 2 Virtual professional

Case 3 Offshore services

Physical presence in West Europe and temporary visits

Traveling, short stays and meetings

Offshore to onshore remote communications

Information space

Electronic media provide information on home culture and family/ friends there

Access to news, remote communications

Callers have a phone connection and information on customer, and their local context

Mind space

People remain part of their home culture, they access real and fictional stories from that mind set

People remain part their professional community and receive updates from relevant sources

Callers are socialized in western protocols and ways of working

Social space

Immigrants remain included in communities of family and friends in their original home country

People maintain social ties to family and friends

Local social space (Peers, family, friends)

and web sites). Disney has successfully translated the content of its films into material space, for example, through the construction of its theme parks and staging of musicals. Social and information spaces imply that people meet using mediating technologies such as teleconferencing or a videoconference. Finally, joining mind and social spaces refers to people interacting and mind melting. During brainstorming sessions, people engage in externalisation and internalisation processes while expressing their viewpoints (Nonaka and Konno 1998).

Emerging patterns of polyinclusion The examples mentioned earlier in this paper reflect the emerging patterns of polyinclusion. At the root of polyinclusion is the issue of whether humankind should encourage alienation or participation. There is ample cause to raise such issues. The information technology revolution has contributed to a significant extent to the spread of a culture of individualism and undermined the relationships with our family, communities and our world. Furthermore, worldwide, people place more emphasis on the pursuit of and participation in leisure experiences; vendors respond by offering travel, entertainment and hospitality services. Last but not least, globalisation has caused corporate capitalism to dematerialise into webs of access and networks of virtual power (Rifkin 2000). The latter is reflected in the words of a representative of ING real estate as quoted in (Metz 2002:78): 71

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“Leisure is more an activity than a real estate category. The concepts and themes are more important than the building.” Against such a backdrop we can reinterpret the aforementioned examples. First, we referred to ethnic groups of immigrants in West European countries who sometimes remain partially included in the culture of their original home country like Turkey or Morocco through visits and watching media from these countries. These people moved physically in the 1960s and 1970s from their home countries to Western European countries. They continue moving as family members join them later on. Occasionally, people return to their home country for visits. They collect artefacts that represent their home country and have been designed by people acculturated in that mindset. On top of local inclusion in western society, these patterns sustain social spaces of like-minded people independent of their physical location. Co-presence is alternated with information spaces that connect families or friends through email, phone calls and letters (Robins 1998; Robins and Aksoy 2002). Information space sustains social space. It also supports mind space in terms of fostering the mindset common to the culture of these home countries (Hofstede 1991). Satellite television and Internet sites offer a place-independent international information space that broadcasts and represents information that appeals to target audiences. These shows (news, talk shows, and fiction) reflect a cultural mindset and have been framed thereby. In summary, material and information space support social ties (social space), and mind space. We interpret mind space here as culturally shared cognition (Cannon-Bowers and Salas 2001). Second, we referred to professionals travelling around the globe while remaining connected to their (virtual) office, files, peers, and communities (Edström and Galbraith 1977). People travel while phoning to their office and watching a movie. They move their bodies through space and over time. These professionals meet colleagues or customers at designated locations for a brief period of time. These bubbles of co-presence help them connect and build social space, as well as mind space (exchanging ideas and visions). Social and mind space connections are sustained independently of material space. People remain included in information spaces (email, phone calls, news broadcasts). Figure 4.3 gives an example of a virtual office environment that may include videoconferencing and data exchange tools (Adams, Toomey et al. 1999). Through these spaces they sustain social spaces (professional or private relationships), and mind spaces (listening on the plane to audiotapes with messages by Peter Drucker, or watching movies that tell a particular story). Compared with the first example, social and mind spaces appear prevalent. Material and information spaces support ongoing social and cognitive connections. The third example concerned offshore call centres in India and the 72

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Figure 4.3. Information space.

Philippines offering remote services to North America and Europe (Figure 4.4). Local or western companies socialise their local workforce in western culture and organisational practices. They share a western mind space with local professionals so that these people can handle calls with European and American customers. This includes language skills, because, as an IT consultant pointed out (Bist 2001): Just because India has lots of English speaking people, it does not follow that running a call centre is child’s play (…) it is not easy to get Indian college kids to speak in a way that Americans can understand. You also have to constantly re-train them because if they are worth anything at all, someone else will snap them up.

Callers are equipped with information tools. They have access to an information space that provides representative data on the persons they will call (such as credit history, transactions and address information). Some companies even provide data on the customer’s context, such as local weather and news. When customers in North America and Europe receive a call, they may think that the caller is part of a company in these countries instead of someone who is serving them from thousands of miles away. Common knowledge enables the remote quasi-local call (Carlson and Zmud 1999). Calls usually consist of brief encounters with customers so that people do not relate (Gutek 1995). Callers’ social space remains locally where they know peers, friends, and family members. Their daily life becomes a mixture of moving through local material space, and excluding mentally while being involved in remote calls (Goffman 1959).

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Figure 4.4. Call center in India.

We frame these examples in Table 4.2. First, groups of immigrants have made a big transition in the 1960s and 1970s by moving to Western Europe. They continue a pattern of occasional mobility. While in Europe, they remain connected to their social and mind space through information space (and to some extent material space in the sense of culturally symbolic artefacts). Their reference space is mental and social. This leads to a frequent moving of mind, independent of the body. Their mind set and social ties remain in their reference culture, while they also take part, in some form, in Western societies. The same applies to the virtual professional. S/he stays tuned to social and mental reference spaces through information tools and occasional meetings. International travel brings him/her temporarily to other contexts but these do not constitute his or her reference environment. Like the immigrants, s/he includes herself or himself in these other spaces to a limited extent before excluding again. Virtual professionals remain included in social and mental spaces even while moving their bodies through material space. Inevitably, this requires a disconnection between mental and physical presence. Third, offshore call service centres connect callers to customers elsewhere through information space. They provide phone lines and information on customers. Callers have been socialised in a Western mindset. They do not build a social space with customers overseas but connect temporarily based on a shared mind and information space. Callers do not move physically, but their mind connects to customers elsewhere, in fact a mirror image from the virtual professional. Before and after a call, they are physically at one site, but probably mentally processing and preparing the remote calls. Outside their work context, these people return to a less separated existence as they interact with local family, friends and others.

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Discussion and conclusion Since the beginning of time the globe has tempted humans to explore. Great discoveries, migration and recent phenomena such as the Internet, business and leisure travel illustrate the impact of information and transportation technologies on modern life. Globalisation promotes a shift from traditional to secular-rational values as epitomised by professionals who travel but stay tuned to their reference communities, and offshore call centres. The dual forces of technology and globalisation have raised the knowledge and competency levels to exploit commercial opportunities and turned effective and efficient learning into a competitive necessity. Teenagers represent an example of a community that has adapted in the main to the forces of convergence and the opportunities the immaterial affords them to interact with virtual peers around the globe, while sipping a drink at their local site. But rather than converging, many communities move along paths that are shaped by their cultural heritage. For instance, we referred to immigrants, who remain sometimes in part included in their home culture. Therefore, when projecting communities on a continuum, we can distinguish two polar extremes: “Prisoners of the past”, that is, those whose inclusion pattern is structured, are “immersed” and incapable of moving beyond their home culture, and the “Global Nomads”, who seem to exude no attachment to the concept of “place” whatsoever. Inclusion becomes a process as people join and leave spaces over time. In time more people will adopt information and transportation technology innovations and change their interaction with space. We framed these changes in three parts: moving bodies, and moving and connecting minds. People travel at unprecedented scales. When accessing information and communication technologies, they can disconnect their mind from their body, while moving physically or staying at one site. And finally, people connect their minds through technology or by physically meeting people and interacting with artefacts. It leads to a redefinition of space. We have distinguished material space (people, physical artefacts), information space (electronic media, Internet), mental space (concepts, knowledge, stories, mental constructs), and social space (relationship and culture). People connect within and across these dimensions of space. Their social encounters may be interpreted as arenas, in which contests over resources, values, representations and sense making take place. In a knowledge economy, the shape of their lifeworld is determined to a significant degree by the capacity to absorb relevant signals and symbols in order to adapt to an intricate and changing pattern of inclusion and exclusion in various spaces and dimensions of space (Habermas 1984). Finally, we assessed how people deal with these spaces using the aforementioned examples. One conclusion is that information space has become

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an indispensable part of modern life. People sustain their social and mind spaces through information and communication technologies. IT alone does not assure success. The global era calls for the convergence of competencies, which traditionally have developed as four separate domains of knowledge. These are design, information technology, social psychology and management. For purposes of sustenance, local interests need to be linked, supported by information technology, people’s social and mind space, to global interests. The Carnegie Report on Higher Education (1999) cogently sets forth the predictable dangers that exist in the global future, if such an emphasis is not adopted: “The World has become a more crowded, more interconnected, more volatile and more unstable place. If education cannot help students see beyond themselves and better understand the interdependent nature of our world, then each new generation will remain ignorant, and its capacity to live competently and responsibly will be dangerously diminished” (Souza and Stutz 1994:iii). We observe that the centre of gravity of individual and social life is shifting. It is moving from material space towards information space, and now onwards towards mind and social space. Travelling and representationmediating technologies enable us to disconnect body and mind, matter and image. Interestingly, this separation enables connecting in novel spaces at an unprecedented scale. It has lead to a global space, and (interlocking) arenas that can be reinterpreted to develop new notions of community that are currently emerging in cyberspace. Viewed against the background of informational capitalism, the universal human need for the compression of time and the transnational movement of “bodies” in a global space in terms of flows of people (migrants, international professionals, tourists, refugees) in global networks will continue in the foreseeable future. These processes raise significant issues concerning the viability of incumbent models, theories and technologies and potential changes in identity, encounters and relationships. How these trends will materialise remains something still to explore, providing sufficient food for collective thought – it is time to connect!

References Adams, L., L. Toomey et al. (1999). Distributed Research Teams: Meeting Asynchronously in Virtual Space. Journal of Computer Mediated Communications, 4 (4) (http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc). Agre, P. E. (2001). Changing Places: Contexts of Awareness in Computing. HumanComputer Interaction, 16 (2–3): 177–192. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Appadurai, A. & C. Breckenridge (1988). Why public culture. Public Culture, 1 (1): 5–9.

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Bist, R. (2001). India answers the call. Asia Times Online (http://www.atimes.com). Burt, R. S. (1993). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Cannon-Bowers, J. A. & E. Salas (2001). Reflections on shared cognition. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22: 195–202. Carlson, J. R. & R. W. Zmud (1999). Channel expansion theory and the experiential nature of media richness perceptions. Academy of Management Journal, 42 (2): 153–170. de Mul, J. (2002). Cyberspace Odyssee. Kampen, The Netherlands: Klement Publishers. DeSanctis, G. and M. S. Poole (1994). Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory. Organization Science, 5 (2): 121–147. Edström, A. & J. R. Galbraith (1977). Transfer of Managers as a Coordination and Control Strategy. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22 (June): 248–263. Gabarro, J. J. (1990). The development of working relationships. Intellectual teamwork: Social and technological foundations of cooperative work. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday. Golledge, R. G. & R. J. Stimson (1987). Analytical Behavioural Geography. London: Croom Helm. Grant, R. M. (1996). Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17 (Winter): 109–122. Gutek, B. A. (1995). The Dynamics of Service: Reflections on the Changing Nature of Customer Provider Interaction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Hall, E. T. (1959). The Silent Language. New York, Anchor Books. Hertz, N. (2001). The Silent Takeover Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy. London: Heinemann. Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. Berkshire, UK: McGraw-Hill. Joerges, B. & B. Czarniawska (1998). The Question of Technology, or How Organizations Inscribe the World. Organization Studies, 19 (3): 363–385. Klein, N. (2000). No Logo. London: Flamingo. Metz, T. (2002). Pret! Leisure en landschap (Fun! Leisure and landscape). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: NAi Publishers. National Geographic (1998). Millennium in Maps ‘Population’, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society (August). Nonaka, I. & N. Konno (1998). The Concept of “Ba”: Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation. California Management Review, 40 (3): 40–54. Orlikowski, W. J. (1991). The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations. Organization Science, 3 (3): 398–427. Orr, J. E. (1996). Talking About Machines. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Peplowski, K. (1998). The Process of Improvisation. Organization Science, 9 (5): 560–561.

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Rifkin, J. (2000). The Age of Access: The new culture of hypercapitalism where all of life is a paid-for experience. New York: Tarcher/Putnam. Robins, K. (1998). Spaces of Global Media. Transnational Communities Programme, Working paper (http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working_papers.htm). Robins, K. and A. Aksoy (2002). Banal Transnationalism: The Difference that Television Makes: Transnational Communities Programme. Working paper (http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working_papers.htm). Schein, E. H. (1992). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, JosseyBass Publishers. Simon, H. A. (1991). Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning. Organization Science, 2: 125–134. Souza, Anthony R. de & Frederick. P. Stutz (1994). The World Economy Resources, Location, Trade and Development (2nd Ed.) New York: MacMillan. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williamson, O. E. (1991). Comparative economic organization: The analysis of discrete structural alternatives. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36: 269–296.

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Chapter 5

Space, Organisation and Management Michael Brocklehurst

Introduction One of the standard texts on landscape design makes the following claim: “Man (sic) creates around him an environment that is a projection into nature of his abstract ideas” (Jellicoe and Jellicoe 1995:7). In this chapter I demonstrate that the reverse process may be at least as significant: how space is regulated and partitioned is itself a strong influence on ideas. I will support this claim in two ways. First, looking at the way in which the urban and rural landscape was constructed in the United States from about 1785 in a highly idiosyncratic construction. Second, by showing that much of the thinking behind this construction has been reproduced in (North) American1 thinking about management, particularly the form of “industrial management” which came to prevail in the early twentieth century – what Shenhav refers to as “manufacturing rationality” (2002). The leitmotiv for the construction of the American landscape is the square. A glance at the map of the States of the Union shows that many state boundaries are straight lines, following meridians and parallels with scant regard for topographical irregularities. This pattern is repeated in most cities with their infamous gridiron streets. This construction was planned by Thomas Jefferson, amongst others, and required a massive survey based upon precise engineering (Linklater 2002). Each square plot of land was labelled, documented, and registered. No stone was left unturned. Every square inch was to be accounted for – there was to be no waste. The choice of squares eased the problems of measurement and subdivision but it also simplified and deskilled the job of town planning. Moreover, this measurement of nature translated nature into abstract entities (acres, lots, etc.). It

1

Following common usage I use the terms “America” and “United States” interchangeably. I recognise that those who live in Patagonia are just as much “American” as those who live in the United States.

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enabled land to be controlled centrally. As land became standardised and made uniform, its commodification was facilitated. This attempt to socially engineer nature, to impose a gridiron on an unruly wilderness, has resulted in a landscape peculiar to the United States. (Of course France and England had their formal classical gardens but these were confined to the lands of the aristocracy – they did not permeate through the wider rural society.) Moreover, many of these same features can be seen to underpin industrial management in general and scientific management in particular. My argument in this chapter is that the two are connected. This is not a causal link – rather that the existence of one facilitated the adoption of the other. Furthermore, there was nothing inevitable about either the patterning of the landscape or the rise of industrial management – both were bitterly contested. Nevertheless, why industrial management should emerge principally in the United States and not, say, in Europe, requires explanation. The conjecture in this chapter is that the way space is constructed and regulated as part of everyday practice plays a strong influence on how ideas develop and become adopted. Why systematic/scientific management took root in the US more than elsewhere has been addressed before; Guillen’s work is probably the most cited (Guillen 1994). A number of explanations have been offered: the greater number of engineers in the US; the bigger scale of American industry and the higher ratio of administrative to production staff; the role of the state (or the lack of it); the level of industrial conflict (which was very high in the US during the first two decades of the 20th century). I wish to claim another reason and it requires addressing two questions. Why is the landscape constructed and regulated in a very particular way in the US? Why did industrial management take the form it took? The next two sections address these two questions. In section four I draw out the comparisons between the two and relate the argument to the theoretical literature on the adoption of management ideas. The final section draws out my conclusions.

The development of the American landscape In this chapter I follow Zukin’s conceptualisation of “landscape”. “Landscape as I use the term here, stretches the imagination. Not only does it denote the usual geographical meaning of ‘physical surroundings’ but it also refers to an ensemble of material and social practice and their symbolic representation” (Zukin 1991:16). But what are the ways in which land can be thought about? According to Linklater (2002) there are three ways in which social groups can think of themselves in relation to land.

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The first of these is where land is not “owned” as such but rather held collectively – in a sense the land and the group are held in a symbolic relationship. This is the relationship characteristic of nomadic groups for whom hunter/gathering remains significant. The land will often contain sacred areas where forefathers are buried. There are no legal documents declaring ownership but the land is very much part and parcel of who the group feels themselves to be and derives from long-term occupancy and usage. The second approach derives from feudal relations of production and can be conceptualised as a vertical form of ownership. In principle only the Sovereign can own land; other subordinate groups (barons) may hold land but do so in return for dues or services to the Sovereign. There is a pyramid of such relationships – the barons provide land to the lower gentry in return for services and so on down to the villains who have no land to call their own but exchange goods and services for the right to work part of their master’s land. In feudal times, land was not thought of in terms of its size but in terms of its yield; thus the Doomsday Book refers to land in terms of “hides” – a hide being enough to support a family. Any physical measurement was rough and ready – in “metes and bounds” using natural landmarks. This is because land was hardly ever traded. Careful surveying and accurate measurement is only required when land becomes something to be bought and sold and that did not happen in England until the sixteenth century, with the dissolution of the monasteries and the start of the enclosure movement. In this respect measurement or surveying, which might be regarded as a neutral, technical matter, became a political act, a means by which land became a commodity and the landless became displaced. Measurement was also a key means of translation as the Elizabethans recognised. Their age was the first to recognise and legislate for measure. Fundamental to the measurement of land was the invention of the chain by Gunter in the 1620s. This was formed out of links and was exactly twenty-two yards (sixty six feet) long; it was portable but it did not stretch, which avoided the problem of devices made out of rope. The third method of owning land can be characterised as horizontal (Linklater 2002). Here there is no sovereign but rather individuals buy (or occupy) land in their own right. This was the possibility facing the postindependent US and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson saw widespread individual property ownership as the basis for a stable, self-regulating society. He chaired a committee whose task was to decide on the best way of surveying and disposing of the land known as the Western Territory (which lay to the west of the Ohio and Appalachian mountains). What was formulated was a piece of deliberate social engineering. Each state was to be marked out in squares and surveyed before occupation – the existing native North Americans were rendered invisible by this process. The boundaries were to 81

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be defined by parallels of latitudes and meridians. Within each state the land was to be divided into squares and each square further sub-divided. No land was to be left unaccounted for. The square was fundamental to the design – what Pattison describes as “Their ambitious attempt to realise a dream of democratic rationality for the American West” (Quoted in Linklater, 2002:68). This project became incorporated in the ordinance passed by the US Congress on 20 May 1785 which stated the following: “The surveyors shall proceed to divide the said territory into townships of six miles square, by lines running north and south and others crossing these at right angles as near as may be. The lines shall be measured with a chain.” In its implementation, the Ordinance came into direct conflict with the Native American way of living with space. As Linklater notes; “The contrast between the surveyors’ straight line and the Indians’ winding trails and inconspicuous farm plots could not have been more stark” (Linklater 2002:76). In the South, the old system of “metes and bounds” – measuring land according to natural features – persisted with all the opportunities it gave for corruption and litigation. But through the actions of Jared Mansfield, Surveyor General from 1803, all the Midwest land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase was meticulously surveyed on a grid using the Indiana/Ohio State Border as the baseline. The parcels of land became smaller as each square was further sub-divided into more squares and each parcel of land was carefully numbered. Parcels of land thus became interchangeable. Squatters who ran ahead of the survey would measure out their land so it was a square parcel size, hoping they could add or subtract bits to fit in with the surveyors’ grid and ultimately claim the rights. In this way, land became commodified. As Linklater states: The fact that the grid could practically sub-divide a continent to minute, graph-paper squares might appear to be simply a triumph of the mathematician’s art; but the ease with which it made land available to anyone who went in search of it had an almost incalculable influence on the development of the American economy and the American psyche (Linklater 2002:191–92).

Since 1785, over one billion acres has been transferred from the public domain into individual ownership. But it is the “thinking in squares” that is just as significant. As Linklater says: Out west the idea of being “four-square” – a “four square guy”, a “square deal” came to epitomise everything that was desirably solid and reliable, and by the same way of thinking, a square represented all that the unpropertied sinuous world of jazz despised (Linklater 2002:259).

It is little wonder that jazz music and blues came from the landless. The gridlike system was also applied to the layout of cities. In Manhattan each block 82

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is three chains deep and eight to twelve chains wide. Even the dimensions of the streets are measured in chains. Washington proved an exception but consequently a market in land was much slower to emerge. Newer cities like Chicago copied Manhattan in preference. The railways continued this process, cloning towns along the tracks at fifteen-mile intervals. Each railroad town was made into blocks straddling the railway. Municipal planning was standardised and therefore cheap. It is estimated that the town-planning bill for each town was $7. Deeds of sale for each plot could be standardised and the only change required was to the grid reference. This attempt to turn American space into a piece of graph paper was not without cost. The project was bitterly contested. On the ground this was evidenced by the long and bloody battle with Native Americans and the struggle between farmers and cowboys. But opposition came also on conceptual grounds to the use of a regular square-like pattern. It may have enabled precise measurement but it ignored geography. Land was parcelled up and ownership divided out without any consideration of the terrain. Thus drainage slopes were ignored and this contributed to soil erosion. Most settlers built their house in the centre of the plot and then cleared and farmed around it to minimise distance from the homestead to the surrounding fields. But it meant social isolation from other homesteads. Resistance also came from those who did not want to see everything surveyed and precisely measured – uncertainty and ambiguity of ownership could easily be profitably exploited. More emphatically, the standardisation of land (and many other weights and measures) did not lead to decimalisation and metrification, as Jefferson had wanted. Precise calculation and manipulation of numbers is much more easily accomplished with metrification. Thus engineers and the scientific community conduct their discourse using metrification but it is not everyday practice for the bulk of the population. Having examined the way in which the landscape became carved up, I turn in the next section to explore how industrial management achieved the hegemony it did within the US.

The development of “Manufacturing Rationality” Why did the ideology of management emerge in the US during the period after 1910? There are three positions taken in this debate. First are those who offer a structural, class-based analysis whereby ideologies of management developed to “manage” labour conflict and the socialisation of production (Braverman 1984). Second are analyses that view it in more cultural and political terms as an outcome of professional engineering ideology (Shenhav 2002). Third and standing somewhere in between, are those who

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see it as linked to both economic and cultural factors (Barley and Kunda 1992; Guillen 1994). But I am more interested in examining the particular forms the new industrial management took, and to demonstrate how these resonate with the way the landscape has been engineered. Shenhav describes the development of a management ideology in the first thirty years of the twentieth century as a “manufacturing rationality”. Rather than subscribing to the view that “rationality” is something universal and transcendent, he takes the line that rationality is better seen as a specific cultural and historical artefact – a signifier that only has meaning in a given context. His point is that rationality is seen as the bedfellow (the other?) of uncertainty while many organisational theorists see uncertainty as the reason for organisation (Simon 1957; Galbraith 1973; Pfeffer and Salanick 1978). As Shenhav states: “The engineer, the manager and the planner were set the task of slaying the dragon of uncertainty” (Shenhav 2002:202). Organisation is the antidote to both instability and creative destruction (Schumpeter 1943) and the end result is organised capitalism (Lash and Urry 1987). Of course this management ideology did not appear in a vacuum of other ideas – American doctrines of Exceptionalism and Progressivism for example – or of material practices – the high levels of industrial conflict in the USA prior to 1920 for example. The form that this management discourse took is of interest here. A key concept is “the system”. Systems thinking was a method based on the notion of “wholeness” where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, yet there is also the possibility of the interchangeability of parts (Morgan 1997). From an ideological perspective engineers also stressed the notion of standardisation across firms, which obviously helped their development as a professional cadre. The way in which systems came to encompass human bodies and their minds – transcribing elements of the technical into the social - was critical. Shenhav, following Litterer (1986) distinguishes between systematic management (systemisation) and Scientific Management or Taylorism. In the former, organisational issues fall into recurring types or patterns for which a method or system could be employed; the latter was based on measurement and experimentation. The former concerned producing an orderly arrangement of organisational parts; the latter analysed how each component part performed its task. In spite of their differences, both had a similar philosophy of management. Both had emerged from the ideology of rational standardization. The systemizers focussed mainly on the standardization of organizations as social systems. Scientific management focused on the standardization of the human element in production (Shenhav 2002:116).

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The intention of both was to turn the organisation into a closed system2, subject to engineering manipulation. Scientific management in particular required extending systemisation and standardisation to cover the human element, a process aimed at homogenising labour. This quotation from the American Machinist, one of the two premier trade journals of the engineering profession captures the translation involved. The habit hitherto has been to regard metals and other materials of manufacture as certain and reliable elements to be dealt with, while human nature has been regarded as the uncertain and capricious element. But as we go wiser and go deeper into things we find that all material which we handle is more or less uncertain … On the other hand, the assumed uncertainties of human nature are largely dissipated as we learn its proper manipulation (American Machinist 8 February 1884:6).

The industrial conflict of 1900 to 1920 provided the opening for systemisers and scientific management as they could present themselves as offering practical solutions to the “labour question”. Moreover, they fitted with some of the doctrines of progressivism, which gathered support after 1900 in that progressivism was seen as an antidote to corruption and inefficiency in the public sector and robber baron employers in the private sector. But more significantly, the emerging ideology of industrial management used the cloak of science and engineering with its pretence of value freedom. As Kloppenberg put it: “Science and engineering provided the assurance that from the same set of facts, men will come to approximately the same conclusion” (Kloppenberg 1986:383). Engineers were thus able to present themselves as taking no sides; they were able to create a professional space between labour and capital and differentiate management from both. In this way engineering ideology came to chime with the “visible hand” ideology (Chandler 1977). But what was significant was how both systemisers and scientific management were able to use precise measurement, as a justification, even as a taken-for-granted. This was one of the defences put for scientific management at the 1914 Congressional hearing set up to investigate scientific management. As the editors of the American Machinist argued, no one would object to the use of micrometers or verniers to aid work. As for industrial conflict: The labour problem was simply edited out of organisational thought; it was relegated to a sub-discipline that branched 2

Shenhav points out how the Organizational Behaviour Canon has it the subject started with closed systems and then moved to open systems (Scott 1987). In fact, prior to the rise of system discourse, business leaders had been very concerned with the “environment” (cartels government legislation, tariffs etc.). But industrial management had to close it off, perceive it as a unified system, which engineers could then monitor. Once systems thinking had become “taken-for-granted”, then the environment could be readmitted.

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out in 1919–20, namely industrial relations. Following the First World War, when management was institutionalised as a scientific apolitical academic body of knowledge, industrial relations started to emerge as a separate academic field (Shenhav 2002:187). Industrial conflict was thus marginalised as an element of machine uncertainty as systems thinking became transcendental. Yet measurement was always central to the emerging discourse of industrial management. As the American Machinist stated: “real cause of the present day unrest lies in the fact that there is no unit of measurement which both employers and employees can use” (American Machinist, 12 February 1920, 331). The engineers offered the promise of providing the calibration required, a calibration that could be applied to the “labour problem” in the same way as to metals and the materials of manufacture. But it is important to remember that this was also a moral project. As Taylor claimed, commenting on the alleged success of the differential piecerate system at the Midvale steel plants “The moral effect of this system on the men is marked. The feeling that substantial justice is being done renders them, on the whole, much more manly, straightforward and truthful” (Taylor 1903:185). It was a mundane project, using simple methods: homogenisation of labour was possible only through the participation of engineers and their “drive systems”, which involved the generation of record systems, job design, accounting procedures, production control and time and motion methods (Shenhav 2002:177). There was no inevitability about the rise to dominance of this ideology; it was no inherent feature of modernism. As with the project to engineer the landscape, it was bitterly contested – this time by workers, employers and even within the engineering profession itself. Craft workers saw scientific management removing their monopoly over the planning of the labour process; unskilled workers saw piece rates as leading to work intensification; employers resisted because this involved just too much red tape and administrative expense. There was resistance from some engineers, particularly those known as the “efficiency experts”, who peddled a package of “efficiency tools”, and whom Taylor regarded with deep suspicion. There were also disputes between the systemisers and adherents of scientific management. There is a danger here of falling into the trap of seeing this as yet one more (albeit very sophisticated) variation on the managerial revolution thesis (Burnham 1960). Shenhav does show however that the emergence of an engineering foundation to management was bitterly contested and by no means inevitable. The proponents of the new industrial management made rhetorical claims to be impartial arbiters of class conflict; but it is important to keep in mind the structural arrangements within which this discourse was promulgated. 86

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Conclusion The most obvious parallel between the ways in which both the landscape and industrial management were constructed concerns the scope of the two. Both saw their task as heroic: to bring order out of chaos. Surveying “tamed the land”, turning land into a closed system and industrial management did the same with organisations. Both systems conferred certainty. There were to be no unexplained areas, no ambiguities, and no dark corners. In a sense both projects aimed for a sense of closure – of all land and of fixing the “one best way” of working. Both then were grand projects in uncertainty reduction. Both ignored the unevenness of “nature” in their attempt to impose a Procrustean bed. The surveyors tried to impose a grid on nature and ignored its unevenness, its swamps, rivers and mountains and the point that the earth is not flat! The consequence was erosion and degradation. In the same way scientific management led to the degradation of human labour. At the same time, surveying distinguished between those who had a place in the scheme of things and those who did not. For land it was the difference between those who could provide documented proof that they had a claim to land, which had been measured, and those who could not. For industrial management the distinction was between those who were in the system (workers subject to measurement) and those who were not (those who represented uncertainty such as labour activists and those who soldiered). A third parallel is that both projects were based on “science” providing certainty. Portioning the landscape made use of the emerging discipline of surveying; industrial management was underpinned by mechanical engineering. Common to both was the principle of measurement. This brings to mind what was said about the Elizabethan preoccupation with measure. Compare these two quotations: Without measure music was noise, poetry babble, and the land wilderness and none knew it better than the enclosing acquisitive gentry … who stamped the Elizabethan Age with their energy and imagination and for whose benefit the legislation on measures was passed (Linklater 2002:23). The difference between music and noise, between an army and a rabble, between a wagon train and a stampeding herd of cattle, between righteousness and wickedness is that standards and schedules have been evolved for music, for an army, for a wagon train, for righteousness; none for a mob, for a stampede, for wickedness (Engineering Magazine, April 1911:23–32).

Both translated nature into abstract entities (land into acres; labour power into piece rates). Curiously, the basis for the translation in the case of land was on the basis of human features (the foot, sixty six of which made the 87

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chain); its conversion into the more abstract decimalisation was resisted in the USA. In both cases codification was required for records to be kept. The equivalent of the land registry was Taylor’s planning office. Indeed both centralised decision-making and conducted control at a distance. Taylor much preferred the planning office to the supervisor. Buying and selling of land and labour could be conducted at a distance. Both resulted in homogenisation – identical parcels of land and city designs on the one hand and labour on the other. Even in the detail there are marked similarities. The codification of land (where one acre was the same as another) allowed interchangeability just as with labour. The homogenisation of land and labour both resulted in deskilling. “Town planning” was routinised in the same way as factory labour. Both offered efficiency. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, analogous to the “one-best-way” of time and motion. Surveying routinised land ownership and its transfer in much the same way that industrial management routinised the labour process. In spite of their scientific rhetoric, both projects were explicitly moral enterprises. Of course, in arguing for the resonance between the construction of the landscape and the construction of engineering management, I am not claiming either was inevitable and we have seen how those who stood to lose resisted both. Nevertheless, both the surveying of the landscape into a linear and regular form and the standardisation of labour that came from industrial management came to pass. How, then, are we to locate the argument of this chapter in terms of the adoption of management ideas? According to Sturdy (2003) there are at least six perspectives about the adoption of management ideas and practices: the rational, the psychodynamic, the dramaturgical, the political, the cultural and the institutional. I would claim that the argument in this chapter falls most closely within the parameters of the cultural and the institutional perspectives. The cultural approach claims that ideas and knowledge are always embedded in a given culture, which acts as a bridge or a barrier to diffusion (Lam 1997; Bhagat et al. 2002). The benefit of this view, as Sturdy points out, is that it enables us to examine the particular form that management ideas take – why for example “empowerment” may resonate with individualist and egalitarian values. Sturdy in his critique of the cultural view states: ”Some regard culture as significant but ultimately superficial in that barriers can seemingly be addressed through increasing cultural training and awareness, constructing work communities and making minor adaptations to ideas” (2003:29). But I would claim that the argument in this chapter enables us to go deeper than that. I am considering here a fundamental concept about human organising – how space is ordered and lived-in on a day-to-day basis. In this 88

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sense, it is a cultural approach but it is an approach that sees culture as derived from material practices. To see someone as a “square fellow” is a cultural value that comes from a landscape that privileges the square. At the same time, the argument here is also much broader in its scope. It is not concerned just with one specific idea but with the whole basis of industrial management. There is also a challenge to the conventional institutional perspective. While I would broadly concur with the view that organisational practices are institutionally embedded (Tolbert and Zucker 1996; Sorge 1991), I reject the view in this case that isomorphism arises for regulative, normative or mimetic reasons. Rather, I see practices as fitting within a worldview; critical to this worldview is the way in which the landscape is constructed. In this chapter I have attempted to show the similarities and affinities between the constructed forms of the landscape and the forms of industrial management. My point is that the landscape is almost there as a taken-asgiven by those who are born into it and raised in it. As a consequence, new ideas – in this case the ideas of systemisation and scientific management – were more likely to be taken up and adopted as they resonate with the taken-for-granted world view that to the Americans is their landscape. How ideas become interpreted, translated and contested then, depends on the context in which they are received and fundamental to that context, is the portioning of space. This then is a very significant translation: to think of management in terms of the daily conception of the environment. There are areas where the thesis here could be strengthened which I have not had the room to address in this chapter. For example, I have not considered the comparative case – did the landscape in Europe inhibit the development of industrial management? There is a growing literature on how American ideas have been taken up (or not taken up) by Europe (Guillen 1994; Djelic 1998). Clark, for example, has shown how differences in space (and time) influenced the way sports developed by contrasting American football (with its detailed portioning of the field of play in the gridiron) and the more free-flowing English rugby. He goes on to draw parallels with the different ways the two countries approach innovation (Clark 1987). There is little else which explores the connection between landscape and the adoption of ideas whether ideas in general or management ideas in particular. In this chapter I have examined the ideas of systemisation and scientific management which self-present as embodying rationality. But if we accept that rationality is a specific cultural artefact rather than transcendental, then this suggests that rationality – far from being an inevitable outcome of modernity, may have had its roots elsewhere. Shenhav claims that industrial management represented: The birth of a new epistemology, the creation of new objects of knowledge, a transition of world views, the generation of images through which individ-

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ual reality is filtered. These language conventions became instruments which formulated the consciousness of the American nation and began during these years (Shenhav 2002:154).

I am proposing that this epistemology goes much further back. My argument is that it may be traced right back to the project by Jefferson to “measure America”, the consequences of which Americans accept as part of their routinised, taken-for-granted world.

References Barley, S. R. & G. Kunda (1992). Design and Devotion: Surges of Rational and Normative Control in Managerial Discourse. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37: 363–99. Bhagat, R. S., B. L. Kedia, P. D. Harveston & H. C. Triandis (2002). Cultural Variations in the Cross-Border Transfer of Organizational Knowledge – An Integrative Framework. Academy of Management Review, 27 (2): 204–221. Braverman, H. (1974). Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press. Burnham, J. (1941). The Managerial Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chandler, A. (1977). The Visible Hand. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Clark, P. (1987). Anglo-American Innovation. Berlin: de Gruyter. Djelic, M. (1998). Exporting the American Model – The Post-war Transformation of European Business. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Galbraith, J. (1973). Designing Complex Organizations. Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley. Guillen, M. F. (1994). Models of Management: Work, Authority and Organization in a Comparative Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jellicoe, G. & S. Jellicoe (1995). The Landscape of Man: Shaping the Environment from Pre-history to the Present Day (3rd edition). London: Thames. Kloppenberg, J. (1986). Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought 1870–1920. Oxford; Oxford University Press. Lam, A. (1997). Embedded Firms, Embedded Knowledge: Problems of Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer in Global Cooperative Ventures, Organization Studies, 18 (6): 971–989. Lash, S. & J. Urry (1987). The End of Organized Capitalism, Berkeley: University of California Press. Linklater, A. (2002). Measuring America: How the United States was Shaped by the Greatest Land Sale in History. London: Harper Collins. Litterer J. (1986). The Emergence of Systematic Management as shown by the Literature of Management from 1870–1900. New York: Garland Publishing. Morgan, G. (1997). Images of Organization (2nd edition). London: Sage. Pfeffer, J. & G. Salancik (1978). The External Control of Organizations. New York: Harper Row. Schumpeter, J. A. (1943). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Unwin.

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Scott, R. W. (1987). Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall. Shenhav, Y. Manufacturing Rationality: The Engineering Foundations of the Managerial Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simon, H. (1957). Administrative Behaviour. New York: Macmillan. Sorge, A. (1991). Strategic Fit and the Societal Effect: Interpreting Cross-national comparisons of Technology, Organization and Human Resources. Organization Studies, 12 (2): 161–90. Sturdy, A. (2003). The Adoption of Management Ideas and Practices – A critical Assessment of Theoretical perspectives. Working Paper Business School, Imperial College. Taylor, F. W. (1903). Shop Management. New York: Harper. Tolbert, P. S. & L. G. Zucker (1996). The Institutionalisation of Institutional Theory, in Clegg, S. R., C. Hardy and W. Nord (Eds.) Handbook of Organization Studies. London: Sage. Zukin, S. (1991). Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Chapter 6

Diversity Management as Identity Regulation in the Post-Fordist Productive Space Patrizia Zanoni and Maddy Janssens

In the last twenty years, diversity has made its way into the world of management as well as into academia. While numbers of consultants are riding the diversity hype, teaching managers what diversity is and how to make it yield, scholars attempt to measure the effects of workforce diversity on organisations’ internal processes and outputs. The emergence of diversity as an autonomous organisational research area has generally been explained in two ways. Most authors (Cox and Blake 1991; Cross et al. 1994; Morrison 1992; Thomas 1991) see it as the effect of a historical shift in the composition of the (North-American) labour force. From this perspective, diversity management represents an organisational strategy to adapt to changing Western labour markets characterised by feminisation, ageing, migration, differential birth rates between the local and the migrant populations, etc. A smaller group of scholars (McDougall 1996; Kandola and Fullerton 1994; Kelly and Dobbin 1998) has rather interpreted diversity management as a managerial re-appropriation of equal opportunity (EO) legislation. They argue that in the discursive shift from EO to diversity management, managers have re-cast EO as a managerial tool and appropriated it to increase performance and profit via the optimal use of human resources (McDougall 1996; Kandola and Fullerton 1994; Kelly and Dobbin 1998). While both genealogies of diversity appear plausible, their empirical testing does present some difficulties. On the first account, while statistics point to an accelerated diversification of the labour force, mass migrations to and among Western countries are nothing new to the 20th century. What then is specific to the last twenty years? Answers to this question commonly refer, with varying degrees of success, to critical thresholds in the composition of the labour force, the pace of its diversification, or, alternatively, the degree of (cultural) difference between an original working population and new groups of workers (cf. Borjas 1999). On the second account, while there is an unquestionable link between EO legislation (in the US and in the UK) and 92

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the emergence of diversity management, diversity has become an accepted managerial issue even in countries lacking a strong EO legislative tradition, as in continental Europe. The two current genealogies of diversity are therefore historically and geographically too narrow. In this chapter, we would like to reconstruct a third, alternative genealogy, one which looks for the conditions of possibility for the emergence of diversity management in a shifting productive space rather than in a demographic or legal one. We hold that diversity management is best seen as a major mode of control within the post-Fordist productive space, one that operates through the regulation of identity (Alvesson and Willmott 2002). It does so by providing constructions of the working subject that are in line with organisational interests and from which workers can draw for self-definition. To develop this alternative genealogy, we first define productive space as a configuration of practices and illustrate the practices that configure the post-Fordist productive space at the macro, meso and micro level, respectively, the international economy, the organisation, and labour. Consequently, we show how post-Fordism represents a discursive and material productive space for diversity management to regulate workers’ identity as individuals, members of a socio-demographic group, and members of the organisation. In order to do so, diversity management draws from identities promoted by two other major control modes through identity regulation: human resource management (HRM) and organisational culture. Before concluding the chapter with a reflection on post-Fordism as a condition of possibility of diversity management, we illustrate how in the post-Fordist space, (diverse) workers appropriate identities, both as individuals and as groups, in order to resist and even partially emancipate themselves.

Changing spaces: from Fordism to Post-Fordism In the last thirty years, new organisational practices have gradually developed out of the increasing competition and international deregulation of markets. While scholars stress different, sometimes contradictory, aspects of this evolution, there is a wide consensus that it represents a historical moment for capitalism, one that has radically reconfigured organisations and work (Whitaker 1992). The various terms that have been coined – neoFordism (Aglietta 1982; Palloix 1976), post-Fordism (Piore and Sabel 1984), Toyotism (Castells 1996), flexible accumulation (Harvey 1989; Scott 1988), disorganised capitalism (Lash and Urry 1987), the flexible firm (Bagguley 1991), and even postmodern organisation (Clegg 1990) – all stress the deep rupture between Fordism and post-Fordism, portraying them as diametrically opposed.

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Following this line of reasoning, we hold that Fordism and post-Fordism can indeed be seen as two distinct types of productive spaces, characterised by specific discursive/material practices and relative modes of control. Such a distinction should however be seen as analytical, and thus, to some extent, artificial (Sayer 1989), as, in practice, contemporary Western organisations selectively draw and combine features from both ideal types of productive space. Productive spaces are distinct configurations of discursive and non-discursive organisational practices. Such practices are spatial in the sense that they give both a material, and a symbolic, form to the organisation: they set boundaries. The material and the symbolic stand in a dialectical relationship to one another: on the one hand, the materiality of organisation, the material space formed by organisational material practices sustains its symbolic production, while, on the other, organisational discourses, the symbolic space formed by organisational discursive practices directs the shaping of material space. A productive space, a configuration of material and discursive practices, does not only shape the productive space within a given organisation, but rather forms the organisation as a whole by also defining organisational boundaries on the outside. For instance, in post-Fordism, just-in-time is a managerial discourse that re-orders the material productive space so as to facilitate the co-ordinated flow of products or services into, through and outside the organisation. Such discourse directs technological choices, shapes the physical layout of the production process and, consequently, deeply affects material work practices as well as managerial control strategies. At the same time, these material practices provide the perceptual and experiential support that makes that very discourse of just-in-time possible and graspable, and either maintains or challenges it. Moreover, just-in-time systems, making organisations and their members work closer to and more dependently on each other, call into question existing boundaries both within organisations and between them. In the following sections, we review the features of post-Fordism, starting from the transition that has occurred at the macro level towards an increasingly globalised economy, through changes in the organisation processes, to the implications for work and the forms of control of the labour force. We argue that post-Fordism has reconfigured practices at these three levels, creating three corresponding spaces of the economy, the organisation, and work. As suggested by Garrahan and Stewart (1992), it is only through the analysis of the interdependencies among these levels that we can develop an understanding of the spatio-temporal discontinuities that characterise postFordism.

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Shifting practices at the macro level: the new economic space Friedman (2000) comparatively summarises the features of Fordism and post-Fordism as follows: Fordism is characterised by large, vertically integrated oligopolistic firms using and continuously improving mass production technology and Tayloristic practices of work organisations; productivity rises derive from economies of scale and strict control over low-skilled line-bound workers; the credit system finances investments in the short run, and profits are supported by consumer demand made possible by high and rising wages; such wages are negotiated by large trade unions to compensate harsh conditions of labour and continuous re-organisations, and the state supports unions ready to compromise in order to pursue Keynesian fullemployment policies and finance the welfare system. In the Fordist model, the economic and the national political systems are thus complementary. The oil crisis of the early 1970s reveals the fragility of the system. The Fordist structure of accumulation and regulation began to show acute internal and external difficulties due to the “fracturing of the foundations of predictability upon which Fordism was based” (Murray 1988:9; Albertsen 1988). Among the difficulties were the tensions arising from the technical and social rigidities of mass production, growing problems of labour militancy and worker morale, and the rising costs of production slowing down productivity growth and eroding competitiveness (Whitaker 1992). Under increased international competition and deregulation of commodity and financial markets, a new economic order, characterised by a new international division of labour, started to emerge (Thrift 1986; Harvey 1989). Industrial production was decentralised towards the “under-capitalised world” (Cook 1988) and the periphery of industrialised countries, while the latter moved towards the service sector, causing the growth of the service (middle) class (Urry 1988). Concentrated ownership and technical innovation based on microelectronics and information technologies made it possible to co-ordinate “spatially discontinuous patterns of production” (Garrahan and Stewart 1992). At the macro level, post-Fordism presents the following key features: small batch production of differentiated products with unpredictable life cycles due to the fashion element, globalised markets, rising productivity thanks to economies of scope (rather than of scale), flexible production systems and smaller stocks (Friedman 2000). Large firms are broken down into smaller business units, flattened and linked in quasi-market networks of suppliers, distributors and even competitors. The fundamental compromise between a few big national companies, trade unions and the state breaks down. Contesting Lash and Urry’s (1988) label of post-Fordism as “disorganised capitalism”, some authors (Thrift 1986; Cooke 1988) have argued that the 95

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new economic order is organised as Fordism, yet different. Post-Fordism is an economic space that is at the same time more fragmented, due to decentralising practices, and more integrated, due to the internationalising practices strengthening interdependencies. Using Harvey’s words (1989:159; Harvey’s emphasis), “capitalism is becoming ever more tightly organised through dispersal, geographical mobility, and flexible responses in labour markets, labour processes and consumer markets, all accompanied by hefty doses of institutional, product and technological innovation”. The postFordist economic space is thus a space characterised by spatio-temporal discontinuities and multiple and shifting boundaries.

Shifting practices at the meso level: the new organisational space In this new economic space, the limits of Tayloristic and bureaucratic organisations soon become apparent. Strict division of labour, coordination through hierarchy, centralisation, collective contractual agreements for each layer of the hierarchy, job allocation on the basis of formalised competence such as education, motivation on the basis of incentives, and promotion on the basis of seniority or achievement (Clegg 1990), the cornerstones of traditional management theory, become inadequate to compete in this unstable, fragmented and yet highly integrated economic space. That same strict division of conception and execution of work as well as that strict control of the precise manner in which work is to be performed (Braverman 1974), which allowed organisations to be very profitable in the past, become insuperable rigidities. In order to survive, organisations are forced to down-size, introduce “lean” production systems (Friedman 2000) based on small batch processing, apply stricter, diffuser quality control procedures, outsource non-core processes and services, and re-organise in networks of companies linked through logistic systems based on the principles of just-in-time and no-stock enabled by information technologies. At the same time, in order to better meet demands, they direct their product to specialised markets or market niches, connect R&D with production departments, and invest in customer relations. It has been argued that, on the whole, these changes reflect a process of de-differentiation (Lash 1988; Clegg 1990), of the blurring of organisational boundaries. However, the internal re-organisation of processes is rather characterised by both re-differentiation and de-differentiation. On one side, business units are created, which fragment the organisation. On the other, intra-departmental project structures, matrix structures, project and teamwork and overlapping roles are introduced to coordinate what has been 96

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fragmented. Towards the outside, de-differentiation is indeed prevailing and mainly occurs through outsourcing on the supplier side and integration of customers in the design and production processes. The result is a productive space, which, again, is characterised by blurred boundaries due to simultaneous fragmentation and interdependence within and between organisations.

Shifting practices at the micro level: the new space of work The flexibilisation of production processes has entailed a fundamental reorganisation of work towards a more flexible use of labour. This flexibility is the product of a process of de-differentiation of work across the organisational boundaries. De-differentiation has occurred through de-rigidification and re-drawing of skill boundaries (Martin 1988) as well as job boundaries (Tomaney 1990; Whitaker 1992). Life-long learning, multi-skilling, reskilling, task enlargement and job rotation are practices shifting skill boundaries, while the widespread use of new work practices like teamwork, overlapping work roles, quality circles and kaizen renders job boundaries more permeable. Through these practices, workers master the complexities of different tasks and grasp the interconnectedness among them. Skill formation is consequently achieved more intra-organisationally than individually and thus located in the context of the overall skilling of work groups rather than just the human capital of a competitive individual (Clegg 1990). Such new systems of labour organisation reconstitute the terms of employee subordination (Garrahan and Steward 1992) away from traditional supervision by superiors towards more diversified and generally less direct modes of control of labour. Control is exerted through a combination of setting individual and group goals, and letting “empowered” employees manage themselves and their peers to reach those goals (Gough 1992). Moreover, customers increasingly play an important role in controlling work through the evaluation of products and, in the case of services, through the very monitoring of the service delivery. However, some authors have also stressed a related, parallel movement towards increasing differentiation of the workforce between “core” and “periphery” (Gough 1990; Friedman 2000). They argue that, following the Japanese model, lean organisations are made possible by splitting the workforce into a core of long-term workers, in whose skills the organisation invests permanently and whose work is managed mainly through indirect control practices, and a periphery of temporary and/or part-time workers, who are less skilled, receive limited training, and who are closely supervised through direct modes of control enhanced by technological innovation 97

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(Leman 1992:124). Organisations increasingly differentiate personnel’s contractual forms – specifically, the length of contract and the forms of remuneration – as well as the amount and type of training they receive (Gough 1992:36). It remains, however, difficult to apply the clear-cut distinction coreperiphery to concrete cases, because not all highly (multi)-skilled employees are empowered and have secure employment contracts, nor are all unskilled ones closely monitored and have insecure contracts (Gough 1992; Penn 1992; Rainnie and Kraithman 1992:65), and, we would add, because the core/periphery position of a worker depends not only on his/her position relative to the internal labour market but also on the external one of his/her general “employability”. Nonetheless, it is clear that these two tendencies of de-differentiation and (re-)differentiation coexist and that new work practices do tend to break down the unitary management of labour and, by so doing, to reconfigure the contemporary space of work. Again, as noted for the organisational space, the resulting space of work is one characterised by blurring boundaries within the organisation, with increased fragmentation of and interdependence among the workforce. At the same time, the very boundaries of work are challenged through workers’ interdependence with extra-organisational actors such as suppliers and customers. Due to the spatio-temporal discontinuity of production and work, workers are subjected to a multiplicity of control mechanisms, ranging from self-management, to control through coordination (by peers, customers, and suppliers), and close surveillance by means of computer technologies.

Conclusion The post-Fordist productive space emerges from discursive and material practices at the three interlocking levels of the economy, the organisation, and work. Post-Fordist organisations derive their flexibility from articulating spatio-temporal discontinuities within and between these three levels. They dislocate, outsource, merge, re-structure, re-engineer and downsize, and by so doing, continuously fragment and reconstitute capital and labour (relations) in time and space. The dynamic is therefore double: de-differentiation and blurring of existing, familiar boundaries and permanent re-differentiation and articulation of new ones.

Control in the Post-Fordist Space: diversity management as a mode of identity regulation It is in the late 1980s, in the middle of the West’s transition towards the postFordist economic, productive workspace, that diversity management emerges as a hot topic in the business world and, a few years later, in aca98

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demia. This timing is all but fortuitous. Diversity management can in fact be seen as a phenomenon characteristic of the post-Fordist productive space, as it is a mode of control responding to the new managerial need to control labour indirectly through the regulation of identity. While the organisational literature has analysed HRM (Townley 1993; Williams 1994) and organisational culture (Willmott 1993) as modes of control operating through the very constitution of the working subject, diversity management has not yet been analyzed in this perspective. In the highly integrated, unstable and fluid post-Fordist space, control no longer derives from a single, fixed hierarchical structure of authority, but rather becomes more diffuse, fluid and heterogeneous. Such multiplication profoundly affects the (power) relation between capital and labour. It has been argued that post-Fordist practices and the relative de-centring of power makes it more difficult for workers to identify with one (labour) class and to deploy class as an organising principle for collective action. At the same time, the new work practices require workers’ commitment, and by so doing raise enormous expectations. That is, workers do not expect work to be simply meaningful per se but also want it to provide meaning as to who they are (Rose 1990). Consequently, the reconfiguration of work practices aims at satisfying this demand for (self-)meaning while, at the same time, regulating it so that the subject’s creative power can be released rather than suppressed and made profitable. In organisation studies, the relationship between subjectivity/identity and power/control has generally been analyzed by drawing from Foucault’s work (Alvesson and Willmott 2002; Knight and Willmott 1989; Styhre 2001; Townley 1993). While the idea that power is often exerted through ideological means is not new (Bourdieu 1977; Gramsci 2001; Hall 1988), Foucault’s conceptualisation of power distinguishes itself because it sees power as constituting all social relations, rather than being the monopoly of privileged elites and institutions. Such an approach is particularly useful because it allows analysis on how (organisational) subjectivity, the sense of the self, is produced by involvement in everyday, micro power relations as well as how it contributes to sustaining those very power relations by virtue of which it exists. Following this perspective, we discuss how diversity management operates in the post-Fordist space as a set of managerial practices regulating workers’ identities in such a way that they develop a sense of the self-conducive in the attainment of organisational goals. We distinguish three ways in which diversity management regulates workers’ identity: by defining them: (i) as strongly individualised, entrepreneurial subjects; (ii) as members of specific socio-demographic groups, and (iii) as members of the organisation.

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Diversity management: regulating individual identity Diversity management contributes in the first place to the constitution of the autonomous, individualised working subject upon whom the post-Fordist space depends for its flexible functioning. While HRM provides the framework for the emergence of such worker subjectivity, diversity management particularly stresses the value of each individual’s unique potential as a possible contribution to the organisation. This focus represents a clear rupture with previous conceptualisations of labour. In the Fordist space, workers are primarily identified by their positions with respect to the machine system. The line divides labour and fixes individual workers to specific jobs (Braverman 1974) making them fully adjuncts to the machine (Clegg 1990), integrally part of the “complex automaton” (Ure 1835 in Biggs 1996). It is through such fitting to jobs requiring different degrees of skill or force that major savings on labour costs are achieved (Babbage 1963). Workers’ value lies in their capacity to live up to a pre-fixed, standardised potential determined by the work processes as designed by the engineering department. Their identity as workers is “given” as it depends on their position in the productive process as labour (in opposition to capital) as well as on the type of job they perform. In the post-Fordist space, the association between identity and position within the labour process is disrupted by the blurring of job boundaries, job rotation, task enlargement and, in general, more open-ended tasks. Workers have to tap autonomously into their productive potential, which is no longer pre-determined, but rather constructed as a horizon of possibility. Control is increasingly achieved indirectly, through organisational practices that set the goals in the abstract, impersonal terms of quantity, quality and time, presupposing and promoting an empowered, responsible, flexible, cooperative and self-disciplined subject who autonomously discovers his/her own potential and manages its exploitation. This is the new working subject that has been constituted by HRM since the 1980s (Townley 1998; Steyaert and Janssens 1999). S/he is “achievement-oriented” (Keenoy and Anthony 1992), and considers work as a means to “individual self-fulfilment and selfcreation” (Noon 1992; Rose 1990). The worker becomes an entrepreneur and his/her career a project of the self, which he/she has to manage in collaboration with other organisational actors through HRM tools such as competence management, 360-degree feedback, performance appraisals, life-long learning, high potential programmes, and assessment centres. Diversity management contributes to the shaping of this new worker’s subjectivity by particularly stressing the organisational value of the individual as unique. In this perspective, individual differences do not constitute an organisational problem, but rather a source of additional (creative, problemsolving) human resource potential, waiting to be fully tapped by diversity management (Thomas 1991). 100

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While diversity management relies on the working subject of HRM, the two sets of management practices also present a major point of tension. By its very existence as an autonomous set of practices, diversity management calls attention to the deficiencies of the meritocratic system of HRM and, particularly, to the existence of (hidden, structural) barriers to the optimal use of certain individuals’ potential. In the ideal, diverse meritocratic organisation, all individuals, independent of their demographic and professional profile, are empowered, entrepreneurial subjects with equal chances to succeed in the organisation. In practice, however, diversity management is often needed to adjust HRM practices in order to ensure bias-free selection and appraisal, adapted work arrangements such as flexible hours, telework, and flexible vacation schemes to diverse individuals’ personal needs, and mentoring and informal networks providing diverse workers with extra support (Cox and Blake 1991). Diverse workers are expected to make use of these facilities to better combine their professional identity with their non-professional life, manage themselves, deploy their potential, and ultimately be more productive at work (Liff and Wajcman 1996; Zanoni and Janssens 2004). Consequently, their identity is doubly regulated. They have the responsibility to grab opportunities not only as entrepreneurial, self-managing workers like every member of the organisation, but also on the specific grounds of their being different. To conclude, in the post-Fordist space, characterised by blurring boundaries, diversity management controls workers through identity regulation at the individual level. In order to do so, it does not only make use of the boundaries established by HRM around the working individual to construct him/her as an autonomous, empowered, and self-managing entrepreneur, but it also makes diverse workers responsible for managing their own diversity in a way that is productive both for themselves and the organisation.

Diversity management: regulating group identity Diversity management not only regulates workers’ identities as individuals but also as members of specific socio-demographic groups. Of the three modes of control, this type of identity regulation is the most distinctive aspect of diversity management. It is thanks to diversity management that some specific socio-demographic groups have in fact, for the first time, become legitimate organisational actors. As illustrated in the previous section, in Fordist space the division of labour classifies workers. What is yet to be said is that the division of labour not only determines the allocation of different individuals to single phases of the work process, but also that this allocation de facto groups these individuals in different categories. While, theoretically, the categories are based on individual (body) skills, in practice, they match specific demographic profiles. The correspondence between the classification based on the division of 101

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labour and the one based on socio-demographic characteristics is clear in Babbage’s (1963) famous example of pin production. Next to each task to be performed (i.e. drawing wire, straightening wire, pointing, etc.), Babbage (1963) indicates the type of worker classified by age and sex (man, woman, girl and boy), rather than by type of skill, and his or her daily pay. This last varied according to the job to be performed (although the criteria are not specified), but also to the type of worker allocated to it, with decreasing compensation for female and younger workers. In the Fordist system, not all socio-demographic differences are relevant to management. For instance, language, religion, and culture are neglected because they hardly affect the production process, since they are not related to (bodily) skills and there is little need for communication between workers on the line. As Burrell (1997:105) points out, Taylorism manages migrants “by making their origins, beliefs and values meaningless and immaterial. It does not socialise the [immigrant] peasantry; it circumvents them”. Clearly, in such a space, there are no conditions of possibility for a practice of diversity management to emerge. Socio-demographic differences lack legitimacy within the productive rationale, since they are either considered irrelevant or re-conducted to the division of labour. It is according to the latter that both work (labour in an abstract sense) and the human beings that perform it (labour in a literal sense) are divided (Braverman 1974:79 based on Ruskin 1907). The blurring boundaries of post-Fordism weaken the correspondence between professional and socio-demographic classifications. While specific groups remain concentrated in certain sectors and jobs, segregation in general tends to be less than perfect. Not only is the workforce increasingly demographically diverse, but also, diverse workers come more often in contact with each other. At the same time, in the new networked, customer-oriented organisation, chances of encounters between members of different socio-demographic groups across the organisational boundaries increase. Especially in the service sector, such encounters represent key moments in the production process, as workers’ economic value is produced through their social interaction with consumers during the service delivery. Diversity management attempts to regulate workers’ identity as members of specific socio-demographic groups in order to activate the productive potential of such identity. This productive potential can be of two types. First, it can derive from the activation of alliances between organisational members and individuals outside the organisation with a common sociodemographic profile. This is typically the case of customers preferring to deal with first-line workers who have the same sex, language, cultural background or age, etc. Examples of this rationale are the recruitment of migrant and/or female personnel in public services such as hospitals and police stations. Conversely, alliances across organisational borders can be used to 102

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recruit individuals belonging to specific groups that cannot be easily contacted through usual communication channels. Second, productive potential can derive from the specific creativity that “diverse” workers are expected to bring in as members of a specific socio-demographic group rather than as individuals. They are expected to make a valuable creative contribution not only as individuals, but also as representatives of a group with a specific social role and therefore a different life experience. Examples of this rationale are the testing of new products by diverse people, or regulations guaranteeing the participation of a certain amount of women in the political decision-making process. These different types of economic potential, which diverse workers hold as “representatives” of a specific socio-demographic group, are central to three arguments commonly used to make the “business case for diversity: the customer/marketing argument, the recruitment argument, and the creative argument” (Cox and Blake 1991). They are further also implied in the moral imperative, for organisations, to “reflect the society in which they operate”. Framing diverse workers as representatives of a socio-demographic group operates as a control mechanism in two main, related ways. On the one hand, it defines these workers as less than full subjects, reducing them to simple manifestations of a larger group (Zanoni and Janssens 2004). This is achieved, among other ways, through training activities that aim to develop knowledge about the values and behaviours of specific socio-demographic groups in the organisation. Such training intends to prevent misunderstanding, possible inter-group conflict and to enable workers to better work together and be more productive. This knowledge, however, creates a “truth of diversity” and, by so doing, binds diverse workers to acceptable expressions of agency in the organisational context (Foucault 1970, 1977). Such a definition of diversity is clearly opposed to the regulation of individual subjectivity as illustrated in the previous section, generating ambiguity and tension within diversity literature revolving around the dichotomy individualgroup (Liff 1997). On the other hand, from a more “modern” perspective, the stress diversity management puts on socio-demographic groups can be seen as a managerial strategy to actively fragment class identity by promoting multiple, less antagonistic group identities in the organisation. Here, diversity management can be seen as a hegemonic discourse promoting a “false consciousness” among workers whose position, within the capital-labour relation, is not at all post- but rather pre-Fordist (Harvey 1993).

Diversity management: regulating organisational identity Diversity management regulates workers’ identity in a third additional way by constructing them as members of the organisation. In this sense, diversi103

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ty management is closely linked to the management of organisational culture as both sets of practices construct individuals as part of a larger entity, the organisation, with which they are supposed to share values and to which they are expected to be committed. In the Fordist space, the relationship between the organisation and its workers are constructed on more traditional terms. Workers have an interest in the organisation only in so far as the organisation provides employment and represents therefore a source of livelihood. Trade unions attempt to protect these interests whenever they are endangered. Organisational hierarchy and the clear boundaries between jobs and between the organisation and the outside facilitate direct forms of control such as superiors’ surveillance. This form of direct control is not questioned, as hierarchy is the main structuring principle of Western social institutions (Alvesson 1990). Authority legitimately originates in one’s position in the hierarchy, as in the family, the Church, and State apparatuses such as school and the army. The flexible structures and blurry boundaries that characterise postFordist space tend to disrupt this clear relationship between one’s position in the hierarchy and one’s authority. In order to be able to function as an integrated, coordinated whole, the de-centred organisation can no longer rely on superiors’ surveillance; rather, it requires employees to control themselves (and each other). This is achieved, not only by regulating workers’ identity as individuals and members of socio-demographic groups but also by making them adhere to certain norms, values, understandings, beliefs, and ideologies that define the organisation’s identity, its culture. Once a set of core organisational values are appropriated and internalised by workers, and become important parts of their identity, they operate diffusedly as a centralising, disciplining force in spite of workers’ independence and autonomy (Weick 1987). This mode of control has been theorised by the literature on organisational culture that has been flourishing since the 1980s. The very idea of what an organisation is shifted away from its materiality towards its expressive, ideational and symbolic aspects (Smircich 1983) enacted through rituals, ceremonies, language, stories, jokes, and architecture. The latter examples stimulate workers’ commitment, loyalty and enthusiasm (Martin 1992) providing outlets for their need to belong. Diversity management contributes to the creation of such shared organisational culture by making it explicitly compatible with workers’ different individual and socio-demographic identities. Diversity management can do so in two distinct ways. On the one hand, it can construct difference as an “existential” condition of each employee (“we are all different”) and in doing so, create a counterbalancing sense of sameness. On the other, it can position socio-demographic differences on a different level, subsume them under a higher form of sameness, the organisation’s culture. In both cases, differences are no longer distinct, deeply rooted, pervasive and immutable, 104

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as in the case of socio-demographic group identities. Rather, they become folkloric, expendable, as synonyms of (individual or group) uniqueness subordinate to the shared organisational culture. As such, they can be not only tolerated but even celebrated without running the risk of compromising the culture. Diversity management enhances organisational culture by stressing the need for inclusiveness and connection across socio-demographic differences, which can prevent costly conflictive interpersonal and inter-group relations (Cox and Blake 1991). At the same time, those same features of an organisation’s culture can be used to profile the organisation as the employer of choice and attract more qualitative human resources, with positive effects for the organisation’s bottom line (Cox and Blake 1991). Particular events function as organisational rituals to construct diversity as a legitimate aspect of the organisational culture. For instance, dinners where the food belongs to the culinary tradition of a specific group of workers, parties celebrating different religious or cultural holidays or marriages, information sessions about a culture, social activities organised in collaboration with civil society associations, family parties, etc. These occasions celebrate differences and promote understanding among organisational individuals and groups. A probably even more important role is played by everyday organisational practices such as, for instance, the form and style of communication, the organisation and style of the physical workspace and work times, as well as organisational dress codes. These practices, which represent the (informal) terms on which individuals function in the organisation, are not only manifestations of the organisational culture, but also diversity management practices. In fact, they establish the degree to which individual and group differences are accepted and respected in the organisation. The more these practices promote inclusiveness and respect, the more they are compatible with workers’ identity regulation at the individual and group level, further promoting their commitment and binding them to the organisation. Specific diversity management policies are developed by variously combining the regulation of individual, group and organisational identities to fit the specific productive space in which it operates. At the same time, workers might be stimulated to adopt one specific identity in the function of specific productive practices. On the one hand, these multiple identities’ complementarity can enhance the organisational and individual flexibility and adaptability. On the other, however, this multiplicity harbours contradiction, as these identities are not fully compatible with each other. In the next section, we illustrate how workers can actively exploit tensions to resist their subordination.

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Resistance through diversity: re-appropriating identities Constructing workers as individuals, members of socio-demographic groups, and members of the organisation, diversity management operates as a control mode in post-Fordist productive spaces. The control is double: while it promotes workers’ identifications that are favourable for the organisation, by so doing it also obscures other identifications that are noxious to it. Through foregrounding specific constructions of workers’ subjectivity, it undermines their identification with the labouring class (Harvey 1993; Williams 1994) and hampers the deployment of class identity as an organising principle for collective resistance. Diversity management does not, however, preclude resistance tout court from the post-Fordist space. Since identity cannot just be imposed, it needs to be “regulated”, which implies that individuals and groups still play an active role in managing it. This active role, however, also gives them opportunities to resist, albeit in new, heterogeneous and diffuse ways. Working subjects are not only agents of their own (ideological) subordination through adherence to specific identities but also agents of resistance against management and even of their own (micro-) emancipation (Knights and Willmott 1989; Willmott 1993; Alvesson and Willmott 2002). For instance, organisational culture can fail to mobilise workers’ emotional energies when the individual becomes sceptical and takes distance from his/her role (Willmott 1993). Such forms of resistance may, however, also be “self-defeating” in as far as they lead to a “vicious circle of cynicism and dependence” where workers exclude themselves from involvement in the (re)design of the institutions (Willmott 1993). Other forms of resistance may be based on the selective use of different, conflicting discourses by organisational agents in the process of (re-)constituting their identity in a favourable way (McCabe 2000). However, this form of resistance might be partial as those who oppose a certain discourse are just as necessary to its reproduction since “resistance is both constituted by, and reproductive of, the discourse it seeks to resist” (McCabe 2000:949). Finally, Alvesson and Willmott (2002) question the organisation’s monopoly of the regulation of workers’ identities by pointing to the multiplicity of images and ideals present in the broader societal context. This multiplicity exposes the subject to new possibilities of being that had previously been suppressed, contained, or “othered” and which can lead to forms of micro-emancipation. Keeping these reflections in mind, we will briefly discuss how diversity management, by regulating workers’ individual, group and organisational identities, provides them with specific opportunities to resist. In particular, we examine how workers appropriate those identities by exploiting the implicit tensions between them. While each organisation attempts to enforce a specific mix of these three identities coherent with its productive space, workers can attempt to subvert it by individually or collectively stressing 106

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one identity at the expense of the others, both within and across the fragile organisational boundaries, to reach their own ends.

Re-appropriating individual identity The autonomous, self-managing subject promoted by diversity management and HRM is productive only to the extent that the subject sees his/her individual interests coinciding with those of the organisation. While diversity and HRM practices create and nourish an individualised entrepreneurial identity, they might also raise expectations that the organisation is not able (or willing) to meet. If a worker perceives a gap between the promised meritocratic, non-discriminating system in which s/he can develop his/her individual potential and what actually occurs in the organisation, s/he might attempt to gain more control over his/her work. This can occur within the organisation, when workers refuse to co-operate with other organisational actors. Or, workers can re-gain control by exiting the organisation and use their skills in other spaces such as competing organisations, the market, and even the social sphere or the family. As autonomous individuals, they can change jobs, go freelance, or even prioritise other types of non-work related activities. In sum, a strongly individualised identity can represent a resource for resistance and perhaps even micro-emancipation because it fosters individual disconnection and detachment, which can potentially be turned against the organisation.

Re-appropriating group identity The interests of workers belonging to a specific socio-demographic group do not always coincide with organisational interests either. A strong collective identity of a group might also be used as a resource against the organisation. For instance, if the diversity policy focuses on a socio-demographic group’s competencies, that group can become more aware of the organisational value of those competencies and use them to force more favourable work conditions. Moreover, if the group is concentrated in a specific segment of the production process, its shared socio-demographic identity might stimulate solidarity and possibly form the basis for developing a professional identity. Also, a socio-demographic identity can be used against other groups of workers or management, creating costly conflicts. If the diversity policy defines diverse workers in too deterministic a manner, solely on the basis of shared socio-demographic profile and related competencies, the group as a whole or single individuals belonging to the group might react negatively as they are denied full subjectivity (cf. Zanoni and Janssens 2004). This again might create discontent and conflict. The group might perceive itself differently from how the organisation defines the group, or an individual might perceive his/her own interests as different 107

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from those of the socio-demographic group and precisely seek in the organisation a way to distance him/herself from it. Further, a strong socio-demographic identity might stimulate workers’ stronger loyalty to members of the same group outside the organisation rather than to the organisation itself. For instance, if workers perceive themselves as sharing an identity with clients belonging to the same socio-demographic group, whom they are expected to serve, they might take these clients’ side against organisational interests. In sum, a socio-demographic group identity can represent a resource for resistance and perhaps even micro-emancipation because it fosters connection and loyalty to a sociodemographic group, which can occasionally be incompatible with organisational interests.

Re-appropriating organisational identity A strong organisational identity can also occasionally be used against the organisation or, more often, in favour of the individual worker or group of workers. If workers perceive a gap between the ideal and the real organisational culture, they might use the ideal to force the acknowledgement of their rights as individuals or as a group. This claim might go well beyond what the organisation had originally intended to tolerate and start a process of organisational change. Conversely, diverse workers might use the values of a diversity-friendly organisational culture to defend its practices, especially whenever the organisation introduces changes in order to become more profitable. At the same time, workers’ strong identification with the organisation, enhancing organisational results in good times, might have particularly negative effects in bad ones. Events such as restructuring and business process reengineering, causing lay-offs and work reorganisation, might, in fact, adversely affect the morale and commitment of workers who identify with the organisation more than they affect the morale and commitment of those who do not identify with it. Also, strong organisational cultures that develop on a particular site, can, in conflict situations, facilitate an ad hoc alliance between management and workers of that site against the mother-company, in a way that is against the mother-company’s interests. Individuals and groups might use their organisational identity as a resource to resist not only against the organisation, but also against other actors. For instance, they might do so to establish favourable power relations with suppliers and customers, in other professional contexts, and even to affirm themselves within their family or one of the socio-demographic groups to which they belong. As members of an organisation, they can in fact claim part of its authority and reputation (Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca 1969).

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In sum, a strong organisational identity can represent a resource for resistance and perhaps even micro-emancipation whenever workers appropriate that identity to claim their rights within the organisation, react to the organisation’s (or the mother-company’s) attempts to sever the organic bond that it had previously established through diversity management and organisational culture, or use their organisational identity to establish favourable power relationships with third actors.

Diversity management in the Post-Fordist productive space In this chapter we intend to develop an alternative genealogy of diversity management that relates its emergence to the shifts that have been occurring in recent decades in the productive space generally labelled post-Fordism. In order to do so, we have illustrated how material and discursive practices at the economic, organisational and work levels have changed, re-configuring the productive space, and creating the conditions for new modes of capital’s control of labour to emerge. We have argued that diversity management represents one such new, indirect mode of control, next to HRM and the management of organisation culture. As with the latter examples, diversity management operates by regulating workers’ identities, promoting workers’ identity constructions aligned with organisational goals. We have illustrated three types of workers’ identities that are typically regulated through diversity management: individual identity, socio-demographic group identity, and organisational identity. Workers’ identities as individuals, members of a socio-demographic group, and members of the organisation hamper the development of a shared class identity and collective resistance based on it. However, they do not prevent resistance tout court. Precisely because diversity management operates through the self, it also offers possibilities for workers’ resistance and even micro-emancipation both at the individual level and at the collective levels of the socio-demographic group or the organisation as a whole. In fact, the (control) practices of the post-Fordist space do not solve the contradictions inherent to the capitalist relations of production (cf. Rainnie and Kraithman 1992), as is sometimes alleged (cf. Gough 1992). By understanding diversity management as a control mode through identity regulation characterising the post-Fordist productive space, rather than as a demographic or legal phenomenon, we can enhance our understanding not only of how control is exerted in such space, but also of how workers develop alternative forms of resistance to it and, possibly, emancipate themselves.

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Chapter 7

Organizational Space, Place and Civility Michael Muetzelfeldt

… [the harpooner] is not only an important officer in the boat, but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the command of the ship’s deck also is his: therefore the grand political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their professional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as their social equal. Herman Melville, Moby Dick 1851

Organisational life depends in no small part on civility between its members. This is explicit in accounts of organisation that emphasise trust, shared vision and congeniality as organising principles. But it also applies in those accounts that emphasise market-like or power-based transactional relationships, where civility is the unacknowledged but still crucial lubricant for these more instrumental engagements. Civility’s complex and contradictory features include constraint and interpersonal attunement, drawing on sentiment as well as reason, to govern relationships with others who are both allies and competitors. These features are characteristic of organisational life as well as of society at large. This chapter explores the role of space in producing and reproducing organisational civility. Spatial arrangements in organisations establish distinctions and express meanings about organisational power and authority, but do so in ways that appear independent of the people as actors, who can then present themselves as familiar social equals. This applies to large spatial arrangements, as well as small-scale organisational spaces such as private offices, semi-public meeting rooms and public areas. Each has its markers, its rules of interaction, and its place in reproducing civility within authority by mediating their contradictory features and by providing resources for people to manage their difficulties.

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Civility as an organisational virtue There is a steady stream of literature espousing the virtues and benefits of leadership styles based on trust, respect, personal credibility and integrity, where staff and colleagues are respected, and valued not only for their capacity to contribute but also for their capacity to be different and bring diversity into organisational decision making and practice. Much of this literature is in texts on effective leadership (e.g. Freeman 1990; Maister et al. 2000), which has a strong theme of improved leadership coming from selfimprovement, with Covey’s book (1990) Seven Habits being a leading example. There are also popular business magazine exemplary stories. For example, the cover story of The Australian Financial Review’s monthly magazine “AFR Boss” recently featured Gordon Cairns, CEO of the large brewery Lion Nathan, who is described as a “born again CEO”. The story says that at five years of age Cairns was “demanding, insensitive and extremely task oriented, with an aggressive/defensive leadership style. … [He] scored highly on perfectionism, while taking an oppositional stance to colleagues.” After five years of effort sparked by 360-degree feedback, he now tries to model himself on Nelson Mandela, and “despite occasional lapses … [his] high scores are in the constructive leadership style area, with more emphasis on people skills and self-actualising. He remains a competitive leader, but one who is more sensitive and caring, driven less by power and conflict than by achievement” (Fox 2003:41). As a result, Lion Nathan is “a better company, and a better performing company” (2003:42). The values espoused in this leadership and management literature are very much the values of civil society, of which Putnam is the most prominent advocate. He defines social capital as those features of social organisation, such as trust, norms and networks, which can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions, and he treats network density as the most direct indicator of social capital (Putnam 1993a, 1993b). Social capital is productive, and can best be measured in its productive effects, such as through spontaneous cooperation. His subsequent work and resulting debates emphasise the importance of good neighbourliness, social trust and a high level of participation in a range of institutions, organisations and practices in civil society, including participation in the state as the decisionmaking arena of civil society (Putnam 1995). The organisational virtues of trust, respect, reciprocity, participation and accountability, etc. are the same or analogous social virtues that Putnam associates with social capital. Following Putnam, we could easily speak of an organisation’s social capital, measuring it by the diversity and density of the networks and associations between its members, including both its horizontal and its vertical or cross-hierarchical networks and associations. These horizontal and vertical associations are indicators of the capacity or potential for shared or joint

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action, beyond the actual instances of such action. They include not only open channels of communication, but shared values that may underpin trust up and down, as well as across, the organisation. Within organisations, trust is said to reduce transaction costs, foster spontaneous sociability, and facilitate adaptive forms of deference to authorities, provided it is prudently wary, reserved and adaptive to the environment rather than naively accepting (Kramer et al. 2000; Kramer 2003; Sievers 2003).

Institutionalising organisational civility Much of this literature on civility as an organisational virtue draws on social psychology, and does not clearly recognise the routinised social practices, apart from personal participation in networks, through which these virtues are produced and reproduced. That is, it lacks an emphasis on the institutionalisation of civility. So it is easy for questions of power and authority to be inadequately dealt with in the social virtues arguments. With a limited recognition of power and authority, Putnam and others see social and organisational virtues, and social and organisational civility, arising apparently spontaneously from the good intentions of good people who are self-organising into collaborative networks. They consider that the state competes with or constrains civil society – that state and civil society are competitive sources of power – and so assume that civility thrives in spaces that are not occupied by the state. To correct this deficiency, in this section I consider approaches that emphasise the institutionalisation of organisational civility, and in particular the place of power in its institutionalisation. Kramer (2003) notes that, as well as being based on personal knowledge and experience in organisations there can be depersonalised presumptive trust based on societal categories or organisational roles. Category-based trust, drawing on beliefs about the trustworthiness of others because of, for example, their gender or ethnicity, illustrates the possibility of depersonalised trust, but it does not provide a basis for generalised trust in contemporary organisations where diversity is common. However, role-based trust, which draws on expectations of the conduct of others because they occupy particular roles, is based in shared understandings about “the structure of rules regarding appropriate behaviour and the extent to which these are perceived as binding” (2003:347, original italics).1 Manville and Ober (2003) propose that organisations will get the best 1 Many taken for granted rules are most visible not when they are followed, but rather when they are violated. Violations of role-based trust often appear as the personalized hurt of individuals, and are sometimes described as violations of the “psychological contract” – a misnomer that focuses on the personal experience of the violation rather than on the structural basis of the rule being violated.

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from their people if they implement a model based on the Athenian model of democracy. They consider that this programmatic model should be “as much a spirit of governance as a set of rules or laws” and be harmonised with the corporate culture. It should follow three ideas from the Athenian model of democracy: shared values of trust and dignity that shape the relationships between people; participatory decision making in self-managing teams; and a full set of practices of engagement to ensure widespread participation of staff. Athenian democracy has been asked to do much, probably far too much, work on behalf of those who advocate more participation and engagement in response to the perceived limitations of representative democracy. But Manville and Ober do usefully note that civility between people requires more than just proclaimed values. Importantly, it also requires practices of engagement and participation – that is, a degree of institutionalisation – that underpin and contribute towards reproducing those values. The literature on civility in society at large generally assumes that civility can only thrive where there is not a strong state as a countervailing power to compete with or constrain it. Krygier (1996a, 1996b) counters this by noting that states may not only be weak or strong – they also have the separate feature of tending to facilitate or inhibit civility. He argues that only states that are both strong and facilitative can provide the social, legal and economic infrastructure that supports and empowers civil society. From his liberal position, he identifies strong facilitating states as having not only law but also the rule of law, they support liberal democratic (not popularist) politics, and they provide the institutional, social and cultural basis for trust between the state and the people, and among the people (1996a:28–9). Kumar (1994), Walzer (1995) and Muetzelfeldt and Smith (2002), among others, make similar cases. For example, Walzer argues that the state “both frames civil society and occupies space within it” (1995:169). In short, the power that is institutionalised in the state may facilitate or inhibit horizontal and vertical trust in society. This suggests that there is an analogous relationship between institutionalised organisational power and trust in the organisation. Offe (1999) elaborates this relationship between trust and organisational institutionalisation. He is concerned with the relationship between state institutions and civil trust, but the general argument also apples to the relationship between institutionalised decision making and regulation in organisations, and trust between members of those organisations. He argues that formal institutions are not suitable repositories of all sources of trust, for two reasons. On the one hand, they are incomplete, ambiguous and do not provide necessary processes for every possible situation. On the other, they are contested, depending upon their personnel for the appropriate implementation of the rules in particular situations. Hence, 116

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“[formal] institutions, well entrenched and time-honoured though they may appear, depend for their viability upon the supportive dispositions and understandings of those involved in them” (1999:69). He then argues that if we trust formal institutions – or, more accurately, trust the actions of the personnel within them – we do so because of the institutionalised value systems within which they are embedded: [I]nstitutions are, first of all, sets of rules. But more than that, they provide normative reference points and values that can be relied upon in order to justify and make sense of those rules. Institutions in other words, are endowed with a spirit, an ethos, an implicit moral theory, a We directrice, or a notion of some preferred way of conducting the life of the community. My thesis is that it is this implied normative meaning of institutions and the moral plausibility 1 assume it will have for others which allows me to trust those that are involved in the same institutions – although they are strangers and not personally known to me (1999:70).

Formal institutions – and here Offe is particular concerned with the formal institutions of the state – may facilitate trusting in two ways. First, they have the potential for a “discursive self foundation”, a “moral plausibility” that I as well as others understand and can make sense of. These institutions carry, enact and so reproduce the trust generating values of truth telling, fairness, promise keeping and ultimately solidarity. Second, by regularising the truster’s interactions with their personnel, they reduce the risk the truster takes in trusting them. Offe argues that consequently they generate trust between strangers and that institution, and amongst strangers themselves. In other words, they generate trust between citizen strangers and the institutions of the state, as well as amongst citizen strangers themselves. Authority, that is, legitimised power, is one of the bases for and effects of institutionalised rules and values being trusted. So Offe’s argument suggests that legitimation is integrally tied to civility. This fits with the analysis of Krygier and others discussed above that a strong facilitative state – which is a state that has legitimised power – enables and sustains civility. Later in this chapter I will argue that designed spaces in organisations embody power in ways that legitimise the authority relationships in the organisation, and so contribute to producing and reproducing organisational civility. Applying this analysis to organisations, civility is predicated on and emerges through trust, mutuality and a sense of interdependence among its members. Social capital (as indicated by associational and network density) is an important but secondary expression of this civility. An organisation that enables a strong civility within itself absorbs social and individual risks in positive and constructive ways. Through doing this, it builds trust, mutuality and interdependence, and so makes it possible for civil society to thrive, and for its members to act in creative and productive ways. So civility is a 117

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basic feature of a strong organisation that is both sustainable and capable of responding to and generating change. It is worth noting that there is some recent and in many ways parallel work, coming from the Eliasian school, that aims to apply Elias’ work on civilising processes at the social level to the organisational level. Elias identifies civilisation as self-constraint in conduct and sentiment based on: social constraint; being attuned to others because of shared complex and contradictory interdependence (potential allies and competitors); foresight and rationalisation (mutual assurance); and sentiment plus reason, based on “the way people are bound to live together” (Elias 1982). Taking an historical approach, he argues, “the transformation of the whole of social existence is the basic condition of the civilisation of conduct” (Elias 1982:254). This has been applied to organisations by van Iterson and others (2002). Their interest in the civilised organisation and its benefits parallels my interest in organisational civility. The Eliasian concern with figuration parallels the concern with networks and association discussed above, and Elias’ antidualistic approach to social relations, together with his emphasis on the social interdependency of institutionalisation and emotions, fits well with the approach based on Krygier, Walzer and Offe that I have outlined above. The Eliasian account of the disciplining of knights and chieftains to produce well-mannered civilised modern courtiers mirrors the folksy account given above of the transformation of the CEO as warlord to the CEO as caring and emotionally sophisticated leader, and can add useful resonances to Offe’s account of the emergence of trust. Apart from that, Elias’ emphasis on historical development, while analytically important, does not seem to add much to the interests of this paper.

Space in civil society In his semiotic analysis of practices of space in the city – in New York, to be precise – de Certeau (1985) argues that, both physically and metaphorically, being high up gives a panoptic bird’s eye view that is not reciprocal. Down below “practitioners employ spaces that are not self-aware; their knowledge of them is as blind as one body for another, beloved, body … [these spaces] elude being read” (1985:124). “The language of power is ‘urbanised’, but the city is subject to contradictory movements that offset each other and interact outside the purview of the panoptic power” (1985:128). [T]the city enables us to conceive and construct a space on the basis of a number of stable and isolatable elements, each articulated to the other. In this site organised by “speculative” and classifying operations, management combines with elimination: on the one hand we have the differentiation and redistrib-

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ution of the parts and functions of the city through inversions, movements, accumulations, etc., and on the other hand we have the rejection of whatever is not treatable, and that constitutes the “garbage” of a functionalist administration (abnormality, deviance, sickness, death, etc.). … [And so] rationalising the city involves mythifying it through strategic modes of discourse (1985:127).

This Foucauldian panoptical approach is fine as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. New York of the 1980s may have appeared to be dominated by administrative powers that aimed to manage people by policing and enforcing compliance, and eliminating all that could not be managed. However, by reducing the functions of power to management and elimination, any sense of the civility of everyday life, in the big city or elsewhere, passes unnoticed. In addition, there also needs to be recognition of the capacity of state power to construct civility through providing a context of social relations and of identities within which people experienced their spaces as ordered and ordering, and experienced themselves as participating in and contributing to that order. One might have expected that followers of Foucault, as well as others, should be comfortable with this perspective. Discussions of the public policy role of the state in constituting public spaces tend to focus on how to manage social problems in those spaces, that is, whether users of those spaces should be empowered or controlled (e.g. Atkinson 2003). So the possibility of the state facilitating the civility of everyday life is again downplayed in favour of debating its functions of management and elimination. In terms of the distinction drawn above between strong facilitative states and strong inhibiting states, New York in the 1980s may have seemed to be dominated by a strong inhibiting state, but even there the lived experience of civility was strong. The main point that is relevant to this chapter is that, in the context of a strong facilitative state, social civility takes specific forms in specific sites or spaces, and that these site-specific forms contribute towards reproducing the specific civility of interactions that take place in those spaces. For example, the civility of mutual disinterest that characterises pedestrians passing one another in the street is different from the civility of limited engagement that characterises “polite turn taking” at a busy shop counter, where customers pay sufficient attention to others and to who was there first, so that they can defer to those in front of them in the informal queue while not allowing those behind them to “push in”. And both are different from the civility of limited assistance that people might show towards someone who, for example, falls down in the street. These site-specific and context-specific forms of interaction between strangers contribute towards reproducing civility in two ways. First, these interactions make immediate statements about the interpersonal order, and so make implicit claims on others to participate 119

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in that order in the same way. But also, they allude to the broader context of state power and authority within which they happen to exist, by displaying a level of trust that is based in the knowledge that state power is liable to be invoked, with more or less effectiveness, if the rules of social interaction are pushed over the brink into possible illegality. (For example, the appropriate physical contact with a stranger who has fallen in the street might be considered assault under other circumstances.) Despite these limitations in his analysis, de Certeau usefully identifies three practices through which practitioners constitute the city and themselves in it: • Space in use – selective “walking” so as to make certain places, things and practices (e.g. “window shopping”) familiar and appropriate, and to make other places, things and practices inappropriate and so generally not done publicly (e.g. “graffiti writing”). • Naming a site and its appropriate practices, and in effect constituting the site through that naming (e.g. this is “the bus stop”, so people standing here are not “loitering”). • Memory and belief (“believabilia and memorabilia”) about sites, lead to the “local authority” of sites and to their habitability (e.g. this is where “we always meet for Saturday breakfast”). Each of these, while relevant in the reproduction of immediate civility, do not speak to two underlying issues: • The place of trust and the associated assessment of risk that practitioners make when using public spaces, and • The assumptions about the nature of state power that explicitly or tacitly frame their civil engagements in these spaces. These five factors all contribute to the production and reproduction of public spaces. For example, memory about, and the meanings carried through, sites may be produced through complex interactions of state and civil institutions and practices (Belanger 2002). Taken together, these factors suggest an empirically usable heuristic for examining organisational spaces, as illustrated in the next section.

Space and place in organisations Architectural power What counts as appropriate civil conduct in any particular situation is highly contextual, and the physical organisation of space is part of that context. Hierarchy and authority are inscribed in physical arrangements, as testified 120

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by the tradition of King Arthur’s round table as an embodiment of Arthur’s egalitarianism, and by the well-worked metaphor of the panopticon as not only a mechanism of surveillance, but an embodiment within subjects of their experience of being under surveillance. I call this architectural power, and emphasise that it includes but extends beyond panoptic surveillance. Civility includes appropriate acknowledgement of hierarchy and authority, including the hierarchy and authority expressed through architectural power. To be appropriately civil, subordinates should show not too much subservience (which would be considered obsequious), nor too little (which would be considered pushy or insubordinate). Equally, superiors should show an appropriate level of dominance, avoiding the extremes of being considered arrogant, or of being considered faint-hearted or lacking in confidence. A well-known example of architectural power is the physical arrangement of a seminar, tutorial or lecture room. This arrangement always invites some types of conduct, and discourages others. Students are more likely to engage with one another, rather than only with the lecturer, if their seating is arranged in a semi-circular pattern, rather than in rows. In a conventional lecture theatre they are more likely to keep an eye on the lecturer: if they withdraw from the teaching/learning process they typically withdraw into themselves without attracting or distracting others, and importantly without challenging the authority of the lecturer. In such a lecture theatre, attending too closely to other students who are engaged in the learning process is understood to be uncivil. By contrast, in a semi-circular “horseshoe” theatre students have ready eye contact with one another, and can visually communicate amongst themselves and be more participative. Here, attending to other students without disrupting them is civil, a mark of the “community” of learners. The lecturer has less passive authority, less capacity to achieve students’ passive compliance, but potentially has more dynamic authority, more capacity to lead students to engage with one another and with the material within constraints that s/he considers constructive for their learning. Another example is the arrangement of an office. It is widely recognised that the position of the desk in relationship to the door and to the visitors’ seating area speaks to the occupant’s openness to prospective visitors. But note that these physical arrangements are resources that may be flexibly employed in the exercise of authority and hierarchy. A visitor entering an office whose occupant imposes a gaze of surveillance upon them from behind a desk facing the door experiences the occupant’s claimed authority, which may or may not be consistent with their hierarchal position. However, a visitor to that same office, met by a person who stands up and moves from behind the desk to share space with them, experiences a confident and open colleague whose effective authority is enhanced regardless of 121

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their hierarchal position. The physical arrangement of this office still carries architectural power, but that can be accentuated or diminished by the conduct of its occupant.

Case study – space and power in a school Similar mechanisms apply in less concentrated spaces. Figure 7.1 shows the layout of a relatively small school. Most obviously there are physical arrangements that organise activity. The classroom-teaching zone on the left is distinct from the administrative and collegial zone on the right. In this case, and perhaps surprisingly, the transient teaching areas (library, computer laboratory) are in the “adult” administrative/collegial zone rather than with the classrooms. This means that students routinely move in and out of the “adult” zone. This might be seen as disruptive for staff and visitors. However, in this small school it is instead understood as an opportunity for interaction between students and staff who know one another. It is an expression of their shared participation in the school community. It also means that students moving through this area can be watched by staff in the reception office. Given the school’s small size, this is an efficient arrangement. A larger school would be more likely to have full time librarian/resource centre staff to manage students using those facilities. Also, a larger school with this layout would have many more students moving through the staff area. Staff would know and so greet fewer of the students, which would make it more likely that students in the “adult” zone would be seen as disruptive. So typically in a larger school, physical arrangements would separate routine student activity from the “adult” zone – an example of architectural power that constrains both students and teachers in their casual civility towards one another.

Figure 7.1. Community primary school.

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The activity of staff and visitors is also organised by the physical arrangement of the main entrance; the reception area; the Principal’s office, and the staff room. This arrangement is convenient for visitors, but also makes it easy for reception staff to manage them. It gives the Principal the opportunity to go out to greet visitors, or have them brought in by reception staff. This invokes similar relationships to those described above for visitors to an office. It gives privacy and discretion to the comings and goings of the Principal and other senior staff through their back corridor. These physical arrangements also provide resources that may be creatively deployed in conjunction with other resources to physically and culturally organise staff, students, parents and other visitors. The Principal might adopt an “open door” policy, which might be understood as expressing a real openness to staff and parents. Or it might be understood as a way of keeping an ear on activity in the staff room. How staff understood an “open door” policy would depend on other aspects of the Principal’s style and conduct, and his or her instructions to reception staff. The Principal might tell reception staff each time s/he came in or left through the back corridor, or might not tell them and so undermine the staffs’ sense of partnership with the Principal and their capacity to act confidently with the Principal’s visitors and to make decisions about appointments. Students are told that they are not to use the main entrance or staff entrance, or go to the staff room unless taking a message to a teacher, so there are invisible lines (running east-west and north-south from the reception office) that mark the boundaries of students’ shared participation in the school community. This is a spatial representation of the multiple social boundaries (of knowledge, discipline, authority, power, etc.) that limit students’ autonomy and participation in the school. Here there is less direct architectural power, but architecture still resonates with other more salient expressions of power. There are other boundaries that apply to staff, parents and other visitors. Teachers are expected not to be in the back corridor without reason (such as visiting senior staff), although – unlike the students – they have never been explicitly instructed not to be there. Other boundaries shape the activities of parents. These boundaries are potentially more ambiguous, contextual, negotiated, and specific to particular individuals. A teacher might welcome some parents into their classroom, and discourage others. There may be understandings – and misunderstandings – about what parents might do, say or notice when in a classroom, and whether the same rules and expectations apply in the corridors and playground. A parent might be invited to read to a group of students, or support their own child if s/he is having difficulties, or assist the teacher in preparing activities, or even lead activities. Each of these might be possible, or not, depending on the teacher, the parent, and their relationship. On top of this, some activities are authorised or 123

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prohibited by school or government policy, or by law. Parents have a right of access to their child, but have no authority to discipline other children in the class, regardless of the relationship between the teacher and the parent. The physical arrangements of space reflect and shape the civility of the school in its context. The context is itself multidimensional, including the external authority structure (the state through law, and the Ministry of Education through policy), the school’s authority structure, its possibly contested history and culture, and its prevailing factions and styles of leadership and resistance, and its dominant personalities. Architectural power may variously be a resource or a constraint in the broader exercise of power and authority, and in the enacting of the school’s civility. To conclude this section, I extend the analysis in two directions, to indicate the breadth of organisational scale, as well as to the scope of types of spaces to which it can be applied.

Space and large organizations First, in terms of scale, this type of analysis applies to large complex single site and multi-site organisations, as well as to small sites such as the school discussed above. Large complex organisations, particularly multi-site ones, have multiple invisible boundaries that limit who can go where. Those boundaries may coincide with geographical space (for example, the administration building being distant from the factory, head office being in another city), but they remain social as well as geographical boundaries, even if not consciously felt as such by most organisational members most of the time. Indeed, whether organisational members consciously feel limited by such boundaries is not the point. The boundary that stops each of us from walking behind a superior’s desk uninvited does its cultural work of reincorporating us into the power structures that we work in, even (or perhaps especially) when we are not conscious of the constraint we are subject to, and we are in other ways interacting with our superior as if we were equals. These boundaries are not equally permeable in both directions, and generally they constrain superiors less than subordinates. Indeed, in large organisations the most senior people often make a point of conspicuously travelling to all organisational sites in the name of good management and leadership, and expect kudos for doing so. As well, geographical scale and complexity amplifies the discretion of superiors to use space in ways that may empower or disempower subordinates, as discussed above for the school Principal. With increased scale, the most senior people in the organisation have more opportunity to be generally unseen, and are better able to stage-manage the locations and occasions in which most members of their organisations do get to see them. So potentially they have more control over the knowledge and meanings that they are liable to pass on or withhold from others through their presence or absence. 124

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Increased scale affects the capacity for surveillance in complex ways. On one hand, the most senior people do not have ready direct access to most staff, and so they depend on middle managers, and administrative systems such as key performance indicators, for their information about staff. On the other hand, staff members continue to have the experience of being within the organisation’s critical gaze. They may associate that gaze as coming from their direct managers rather than from executives, thus letting executives play “good cop” to the managers “bad cop”. In this play of power and presence, middle managers have an important role as managers of space relationships. They are in the middle – and are required to mediate – not only hierarchy, but also space.

Space and place Second, the analysis can be extended in scope to include more complex types of spaces. So far I have discussed spaces as if each had a fixed and unproblematic form, purpose and meaning, and so embodied stable and uncontested rules of conduct and power relations. The “Principal’s office”, “staff room” and “class room” are distinct spatial categories not only on the architect’s plan, but in the meanings and practices of all organisational members and nearly all visitors. They are social places that are culturally identified with physical spaces. However, some spaces are set up as sites in which multiple meanings, practices and power relations can be enacted. For example, a conference room may be used for formal strategic meetings of the organisation’s executive group, for making presentations to major external customers or stakeholders, for decision-making by middle management teams, and for motivational sessions for production or marketing teams. Here, the space itself does not carry let alone impose rules, meanings, invisible boundaries or relationships of surveillance. The middle manager that yesterday confidently chaired a team meeting in the conference room may today enter it with excitement or fear when called before a meeting of the Board. Many spaces have stable names that are widely and tacitly accepted and that are associated with relatively coherent sets of rules, practices and levels of trust. But this does not imply that all this comes from the materiality of the site itself. Rather, it substantially comes from the cultural categories that are enacted and reproduced through the discourse, memories, beliefs and practices of organisational members. For some sites, their physicality is resonant with the routine practices enacted there – for practical reasons, a bathroom is a good place for ablutions, and a lecture theatre a good place for addressing large groups. This speaks to the success of design in concretely expressing the material requirements and cultural expectations of specific practices, and in concretely expressing power relations. However, most organisational sites do not particularly constrain or shape practices in

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this material way. The invisible boundaries in the school, office and organisation are features of social places that are incorporated in physical space. It is not the physical spaces, but rather the social places, in which we enact organisations, and in and through which our practices are organised. Physical spaces are expressions of social, organisational and personal power and agency; they are social and organisational places in material form.2 Architectural power is a concrete expression of underlying social power, and this underlying power is substantially legitimated through our experience of its effects on our conduct through the medium of the practical design of spaces in which we engage with others. This could be analysed more thoroughly using Clegg’s (1989) model of the circuits of power. In Clegg’s terms, architectural power expresses and fixes in material space the rules of practice of underlying dispositional power (such as the institutional authority of the lecturer), and this shapes and constrains the causal power that is exercised through the agency of those in that space (including the agency of the lecturer, whose teaching methodologies will be limited by the design of the space). The legitimating process of architectural power facilitates our tendency to act civilly within such power-infused places. We live and work in places as if we were living and working in spaces, and in this chapter I have for the most part talked about places as if they were spaces. Physical space and social place are often treated as if they were synonymous. This should not be taken to mean that the materiality of spaces is a thing that, in and of itself, generally has much social and organisational force, apart from that designed into it. Rather, it is a mark of the cultural and organisational achievements through which organisational places have been materially and culturally rendered into organisational spaces. While spaces such as the conference room can at different times quite readily be home to different places, the re-placing of space is in some cases more complex. Churches may be trendily turned into restaurants, but this requires ritual deconsecration before material refurbishment. And for them to be commercially successful after refurbishment also requires newly fashionable cultural acceptance of secularism. The re-placing of space may also be contested. For example, inter-organisational competition might be expressed through social movement and political contests over land use – will practices at this site be organised by the local parks authority, or by a waste disposal company? And industrial contests within organisations may concern re-placing organisational spaces – what sort of place will this be if manufacturing operations are re-engineered? Such complexity and contestation is the occasional demonstration of the power, authority and cultural force that is always involved in rendering place in space. 2

See Arantes (1996) for a related discussion of urban space and social place.

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Space, civility and organisationally effective authority Organisational life is achieved despite the wide range of divergent and competing interests and the exercises of power that pull at it, both vertically and horizontally. Communication lines are kept sufficiently open, and joint action planned and more or less successfully carried out, between organisational members who are in very different positions within systems of interest and power. Organisational civility, and in particular prudent trust, is an important factor in accomplishing this. In this chapter I have argued that organisational space facilitates and is employed in achieving this civility. Authority is materially manifested through architectural power. As well, organisational space provides material frames, carries meanings, and supplies resources for organisational players to exercise collegiality without undermining their authority. The civility of conduct in most organisational space most of the time speaks to the legitimacy of the power embodied in it. Organisational space expresses distinctions and meanings about organisational power and authority, and it does so in such concrete form that organisational participants easily overlook it while they get on with the job as if they were familiar social equals.

References Arantes, Antonio A. (1996). The war of places: Symbolic boundaries and liminalities in urban space. Theory, Culture and Society, 13 (4): 81–93. Atkinson, Rowland (2003). Domestication by Cappuccino or a Revenge on Urban Space? Control and Empowerment in the Management of Public Spaces. Urban Studies, 40 (9): 1211–1245. Belanger, Anouk (2002). Urban space and collective memory: Analysing the various dimensions of the production of memory. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 11 (1): 69–93. Clegg, Stewart R. (1989). Frameworks of Power. Sage, London. Covey, S. R. (1990). The seven habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New York: Simon & Schuster. de Certeau, M. (1985). Practices of space. In Blonsky, M. (Ed.) On signs: A semiotics reader, 122–45. Oxford: Blackwell. Elias, N. (1982). The civilizing process: state formation and civilization. Oxford: Blackwell. Fox, C. (2003). The born again CEO. AFR Boss, 4: 40–43. Freeman, D. (1990). Incredible bosses: The challenge of managing people for incredible results. London: McGraw Hill. Kramer, Roderick M. (2003). The virtues of prudent trust. In Westwood, Robert and Clegg, Stewart (Eds). Debating Organization: Point – Counterpoint, Organization Studies, 341–356. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.

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Kramer, Roderick M., B. H. Hanna, J. Wei & S. Su (2000). Collective identity, collective trust, and social capital: linking group identification and group cooperation. In Marlene Turner (Ed.) Groups at work: Advancesin Theory and Practice, 173–196. Jillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Krygier, M. (1996a). The sources of civil society. Quadrant, 40: 26–33. Krygier, M. (1996b). The sources of civil society. Quadrant, 40: 12–22. Maister, D. H., C. H. Green & R. M. Galford (2000). The trusted advisor. New York: Free Press. Manville, B. & J. Ober (2003). Beyond empowerment: Building a company of citizens. Harvard Business Review, 81 (1): 48–56. Offe, C. (1999). How can We Trust our Fellow Citizen? In M. E. Warren (Ed.) Democracy and Trust. Cambridge: CUP. Putnam, R. D. (1993a). Making democracy work: civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1993b). The prosperous community: social capital and public life. American Prospect, 13: 35–42. Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone. Journal of Democracy, 6: 65–78. Sievers, Burkard (2003). Fool’d with hope, men favour the deceit, or, Can we trust in trust?’ In Westwood, Robert and Stewart Clegg (Eds.) Debating Organization: Point–Counterpoint in Organization Studies, 356–67. Malden MA.: Blackwell Publishing. Van Iterson, A., W. Mastenbroek, T. Newton & D. Smith (Eds.) The civilized organization: Norbert Elias and the future of organization studies. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Walzer, M. (1995). The civil society argument. In Beiner, R. (Ed.) Theorizing citizenship. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Chapter 8

Built Space and Power Thomas A. Markus

Although ideas of social space and metaphorical space – immaterial entities – are now part of common discourse, in this paper I use “space” as something which is both, concrete and abstract. It is concrete in that our bodies, and all the objects we use, are contained in space. Hence space is the material container of all social experience, examples of which are listed by Hillier (1996:29): “… encountering, congregating, avoiding, interacting, dwelling, teaching, eating, conferring” which, he says, “… are not just activities that happen in space. In themselves they constitute spatial patterns” (my emphasis). He could have added that ancient and universal social experience – working – which is the core activity of organisations, and the core objective of management systems. But, at the same time, space is also abstract. It is something interstitial between material objects, events, or elements of social structures. It is in the gaps. Built space is also abstract in that whilst it is formed by concrete, elements – the ground, building facades, walls, floors, roofs, windows, doors – it is of itself abstract, intangible and invisible. The concrete elements, which define built spaces, are more or less permeable and inter-connected and both they, and the spaces they define, are parts of a spatial structure or configuration. It is this configuration that governs social relations in space. If that is the case, this configuration is a socio-spatial phenomenon in which spatial structures and social structures are inseparably linked. It is important to emphasise that though both these structures are composed of related elements, in themselves these elements signify nothing. Individual spaces have no more meaning than individual, a-social, human beings. All space is social and all society is spatial. The ways space is produced by, and at the same produces, social relations, are discussed later. With the exception of certain rare monuments – which can more appropriately be regarded as large pieces of public sculpture – buildings always have a purpose, a function to fulfil. And their primary purpose is to provide structured space for something that may be simple or complex. If this were not the case, if there was not a pressing functional need, the huge resources, whether public or private, local or transglobal, would never be made avail129

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able. For many organisations this may be the largest capital investment they ever undertake. Even the smallest, most modest dwelling represents, for most owners, the largest single investment of their lives. The investment is not only of capital to acquire land, materials and components, tools, machines and labour, but also to acquire the design, technical and management skills to imagine the project, design it and produce it and, once in use, to manage it, especially to manage its spaces. To possess, or have control over such resources, requires a position of power – both political and economic. Since such power is unequally distributed in all societies, the very act of putting these resources to work in a building project means that to build is to create, or make concrete, asymmetries of social relationships. As a consequence of the fact that underlying building production there are basic social, political and economic asymmetries, all buildings have a dual function. One is overt, and consists of the functional demands of a public, corporate or private owner or sponsor; demands that are to be met by producing the building. These demands may be those of industrial production, commercial or information activity, transport, health, educational or social services, cultural production (including religious and leisure activities), or housing. The criterion of success is whether the building and its spaces successfully meet the specific demands of these functions; examples of relevant questions are: • “Is this an efficient factory?” • “Does this clinic support best practice in community medicine?” • “Is this school a suitable, and creative, physical environment for pedagogic practice?” The formulation of such demands by individuals and organisations leads to their explicit expression in linguistic forms (usually written texts) such as programmes, design guides, briefs and specifications. The second function is covert. It is to embody, and maybe increase, the position of power which has put the owner or sponsor in the position of controlling the necessary resources to invest in the building in the first place. All buildings have this covert, implicit function (I have explored this idea in detail elsewhere; Markus 1993). Naturally the means of analysing and assessing the degree to which a building fulfils its overt and its covert functions are very different. What they have in common is that they both have social relationship as their focus. And because, as I have already argued, power is one of the key social relationships, the analysis and assessment must be concerned with the ways in which a building embeds power relationships. These are really of a zero sum kind. They deal with the partitioning of finite resources – land, capital, con-

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trol, time, skilled labour, natural resources and energy. Such partitioning is really a cake-slicing operation: the more here, the less there. For instance, at the national level the area of the cake represents the nation’s available resources, which have to be divided between the needs of defence, health, education, housing, social services, etc. The angle of each segment measures the relative amount invested in that objective. Changes in the programmes of political parties can be described in terms of changes of these angles. Equally the partitioning of resources for a building project can either be analysed in terms of how much is allocated to separate functions – say, in an office, to workspace, meeting rooms, circulation, recreational and leisure activities, and sanitary provision, or in terms of the allocation of resources to different groups – say directors, various levels of management, workers, service and cleaning staff, and visitors. Changes in the political culture of an organisation can be described in terms of changes in the relative allocation of a finite resource, and the final outcome represents the division of power within the organisation. The traditional critique of power relations is justice. On that criterion the question is whether the distribution of resources, i.e. power, is just or unjust; symmetrical or asymmetrical – or at least only asymmetrical to the degree to which it is demanded by an open, democratic political system. But relations of power, which are embedded and materialised in all built space, are only one of two types of social relation, which are basic to all social structures. The other is what might be called bonds – relations of which not only theologians and poets speak, but which form part of our everyday discourse – such as love, friendship and solidarity. They have the strange obverse characteristic of power – in that they do not involve the slicing up of a finite resource but appear to create an unbounded, or infinite resource; the greater the strength of bonds within such relationships the more there is to share out. Such relationships are also embedded and materialised in all built space. What does it mean to say that space embeds such relationships; or rather that space both produces them and is produced by them? By what means can space do this? It is particularly important to ask, and attempt to answer, these questions in a publication which links space to organisation and management. Organisation and management imply something large, formal, and structured – an entity that contains many inter-related functions, many layers of status, and formally structured systems of communication and decisionmaking. In small social groups – for instance a family – we do not expect to find the same degree of formalisation in relationships; for instance there may be no explicit rules about channels of communication, rules for decisionmaking or firm constraints about the uses of space. Nevertheless, even at this size, space signifies key features of the social structure of the group. On the other hand there are some large groups for whom space has little signif131

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icance, especially with the rapid changes in electronic communication, travel and publishing. Such groups are, for instance, members of a religious organisation like a church, or a trade union or profession, or the listening audience of a radio programme. These maintain their cohesion through shared belief systems, interests, qualifications and practice, or solidarity through shared objectives and shared means of attaining them. This distinction, as Hillier and Hanson (1986) point out, corresponds to Durkheim’s organic and mechanical solidarities. In the former each person has a specific role or status, and interchange is impossible. In the latter, persons have equivalent status and in such organisations interchange is possible. Where there is organic solidarity many markers of status and roles are used. Some belong inalienably to an individual, such as age, gender or kinship position. Others are acquired or given, such as title, position in the organisation, role (often contractually defined) or salary. Amongst these markers space is an important one: it crucially matters who is located where, in relation to others in other spaces, and what is the nature of the space (size, quality, central or peripheral, etc.). Space is profoundly implicated where the relation of men to women, or owners of capital (or their agents) to workers, is marked by differentiation of roles and power in organic solidarities. One way of overcoming, or subverting, asymmetrical or oppressive social relations that are based on, say, gender or class, is through trans-spatial relationships. Science fiction’s cyberspace is precisely that – liberation from oppressive relations that are strongly programmed and embedded in local space such as that of the home, factory or office. Mechanical solidarities are typically a-spatial or trans-spatial. Location is of no significance, nor is the nature of the space itself. The present discussion is mainly about organic solidarity type organisations, occupying space in non-domestic buildings. Questions about how buildings produce or are produced by social relationships, are really questions about how buildings carry meanings. To answer these one has to be clear, first, about what a building is. One useful way to do that is to focus on three key properties of buildings, two of them – form and space – material, one of them – function – behavioural and linguistic. Form – the shapes, proportions, ornament, colour and texture of built elements – is what architectural criticism, history and media traditionally and conventionally deal with. Often the formal characteristics are summarised under the umbrella term “style”: thus Gothic, Tudor, Baroque, Modern, postmodern, high-tech or whatever – are, within a given cultural context, commonly understood to mean a whole package of features which help us to recognise, or remember a cohesive set of formal characteristics. The discourse is rooted in art-historical and art-critical concepts and language. In other words, buildings are regarded as a species of large, public sculpture. 132

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This is an established epistemological device. Thus in a library, architecture books, in both the Dewey Decimal and the UDC systems, are classified at 72 under 700 “Fine Art”, and sandwiched between “Landscape Gardening” and “Sculpture”. The architecture books in bookshops and catalogues are with the art books. In the media, architectural criticism appears on the same programmes or on the same pages as painting, ballet and music. This convention is not limited to the lay discourse of architecture. In the profession’s journals, in the jury reports of competitions and in the teaching in schools of architecture, worldwide, it dominates. It is classless – it is as much the language of Prince Charles, as it is that of tenants in a deprived housing estate. It is geographically ubiquitous – as familiar in developing regions of the world as in the West. The very word “architecture”, as distinct from “building”, shifts discourse away from concrete, material reality towards an abstract, ideologically determined concept. Later I discuss how this has come about and the purposes and interests it serves. For the moment it is sufficient to say that for such a mode of thinking and speaking to become so powerful it is legitimate to call it a myth. To describe the structure or configuration of space I draw on the Space Syntax work of Bill Hillier and his colleagues at the Bartlett School of Architecture in University College London (1984, 1996). The approach is topological rather than geometrical. Space is described by nextness and permeability through its boundaries, rather than by dimensions, shapes or pro-

Figure 8.1.

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Figure 8.2a–c.

portions. At its simplest, one can imagine three adjacent spaces a, b and c, with openings between a–b and b–c, and between Ø (all the external space – symbolised by Ø) and a, giving Ø–a (Figure 8.1). If one imagines a journey from Ø, the outside, progressing through a and b into c, one can plot this journey as a planar graph by putting the three spaces onto three lines – 1, 2 and 3 (Figure 8.2a). This spatial structure is three layers deep and is completely linear or tree-like (though in this simple case it has only a trunk, without branches); it is as deep as any three-space complex can be. With an additional opening from the outside into c, the structure becomes shallower, with only two layers, and it now has a ring – that is one can return to the outside without passing through the spaces a and b (Figure 8.2b). With a further opening between Ø and b the structure becomes only one layer deep (as shallow as any structure can be) and now has three rings – two small ones and a large one (Figure 8.2c). Evidently some structures are deep, some shallow, and some tree-like while some are ring-like. These signify quite different relations between users or objects, degrees of freedom in the choice of routes, opportunities for chance encounters, solidarities and possibilities for control and surveillance. The health centre shown in Figure 8.3 is a more complex example in which one can observe, for instance, the great depth at which the medical staff’s social, recreational space is located, and its segregation from patient space (though in metric terms, on the plan, the two areas are adjacent). In other words, spatial maps also map social relations; and since these are of power, which is a political issue, all space is political. Even drawing the most elementary component of space, a line on a plan, is a political act. At the building’s edge this line separates private and public space, inside a building, the space of one group from that of another.

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Figure 8.3.

Hillier et al. argue that public buildings such as banks, churches or theatres, divide inhabitants, who control the building’s programme, deep within the structure, from visitors (customers, congregations or audiences) near the surface, in shallow space. The interface between them, the counter, communion rail or proscenium arch, is a crucial spatial element. They then argue that institutional buildings are reversed; the inhabitants near the surface and the visitors (hospital patients, prisoners or school children) deep. Whilst in most buildings increasing depth signifies increasing power, in reversed buildings it signifies decreasing power; the most controlled people in the deepest space, whilst those who are in charge of the programme – the doctors, nurses, governors, warders, and (often) head teachers – near the surface, a few spatial steps from the entrance. This inversion has importance for the spaces of organisations with respect to material or information production. In some – such as the early textile mill – the entrance is adjacent to and under the surveillance of timekeeping, counting house and managerial offices, located near the surface; in this they resemble prisons, military barracks and hospitals. In other types – typically the modern electronics factory or insurance office – the spaces of control are divided between surface and depth – the executive offices deep within, with power delegated to some peripheral control functions such as gate keeping, security and information. 135

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Form and space are embedded in the building’s material fabric. Unless there is some change due, for instance, to weathering or refurbishment, or the opening or closing up of openings in the boundaries of space, they remain fixed. That is not to say, of course, that their meaning is fixed. We may see a prefabricated tower block quite differently today than we did in the heady days of the 1960s. The spaces of a medieval monastery no longer signify, to a modern visitor, what they did to a monk of the time. But to interpret change we need only to consider cultural changes in perception and not physical change. But with the third property, function, there is no fixity. Its meaning is not embedded in the building, but inscribed into it by use and perception. And both these change from minute to minute, year to year, century to century, not only in that our subjective perception of a given function continuously changes, but also in that the function itself, objectively, changes continuously. The chairs in a room are re-arranged, and thus the face-to-face relations and communication between its users changes. A space that used to be a storeroom is re-used as an office. A medieval monastery is converted (during the French Revolution) to a prison, and its abbey church to a revolutionary tribunal, with little or no physical alteration. And our perceptions of use are in continuous flux. We see the office space differently not only according to who occupies it, but even with no change of occupant, according to our (changing) relation to and feelings towards its occupant. The first and most obvious way to understand function is either to be a participant in or a direct observer of what is going on. But since this is in constant flux, and usually we cannot participate and observe for long, or at all, the descriptive and analytical tools we need to understand function are linguistic. It is with language that we describe what happens in the spaces of a building, how we understand it, and how we feel about it. Language plays two key roles. The first is prescriptive – what is said or written before a building comes into existence. The owner, client or sponsor has certain requirements, with regard to the overt functions, which are discussed, refined, and written down in a brief or performance specification. Such texts often have legal, contractual status. During the production process they may be formally or informally altered. One of the most important features of such texts is the classification system used for ordering and describing activities, people and spaces. “Information processing”, “painting cars” or “patient treatment”, are categories of activity drawn from a larger taxonomy, which is usually hierarchical in structure. Equally “software engineer”, “car production worker” or “doctor”, are categories of people, also drawn from a wider taxonomy. Finally the spaces where these people carry out their activities – “office”, “paint shop” or “consulting room” – are spatial labels describing function; such labels appear in the brief, in building legislation, design guides, competition conditions and in every conversation. 136

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Within a given culture such labels carry a whole package of meanings, which enable us to imagine what is going on, who is acting, and where the action takes place. Two examples illustrate the use of prescriptive language. The first is the brief for a new lunatic asylum to be built in Glasgow in the early 19th century (Figure 8.4). Here a hierarchical structure of occupants can be seen, who are categorised by gender, wealth and medical condition. The classification system not only represented a theory of mental illness of the time, but determined which patients were grouped together, and where each group was located in the building in relation to others. The second, from the same city, is the competition brief issued in 1970s, for a new art gallery – the Burrell. If each part of the brief’s text is represented by a rectangle whose area is proportional to the length of the text (Figure 8.5) then not only can one see, through the elaboration of the text, the relative amount of discrimination applied to a topic or object, but also its relation to other topics, and its location in the hierarchy. Thus, for instance, the section dealing with the categories of art objects to be displayed is divided and sub-divided by the type of object (painting, tapestry, pottery, etc.), its date and provenance, and by the material of its production. This classification system – but one of several alternatives which a curator could have chosen – represents a particular view of art and its history, and determines not only what objects are grouped together, but where each group is finally located, in space, in relation to the other groups.

Figure 8.4.

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Figure 8.5.

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Thus buildings themselves become classifying devices, and therefore embed a linguistically determined social construct – which all classifications are. The second key role for language in the functional discourse is descriptive – after the event, when the building exists. Here an observer, a critic or a manager describes what is going on, where and with whose participation. But such descriptions of space are much richer than merely functional. They will contain comments on the formal features of the boundaries which enclose the space, the building’s physiognomy; descriptions of feelings, attitudes and evaluations; narratives of events which have been observed; lists of defects and failures; and reports on users’ attitudes. All such texts – whether spoken or, more usually, written – are formative of our own impressions and judgements. Thus our responses to buildings and the activities they house are rarely “raw”; they are mediated by a host of texts, such as articles in journals or newspapers, TV and radio programmes, exhibition catalogues, guide books and travel documentaries. Moreover, pre- and descriptive language is also the main tool for the management of a building’s spaces. The functional labelling, which has already been mentioned, is inscribed not only into briefs and onto plans, but onto the building itself, in the form of inscriptions outside, or, inside, on floors, wings and on the doors to individual spaces. The same kind of language is used for management: who can and cannot enter a particular building or space, what the rules of use are (e.g. proscriptions against, for instance, noise, eating or smoking), opening times, warnings (e.g. about radiation), or entry charges. These three discourses of form, space and function can each, separately, be used to answer the question “what does this building mean?” But there is no contingent, necessary, relation between the discourses. Despite Sullivan’s dictum “form follows function”, we know that this is not the case. Within the field of architecture they are independent of each other. A hightech building can be an office or an art gallery, and it can have a tree-like, deep spatial structure or one that is shallow. So unless the answers can be found in a common field outside the object, the building itself, they cannot cohere into an integrated meaning that refers to the building in its totality. To do this we need to map the questions into the common field of social relations (Figure 8.6), and then the answers can be mapped back into the building. In social relations the meanings can converge to a point – which means we are dealing with a familiar, easily understood environment – or they can be scattered, which means we are dealing with a novel, experimental or incomprehensible environment. For instance a club which is said to look “clinical”, or a newspaper organisation which proclaims itself to be free, un-programmed in its operation, but is housed in a deep, tree-like spatial structure, are cases of non-convergence where the messages we read are contradictory, inappropriate or confused. 139

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Figure 8.6.

If the validity of the three discourses and of the two kinds of social relations is accepted, what kind of characteristics and meanings might we expect to find? With regard to form, the first question is “whose form”? Forms always connote and denote something. They can act as reminders of other forms or styles, they can be “high” or low; they can reflect current fashions (if so, whose fashions?); they can be familiar or strange; they can speak of wealth (even conspicuous waste) or economy; they can be within an old-established, traditional, local vernacular vocabulary, or be those imported by an invading, immigrant or colonial group; they can be of a vast size and scale or small, intimate and composed of fragmented elements. Any combination of such features will carry particular meanings to particular groups; meanings which connote wealth, power over, control and permanence, or economy, modesty, enabling power, and freedom (to alter and adapt). The choices clearly open a huge range of possibilities both in terms of power and of bonds. With regard to spatial structure it has already been indicated how this affects or is affected by social relations. If it is deep, tree-like, with clearly segregated zones for different groups, then movement is likely to be programmed, controlled, possibly under surveillance. Chance encounters are unlikely, in comparison to those that can take place in shallow space, with many alternative routes and their concomitant choices. In the former kind of structure, groups are likely to be fixed in a hierarchy, and in composition and location. Communications will be limited to formal, programmed, scheduled events. The formation of bonds, informal friendships and solidarities will be hampered. Moreover, the entire organisation will be limited in its ability to adapt to change, and, in extreme cases, to survive. With regard to function, similar questions arise. Who wrote the original brief or specification? In whose language was it composed? Once written, how open was it to change? Whose rules of management or behaviour were subsequently used? How were they arrived at? Are these open to change, challenge or even resistance? Is the building, technically (in terms of structure, services and contents) easily and cheaply adaptable to short and long140

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term functional change? Even without physical change, is there the possibility of day-to-day adaptations for a variety of functions? Is there space for informal, bond-building, unsupervised and non-programmed activities? Even these few indications suggest that careful analysis based on social relations, and on built provision for desired relations, are effective management tools not only for achieving efficiency in overt functions, but for opening up dialogue, supporting creativity, building morale and allowing a rich network of communications to develop. Now it remains to answer the question as to why so many buildings have focused overwhelmingly on embedding power relations, often of a highly asymmetrical kind, and why the creation and maintenance of bonds is often such an uphill struggle. The answer lies in the social and political history of architecture in the last two centuries. At the time of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution the enormous changes in society and its economic structures, and the rapid growth of industry and urbanisation, brought to building investment a completely new set of clients: city and town councils, investors, entrepreneurs and public institutions. Unlike those of previous centuries, these were no longer necessarily of the same class, with the same cultural values, as the architects. Moreover, the design professions themselves were drawing in people with a much wider variety of social backgrounds. Therefore the age-old unwritten agreements that had existed between clients and designers could no longer be assumed to work. Intentions, in the form of briefs, had to be explicitly stated, and covert agendas had to be carefully hidden. As long as artistic and technical issues remained the sole definitions of architecture, what could remain hidden was the primacy of the social function of buildings, in both overt and covert objectives. So buildings could be both efficient and, at the same time, reproduce the asymmetrical power relations needed by the new clients. Silence about buildings as social objects became part of the unwritten pact between clients and designers, and it assumed great importance at this time. The pact ran something like this: We, the sponsors, require high technical performance. This is an explicit issue, and the performance standards are matters of scientific, objective, knowledge. We expect you (architects) to have the necessary technical skill. In return we give you, defined as artists, the freedom to determine the formal, stylistic properties, in a discourse that will absorb all your creative energies, even to the extent that, if you wish, you can kill each other (metaphorically) in that debate. In return we will maintain complete control over social function by prescribing explicitly the overt functional objectives in language that is neutral and “objective”, by silence over the covert objectives, and equally by silence over spatial structure. This strategy ensured that social function remained beyond debate, and it 141

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relied on a misrepresentation of the nature of language. Not only are such texts as competition and project briefs limited to technical issues such as environmental and structural conditions, energy consumption, and room sizes, but also their very language is said to be “technical”, “neutral” or “objective”. The idea that human language can ever be “innocent”, valuefree and devoid of intention, would be laughable were it not so dangerous. In reality architects’ freedom even over formal issues was, and is, more apparent than real. Sometimes the brief prescribes a formal solution; for instance in the 1830s the new Houses of Parliament in London had to be Gothic or Tudor. Sometimes planning regulations or conservation policies impose similar straightjackets. The tradition of buildings-as-art-objects or buildings-as-technical-objects has survived to this day. It was cemented in France in the new institutions for architectural education created during and immediately after the French Revolution: the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where architects were educated alongside painters and sculptors, and the Ecole Polytechnique, where they were educated alongside engineers, many of them military engineers for Napoleon’s new empire. To sum up: in the design of buildings for organisations, and in the management of their space, unless the dual set of social relations is accommodated, the potential for supporting freedom, creativity and morale is wasted. The consequence is not only human unhappiness, but also organisational failure.

References Hillier, W. G. & Julienne Hansen (1984). The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hillier, W. G. (1996). Space is the Machine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Markus, Thomas A. (1993). Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types. London: Routledge.

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Chapter 9

Organising Space Stewart Clegg and Martin Kornberger

… and I’ll have heard, without an ear I’ll have heard, and I’ll have said it, without a mouth I’ll have said it, I’ll have said it inside me, then in the same breath outside me, perhaps that’s what I feel, an outside and an inside and me in the middle, perhaps that what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other the inside, that can be as thin as foil, I’m neither one side nor the other, I’m in the middle, I’m the partition, I’ve two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that’s what I feel, myself vibrating, I’m the tympanum, on the one hand the mind, on the other the world, I don’t belong to either … Samuel Beckett (1958:100)

We are at a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein. … In any case I believe that the anxiety of our era has to do fundamentally with space, no doubt a great deal more than with time. Foucault (1998:23, 26)

Introduction Conducting business as usual, organisations don’t worry too much about architecture. At best, they spend money on new headquarters designed as an artefact of power, legitimacy and culture. Typically, organisations rarely pay much attention to how they occupy what space and why. Nor do people at the top – who usually occupy the best of whatever space there is – often think about the space that others occupy and how their spaces relate to it, and the effect that these spatial relations will have on their future development (Horgen et al. 1999; Jencks 1991). In this chapter we argue that the organisation of space still remains a relatively underspecified but nonetheless important question for the processes and practices of organising. While organising is often represented in imma143

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.

terial, cognitive terms (Weick 1995), when it is connected to a concern with space then it has to concern the body of an organisation, its materiality, and its being-in-the-world. Space is not just a container waiting to be filled: it has its own materiality, its own nooks, crannies and folds, aesthetics and ugliness. Space seems empty. It seems merely to be there. It is contained or positioned relative to other things: walls, streets, trees, hills, mountains, all reaching out as markers in the infinity of spaces, signalling some places as somewhere rather than nowhere. Space is never merely a neutral container hosting events: rather it always proposes aesthetics of/for existence (Guillen 2002). “Space is social morphology”, says Lefebvre (1991:94). It is also, of course an ideology, an aesthetic, as well as a clue to the lives we lead, of who we are, what we want to be, and what we might be. Think of the place called Potsdammer Platz. Until not so long ago it was a space for rabbits not people, a space of danger and exploding shells, an emptiness that defined the presence of a whole world of ideologies, forces, and cleavages. Now, commercially developed as the heart of Berlin, it is a wholly different kind of space. And its meaning is not just a matter of how it has now been filled with concrete and the relations between the spatial planes that are thus defined: it is also a matter of how what is there now was not nor could not have been there before. Its being there now is defined more by its not being there then than by what it is: its relative being is really defined by its past history of relative nothingness – much as the space of the Twin Towers will forever be defined. Buildings are social objects creating social spaces whose forms provide implicit answers to crucial questions of power, order, classification, control, and function but also always pose these answers with implied theories of aesthetics, creativity, innovation and freedom (Markus 1993; Lawson 2001). Space is not nothing but something – although, as Ritzer (2004) argues, it can be made to resemble nothing. To see things this way is hardly conventional, we should add. For nearly 300 years, after Descartes, space came to be seen as a general, abstract framework occupied by material things. But space is more than an abstract and neutral framework filled with objects. Human and non-human elements constitute the experience of space through their forms of occupation, activity and movement as much as they are constituted through those spaces that enable and restrict certain events. In fact, we constitute space through the countless practices of everyday life as much as we are constituted through them (Hillier 1996). In the field of organisation studies, the relation between spatial structures and social patterns has been largely ignored (see, for exceptions, Hatch 1987; Berg and Kreiner 1990; Joroff et al. 2001; Burrell and Dale 2003;

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Cameron 2003; Weick 2003; Clegg and Kornberger 2004; Hernes 2004).1 If we want to find theorists who think about the spatial impact of organisations then it is to architects that we should turn, for they have been far more concerned with the social and organisational implications of buildings (Goodman 1971; Markus 1993, 1998; Markus and Cameron 2002; Pearson and Richards 1994; Pawley 1998; Leach 1999). Hillier (1996:373) in particular, is in the vanguard when he writes that an “organisation can be described without reference to space, and therefore without reference to buildings, but the way in which the organisation works usually cannot”. Therefore, in this paper we will use architectural theory to address questions concerning organisation and its spatial dimension as issues whose implications need to enter into organisation theory thinking. We shall start with a discussion of the meaning of boundaries in organisations, their power, and their spatial manifestations. Then we will raise some critical questions: with Kafka we will rethink the relation between power, centre and periphery, while, using Hillier’s notion of the “generative building”, we will analyse the interaction between organising, being inside, and being outside. Suggesting that our reality is rather more labyrinthical than linear we will discuss some strategic implications for the ways in which we organise which have been outlined by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (1994, 1995; Lucan 1991).

Power, spaces and boundaries Boundaries and organisation Boundaries are intrinsic to organisation: defining inside and outside is quintessentially what organising involves as it enfolds and encloses some activities and excludes others (Hernes 2004). Organisation “evolves through processes of boundary setting. Like any social system, an organisation emerges through the process of drawing distinctions, and it persists through the reproduction of boundaries” (Hernes 2004:80). Indeed, boundedness is essential to the notion of an organisation. From the notion that a corporation is a singular legal fiction, an entity able to issue contracts with singular individuals, and thus incorporate them within its enveloping fold, to the concern with the organisation as a bounded rationality with an external environment that, nonetheless, impinges on it, the organisation has been

1

It is worth mentioning that Tom Peters discovered space management as a powerful managerial tool a couple of years ago: “In fact, space management may well be the most ignored – and most powerful – tool for inducing culture change, speeding up innovation projects, and enhancing the learning process in far-flung organizations. While we fret ceaselessly about facilities issues such as office square footage allotted to various ranks, we all but ignore the key strategic issue – the parameters of intermingling” (Peters 1992:413).

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seen as a spatial zone – even if only as a “black box” with inputs and outputs. The manifestation of these boundaries is, first and foremost, spatial. Thus, put architecturally, organisation is about “ordering space” (Franck and Schneekloth 1994). The demarcation of an inside/outside is the simplest, most basic way of organising space. In fact, looking at the founding myth of Rome, at the beginning there was a wall (limes) that defined the space of the citizens and the space of the others (barbarians). Romulus killed Remus because he ignored the symbolic meaning and political function of the wall (Sennett 1990). Architects, when they have the right commissions, can be alert to the political and aesthetic dimension of the built environment. At basis they build something inside something that presents itself to all those who pass by or through. In fact, the difference between inside/outside is the beginning of architecture: “What is architecture most fundamentally but the physical demarcation of an inside from an outside?” (Franck and Lepori 2000:10). The inside/outside differentiation not only organises our space but also our thinking. Analytical categories such as subject/object follow this initial spatial difference: hence the disturbing position that Beckett describes at the beginning of our paper where being in-between, neither inside nor outside, marks an impossible space, both ontologically as well as epistemologically. We’ll come back to this point in the last section. Architecture organises space: every building offers an interface that allows visitors to enter the sphere of the inhabitant, thus organising the transition between being inside or outside. The inhabitant controls while the stranger is controlled (Markus 1993). Whenever the outside meets the inside it creates a dangerous moment controlled architecturally by some spatial barriers that prevent deeper penetration. The inhabitants occupy a deeper zone. Inside as members, belonging there, they receive visitors, they have a reception area, and they interface with the visitor: “Depths indicate power” (Markus 1993:16). It is exactly this power, symbolically expressed and spatially exercised, that makes boundaries such an omnipresent reality.

Power and space Foucault’s oeuvre could be read as exemplifying his thesis that “space is fundamental in any form of communal life; space is fundamental in any exercise of power” (Foucault 1984:252). As he stated, architecture ensures “a certain allocation of people in space, a canalisation of their circulation, as well as the coding of their reciprocal relations” (Foucault 1984:253; see Hirst 1995; Pearson and Richards 1994; Markus 1993). Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary regimes shows the linkage of space and power clearly: Foucault argues that discipline proceeds from the distribution of individuals in space “… Each individual has his own place; and each place its individ146

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ual. Avoid distributions in groups; break up collective dispositions; analyse confused, massive or transient pluralities. Disciplinary space tends to be divided into as many sections as there are bodies or elements to be distributed. One must eliminate the effects of imprecise distributions, the uncontrolled disappearance of individuals, their diffuse circulation, their unusable and dangerous coagulation … Discipline organises an analytical space” (Foucault 1995:141, 143). Famously and notoriously, the Panopticon was an architectural apparatus that organised space in such a way that power is created and sustained – it is “a marvellous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogeneous effects of power” (Foucault 1995:202). As Bentham stated: “Morals reformed – health preserved – industry invigorated – instruction diffused – public burthens lightened – Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock – the Gordian knot of the Poor-Laws not cut, but untied – all by a simple idea in architecture!” (quoted in Foucault 1995:207; my emphasis). Obviously, space was seen as the solid element that would be both the medium and the materiality of the new social order. It was a vision to inspire moderns. It certainly inspired F. W. Taylor, so often maligned in the literature, who recognised that the analytical space of the factory was realised by power enacted in and through the architecture of immediate spaces and the prescription of bodies in relation to these (see Guillén 1997). According to Markus (1993) the social order of space materialises itself through three different types of buildings: buildings that shape people (like school or prisons), buildings that produce knowledge (like libraries and museums), and buildings that produce and exchange things (like workshops and markets). In organisations, these three types intermingle and their boundaries blur. Power through buildings is exercised through the way people meet; through the control of the interface between inhabitants and visitors; through the location of persons and things; the control of their paths of movement and the visual, acoustic and communicative paths (Markus 1993:96). It is social relations that are expressed, manifested, and reinforced in buildings. Markus (1998) gives the example of the design of Glasgow’s lunatic asylum from 1807: the brief for the architects divided inmates into three systems (gender; economic status; medical condition) that lead, necessarily, to a certain design. Again, the categories that organised the building were first and foremost social categories that might change or be challenged in the future; however, through building them they become reinforced and a manifest part of the social order (Markus 1998). Power and architecture are inseparably intermingled, which is the strength of the Panopticon and the reason for Bentham’s optimism: “The panoptic mechanism is not simply a hinge, a point of exchange between a mechanism of power and a function; it is a way of making power relations function in a function, and of making a function function through these power rela147

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tions” (Foucault 1995:206). The exercise of power is not added from the outside, it works from the inside inscribed in the heart of spatial organisation: in fact, architecture is power, managing subjects through “organisation, hierarchisation, and systematisation of order, activities, behaviour, movement, and visibility” (Rakatansky 1992:204). Or in the words of Hillier and Hanson: “The ordering of space in buildings is really about the ordering of relations between people” (1984:2). Ironically, whereas social theorists, especially organisation scholars, talk about power in rather abstract forms architects always knew and (almost cynically) discussed the relation between power and architecture (see Tinniswood, 1998, for practical examples). One of the godfathers of modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe, referred to a need to “create order out of the desperate confusion of our time” (quoted in Venturi, 1966:41). Other modernists had a very similar notion of the role of architecture. Le Corbusier expressed these views especially well in his view of the work of architecture as a “profound projection of harmony” (1923:48). Spaces “should be ordered, otherwise they counteract the fundamental principles round which we revolve; if they are not ordered (house, street, town), they oppose themselves to us, they thwart us, as the nature all around us thwarts us, though we have striven with it, and with it begin each day a new struggle” (Le Crobusier 1924:15; see Koolhaas 1994). Essentially, this harmony is a social harmony that is, in Bentham’s tradition, accomplished architecturally: “It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution … The balance of society comes down to a question of building. We conclude with these justifiable remarks: Architecture or Revolution” (1923:8, 265). Others in the architectural community criticised such powerful plans and buildings. Goodman for instance describes planners and architects as “more sophisticated, more educated, more socially conscious than the generals (of military and police) – we’re the soft cops. Planners want ‘social change’; they deal in words, drawings, programs and buildings, not guns and napalm. But the kind of ‘social change’ they find themselves dealing with, whether or not they recognise it, is organising the oppressed into a system incapable of providing them with a human existence, pacifying them with the meagre welfare offerings that help maintain the status quo” (Goodman 1971:13). He sees one of the main reasons for this sad state of affairs as residing in the fact that architecture is normally understood as art and therefore is too busy talking about aesthetics rather than politics: “The more architecture can be described in the morally neutral currency of ‘aesthetics’, devoid of political content for the people affected, the more elite and the more removed from the political review of ordinary people become the experts who use this currency” (Goodman 1971:113). Of course, aesthetics and politics are not separate: they imply each other. Geometry can be politics. But politics can hide 148

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behind geometry: whereas buildings are planned, built and consumed in aesthetic terms, their political function often passes unnoticed. Maybe that’s the realised perfect harmony in which people play their roles, if they are architecturally discerning, perhaps busily judging and comparing Greg Lynn vs. Frank Gehry without noticing what’s actually at stake. As Markus (1998:27) suspects, this “serves as effective camouflage for the power relations embedded in buildings”. Goodman expresses this as follows, with regard to Venturi: “To be revolutionary for the architect should mean something more than promoting a perversion of taste. It should involve a revolution in the way people live; it means using architecture as a way of breaking down the established social order” (1971:130).2 At the other end of the continuum there is an architecture that is purely functional and hardly disguises its power. It is an architecture that sets as its goal the defence of society, especially from all forms of terror, either in the form of attacks such as those of the IRA bombings of corporate headquarters in London or, one might extrapolate, after 9/11. In a mixture between paranoia and visionary foresight, Le Corbusier planned a skyscraper with an armoured platform against bombardments and other attacks (see Koolhaas 1994:254). Martin Pawley analysed this architecture finding that “(t)he architecture of terror comes from the universally acknowledged need to protect the highly serviced and vulnerable built environment of the modern world from attacks that fall short of declared war” (1998:148). It results in an architecture that is driven by the need for security and safety: “security architecture” and “exclusion zones”. The military security adviser becomes the lead consultant instead of the architect. Bunkers instead of aesthetics become the order of the day (Virilio 1997). Checkpoints drive out thoroughfares; the boulevards give way to chicanes, spaces in which to wheel cavalry defer to barricades to repulse egoistic suicides. The first rule of security is to make the target inconspicuous, so any uniqueness of appearance in a building will immediately be ruled out. All decorative elements (trees around the building, artefacts …) are removed, because they might obstruct surveillance cameras. All recesses, undercrofts and stairs are deleted from the design because they provide hiding places for bombs. Stairways, corridors, light … is subordinated to the logic of the surveilling glance – the camera. Charles Moore said, to make a place is to make a domain that helps people know where they are and, by extension, who they are. This might be true for new places like security architecture – “Like prisons, such places will certainly help people know where they are and, by 2

A (postmodern) reply to this argument, provided by the Swiss-French star architect Bernard Tschumi, goes like this: “As opposed to building, making architecture is not unlike burning matches without a purpose. This produces an intense pleasure that cannot be bought or sold. Such totally gratuitous consumption of architecture is ironically political in that it disturbs established structures” (Tschumi 1990:52–53).

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extension, who they are. But they may not like what they find” (Pawley 1998:154).

Deconstructing boundaries/labyrinths In many respects, terminal architecture marks the contemporary link between politics, architecture and society. It explains how spatial order controls human relations. Organisations, as very specific and very vulnerable crucibles for human relations, always employ architecture to try and ensure order and harmony. Baron Haussman’s boulevards in Paris are certainly elegant but they also allowed the cavalry to keep the proletariat under control (Tinniswood 1998:144). They created a boundary between fashionable and troublesome Paris. As we have argued, the boundary maintaining activity is one of an organisation’s core issues. This coincides with the image of hierarchy or a net where you have a centre removed from the (hostile) environment in order to protect it. Simultaneously, the centre exercises power and gives commands to its outskirts. In this image, the organisation of space and the social order reinforce and constitute each other. However, we want to problematise this relation. As we will see, the centre becomes an abstract notion that might only exist in the beholder’s eye. In reality, as Kafka says, things are more intertwined and knotted together with greater complexity than might be represented by a castle as centre of power surrounded by peasants, patiently waiting to receive commands. In The Great Wall of China Kafka shows the impossibility of the centre, the inside, communicating with the outside, the periphery: And besides, any tidings, even if they did reach us, would arrive far too late, would have become obsolete long before they reached us. … like tardy arrivals, like strangers in a city, they stand at the end of some densely thronged side street peacefully munching the food they have brought with them, while far away in front, in the market square at the heart of the city, the execution of their ruler is proceeding. There is a parable that describes this situation very well: The Emperor, so it runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject, the insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the imperial sun; the Emperor from his death-bed has sent a message to you alone. He has commanded the messenger to kneel down by the bed, and has whispered the message to him; … The messenger immediately sets out on his journey; a powerful, indefatigable man. … But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after

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the courts the second outer place; and once more stairs and courts; and once more another palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate – but never, never can that happen – the imperial capital would lie before him, crammed to bursting with its own refuse. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. – But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself … If from such appearance anyone should draw the conclusion that in reality we have no Emperor, he would not be far from the truth (Kafka 1960:165–170).

There is no way from the inside to the outside: the emperor does not send his orders from a centre to the periphery. Metaphorically, there are many rivers to cross: too many obstacles, too many walls, and too many passages to negotiate; too many translations must be done so that finally nothing remains of the original message. In fact, the idea of an original message sent from an authentic sender located in the centre, might be an illusion. Similarly, there is no way to access the centre, or the inside where the true message and the authentic emperor might be found. In the following famous passage, taken from Kafka’s The Trial, we read the following story: Before the Law stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country who begs for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot admit the man at the moment. The man from the country tries to get in, and when the doorkeeper sees that he laughs and says: “If you are so strongly tempted, try to get in without my permission. But note that I am powerful. And I am only the lowest doorkeeper. From hall to hall, keepers stand at every door, one more powerful than the other. Even the third of these has an aspect that even I cannot bear to look at.” These are difficulties which the man from the country has not expected to meet, the Law, he thinks, “should be accessible to every man and at all times;” he decides that he had better wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at the side of the door. There he sits waiting for days and years. … He forgets about the other doorkeepers, and this one seems to him the only barrier between himself and the Law. … before he dies, all that he has experienced during the whole time of his sojourn condenses in his mind into one question, which he has never yet put to the door-keeper … “Everyone strives to attain the Law,” answers the man, “how does it come about, then, that in all these years no one has come seeking admittance but me?” The doorkeeper perceives that the man is at the end of his strength and his hearing is failing, so he bellows in his ear: “No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended only for you. I am now going to shut it” (1953:235–237).

Depth indicates power, we said above. In the two Kafka stories we see the symbolic power of space when it is organised hierarchically. However, the spatial order does not necessarily map onto the social order. The point 151

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Kafka makes is that things are rather interrelated and more labyrinthically arranged. “Truth” and power do not work inside out; rather, it is the spatial order, the symbolic power of architecture that maintains such an image. In reality, there is no clear progression of action or thought, no clear chain of command but a messy net of complex, contradicting and paradox interactions that constitute reality. Power is spread out all over this net, rather than being centrally located, an observation that echoes Foucault’s thesis of the disciplinary society: power is distributed in a capillary way; there is no king in the centre but an Escher-like building, in which places, and power relations, change as you enter them. What we learn from Kafka, however, is that the image of a central authority powerfully directing the periphery is accomplished architecturally: chambers, courts, walls, and doors with bouncers – this spatial organisation actually reproduces a social order.

Deconstructing boundaries/organisations Kafka’s account provides metaphorical insight into the space that manifests and reproduces social order. In his account, it is the organisation of space that vividly shapes our individual imagination and social reality. In terms of organisation theory there is some evidence that a labyrinthical architecture might be more creatively productive than the linearity of the inside-outside or centre-periphery model. Bill Hillier (1996) analysed how a “generative building”, one that connects elements, rather than differentiating between them, might work (see Clegg and Kornberger 2004). The major task, Hillier (1996:265) suggests, is how “to combine the protection of the solitary with the natural generation of more randomised co-presence with others – the need for which seems to grow the more the objectives of research are unknown”. It is the architectural output of such a complex combination that Hillier calls a “generative building”. He investigated two research labs differing in terms of their spatial structure. Boundaries of organisational subunits and thus knowledge were drawn differently in space. In fact, walls and physical separations reflect the existing division of labour: “… weak ties generated by buildings may be critical because they tend to be with people that one does not know one needs to talk to. They are, then, more likely to break the boundaries of the existing state of knowledge represented by individual research projects, organisational subdivisions, and localism” (Hillier 1996:264). The creation of innovative knowledge requires randomness that can be actively encouraged by architectural design. If one designs a building according to efficient criteria (the least expenditure of resources for the most effective and economical return) people between whom there seems to be no current, rational reason to communicate will be separated, while people who are thought to share a common

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understanding will be located within an interactive space. There may even be steps taken to minimise the intrusion of apparently unrelated groups and to minimise the need for movement on the part of staff by making sure that all facilities required for work are conveniently located. These and many other efforts would be “reasonable steps to take in order to produce a rational and efficient building plan” (Hillier 1996:270). But what are the effects of such a plan on the creation and development of knowledge? “By and large the existing state of knowledge in a field is a pretty good starting point for problem solving, but slowly it would become apparent that other organisations were making the innovative breakthroughs” (Hillier 1996:270). An efficient building increases the flow of certain and pre-formulated areas of knowledge but the boundaries of this knowledge are unlikely to be challenged or broken. In contrast, innovation requires crossboundary and sometimes boundary-blurring communication; and in this sense it seems that the spatial organisation of a building is actively involved in the creation of new knowledge.

Strategies for the labyrinth Most architecture is concerned with ordering space; organisation, as a principally boundary-defined construct, is constituted by these spatial boundaries. As we demonstrated through Kafka, this inside/outside dichotomy or centre/periphery relation is reproduced architecturally: a certain, hierarchical organisation of space contributes to the reproduction of hierarchical social order. As we demonstrated with the notion of the generative building, such hierarchical architectural organisation might be dysfunctional: innovation and knowledge creation need more fluid, less ordered spatial structures. Thus, highly ordered space has effects on human relations that might be counterproductive. Therefore, we need to look for new spatial strategies for organising – some of them we will suggest and explore in this last section of our paper. The question basically is: if architecture shapes social order (remember – architecture or revolution?), how would an architecture giving rise to a more sophisticated, different social order look? How could we organise space differently? Power works in circuits, relating things and people, bridging inside and outside (Clegg 1989). Simultaneously, knowledge that is created with this exercise of power, and that generates new knowledge, crosses boundaries. The interaction between social relations crossing or being divided by boundaries, and their architectural manifestation becomes decisive. Understanding buildings as social objects focuses on these relations. Architecture structures the spaces through which we live and move. As it does so then it also shapes

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the social life lived there, providing material preconditions for patterns of movement, shaping encounters and non-interactions, structuring social life (Hillier and Hanson 1984:ix). Space imposes an order on social reality, restricts and enables certain moves: “Activity in space is restricted by that space: space ‘decides’ what activity may occur, but even this ‘decision’ has limits placed upon it. Space lays down the law because it implies a certain order – and hence also a certain disorder” (Lefebvre 1991:143). If this interplay between space and organisation constitutes a new, labyrinthic reality, a more diverse social order, what are the strategies for the architecture of organisation? Which forms could it take, and which would be its effect on social relations?

Spaces in between Modern architecture, just like modern (strategic) planning, was built around the idea of clear goals that can be realised according to a master plan. Le Corbusier explained the relation most clearly in his view that planning proceeds from within to without, such that the exterior becomes the result of an interior. However, we would argue with Lefebvre that the “whole history of life has been characterised by an incessant diversification and intensification of the interaction between inside and outside” (Lefebvre 1991:176). Architecturally speaking, this means the creation of tensions between inside and outside rather than the projection of a “profound harmony” enacted in a clear inside-outside division. As Venturi (1966:86) writes: “Designing from the outside in, as well as the inside out, creates necessary tensions, which help make architecture. Since the inside is different from the outside, the wall – the point of change – becomes an architectural event. Architecture occurs at the meeting of interior and exterior forces of use and space.” An interesting application of such an approach is represented in the work of Peter Eisenman. He addresses the “the space of difference between the exterior and the interior and the space of difference that is also within the interior. The term that we use … for that space is the interstitial” (quoted in Benjamin 2000:5). The space in-between is the space where differences unfold: differences in-between inside-outside, formal-informal, old-new, etc. As Eisenman comments on the Aronoff Centre at the University of Cincinnati, which he designed: “On the inside the same interstitial organisation is proposed in order to blur the distinction between new and old where new pushes into old and old into new. The different energies that cut through from the interstitial space are also marked on vertical interior surface from pieces that have been inserted between the old and the new” (quoted in Benjamin 2000:39). Such architecture dissolves the order of inside/outside, container/contained, figure/ground and proposes an interplay between them rather than a static, hierarchical relation. In this respect, organising space means creating “interstitial spaces” where things, people 154

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and knowledge overlap and interact. Such spaces do not have a clear function but are rather zones where functional divisions of space and therefore the division of labour blur. Instead of defining spaces functionally, a void is created.

Designing space for creative organising: the strategy of the void In addressing the complexity between the relations of space, power, and the social we need to think about strategies that can be applied without creating hegemonic situations. After all, according to Deleuze (1995), the main type of power that dominates our lives is contrôle. Escaping this contrôle becomes the political task that replaces an architectural practice busily forming and reforming aesthetically pleasant buildings. This does not mean that architecture automatically would lead to change: rather, the use of space and practices of living in space might be crucial in achieving change (see Leach 1999a). But the spatial arrangement provides the structure in which these patterns are enacted. Critique and a critical architecture have to be addressed in terms of that which allows for the material reproduction of such oppositions as male-female, manager-worker, pupil-teacher, etc. (Benjamin 2000:9). While there are clear dangers in following Deleuze into somewhat essentialist territory and seeking to reproduce complex variegated reality as an eternal principle, there is sufficient inducement to do so in this respect. The nature of building is contrôle: who can access and who cannot; who feels free to wander and who does not; who can be allowed where and who cannot; what regulations and controls can be followed and what cannot be breached; what views and landscapes can be revealed and those that can be lost to the public gaze. All architecture is essentially a struggle, challenge to, and negotiated order of contrôle. With Hillier and Hanson (1984:x) we argue that the chief obstacle to better design is the “lack of understanding of the precise nature of the relation between spatial organization and social life”. Modernist architecture focuses on how problems can be solved, but it does not determine which problem it solves (Venturi 1966:17). It takes problems as given, received in the brief of the owners (Markus and Cameron 2002). Such architecture reproduces the social order since it manifests functional divisions in the built environment. An architecture that takes labyrinthic reality into account does not necessarily do problem-solving so much as create a space in which problems can occur – new problems, problems which did not yet exist. Modern architecture has often been reduced to the formula that form follows function. Architectures of complexity reverse this image so that form evokes function (Venturi 1966:34). Strangely, the slogan “less is more” is, in a certain sense, true concerning such an architecture of complexity: it does not attempt to 155

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occupy an entire space, it does not determine rooms for functions but seeks to create space that contains in-betweens a la Eisenman. With his strategy of the void, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas elaborated a refined concept that leaves spaces open for the users’ closure (and reopenings). He differentiates between (restricting) architecture and urbanism: “urbanism generates potential, creates possibilities and causes events, whereas architecture is a discipline that exhausts this potential, exploits the possibilities and only restricts events” (Koolhaas 1995:120). Therefore, architects create ambiguous and incomplete spaces that seem to lend themselves “to tasks of collaborative inquiry in which problems were unclear and needed to be framed and where data were being explored whose meanings were as yet unclear” (Horgen et al. 1999:197). As in Hillier’s generative building, functional diversity of space creates new social patterns.3 But it also closes off their possibility, for, as Koolhaas (1995:199, 344) suggests, “[w]here there is nothing, everything is possible. Where there is architecture, nothing (else) is possible … Architecture is monstrous in the way in which each choice leads to the reduction of possibility. It implies a regime of either/or decisions often claustrophobic, even for the architect”. Ironically he found analytical inspiration in one of history’s most notorious boundaries – the Berlin Wall – that we encountered at the outset of the chapter – for it was this wall that came to define Potsdamer Platz: Were not division, enclosure (i.e., imprisonment), and exclusion – which defined the (Berlin) wall’s performance and explained its efficiency – the essential stratagems of any architecture? In comparison, the sixties dream of architecture’s liberating potential – in which I had been marinating for years as a student – seemed feeble rhetorical play. It evaporated on the spot (Koolhaas 1995:226).

Koolhaas developed a “strategy of the void” (1995:603) to deal with the interface of power, space and the social. Rather than “marinating” in liberal ideals he suggests thinking of “a building consisting of regular and irregular spaces, where the most important parts of the building consist of an absence of building”. The irregular is not designed; it is simple carved out (Koolhaas 1995:626). He argues that we should leave space unused, unbuilt, and empty, create void spaces, and protect areas from buildings, designing architecture in which, organisationally, anything might happen. Redesigning the Panopticon-like Arnhem Koepel Prison demonstrates how this strategy of the void actually works: as Koolhaas proposes, the solution is not knocking down the Benthamian inspired building but using it in different ways. 3

As a visitor at Xerox stated: “You’d be having a conversation and somebody would come up from behind and enter the conversation. And he would stay for five minutes, and then he’d drift off into a lab or someplace else … People just floated in and out” (Horgen 1999:212).

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The beauty of architecture such as that which Bentham inspired was that it had inherent flexibility built into it: it could serve a prison as well as an asylum or become a museum. New architecture, by contrast, he says, “is doomed to a permanent state of alteration if it is to adjust to even minor ideological changes” (1995:240). Instead of designing space around functions, Koolhaas suggests leaving spaces void since this excess capacity provides flexibility. Such creative, even chaotic spaces cannot be planned since the architect with her plan always closes off potential connections; therefore, chaos “it is something that infiltrates; it cannot be fabricated. The only legitimate relationship that architects can have with the subject of chaos is to take their rightful place in the army of those devoted to resist it, and fail” (Koolhaas 1995:969). A strategically “void” building is not one that anticipates all possible changes – which is, of course, impossible, but one that creates a margin of excess capacity that enables different and even opposite interpretations and uses to occur. Against Le Corbusier, with his utopia’s of control, Koolhaas argues that if there is to be a new urbanism it will be based not on the twin fantasies of order and omnipotence but the staging of uncertainty, the seeding of potential, the creation of enabling fields, expanding notions, denying boundaries, and discovering unnameable hybrids (Koolhaas 1995:969). Such architecture generates complexity, possibilities.

Using architecture According to the strategy of the void the architect “undesigns” or “carves out” parts of the building where events and possibilities might occur. This void creates, or better: leaves a space that is interpreted, designed and contextualised by the actual users of the building. Every user, Hill suggests, is an “illegal architect”, someone who reinterprets a certain given reality and comes up with a new definition for it (Hill 1998:26). The inhabitation of architecture is itself a creative activity, the gap between building and using, similar to the gap between writing and reading, as he puts it. Goodman (1971) referred to such a style as “Guerrilla Architecture”, focused on how ordinary people tackle established power and its architectural manifestation; how people hijack, occupy and use buildings that were designed for other people and different purposes (Certeau, 1984). Architecture and its history is an “anthology of buildings of, by, and for the privileged” (Rudofsky 1964:1). However, there is a whole world of minor, infamous “nonpedigreed architecture” – “architecture without architects”, a minor architecture (Rudofsky 1964). It is vernacular, anonymous, spontaneous, and indigenous – for instance Troglodyte’s (the underground towns in the Chinese loess belt: Phira, San Torini), arcades and passages where the inside/outside relations get blurred and private property turns into communal use or even tree houses that grow with the tree. Equipped with 157

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the skills of the illegal architects, such a minor architecture might create interstitial spaces where things intermingle. In doing so, it manifests and reproduces different social relations.

Conclusion “Change life!” “Change society!” These precepts mean nothing without the production of an appropriate space … new social relationships call for a new space, and vice versa. Lefebvre (1991:59)

Architecture can concern the design of conditions that unsettle established social order. Such architecture will dislocate the traditional and regressive to reorganise them not into utopias but heterotopias (Tschumi 2000:176; 195). Some social scientists, such as Sennett (1970), seem to share the desire not so much for utopia as heterotopia: [T]he current organisation of city communities encourages men to enslave themselves in adolescent ways; that it is possible to break through this framework to achieve an adulthood whose freedom lies in its acceptance of disorder and painful dislocation; that the passage from adolescence to this new, possible adulthood depends on a structure of experience that can only take place in a dense, uncontrollable human settlement – in other words, in a city … the jungle of the city, its vastness and loneliness, has a positive human value. Indeed, I think certain kinds of disorder need to be increased in city life, so that men can pass into a full adulthood and so that … men will lose their current taste for innocent violence (Sennett 1970:xvii; our emphasis).

Sennett (1970:108; 198) sought not order in architecture but opportunities for creative disordering in which opportunities for new forms of organisation would emerge. As Foucault would later write, heterotopias will be spaces in which hesitant search and experimentation happen, which precede every order of things. Maybe, as he suggests: [T]here is a worse kind of disorder than that of the incongruous, the linking together of things that are inappropriate; I mean the disorder in which fragments of a large number of possible orders glitter separately in the dimension, without law or geometry, of the heteroclite; and that word should be taken in its most literal, etymological sense: in such a state, things are “laid”, “placed”, “arranged” in sites so very different from one another that it is impossible to find a place of residence for them, to define a common locus beneath them all. Utopias afford consolation: although they have no real locality, there is nevertheless a fantastic, untroubled region in which they are

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able to unfold; they open up cities with vast avenues, superbly planted garden countries where life is easy, even though the road to them is chimera. Heterotopias are disturbing, probably because they secretly undermine language, because they make it impossible to name this and that, because they shatter or tangle common names, because they destroy “syntax” advance, and not only the syntax with which we construct sentences but also that less apparent syntax which causes words and things (next to and also opposite one another) to “hold together”. This is why utopias permit fables and discourse: they run with the very grain of language and are part of the fundamental dimension of the fibula; heterotopias (…) desiccate speech, stop words in their tracks, contest the very possibility of grammar at its source; they dissolve our myths and sterilise the lyricism of our sentences (Foucault 1970:xvii).

Heterotopias and the questioning of the grammars that occur in them are not in opposition to organisation but the very precondition of organisation. Organising is a grammar to reduce ambiguity, according to Weick (1979), a practice used to control and impose order. However, these attempts at organising hinder the development of an organisation. In Weick’s view, it is the inability of people in organisations to tolerate equivocal processing in their organising that causes trouble for their organisations. Ironically, it is their unwillingness to disrupt order when organising and only to register nothingness, a lack of variation, which makes it impossible for the organisation to create order (Weick 1979:189). One of the defining features of the shift from markets to organisations is that markets were usually open spaces, even when they were fixed in space, like the Halifax Piece Hall, where the early merchants of the industrial revolution would sell their pieces of cloth while organisations immediately impose fixity on fluid spaces. The Piece Hall is such a structure, caught architecturally between the openness of the market and the closure of the factory. It is already a space with entries and exits; walls; restricted areas; permits; rules for circulation; it is not a free-flowing space where one may move at random. The factory takes this further: its many manifestations become dwellings for commerce, enterprise, and governance. If Gaston Bachelard (1958) could see the modest dwellings of the ordinary person, their domestic spaces, as a tool for analysis of the human soul, with which “can we not find within ourselves, while dreaming in our own modest homes, the consolations of the cave? Are the towers of our souls razed for all time? Are we to remain, to quote Gerard de Nerval’s famous line, beings whose ‘towers have been destroyed’?” If we can be invited to ask these questions about the terrace, the apartment, the tenement, the villa, the bungalow, how much more acutely can we address them to those dwellings to which we bond our selves and sell our souls in order to earn our daily bread? Referring to the Panopticon, Foucault (1995:172) once said that stones 159

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could make people docile and knowable. We would argue that stones can maybe also help us to engage in the struggles that represent our social reality: employing a strategy of the void might be one step towards a different organisation of space, and hence a different social order. Questioning management’s obsession with order and control, critical thinking should engage in the spatial organisation more openly, since powerful forces might lurk therein – remember, architecture or revolution …

References Bachelard, G. (1958). The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press. Beckett, S. (1958). The Unnamable. London: Calder & Boyars. Benjamin, A. (2000). Architectural Philosophy. London and New Brunswick: The Athlone Press. Berg, P. O. & K. Kreiner (1990). Corporate Architecture: Turning Physical Settings into Symbolic Resources. In P. Gagliardi (Ed.) Symbols and Artefacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape, 41–67. New York: de Gruyter. Cameron, K. (2003). Organizational Transformation Through Architecture and Design. A Project with Frank Gehry. Journal of Management Inquiry, 12 (1): 88–92. Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Clegg, S. R. & M. Kornberger (2004). Bringing Space Back in: Organizing the Generative Building. Organization Studies, 25 (7): 1095–1115. Clegg, S. R. (1989). Frameworks of power. London: Sage. Deleuze, G. (1995). Negotiations, 1972–1990. New York: Columbia University Press. Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Tavistock Publications. Foucault, M. (1984). The Foucault reader (Ed. by Paul Rabinow). London: Penguin Books. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (1998). Of Other Spaces. In Ritter, R. and Knaller-Vlay, B. (Ed.) Other Spaces: The Affair of the Heterotopia, 22–37. Graz: Haus der Architektur. Franck, K. & B. Lepori (2000). Architecture Inside Out. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Franck, K. & L. Schneekloth (Ed.) (1994). Ordering Space: Types in Architecture and Design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Goodman, R. (1971). After the Planners. New York: Simon and Schuster. Guillén, Mauro F. (1997). Scientific management’s lost aesthetic: Architecture, organization, and the taylorized beauty of the mechanical. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42 (4): 682–715. Hatch, M. (1987). Physical Barriers, Task Characteristics, and Interaction Activity in Research and Development Firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 32: 387–39.

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Hernes, T. (2004). The Spatial Construction of Organization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins. Hill, J. (1998). The Illegal Architect. London: Black Dog. Hillier, B. & J. Hanson (1984). The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hillier, B. (1996). Space is the machine: a configurational theory of architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hrst, P. (1995). Foucault and Architecture. Local Consumption: Occasional Paper 4. Sydney: University of Sydney. Horgen, T., M. Joroff, W. Porter & D. Schoen (1999). Excellence by Design: Transforming Workplace and Work Practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Jencks, C. (1991). The Language of Post-modern Architecture. London: Academy Editions. Joroff, M., W. Porter, B. Feinberg & C. Kukla (2001). The Agile Workplace. In Garnter and MIT (Eds.) The Agile Workplace: Supporting People and Their Work. A Research Partnership Between Gartner, MIT and 22 Industry Sponsors, 20–33. Massachusetts. Kafka, F. (1953). The Trial. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Kafka, F. (1960). The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books. Koolhaas, R. (1994). Delirious New York. New York: The Monacelli Press. Koohaas, R. (1995). S, M, L, XL. New York: The Monacelli Press. Lawson, B. (2001). The Language of Space. Reed Elsevier: Oxford. Le Corbusier (1923). Towards a new Architecture. In Le Corbusier (1998) Essential Le Corbusier. Oxford: Architectural Press. Le Corbusier (1924). The City of Tomorrow. In Le Corbusier (1998) Essential Le Corbusier. Oxford: Architectural Press. Leach, N. (Ed.). (1999). Architecture and Revolution. Contemporary Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe. London and New York: Routledge. Leach, N. (1999a). Architecture or Revolution? In N. Leach (Ed.) Architecture and Revolution: Contemporary Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, 112–126. London and New York: Routledge. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Lucan, J. (1991). OMA – Rem Koolhaas: Architecture 1970–1990. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Markus, T. (1993). Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types. London: Routledge. Markus, T. (1998). Architecture and power: to build is to create asymmetries. In Norsk Form (Ed.) Maktens korridorer: Arkitektur som politik, 15–31. Oslo: Valdres. Markus, T. and Cameron, D. (2002). The words between the spaces: Buildings and language. London and New York: Routledge. Pawley, M. (1998). Terminal Architecture. London: Reaktion Books. Pearson M. and C. Richards (Ed.) (1994). Architecture and Order. Approaches to Social Space. London: Routledge. Peters, T. (1992). Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties. London: Macmillan. Rakatansky, M. (1992). Spatial Narratives. In Whiteman, J., J. Kipins & R. Burdett (Eds.) Strategies in Architectural Thinking, 198–221. London: The MIT Press.

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Ritzer, G. (2004). The Globalization of Nothing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Rudofsky, B. (1964). Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to NonPedigreed Architecture. London: Academy Editions. Sennett, R. (1970). The Uses of Disorder: Personal identity and City Life. New York: W. W. Norton. Sennett, R. (1990). The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities. New York: Knopf. Tinniwood, A. (1998). Visions of Power: Ambition and Architecture from Ancient Rome to Modern Paris. London: Red Consumer Books. Tschumi, B. (1990). Questions of Space: Lectures on Architecture. London: AA Publications. Venturi, R. (1966). Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. London: The Architectural Press. Virilio, P. (1997). Architecture Principe 1966 and 1996. Besancon: Les Editions de l’Imprimeur. Weick, K. (1979). The social psychology of organizing. Reading: Addison Wesley. Weick, K. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. London: Sage. Weick, K. (2003). Organizational Design and the Gehry Experience. Journal of Management Inquiry, 12 (1): 93–97.

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Chapter 10

Constructing Nomadic Organisations in Virtual Spaces? Nina Kivinen

Introduction Images and representations of organisations circulate in today’s society through verbal accounts, information technology and embodied experiences. All of them tell a different story of organisations and construct different organisational spaces. How can the spaces of the Internet be understood? To explore these spaces and organisations I decided to travel to some organisations through the means of my computer. But what is the role of me as a travelling “eye”, travelling in this space between my computer screen and myself? This chapter discusses the spatiality of organisations on the Internet, specifically on and through their home pages, and suggests that the nomadic expressions of organisations can be seen in and through the virtual spaces of the Internet. In this paper I argue that the “virtual” spaces of the Internet can perhaps be described using Lefebvrian and Foucauldian notions of space, as these spaces can be described as both material, imagined, and social. Following the work of Barbara Adam (1998) and Nigel Thrift (1996), I argue that time and space or time/space are simultaneously constructed, or in Bruno Latour’s (1997) words, timing and spacing are simultaneous processes. However, in this chapter I will emphasise the neglected qualities of space over time, where time has been related to the changing and dynamic conditions of human existence (Harvey 1989; Soja 1989, 1996), and space to the unchanging and stable, or, by paraphrasing Crang and Thrift (2000), within this chapter I make space for space.

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Nomadic travellers and the Internet The Internet is a space, which is different every time we enter it as we are co-constructing the space as we log on to the net. Through the website of an organisation we enter a place we have never been to and we see, observe and interpret texts and images that can be exactly the same as the ones we saw at this same address a week, a month or a year ago. Or they might be changing right before our eyes, perhaps slowly, if the connection is overloaded. The space in-between the computer screen and the observer is co-constructed and thus, it changes every time. What, then, are organisational web pages? Are they an expression of organisational identity? On the Internet as well as in other spaces an organisation is staking out its boundaries, depicting what it is becoming and what it is not. I will in this paper argue that the fluid boundaries of organisations resemble the arguments by Rosi Braidotti on nomadic subjects: “The nomad is my own figuration of a situated, postmodern, culturally differentiated understanding of the subject in general and of the feminist subject in particular” (Braidotti 1994:4). The Internet is a space in and through which people as well as organisations construct their identities. Perhaps these expressions show the nomadic nature of organisations, where the boundaries of organisations are fluid. For Braidotti the nomadic subject is a myth, a strategy that allows for the blurring of boundaries without burning bridges. A nomad represents the situated and postmodern subject that refuses to be pinned down to any fixed category or identity. Braidotti develops Gilles Deleuze’s ideas on nomadology (see in particular Deleuze and Guattari 1987), and similarly points out that becoming a nomad does not necessarily require travelling long distances. Even though Braidotti builds upon the image of peoples forever wandering the deserts and hills and urban landscapes, the most exciting journeys may not require a single step. It is the subversion of set conventions that defines the nomadic state, not literally the act of travelling (Braidotti 1994). Braidotti’s nomadic subject is specifically a theory on nomadic feminism that attempts to situate knowledge through an analysis of gender and its constructions, emphasising gender difference in subjectivity (Haraway 1991; Lempiäinen 2000). I do not attempt here to do a gendered reading although my reading is informed by feminist thinking. Nomadism implies a fragmented view of the world, a world that is multilayered, combined with an ability to think in new ways and move between and beyond the obvious (Braidotti 1994; Lempiäinen 2000). This tension between a situated subject and a nomadic, travelling subject is generally interesting, but it becomes even more fascinating in the “virtual” spaces of the Internet. How can we be non-essentialists while emphasising materiality? The many faces and images that organisations in general, and firms in particular, can show on the Internet, this virtual but real space, this space in

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between, express the nomadic nature of organisations. The organisation is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, situated in a specific place it calls its home in cyberspace, while at the same time occupying no place at all. Such organisations may be said to be travelling endlessly through time and space, showing themselves sometimes in different forms in these different inbetween spaces, sometimes making an effort to remain unchanged, sometimes elusively not. For Alexander Styhre (2003), drawing upon Deleuze and Guattari, nomadic organisations are in constant movement. People walk in and out of organisations, consultants visit organisations; contacts are made with other organisations. The nomadic organisation contains a flow of information and knowledge and it is structured not by standard operating procedures, but by projects and processes. Styhre’s nomadic organisation has no fixed core, no history and no future. In my view organisational web pages on the Internet are not yet governed by any old conventions. They could contain anything, and everything; they can be the imagination of the organisation, the dreams for the future or they can relish in a glorious past. Organisations on the web can be anything and everything, and they can change without notice. Perhaps it is even possible to become something completely different while travelling in virtual spaces. However, web pages cannot be constructed in isolation from other texts and practices.

The other spaces of Lefebvre and Foucault Where is the Internet? What kind of a space1 is it in which the nomadic organisation is situated and which it co-constructs? I turn to the central writings on spatiality of the 20th century and French poststructuralist thought for suggestions. Key texts in this context are Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1974/1991) as well as Michel Foucault’s writings on time, history, and space (see e.g. Foucault 1966/1994 and 1977). In light of their work, it seems evident that space has been neglected in social theory. It has often has been seen as a naturalised, fixed place, a “real” site in which social and historic actions are played, thus merely a setting for change and revolution. I argue that spatiality is important in the study of an organisation, a space in itself, and therefore I will give some space to the arguments and concepts of Lefebvre and Foucault. Both Lefebvre and Foucault argue, from their different perspectives, for a reassertion of space. 1

Clearly space can be defined in a number of ways. In my thinking I follow the work within critical geography (see e.g. May and Thrift 2001) and contemporary social theory (see e.g. Law 2002). Thus spaces and other geographies do not only refer to a physical space in the world (as for example “Helsinki”), but space is a construct of materialities and social and political practices.

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In both the work of Foucault and Lefebvre a trialectic view of space can be found. In his book Thirdspace (1996), Edward Soja discusses in detail the three different kinds of spaces Lefebvre describes in The Production of Space: the perceived space (l’espace perçu), the conceived space (l’espace conçu) and the lived spaces of representations (in some translations also called representational space, l’espace vécu). Soja’s own notion of Thirdspace2 is a product of “thirding” the spatial imagination, a space which is both real and imagined and more. A similar third version of space can be found in the work of Michel Foucault. While Foucault never wrote extensively on spatiality, an interest for spatiality can be seen in many of his writings. In a short lecture entitled Des espaces autres (Of other spaces), originally given in 1967, Foucault (1984) talks about other spaces that he calls heterotopias, which he describes as “places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society – which are something like countersites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted” (Foucault 1984:3). Foucault describes these places as different from the places they speak of and reflect. These spaces are at the same time mythic and real contestations of the space in which we live. Both Foucault’s other spaces and Lefebvre’s trialectic view of spaces as the conceived, the imagined and the lived build upon a relational view of spatiality, with its ontology of becoming. These resonate well with the contemporary writings of Michel Serres, Bruno Latour and Nigel Thrift (i.e. Bingham and Thrift 2000; Latour 1997; Serres 1996; Thrift 1996). The strength of Lefebvre’s arguments on social spaces lies in the refusal to separate materiality, representation and imagination or to privilege one over another (Harvey 1989).

Virtual spaces Different stories of difference and change are offered to a scholar studying the Internet and virtual communities. The virtual spaces of the Internet are examples of cyberspaces that first existed only in science fiction literature. The spatial dimensions of the Internet are not always critically studied and what remains is a hype of this exciting new existence. However, the edited volume Virtual Geographies – Bodies, Spaces and Relations (Crang, Crang and May 1999) offers an interesting framework for studying virtual spaces. 2

The postcolonial thinker Homi Bhabha has also developed his notion of the Third Space, which, according to Soja (1996), is a space of radical openness or spaces of resistance at the margins of cultural politics. Critical spatial assertions can also be found in the work of Edward Said and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. These will not, however, be discussed within this chapter.

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While only a few references are made to the works of Lefebvre, Foucault and Deleuze, these can be found in the background of many of the contributions to this volume. Similarly, there are connections to be made to the works of Nigel Thrift, Bruno Latour and Michel Serres that also support my reading of virtual spaces. Crang et al. (1999) paint a different picture when they state that their project involves keeping an open mind to the new possibilities of information technology, while avoiding the overdrawn opposition of the real and the virtual. Crang et al. aim to avoid any simple technological determinism, thus stating that virtual technologies are not synonymous with virtual geographies. Virtual geographies can therefore be understood to include virtual technologies, but also the social relations and discourses in which they are embedded. By deconstructing the technological and the social (following Serres and Latour) and by reshaping the human and non-human relation, technological determinism becomes redundant. A conceptual unpacking of virtuality is sought and within their work Crang et al. present four conceptual dimensions through which the empirical diversity is seen. All the dimensions mentioned are in effect spatial in their nature. “Virtuality, then, is not just something which operates though and across space. It is at heart a spatial phenomenon” (Crang et al. 1999: 12–13). I am left with the question of whether the new spaces of the Internet do require different theoretical approaches, as I can easily agree with the writers in Crang et al. who explicitly argue that the new spaces are not new at all in any substantive sense (e.g. Stein 1999). The virtual space of the Internet and its users can be described as a third space, as described by Lefebvre, Foucault and Soja. Virtual space is a space that is lived by its users, it is material and real, and yet it does offer a challenge to the imagination. This virtual space is not out there for us to find, but it is constructed by technology and social practices in action.

Visual expressions of web pages What goes on at a company website? What are the expressions (cf. Deleuze and Guattari 1987; Massumi 2002) of nomadic organisations that we can find? I have chosen to take a look at an energy sector company, a company that I have visited for “real” on location in Europe. This time I choose to visit this company from the comfort of my temporary office at Stanford and through my own laptop. In contemporary society the circulation of signs, symbols and images is significant (Baudrillard 1981/2000; Lash and Urry 1994) and it is made even more effective by the Internet. Web pages are flexible as they can easily be changed and remade daily. The web is accessible to both members and non-members of an organisation; this will have implica-

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tions on how the pages are designed. There is a huge flow of images on the web, which is why I have taken images in particular into consideration. What are web pages for corporations? Many regard the Internet as another medium through which corporate communication can be distributed. As such the Internet is a tool for marketing and public relations. The message can reach numerous people, but the audience cannot be foreseen. The website can be constructed to inform shareholders, existing and potential new customers, as well as employees. But this kind of approach requires a belief in communication and the relationship between the subject and object of communication. This assumes content, an objective existence prior and exterior to the form of its expression, which enables communication. It assumes a world of already-defined things that can be mirrored (Massumi 2002). This view is not what I have in mind. The Internet and the website can also be the store of the company, the service counter and marketplace where products and services are bought and sold. The website is also an extension of the organisation, a new space to construct, govern and control. The website expresses another face of the organisation, a face that can be seen by anyone, both inside and outside of the organisation. It is a way to enter the organisation, but a space that is controlled by the organisation. So picture it: October 7, 2002 on the World Wide Web at http://www. unionfenosa.com at 1:28 pm GTM-8. Arriving at Unión Fenosa I see Spanish texts and three photographs, a map of the world and four iconic images. Below the logo of the company the following text appears: “una pequeña ayuda para un mundo casi perfecto”, which in the English version of the homepage has been translated to “a helping hand in a near perfect world”. The first photograph is of a small black girl dressed in a school uniform. She has a light blue shirt and a vest in a darker shade of blue and she appears to be at school, writing. Next to her a small black boy, dressed in similar clothing, is also writing in what appears to be a notebook. I cannot see the faces of the children completely, which leaves me with the impression that they are not important. Instead they function as signs for solidarity and charity. They could be anyone in need of charity. The children in the image are constructed as different from the organisation. They are not included, the organisation is in opposition to the children, but the world in which the children live is still included within the interests of the organisation. Or this can also be seen as an example of how the dominant discourse appropriates the “difference” (Braidotti 2002). Yet, what I find intriguing is the map found on the left hand side of the screen below the logo. It is a map of the world made of blue and white stripes with Europe in the centre of the image, a Eurocentric view of the world. On this pale image some darker blue dots have been placed. Why is there a map on this homepage? The map does not indicate a home, a domi-

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cile, or a specific place in the “real world”, but a reference to global presence on different places in the world outside of the web. Liisa Malkki (1997) describes people as being “chronically mobile and routinely displaced” (Malkki 1997:52). Naturally this is not a new phenomenon, but as Malkki as an anthropologist states, anthropological research now includes studying “moving targets” and issues of boundaries and transgressions have become interesting and are seen in a new light. In her article, Malkki explores discourses of identity and territory and the ways in which refugees construct and remember particular places as places of origin and places called home. This cannot clearly be seen on this website, the organisation seems more displaced and nomadic. The space of the Internet does not pose any boundaries, limitations or expectations, thus the homepage is an open space in which the organisation can express itself in many different ways. The organisation has power; it is in control of the space it has constructed for itself on the web (see e.g. Sassen 1999). The corporation can also limit this space for the exclusive few. Some parts of the website might only be open to key customers, who enter this exclusive space, protected by firewalls by using passwords and access codes. Thus the same organisation can occupy different physical spaces on the Internet. The energy sector companies that I study do not at present have any e-business platforms, but rely on their traditional businesses of trading in energy, gas or oil and their assets in the power business. I revisit Unión Fenosa on May 28, 2003, but this time I am sitting in my bedroom at home, using a slow modem connection which irritates me tremendously. Unión Fenosa has maintained the main layout of the site with the map on the left hand side. But the pictures relating to social responsibility have been replaced by that of a smiling middle-aged man, in a male pose, one that emphasises masculinity, a picture that is probably depicting the CEO. The text by the photograph is a link to the first quarter results of the group. This picture of the organisation places it in a different context and discourse, and a different space. Where did the organisation with a social responsibility agenda and concern for the environment disappear? Instead a masculine pose has appeared, symbolising power, wealth and the rationale of the global energy business. The homepages I visited show the simulation, complexity, and spatiality of the Internet (Crang et al. 1999). My reading of the web pages does not take place in isolation from other texts and images, both on the Internet and outside. In any interpretation intertextuality becomes a key issue. Based on Fredric Jameson, Morley and Robins (1995) the globalisation of flows of images and spaces has transformed spatiality in such a way that these spaces have become something in which one cannot position oneself. What would this imply for organisations? Thrift (1996) describes societies, and organisations, as spatially and temporally extensive networks of practices, where 169

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objects and technology are active presences in these networks. Perhaps the Internet is in fact a space in which an organisation can try to position itself in many different ways, in ways that are not possible elsewhere.

Conclusion Travelling has changed, says Serres, we move without taking a single step. “L’être là s’expanse.” (Serres 1996:12) The “global” and “virtual” world of the Internet co-exists with the “local” world of the office. Different notions of space are being constructed simultaneously as I browse the pages of the Internet. This global and local, material and imagined space that is constructed is a vulnerable one. The failure of the material network, the computer network or phone line through which the global images and I are connected, reveal the existence of a key actor in construction of this space, and reveal the materiality of this space (Law and Hetherington 1999). This space is also social as it would not exist without the interaction of my computer and myself. And therefore it is also a lived space. The imagined is to me conveyed through the intertextual nature of my interaction with the web. So through my computer I take a step into the organisations I study. A step into a different space than when I step through the main door at a skyscraper in Houston, Texas, but I travel in space just the same, constructing it as I move. And as argued in this chapter, this distance travelled is not a virtual or imagined distance, but an embodied, social experience. Similarly Burrell and Dale (2003) argue that physical structures such as corporate buildings and factories are not a shell within which social life goes on. Instead, they show in their article “the multitude of ways in which architecture and space contribute to producing organisational and organised subjectivities” (Burrell and Dale 2003:179–180). The material is here again intertwined with social practices and embodied experience. The multiple and changing expressions of organisations on the Internet discussed in this chapter are an attempt to discuss the nomadic (Braidotti 1994, 2002) and the performative nature (cf. Butler 1990) of organisations and spaces. Organisations and spaces are performed in and through the Internet, and in particular in this chapter, in and through the World Wide Web. Reading Lefebvre and Foucault poses the question of whether these spaces are social spaces, lived, real and imagined. These other spaces are not unproblematic and many new questions arise. On the Internet firms are expressing the space they themselves occupy as well as the market in which they interact. Where does the nomadic organisation render its subjectivity? Are its actions judged differently in the different spaces that it constructs? What are the implications of road maps and signs for finding your way in these spaces? The website is not a mirror of a real organisation out there in

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the real world, nor is it a representation (Hall 1997) or presentation of one (Thrift 1996). But it is still a visual and textual practice that makes references to other texts outside its boundaries, references that constitute the real nature of the Internet while at the same time maintaining the imaginary and virtual state of the same. The changing expressions of the organisational web pages and the viewer of these pages co-construct different spaces or different places, where a nomadic organisation can settle for a while. But the next day they will be somewhere completely different. Organisational web pages offer the possibility to construct difference both between organisations and within (Braidotti 1994). Yet the organisation does not express the system; it is an expression of the system (Massumi 2002).

References Adam, Barbara (1998). Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards. London and New York: Routledge. Baudrillard, Jean (1981/2000). The Ideological Genesis of Needs. In Juliet B. Schor and Douglas B. Holt (Eds.) The Consumer Society Reader, 57–80. New York: The New Press. Bingham, Nick & Nigel Thrift (2000). Some Instruction for Travellers: The Geography of Bruno Latour and Michel Serres. In Mike Crang and Nigel Thrift (Eds.) (2000), Thinking Space, 281–301. London and New York: Routledge. Braidotti, Rosi (1994). Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Braidotti, Rosi (2002). Identity, Subjectivity and Difference: A Critical Genealogy. In Gabrielle Griffin, & Rosi Braidotti (Eds.) Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women’s Studies, 158–180. London and New York: Zed Books. Burrell, Gibson & Karen Dale (2003). Building Better Worlds?: Architecture and Critical Management Studies. In Mats Alvesson & Hugh Wilmott (Eds.) Studying Management Critically, 177–196. Sage Publications: London. Butler, Judith (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Crang, Mike, Phil Crang & Jon May (Eds.) (1999). Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations. London: Routledge. Crang, Mike and Nigel Thrift (2000b). Introduction. In Mike Crang and Nigel Thrift (Eds.) Thinking Space, 1–30. London and New York: Routledge. Cubitt, Sean (1998). Digital Aesthetics. London: Sage Publications. Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattari (1987). A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Foucault, Michel (1966/1994). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, Michel (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane.

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Foucault, Michel (1984). Of Other Spaces. Translated by Jay Miskowiec. http://Foucault.info/documents/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html, accessed April 22, 2003. Hall, Stuart (Ed.) (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications. Haraway, Donna J. (1991). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. In Donna J. Haraway (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 183–201. New York: Routledge. Harvey, David (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Lash, Scott & John Urry (1994). Economies of Signs and Spaces. London: Sage Publications. Latour, Bruno (1997). Trains of thought. Piaget, formalism and the fifth dimension. Common Knowledge, 6 (3): 170–191. Law, John (2002). Objects and Spaces. Theory, Culture & Society, 19 (5): 91–105. Law, John & Kevin Hetherington (1999). Materialities, Spatialities, Globalities. Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. http:\\www.comp.lanc.ac.uk/sociology/sco029jl.html. Lefebvre, Henri (1974/1991). The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Lempiäinen, Kirsti (2000). Rosi Braidotti – nomadisen naissubjektiuden visioija. [Rosi Braidotti – visionary of a nomadic female subject]. In Anneli Anttonen, Kirsti Lempiäinen & Marianne Liljeström (Eds.) Feministejä: aikamme ajattelijoita. [Feminists: thinkers of our time]. Tampere: Vastapaino. Malkki, Liisa H. (1997). National geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees. In Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Eds.) Culture, Power, Place. Explorations in Critical Anthropology, 52–74. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Massumi, Brian (2002). Introduction. In Brian Massumi (Ed.) Shock to Thought, Expressions After Deleuze and Guattari, xiii–xxxix. London: Routledge. May, Jon and Nigel Thrift (Eds.) (2001). TimeSpace: Geographies of Temporality. London: Routledge. Merrifield, Andy (2000). Henri Lefebvre: A socialist in space. In Mike Crang and Nigel Thrift (Eds.) Thinking Space, 167–182. London and New York: Routledge. Miller, Daniel and Don Slater (2000). The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford and New York: Berg. Morley, David & Kevin Robins (1995). Spaces of Identities: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. London: Routledge. Sassen, Saskia (1999). Digital networks and power. In Mike Featherstone & Scott Lash (Eds.) Spaces of Culture: City-Nation-World, 49–63. London: Sage Publications. Serres, Michel (1996). Atlas. Paris: Flammarion. Soja, Edward W. (1989). Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London, New York: Verso. Soja, Edward W. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-andImagined Places. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishers.

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Stein, Jeremy (1999). The telephone: its social shaping and public negotiation in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London. In Mike Crang, Phil Crang and Jon May (Eds.) Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations, 44–62. London: Routledge. Styhre, Alexander (2003). Nomadorganisationer [Nomadic organizations]. In Daniel Eriksson (Ed.) Det oavsedda ledarskapet. [The unintended leadership]. Lund: Academia Adacta. Thrift, Nigel (1996). Spatial Formations. London: Sage Publications. Thu Nguyen, Dan and Jon Alexander (1996). The coming of cyberspacetime and the end of the polity. In Rob Shields (Ed.) Cultures of Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies, 99–124. London: Sage Publications.

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Chapter 11

Electronic Stepping Stones: a Mosaic Metaphor for the Production and Re-distribution of Communicative Skill in an Electronic Mode Stephen Little and Margaret Grieco

Introduction Our purpose in this short chapter is to draw attention to the creative flexibility provided by the new technical forms of communication. Our use of the metaphor of mosaic is governed by the wish to draw attention to the relevance of each and every unit of creativity or patterning – the tile – available through the World Wide Web. Each web author places their “tile” in a space wherein the dimensions are beyond their control. “Tiles” lying adjacent to one another on a search engine at one point will be open to a fundamental separation from one another at a different point in time. Spaces, and informational adjacencies, are subject to constant revisions of the kaleidoscope. And yet, constant alertness and fine tuning can bring these segregating patterns into adjacency again: shadowing the action of others and shaping their own “tiles” to achieve adjacencies to the desired target is also a pattern repeatedly found in the use of the web by progressive social movements. The shape of the new knowledge mosaic is constantly shifting but the mosaic provides electronic stepping-stones that continue to ensure the importance of “strategy” in communication.

Communicative skill in a globalised discourse We come to this chapter with a discussion of distributed or globalised discourse and with an inquiry and interrogation of the place of communicative skill within that discourse. We examine the role of information and communication technologies in enabling the close management of distributed 174

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resources and distributed action: real time global monitoring of distributed activity transforms traditional principal/agent relationships. The remote is directly monitorable: this real time remote control of distributed resources is a new institutional competence. Similarly the remote is able to monitor the centre: the traditional panoptic relationship is reversed. The remote is not simply able to shadow and monitor the centre and the leadership that has historically been situated there – power is locational – but also to globalise its record of leadership’s activity and its interactivity with the remote. Historically, discourse was situated in local relations of power and such local relations of power necessarily distorted voice and record (Habermas 1987): the advent of a global discourse form which is situated outside local relations of power invites a revisiting of old theories.

Redressing remoteness: re-tiling reality The advent of distributed information communication technologies (Holmes et al. 2002) has transformed the visibility of remote locations. Historically, the struggle of Vincent Lingiari1, the leader of a remote Aboriginal community who led a boycott of the British owned cattle station that occupied aboriginal land, went unreported for many months – a situation which was common for “marginal” news before the arrival of the World Wide Web. The Central Land Council2, the representative body for the Aboriginal communities in that same area now has its own web presence (Freire 1972), as does ATSIC3 – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission – at least for the moment, until government shortly abolishes it. Lingiari’s struggle is immortalised in song4, and in continuing online activity.5 The Tanami network has harnessed state-of-the-art satellite technology6 in support of traditional social practice, while the Outback Digital Network7 aims for sustainable communication infrastructure within remote communities (Morrison 2000). The ability of small communities to author and globalise their own news changes the shape of the historical mosaic of communication. This competence is founded in the electronic stepping-stones which miniaturised technology and reduced the cost of the technology for transmission and recep1 2 3 4 5 6 7

And now has a constituency of the Australian Federal Parliament named after him. http://www.clc.org.au/ http://www.atsic.gov.au/ http://www.crixa.com/muse/unionsong/u036.html http://www.lingiari.startyourweb.com/pages/91.html http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/mstories/mr200696.htm http://www.odn.net.au/

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tion – and most importantly interactivity – to the level of a household budget (Little 2004). Activists can now, in a much shorter time frame, achieve the visibility of location achieved by the Gurindji of Australia over months and years. For example, accounts of a police attack upon women workers occupying Brukman, an Argentinean clothing factory, have been rapidly disseminated as the Brukman Battle;8 the Columbia Report9 website gives global visibility to events in both government- and guerrilla-controlled remote locations while the Mexican Zapatista Movement’s astute use of web technology10 remains the defining example of grassroots globalised discourse. In both developed and developing economies, unions11 have adopted the electronic form, individually and collectively12 Greene and Hogan (2003), and Holmes and Grieco (2001) have described broader electronic political movements. Diasporic communities have been quick to seize the potential of electronic enabling technologies. Both the Baltic Republics13 and the West Indies furnish examples of the use of Internet technologies by groups and individuals14 to develop and conserve identity at a distance and to modify the standard tourist view.15 Producer associations (e.g. SEWA16 – the Self Employed Women’s Association) have appropriated these technologies, whether at the point of entry of the mobile phone17, financed by organisations such as the Grameen bank18, or at the direct level of website-based electronic exchange.19 The diaspora is reintegrated through electronic adjacencies no matter how frequently search engine adjustments to the knowledge base and knowledge adjacencies take place. The disappearance of one site and the emergence of another offering the same functional set of cultural goods, idioms and practices is a repeating feature of the electronic integration of the diaspora: what is certain is that the full range of cultural domains are ever present and readily accessible.

8

http://www.geocities.com/seumasach/Digital14.html http://www.colombiareport.org/index.htm 10 http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/zapsincyber.html 11 http://www.geocities.com/unionsonline/ 12 http://www.labournet.net/default.asp 13 http://www.ee/www/welcome.html 14 http://www.geocities.com/FashionAvenue/4440/ 15 http://www.virtualtourist.com/vt/aa3/?o=3 16 http://www.sewa.org/ 17 http://www.grameenphone.com/ 18 http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/ent/papers/grameen.htm 19 http://webusers.anet-chi.com/~midwest/ 9

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Social movements and the shadowing skill: big pharma and beyond The Internet has become a strong communication home for social movements who use this space to communicate with memberships both permanent and fleeting – “open source memberships” which mirror open source software – and to shadow strong societal interests with weak ethical values such as “big pharma”. This diffusion of skills and sensibilities along with the necessary access to infrastructure has allowed a reverse panopticon to be created, in which each “shadow” location can shadow the developments at the “centre” and can develop a tile of the mosaic with a character and capability set of its own that can be electronically inserted into the broader pattern. In order to ground this analysis we offer here examples of electronic shadowing strategies of a set of social movements and distributed organisations.

Trade Wars: the struggle between Big Pharma and social movements of the infected and affected. Big Pharma presents its own industry view20 online but campaign activists shadow these representations. Act Up21 represents the US AIDS activists who demonstrated physically against pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s, and continues to monitor events there. Archiving the struggle22 becomes possible, as does voicing debates from within the affected regions of Africa.23 An African Aids portal24 has been established with the sponsorship of the South African Government. The South African Treatment Action Campaign25 in turn targets government policies. Both rape crisis intervention26 and the responsibilities of employers27 for the well-being of their employees are the targets of other online campaigns. The Consumer Unity & Trust Society28, established in India in 1983 provides an analysis of the impact of forthcoming TRIPS agreements29 on the price and availability of drugs. The issue of the availability and cost of generic drugs is also represented

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

http://www.biospace.com/index.cfm http://www.actupny.org/ http://www.actupny.org/reports/milano.html http://www.afrol.com/Categories/Health/he_msindex.htm http://www.afroaidsinfo.org/DesktopServlet http://www.tac.org.za/ http://www.speakout.org.za/medical/main.html http://www.treat-your-workers.org/endorsements.html http://cuts.org/about.htm – CUTS http://cuts.org/1997-8.htm

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by the BUKO pharma campaign30 based in Germany. A major concession was won in April 2001, when pharmaceutical companies withdrew a court bid to stop South Africa from importing and producing cheap versions of patented AIDS drugs. On 13 October 2002 a television broadcast on the anti-depressant Seroxat31 used the BBC website to elicit responses to the programme from users of the drug. These are now incorporated into an article in the International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine available online in pdf format.32 A follow-up programme “Seroxat: e-mails from the edge”, broadcast on 11 May 2003 was promoted by the Seroxat Users Group website. By the second broadcast the British Medical Journal33 website was carrying an article attempting to broaden the issue to selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in general, as a class of drugs whose problems are outweighed by their benefits. The US-based Alliance for Human Research Protection34 takes a different view of patient experience.

War on Cancer: the global monitoring of the medical establishment by cancer campaigner Globally available information resources on cancer are now substantially developed. Different flavours of online cancer education and support are provided by government35 and through corporate sponsorship36, in this case from a company developing gene based37 cancer testing systems. Widely distributed resources are collated at the Life with Cancer38 site. The US corporate style is evident in the support site for pancreatic cancer and an empowerment approach, which is evident in the treatment proposed for breast and ovarian cancer.39

SARS: global tracking of the infected; global scrutiny of governance response The coordination of global response to disease is nowhere more evident than the highly distributed discourse around SARS. The CDC Atlanta40 and the

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

http://www.bukopharma.de/ http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/5111-006.htm http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/IJRSM-161-169.pdf http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/325/7369/910 http://www.researchprotection.org/infomail/1002/11.html http://www.cancerpage.com/ http://www.cervicalcancercampaign.org/home.htm http://www.digene.com/about.html http://www.lifewithcancer.org/Links2.htm http://www.facingourrisk.org/ http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/

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World Health Organisation41 provide information on the progress of SARS, along with a German language42 site. An overview of the threat and progress can be seen at the Globalchange43 site. Both the US Department of Defense Global emerging infections surveillance and response system44 and APEC45 websites provide monitoring. A world SARS map is available from maptell.com46 and the measures in place in Singapore47, India48, Taiwan49 and Australia50, for example, can be compared with those in your own country. The space, organisation and management of the disease’s treatment and containment can be monitored from any point. Grid computing is being utilised51, as with the SETI at Home52 distributed screen saver, to harness the spare capacity of networked PCs in the analysis of SARS data. On the negative side, SARS has already been used as cover for an Internet worm:53 A new computer worm, known as Coronex, takes advantage of public panic about the real life virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The mass-mailing Windows worm aims to persuade people to open an attachment offering details on the current SARS epidemic. If opened the worm forwards itself to all contacts in the Outlook address book. The rapid increase in the demand for body scanning technology to detect SARS at airports and in other key locations has resulted in a manufacturer, deluged with enquiries about their infrared scanning equipment, for this purpose inserting an information box on the technology on their website.54 Although this section has focused upon the shadowing of organisations and institutions by social movements and the unwilling capture of identity that this web-based process now permits, this unwilling capture of identity also takes place at the level of the individual and private social group.

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

http://www.who.int/csr/sars/en/ http://www.pneumokokken.info/index.htm?/sars.htm http://www.globalchange.com/sars.htm http://www.geis.ha.osd.mil/ http://depts.washington.edu/apecein/ _ Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation http://www.maptell.com/maps/webmap/world/worldsars.htm http://www.gov.sg/ http://www.icmr.nic.in/home.htm http://www.gov.tw/ENGLISH/ http://www.health.gov.au/sars/index.htm http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,58678,00.html http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/security_sources_article-7162.html http://www.programmerwerks.com/

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Rearranged relationships: creative flexibility The advent of SARS – the disease – and the public search for information on that disease from all perspectives and all locations has a consequence for the communication strategies of those organisations which simply share the same initials. No doubt the South African Revenue Service and the UK Safety and Reliability Society are seeing an increase of Internet hits on their sites and will have to develop and adjust their web appearance in order to reduce the unwanted traffic. Even in this simple, if tragic example, we see the importance of creative flexibility for the rearrangement of adjacencies and knowledge relationships in a world of rapidly globalised events and processes. The directness of communication and the randomness of much of the new communication adjacencies remove the historical buffers – the loose couplings – that permitted a tighter control over the management of self-presentation. The determination of image and identity is now more widely spread in its authorship: the resources of the traditional press are no longer the critical elements in the shaping of public form and face but are matched and often overtaken by the interactivity and “mass” gossip of the World Wide Web. Creative flexibility is required in the rebutting and re-shaping of negative images by those who stand to lose on the public display screen. Text and images and video clips are harnessed in the recontextualisation (Metz 1996) of the damaging: similarly, those communities who have historically been negatively portrayed harness the technology en masse to recontextualise their own histories and space in place, organisation and management. History is rewritten, past steps are recalled and distributed archives form new territory on the globalised kaleidoscope.

Conclusion: Keeping pace – a challenge to communicative skill Perhaps the clearest example of the need to keep pace with a changing mosaic and a global constituency of skilled communicators is to be found in the war on terrorism. Post 9/11 the self-declared opponents of American ascendancy have used the full range of new information communication technologies to lay a distinct and deliberate challenge at the door of America’s ability to suppress alternative identity and alternative hegemonies. The War on Terrorism is, at base, a war of information tracking, control and meta-governance and, indeed, the most high profile information tracking, control and meta-governance arrangements are found in the War on Terrorism. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United

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States55 maintains a website and both the CIA56 and the FBI views57 are readily available. However, these are countered by expressions of concern over the widening of definitions of “terrorism”.58 The emergence of the al Jazeera news network has led to the provision of an English language version of their website, which provides a contrast to the perspective provided by Western media. Elsewhere a software solution to the problem of compliance with government surveillance requirements around the Patriot Act is on offer. The Dangerous Citizen59 website quotes Section 10760 of the US Copyright Law in support of the use of copyright material in a not-for-profit context. The Global Policy Forum61 and the Institute for Public Accuracy62 attempt to redress the mainstream media’s treatment of government assertions. George Washington University offers an online archive63 of government documents obtained under Freedom of Information legislation. Our awareness of the need to keep pace has emerged out of our own online ontologies which are repeatedly and consistently transformed in the kaleidoscope by the action of others – the daily taking down and putting up of new websites and links transforms our own positions in the new academy of knowledge. The routine of website housekeeping has become as strong a discipline as ever the rules of a particular journal constituted. Space, organisation and management are no longer simply in the shadows.

References Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Translated (from Portuguese) by Myra Bergman. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Greene, A. M. & J. Hogan (Eds.) (2003). Special Issue: E-collectivism and distributed discourse. Industrial Relations Journal, 34 (4), September. Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action, 2: Lifeworld and system. Cambridge: Polity Press. Holmes, L. & M. Grieco (2001). The power of transparency: the Internet, e-mail, and the Malaysian political crisis. Asia Pacific Business Review, 8 (2), Winter: 59–72. Holmes, L., D. M. Hosking & M. Grieco (2002). Organising in the information age. Ashgate. 55

http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/index.htm http://www.cia.gov/terrorism/ 57 http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/terrorism.htm 58 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/01/114450.php 59 http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/ 60http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/ 61 http://www.globalpolicy.org/ 62 http://www.accuracy.org/ 63 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ 56

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Little, S. E. (2004). Design and determination: the role of information technology in redressing regional inequities in the development process. Aldershot: Ashgate. Metz, E. (1996). Recontextualization as Socialization: Text and Pragmatics in the Law School Classroom. In M. Silverstein & G. Urban (Eds.) Natural Histories of Discourse, 229–249. Chicago: The Chicago University Press. Morrison, P. (2000). A pilot implementation of Internet access for remote Aboriginal communities in the “Top End” of Australia. Urban Studies, 37 (10): 1781–1792.

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Chapter 12

Trains, Planes, Billboards and People at Kastrup Airport Station: Branding a Territorial Transformation from ‘Local’ to ‘Global’ Søren Buhl Pedersen

If space is a product, our knowledge of it must be expected to reproduce and expound the process of production. The ‘object’ of interest must be expected to shift from things in space to the actual production of space. Lefebvre (1991:36–37)

Space and government: branding territory The Lefebvrian analytics of space focuses – as expressed in the quote above – on the production of space rather than space itself, i.e., on the range of structures that defines and identifies social processes as how we come to perceive them. In the present chapter this attention to production, to the play of forces relevant to the creation of social interaction and sensemaking, will be read as an emphasis on the importance of government and management. This may appear trivially true as a contribution to a book that focuses on this very relation of space and management, but in the Lefebvrian understanding of production the conceptual relation of management and the managed, of dominance and the dominated, is far from trivial. Arguably, a key element in the Lefebvrian contribution to social science consists in a wide-scoped ambition to question the preconception that all social interaction is governed by an apex, a central managing unit, that works as a predefined authority. Lefebvre suggests, as I will examine in the following, a conceptualisation of government as a process in which relations of power are constantly shifting. The conceptualisation of the production of space is driven by the ambi183

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tion to relate the abstract theory of power to a concrete problematisation of mundane experience. It strives, in other words, to relate concepts of government, domination and marginalisation to the concrete spaces in which we live. The Lefebvrian starting point produces questions such as: What is the history of production of the apparently inconspicuous spaces all around us? What does the casting of an extra, critical glance at the public spaces we pass through matter? Lefebvrian analysis invites us to question the public spaces in which we interact with the plurality of governmental forms. The chapter sets out to pursue this critical ambition by making its object the ubiquitous technology of branding (Lury 2003; Urry 1993). Branding, in its ambition to communicate through a vast scope of different media, is a key influence on the shaping of both concrete physical spaces and the less tangible mental space of thought, preference and taste. The chapter will focus on the branding of places, a relatively recent reflexive layer in the range of governmental technologies. Anybody passing through an urban landscape in the developed world is likely to be exposed to the manifest forms of the branding of places: the tunnels we drive through, the signs that direct us, the faucets we drink from, the recorded voices that speak to us in public spaces … All of it is branded, designed, orchestrated, strategised. It is deliberately made iconic as images that aim to attract our attention and produce our loyalty. Thoroughly designed space represents an invitation to question the significance and impact of expressing political intent in material forms. In the following I will turn to one such example, namely the Kastrup Copenhagen Airport Station. This Station can be observed as a representative case of a general political tendency whereby the locality of the regional area is turned into an asset on the global market.1 The station is a sign in the total communication of the ideas constituting the city, the nation and the region. It thus plays a part in the constitution of a new regional territory.2 The chapter will address the deliberate design of the station as expressing interests representing a broad range of ideas about the Øresund Region. The analysis will show how the station has been designed to produce images – to be co-produced and lived by its users – of the Øresund regional territory as a certain relation of locality and globality. The production of the regional image develops with it the production of an ethics of gender, ethnicity and welfare with wide-reaching implications. 1

The Øresund area has, during the last decades, been developed through an increasingly neoliberal political agenda. Jensen and Andersen call this tendency the politics of gambling (2002), summing up a range of projects funded through dual partnerships of private and public organizations. 2 The use of the notion of territory in the present chapter is inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s territoriality, meaning a play of forces forming a horizon of meaning as well as a material background for social life. Territorialization, thus, is the organization of space (cf. Deleuze and Guattari 1988: e.g. 323).

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The political ambition of putting the region on the map has grown out of the political contention that the fierce competition within Europe to attract tourism and investment requires extraordinary focus on promoting the locality. This new governmentality has yielded a number of projects within tourism, infrastructure and housing, all designed to increase the brand value of the region. The chapter argues for the theoretical construction of the branding of places by way of a relational understanding of “space”, with the aim of unfolding this theoretical perspective in an analysis of the Kastrup Airport Train Station. The station is chosen as an illustrative, albeit obviously not in any way conclusive, example of the strategy of place branding. I will argue that the history of production and manifest design of the station can be read as elements in a highly refined social technology. The station, in other words, is a concrete manifestation of a certain governmental rationality that pervades many of the different social and political projects constituting the development of the Øresund Region. The station is a design meant to govern by suggesting action as both patterns of movement and patterns of thought and identification.

Place-brands in a spatial perspective The theory and practice of branding has come to attract enormous attention in both research and business. From being about products, the discipline of designing the reputation and identity of things has developed into organisation, especially the issue of corporate identity, and, finally, it has influenced politics and the field of developing and marketing the complex social reality of places (e.g. Kearns and Philo 1993; Gold and Ward 1994; Langer 2001; Olins 2002). Strategies of place-branding have been evident in the case of the New Labour re-identification of Britain, in the identity-programs of former East Block countries, not to mention well-known cases such as the state of New York and the now, thanks to Guggenheim and Gehry, highly praised former industrial cities such as Bilbao. In the case of the Øresund Region the Copenhagen Airport plays a central role. The city of Copenhagen needs the airport in its effort to become an important city in an international perspective. The Danish State needs it to be able to handle and attract international attention and the municipality and city of Malmö subscribes to the airport because of the infrastructural centrality that Malmö Airport lacks. Alongside this cluster of public actors a range of private businesses depend on the airport to form part of an efficient system of transportation. So, a wide range of actors subscribes to the symbolic and practical importance of the Airport. All actors have participated in the political game of constructing the Airport and projecting meaning(s) on the building, performing a highly complex and heterogeneous process.

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The branding of places, a roughly uniform field of expertise, seems to make it apparent that neither product marketing nor organisational communication can be conceptualised in pristine isolation. With the proliferation of branding it has become clear that sociality can only be fully understood if the analyst regards the symbolic systems of economics, politics and culture as an interwoven context for organisation.3 Branding represents the conscious and systematic combination of a broad range of fields of expertise with the aim of being able to navigate on the markets of late capitalism. Place-branding consultancy combines political science, design, philosophy, history, economics, anthropology and much more to deliver its products (cf. Olins 2002; Anholt 2002; Pedersen, Tangkjær and Laursen 2003). In postmodern social science, the concept of “space” has been invoked to provide a holistic theoretical understanding of areas of expertise that transgress traditional boundaries (Soja 1989; Crang and Thrift 2000). Emerging from the interplay of sociology, philosophy and geography, the spatial perspective on social life can, in spite of its highly fragmented theoretical form4, serve as a way to tackle the challenge of place branding as object.

The double object of spatial analytics “Space” entails the possibility of thinking about branding as an organisational technology that transcends borders. First, it transcends traditionally segregated realms of politics, economy and culture, and secondly, it analyses what Lefebvre calls the dialectics of entities and concepts (1991:39). In other words, spatial analytics aim to deal with, on the one hand, the understanding of power within the conditions set by late capitalism and, on the other hand, the problem, too often ridden with dualist thinking, of identifying the object of social analysis. This breed of spatial theory aims to conceptualise sociality in a way better suited for the understanding of the so-called “new economy”. Authors like Nigel Thrift call for a new understanding of what space is and, in accordance with that, a new kind of map: “Instead of maps 3 Thrift defines this highly relational and non-compartmentalized notion of space as follows: “As with terms like ‘society’ and ‘nature’, space is not a commonsense external background to human and social action. Rather, it is the outcome of a series of highly problematic temporary settlements that divide and connect things up into different kinds of collectives which are slowly provided with the means which render them durable and sustainable” (Thrift 2003). 4 Within specific disciplines “space” has well-defined meanings: in mathematics, space is geometrical, poly-dimensional; in astrology space refers to the surroundings of Earth; in physical geography space is areal, a denominator of territory on any scale. What I suggest is to abandon any substantialist notion of space, i.e. any notion that involves thinking space as filled with something concrete, be it a vacuum, a geometrical quantity or just plain soil, in favour of a relational thinking. In relational thought, space is merely the medium of thinking relations without any connection preceding the construction of space in an analysis.

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of climate or characteristics like skull type, there would be major airports and educational systems” (2000:688). In other words, the new “soft capitalism”, “network society”, or whatever we prefer to label our current predicament, calls for a spatial conceptualisation with the necessary sensitivity to grasp the governmentality of spatial design. “Discourse” as object of analysis ceases to mean the way we talk and think. Rather, the manifest forms of power are the structures of mundane life. They are not restricted to the rituals of the privileged few or the practices of convicts, but rather manifest in material and symbolical surroundings that only rarely pop up in debates as critical and important public spaces. In the context of branding this points to the relevance of thinking about organisation in relation to a symbolic continuum spanning from the most minute detail of a building to the grandest governmental strategy of development and growth.5 Anything from airports to informational networks, collective knowledge to train stations, could find its way onto a map representing the relational concept of space. As I argued in the introduction, this symbolic continuum in social space of signs relating to other signs on other planes of significance is not restricted to any already designated locality. In other words, specific organisations or collectives occupying a particular territory cannot be fenced off as selfsufficient local spaces. Rather, social space continues and stretches out to be influenced by the whole space of the global.6 Following from this, territory takes shape as a dynamic, contested, relational issue rather than an invariable godsend. Thus, we approach a concept of organisation as prompted by the understanding of space: the conduct that organisations consist of, so to speak, is always orchestrated from and constructed relative to a symbolic field or plane of signs. The holistic character of social space is what Lefebvre believes will allow us to think of all artefacts, concepts and images as relative to a constructed “space”. This space makes up the condition of meaning within it: Social space is not a thing among other things, nor a product among other products: rather, it subsumes things produced. (…) there is nothing imagined, unreal or “ideal” about it as compared, for example, with science, representations, ideas or dreams. Itself the outcome of past actions, social space is what permits fresh actions to occur, while suggesting others and prohibiting yet others (Lefebvre 1991:73).

5

This wide-scoped analysis is, I will argue, especially relevant in the case of what Thrift calls “the space of place” (2003). “The place” is a construct based on collective imagery, interpreted subjectively in endless variation. 6 This potential expansivity and interrelated character of commercial signs carries theoretical potential to explain how brands become truly global phenomena. Brands, it seems, have a transversal potential: they can reach out and trespass their own limitations.

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In the understanding of government and management, the spatial perspective puts emphasis on how any spatio-physical representation forming part of governmental communication, however mundane and innocent it may appear, has a real power to organise collectives (cf. Lefebvre 1991; Debord 1994; Crang and Thrift 2002). In other words, the architectural design of physical buildings comes to play a role for how we think community and identity. The manifestation of physical space can be politically and managerially efficient in so far as it is able to support or alter the way we categorise and hence relate to other people, to ideas, to objects and other relevant phenomena (cf. Chia 1996). Imagery – physical space as well as its representations – becomes truly socially and organisationally relevant through its capacity to serve a collective subject’s practice of relating to itself. Within sociology and arts the concept of auto-communication is often employed to theorise this dynamic approach to communication (Lotman 2001; Christensen and Cheney 2002). If we use the above mentioned theory available in the traditions of political communication and branding (among which I consider architecture important) we get a grasp of the strategies of manipulating space that are employed in government. The aim of these strategies is often, as in the case of Øresund and the empirical cases mentioned above, to arrive at the institution of the idea that there is a “we”, suspended in time and space, corresponding to “the place”. This means that the spatial understanding of branding amounts to an understanding of how government actively suggests certain patterns of action, thought and identification, through the manipulation of the spaces we live in. This kind of power, immanent in Lefebvre’s concept of what space suggests and permits, is what Bourdieu calls symbolic power; the “inculcation” of concrete actions (Bourdieu 1998, 2000). Concretely this means understanding government as the design of technologies to suggest forms of action – such as the mundane activities of taking the train, taking a stroll through your city or eating lunch with your colleagues – and to legitimise these patterns of actions as lifestyles.7 The analytical tools of my analysis of the Train Station as part of this cluster of governmental technologies inherent in branding will be grounded in the spatial perspective outlined above. The analysis aims to understand a specific aspect of power and organisation, namely the relation between branding as a technology of government, the organisational effect of this technology and the communicational forms of manifest physical buildings that place-branding takes as its medium. Thus, the analysis emphasises the relation between the social and the design of physical space. My approach 7

Obviously this way of thinking government as a power that organizes, rather than a set of parliamentary and state institutions, is quite indebted to Foucault and the governmentalityconcept developed by, among others, Nikolas Rose.

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is essentially preoccupied with the performance of expressive signs in capitalist enterprise and governmental steering. This ambition is based on the idea of the cultural or expressive “explosion” in post-modern management studies (Jameson 1991:48): culture is everywhere; signs are everything. As the notion of “production” in Deleuze and Guattari aims to grasp, this seeing everything as signs entails the possibility of both domination – in regimes of signs – and emancipation – in lines of flight. The “explosion” of culture implies that the market and the political are now cultural or, to the extent that the distinction matters, symbolic (Bourdieu 1984) and, as Thrift (1998) and Rose (1998) emphasise, that knowledge, reflexivity, and the power of definition have become central to the understanding of the exercise of governmental power.

The traveller and the building as representation: analytical reflections I will invite the reader to step onto the Kastrup Station platform, see the station space and reflect on what it does to us as subjects on the platform. Before doing so, however, we need to consider the construction of this analysis keeping in mind the ambition to characterise the station as part of a branding strategy of a place; a governmental will to construct a particular image of the environment of the station.8 Concretely, following the conceptualisation of “space” lined out above, the analysis considers both the media we consider based on representations – the media of language and signs, be it in the form of language or visual images – and the non-representational “media” of physical space, conveying bodily intensities rather than messages. In the Station as an instance of place branding I will, however, confine myself to the media that mainstream architecture (albeit in my layman’s perception!) would define as relevant to characterise a building. This means that the analysis will focus on how the station building is designed in terms of materials, form, adornment and decoration, fittings (of furniture, light, etc.) and relation to the airport architecture in general. I will propose to read the station room through the eyes of a subject that, as a traveller, passes through the station. Rather than being a genuine, empirical, ethnologically constructed subject, this travelling “I” is the governmental approximation of the real traveller; it is the fiction of the traveller

8 This place, constructed from different elements, should not a priori be considered equivalent to either the existing city or nation. Its content should, rather, be kept open because the station as part of a branding process is essentially about constructing a new place that is perhaps like the pre-existing nation or city in some respects but which aims to contribute to their reconfiguration.

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inherent in the design. To construct the fictional traveller is, therefore, equivalent to asking for what sort of audience the station space is designed. The analysis becomes a species of virtual or fictional phenomenology, supposing an experiencing subject but focusing almost exclusively on the history of production of the space rather than any particular space from which the space as reality is experienced.9 What is empirically very real, on the other hand, are the strategies of the planners in charge of constructing and managing the station. Their deliberations serve to illustrate the plausibility of constructing the traveller as a form of subjectivity that is being transformed by the expansion of territory in the region. The planners seem to have a range of ideas about who the typical traveller, the target consumer of airport services, happens to be. The Airport has a strategy to become the preferred Scandinavian Airport for business travellers. However, a substantial number of real travellers are people going on holiday, creating a somewhat broader target group of travellers.10 The conception of the traveller within the railroad management is obviously broader still, even if the opening of the bridge has led to an emphasis on the traveller as somebody perhaps living in Sweden and working in Copenhagen. All in all, the governmental conceptions of the traveller range from the professional to the ordinary citizen with interests in international, regional and national issues. There is a certain amount of schizophrenia in the idea of the traveller, being both rooted in the local and the ever-expanding horizon of the global, both moving and standing still. The saturation and detail of the design-strategies making up the station seems to presuppose that the traveller somehow has the capacity to read all the significance that the planners lay down in the station. The traveller experiences the Station room as, on the one hand, a cluster of representations and on the other, a physical space that one’s whole body – rather than one’s visual and conceptual faculties – experiences. The traveller both lives and perceives the station and thereby interacts, following Lefebvre, with the level of conceived space (1991: e.g. 40). In the event of passing through the station, the traveller as lived experience is exposed to an orchestrated bombardment of ideology. The passing subject is always under the influence of the ideology invested in the design while at the same time, by participation, transforming that ideology in his or her always-active acts of passing. The act of passing, however, is complicated by the status of the Station as 9

The intention bears resemblance to the politically reflexive phenomenology of Bourdieu (cf. 2000:173), based on the contention that phenomenological observation far too often closes itself around the subject without allowing a politically relevant context to play a part. 10 The Annual Report of the Airport for 2003 indicates that the Airport aims to provide an experience of quality for all passengers. 40 % of the turnover of the Airport comes from parking, shops, restaurants, bars, lounges and other activities that, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with flying.

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image, as a prestigious and symbolically significant physical structure. “Passing” is not solely the act of walking through the actual space; it is also the experience of the Station as representation, whether as part of the marketing of the Airport or as a key locality in the imagery of regional territory. The Station is both functional space and image. It is an example of the sort of iconic structure that has become ubiquitously present in any urban landscape. Today, as Jameson considers in passing, a major consideration of architecture is to ensure that its products are fit for photographic representation: “I think it is an appetite for photography: What we want to consume today are not the buildings themselves …” (1991:99). Buildings need to make appealing representations, making it possible to pass through the station by other means than physical presence.

A room of flows … a train is an extraordinary bundle of relations, since it’s something through which one passes; it is also something by which one can pass from one point to another, and then it is something that passes by. Foucault (1994:178)

Figure 12.1. The Station. Notice the curve of the tracks and platform. The glass roof of the adjacent Terminal 3 is visible through the open ceiling. Source: VL Architects’ homepage.

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Passing through the Station When the traveller arrives at Copenhagen Airport on board a quietly humming electric train, whether crossing the Sound from Sweden or taking the fifteen-minute ride from Copenhagen Central Station, his or her stop is Kastrup Station. The platform is constructed just below and as an aesthetically integral part of the terminal for international traffic. The appearance of the station, however, strikes the traveller as a far cry from the proto-typical claustrophobic underground station.11 In contrast, The Kastrup Station is an airy, clean and light space, mainly due to the open roof that filters air and sunlight onto the platform. The station room is elegantly curved, the slanting shape seemingly adding momentum to the quiet movement of the trains. The walls and floors are covered in sand-coloured stone plates and the inventory is held in glass and brushed or black steel. There are no commercial billboards, no posters and no graffiti. All surfaces can be easily cleaned and security-cameras survey the whole room. Getting off the train the traveller can access the Airport in one, sweeping movement. S/he passes from the platform to the check-in desks and, through the same terminal, to the flights connecting the platform to the entire globe. If s/he makes the journey all the way from the train to the hatch of a plane, s/he moves through a space of transportation that gives the impression of minute planning. All furniture, signage and decoration are chosen by the airport and contracting designers to stress a continuity of expression of the honest, functionalist and simplistic luxury that dominates Scandinavian design. Light-toned wood dominates, corresponding in colour to the travertine stone on the walls of the station. To organise the continuity of expression, the Airport even has a strategy for buying and displaying art.12 This aesthetic continuity of expression is followed through in both official and commercial areas of the Airport. It is as if the station obliterates itself as space: it is designed to accelerate and process movement. The open roof combined with the curve of the rails draw lines out of the station; openings to peek through. Where the walls do seem solid there are large billboards with images, seemingly representing the outside world. In stark contrast to the image of a central station in modernity, this station does not halt movement. It is not the scene of mundane dramas of saying goodbye, but rather a space where movement has become commonplace. The exoticism of the train has vanished in favour of a business-like blasé concept of travel. The Station is a node in the regional network, the outcome of a political decision to build a new train station as part 11

For an example think of Heathrow, London. The airport has published a leaflet presenting this strategy and introducing the works of art in the airport building. The Annual Report of 2002 mentions this strategy as a question of providing an experience of quality of shopping, design and exposed art for all passengers.

12

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of the infrastructure adjacent to the Øresund Bridge. In 1991, The Danish State set up the organisation A/S Øresund, a subsidiary of Sund and Bælt Holding13, to oversee the construction and management of both the Øresund Bridge and the station.14 Thus, the Station is the outcome of a historical process of political decision-making and negotiation of states and cities, of public and private organisations. From the station the traveller can catch trains going east, towards Malmö, and west, towards Copenhagen City. These lines of communication are represented on the maps of the railroad infrastructure on display on the platform. Thus, the network expands further and further to localities in the entire Scandinavian region.15 This two-way flux from local to global reinforces the notion of the station as a connection, an open space. The platform seems designed to install, by its representational power, a mental map in the traveller’s mind of the region as a network of localities that allow the traveller to pass effortlessly from one place to another. In this symbolic openness lies, I will argue, the central symbolic importance of the Station as part of the regional brand. The Station is arguably as important as the physically more impressive Øresund Bridge. The traveller, of course, may not be aware of all this. But that does not exclude us from arguing that, as a technology of government, the station forms part of a push to gradually alter the conception of space and the affects that come to be associated with the idea of the region among travellers. The subterranean station with its glass ceilings and polished-steel benches is welcoming and stylish, functional and in perfect harmony with the hightech architecture of the newly built Airport Terminal. But the Station accelerates the flow of travellers rather than inviting them to stay. It appears to be a passage, a room of transit; a smooth space designed to reduce the frictions and restrictions of travelling. The benches and leaning-railings are designed to provide provisional resting-places, not to sit for any length of time.16 There is nothing to do but long to move on. The only obstacles to this passage are the passport- and hand-baggage controls set up to manage 13 This relationship is highly opaque and involves sub-contracting of maintenance, ticketing and such, to other state and semi-state organizations. 14 It should be stressed, however, that the use of stocks to finance A/S Øresundsforbindelsen gave the management of this organization and its subsidiaries a lot of freedom from direct political influence, compared to a purely tax-financed construction (Personal communication, Laust Ladefoged, former director of Sund & Bælt, 2002.12.18). 15 A key initiative in the accomplishment of a still finer and more complex infrastructural system is the Copenhagen Metro. A line connecting the Airport to the city centre by way of local stops will open in the year 2007. 16 The benches and railings are designed specifically for the airport. The benches do not allow for people’s lying down on them.

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migration and security. The impression of a flowing passage from station to gate is no coincidence. The train station is projected and presented, both aesthetically and functionally, as an integral part of the new Terminal 3 of the airport. As such, the train station is the element that can unite the dual strategy of increasing both the international importance of Kastrup Airport and the accessibility of the localities adjoining the Airport. The unison of these strategies is achieved by making the station as little frictional as possible, thus making the flow from the local and regional to the global as smooth as possible.17 The station, however, stands out relative to the adjacent stations on the line. The traveller will notice that the neighbouring stations appear drab in comparison. The Kastrup Station thus gives the impression of an aesthetic break, a development relative to the aesthetic norm. This notion is sustained by the fact that while the station can be seen as a continuation of the preoccupation with design expressed in the Airport at large, the Terminal 3 is markedly different, both in terms of design and, most obviously, in being built at a ninety degree angle relative to the outline of the original airport terminals.18

Architects and engineers The station as the traveller’s first image is the result of careful planning carried out by a mix of public and private organisations in a political interplay. In other words, the station is an orchestrated welcoming of the thousands of travellers arriving every day.19 The design relies heavily on branding expertise. Above all, architects have played a decisive role in the construction process. The continuity between Station and Airport Terminal has been achieved by engaging the architectural firm Vilhelm Lauritzen A/S to design both the terminal and the station, and by making the continuity of the two a key feature of the enterprise.20 Vilhelm Lauritzen partner and project man17

The impression of aesthetic clarity and the reading of the station as a space that supports the flow of the airport are contested by architects. An example is that, according to critics, the fact that Terminal 3 is not in linear sequence with the other terminals spoils the organizational concept of the airport (Arkitektur DK, 1/1999). 18 The architectural value of this choice of building the station at an angle has been debated (Arkitektur DK, 1/1999). 19 The ambition of making the welcoming of people a conscious strategy is, not too surprisingly, one of branding-advisor Leonard’s key recommendations for Britain to develop a new identity: “We should capitalize … by … redesigning airports and stations … to provide visitors with a stunning welcome” (Leonard 1997:11). 20 The Copenhagen-based architects Vilhelm Lauritzen A/S finished the station in September 1998 as part of their design of the whole Terminal 3 of the airport. Vilhelm Lauritzen also designed other parts of Kastrup Airport.

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ager of the station-project, Jens Ammundsen21, describes the project as driven by the intention to create a welcoming space communicating a heavy emphasis on the importance of architecture and design. According to former director Ladefoged, the idea of directing the expressive force of the station at those travelling as a welcome emerged from the co-operation with the architects: “They helped define what sort of station this was and what is typical for such stations.”22 The architects were, in other words, pivotal in refining the expression of the station. Without their co-operation the engineers dominating the management in A/S Øresundsforbindelsen would, according to Ladefoged, probably have chosen a different solution. Most remarkably, the architects have categorised the station as a central place in the regional space, and opted to mark this difference relative to the neighbouring stations. Ole Christensen of the project-owner Sund and Bælt supports the idea that the architectural design should provide a welcome to travellers. The station, explains Christensen, was meant to give the impression of arriving at a place of high quality in design. Because of its centrality in the region, it was, during the phase of planning, considered important to construct the station with a high standard of quality in materials and design. This intention was already an issue in the legislative work preceding the decision to formalise the station in a State law. The intention was, says Christensen, to be “strict in the choice of high quality materials and apt practical solutions”.23 This stringency of the design of the building is an inherent value in the architectural philosophy of Copenhagen Airport A/S.24 The airport has persistently chosen Vilhelm Lauritzen for most improvements and new constructions of the airport and insisted on using state-of-the-art solutions, genuine quality materials in all solutions, and decorating the Airport with artwork wherever plausible.25 This philosophy of the Airport came to dominate the station as well, explains former director Laust Ladefoged, as the intention was to create a continuity of aesthetic expression from the platform throughout the airport. From this preliminary history of the station-as-image we can see the outline of the political rationality expressed in the station. It emphasises a new conceptualisation of territory (stretched out and transcending beyond the traditional borders) and values of connectivity and flow. This political rationality is the result of the co-operation between the architect and the public organisation owning the project and thus representing the Danish

21 22 23 24 25

Personal communication, 2002.09.05. Personal communication 2002.12.18. Personal communication, November 2002. Annual Report, Cph Airport 2002. See presentation of new wing, Copenhagen Airport, 2000.

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State in the partnership behind the station. This co-operation has established the seeming immanence of the political rationality in the way the actors describe the project and suggests that it has been the architects that have provided the link between political ideology and manifest building.

The billboards: two sets of photographic images During transfer to and from the flights the traveller on the platform passes a row of black and white billboards. They dominate the room as the only visual images on the otherwise bare walls. The discrete black- and brushedsteel furniture and lamps on the platform emphasise the visual impact of the billboards. In a closer look, the traveller notices that the images lack the commercial pay-offs and slogans that habitually sustain the visual noise of public spaces. With this lack of brand names the billboards surprise the traveller who is accustomed to the flickering impression of commercial messages. After all, we rarely see artwork on billboards. If the traveller takes the time to ponder this, s/he may ask himself where these images come from. What affects are they designed to produce? What is their history of production? As it turns out, the images on the platform are neither ads nor art in the conventional sense of the word. They are integral parts of the architectural design. The billboards are perforated steel plates covering a mat of insulation that reduces noise on the platform. The idea of the architects was that the images on the boards should be replaced at two-year intervals. This would add to the buildings’ continual renewal and was intended to be part of the maintenance, consulted by the architects. The first two years – 1998–2000 – the images were art photographs, sponsored by a Danish telecommunications company. Both architects and planners were rather satisfied with these images, above all because they added aesthetic value to the Station. When the original images needed changing for a new two-year interval, the owner of the station, A/S Øresundsforbindelsen, installed new images, made by corporate designers Bysted HQ. What happened with the introduction of the subsequent series was, effectively, an intensification of the governmental ideology on display. From the traveller’s point of view the replacement of the images might be irrelevant – after all, the original images are gone now – but the history of the swap illustrates what can happen in the continual maintenance of buildings. In this case, as already mentioned, it arguably meant a reinforcement of the politicisation of the Station. The original images on the billboards were photographs by the Danish photographer Viggo Rivad. The series on display was called “Man”. It comprised 16 black-and-white photos of daily life. There were public settings: a woman on a street, a couple in the rain, and children on a platform under

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the dome of a train station. And there were close-ups: the leathery, idle hands of an older worker, a couple embracing, and the smile of a child. The photos were, significantly, shot at different locations around the world. The accompanying text by the Director of A/S Øresundsforbindelsen presented the photographs as follows: “Man is in constant movement. From one place to another on the map or from one determining event in life to the next… The photos welcome the thousands of travelers who’ll use the trains to and from the airport…” (From booklet, Vilhelm Lauritzen). Thus, the images were linked to an idea of movement in and out of the region. The idea of “the national”, the traditional imagery associated with airports, was made relative with the use of these images. For the traveller, the sensation of place was transformed from the once stable “national” to the more volatile “global”. Furthermore, the photos established an aesthetic relation between the idea of a new, open space – the regional space, defined by its proximity and accessibility to the global – and the symbolic regime of humanity. The Rivad series underlined two dimensions in the expression of the station: first, the intention to use art in the Station room, thereby connecting it thematically to the rest of the Airport, and, secondly, the idea that the Station is at one and the same time local, regional and international.26 The images were chosen, apart from being just beautiful photos, to express an international atmosphere, stressing that the station is a link between “the local” and “the international”. The second series, replacing Rivad’s photos, on display as these lines are written, is at first glance similar, yet under scrutiny it can be seen to be quite different. The primary difference lies in the intention of Sund and Bælt to sustain the idea of the Øresund Region through the choice of this new series of photos.27 Like the Rivad series the Bysted photos are black-and-white and depict people: a woman swimming under water, a couple sitting on the pier of a marina, a woman looking at bio-chemical samples and so on. But while the first series is political only by virtue of the justification of its use, the second series integrates the political symbolism in its form. In all Bysted’s photos the Øresund logo is an integral part of each photo, explicitly linking the station to the Øresund region. The skies of one photo and the bubbles escaping from the mouth of the swimming woman on another are shaped like the logo for the Region and the motives of the photos are reportedly from all around the region. Therefore, the images are not universally “human”, like we could argue about Rivad’s photos, but particular representations of the territory and visual identity of Øresund. The series is intended to communi26

Ladefoged, personal communication. Personal communication, Ole Christensen, Sund & Bælt. The Bysted photos were put up just a few weeks before the opening of the bridge to emphasize the new reality of the region.

27

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cate that in this place people have certain qualities. Look at the following examples from the second series, picked at random from the Station walls:

Figure 12.2.

This image shows the billboards on the platform. The image displayed here is a younger woman under water. The bubbles escaping from her mouth have the shape of the Øresund brand logo. There is no text on the billboard. The image, however, is placed directly under the sign with the name of the Station. Like the little cards accompanying paintings in a gallery, the sign associates the billboard with, first, the Airport and, secondly, the name and idea of Copenhagen. The spatial imagination of the traveller is stretched to associate the Station with its surroundings, placing the Airport in Copenhagen. The exhibition on the platform walls installs a sort of signifying chain where the billboards, the signage and the building itself are all representations intended, beside their informational function, to point outside the Station to different social bodies or collectives. The traveller is, at one and the same time, in Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup Station, and has a distinct experience of being in a passage, a zone of transit, between the connections offered by the Airport and the locality of the place. With the content of the billboard images the Station space communicates the association between where we are, what possibilities of movement that we have, and a certain lifestyle, apparently pertinent to the collectivity of the place. The second image shows a middle-aged woman examining a chemical sample of some sort, contained in a Petri dish. Her blond hair is cut rela198

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Figure 12.3.

tively short, her gaze concentrated and competent, yet pleasant, almost caring. The sample in the dish is shaped like the Øresund logo, just like the bubbles in the image above. The chemist, handling her samples with gentle care, wears protective glasses. She looks like an efficient professional who is preoccupied with the potential health risks at the work place. There is only a hint of a smile on her face, an expression stressing that what she does may well be responsible and humane, but still serious science. If we read the pictures as representations of life in the region, the intention of the sender is obvious: the images aim to communicate that life in the region is plural. There are representations of both work (the biochemist) and leisure (the swimmer). They are professional and liberated women. By looking like someone who has a family to come home to, the image of the chemist breaks with the stereotype of the profit seeking, male, one-dimensional scientist. To continue in the gender vein, neither of the women resembles the typical, strikingly beautiful model that we constantly encounter on billboards. Rather, these women could be anybody’s wife, sister or mother. Related to the Station as a chain of images, comprising the representational space of the Station, the two women suggest possible ways of seeing women. In other words, seen together they suggest that the traveller should reconsider his or her view of women. Thus, they suggest a certain yet not overly precise content of the idea of the feminine. In relation to the context of the station, the images fulfil a clearly aesthetic function: the frail colours of the platform are enforced and complemented by the black-and-white billboards. The lamps flanking the images on the wall almost give the impression that the traveller is in a stylish gallery rather than in the stone landscape of the public train station. So, both relationally and representationally, the images work to raise reflections on the values 199

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relating to the region and the aesthetics or the cultural capital, the taste, that the political will, the government, of the region would want be associated with. In terms of ethnicity it is impossible to distinguish between Swedes and Danes on the images, and the settings are impossible to place as either one or the other. This may puzzle the traveller who is aware of the fact that, in the past, advertisements had often made a point of showing Swedes and Danes to be different. This break with traditional representative forms opens Kastrup Airport as a node in a global network, transcending the national borders in a flux linking the local to the global. In other words, both Danes and Swedes are subsumed in the same representation. They virtually make up one collective subject. The traveller notices, however, that the two women – as all the people in the series – are Caucasian. There are no Kurds, no Pakistanis or Blacks, despite the fact that relatively large proportions of the metropolitan populations of Copenhagen and Malmö are immigrants. In this aspect, the images stand out as obviously and traditionally political: they relate the region to the specific ethnos of Scandinavia. Thus, the situation and the images may put us on a universal level of identification – most of the situations could unfold everywhere in the Western World – but the actors and the high-tech practices communicate a more particular reference to the idea of “Øresund”. Thus, the traveller is presented with a cluster of images, a “spectacle” (Debord) or a sort of “theatre” (Bourdieu) that shows him the range of collectives that the subjects of the region can choose to subscribe to. The images suggest a shift in loyalty from the national/local to the regional/global. By suggesting these versatile loyalties the station subscribes to and strengthens the ample ideology of Øresund. The spatial communication manifest in the Station draws from the beliefsystem of the general Øresund brand. The station, in the eyes of our historically informed traveller, produces a possible identity of the region and invites the identification of the traveller. The station is but one example of the general process of branding the region. With Rose, it is only one of the “multitude of points of intersection between practices of government” (1998:13), meaning technologies of design, organisation, administration and business in the regional space.

Conclusions: the Station in regional strategy The Station communicates both a form (the flow) and content (the values and characteristics of the billboards-people) of the regional identity. To the traveller, these elements of identity are mere suggestions. They are a kind of pastime while s/he waits for the train, a non-intrusive way of attracting attention in the passage of the Station. They are, however, not innocent,

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since they suggest a redefinition of territory and the way to think of the relationship between local and global. This suggestion downplays the role of the national; it relegates the nation to the status of host and to just one collective among many. Yet, even if the Station opens up the space of identification, it also fences it off in some respects. It depicts the inhabitants as ethnically Scandinavian and establishes mental categories for gender (i.e. how women are) and work (i.e. issues of environment). Thus, the Station questions instituted beliefs about the reality of national borders and defines the region as a passageway between local and global. This affect is produced by explicitly pointing outside itself to local, regional and global contexts. The national, in this respect, is only partially evident in the appearance of the people in the images. Now, it could sound as if all of this is clear to the traveller, as if the region represents a clear and consistent ideology in the material form of the Station. That is obviously far from the case. The Station as a cluster of representations suggests a diffuse understanding of the regional space, an understanding that is certainly open to a wide range of particular interpretations by travellers passing through. The traveller, as I touched upon above, is a composite and vague identity to the planners, and thus the images and spatial design are aimed at a broad audience. The Station space thus seems to be in accord with the processual and open qualities that the literature of spatial analysis ascribes to space: the myriad of possible readings of the Station only goes to show that the Station communicates broadly and aims to engage a range of different, yet uniform, uses. By this open, yet not politically neutral, character the station seems to exemplify how manifest, physical space has become a medium of the governmental branding of Øresund as place. The station has been designed as a sort of totem pole of regional organisation: it provides a welcome to the visitor and imagery for the construction of a regional identity, images that the collective subject of the region can communicate with to sustain the sensation of collectivity. This reading implies a certain understanding of how the Station allows for resistance and the ways it, correspondingly, allows the users to make the station their own.28 As a public space, and a highly inconspicuous one to say the least, the Station is too bland to raise any kind of organised resistance. As it is the case regarding the Øresund Region at large, the public has shown little to no interest. However, as I have shown, the Station is designed to prevent even small alterations: graffiti is discouraged and the design of the platform allows little variation of conduct. The traveller is basically left waiting for his or her train with the billboards as the only diversion. 28

I am indebted to Claire Pearson of Bristol University for the reflection on the significance of any possibility or actuality of resistance to the regime inherent in the design of the Station.

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If we follow the spatial perspective, focusing on how artefacts negotiate a horizon of meaning, and supply it with the concept of auto-communication suggested above, emphasising the means by which a subject relates to him or herself (cf. Lotman 2001), we begin to understand the station as an autocommunicative act. In this act the “regional subject”, a figment of governmental imagination, describes itself as a place in which women are emancipated and where science has a human face. It is a place where the borders between formerly separated territories are blurred. There are no apparent borders between Denmark and Sweden or between the localities and the global. The medium of this description is the Station. This “regional subject” becomes, paradoxically, a place that thinks. It becomes a space that can identify itself. When the traveller passes through the stations s/he experiences the speed of the frictionless space (“here is a train station that does not slow me down!”) and thus reinforces the image of the global as a flow, a dynamic relating to the other. In addition, the Station repeats and sustains the images of quality and artfulness dominating the adjacent Terminal 3. Besides re-configuring the notion of local and global spaces, the Station represents a break from the typical image of the station in modernity. Typically, stations have presented scenes of disruption and chaos. Think of steaming trains, pickpockets and the drama of goodbyes. Kastrup Station, on the contrary, is a space that expresses continuity and aims to produce enduring positive images in the mind of the visitor by sustaining the experience of quality from the Airport all the way through to the trains. The Station is a room pertaining distinctively to a time when travel is not something dramatic, not something out of the ordinary. Here, travel is something necessary and clinical. Trains only serve as transit means of arriving at the real starting point of travel: the planes. It is a space of flows designed to minimise hassle and obstruction of movement. Sounds are muffled by the ingenious design of the billboards. Yet, added to its functional quality the station is invested with a political dream of constructing a place. On the platform, the traveller meets the dream of the region as a place where national territory is transformed into territoriality as flowing connectivity, a place of functional beauty, a merger of soft values and hard science. This representation of the region produces, in short, a space where design rules and functionalism has a human face.

References Anholt, S. (2002). Foreword. Journal of Brand Management, 9 (4–5): 229–239. Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of resistance. Oxford: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Polity Press. Calhoun, C. (Ed.). (1994). Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Oxford & Cambridge: Blackwell.

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Chia, R. (2000). Discourse Analysis as Organizational Analysis. Organization, 7 (3): 513–518. Christensen, L. T. and G. Cheney (2002). Self-absorption and Self-Seduction in the Corporate Identity Game. In M. Schultz, M. J. Hatch & M. H. Larsen (Eds.) The Expressive Organization. Oxford: Oxford UP. Crang, M. and Thrift, N. (2000). Thinking Space. London: Routledge. Debord, G. (1994). The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G. & F. Guattari (1994). What is philosophy? London: Verso. Gold, J. R. & S. E. Ward (1994). Place Promotion. The Use of Publicity and Marketing to Sell Towns and Regions. Chichester: John Wiley and Son. Herod, A. & M. E. Wright (2002). Geographies of power: Placing scale. Malden/ Oxford: Blackwell. Kapferer, J. N. (1997). Strategic brand management. Milford: Kogan Page. Kearns, G. & C. Philo (1993). Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Klein, N. (2000). No Logo. London: Harper Collins. Klein, N. (2002). Fences and windows: Dispatches from the front lines of the globalization debate. Great Britain: HarperCollins. Kotler, P., D. H. Haider & I. Rein (1993). Marketing Places. New York: The Free Press. Langer, R. (2001). Place Images and Place Marketing. CCC Working Paper, 3. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Lotman, Y. M. (2001). Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. London/New York: I. B. Tauris. Lury, Celia (1993). Cultural Rights. London: Routledge. Olins, W. (1999). Trading Identities: Why Countries and Companies are taking on each other’s roles. London: The Foreign Policy Center. Olins, W. (2002). Branding the nation – the historical context. Journal of Brand Management, 9 (4/5): 241–248. Pedersen, Soeren, Christian Tangkjaer & Anders Linde Laursen (2003). Postkort og politisk strategi. Branding af nationen, regionen og byen. MPP working paper 4/2003, Copenhagen Business School. Rose, N. (1998). Inventing Our Selves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soja, E. (1989). Postmodern Geographies: The reassertion of space in critical social theory. London: Verso. Tangkjær, C. (2000). Åbent Hus – organiseringen omkring Øresundsregionen. København: Samfundslitteratur. Thrift, N. (1997). The rise of soft capitalism. In A. Herod, G. Ó Tuathail and S. M. Roberts (Eds.) Unruly world? Globalization, governance and geography, 25–71. London: Routledge. Thrift, N. (2000). Performing cultures in the new economy. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 90 (4): 674–692. Thrift, N. (2000). Still Life in Nearly Present Time: The Object of Nature. Body and Society 6 (3–4): 34–57. Urry, John (2003). Global Complexity. London: Polity Press. Zukin, Sharon (1992). Postmodern urban landscapes: mapping culture and power. In Lash, Scott & Jonathan Friedman (Eds.) Modernity and Identity 221–247. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Chapter 13

Design, but Align: the Role of Organisational Physical Space, Architecture and Design in Communicating Organisational Legitimacy W. Trexler Preoffitt Jr. and G. Lawrence Zahn

Introduction Organisational communication and organisational structure are both fundamental to organisational legitimacy. Yet few studies explore these two aspects simultaneously. We unite these distinct research areas with an exploration of the impact of the organisation’s physical, built, designed, and experienced spaces on organisational claims to legitimacy. The physical environment is an important but neglected aspect of organisational nonverbal communication, the messages conveyed without words through the arrangement and style of space and buildings. Most research treats structure and communication as separate fields of activities – on the one hand are studies of structural innovation, adoption and diffusion, while on the other, are studies of organisational communication, impression management, and claims making (e.g. Ashforth and Gibbs 1990). Research into how structure and claims interact to support legitimacy is relatively rare. This gap is understandable, given that the relationship is likely to be a complex dynamic between communication, action, structure, and interpretation in changing environmental contexts. In a review of legitimacy management, Suchman (1995) called for a broader conception of legitimacy-related communication to specifically incorporate nonverbal components: Like most cultural processes, legitimacy management rests heavily on communication – in this case, communication between the organisation and its various audiences (see e.g. Elsbach 1994; Ginzel, Kramer, and Sutton 1992). Significantly, however, this communication extends well beyond traditional

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discourse, to include a wide range of meaning-laden actions and nonverbal displays (p. 586, emphasis added).

In this chapter we take up this call to examine nonverbal displays. Nonverbal displays include the arrangement and design, and even location, of buildings and spaces within buildings, including furnishings, barriers, etc. Verbal messages include such things as annual reports, marketing communications, and recruiting materials. To do this, we synthesise theories of organisational structure and organisational communication to examine how strategic decisions about organisational physical space, architecture, and design (OPSAD) contribute to or detract from organisational legitimacy. We extend micro level interpersonal communication constructs to consider their impact on macro level organisational outcomes such as legitimacy. We treat organisational structure literally as a built structure, or other physical space, that is associated with the organisation, its real architecture, not architecture as metaphor in descriptions of organisational “structure”. Physical structure is at once a substantive form or practice as well as a nonverbal communicative act. Our general claim is that alignment of physical organisational spaces with other internal and external organisational messages produces greater credibility. To the extent that credibility aggregates to present an overall image of the organisation to internal and external constituencies, then alignment should enhance organisational legitimacy.

Defining organisational legitimacy Organisational legitimacy is “a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within socially constructed systems of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions” (Suchman 1995). This view has the advantage of being consistent with a political or strategic view of the organisation, in which organisational decision-makers intentionally manage their critical constituencies (e.g. Ashforth and Gibbs 1990; Perrow 1970; Pfeffer 1981). But it also allows the reciprocal dynamics of institutions, culture, and cultural beliefs to shape and constitute organisations without intentional decision-making (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Jepperson and Meyer 1991; Meyer and Rowan 1977; Swidler 1986). Legitimacy is a generalised social perception, incorporating three dimensions simultaneously: internal and external audiences, collective and individual actions and responses, and symbolic and literal actions and claims.1 The acquisition, maintenance, and repair of organisational legitimacy are core activities of any skilful managerial group. But such skills are not

1

See Suchman (1995) and Zucker (1987) for more thorough treatments of this distinction.

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straightforward. In fact, known problems of “protesting too much” suggest that legitimacy management is a difficult skill to master, requires ongoing attention, and depends to some degree on words being backed up with action (Ashforth and Gibbs 1990). The degree to which verbal claims and actions are “coupled” depends on multiple aspects of the context and the existing status of the organisation, creating the possibility for loose coupling in any given instance (Westphal and Zajac 1994). Nonetheless, most studies of organisational legitimacy imply that savvy managers, with forethought, attention, and sophistication, could adopt structures and practices, or communicate in such a way as to attain greater legitimacy (Ashforth and Gibbs 1990; Pfeffer 1981). Accordingly, we accept both the literal and symbolic views as mutually reinforcing for organisational legitimacy. Physical organisational spaces, as opposed to bureaucratic structures or practices, can be durable realisations of intent, conformity, or accident. Organisational practices are loosely coupled, often involving differences between intent, claims, and implementations (Meyer and Rowan 1977). Physical spaces, on the other hand, have a materiality and durability that while interpretable and subject to much claims-making, are more difficult to decouple from the organisation – they are the organisation as its members and stakeholders experience it. The communicative symbolic meaning of a physical space, not its substantive literal reality, is the attribute subject to many possible claims and interpretation. By their very nature, organisational spaces have to serve multiple legitimacy-related purposes depending on organisational demands and decisions. By attempting to clarify how alignment works in the case of OPSAD, with its relatively less ambiguous implementation but vast interpretive potential, we set forth a template for understanding legitimacy as it relates to organisational structures in the general case. This perspective hinges on three working hypotheses about OPSAD as an aspect of legitimacy-relevant messages: first, we assume that any legitimacy-relevant messages are multifaceted, with verbal and nonverbal components (Suchman 1995); second, recipients or constituencies can assess the degree of alignment among these verbal and nonverbal message components as well as the importance of consistency (Elsbach 1994); finally, the greater the perceived alignment, the greater the legitimacy of organisational claims and the greater the organisation’s overall legitimacy. Because organisations are loosely coupled, and follow routines and scripts to resolve conflict in various separate spheres of activity, disparities among communications can persist unnoticed (Ashforth and Fried 1988). In fact, even controversial or contradictory decisions can be aligned with claims and messages, increasing the legitimacy of those decisions (Elsbach and Sutton 1992). However, we argue that, at the extremes, alignment can enhance legitimacy and misalignment can create legitimacy problems. 206

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Direct and moderating effects of messages conveyed through OPSAD Prior work on organisational space treats OPSAD as both literal and symbolic, as having both direct and indirect consequences. After mapping these literatures in a framework that captures direct and moderating effects, we move to a consideration of the implications for organisational legitimacy. Table 13.1 captures two dimensions that help organise prior OPSAD work: the nature of the effects of physical space (direct/literal and interpreted/symbolic), and the nature of the constituencies or audiences affected by it (internal and external). We include both normative and empirical treatments to capture the range of arguments that are plausible in each of four Table 13.1. Direct and Moderated OPSAD Message Impact on Internal and External Audiences. Internal Audiences

External Audiences

Direct or Less Ambiguous Effects

Interpreted or Ambiguous Effects

Quadrant 1: Task Capabilities

Quadrant 2: Mission

Characterized by:

Characterized by:

1. Unambiguous space properties 2. Constant, predictable effects on individuals and groups

1. Links to explicit organizational goals 2. Interpretable design features

Prototypical Issues:

Prototypical Issues:

1. How do we enhance teamwork by redesigning this office space? 2. Will the employee stay with us longer if we provide them a nice separate office?

1. How do we foster an innovative organizational culture with design? 2. How do we signal egalitarian culture and decentralized autonomy with layout?

Quadrant 3: Organizational Capabilities

Quadrant 4: Values and Identity

Characterized by:

1. Subtle, interpretable design features and symbolism 2. Resonance with prevailing ideologies

1. Visible taken-for-granted design features 2. Universally recognized symbolism

Characterized by:

Prototypical Issues:

Prototypical Issues:

1. If we add an antenna, will our building then be the tallest in the world? 2. How can we signal that our firm is successful and a good investment? 3. Should we locate in a hightech corridor to signal our technology talents?

1. How do we convey our software company’s message of progress by renovating a vintage industrial factory? 2. How do we convey authenticity in today’s climate of mass market?

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combinations. Of course, the dimensions are more continuous in reality than represented here. However, one reason that these arguments have not resulted in a coherent theory of organisational space is a lack of integration of these diverse emphases. Empirically, most work falls into the internal dimension of space, the effects on internal audiences. However, we believe attending to both internal and external audiences enables the linkage of OPSAD with organisational legitimacy. The upper left quadrant (Quadrant 1) represents a literature concerned with the direct effects of OPSAD on primarily internal audiences, usually employees, work groups, and managers. We use the term “task capabilities” to describe this approach. This diverse literature includes experimental studies that portray OPSAD as a tangible collection of physical properties (space qua space properties, as one scholar put it). It also includes studies that emphasise natural social reactions to OPSAD properties. This research is essentially realist, treating space properties as having specific, durable, unchanging, and unambiguous direct effects on individuals and small groups of managers, workers, students, etc. (e.g. Oldham and Fried 1987). These unchanging dimensions also interact to produce amplified effects on critical human resource measures. It also includes work that shows how co-location, communication, and interaction enhance natural social processes like innovation and creativity (Allen 1977). A representative finding from this quadrant is that negative physical features of the work environment can lead to adverse individual reactions from employees. In an experimental field setting, darkness and crowding decreased worker satisfaction, increased employee withdrawal from the office, and increased turnover (Oldham and Fried 1987). The general tenor of Quadrant 1 studies is that there are universal effects of OPSAD properties on natural individual and group processes. Normatively, managers should design for task-appropriateness, or to “humanize” the workplace for worker well-being and productivity (Sommer 1969, 1974). The upper right quadrant (Quadrant 2) also emphasises the internal audiences of the organisation. A prolific workplace design literature suggests that to improve efficiency or effectiveness, OPSAD moderates or complements mission-critical verbal organisational messages. We term this quadrant the “mission” approach. For example, the extremely prolific “high performance workplace” literature implies that explicit verbal mandates to work in teams, to communicate across organisational boundaries, to innovate and share innovations, increase worker autonomy, and to decentralise responsibility are all moderated by OPSAD. In this literature, it is less the properties of the space per se than their “mission” that matters. Explicit organisational designers provide workers with mission-appropriate spaces. In this sense, design goes hand in hand with organisational mandates. In this quadrant is a generally normative design literature, holistic in nature, which 208

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emphasises the link between organisational goals and organisational ecology.2 In this view, the primacy is on implementing stated organisational goals by leveraging the direct effects documented in the first quadrant. The verbal message is moderated, or enhanced, by tangible construction, renovation, or reorganisation of internal spaces (e.g. Becker and Steele 1995), or the colocation of critical units in geographical proximity (e.g. Van den Bulte and Moenaert 1998). For example, in describing organisational change at Procter & Gamble, a new product development division was relocated to a separate floor in the office building constructed with an open style like a “penthouse” or “attic” that was “like no other P&G office area” (Whitney 1997). This design is consistent with normative prescriptions to provide space-embedded organisational mandates for innovation (e.g. Becker and Steele 1995). Participants in P&G’s new venture unit interpreted the informality and openness as a mandate to communicate and innovate, even though the objective appearance of the office was that of a mess or informal chaos. However disorganised, it was a contrast from the normal bureaucratic office workplaces that predominated at P&G in the mid-1990s, enacting both novelty and collaboration (Weick 2003). One implication in Quadrant 2 is that the space has few intrinsic qualities – instead a dark or crowded office could be construed as more consistent with an organisational mission or goal, and therefore be framed positively rather than negatively. Extant work in the internal dimension in both the task and mission centred approaches is consistent with rational organisational design. Both empirical and normative treatments depict unchanging effects of space properties, centralised authority for planning and design, alignment with organisational mandates, and the organisation’s spaces as a material entity, prescribed rather than emergent processes, and scripted choices and decisions (Weick 2003). In short, internal audiences can be managed with appropriate OPSAD decisions, depending on the emphasis, for either task or mission relevant purposes. But what happens when the organisation’s mission changes? Is there always an appropriate design to fit each new goal? Can an organisation tear up the plans every few years? An alternative view, most clearly identified with Weick (2003), emphasises the retrospective sensemaking and emergent quality of OPSAD. In this view, the organisation’s spaces have few intrinsic qualities but instead are endowed with meaning by participants episodically, opportunistically, and accidentally. By considering the links of OPSAD to organisational legitimacy, this perspective suggests that the substance of a particular OPSAD fea-

2

In this chapter, “organisational ecology” means the “transformation of the physical workplace to support new business processes” (Becker and Steele 1995).

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ture is inseparable from its current (and probably contested) symbolic interpretation. Organisations also build for, or spaces have impacts on, external audiences. There is relatively less work on specific effects of OPSAD on these of constituencies. The lower half of the framework explores arguments about OPSAD as they relate to external constituencies. The distinction along the external dimension is primarily between realist conceptions of universal signification as compared with symbolic compliance with a changing external context. The lower left quadrant (Quadrant 3) consists of relatively unambiguous direct nonverbal messages that organisations send to primarily external audiences. We term this quadrant “organisational capabilities”. External audiences include customers, investors, suppliers, government and community. An example here is the “trophy headquarters” like the famous architectural icons of corporate America. The Chrysler building, the Sears tower, the AT&T building and so forth have been universally interpreted as architectural claims to success, predominance, status, and effectiveness. These claims become ironic when such firms fall on hard times, as Chrysler did in the late 1970s, Sears in the late 1980s, and AT&T in the early 1990s. But the irony only makes sense under the assumption that the physical properties have a relatively coherent, widely accepted meaning. In this same vein, the location of facilities geographically could be an important way of signifying important associations or status, such as with joint venture partners, investors, or even competitors. Here, recent work on “high technology” corridors and communities like Silicon Valley in California posits a variety of pragmatic concerns with geographical co-location. Firms affiliate for efficiency and status benefits, as well as recognisability (Benjamin and Podolny 1999). The same is likely to be true for geographic proximity. Finally, the lower right quadrant (Quadrant 4) illustrates a concern with moderating these effects by attempting to enhance an explicit organisational message through the interpretation of OPSAD. We term this quadrant as “values and identity”. Although we are not aware of much empirical work in this area, organisations commonly use their physical location or space decisions as an opportunity to complement or advance other organisational goals. External audiences interpret verbal messages about the organisational mission or goal statements through stories or claims about its physical features. In the previous vignette about Procter & Gamble’s new venture unit, the decision to reorganise space was also a signal to external audiences that the company was doing something new. It is likely to have reported about the new OPSAD philosophy whenever it called public attention to the new unit.

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Organisational legitimacy is rooted in some level of consistency among organisational structures, actions, interpretations and claims. In the framework in Table 13.1, the opportunity for making legitimacy-related claims increases as one moves to the right and to the bottom. The most realist conception of organisational space as a legitimacy tool is anchored in Quadrant 1. There, the space has well-known effects that need to be taken into account in planning and decision-making. Quadrant 2 allows for a relaxation of the constant meaning of space features, and suggests that people will work in a variety of settings, provided there is consistency between the verbal and nonverbal cues. The external audiences in Quadrant 3 experience near universal perceptions of objective space properties, while the external audiences in Quadrant 4 are amenable to interpretations of OPSAD by the organisation. Consistency will matter more in Quadrants 2 and 4, than in 1 and 2. In the next section, we explore when and how alignment among verbal messages and OPSAD will matter for organisational legitimacy. We focus here on alignment or consistency between the organisation’s explicit verbal messages and the implicit nonverbal messages conveyed by the organisation’s use of OPSAD within each quadrant. There are additional challenges in achieving consistency among the quadrants: are the direct messages conveyed to internal constituents (Quadrant 1) consistent with interpreted messages conveyed to external audiences (Quadrant 4)? We leave those issues for future consideration.

Direct task effects of space and legitimacy communications Physical spaces and built environments significantly affect the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours of workers in those spaces. Substantial research documents the relationship of various workspace features to measurements of members’ attitudes and performance. Spatial characteristics that have been studied include distance, density, light/darkness, and enclosures/accessibility. Distance has been most often defined as interpersonal distance, sometimes defined for each individual as distance to the nearest person, direct or walking distance (Sundstrom, Burt, and Kamp 1980; Oldham and Fried 1987; Oldham, Kulik, and Stepina 1991). In other cases, distance has been defined for every pair of co-workers as walking distance between two persons’ regular offices or work locations (Zahn 1991). Density has been measured by number of people in a given office location (Oldham and Fried 1987) or inversely as square feet of space per person in a shared office (Oldham et al. 1991). Darkness/light includes both room color and illumination (Oldham and Fried 1987). Degree of enclosure (number of walls or partitions surrounding one’s workspace) provides privacy and reduced accessibility to 211

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unexpected or uncontrolled intrusions into one’s workspace (Sundstrom et al. 1980; Oldham and Fried 1987; Oldham et al. 1991). Additional studies document a wide range of impacts of spatial features with organisational relevance. Behavioural outcomes include withdrawal from one’s workplace (leaving the area for breaks), turnover (Oldham and Rotchford 1983; Oldham and Fried 1987), and task performance (Oldham et al. 1991). Attitudinal outcome measurements include job satisfaction. The studies examining these outcomes have found that employees tend to withdraw less, to have lower turnover, to have higher performance ratings, and to express higher job satisfaction with greater distance from nearest coworker, lower density, more light, and more enclosures. These relationships may be moderated by individual and task characteristics, such as ability to screen stimuli and task complexity. For example, employees with lower screening skills and simpler jobs exhibit the lowest performance and satisfaction when their space is close to another, have fewer enclosures, and one more densely occupied (Oldham et al. 1991). Some research has looked at the relationship of distance/proximity to communication behaviour (Allen 1977; Monge and Kirste 1980; Monge, Rothman, Eisenberg, Miller, and Kirste 1985; Zahn 1991). An interesting feature of the latter studies is the use of a “dynamic” or aggregate measurement of proximity. These measurements recognise that people encounter one another in multiple locations at work, not just in their offices. The general finding for distance and communication, moderated by other variables, is that exposure and face-to-face communication drop off rapidly with increasing distance. But, attractive, useful common spaces may effectively increase members’ “proximity” or exposure to one another, reducing their effective distance and thereby result in greater face-to-face communication. Organisations that ignore the importance of these direct effects on natural individual and social processes do so at their own peril. They risk illegitimacy due to simple lack of concern or maltreatment of their employees. At the extremes, organisations can undermine their legitimacy with internal audiences by making OPSAD decisions that contradict performance norms of well-being and productivity, for example through uncomfortable or unsafe work spaces. Proposition 1: OPSAD will enhance (or dampen) the internal legitimacy of organisational claims to the extent that it addresses (or fails to address) these universal direct effects. Most empirical studies in organisational psychology have looked at individual or dyadic outcomes. Some have included collective shared office or organisational outcomes, but the focus has been on individual or small group effects. These are extremely important for organisational performance, but tend to neglect the possibility of interpretation and symbolic 212

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manipulation. And, while some of these studies have included organisational variables such as task complexity as a moderator, they have not examined the relationship of physical characteristics to explicit organisational “messages”. To explore that nuance, we turn to the literature on nonverbal communication, which is particularly insightful about the effects of message consistency.

OPSAD as nonverbal communication In the previous section, we looked at OPSAD as a type of nonverbal communication with direct physical effects on critical audiences. It is also subject to interpretation and therefore alignment with organisational mission and goals. We have seen how this approach coincides well with prior work on internal messages that contribute to organisational legitimacy with internal audiences: managers, workers, visitors, etc. We now consider more thoroughly the relationship of the verbal and nonverbal messages, their relative importance, and consequences of inconsistent or misaligned messages. There is a rich social and clinical psychology and interpersonal communication literature exploring the role of nonverbal communication in human communication. Nonverbal elements are particularly important for conveying information about the relationship between communicators. They can provide instruction or cues as to how to interpret the verbal information (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson 1967). Nonverbal communication carries much of the interpersonal, affective and emotional information (Mehrabian and Ferris 1967; Friedman 1979a; Noller 1985; DePaulo 1992). It provides information about motives, such as deception (DePaulo, Rosenthal, Green, and Rosenkrantz 1982). It has been found to be crucial in perceptions of interpersonal rapport (Grahe and Bernieri 1999) and to influence perceptions of politeness (LaPlante 2001). For these kinds of information (affect, emotion, motives, rapport), nonverbal information is often relied on by receivers and/or senders more than verbal information (Mehrabian and Weiner 1967). Nonverbal messages may be important, then, in determining constituents’ emotional, affective responses to organisational messages and the development of such responses as trust and loyalty. In addition to the general importance of nonverbal components for conveying certain types of information, there are studies that elaborate on the relationship of the verbal and nonverbal components of messages. Nonverbal information may complement, supplement, qualify, or contradict the verbal information in a message. Much of this work frames the relationship in terms of the consistency/inconsistency of verbal and nonverbal information. Inconsistency can cause confusion or difficulty in interpreting the overall message. Inconsistent messages are seen as unclear or ambiguous (Langer

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and Wurf 1999). Such conflict can affect the accuracy of or confidence in judgments (Patterson, Foster, and Bellmer 2001). Verbal/nonverbal inconsistency is related to such outcomes as patient-doctor communication and compliance (Friedman 1979b; Hall, Roter, and Rand 1981), student learning (Woolfolk 1978), and employee work satisfaction (LaPlante and Ambady 2002). Verbal-nonverbal conflict has even been proposed as one possible factor in the aetiology of schizophrenia (Watzlawick, et al. 1967). There is evidence associating inconsistent parental communication with psychological disturbances in children (Bugental, Kaswan, and Love 1970). The nonverbal information may dominate such that it can lead to the receiver reconstructing (distorting) the verbal information to be consistent with the nonverbal information (Thompson, Aidinejad, and Ponte 2001). Inconsistency between the verbal explicit message and the nonverbal implicit message that organisations send through their use of space and architecture can undermine the legitimacy and credibility of the total message. This lack of legitimacy and the associated ambiguity reduces the effectiveness of the message and negatively impacts the ways that members relate to one another and the way in which external constituencies relate to the organisation and its members. This has consequences for individual, group, and organisational performance. By aligning the message conveyed by their use of space with the official intended verbal message, organisations should be able to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The legitimacy of the explicit messages the organisation sends may be reduced if the implicit physical and architectural design messages are not aligned to be consistent. These messages have implications for the manner in which the well known direct effects on internal audiences discussed in the prior section will be perceived. For example in the modern organisation that encourages more frequent communication and interaction, collaboration, teamwork, and boundary-spanning behaviour, policies will be more credible if OPSAD provides attractive common areas, conference spaces, or open offices (e.g. lounges, libraries, break rooms). Organisational claims to encourage individual expertise and professionalism, or complex individual jobs will be more credible if OPSAD provides privacy (e.g. comfortable private offices, greater distance, more enclosures, and less density). OPSAD may moderate the trust, loyalty and affiliation that internal audiences accord to an organisation. Organisations may be seen as less trustworthy, attract less loyalty and inspire less identification when official messages and OPSAD are inconsistent.

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Proposition 2: OPSAD moderates the impact of organisational claims to internal constituents regarding organisational practices and management styles. Inconsistency between claims and OPSAD can also lead to confusion about the relationship between the organisation and its external constituencies. For example, in the extreme, an organisation with lofty claims to scientific superiority will have difficulty convincing others if they operate from a garage. Critical audiences will be both more inclined to trust and to identify with organisations with aligned OPSAD. Proposition 3: OPSAD moderates the impact on external audiences of organisational claims when official messages and OPSAD are inconsistent.

Designing for appropriateness Because of the possibility of loose coupling between action, structure, and claims, the “logic of appropriateness” is a useful heuristic approach to the study of organisational legitimacy (Meyer and Rowan 1977). “Appropriateness” unites seemingly orthogonal dimensions of designing for efficiency, productivity, or individual well-being on the one hand (e.g. Becker and Steele 1995; Hall 1969; Oldham and Fried 1987; Sommer 1969, 1974), and aesthetic or symbolic statements about the organisation’s mission or values on the other (e.g. Cameron 2003). Appropriateness also captures the importance of changing institutional contexts, which dictate how organisational messages and structures interact. Specifically, managerial fads, ideologies, and logics of action dictate what will seem normal, progressive, rational, or effective at any given time (Abrahamson 1996; Fligstein 1990; Friedland and Alford 1991). Theories of formal organisation and organisational structure, while using the metaphor of the architect, the designer, and the blueprint, mainly attempt to describe the social or political system of the organisation in bureaucratic terms. In a critique, Meyer and Rowan (1977) noted two important parts of formal social structure in extant rational theory – the table or map of pieces, and the cohesive goals that link the pieces together. The table is analogous to the organisational chart: “Formal structure is a blueprint for activities which includes, first of all, the table of organization: a listing of offices, departments, positions, and programs” (p. 42). The second part is the cohesive glue that links the pieces together: “These elements are linked by explicit goals and policies that make up a rational theory of how, and to what end, activities are to be fitted together” (p. 42). But the assumption that these two pieces actually fit tightly together is so often violated that they provide only incomplete insight into how organisations actually work. Building on the concept of loose coupling, which recapitulated prior work on the distinction between the formal and informal organisation, 215

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Meyer and Rowan argued for a separate legitimacy imperative associated with broader societal rules, norms, and cues – “rationalized institutional myths”. The legitimacy imperative – the external determinants of organisational structure – exerts powerful influences on organisations, particularly on their survival. Legitimacy research has elaborated how the cultural norms emerge in the first place, and how organisations respond (see Suchman 1995, for a review). The point here is that OPSAD is the most concrete form of organisational structure. While an annual report or 10-K filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission serves to confirm the U.S. public corporation’s ongoing legal existence, they are derivative of some physical structure that organises work and meaning. Meyer and Rowan are explicit about the role of language and ideology in constituting organisations. “Vocabularies of structure provide prudent, rational, and legitimate accounts” that lend credibility to the organisational chart, goals, procedures, and policies (Meyer and Rowan 1977:50). In a strategic sense, intentional organisational decision-makers seek to conform to and manipulate their external environment by adopting specific legitimate structures and practices (Pfeffer 1981; Suchman 1995). In an institutional sense, these very same structures and practices constitute and define legitimate organisations in a broader societal field (Jepperson 1991; Scott 1991; Aldrich and Fiol 1994). The notion of structure, used previously to refer to the map of the formal organisation, needs to be expanded to include OPSAD. For example, in a description of architect Frank Gehry’s designs for the recently completed Case Western Reserve University business school building, one explicit goal was to energise the school’s performance and ongoing change efforts: The new building could serve as an impetus for enhanced visibility and name recognition, as a motivation for and symbol of a best-in-class, one-of-a-kind institutional culture, and as a source of pride and entrepreneurship in the broader Cleveland community. Most important, it could enhance learning and innovative educational routines (Cameron 2003:89).

Organisations signal their conformity with dominant cultural norms and values through adoption or implementation of prevailing models. They also help constitute the prevailing models in culture and fashion through their attempts at adaptation and modification. They routinely make claims and interpret their decisions and actions to demonstrate that they are legitimate. In addition, at a broader level, these same norms and values constitute legitimate organisational forms and practices. Conventional OPSAD will confirm messages of stability and prior success. In work on fads and fashions, managerial technologies must pass a hurdle 216

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of seeming both rational and progressive. In other words, they must seem to solve some particular set of problems well, and seem progressive in terms of moving beyond current states of understanding (Abrahamson 1996). The Gehry example of radical design signals to all audiences a break from traditional business school designs, more in keeping with trends in management education. Accordingly, a progressive, interesting new look that departs from a bureaucratic model suggests alignment between the design and organisational claims and aspirations. Deviant unconventional OPSAD will confirm messages of change and innovation. Proposition 4: OPSAD moderates the impact of organisational claims to conformity or break with prevailing institutional rules and norms In summary, the legitimacy imperative suggests that appropriateness is as good a heuristic as efficiency for exploring the implications of OPSAD for organisational claims. The two are not mutually exclusive, but work that incorporates both is likely to be complicated. However, we believe that is the most fruitful direction for understanding the role of OPSAD in organisational claims.

Conclusion Our purpose here has been to link notions of organisational physical space and architectural design with the concept of organisational legitimacy. Viewing OPSAD as communication, particularly nonverbal communication, allows us to draw on knowledge of nonverbal communication and the effects of inconsistency between the verbal and nonverbal elements of messages. We use the term alignment to refer to the consistency of OPSAD with other organisational messages that impact legitimacy. We believe that integrating these concepts provides a more complete appreciation for the impacts of OPSAD, and clarifies its relationship to organisational legitimacy. In addition to the established impacts of OPSAD on employee attitudes and performance, we have argued that it also has moderating effects on these internal audiences and direct and moderating effects on external constituencies. Organisational legitimacy can be enhanced or weakened by decisions about OPSAD features. Organisations could benefit from greater attention to OPSAD and especially to the alignment of OPSAD features with other official verbal organisational messages. We have offered several propositions that call for testing through future research. One proposition postulates direct effects of OPSAD on legitimacy. Others postulate moderating effects: on credibility of organisational messages about collaboration and expertise, on trust and loyalty, and on organisational claims to conformity and progressiveness. We have also proposed

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that alignment is more important for high status organisations. Each of these propositions presents challenging research problems that will first require operationalising measurements of OPSAD messages and then relating them to measurements of legitimacy.

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Chapter 14

Organisations and Physical Space Cecilia Gustafsson

We usually take the obvious for granted. We store it in the back of our minds until its existence is threatened or its use impaired. […] broken legs reveal the gift of walking; earthquakes, our unquestioning faith in the stability of our surroundings. With the exception of a few professionals whose identity is defined by an interest in the nature, quality, and creation of our physical surroundings […] the very pervasiveness of our physical surroundings typically masks its importance. (Becker 1981)

All organisations exist within the boundaries of physical space; they are embodied in artefacts as well as in the actions of people. A traditional organisation also occupies a certain physical space where most of the actions and artefacts related to the maintenance of the organisation as entity are located. The relationship between the organisation and the physical space is evident, yet it has been left unquestioned in the organisational literature (Styhre 2001). This text aims to open up a discussion about the relationship between organisations and physical space, and how to manage the physical space (especially office space) in an organisational setting. It addresses the apparent lack of a coherent theoretical framework and proposes a cross-disciplinary reading as a foundation for a more holistic theoretical framework based on three basic factors: the Physical Setting, the Organisational factors, and the People factors. It also discusses practical implications and develops some practical guidelines.

Managing physical space in organisations For anyone who has been involved in the management of physical space in an organisation, it is clear that this is a very complex undertaking. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made, and a lot of people are involved. Demands need to be met, and often the needs of different stakeholders have 221

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to be weighed against each other. The problem is typically framed with a shattered perspective, and subsequently regarded as belonging within different organisational logics; “this is really just a matter of economics/empowerment/health/status, etc.” There is seldom an organisational “owner” of the problem who can grasp the entire complexity of the situation. There are a number of activities and processes within the organisation that are concerned with the continuous management of physical space (i.e. purchasing and replacing broken furniture, adjusting the setting to individual needs, etc.) that tend to be punctuated by larger change efforts. The continuous processes are typically handled at a low organisational level without contact with the strategic level, while the larger change efforts are regarded as exceptional projects often managed by external consultants. There is also a strong link between organisational change in general and changes in the physical setting. Changes in organisational structure are followed by relocations; new technology requires new settings for optimal performance. The simultaneous processes of change and design are generally very complex, cutting across organisational sectors. Thus, they are not easily managed within the recognised managerial system. The current trend is an increased pace in organisational change work, and this is reflected in the physical setting as can be seen in the increased costs for relocations in organisations. The changes also demand a release of energy from the organisational members, energy that is often directed towards anxiety and worry about the future instead of being put to work to get the change implemented. This is also obvious in office design projects, where organisational members spend a lot of time worrying about the change, losing efficiency in their daily work. Taking into account all of the abovementioned characteristics of how physical space is managed in organisations, it is clear that this complex, unit-crossing, change-connected activity would benefit from being handled with an integrated perspective.

Framing physical space in organisations Previous work has shown that there is no coherent theoretical framework that deals with all aspects of management and design of physical space in organisations (Gustafsson 2003). However, there are some basic parameters that have to be taken into consideration in any office design project: • Organisations are made by humans and exist as recognisable and analysable entities. • The organisation is embodied by humans and artefacts, and thus exists within a physical setting. Consequently, the organisation has to find means to manage this aspect of the organisation as well as other aspects.

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• The humans of the organisation are physically and socially bound beings, who relate to and interact with the environment. They are affected by the physical setting, and subsequently, so is their performance. • Organisations are subjected to change. They need to be able to respond to and manage change within the organisational framework. These facts point to a triad of factors that need to be addressed in workplace design: the Physical Setting, the Organisational Factors and the Human Factors (See Figure 14.1).

Physical setting

People

Organization

Figure 14.1.

In order to understand the forces at play in the relationship between the organisation, the organisational members and the physical setting, a search for theories that address the relationships has been made (Gustafsson 2003). The theories are presented briefly below. However, this is not an exhaustive set of theories, and the model should be regarded as an attempt to describe the problem in theoretical terms. Furthermore, it is not only necessary to look at the relationships between the different parts of the system. The process of designing the physical space (represented by the circular arrow in Figure 1) will also need to be investigated. Thus, the field of Design Theory has been included in the investigation.

Actor network theory; the sociology of translation In the triad, actor-network theory (henceforth referred to as ANT) is the “meta-theory” explaining how the different power relationships are created and sustained in society and in organisations. It deals with how humans and 223

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physical and abstract artefacts are entangled and co-create the social order of society. Thus, it is not possible to ascribe to any single aspect in the model. ANT is a set of philosophical ideas, concepts and texts originating in the work of Bruno Latour and Michel Callon from the early 1980’s (Latour 1999). The basic argument is that in order to understand the mechanics of power and organisation, we need to disregard what we take for granted as entities and start over with a conceptually clean slate. One starting point is to look at interactions, as if interactions were all there was, and ask: how is it that some interactions seem to reproduce themselves, becoming stable and taken for granted? How do systems of macro and micro-actors develop, and what, if any, are the differences between macro- and micro-actors? ANT claims that there is no innate difference in actors; in the pure sense of social contracts, the only thing that differentiates macro- and micro-actors is their size (Latour and Callon 1981). However, due to phenomena such as heterogeneous networks and translation, differences occur in the actors’ abilities. Through the deconstruction of different courses of events, ANT shows how power relationships are formed and maintained. The contribution made by ANT to this chapter is the ability to reveal and analyse the meta-construction of the workplace, and the interdependence of humans and artefacts. It provides concepts and tools that can help us see, deconstruct and analyse taken-for-granted phenomena and structures in order to better understand how the workplace functions. These tools and this consciousness can help us change things that otherwise defy articulation and analysis. The translation processes that create actants of different size and the different strategies for creating actants are also concepts that can be of use in understanding the role of physical structures in society, as well as in organisations. In ANT, social relationships are made durable through the physical artefacts that embody the relationships. The engagement of physical artefacts is what differentiates human society, where the members have to re-create every part of their society on a day-to-day basis in order to maintain social order. Another important notion in ANT is the perception of social structure as a verb rather than as a noun, focusing on the continuous processes that make up society. These processes are present in organisational micro-societies as well, and need to be recognised in order to be analysable and workable.

Theories departing from the physical setting In this theoretical approach there are vast arrays of theoretical stances that depart from the aspect of physical setting. The theories within the field are

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generally referred to as architectural theories, although they often straddle theories from related fields. The image of the field can be characterised as a patchwork of approaches, all of which depart from the importance of physical space for human action and society, and, in some cases, specifically human action in organisations. Furthermore, this area of the literature is different from the other theoretical approaches in the way that theory is put forward, validated and tested. Architectural theories seem mainly to be locally developed and used, as a contrast to the other disciplines where theories are developed and elaborated upon by many researchers. As a consequence, few of the theories are tested or validated by others through further research.

General aspects of physical space According to a recent review of literature concerned with physical space (Gustafsson 2003), there are four main aspects of physical space that have been identified; Function, Structure, Shape, and Psychological and Social effects. The functional side of physical space refers to the possibilities of physical space supporting the actions or tasks to take place within it, concerning man as a biologically and physiologically bound being; e.g. temperature, air quality, size of surfaces and so forth. This is the aspect that provides security and shelter from harmful elements in the environment. How the physical spaces are configured and related to each other is the target of the second aspect, structure. The configuration of physical space has been shown to have social effects (Hillier 1996). The third aspect of physical space is concerned with the shape or form, as well as impression of the building. Not only does this approach contain objectively definable qualities but it also depends on the interpretation of these qualities. In order to create concepts that are useful in a practical context, this aspect will be split into two parts; one that refers to the form or shape and one that refers to the interpretation and social construction of meaning of physical space. Consequently, the third aspect of physical space will be called shape in this text, and will refer to the stylistic aspect of physical space. The interpretation, social meaning and construction of physical space are parts of the fourth aspect, psychological and social effects. Becker (1981) has proposed a division of the effects of physical space into first order effects, which are direct effects, and second order effects, which refer to the ability of physical space to act as a catalyst in a social context. These effects can also be viewed as objective and subjective properties of physical space. The objective properties are the ones that can be established by unambiguous measurement methods, and can be said to refer to the surface qualities of physical space. It deals with the objects in themselves. The second order effects, in turn, refer to the subjective properties of physical space, the perceived space. The concept of perceived space indicates that the 225

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space does not always have to be physically delimited, but can be an experience based on perception or interpretation. The second order effects are thus related to the individual experience and social meaning ascribed to physical space, and hard to measure and evaluate in a neutral manner. As is stated above, the fourth aspect of physical space is the psychological and social aspect, which can be further divided into sub-aspects. Those aspects that have been touched upon in the literature are: • The ability of physical space to direct social contact and interaction, to facilitate it or make it more difficult. • The meaning of physical space, which is constructed individually and on a higher social level. This aspect encompasses the subjectively formed feelings and experiences concerning physical space. This is linked to the ability of physical space and artefacts to act as • Symbolic identifiers that tell others about the status, goals, interests and other qualities of those belonging to that space. • The symbolic aspects are closely connected to the role of physical space in power relationships, something that has been recognised by several authors. The configuration and selection of artefacts placed in the physical space form part of the power structure and processes on all levels of society.

Physical space in organisations Concerning a more direct analysis of physical space in organisations, a number of different perspectives have been promoted in the literature (Gustafsson 2003). What they all have in common is a more or less articulated holistic view, where the impact of the physical space is related to other organisational factors. This perspective recognises the energy that is released during changes in the workplace, and discusses the possibility of developing approaches to the control of this energy in a constructive direction (Horgen, Joroff, Porter, and Schön 1999). Regarding the social construction of physical space in organisations, Becker (Becker 1981) refers to the ideas of Karl Weick (Weick 1979) that address the processes of the environment as attention processes. This perspective presents the meaning and role of physical space in organisations as constructed through a process of attention that is dynamic and ongoing. This process is only partially conscious, but nonetheless present. This opens out to the importance of informal processes in the creation and management of physical settings. The question of whether or not organisations are concerned with their physical space changes to how organisations are concerned with physical space, and who directs the formal processes (Becker 1981). By focusing on the perspective of the physical setting as the outcome of atten-

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tion processes, one rules out more deterministic analyses of the environmental impact of space. In these processes of attention, information is transferred through different stages of the design process as well as between participants of the design process. Each transition is a possible source of distortion and re-interpretation of the information. These processes of transformation can be directed, but not controlled, by an administrative function. It is also important to address issues of flexibility and stability in the physical setting related to organisational issues. Becker (Becker 1981) also analyses the behaviour in its physical context. He presents a critique of the social science of organisational behaviour and its concentration on the social aspects of organising. He also provides an examination of evidence that supports the view that the physical context must be considered together with, and designed to fit, the social context. The physical setting is regarded as “a communication medium through which all participants in an organization send and receive messages” (Becker 1981). Of these messages, many are partly unintentional, but nonetheless perceived by the employees and responded to, and put into effect. This is something that should be taken into consideration by management when designing and maintaining the physical setting. Several authors discuss the potential, and even necessity, of a process perspective (Becker 1981; Becker and Steele 1995; Horgen et al. 1999; Lindahl 2001). A process perspective illuminates the dynamic nature of workplace making, opening up possibilities of dealing constructively with these dynamics instead of trying to fit them into a fixed state that never exists. The process perspective also opens up the possibility of benefiting from participative approaches in creating enthusiasm and positively directed energy (Horgen et al. 1999; Lindahl 2001). The problem of measuring the outcomes of the products and processes involved in the design and management of physical space has also been recognised (Becker et al. 1995; Worthington 1997). No solutions to this problem have been presented, but the authors argue that the problem needs to be framed from a qualitative rather than a quantitative viewpoint, and as such needs to be assessed by means of methods not yet developed. The main contribution of this research field is the expressed need for an integrated, holistic approach to the design and management of physical space within organisations. The authors also call for a focus on the processes of change and design in order to appropriately frame and manage physical space in organisations.

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Environmental psychology This is the set of theories dealing with the relationship between humans and the physical setting in the triad. With its origins in psychology, it departs from the human aspect, although parts of it are concerned with the intersection of the physical setting and human/organisational issues. A reading of the literature reveals the present state of the field of Environmental Psychology (henceforth referred to as EP) as a multi-faceted, discipline-spanning body of knowledge with fuzzy boundaries. EP often relies simultaneously on several theories to explain a phenomenon. This is not only done to explain data, but is also handled in a stratifying way; different theories are useful on different levels of analysis. In the broadest sense, EP can be defined as an interdisciplinary field of environment and behaviour, or in other words the study of human behaviour in relation to its environmental settings (Stokols 1978). Modern EP works from a molar, or holistic, perspective, which can be summarised thus (Bonnes and Bonaiuto 2002): • The person-in-environment provides the unit of analysis. • Both person and environment dynamically define and transform each other over time as aspects of a unitary whole. • Stability and change coexist continuously. • The direction of change is emergent, not pre-established. • The changes that occur at one level affect the other levels, creating new person environment configurations (Bonnes et al. 2002). The principle of molar or holistic analysis has been derived from Gestalt psychology, and means that the whole is regarded as more than the simple sum of the parts. Hence, it is not possible to understand the whole from the simple study of the parts, but the system has to be regarded in all its complexity. Doing research according to this perspective has, however, remained largely an ideal and an unrealised vision, since it has proven difficult to incorporate into the common research praxis. This tension between theoretical aspirations and practical limitations resulted, however, in increased attention to the physical setting as a sociophysical context. This perspective has, in turn, led to a development of the concept of place, which has also been used in architectural theory. Another important concept within EP is the concept of Behavioral Setting as formulated by Barker (Baker 1968). This consists of standing, interlocked patterns of behaviour-and-milieu. The standing pattern of behaviour is a bounded pattern in the behaviour of persons, persistent beyond the behaviour of one individual. People belonging to the same culture are likely to behave in the same way in a behavioural setting, e.g. at a church, a super228

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market or a football game. There are individual variances in behaviour, but, on the whole, the pattern remains intact.

Central issues of EP To better understand the effects of environment on humans, EP promotes naturalistic research on behaviour in different environments, rather than research under laboratory conditions. The central subject of inquiry is how humans do or do not adjust to different settings, and how different settings respond to human activity. Furthermore, the molar perspective of EP rules out the separate study of behaviour or environment since it regards humans and environment as being in an interrelationship. There are two central concepts in EP, perception and cognition.

Perception Perception is the general term used to describe the whole process of how we come to know what is going on around us, the entire sequence of events from the presentation of a physical stimulus to the phenomenological experiencing of it. The phenomenon of the changing perception of a stable stimulus over time is called habituation or adaptation; “if a stimulus is constant, the response to it typically becomes weaker over time” (Bell, Greene, Fisher, and Baum 2001). However, in cases of unpleasant environmental stimuli, the adaptation process is not always successful, entailing that the stimulus may well continue to be perceived as an annoyance. The adaptation process can also involve a mobilisation of physiological or psychological resources which, used constantly over a prolonged period of time, can cause breakdowns (e.g. stress disorders). An important aspect of adaptation is the continuity and regularity of the stimulus. A noise that reoccurs at a predictable rate is easier to tolerate than one that is randomly perceived. However, a constant noise is easier to adapt to than a reoccurring one, since every time we adjust to the stimulus and it stops, the adaptation becomes somewhat dissipated. As the stimulus reoccurs, we must re-adapt. How then, is the perception of change related to the present state? According to the Weber-Fechner function of psychophysics “the intensity of a stimulus that is required for it to be perceived as different from the present stimulus is proportionate to the present stimulus” (Bell et al. 2001). This rule means that small changes which together amount to a large change can pass more or less unnoticed, if distributed over time, whereas the combination of the small changes would be perceived as impossible if introduced simultaneously.

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Cognition If perception concerns biologically related reactions of a person to his/her environment, cognition is about the mental processes allowing us to understand and interpret the world. Cognitive processes can be described as mental processes of perception, memory, and information processing by which the individual acquires information, makes plans, and solves problems (Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith, Bem, and Nolen-Hoksema 1993).

EP and working environments In a selective review of the current literature within the EP field, Mitchell McCoy (McCoy 2002) presents the status of research on work environments, especially office environments. Much of the material referred to as sources overlaps or is identical with the material presented under the heading of physical space in this chapter. This investigation identifies three important themes within the literature concerning the interactions of people and physical environment that are relevant to individual satisfaction and organisational performance: • Control • Functional opportunities • Nonverbal self-expression Each of these themes is presented and related to the subcategories of spatial organisation, architectonic details, views, resources, and ambient properties. These themes and their contents need to be attended to in the creation and management of office settings, if the performance and satisfaction of the employees is to be on a high level. For instance, the control theme works on two different levels; the first includes participation in the design process of the workplace, and the other the ability to regulate distractions in the environment. If these two levels are not addressed, performance and satisfaction will decrease.

Socio-technical systems theory Together with organisational development, the field of socio-technical systems (henceforth referred to as STS) is the theoretical approach that has its base in the organisational aspect of the triad. It is mainly concerned with how to jointly optimise the social systems and the systems of technology within the organisation. In this model, it thus mainly deals with the relationship between the organisation and human factors, although it also deals with the connection with spatial issues to some extent. The STS approach to change and development in organisations has perhaps become the largest 230

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and most widespread body of scientific and applied knowledge of work design and employee involvement (Cummings and Worley 2001). It is a qualitatively based research approach that acknowledges the social construction of meaning.

The three theoretical foundations of STS The first theoretical principle that is at the basis of STS is the systems approach, which applied to organisations states two basic assumptions; 1) organisations are systems, meaning that changes in one part leads to changes in another part, and 2) organisations are open to their environments, meaning that they are in an interrelationship with their surroundings, affecting and being affected in a constant state of flux (Katz and Kahn 1978). The second theoretical base of STS, is the theories of leaderless groups described by Bion. These ideas have led to the development of self-directed work teams that have been widely implemented in industrial settings. The third pillar of STS is the action research paradigm, which is a collaborative inquiry into organisational issues. Researchers and participants work together to make sense of and find solutions to organisational problems. The goal is to generate actionable knowledge of practical value as well as theoretically valid knowledge. Thus, it is a paradigm that promotes a democratisation of the research process, and has developed techniques that are applied to enhance empowerment in the workplace.

STS and office settings The application of STS theory has traditionally been within production settings and not office or administrative settings. However, a contribution that deals with the application of STS to office settings, and specifically with the introduction of new technology, has been made by Calvin Pava (Pava 1983). Although Pava never defines the exact content of the concept of the “office”, it is clear that office work is concerned with information processing as a contrast to production work, which is concerned with tangible products. The activities of the office are identified to encompass a range of activities that are ordered along a continuum of routine and non-routine tasks. The difference between the two types of office work is that routine work is concerned primarily with managing structured problems, while non-routine work is directed toward the management of unstructured and semi-structured problems. Routine work also shows a higher level of linearity than does non-routine work. According to Pava, the non-routine tasks are primarily found among management and professionals with a large amount of discretion. Pava concludes that routine work is often suitable to address through traditional STS methods, but that non-routine work needs a new approach. 231

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This new approach uses the division by STS into technical and social subsystems, but also targets other aspects of the organisation. Thus, the technical analysis is aimed at the deliberations present in the organisation, and the social analysis centres on discretionary coalitions. The deliberations are defined as the sequences of reflective and communicative acts employed to resolve problematic issues, and the discretionary coalitions are the alliances of interdependent parties. These are formed to make intelligent trade-offs that enable attainment of overall objectives; different coalitions are associated with different deliberations. The author concludes that this approach seems to go well with earlier attempts to adjust STS to office settings. Since this book was written in 1983, a lot of routine work in offices has been computerised. Organisations have been flattened and slimmed, sometimes beyond recognition. But the problem of managing office processes and space is still there, in spite of all the prophecies of freeing office workers from time and space.

Organisational development theory Organisational Development (henceforth referred to as OD) is the other theory of the triad that departs from the organisational aspect. In addition to addressing organisations’ relationships with spatial and human factors, it also deals with the processes of change. It is a qualitative approach, promoting an interpretive and contingency-based approach. The concept of OD refers to a certain set of behavioural science-based theories and strategies that are combined into a specific approach to the development of organisations. It is a part of the organisational-managerial field as well as the change management-field, and has developed, over the years, a distinct approach with attached methods. It is, thus, a field of practice as well as a field of academic, scientific inquiry dealing with planned organisational change.

Defining OD Attempting to bring together four different definitions of OD (i.e. the definitions made by Warner Burke, Wendell French, Richard Beckhard, and Michael Beer), Cummings and Worley define OD as “a system wide application of behavioural science knowledge to the planned development, improvement, and reinforcement of the strategies, structures, and processes that lead to organization effectiveness” (Cummings et al. 2001). This definition aims to identify several important features of OD, as well as distinguish OD from other approaches to organisational change and improvement, e.g. change management. The five aspects that are highlighted by the definition are: 232

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1. The scope; an OD intervention is aimed at the strategy, structure and processes of an entire system, e.g. an organisation, a department or a workgroup. 2. The theoretical foundation; OD is based on behaviour science knowledge and practice, including concepts that operate on both the micro and macro levels. 3. OD is concerned with planned change. Having said that, it is important to stress the adaptive process perspective of an OD intervention, which distinguishes it from the more formally oriented change approaches. 4. The duration of the effort; OD is concerned with the design and implementation of change from a long-term perspective. 5. The goal of the OD effort, which is to improve organisational effectiveness through building ability and knowledge among organisational members. OD is thus about change in organisations from a systems perspective. It consists of a set of scientifically developed theories, values, strategies and techniques that are applied to the entire organisational work setting. An OD intervention aims to enhance organisational performance through individual development and change. One of the most efficient ways to create change in the individual’s behaviour is through alterations of the work setting (Porras and Robertson 1990).

The practice of OD In a review of OD change techniques, Porras and Robertson (Porras et al. 1990) organise and classify the interventions by organisational unit and effected variables of the system. For the purposes of this text, the most interesting section to look at is the one on physical setting interventions (ibid:775). From the variables a model that connects all areas of OD interventions is constructed, which is presented in Figure 14.2. The model centres around five key aspects constituting the work setting: the vision, the organising arrangements, the social factors, technology, and the physical setting. In this model, the vision is the tool that guides the organisation on a short-term as well as a long-term basis, stating the organisational purpose, direction, focus and motivation to its members. The organising arrangements are the mostly written, formal structures that guide the coordination of people and processes within the organisation. Examples of these arrangements are administrative systems and routines and reward systems.

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Environment

Vision

Physical Setting Organizing arrangements

Technology

Social Factors

Individual cognitions

On-the-job behavior

Organization Organizational performance

Individual development

Figure 14.2.

Social factors are the informal characteristics of individuals and work groups within the organisation, such as culture, management style and interaction processes. They are the most intangible parts of the organisation and, as such, also the most difficult to change. Technology contains such aspects as different technological systems used in the organisation, and job design. The Physical Setting is the combination of space configuration, physical ambiance, interior design and overall architectural design. According to this theory, the physical setting can be a facilitating or inhibiting but not generating factor of organisational behaviour. The four aspects of organising arrangements, social factors, technology, and the physical setting are interrelated, thus changes in one of them will influence the functioning of the others. It also means that if changes are made in one category that is not supported by the design and structure of the others, it is likely that the change will be resisted, and eventually “pushed back” into status quo by the system. This illuminates the need for organisational components to be congruent in order to give the right input vis-à-vis the desired behaviour to the 234

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organisational members. Without congruence, there will be too much variance in the possibilities for interpretation, thus the expected or desired behaviour will not be reinforced, as it should. The conclusion that Porras and Robertson (Porras et al. 1990) draw from the research on physical setting interventions is, generally, that this aspect of OD endeavours appears to be neglected. Some work has been done on developing approaches to designing more effective workspaces, as well as implementing them, but “OD-based technology focusing on the physical setting in organisations is quite limited in both scope and quantity” (Porras et al. 1990). There are no models or empirically based principles to apply, so a few different approaches are described which have been used to design office settings. The conclusion is that there appears to be no best way to design the physical setting, other than to pay attention to all the contingent conditions of each situation and to try to work them into a solution. The consequence of this is that physical space should become an area of intensified investigation for OD researchers.

Design theory This theoretical domain deals with the process part of the triad, and is symbolised by the circular arrow in the model. It concerns the processes in which the different parts are created, altered or an influence on each other. The primary targets of a design process are usually aspects of the physical setting or organisational factors such as managerial structures. However, design processes also affect the human part of the triad, although this is on a more subtle level. The effects of design processes in the human aspect are to be found within the attention span, consciousness and cultural factors. Design theory is, like the field of theories departing from Physical Space, a very diverse field of knowledge. In the widest sense, design encompasses all human action that is not a repetition or a mapping of a previous action. For the purposes of this text, design will be limited to the design actions concerning processes and artefacts in organisations that demand the involvement of professionally trained designers and to how the physical as well as the process artefacts are created and managed in an organisational setting. Design problems are marked by their complexity and share many features with so-called “wicked problems” (Rittel and Webber 1973), which originate in studies of planning and social policymaking. A wicked problem is distinguished by a numbers of properties that make them stand out from the “tame” problems that can be managed within the classical engineering paradigm. For instance, a wicked problem has no definitive formulation; the solution to the problem is dependent on how the problem is framed. Furthermore, a wicked problem has no stopping rule; it has no “natural”

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ending. Instead, external factors such as time or money usually set the limits for when to stop working. A solution to a wicked problem is of a qualitative character, rather than a quantitative character, it is not true-or-false, but good-or-bad. The architectural design problem, or a design problem of great complexity, such as the organisational design or planning of a large development project, is to a large extent identical with wicked problems. Design is, thus, about balancing a wide range of demands, keeping them together by using glue made of ethics and aesthetics. This balancing act has to be done with unclear or incomplete information, so the designer also has to be able to handle uncertainty. Taking the above-mentioned characteristics of a design problem into account, it is clear that the design process must be seen as not primarily concerned with problem solving, but with problem handling. The question of how to deal with this handling situation is one of the core issues of design theory (Lundequist 1995). The field of design research today is very diverse, with a tendency toward integrating different perspectives to create a more comprehensive view of the problem. Lundequist (1995) distinguishes four major themes within design research: 1. A normative and descriptive track that aims to develop models, methods and tools for the design process (e.g. development of project management). 2. Another normative as well as descriptive track that analyses the constitution of design problems and what might separate them from other types of problems (e.g. techniques for modelling and simulation). 3. A descriptive track, which through systematic case studies tries to describe, analyse and document the actual design work. 4. A systematic reflection on design, theory as well as practice, in combination with concept development. It is also possible to divide the different strands of research into three categories with different perspectives in order to present the field in a comprehensive way. The external perspective deals with how the design process can be structured in order to be manageable and optimised. It is also concerned with classifying different design problems. Thus, it deals with the parts of the design process that can be objectively observed and assessed. The internal perspective is the opposite perspective, dealing with the thought processes and internalised structure of the design process. Different theories of action, as well as communication, belong to this group. This perspective is also interested in the issues connected with the praxis of design, the often-tacit rules and traditions that form part of professional design knowledge. It is also concerned with the central role of models and simulations in the design work, as has been discussed by several authors (i.e. Lundequist 1995; Schön 1991; Simon 1969). Design is an activity that cre236

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ates a picture of a future state based on present knowledge. Testing the strength of an idea through a model is a way of reducing some of the uncertainty a designer deals with. The last category, the integrative perspective, recognises the need to simultaneously apply both the external and internal perspectives of a design situation in order to get at the problem. This perspective has been interested in identifying qualitative differences in processes (Lundequist 1995; Ullmark 1996), as well as what happens in a collective design situation (Mächs, Bertil, and Skans 1996). The unit of the designer has been called into question and opened to discussion. The potential that Mächs, Olsson and Skans see in design principles applied in a workplace development process is the tentative, iterative searching of the design process. This openness and uncertainty of the design process is, however, a challenge to the “normal” behavioural perspective that is not accustomed to such open-ended searching. The integration of design in an organisational setting has also been promoted by Hatchuel et al. (Hatchuel and Weil 1999), who aim to integrate design into a managerial setting as a basic principle of organisation. The basis for the interest in design is the interest in understanding how repeated innovation can be created and managed in companies. This is the perspective of the unified theory of design, which discusses the co-development of spaces of concepts and spaces of knowledge. The common denominator of the field of design theories is the concentration on the design process, not the product. It is in the process that the product is shaped, but there is no single shape that fits a design problem in itself. The right product is arrived at through the right process. The place for Design Theory in this framework is evident; it is the theoretical base that deals with the processes of how the different parts of the triad converge into concrete and abstract representations. To take an example, when designing organisational factors, the artefact is invisible. The physical setting is, in that sense, an embodiment of the organisational factors, the physical artefacts can be said to give shape to the organisation. As stressed in the conclusion of this chapter, the process of how the organisation is shaped through its artefacts is the key to understanding the role that the physical setting plays.

Conclusion So, what do the relationships of the triad look like and what does physical space do in organisations? This review tells us, that there are a multitude of factors to take into account when approaching the relationship between organisation, physical space, and the management of physical space. Actor Network Theory establishes the meta-connections and structure of how physical space and artefacts constitute the power structure of the organis-

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ation, and help us see that rearranging physical space can effect this constitution. The theories that depart from physical space tell us that it affects us in four different ways: function, structure, shape, and psychological and social effects. Some of these effects are objective, and some of them are subjective. This means that in order to efficiently work with the impact of physical space in organisations, we need to attend to not only the measurable aspects, but to the intangible, subjective aspects in order to create a good working environment. Environmental psychology helps us further understand the subjective aspects of physical space, and what basic functions of the human mind are engaged. The knowledge of how perceptive and cognitive processes affect human behaviour is necessary in order to adequately design the physical setting. The two perspectives of socio-technical systems and organisational development help us see the organisational issues and the combination of social and technical aspects that are involved. They provide a basis of how to work with groups of people in change work that has been tested in practice as well as in academic context. Finally, design theory helps us grasp the nature of the creative processes of design, and helps us sort out where to start and where to let the organisational members get involved. It targets the creation of processes and artefacts, and the connection to the participants in these activities. It seems that a process perspective is necessary in order to involve the stakeholders, but that it must be done carefully, in order not to slow the process too much. The artefacts themselves play a secondary role; the most important part is to “load” them with the right symbolic value to the organisational members. The creation of organisational space is an ongoing process, beyond the end of the change project. All organisational members create it in their daily use of physical space. As such, it is important to create an organisational function that has the overarching responsibility for the planning and maintenance of the physical setting. It is also important to connect this function to the strategic level of the organisation, in order to correctly plan and coordinate the changes of the physical setting with the organisational changes. If this fails, there is evidence that in the long run, the physical setting can become an impairing part of the organisation rather than a facilitator (Gustafsson 2002). It is also clear that the effects of physical space on an organisation are to be found on conscious as well as unconscious levels of our experiences, and thus needs to be managed accordingly. When turning to the practical reality of organisations, there are a few more parameters that have to be taken into account. In reality, it is not always necessary to find the best possible solution, but to find a solution that works satisfactorily within narrow frames of time, union and legislation 238

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demands, and economic resources to name but a few. In order to manage all this in a coherent manner, a model with a holistic perspective needs to be developed, as well as methods to guide the practical work in organisations. The chapter focused on the relationship between physical space and organisations. It proposed a cross-disciplinary reading of theories to illustrate the complexity of the issue. It has also called for a new, holistic methodology that can help guide the practical work in organisations. But how do these two worlds meet? Where can the abstract, conceptual knowledge of the academy merge with the practical, often unstructured and intuitive praxis of organisations? Where is the place to develop the new methodology? What the academic world needs is a theory of office design that offers an integrated perspective and coverage of all-important aspects. On the other hand, what the organisational practitioners need is an efficient method that decreases uncertainty, anxiety, slims costs and takes less time to implement. One way to frame the situation is through the picture of an hourglass, where the academic conceptualisation is at the upper end, and the practical reality is at the lower end. At the middle, in the narrow passage, we could find a place to work with the development of tools and perspectives that will enhance both the academic understanding of how organisations and physical space interact, as well as the organisational praxis.

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Chapter 15

Interface between Organisational Design and Architectural Jean Bellas

There is a power to space; in its glory it can induce a moment of awe. With every memorable encounter, there is a memorable space; with every key discovery there is a marking of its place. Space embraces and comforts us, affords us privacy, provides peace of mind, excitement and pleasure. We use space to inspire our creative processes and to enrich our life. Space is a fundamental part of the human spirit. Architecture is the merger of art and engineering to create those spaces where we live, work, learn and love. While architecture is the formation of space to meet a medley of functional needs, it also exists to meet our emotional wants. We want the right space to call home, to reunite our family, to celebrate, share a meal, focus, meditate, relax, acknowledge our history, communicate our spirit, even the right space to say goodbye. Well-designed spaces have profoundly positive impacts. Inversely, a space that fails in its primary purpose launches a myriad of negative emotions. A bus stop without shelter, a grocery store with congested check out lines, a make-up counter with poor lighting, a stairway that won’t allow us to enter with a stroller or a wheelchair will cause us anger and frustration. The most successful architectural solutions have regard and concern for the organisational systems within which they reside and are developed to serve. The challenge is then to create space as a system that sustains a symbiotic relationship with the organisation that it serves. As one is constructed, so the other is defined. As one changes, so the other should respond. When well designed, both should benefit from the existence of the other. A company is a complex organisation supported by an assemblage of interrelated networks that fuel each other. Space as one of the systems in the network exists for the purpose of effectively housing the organisation it serves. Unique in the creation of the architectural solution is the longevity of the decision; the life of bricks and mortar requires a long-term view of deci241

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sions. As such, space needs to encompass considerations that engage a worldview of how it contributes to the environment, as well as benefits the organisation, and contributes to the quality of life of the occupants. As the corporation is a network of engineered and or organically grown social, technical and financial organisational systems e.g. sales, marketing, distribution, manufacturing and physical systems, etc., it is the quality of the systems and ultimately the quality of the total network, which enable an organisation to be effective in its purpose. In this context, space, as an enabling system, provides the physical connectivity to bring together all parts of this complex network. To guide a spatial solution the process of design engages the organisation in identifying its foundational principals. It serves to put physical form to corporate values. This understanding of corporate culture ultimately frames a design concept. It is this design concept that will reinforce the desired behaviour among members of the corporation, how they work together and engage with customers, the community and interface with global resources. The principles according to which the company operates will become evident as these basic premises are translated to architectural expression. A corporate organisation is established for the purpose of creating a profit. To that end the financial systems provide the grounding for the larger network of systems. Financial systems create a consistent and clear language. They define the performance goals that unite the organisation in a common purpose. Human resource systems then collect and manage the interface between existing, new, and potential employees. Sales and marketing form the rules of customer engagement. From manufacturing we define the process of moving idea to reality while distribution systems move materials in and ultimately to the consumer. Within this network of systems are a myriad of unique and critical work processes. Most recently those work processes have begun to engage technology to increase effectiveness of the team members, and therefore improve the effectiveness of the organisation. In so doing technology, like space, is an embracing solution; it is the newest layer in the matrix of the overall organisational support system. Both space and technology provide communication and collaboration networks, one virtual, and the other physical. Both are challenged to enable the users to complete their work in ways that add value to the company, be it in the quality of innovations, the care of the customer, or the support of the employee. As technology evolves we grow less bounded by the need for traditional space. Technology has changed the corporations’ evaluation and value of space. As we are freed to work at any time, in any place, we are shedding our tethers to a single solution for workspace. It has opened the opportuni242

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ty to have multiple places of work and varied spatial solutions. The application of advanced technology is serving to enrich the quality of the spatial solution. As a result the metrics of space evaluation are changing. Historically there was a linear relationship between the population of a company and the amount of space needed to support that population. Without this connection, workplace solutions can put as their priority, not the efficiency in use of space, but rather the effectiveness of the organisation. As the focus shifts, space rises in importance as a key organisational enabling solution. Space provides a link between people, technology and process that is essential to achieve success; how the organisation communicates and collaborates, how the organisation maximises use of its assets, how the organisation displays respect for its people, its customers and its place in the world are all enabled by space. The thoughtful design of space then allows an organisation to function with stability and security, providing the container within which creativity and innovation can thrive. Space is the physical manifestation of an organisation. It signals the organisation’s view of the environment, community, and people. If allowed to achieve all that is possible, space can lift the spirit of those it is designed to serve.

Crucial competencies needed in designing space There are learned and practiced aspects that create the science of architecture, that of the selection and use of materials, regulatory requirements including life safety, environmental concerns, building system engineering, detailing and documentation for construction. But architecture is more than science, as it also combines the art of design. Design yields results that are not grounded by formula. Design is a unique search for unique answers to unique problems. The design of space is a complex and creative problem-solving process. It is not formulaic in that there is not a fixed beginning, middle, and end, all of which would yield predictable answers. Rather the art of architecture is a discovery process that to be successful requires the design of the process to be as equally important as the resulting design of the solution. Within the design process is the need to engage those the solution is meant to serve. Defining this need includes an understanding of how the organisation wants to behave in space. This requires that the designer or design team must assimilate an understanding of those key processes and interactions critical to the business. This assimilation requires that the architect become an organisational voyeur, gaining through observation and interview an understanding of an organisation’s aspirations. Architecture pro-

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vides a physical definition of the organisation’s future vision. To deliver an inspired solution a designer must have the skill to see and communicate the possible and the forbearance to bring the possible to reality.

Biggest organisational challenges While engaging participants is essential, if the design of space is approached as a democratic process, it will most probably result in compromised solutions. It is natural to have comfort in that which is familiar, and difficult to want what has not yet been experienced. It takes great conviction to drive a divergent solution. To leave behind comfort and move to the unknown involves risk. To move through risk requires strong leadership support and involvement. Leadership includes those members of an organisation who are considered to be the innovators, thought leaders as well as business leaders. It is not essential that leadership be limited to the senior levels of an organisation. Rather it is beneficial that leaders are extracted from the varied roles within an organisation and in so doing provide a diverse view due to their varied perspectives. Focus during the last decade has been on increasing productivity. Architectural solutions are repeatedly challenged to provide proof of increasing productivity. This quest implies a very direct responsibility for space as a singular factor in enhancing organisational productivity, which is an unproductive conclusion. Space, as one element of the network of organisational systems, is influenced in its success by the performance of the other systems and vice versa. The true quest is to define a set of valid measurements for the total system, and then to assure that respective systems are integrated in their purpose toward achieving that success. To determine effectiveness requires both an individual and integrated view of output, to assess how each system acts independently and as well a view of the total systems. It is simplistic to create an architectural solution absent of a concern for finance. Excess expenditure can handicap the performance of a company. As well, ignoring the dynamics of the business environment and creating a solution that limits the ability of an organisation to change by encumbering the process with excess expense or time is detrimental to overall performance. If any key organisational need is not met, the architectural design has failed to serve its greatest purpose: that of enabling the organisation.

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Approach to resolving organisational space design problems Little or no empirical data exists regarding how actual architecture is required to perform as a system – spatial decisions are instead based on money and perception. This is due, in large part, to the fact that space has not yet been recognised as an essential solution to many problems concerning organisational systems. An example that concerns a common organisation evolution today is the increased outsourcing of employees. As permanent staff is being reduced in number there is assumed to be a directly related reduction in space needs. In fact, in limited cases where actual occupancy tracking occurs this is not true. There is in fact an increase in the use of onsite support resources and very little reduction if any in individual space needs. There is however a shift in who is managing that resource, from the human resource team to the business unit and little to no linkage of systems to support the business units in the endeavour. We are in the midst of watching the dynamics of space use and space management change with changes in the organisation. Ultimately new space solutions will emerge, particularly as advancing technology solutions are applied to gaining a better understanding of real occupancy patterns. We can anticipate that evolving solutions will be more highly aligned to the diverse needs of the multiple users within an organisation. With this diversity of solutions will come a richness that will make the workplace increasingly more vibrant.

Application of approach to more general organisational problems As the organisation grows in complexity, so does the need for information. The development of new directions requires the improved assimilation of real data regarding the behaviour of the organisation. It also requires integrated analysis to develop varied models that explore not only solutions to support the organisation in a fixed moment in time but simulations that study how an organisation can behave under varied conditions, and the resulting impact of this for resource management. Advancing technology, and the move to integration of information to create real knowledge, will play a key role. The other key role will be a move to develop the analysis and processes that engage the multiple elements influencing the conditions. By first designing the approach to the problem, versus the design of the solution, extraordinary results can emerge.

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Organising space: some examples Sears represents a 30-year evolutionary story of an organisation and its headquarters space. Sears began in Chicago, occupying a series of varied loft type structures that allowed the company to house multiple functions in the same, nondescript architectural space. It matured as an organisation and elected to create a landmark headquarters, the Sears Tower of Chicago. The relocation into the tower was a milestone event for the company. It heralded its emergence as one of the largest and most formidable retailers of the world. The tower represented success. However, after a decade of occupancy in downtown Chicago, negative organisational impacts were evident. They were profoundly notable in the financial performance of the company. This merited an analysis of all aspects of the business to determine the required changes. As part of the analysis, space was identified as negatively impacting on organisational performance. A cultural hierarchy had evolved that was detrimental to business, with space reinforcing this class system. Windows became the prize, with performance of a few rewarded by a windowed office. Demoralising to nonwindowed team members, the concept of a “team of contributors” was lost. The limited size of the floor plate in this high-rise structure prohibited natural adjacencies. It had an impact on how and what was retailed. Soon the idea that shirts should be available for purchase that coordinated with pants and shoes, and belts, was also lost. Beyond clothing, Sears prided itself on home, car and hardware sales. The buyers’ review of new products was made profoundly difficult as suppliers were befuddled as to how to bring the newest innovation in refrigerators up to the 85th floor of the tower for a detailed product review. And so, new products were slow to be introduced and competitors emerged displaying every new product for easy comparison-shopping. In actual demographic analysis the person who shopped at Sears did not live in an urban location comprised of trendy style setters. Rather their customer was a suburban family looking for well-priced, quality products to meet everyday needs. The Sears Tower employees had lost touch with their customers. Space became a critical driver in redefining the future of the organisation. Relocation to the suburbs and a new headquarters design embedded a focus on the culture and processes of merchandising to regain prominence in retailing. Large open spaces for highly collaborative teaming emerged and a mock up store became the heart of the headquarters. Training, conferencing and dining became the brain of the centre and represented the encouragement of informal and formal gathering and information exchange. Connectivity, communication, speed and teaming became the themes upon which the organisation began to rebuild. 246

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Another major reoccurring issue is the amount of space an organisation consumes in support of the business, with pressure to reduce the volume of space to reduce expenses. There are repeated case studies in which the drive for cost efficiencies generated solutions that reduced the workspace per person. Over and over again these solutions fail because they take away from people without giving back the resources that are really required to do their respective jobs. Members of an organisation are engaged because they want to perform. It is often the organisation that drives them away from that goal with rewards that are not focused on performance. Engaging group members to identify what they really need to be most effective in performing their defined roles may generate new requirements for space and beyond for technology, human resources and organisational support. People think across an organisation. The organisation tends to work in segmented views to be able to organise effectively. By moving above segmentation and focusing on a holistic view, solutions emerge that often require considerably less space. When this occurs there is a compounded benefit because space is saved and the team members’ effectiveness and enthusiasm also increases.

Addressing the gap between designing space and designing organisations Design is a process used to achieve a desired result. This process examines the influencing component parts and realigns them to create the most effective solution. Both organisations and space are similar in that they are evolutionary systems that require continuous renewal. As such without a renewal process, the system will fail to perform. Space and organisation when viewed as organic systems, then require ongoing review, audit, and analysis, i.e. a process to sustain alignment. This continuous assessment then improves the performance of the assets. In this analysis process we need to look three-dimensionally at the issues, to be able to see the connectivity between systems. Technology aids us in bridging this gap and the move from intuitive to actual data. With this knowledge we will increase our understanding of the multiple factors influencing the behaviour of people in space, and new design solutions will emerge as risks are mitigated. Our emphasis will be on increasing comfort, effectiveness and enjoyment of space in support of the needs of the organisation. Space will be more aware and engaging as a solution of and for those it is meant to serve.

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Chapter 16

Cities as Heterotopias and Third Spaces: the Example of ImagiNation, the Swiss Expo02 Chris Steyaert

Cities and creativity The point of departure for this chapter is the question of how creative development is connected to cities and how creativity can “take place” in cities. Are there specific or “other” spaces involved? How can these spaces become conceptualised? The essay will argue that specific, “potential” or “other”, spaces and timings, which stay out of the force of organising, allow transition and transformation, allow becoming (instead of being), capturing creativity and decadence, life and death. These transitional spaces can be illustrated in the “organising” of cities, and in how this connects to people’s practices of everyday life. The Expo02, an exhibition on the future of Switzerland which took place in 2002 and which had more than 10 million visitors, will be discussed as a concrete example. Organising creativity has mainly been discussed as creativity in organisations rather than in broader geographies. The chapter addresses creativity within the geography of cities (or city-regions) and their socio-spatial processes. First, I will develop a conceptual framework by connecting the notions of potential space (Winnicott) and heterotopia (Foucault). Second, the Expo02 will be analyzed and interpreted through these socio-spatial concepts. Third, I will define an agenda that can connect the relation between creativity and cities.

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Conceptual explorations of creative spaces Potential space and intermediate space1 Creative spaces are not something exceptional. That is, they are abundantly present in the early years of our life. Think of the child that in its play builds a space of its own under the trees in the corner of the garden. It is the child that calls you and says “come, I will show you my secret place” and while you walk through the garden hand in hand, you will get a range of stories of what is happening there and who else has been to visit besides yourself, such as knights and trolls and, perhaps at one time, a beautiful princess or prince. The space under the trees is created through play and it is through building his or her own spaces that a child is creating its own possibilities for development. This space is both real and unreal; in exploring that boundary the child learns and constructs the boundaries of its own self. The English psychologist and psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott (1896–1971) has called such a space in his last book, Playing and Reality, the potential space. Winnicott does not provide us with a precise definition of potential space. On the evening of his death, Winnicott was reading the proofs of this book:2 he had his whole life been using this concept as a kind of try-out place for various ideas, as a potential space itself. That Winnicott had not given a fixed content to this concept, and used it as a “moving concept”3, illustrates well the nature of the concept: it is a playground for developing ideas. There are two important features that characterise and constitute the potential space. The potential space grows out of the interpersonal world, and especially out of the parent-child relationship. At an early age, relationships are expressed and experienced very much in terms of space and boundaries: the child here, next to the parent, sees an object in the corner, runs to it, picks it up, looks around, sees there is no parent around anymore; will the child run back, start to cry or focus on the object that it just found and start to play with it? The explorations a child makes are literally formed in the interspaces between the parent and the child itself; if the parent stays too close there is no space at all; if the parent is too far, the child feels lost in a too-open space. Exploring and making its own space depends to a big extent on such interplay with the parent or any other significant person. In the potential space, the social and the spatial are directly connected.

1 In earlier work, Winnicott had used the terms “intermediate space” and “potential space” synonymously, but in Playing and Reality he refers to a symbolic, metaphoric space when writing on potential space, while the intermediate space is rather pre-symbolic in nature. 2 See Davis and Wallbridge 1983. 3 See Steyaert and Janssens 1999.

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Thus, in order to understand and theorise creative spaces, we have to focus on these psychological-relational processes. Creativity is established in a social space, in the in-between of relationships. What Winnicott (1971) calls the good-enough “parent” gives us an indication of the quality of such relationships that allow for play: Where trust and reliability exist there is a potential space, potentially an infinite area of separation. In this space a baby, child, adolescent, or adult may creatively play, creating cultural heritage. Exploring new possibilities requires thus relationships that give trust and confidence. For the child, walking around, the world is open, ambiguous and mainly unpatterned. The relational provides a space that is sufficiently secure, though never overly protective or very structured or routinised. A second feature is that the creative development of children in the potential space is enacted through play. Winnicott saw playing as the place where people could be creative, and I quote him from Playing and Reality, “in playing, and perhaps only in playing, the child or adult is free to be creative”. For Winnicott, playing is “an action concept, [it] is developmental play. Play in childhood and throughout the life cycle helps to relieve the tension of living, helps to prepare for the serious (…), helps define and redefine the boundaries between ourselves and others, helps give us a fuller sense of our own personal and bodily being. Playing provides a trying out ground for proceeding onward, and it enhances drive satisfaction” (Grolnick 1990:35). Playing allows proceeding onward as one can explore several options and one can reduce the open and multiple worlds to a more limited range of options. By playing, one develops both the option and one’s own competences and skills. It is this trying out ground, this sandbox, this possibility of experimenting and doing as-if things were serious that I have observed and indicated as a core moment in the development of young, innovative companies. For instance, in a Flemish high tech company, one of the first important projects in which their technology was applied was described as our sandbox: there we could try out everything we wanted. That is something we need again – it allowed us to play as much as possible (Steyaert 1996). This project, requested by an international client, was an ideal territory for building a machine through which their technological skills could be nurtured and refined. Although this application was superseded, and in fact did not become a main product of the firm, it helped the firm to develop a big part of its technological know-how and future entrepreneurial development. It made them help to make the transition, in much the same way that toys help children make transitions. It is this company’s capacity not to give up on the idea of a potential space and of playing that allowed them to perpetuate their entrepreneurial movement. For companies or any other organisational collective to innovate, we are thus told here, we need to think of peo-

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ple as homo ludens, and go back to that capacity for play, the performance of which we have unlearned.4

Other spaces or heterotopia To conceive such another space, I can also5 refer to the notion of heterotopia6 as discussed by Foucault and, since then, explored in different disciplines.7 However, the concept of heterotopia stayed out of Foucault’s legacy for quite some time, and the notion of the disciplined space or panopticon has received much more attention. His text on heterotopia “Des espaces autres” (Of other spaces) which he first introduced in a lecture for “Le Cercle d’Etudes Architecturales” in Paris, was only officially published shortly after his death in 1984 while excerpts were already printed in an Italian architecture journal in 1968. The notion of heterotopia points to different spaces that contest the space we live in. An analysis of heterotopias generates a description of absolutely other spaces. In analysing these spaces – a so-called heterotopology, Foucault is interested in these sites “that have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralise, or invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect” (1997:265). Foucault uses the mirror as his first example of a place that is both utopia and a heterotopia. As a placeless place, the mirror is a utopia (which etymologically means “non-place”). But it is also a heterotopia, as the mirror does exist, “where it exerts a sort of counteraction on the position that I occupy”. From this virtual place, a person can come back to herself or himself. It is both absolutely real as absolutely unreal, “since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there” (1997:266). Similarly to Winnicott, Foucault does not give an exact definition but uses several principles to describe heterotopias. First he states that no single culture fails to constitute heterotopias, though taking very different forms. One (disappearing) form is the crisis heterotopia that points at crucial but not always evident transitions in life and the body. A second (increasing) form is 4

Winnicott was aware of that paradox, as he realized that we all enter life with the capacity to play, but his question was how fast we would loose it again. For him, this was crucial for permanent development, playing was his main activity used in child and adult therapy to alter blocked development. 5 As far as I know there is no cross-referencing between authors referring to Winnicott’s and those referring to Foucault’s heterotopia. 6 The term heterotopia originally comes from medicine, namely the study of anatomy where it is used to refer to parts of the body that are out of place, missing, extra, or like a tumour, alien. 7 See for instance Hetherington (1997) and Soya (1996) in urban sociology and cultural geography.

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called by Foucault heterotopias of deviation, such as rest homes, prisons, or psychiatric hospitals. A second principle says that the same heterotopia can function in different ways as it is played out in different settings or societies. An example of such a heterotopia is the cemetery, which has been moved from the centre of the city, around or next to the church, towards the suburbs, and as such became more of a dark resting place for families and individuals than the sacred and immortal heart of the city. Cemeteries remain then heterotopias but for different reasons. According to the third principle, a heterotopia “is capable of juxtaposing in a single real space several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible”. The example Foucault gives here, next to theatre and cinema, is that of the garden, which, historically, in Persian traditions was meant to bring together the four parts of the world into one sacred space around a basin and water fountain, the “navel” of the world. Fourth, we learn that heterotopias are as much special spaces as special slices of time, so-called heterochronies, times where people break radically with their traditional time, such as when you “enter” a cemetery, where the time stands still, or when you enter a library or museum that tries to enclose in one place all times, all epochs, all forms, all tastes, an immobile place that is itself outside of time. Or when you visit a fairground or festival – a most temporary and fleeting experience. A fifth principle points at a system of opening and closing that both isolates heterotopias and makes them accessible in a special way. Hammams and saunas are places where purification is not just a way to enter; their only aim is to purify one’s self in this transit zone and time. Heterotopias become such via their relation to other places, by making an illusionary or compensatory space for imperfect, real spaces. Heterotopias are thus found in any culture, their function and identity are context bound, they can relate incompatible spaces, the heterotopia finds itself in opposition to normal public spaces, as they perform in – and the exclusion of – possible members, and coincide with special times. We should add a sixth principle, heterotopias are always moving and mobile, places of movement and passage. Foucault gives us a hint of this, since he ends the lecture by naming the boat as the heterotopia par excellence: “If we think, after all, that the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea and that, from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilisation, from the sixteenth century until the present, the great instrument of economic development (…), but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilisations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of 252

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pirates” (p. 272). Like boats, places can then be seen as mobile effects from placing, arranging and relating materials (Hetherington 1997). Heterotopias are thus spaces where change, transition and movement become possible, and as such they cannot be fixed themselves.

Thirdspaces: qualifying the creative space I would like to bring both concepts of “potential spaces” and “other spaces” together in a third, connecting notion, Edward Soya’s (1996) notion of “thirdspaces”. From Winnicott’s conception, potential spaces could be summarised as spaces enacted through in-between relationships and through playing. In a complementary manner, Foucault’s notion of heterotopia emerges as an in-between, a paradoxical space, which through its potential for contesting, juxtaposing, and altering, allows new or possible worlds.

Illustrating thirdspaces: The Swiss Expo02 I will proceed by initiating an example of what I call an imaginative geography. The example is the Expo 02. In 2002, Switzerland was holding, as I interpret it, its “own” heterotopia and potential space, in an exhibition that was named “ImaginaNation” (indeed with capital N). This was the sixth Landesausstellung for Switzerland since the first one was organised in 1883 in Zurich and it lasted from May to October. Trying to give each generation a chance to reflect about its future, it also in this case concerned images and imaginations of a future nation, a future Switzerland. In contrast to the earlier exhibitions, this one seemed to be much less about Swiss nationality and identity, reproducing the well-known sides and even stereotypes of “the Swiss”, as in this version it was assumed that there is no unified, utopian image of the (Swiss) future possible (nor definable). The 6th exhibition tried to conceive of itself as an “other space”, as it went for the different and the unknown, for the future sides and sites of Switzerland. Its focus on alterity (Janssens and Steyaert, 2003) can be noticed immediately in the “different” locations, as one had chosen to decentralise the locations (instead of the usual one big city): three lakes (Lac de Neuchâtel, Bielersee and Lac de Morat), four cities (Morat, Yverdon-les-Bains, Neuchâtel and Biel), at five locations. As a consequence of this decentralisation, the exhibition was not any longer about one exhibition, but about exhibitions.8 There was no one place to be, or one event to follow. Even more, through its time span of almost 5 months, the exhibition changed constantly through the enactment of various events: a constant multiplying. 8

40 exhibitions (such as “imaginary territories”, “new destiNations”, “sWISH – wishscapes Switzerland”, “empire of silence – an adventure”, and many more “inbetweens” as they were called), and 13,000 events.

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Furthermore, the exhibition spaces were built on the transition where water and land meet, transitional spaces, around the lakes. Rather then opting for stable and well-grounded locations (as most exhibitions prefer to do, so that massive constructions can be “erected” to impress (cf. the Eiffel Tower)), the exhibitions were located around and on the water, on so-called arteplages – literally art beaches. They formed artificial places that could only be reached by bridge, boat or tunnel. Reflecting themselves in the water of the lake, these arteplages symbolised both a heterotopic mirror and movement. They formed thirdspaces, spaces that both looked unreal and contained surprising options; they all formed an ambiguous space – whether this was the monolith of Murat, the cloud at Yverdon-les-Bains, the three UFOs at Neuchâtel, or the almost dancing, seemingly unstable towers in Biel – they all played with the boundary between the real and the unreal, the known and the new, the past and the future. For example, at Yverdon-lesBains, one could visit a cloud9, a child’s dream to travel on a perfectly real cloud, one’s closest contact ever with the unreachable universe, a virtual stabilisation of what is always floating and ever reforming its shape, a cloud. Or, another example, in Murten, a small village, once an historic site for the battle of Morat where the Swiss confederates resisted the Burgundian army led by Charles the Bold in 1476, one could visit a monolith, a heavy cubicle, thriving on the water’s surface instead of (as one would expect) sinking like a stone. It formed an unreal sight that one could enter after a short boat trip, where one could see simultaneously the surrounding landscape as well as Louis Braun’s 111-meter long circular work, a panoramic painting (restored for the Expo) of this historic battle. The visit formed a transformative event where the moment of the visit or a war and the idea of a history and an eternity become (re)connected. Similarly, at Neufchâtel, one could visit what one only knows as unidentifiable places, three UFOs on a floating platform with next to it, a pudding-like space, both safe cocoon and with surrealist (Magritte-) effects, the whole platform surrounded by enormous reeds, playfully connecting the artificial and the natural. The floating piazza at Biel, with its three dancing towers (looking so much less stable than the usual exhibition towers), connected power and liberty, the impact and the possible, inviting visitors to reflect upon where their desires and lusts, taboos and values either imprison or set them free. The exhibition was not about the classic intention of exhibitions and museums, namely to order and to categorise and about disciplining its visitors by following a certain route. The model here was performative and participative: visitors had to move and keep moving, and there was no preferred order or rhythm for doing so. The model of knowledge is no longer that of the encyclopaedia, the bringing home into some order. To read, to know 9

By the New York architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio.

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here is to travel: one had to go from the one site to the other and visiting one of the sites required again travelling. This thirdspace required thus a playful participation of visitors. The effect of visiting the exhibition aimed not at some kind of identification with utopian but well-defined visions, of completing ambiguous and open possibilities as one’s own playful event. Visiting this Expo was thus entering a special time and space. Whereas normal life in Western societies (and I guess not any less in Switzerland) is oriented to production and productivity, one entered here useless time and space; (as with play), the importance lay in doing so, as there were specific outcomes to be expected. Some, also in political circles, had indeed criticised that this was (a lot of) money badly spent in a country that had recently gone through economic and moral crisis. But one could also take a different view and even turn this criticism around – the timing could not be better as it is when economic and moral confidence shrinks or is lacking that these creative spaces can form a kind of cultural resistance; like companies, countries can not afford to be without new possibilities in the pipeline. The bankruptcy of a country, community or a company is not that the financial capital has dried up, but that dreams have dried up, that people have stopped believing and acting as if they can do something about it. That this was a special time and special space, was also stressed by the temporariness of the whole Expo, as it was not only limited in time, but much more difficult for the audience to grasp, also limited in space, as all constructions were temporary and would become erased from the landscapes. In some cases, this resulted in heavy polemics (such as with Murten’s monolith), keeping a nation caught in the tension between process and result, dream and materiality, ideas and money. The meaning of all this “exhibiting” can then “only” come from how it comments, relates, questions, and can alter how citizens are shaping and producing Switzerland in their everyday lives: an alternative geography. As a thirdspace, it doesn’t reject the past or the contemporary; rather it stimulates us to look at it with new eyes.10 This relates to the fact that there was actually a fifth arteplage, a “special” one, which was actually mobile, moving over the lake, indicating that Switzerland is movement itself, rather than being on its way to a new stability. The new is not some other fixed state but will be movement. I have to refer again to Foucault’s discussion of hetero10 I can refer to an experience I had myself in that same year, April 2002, when visiting Bruges, my home town – together with Salamanca that year cultural capital – where on its oldest square housing its 14th century old city hall and its basilica, the Japanese architect Toyo Ito has built an installation of water and movement: when one walks through it, one sees the square and the city-hall at a different angle, the static and traditional view that I have had of it since my youth, becomes connected with movement and avant-garde; it allows one to see it anew. Especially in the context of Bruges, stifled into a single and unambiguous image of oldness due to its tourist success, creating new images is a life-necessity.

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topia – remember he referred explicitly to fairgrounds and festivals – where he calls boats heterotopia par excellence: The “Arteplage Mobile du Jura” is not only moving, it changes constantly its shapes, its programme and its roles. It sees itself as a pirate ship – ein Piraten-schiff – that seeks rather than avoids the troubled waters and that wants to be a place where tensions, contradictions are brought up and confronted. Boats are necessary for civilisations, without them, no “real” imagination is possible and dreams dry up. This boat, and entering it (with overall 55,000 visitors taking this boat) invited visitors to lose the belief that imagination will come by itself or by a simple entertainment-oriented participation, one needed to be able to contest the “upcoming” images and “natural” imaginations, and decolonise them from one’s own common sense, discourses and interdependencies.

Thirdspacing and non-defining City planners might be interested in these concepts and the Expo02 example, but it should be immediately stressed that these concepts, as we learn it as well from the Expo-experience, are ephemeral, and cannot be planned for and managed from the outside. The socio-spatiality of creativity cannot be pinned down. It is no surprise that neither Winnicott nor Foucault were very precise in their qualification of respectively potential space and heterotopia, and that Foucault opted for a neologism. Soya (1996:159) remarks that “Didactic and anti-didactic at the same time, Foucault romps through the ‘principles’ of heterotopology with unsystematic autobiographical enjoyment a disorderly irresponsibility”. I tend to believe that the openness of these concepts is an asset. It can allow us to connect concept and realities we do not usually connect. And it protects us from thinking that there are easy slogans for direct use. This does not mean that we want to make creativity as a concept unreachable or mystical, it only implies there are no predictable remedies or formulas, except for the tolerance to work with non-definable concepts. Even more, to accept that every time something has become defined, its potential for creativity – read: making a difference – has been lost. Keeping the terms open, or, more precise, empty, is then the annoying advice to be given.11 “Play” can never be formulated as an order. While heterotopias are special places, they can emerge everywhere, or nowhere. All spaces have a heterotopic potential, only realising it simultaneously implies losing it. The creation of difference does not allow coming to a standstill.

11 A similar case can be made by paradoxical analysis (see Steyaert and Janssens 1999) and by rhizomatic analysis (see Steyaert 2003). The idea depends upon avoiding thinking “either or” and keeping connecting which can be called affirming by a connective logic, saying “and … and … and”.

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Cities as other spaces, imaginative geographies: diverging from the agenda In connecting the conceptual concepts of potential and other spaces with the Expo02-example, an underlying assumption, a minor hypothesis has sneaked in: from the child’s camp under the trees to the unstable constructions on the water at the Swiss Expo, it should be argued that thirdspaces or creative spaces are not part of the central focus of spatial organising; they can be both be very peculiar microgeographies and massive spatialities but the otherness of these spatialities is not some inherent feature of space but emerges from a specific relationality, namely how these spaces alter our way of thinking and living ourselves in the usual spaces of everyday life. To understand and to explore this view further (beyond the exemplary) implies studying cities as platforms where thirdspaces are emerging: it means to explore the spatiality of cities as a relational event, where one space becomes connected to another space, a connection that might reveal subversion, contradiction, transition, transformation, reversal, etc. A so-called heterotopology is then a study of the thirdspace by establishing the relationality of every double of organising. When Chambers (1986:183) writes, “the city exists as a series of doubles; it has official and hidden cultures, it is a real place and a site of imagination. Its elaborate network of streets, housing, public buildings, transport systems, parks, and shops is paralleled by a complex of attitudes, habits, customs, expectancies, and hopes that reside in us as urban subjects. We discover that urban ‘reality’ is not single but multiple, that inside the city there is always another city”. We might have to reframe this doubleness as a relationality, question that it is a matter of the other “inside” the one, and affirm that it is matter of how difference emerges from juxtaposing different (forms of) spaces. A similar line of thinking can be found in Calvino’s Invisible Cities, where a city emerges as a border between two deserts and where, when you think you are visiting Tamara, “you are only recording the names with which she defines herself and all her parts” (1974:14). The other city that you leave without having discovered is probably there “in the shape that chance and wind give the clouds” (ibid.). Heterotopology can then be called a study of invisible cities, a study of the relationships between the visible and the invisible, the visible and the audible. It is a study of shadows and echoes where possible urban worlds emerge. Such a heterotopological study would also depart from another thinking of spatiality, an “intentional disordering and disruption of the geographical imaginations and spatial sciences and philosophies that have evolved to the present” (Soya 1996:163). Thirdspaces are not about ordering or about resistance, but about the interweaving process of both (Hetherington 1997); they are relational, implying a focus on the process of

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order and resistance, control and freedom, marginality and centre, its continuous oscillating. The minor hypothesis described above can become connected to a broad variety of studies and might become illustrated as more specific propositions. I will initiate three such propositions. These propositions can also be read as an effort to define a research agenda. The first proposition addresses what de Certeau calls everyday man and women and how they alter through their practices and tactical moves the expected and the normalised. The second focuses on people who in the actualisation of alterity search for and develop spaces that avoid normalisation, and the third focuses on the redistribution of cities through the so-called “rise of the creative class”. Whether we focus on ordinary, queer or “creative” (quite an over-coded term) people, the social process through which thirdspaces transform cities seems to be similar.

Spacing/Deterritorialising city-space The first proposition says: (1) Cities form spaces where people can alter and recreate their lives through their everyday practices. Such a study would comply with de Certeau’s conception of everyday life in the city where our walks as much “follow” how the city territorialises our steps as they become new possibilities not intended or accounted for by the city’s structures (like walls). For this, de Certeau (1984:117) makes a distinction between space and place: place is “the order (of whatever kind) in accord with which elements are distributed in relationships of coexistence”. Place is stable and pre-exists the individual as a coded and territorialised location, as a grid. When space is not structured and over-coded but dynamic instead, “it is in a sense actuated by the ensemble of movements deployed within it. Spaces occur as the effect produced by the operations that orient it, situate it, temporalise it and make it function in a polyvalent unity of conflictual programs or contractual proximities”. Space emerges here as deterritorialised12, a place practiced by actors: “practice, the movement of actors and the flux of relations, tends to deterritorialise (in that possibilities not marked by codes and forms are actualised); but it also reterritorialises because these formations themselves are actualized” (Macgregror Wise 1997:125). So it becomes that the walker, according to de Certeau (1998), actualises some of these possibilities. Such a study has been effected by the anthropologist Pardo (1996), who, in his focus on everyday life in Naples, based on ethnographic research (“research around the corner”), narrates the entrepreneurial moves through which citizens – the so-called popolino – “manage” their 12

The distinction of place and space by de Certeau, where the creation of space, or spacing, is close to Deleuze and Guattari’s deterritorializing (1987:423), bringing “connections to bear against the great conjunction of the apparatuses of capture or domination”.

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existence on the scene of everyday city-life as an informal and personalised form of interacting, which enacts new possibilities for living, a personal entrepreneurship that combines “different domains of livelihood” (Pardo 1996:32). The people’s lives that Pardo analyses are those unemployed “who are not out of [informal] work” or petty bourgeois who complement their employment with work through entrepreneurial moves – “sapè fà” (Pardo 1996:27), “based on a blurring of boundaries, found in various degrees throughout Italy, between the categories of the modern organization of labour – between the formal and the informal, the legal and the illegal, and the material and the non-material” (Pardo 1996:19).

Queering/Re-mapping city-space The second proposition says: (2) Creative spaces form laboratories of society, spaces of activism, where the personal, the poetic and the political coincide. Ever since Castells’ study (1983) of cities and grassroots, focusing on urban social movements in Europe, the United States and Latin America, the connection between cities and change “from below” has been established, taking the household as an important space of meaning and as a site of politics. Before this study, Smith (2001:146) explains, “in conceptualising the ‘grassroots’, neither urban social movement scholars nor urban regime theorists paid much attention to politics of meaning found in the everyday practices of ordinary people as they came to experience personal troubles at the level of urban households. This is no small omission, since households, though hardly a unitary category, are among the key social spaces where people acquire practical awareness of the quality and character of urban life. It is out of this practical understanding of the ‘everyday’ that collective action, whatever its roots, and however global or local its inspiration or focus, springs”. Castells studies through narrative cases the positioning of ethnic, gay and female minorities and the role of social movements and social protest in this. Smith re-interprets these narrative case studies by stressing that even, for instance in the case of the San Francisco Mission District in the 1980s, where social conflict was triggered as “local issues of collective consumption and cultural identity, particularly inadequate local housing supply, and urban renewal displacement of Latino households” (Smith 2001:148), the wider context of these local conditions was transnational. In his later work, Castells distinguishes between the space of places and the spaces of flows, where the latter “works across distance through communication flows, processed and transmitted by telecommunications, electronic networks of information systems, and transportation systems, [and] which started as the space of power and dominant functions, is extending its realm to the whole diversity of human activity” (Castells 2002:381). Both spaces work according to two different spatial logics where “the dominant tendency is toward a horizon of networked, a-historical 259

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space of flows, aiming at imposing its logic over scattered, segmented places, increasingly unrelated to each other, less and less able to share cultural codes” (Castells 2000:359). Castells sees a danger that both spaces become disconnected into two parallel universes, implying that the “end of the urban contract may signal the end of the social contract” (Castells 2002:377). In reconstructing the city, Castells believes in the role of grassroots and minority activism. Ingram (1997:464) gives an example where gay people develop spaces, for which he uses the notion of heterotopia “specifically for those spaces that, from a variety of socially related and cultural processes, challenge or subvert the hegemony of the current configurations of heteronormativity, patriarchy, and neocolonialism. In this sense heterotopia allows some form of queering of an environment and a social milieu”. Such spaces are enacted by activism, and he calls them “queerspaces”, which are not only landscapes with sexual minorities but also ones that form a social overlay, “where the interplays between assertion and marginalisation of sexualities are in constant flux and the space for sexual minorities is ‘decentered’” (p. 40–41). Smith (2001) suggests however – parallel to the distinction of place and space – that it would be wrong to associate the everyday with the local (place) as opposed to the global (the space of flows, unlocalised). For Smith, the everyday should be studied as a transnational localism, drawing upon the analysis of Campbell (1996:117): “Likewise, neither is ‘everyday life’ a synonym for the local level, for in it global interconnections, local resistances, transterritiorial flows, state politics, regional dilemmas, identity formations and so on are always already present. Everyday life is thus a transversal site of contestations rather than a fixed level of analysis. It is transversal […] because the conflicts manifested there not only transverse all boundaries: they are about these boundaries, their erasure or inscription, and the identity formations to which they give rise.” In contrast to Castells, where the space of flow and the space of place are distinguishable, Smith wants to reconnect them into one process where the local is never just local, but always intersected through flows of other levels.

Culturing/Plateauing (Smoothing) city-space The third proposition points out that (3) cities allow creative development as transitional spaces where difference and diversity is actualised. In effect, it combines the first two propositions in saying that everyday creativity and the role of diverse communities in this, can be seen as a “new” dynamics through which cities become redistributed as networked communities. This new dynamics has been described by Florida (2002) as “the rise of the creative class”. According to Florida (2002) this creative class makes their lifestyle, their values, and their relationships the main point of departure for combining work, leisure and living and seems to complement such identifi260

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able “classes” as the working, service and agriculture class. Florida has backed up this thesis with statistical data and group interviews, leaving open the possibility of more processual, ethnographic studies that make this new dynamics visible in its everyday prosaic nature (Pardo 1996; Smith 2001). The statistical data consist of ranking US cities with regard to such a wide range of indices, as the high-tech index, the innovation index, gay index, the bohemian index, the melting pot index, the composite diversity index (combining gay, bohemian and melting pot index), the talent index, and the creativity index (combining innovation, high tech, gay index and the creative class), and even a “fitness rank”. What comes out of these general comparisons, is that most of the indices combine and correlate, for example it is clear that cities that rank high on technology and talent, also rank high on tolerance (towards minorities), or that the gay index is a very strong predictor of a region’s high-tech industry concentration (p. 256), so that hiring for diversity has become a matter of economic survival “because creativity comes in all colours, genders and personal preferences” (Florida 2002:5). People from the creative class prefer a no-collar workplace, know an experiential lifestyle that is as much bohemian as bourgeois and transcends that distinction, and perform a different use of time. As a consequence, for Florida, and against the widespread opinion that “geography is dead”, “place has become the central organising unit of our time, taking on many of the functions that used to be played by firms and other organisations. … It is geographic place rather than the corporation that provides the organisational matrix for matching people and jobs” (Florida 2002:6). Creativity has gravitated in the past as well as at present to specific locations, as creative people tend to “cluster in places that are centres of creativity and also where they like to live” (Florida 2002:7). For Florida, this is not a small change, but a “sea-change”, “it is the emergence of a new society and a new culture – indeed a whole new way of life” (Florida 2002:12). Besides the lack of processual and contextualised accounts of how this emergence takes place – what are then the cultural, social and political processes that shape cities as transitional spaces? And besides a crucial concern that the creative and the cultural might become here overcoded as an economism, as a “creative economy” (see Steyaert 2000), this account allows us to start thinking of city-life as a culturalised creativity. For Florida, the social structure of creativity consists of “new systems for technological creativity and entrepreneurship, (2) new and more effective models for producing goods and services, and (3) a broad social, cultural and geographic milieu conducive to creativity of all sorts” (Florida 2002:48). Especially the latter, the social and cultural milieu becomes argued for as that which received least attention (see Steyaert and Meier 2001), defined as “a supportive social milieu that is open to all forms of creativity – artistic and cul261

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tural as well as technological and economic. This milieu provides the underlying eco-system or habitat in which the multidimensional forms of creativity take root and flourish”. It is this habitat that makes people move to places with “abundant high-quality amenities and experiences, an openness to diversity of all kinds, and above all else the opportunity to validate their identities as creative people” (Steyaert and Meier 2001:218). The question is whether we should speak here of a habitat or rather of an anti-habitat, that allows us to relate to such notions as thirdspaces and heterotopias, and that does not, again, territorialise and fix the creative. Since, if place matters again, it might be as much because of features of locations as because of the enactment of spaces through everyday practices (see above, de Certeau) and because of the interconnecting of spaces through our everyday life (see above, Smith). Probably, things are more complicated than saying that a place gets it and, based on Oldenburg (1989), saying that it is about “third places” (not spaces), that “are neither home nor work – the ‘first two’ places – but venues like coffee shops, bookstores and cafés in which we find less formal acquaintances”, which, quoting Oldenborg, “comprise ‘the heart of a community’s social vitality’ where people ‘hang out simply for the pleasures of good company and lively conversation’”. That is what I have tried to describe above and is, I think, what notions such as potential space and heterotopia can allow us to focus upon. What we then need is an analysis from below (Smith 2001), which makes accountable the social-spatial processes that generate thirdspaces that seem to matter for a creative class (Florida gives two short “positive” examples, Austin and Dublin, and one “negative”, a place that got trapped, his “own” Pittsburgh). The point would then be to use the distinction of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) between a molar and molecular level of social analysis, which is not a matter of scale but a difference in kind where the molar level – the macropolitical – is played out in conflicts between molar social entities such as social classes, sexes and nations, while the molecular – the micropolitical – is played out “in terms of social affinities, sexual orientations and varieties of communal belonging” (Patton 2000:43). This distinction is embedded in a broader set of distinctions that Deleuze and Guattari (1987:33) draw: [B]etween arborescent multiplicities and rhizomatic multiplicities, as something between macro- and micro- multiplicities. On the on the hand, multiplicities that are extensive, divisible and molar; unifiable, totalisable, organisable – conscious or preconscious – and on the other hand, libidinal, unconscious, molecular intensive multiplicities – composed of particles that do not divide without changing in nature, and distances that do not vary without entering another multiplicity, and that constantly construct and dismantle themselves in the course of their communications.

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We occupy different social spaces through molar and the molecular lines, and it requires a more intensive study to see which kind of lines the so-called creative class is following.

Transitions I have tried to illustrate and argue that potential spaces and heterotopia can form concepts to address the development of other spaces through which everyday citizens (so-called “people” – like the popolino in Naples), minority groups (like queers in Castro) and the professionals of the so-called “creative class” (like the young man with the spiked hair who prefers Austin to Pittsburgh (Florida 2002:217), can (re)position and embody their otherness as part of everyday city life. The generalised combining of these diverse examples needs to be specified in thick accounts of social-cultural-political processes that generate these other spaces and that make accountable the everyday entrepreneurial moves of a so-called “creative city” (Landry 2000). The three propositions can be said to stress the three main directions Deleuze and Guattari (1990) see at work in A Thousand Plateaus, namely that a society is, firstly, not defined “so much by its contradictions as by its lines of flight” (p. 171), the process of deterritorialising described in the first proposition. Secondly, the direction to “consider minorities rather than classes” (p. 172), aligns well with the second proposition on queering spaces (and to be extended by the notions of molar and molecular entities), and, finally, a third direction “which amounts to finding a characterisation of ‘war machines’ [that has] to do with a particular way of occupying, taking up, space-time, or inventing new space-times” (Deleuze and Guattari 1990:170) (like revolutionary, creative and artistic movements), connecting the third proposition on the culturing of spaces. This is a smoothing that follows nomadic thought out of the repressive social machinery, a search for the war-machines and their conditions of creative mutation and change, namely “the free interplay of all the machines, arrangements, flows, processes, becomings, events into which a given thing (component, variable) enters is intrinsic desiring, productive, and disruptive: creative, artistic, and revolutionary” (Deleuze and Guattari 1990:185).

References Borges, J. L. (1971). The Aleph and other Stories. New York: Bantam Books. Bouthillette, & Y. Retter (1997). Queers in Space: Communities/Public Places/Sites of Resistance. Seattle: Bay Press. Calvino, I. (1974). Invisible Cities. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company. Campbell, D. (1996). Political Processes, Transversal Politics, and the Anarchical World. In M. J. Shapiro & H. R. Alker (Eds.) Challenging Boundaries. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Castells, M. (2000). The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Chambers, I. (1986). Popular Culture: the Metropolitan Experience. London: Routledge. Davis, M. & D. Wallbridge (1983). Boundary and Space: An Introduction to the Work of D.W. Winnicott. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. de Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Defert, D. (1997). Foucault, Space, and the Architects. Documenta X – the book. Berlin: Cantz Verlag. Deleuze, G. & F. Guattari (1987). A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Expo02 (2002). Programmebook. Zürich: Verlag Neue Züricher Zeitung. Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books. Foucault, M. (1984). What is Enlightenment? In P. Rabinow (Ed.) The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (1986). Of Other Spaces. Diacritics, 16 (1): 22–7. Foucault, M. (1989). The Order of Things. Tavistock: Routledge. Grolnick, S. A. (1990). The Work and Play of Winnicott. Northvale: Jason Aronson. Hall, P. (1998). Cities in Civilization. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Hall, T. & P. Hubbard (1998). The Entrepreneurial City: Geographies, Politics, Regime and Representation. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Hetherington, K. (1997). The Badlands of Modernity. Heterotopia and Social Ordering. London: Routledge. Ingram, G. B. (1997). “Open” Space As Strategic Queer Sites. In Queers in Space: Communities/Public Places/Sites of Resistance. Seattle: Bay Press. Landry, C. (2000). The Creative City. New York: Earthscan. Macgregor Wise, J. (1997). Exploring Technology and Social Space. Thousand Oaks: Sage. McHale, B. (1987). Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge. Oldenborg, R. (1989). The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. New York: Marlowe and Company. Pardo, I. (1996). Managing existence in Naples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, B. (2003). The Disorganization of Inclusion: Globalization as Process. In Westwood, R. & S. R. Clegg, (Eds.) Debating Organizations: Point Counterpoint in Organization Studies, 234–251. Oxford: Blackwell. Patton, P. (2000). Deleuze & the Political. London: Routledge. Smith, M. P. (2001). Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Soya, E. (1996). Thirdspace. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. Soya, E. (2000). Postmetropolis. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers. Steyaert, C & M. Janssens (1999). Human and Inhuman Resource Management: Saving the subject of HRM. Organization, 6 (2): 181–198. Steyaert, C. (2000). Creating worlds: Political Agendas of Entrepreneurship. Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Small Business Research, 2000. Published in LOK working paper series no 2–2000.

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Steyaert, C. (2003). Entrepreneurship: in between what? On the “frontier” as a discourse of entrepreneurship research. In Nagoa, D. (Ed.) Best Paper Proceedings Academy of Management. Urry, J. (2000). Sociology beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge. Winnicott, D.W. (1971). Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock/Routledge.

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Chapter 17

Transcultural Encounters in Cities: Convergence without Becoming Coincident Nils Wåhlin

This chapter aims to develop critical sensitivity and a conceptual framework that can bridge the tensions between identity construction and otherness in cross-cultural studies. The text will be connected to an ongoing study of cross-cultural movements and in this chapter special interest is dedicated to cultural encounters in cities. I will discuss how we can develop critical sensitivity in studies of cultural encounters through a process-relational view. From this perspective people’s identity is always in the process of becoming. The person is not a fixed entity with an “essence” and a given “personality”: instead, they are continually adjusting in a reflexive way to new conditions. This comparative reflection, on the edge between similarity and difference, raises basic questions at the core of identity construction such as: “who am I?” or “why am I?” When questions on the basic terms of existence catch the eye, it is usually argued that by travelling to other places we can acquire perspectives on ourselves and stimulate our reflexive capacity. Our encounter with a new environment and other cultures generates reflection and the review of ingrained understandings. Consequently, entering the dialogue with “the other” can illuminate the shadows of our own identity. This intrinsic reflection stimulated for example by living in exile in another town can extend our capacity to see ourselves through the eyes of others. The chapter aims to highlight examples of these reflexive identity construction processes. In the meeting between discourses and narratives there is a dialogic richness that is easily dissipated in an era when there is considerable search for standardised directions for guiding us through uncertain terrain. These narratives for a new belonging rebel against the discourses imposed on them and contain a cultural sensitivity that is important to expose (cf. de Certeau 1984, 1986). Articulations in this critical free zone, triggering such a use of language and dispositions create space where this reflexive identity construction breaks out and fills the “discursive void” in a 266

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transcultural way (Welsch 1999). One of the biggest challenges of studying these encounters mixing cultural influences is that of doing justice to how individuals, on the one hand, and cultural patterns on the other, play their parts in societal development. The two aspects are inextricably intertwined and one important aspect is to understand “transculturality”. Transculturality is a concept developed in close connection with the concept of “transversality” (Schrag 1997; Welsch 1999). Consequently, transculturality and transversality have similar theoretical roots and unite in the expression “convergence without coincidence”. Transculturality is in that way different from globalised and particularised views. The concept of transculturality goes beyond these seemingly hard alternatives with its ability to cover both a cosmopolitan side and a side of local affiliation. It illustrates a dynamic and open-textured process of unifying that allows plurality and difference. The chapter will combine a transcultural view with studies of reflexive identity construction through examinations of cross-cultural movements.

Transversal interplay between multiplying and unifying modes of identity construction The project of reinterpreting and redescribing the conditions for unification can be done through studies of individuals’ ongoing narratives. The narratives of those who have undergone many cross-cultural shifts take on a selforganising and dynamic character that intervenes in both their professional and private lives. Many who have “started their lives afresh” engage in deeper reflexion on how their everyday lives should be organised and how we should navigate in a landscape where much is marked by short-term flexibility and flux. The conditions of time have produced a conflict between character and experience, when the experience of disjointed time threatens the ability of people to form their characters into sustained narratives (Sennett 1998). However, the ways in which individuals position themselves in relation to these conditions of living vary. Our earlier study of life narratives revealed two contrasting dispositions in the way individuals talked about identity construction that had embraced many cultural shifts: clearly discernible were patterns of multi-identity construction in some cases and integrated identity construction in others (Lindgren and Wåhlin 2001). It could be said that multi-identity construction compartmentalises identity construction into separate “parcels” – firstly, in terms of the boundaries between professional and private lives, and secondly, in terms of the boundaries between work tasks. These individuals articulate, through small narratives, a form of multi-professional perspective where a drawing of boundaries between different professions becomes essential. In contrast, the latter way of narrating opens the parcel at an early stage in the narrative and the 267

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force of the narrative is concentrated to a greater degree on the interwovenness of different areas of life in general. Here, the boundaries are not essential but, rather, emphasis is laid on paths to transgressing interlinkages. Through transversality we can combine these views in order to understand the individual constantly in motion. In different “spaces of flows” (Castells 1997) identities emerge through multiple inclusive and exclusionary practices. The Internet is one example of a societal inclusion that has been made possible by technological advance. It also provides an example of the double character of sovereignty and dependency that characterises the reflexive subject. The subject emerges within a constellation that simultaneously constitutes it and provides it with a field of play (Turkle 1995). However, experiences from this interplay can create ambivalence and foster identities as “surfers” and “drifters” with bounded responsibility. The fragmentation of life is not addressed as a lucky combination of postmodern events. Rather it is interpreted as a loss of power and an image constructed on the surface (Sennett 1998). Where are the pilgrims of our time, ask Zygmunt Bauman (1997) and notes that the challenge of today’s life is not to make identity stable but to avoid it being fixed. An example below describes the multiplicities involved in a young woman’s life in the city of London (Irenius and Levy 2002). …it is things that I can do in London that I cannot do in Stockholm. I can be anonymous for example. Since I moved to London I have associated myself with so many different circles and connections that I cannot count them. I can be a member of different communities in diverse parts of the town and I can meet totally different people. I cannot have that kind of mobility and freedom in Stockholm because everybody seems to be classified much more in different groups that also go to special places and events. I like to have many different roles (Ebba, 26 years, London, born in Lund and graduated from Stockholm School of Economics).

In weaving multiple trajectories together, our experience of multimembership replays in our identities the texture of the landscape of everday life. This replay is not a passive reflection. It is instead an active, reflexive, and creative process that dynamically encompasses multiple perspectives in the negotiations of new meanings. But, if we go from place-oriented to flow-oriented living: how can we sustain ethos, pathos and logos in our narratives and portray a coherent plot with thoughtful meaning? Is it possible to transcend multiplicities and integrate them in meaningful encounters that create responsibility? Socio-philosophical theorising under labels as “liminality”, “heterotopia”, “nomadism”, and “third space” mean that it is possible: such homelessness raises questions about the basic terms of existence (Pels 2000). Human beings today suffer from a deepened condition of homeless-

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ness, from a metaphysical loss of home that expresses the migratory character of modern experiences of society and self (Berger et al. 1974).

To become strangers to ourselves When questions on the basic terms of existence catch the eye, it is usually argued that by travelling to other places we can acquire perspectives on ourselves and stimulate our reflexive capacity. Our encounter with new cultures generates reflexion and entering the dialogue with “the other” can illuminate the shadows of our own identity. This intrinsic reflexion stimulated by living in exile can extend our capacity to see ourselves through the eyes of others. The stranger lives within us, as Julia Kristeva mentions: “… he is the hidden face of our identity, the space that wrecks our abode, the time in which understanding and affinity founder. By recognising him within ourselves, we are spared detesting him in himself. A symptom that precisely turns ‘we’ into a problem perhaps makes it impossible. The stranger comes in when the consciousness of my difference arises, and he disappears when all acknowledge ourselves as foreigners, unnameable to bonds and communities” (Kristeva 1991:1). This confrontation with “the other” constructs transcultural crossovers that, metaphorically, can be described as reflexive journeys. Zygmunt Bauman interprets these journeys as moral and ontological challenges experienced by the individual. Face-to-face with the stranger questions of responsibility for those others arise (Bauman 1993/96, 1995, 1997). As Bauman suggests in the context of his reading of Levinas (1995/99), one could understand identity construction in the terms of the self’s ability to sacrifice, the refusal to project oneself into the space of another. The identity is not a fixed state: it is relational and a process of becoming. According to Levinas, it is not abstract systems of obligation that give substance to human life. Rather, ethics is born through the necessity of performative response to the other person. Consequently, Levinas asks us to consider the primacy of experiences that is rooted in the sociality of otherness. Social responsivity of that kind also relates to the work of Johan Asplund (1987:a, b) and his description of elementary forms of social life. This social interplay grounded in curiosity and social responses to “the other” in an undisciplined form are characterised, by for example: interest, talkativeness (small talk), playfulness, and changeableness. We are absorbed participants in everyday life and we have difficulties in freeing ourselves from these circumstances. Consequently, spontaneity as well as reflexivity are important cornerstones in identity construction and these expressions of social interaction seems to increase when we are confronted with new contexts and otherness. Bakhtin complements this view through his extension of the distinction

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between “I” and “me” expressed by Mead in symbolic interactionism (Bakhtin 1993). In Bakhtin’s view the self comprises three relational parts, the “I”, the “Other”, and “I-for-the-other” (Bakhtin 1993:54). The I-formyself is a constantly unique person not articulated in the relationship between the I-for-the-other and the Other-for-me – it is always potential and undifferentiated. Unlike Mead’s “I” it is not always directed towards social situations – it is always hidden and potential (Bender 1998). In contrast to the interactionist self that develops through “learning the rules”, Bakthin’s consciousness arises concretely “wrapped around another”. It learns to respond to many others, and learns many different ways of interacting. Each person learns multiple speech genres that encompass the other-for-myself and I-for-another. This performativity is neither free play nor theatrical selfpresentation, but rather a response to the call of the other and an affirmation of alterity (Nealon 1998).

Radical alterity The longest journey is the journey inwards. (Former UN Sectretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in his poetic diary “Markings”, 1966)

Experiences from other cultures can create opportunities for reflexivity and alterity more profoundly. Multiplicity and curiously diversified views shake the ground for identity construction and can thereby be eye-opening for the solitary traveller. Traditional vocabularies employed in descriptions and definitions of the human self need to be extended in order to make sense of these experiences. This extended grammar must build on cultural sensitivity grounded in respect for cultural differences and include critical views on our own ways of identity construction. In performing this critical principle, transcendence as the voice of radical alterity collaborates with two other functions of transcendence, namely, through supplying conditions for unification of different culture-spheres and to provide means for transfiguration of the life of self and society as it unfolds in each culture-sphere (Schrag 1997). Consequently, cross-cultural moves not only incorporate a journey outwards but also a journey inwards through transcendence – it is both a question of meeting ourselves and others in a transversal dialogue. The expatriate intellectual is thus much more than a description of those people who have literally left home; it is offered here as a category to describe those who undertake culture studies. Disciplinary, gender, and theoretical displacements, as well as mere geographical ones, are one of the distinctive features of that interdisciplinary trade, whose practitioners are united only in the dispersal, a diaspora of differentiators. Expatriation in cultural studies is

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identifiable as migratory writing and principled uncertainty in the exploration of exchange (Hartley 1996:451).

According to Levinas, a true encounter with the other is an experience of something that cannot easily be conceptualised or categorised (Zahavi 1999). It is an encounter that cannot be left untouched, unmoved, or unchanged. These kinds of encounters overwhelm and shake the foundation for identity construction. These discontinuities often bear some resemblance to personal transformations that can create anxiety in people, as well as impulses towards confronting themselves in a special way. More specifically, paying simultaneous attention to four directions one can identify the transversal character of identity construction: inward and outward, backward and forward. Reflexive identity construction can thereby be described metaphorically as a journey both in time (backward/forward) and space (inward/outward), suggesting that we need to travel to other places in order to understand ourselves more profoundly and to discover more about who we are. One way of studying these identity constructions and the different encounters between cultures is to see them as translation processes to be handled by both individuals and institutions (cf. Callon 1986; Czarniawska 2002). These translation processes can be contextualised and reflexively treated through confrontation between individual narratives and institutionalised discourses. We need to move away from a simple dichotomising of “the individual and the culture” and instead see how the two influence each other. The encounter between narratives and discourses, and reflections on such a meeting between cultures, thereby embraces a way of making sense of contemporary identity constructions. However, it is not only a question of meetings between single narratives and single discourses. In order to come to terms with the complexities and the multiplicity of how narratives and discourses relate to each other, it is necessary to regard them with a transversal view (Schrag 1997). The concept of transversality seems promising to use in order to describe an open-textured gathering of possibilities combining identity plurality and identity synergy. Instead of an identity grounded in a stable and changeless essence we talk about identity construction as the progeny of a transversal play of viewpoints. Such transversality, acknowledging otherness and the integrity of each participant, strives for convergence without becoming coincident. A parallel can here be drawn to the social anthropologist Ulf Hannerz and his experience of Stockholm as a town in the flow of “doubly creolising”. Speaking of Stockholm as doubly creolising could be a matter of discerning two quite separate creolisation processes … On the one hand, there is the creolisation of Swedish national culture, from the top down as it were, by way of that involvement with the world metropoles, which is particularly intensive and noticeable in Stockholm. Frequently enough, this is described as

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“Americanization”, and one may have to look twice for the cultural aspects of it, not to accept that it is in large part direct import, and mere imitation. On the other hand, there is that multifaceted creolisation process which involves the greater majority of immigrants, coming in as labour migrants and refugees, and mostly having to adapt to Swedish circumstances (Hannerz 1996:153–154).

Creole cultures draw on and are formed in the interconnectedness of various languages and cultures. In countries like Sweden with 12 percent foreign-born citizens of the total population (much more in the city of Stockholm) it means a lot (see the special section about the Nordic region in The Economist, 2003). Creole language or culture does not replace the original one. Instead, Creole cultures are open, and their relations to the cultures from which they have evolved remain visible. Consequently, the point with transcultural interpretations is to capture those elements that are similar to each other in these translation processes and those that are different. In the meeting between discourses and narratives there is a dialogic richness that is easily dissipated in an era when there is considerable search for standardised principles guiding us through uncertain terrain. These narratives rebel against the discourses imposed on them and contain a cultural sensitivity that is important to expose (de Certeau 1984, 1986). Articulations in this critical free zone, triggering such a use of language and dispositions, create space where a new transcultural vocabulary breaks out and fills the “discursive void” (Welsch 1999).

Narrow translations constructing “discursive voids” Discursive voids indicate the narrow translations constructed institutionally. The standardised patterns of behaviour seem to foster stereotyped images and simplifications of complex cultural encounters. This observation seems also relevant in the cross-cultural arena. The concept of diversity seems to nurture narrow translations stimulated by mimetic behaviour by consultants. Homogeneity wins over heterogeneity in order to introduce simplified and generalised frameworks. A parallel to this homogenisation is illustrated in Naomi Klein’s book, No Logo, exploring the multinational brand’s huge cultural impact on our thoughts (Klein 2000). Corporate images are waging a war on public spaces in cities and comprising a form of occupation of our thoughts through simplifications and recipes. However, the book’s title, “No Logo” associates with the dream of a place with freedom from branded and occupied spaces. This dream of a space for self-preservation and independence seems to correspond with needs articulated by “boundary-crossing individuals”. Each single organisation cannot fulfil their complex needs and for that rea272

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son they travel between organisations and environments. Even if the modern management literature talks about the individualised corporation beyond strategy, structure, and systems with emphasis on purpose, process, and people there seems to be a gap between ambition and reality (Ghoshal and Barlett 1997, 1998). To some degree the tensions between citizenship and individuality on the one hand, and corporate power and consumerism on the other hand, articulate the ambiguities involved. Nevertheless, these concepts and tensions between them only partly express this sought after reflexivity. Instead these articulations represent an extended search for identities that corresponds with individual and society needs in a new way. From a rhetorical perspective this means a turn or a twist compared with dominating discourses. This twist advocates redescriptions of old concepts by using a new – and even contradictory – language for the sake of replacing a worn-out vocabulary with a new one (Rorty 1989). The method is to redescribe lots and lots of things in new ways, until you have created a pattern of linguistic behaviour, which will tempt the rising generation to adopt it (Rorty 1989:9).

The major tropes as devices for communication in rhetoric (such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony; see Burke, 1945/69) seem to be incomplete to cope with everyday contradictions and ambiguities experienced in everyday life. Boundary crossing individuals search for an extended vocabulary articulated through diverse narratives and new metaphors (see for example Bengtsson et al., forthcoming). Gabriel (2000) argues that rhetorical tropes need to be complemented with “poetic tropes” in order to interpret complex communication in an extended way. He denotes that poetic tropes support particular interpretations that may be announced through, for example, an oxymoron or a paradox. These particular interpretations can be reinforced through additional rhetorical, narrative and symbolic devices that make it possible for people to live with their frustrations and passions. Neither Burke’s pentad nor Aristotle’s “ethos, pathos, and logos” seem to be enough. In order to extend this vocabulary we need to include the making of possibilities that requires passages and variations of mobile places or heterotopias (cf. Foucault 1986; Hetherington 1997). Life has to be lived with all its nuances, peak situations, and contingencies. Identity is not merely a category, a personality trait, a role, or a label. It is more fundamentally a life experience that is much more diverse and complex. Identity construction involves both “ups and downs”. In fact the Greek word “penthos” (mourning) has the same roots as “pathos” (passion) – both come etymologically from the verb “to suffer”. This connects to Berger’s view that human beings of today suffer from a deepened condition of homelessness (Berger et al. 1974). This feeling of loss or absence can be connected to experiences of discursive voids constructed through narrow 273

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translations – experiences that need an extended vocabulary beyond endless exile. Sorrows as well as happiness in critical situations and in relation with others need to be included in order to more profoundly contextualise life experiences. We cannot stop our tears falling during critical circumstances, and we cannot stop laughing when a story hit the highest point (Bakhtin 1984). This dynamic cultural sensitivity and affirmation of alterity needs to be cultivated in dialogue in and through “in-between” spaces. What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of original and initial subjectivity and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These “in-between” spaces provide terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular or communal – that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration in the act of defining the idea of society itself (Bhabha 1994, 1–2).

It is not enough with orthodox and reductionist psychological language as “personality”, “attitude”, and “motivation” when we speak about human beings and their dynamic behaviour. We need a conceptual shift that takes into account that people are both enabled and constrained by the cultural and discursive resources available to them. This view of the human being emphasizes that human beings have to work at their identity throughout their lives. A person has continually to make adjustments to their thinking and their actions as they come to terms with the changing circumstances of their existence. Identity is simultaneously individual and social, and constructed both inwardly and outwardly.

A reflexive journey opening up for new translations Identity construction can thereby be described as a journey both in space (inward/outward) and through time (backward/forward) with openings for new translations. People meet existential challenges and shape and re-shape themselves in changing circumstances of age and circumstance. The need for formulations that attack these questions ontologically seems to emerge especially when we talk about the journey inwards. These inward ontological identity constructions can be enacted as a journey of self-reflection that arises as a person moves through different cultural environments. An encounter with a new environment generates reflection and by poetic tropes we can make journeys into other worlds that unmask the power relations around which organisational life can be woven (see for example the description of women travellers in a male world in Gherardi 1996). Reflexive identity construction evolves in the interaction between the self and its social context (cf. Jenkins 1996). The identity is not fixed once and

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for all after achieving a certain degree of maturity. Rather it is continually constructed and subject to contradictions, revisions and change through reflections throughout the life span of the individual (cf. Hall 1992; Nkomo and Cox 1996). The individual is always in a process of becoming with an identity that is always emerging, never finalised; it is the movement of perpetual departure (de Certeau 1992). Against this background, it can be argued that a more rigorous defence for reflexive theorising can be made through focusing on reflexivity and through explicitly articulating alternative views of ontological and cultural conditions for identity constructions. Anthony Giddens, for example, describes the importance of ontological conceptions when he discusses what he calls “ontological security”: “to be ontologically secure is to be confident in the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or his biography” (Giddens 1991:53). We therefore have to understand how individuals construct and sustain life-narratives rather than just how they perceive their identity at any particular juncture: only then can we understand the multifarious composition of the identity construction process and the ontological dimensions of this phenomenon (cf. Chia 1996). The ambiguities involved can be described as in the example below. … this was a period of search that changed a great deal in my life. I started looking at myself and discovered that I had reacted to stimuli and chance circumstances. I had no thought about what I had done in the form of a coherent vision… I hadn’t thought strategically but I now understood that one needed a direction in what one does. But at the same time it could be said that I built up a broad range of competencies that I think many young people avail themselves of… (Extract from a woman’s life narrative).

This sequence from a woman’s narrative is expressed directly after her account of a major period of upheaval in her life. This breach in her life prompted reflections on what has happened and how such experiences should guide her in the future. Her working through of these experiences in narrative form becomes an expression of a journey both externally in the form of changing work and internally in the form of deeper reflection on identity construction. These reflections apparently produce a need for making her own voice heard more clearly even if she is fascinated by the changes and movement between cultures. In an earlier phase of the narrative we can read: … I started to like not being in a single monoculture but broadening my perspective through moving between many cultures … (Extract from the same woman’s life narrative).

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zone between discourses and narratives we can thus discern, somewhat critically, both “victims” and “heroes” whereby individuals are forced to travel onwards like a vagabond in an inhospitable world or like a tourist choosing a destination on his or her own account (Bauman 1997). The image of the flexible co-worker is thereby more complicated than what appears in the stereotyped images represented in the popular discourse of flexibility. In order to nuance the image of the encounter between discourses and narratives it is therefore important to mirror expressions of diversity testified by the emergent identity construction between organisations and individuals. This prompts the question “what information is lost in the translation process?”

Crossing the border Notwithstanding a strong desire to respond and adapt to another culture, nearly everyone experiences disorientation when they move abroad independently if these include emigrants, refugees, expatriates, or repatriates. This phenomenon is called “cultural shock”, a concept that was introduced into the literature by the anthropologist Kalervo Oberg. “Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs or cues include the thousand-andone ways in which we orient ourselves to the situation of daily life” (Oberg 1960:177). This loss of orientation is rooted in an inability to interpret the cultural context; and this frustration can lead to anxiety, frustration, stress, and depression. These facts, when combined with separation from friends, family, children, and parents, augment this frustration. A common way to interpret the symptom in a simplified way is to identify different stages of the culture shock (Adler 2002; Dahlén 1997). In the first stage everything seems amazing and exotic. In the second stage, people start recognising that the culture and habits are different compared with conditions at home. The third stage emanates when these feelings become critical and people start resenting host-nationals. The fourth phase can be identified when people have started to become more acclimatised and begin to express positive emotions about the new culture. It is during this last phase that people’s level of stress decreases, but in some cases this can coincide with the time to go home. And back home again a reverse culture shock often occurs. Another tension tends to arise when the expatriate asks the question: “To what and whom should I pay attention?” Black and Gregersen (1992) describe the tension that expatriates experience when they find themselves torn between their loyalty to the parent organisation and their allegiance to the local foreign operation (1992:62). In brief, they identified four allegiance patterns described in Figure 17.1.

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Expatriates who see themselves as free agents

Expatriates who go “native”

Expatriates who leave their hearts at home

Expatriates who see themselves as dual citizens

Low

High

Allegiance to the Parent firm High

Figure 17.1. Forms of Expatriate Allegiance.

Allegiance to the Local Operation

An expatriate can be overly committed to the parent firm or the local operation, highly committed to both organisations, or committed to neither. Each pattern of dual allegiance creates different consequences for both the organisation and the individual (Black and Gregersen 1992). Interestingly, this research found that most expatriates, regardless of commitment pattern, did not feel that their firms value the international experience they gained (Black et al. 1999). Consequently, there seem to be problems associated with reintegrating into the home country. Brewster and Harris (1998) underline the fact that the repatriation of expatriates is comparatively under-researched and Adler (2002) observes that many returning employees leave their firm when they come home. Returnees come back neither to the world they left nor to the world they are expecting. In this “no man’s land” between the home country and the foreign country they encounter emptiness, and thereby discursive voids. All these circumstances can shake the individual but also stimulate reflections and new articulations. However, these discontinuities and ambiguities tend to be common in postmodern work situations in general (Bauman 1997). Weick (1996) calls the growing number of people who live with multiple discontinuities and make fresh starts, as the “zigzag people”. Temporary assignments and the projectification of society also work in this direction and demand recurring restarts (Lindgren; Packendorff and Wåhlin 2001). Hence, new locations and new working environments call for reflection relating to the past, the present, and the future. The inner and outer journeys through life interact in a special way for boundary crossing individuals, since discontinuities appear frequently and emphasise the search for ontological security in new ways. Experienced discontinuities and fragmentations leave more responsibility to the single individual and in a global and multicultural context this search can be compared with a “cosmopolitan project”. 277

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Making cultural borders transparent The cosmopolitan is a term often used loosely to describe anybody who moves around in the world. Theoretically the cosmopolitan/local distinction was developed in a sociological study of patterns of influence in a small town on the eastern seacoast of the United States (Merton 1957:377). At that time the distinction could hardly be set in anything but a national context. The cosmopolitans of the town were those who thought and who lived their lives within the structure of the nation rather than purely within the structure of locality. A more extended view of today entails cosmopolitism with a certain transcultural position that creates reflexivity and makes borders more transparent internationally. This position embraces a willingness to engage with the other in more widespread social spaces. It can be articulated as an intellectual, moral, and aesthetic stance of openness toward divergent cultural and ethnic experiences (Hannerz 1992, 1996). The “global ecumene” is the concept Hannerz uses in order to allude to the interconnectedness of the world, by way of interactions, exchanges and related developments, affecting not least transcultural constructions. In this cosmopolitan project of value-creation, Bauman (1993/96:205) makes a distinction between identity constructions in the cognitive space and in the moral space. In the cognitive space we focus on the others that we live with. In the moral space we clarify whom we live for. In the aesthetic and nondiscursive space, on the other hand, we let our eyes be the primary windows through which we can experience beauty and changing patterns in an artistic and creative way (Bauman 1993/96). Cognitive, moral, and aesthetic spaces interplay in a complex (sometimes contradictory) manner in different cultural contexts. For example, the search for aesthetic satisfaction can come into conflict with moral responsibility, and the search for cognitive specialisation can construct excluding mechanisms that contradict moral and aesthetic interests. Consequently, reflexivity can be divided into cognitive, moral, and aesthetic aspects. The cognitive reflexivity seems often to be forced by problemdriven learning and explicit knowledge, while aesthetic and moral reflexivity are sustained by what can be called mystery-driven learning and thereby more tacit dimensions of knowledge (Gherardi 1999). This tension between rationality and relationality appears also to be in the centre of the cross-cultural literature. If books about cross-cultural management stress rationality, books with a more anthropological orientation emphasise relationality and cultural sensitivity. These perspectives actualise the question of what kind of rhetorical attempt the authors of the books have (Wåhlin 2001). In this transcultural and cosmopolitan context the interactions between the author and the reader bring understanding of cultural complexity and sense-making aspects into focus. If the narrator wants to engage with reflexivity and

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more multifarious forms of learning that uncover hidden knowledge, she or he can not only be occupied with mediating “facts-as-information” but also with mediating “facts-as-experience”. McCloskey (1994) argues in this context for analysis of the whole rhetorical tetrad combining fact, logic, narrative and metaphor (see Figure 17.2).

FACT

NARRATIVE

LOGIC

METAPHOR

Figure 17.2. The rhetorical tetrad.

Not only are facts and logic necessary for completed human reasoning. Narratives and metaphors are also used in order to dramatise and visualise complex human interaction. That is to say that we develop cultural understanding not exclusively through logical reasoning and through narrowing down our arguments in the name of rationality. Moreover, we create understanding with other forms of interactions as well. The right-hand side in Figure 17.2 emphasises symbolically charged narratives and metaphors as complementary ways to sensemaking. These devices contextualise rational discourses that otherwise stand in danger of being pulverised into abstract, atomistic, static, and elemental units (Schrag 1997). McCloskey (1994) has shown that even the science of economics uses the whole rhetorical tetrad in order to persuade, and he emphasises that fragments of the tetrad are not enough for full thinking. Reviews of the literature on cross-cultural movements and especially on expatriation reveal that these texts have been fundamentally descriptive in character (with a few exceptions, cf. Torbiörn 1976) and generally lack theoretical reflexivity (Bonache, Brewster and Suutari 2001). Narrow translations seem to dominate and this lack of contextualising constructs discursive voids between discourses and narratives in need of identification and expression. The idea in this study of confronting discourses and narratives with each other is thus a matter of reconstructing how texts have emerged and thereby identifying, which cultural aspects that have been hidden, reduced or obscured. The more non-reductionist nature of spontaneous narratives illuminates to a greater degree what sets the individual actor in motion in critical moments before she or he appropriates more discursive forms. On 279

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the border between the exceptional and the ordinary, sensemaking occurs that prompts the individual to undertake new action (Bruner 1986). In the encounter between narratives and discourses, an arena is thus created for transformation whereby significations are multiplied rather than standardised. This narrative pluralism and diversity is important to look into in order to catch movements and descriptions beyond stereotyped images.

Narratives for new belongings – identifying transculturality Plurality and diversity are especially relevant in expatriate and repatriate research with the intention of understanding the complexity for employees in transitions between home country and foreign country and the other way around (Brewster and Harris 1998; Peltonen 1999). Thus, when we focus on the capacity of human beings for handling transitions it is easy to make associations with themes in disciplinary fields. For example, “International Human Resource Management” is one such field. However, even this field has discursive deadlocks generated through years of textual production (see for example the critical views in the special edition of Organisation, No 2, 1999 edited by Maddy Janssens and Chris Steyaert: “Thematic Issue on Human and Inhuman Resource Management: Saving the Subject of HRM”). By starting out from the concept of identity construction we thus edge closer to these subjects from a different angle of approach by analysing the phenomenon from the outside-in rather than from the inside-out. My ambition is thus headed for a reflexive praxis with the intention to emancipate ourselves from intellectual deadlocks. From such an angle, the narratives of individuals, authored through their own voices, and the practice of selforganisation take on considerable significance. These narratives articulate details that at first can appear to be trivial. But with reflexive observation and sceptical reconsiderations, they can be given new explanatory light. Capturing visual metaphors and the composite pattern of connectedness in the narratives exposed creates the life-giving drama that appears to be so important in our instinct for self-preservation. The word “reflexive” is linked to our capacity to reflect and think about ourselves in relation to otherness in a particular context. As people, we reflect on the conditions prevailing in society but are also implicated in the recreating of such conditions. Men and women are not just mirrors of environmental conditions but also possess their own opinions that in some sense are distinctive. We express an identity that can be more or less made visible in a society dominated by discourses and the phrase “identity construction” can be said to draw attention to the self-preservation instincts of the particular individual concerned. It is thus important to construct a critical ontol280

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ogy of ourselves (cf. Foucault 1988). This critical ontology can assume multifarious expressions articulated in narratives. Such a focus does not, however, exclude heeding the professional aspirations of individuals in an institutional context. But these aspirations that we focus on here transgress the boundaries of classical occupational categories and assume, rather, a crossover character grounded in the carrying of experience from and between professions, private lives, and different cultural contexts. A particular activity can be seen with new eyes through drawing analogies from other contexts. This focuses our attention once again on the dividing line between institutional discourses and individual narratives where the capacity for drawing analogies and making crossovers can be said to be associated with one’s experiences and assortments of experiences, from diverse fields of activity (Latour 1999). This bridging between different fields of activity implies that experiences should be translated to a new context and it is against this backdrop that the manner of narrating and representing experiences becomes so important (MacIntyre 1981/86; Steyaert and Bouwen 1997; Czarniawska 1998). Individuals use the narrative to give their representations of experience the creative content that appears to be so significant for such representations to acquire circulation. The representations of experience are brought to life, transformed in narrative form, and are given a personal style in relation to different institutional discourses. However, late developments in the use of narrative methods stress the importance of linking narratives to stories, and also to take into consideration what happens “before narrative” (Gabriel 2000; Boje 2001). A story is an account of incidents or events, and a narrative comes after and adds plot and coherence into the story line. “Story is an ‘ante’ state of affairs existing previously to narrative; it is in advance of narrative. Used as an adverb, ‘ante’ combined with narrative means earlier than narrative” (Boje 2001:1). Antenarrative is a pre-narrative speculation necessary in an equivocal and unclear context. These antenarratives can reveal intertextuality (Boje 2001: Chapter 5) and uncover the tug-of-war between different texts (both tacit and explicit). These methods of intertextuality (see also Kristeva 1986) seem important to use in this case, not least when we want to include analysis of different excluding mechanisms (such as for example ethnicity and gender). So studying narratives through understanding transculturality includes analyses of text, context, and intertext. It also includes an extended vocabulary beyond the textual in its narrow sense; it needs to be conversed, dramatised and, not least, poeticised in order to embrace the call for critical sensitivity and creativity.

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Conclusion Can cities provide space for such a transcultural development? Can the notion of heterotopias offer us such an imaginative space through which we can view obligatory points of passages that become the basis of an alternate mode of ordering of contemporary conditions? Is it possible after the attack on World Trade Centre in New York September 11th? On the morning of September 11th, The New York Community Trust president, Lorie Slutsky, United Way of New York City’s president, Ralph Dickerson, Jr. and key members of their respective senior staffs met to discuss how they could help in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. They knew they had to use the collective expertise of their organisations to help the victims. By late afternoon, The September 11th Fund was created to provide a way for individuals, businesses and foundations to help the victims, families and communities affected by the events of September 11, 2001 (http://www.september11fund.org/aboutus.php).

There seems to be hope for societal development in movements of contradictory forces, but the question is how cities can remain creative spaces in a threatening and terrorised world. Castells observes that: … people still live in places. But because function and power in our societies are organised in the space of flows, the structural domination of its logic essentially alters the meaning and dynamic of places. Experience, by being related to places, becomes abstracted from power, and meaning is increasingly separated from knowledge. It follows a structural schizophrenia between two spatial logics that threaten to break down communication channels in society. The dominant tendency is toward a horizon of networked, ahistorical space of flows, aiming at imposing its logic over scattered, segmented places, increasingly unrelated to each other, less and less able to share cultural codes. Unless cultural and physical bridges are deliberately built between these two forms of space, we may be heading toward life in parallel universes whose time cannot meet because they are warped into different dimensions of a social hyperspace (Castells 1996:428).

It can be argued that only the construction of a transversal world-view is able to build those transcultural bridges that converge without convergence. This chapter attempted to address some theoretical and methodological points of departure for such attempts. More precisely the chapter addressed some views connected to an ongoing study of intercultural encounters highlighted through critical reflection on experiences expressed by individuals on international assignments. It was argued that the problems they face in cross-cultural movements ought to be investigated more thoroughly through transcultural views. One way to attack this phenomenon is to link studies of identity constructions with studies of international movements. The chapter 282

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aimed to develop critical sensitivity and a conceptual framework that can bridge the tensions between identity construction and otherness in these studies. With the bridging of concepts of reflexive identity construction and transculturality the encounters between different cultural contexts can be embraced and researched in a more constructive way. However, the field of practice in this area seems to build narrow translations constructing discursive voids. By confronting narratives from returnees with institutionalised discourses, the aim is to identify, critically reflect on, and articulate how these discursive voids can be filled. In this project, the narrative method (including latest developments) seems promising and creates the possibility for a thorough treatment of the ambiguities involved.

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Hetherington, Kevin (1997). The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia & Social Ordering. London: Routledge. Irenius, Lisa & Levy Madelaine (2002). Flytt utomlands. Värnamo: Wahlström & Widstrand. Janssens, Maddy & Chris Steyaert (Eds.) (1999). Thematic Issue on Human and Inhuman Resource Management: Saving the Subject of HRM. Organization, 6 (2). Jenkins, Richard (1996). Social Identity. London: Routledge. Klein, Naomi (2000). No Logo. London: Flamingo, HarperCollins. Kristeva, Julia (1986). Word, Dialogue, and the Novel. In Moi, Toril (Ed.) The Kristeva Reader, 34–61. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Kristeva, Julia (1991). Strangers to ourselves. Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire: Harvester. Latour, Bruno (1999). Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Levinas, Emmanuel (1995/99). Alterity & transcendence. London: The Athlone Press. Lindgren, Monica & Nils Wåhlin (2001). Identity construction among boundarycrossing individuals. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 17 (3): 357–377. Lindgren, Monica, Johann Packendorff & Nils Wåhlin (2001). Resa genom arbetslivet. Om människors organisationsbyten och identitetsskapande. Lund: Academia Adacta. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981/86). After virtue – a study in moral theory. London: Duckworth. McCloskey, Donald M (1994). Knowledge and persuasion in economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merton, Robert K. (1957). Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Nealon, Jeffrey T (1998). Alterity Politics. Durham: Duke University Press. Nkomo, Stella M. & Cox Jr, Taylor (1996). Diverse Identities in Organizations. In Stewart R. Clegg, Cynthia Hardy & Walter R. Nord Handbook of Organization Studies. London: Sage. Oberg, Kalervo (1960). Culture shock: Adjustment to new cultural environments. Practical Anthropology, 7: 177–182. Pels, Dick (2000). The Intellectual as Stranger. London: Routledge. Peltonen, Tuomo (1999). Finnish Engineers Becoming Expatriates: Biographical Narratives and Subjectivity. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 5 (2): 265–295. Rorty, Richard (1989). Contingency, irony and solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schrag, Calvin O. (1997). The Self after Postmodernity. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sennett, Richard (1998). The Corrosion of Character. The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Steyaert, Chris & Rene Bouwen (1997). Telling Stories of Entrepreneurship. Towards a Narrative-Contextual Epistemology for Entrepreneurial Studies. In Donckels, R. & Miettinen, A. Entrepreneurship and SME Research: On its Way to the Next Millenium. Aldershot: Ashgate.

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Torbiörn, Ingemar (1976). Att leva utomlands. En studie av utlandssvenskars anpassning, trivsel och levnadsvanor. Stockholm: Studieförbundet Näringsliv och Samhälle. Turkle, Sherry (1995). Life on Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Watson, Tony J. (2002). Organising and Managing Work. Harlow, Essex: Person Education. Weick, Karl E. (1996). Enactment and the boundaryless career. Organizing as we work. In Arthur, Michael B. & Denise M. Rousseau (Eds.) The Boundaryless Career: A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era. New York: Oxford University Press. Welsch, Wolfgang (1999). Tranculturality – the Puzzling Forms of Cultures Today. In Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash (Eds.) Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, 194–213. London: Sage 1999. Wåhlin, Nils (2001). New rhetoric as devices for identity constructions. Paper presented at 17th EGOS Colloquium 2001, 5–7th July, Lyon, France. Zahavi, Dan (1999). Self-Awareness and Alterity. A Phenomenological Investigation. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.

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Chapter 18

Empty Spaces or Illusionary Images? “Stockholm as a Mobile Valley” Peter Dobers1

Imagining city images City names are poetry, and there are few words in the language better able to summon vivid mental pictures. Who cannot see and smell, at mere mention of the name, the London of Dickens and the Paris of De Maupassant, the skyline of New York, the moonlit ruins of Athens, the classic profile of Fujiyama above Tokio, the seven ancient hills of Rome? Visitors to Stockholm, like its native sons, have been coining thumbnail descriptions for years. One of the earliest and nearest at hand was “Venice of the North”, for few cities are as webbed with lakes and channels. More recently Stockholm has been called “City of Space and Grace” and “City of Lights and Water” – even simply “City of Light”. Anderson (1953:5)

Fifty years ago this text introduced a book on Stockholm; Stockholm. Capital and crossroads. The text is placed below a picture of the city town hall’s tower, well known from many Nobel Prize ceremonies. For people who have never been to Sweden, this “thumbnail description” adds nuances to other descriptions, such as Stockholm being far north and thus a very cold and icy place. With the information technology of the 21st century, such narrative and pictorial descriptions circulate the world at an increasing speed. Information technology has added to certain post-millennium images of Stockholm as an IT City or the Internet Capital of Europe. Constructing and using images related to information technology, silicon and digital fabrics, has been one way of (re)presenting a city in the late 20th century. Examples from the early 1990s are Osaka as a “city of intelli1

This chapter would not have been written without the generous research grants received from the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation, as well as the Malmsten Foundation. The concept of “empty space” in this chapter has been formulated together with Lars Strannegård, published in the article “The Cocoon. A Traveling Space” in Organization 14 (6): 825–848 (2005).

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gence”, Barcelona as a “city of telematics”, Amsterdam as a “city of information”, Manchester as a “wired city” (Hepworth 1990:537f.). More recent examples include Stockholm, of course, as an “IT City” or a “Mobile Valley” (Dobers and Tengblad 2002), or Boston as the “Cyber District”, Colorado Springs as “the Silicon Mountains” and the beach area between Santa Barbara and San Diego as the “Digital Coast”. How such images are created, how they circulate the world, and whether there is any correspondence to the lived city, are questions to which many city managers and city marketers would love to get straight-handed answers. I do not intend to give any clarity to such questions. Instead, I am illustrating what such images perform in a spatial sense. What work does an image of Stockholm as an IT City do? What is the effect of Stockholm being mentioned as the “Internet Capital of Europe” on the cover of the February 2000 edition of Newsweek? What happens when Stockholm is identified as the “most dynamic and attractive European region to work and live” by the German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche in August 2002? Whether the glory of the image of Stockholm as an Internet City or a Mobile Valley is “true” or not is beyond the scope of this chapter. Through media studies of business magazines and the Internet I bring together a collage of several different images of Stockholm. I treat articles, reports, photographs, and Internet searches as illustrations of images that circle in on the media society. The main thrust of the chapter, however, concerns a theoretical account in spatial terms and a discussion of what IT-related images of cities, circulating in media and on the Internet, perform. By looking closer at the examples mentioned above, it is illustrated how an empty space is created at other space fillers’ creative disposal.

From physical to social space The concept of space has long been described in a strictly mathematical and geometrical way (Lefebvre 1991/1974). Mathematics and science detached space from physical and social reality in a claim for scientific status. There has been a separation between the internal sphere of mental categories and the external, physical, and social sphere. To Henri Lefebvre (1991/1974), however, epistemological thought has linked up with Platonism and conceptualised space as a “mental thing” or a “mental place”, as when he argues that theories of social life unfold in space. But, argues Lefebvre, actual minds in actual bodies inhabit actual spaces, and at the same time spaces play a part in the mental realms. The distinction between mental, social, physical or cultural is therefore void of meaning. We can therefore accept their simultaneous presence in any activity that is taking place. Speaking of space as social, physical, mental and cultural thus implies the

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introduction of relationships. Spaces are mediators of relationships, they incorporate action, and Lefebvre argues that the conceptualisation of space implies the construction of a tool for analysing society. Space, says Lefebvre, is not a thing but a number of relations between objects, artefacts and living entities (Lefebvre 1991/1974). Hence space is relational, concerns the physical and is produced through human interaction with humans and/or nonhumans (Latour 1997). If space production is not only physical, but also mental and social, then Tuan’s argument that space cannot escape sensory characteristics is reasonable (Tuan 1977). Tuan speaks of space as direct and intimate, or indirect and conceptual. No matter which of these one accepts, it implies that the production and internalisation of space is purely experiential and needs to be seen as constituted by relationships constructing spaces. To explain how spaces are constructed, Lefebvre introduces the triad of spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces.2 Spatial practice “embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets” (Lefebvre 1991/1974:33). The spatial practice creates a certain degree of cohesion and specific degrees of competence and performance among actors. The spatial practice leads to a physical and local space, a form that is used and inhabited (Bachelard 1964/1958). Even though Bachelard uses the concept of the house, metaphorically, for phenomenological study, just as Daniel Libeskind, he finds physical places necessary for memories or any kind of experience (Libeskind 1999). Tuan (1977) argues that place emerges out of space, and that the two concepts require each other for definition. To Tuan, places are stable and secure while spaces are open, free and more threatening, and “… if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place” (Tuan 1977:6). In sum, cognition cannot arise in a vacuum since the mental is always in relation to the physical. The representations of space, the second element of Lefebvre’s spatial triad, are tied to the relations of production and to the “order” that those relations impose, and hence knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to “frontal relations” (Lefebvre 1991/1974:33). The representations of space involve maps, images and models. This space is the fabrication of engineers and entrepreneurs, of urban planners and journalists. When seen in connection with spatial practice we can further expand the representations of space to include the users of physical spaces. Just like an architect forms a conceived 2 See also Kristina Zampoukos’ thesis on information technology and municipal planning in Sweden where she uses the Lefebvrian triad as a theoretical framework: Zampoukos, Kristina, IT, planeringen och kommunerna (Geografiska Regionstudier 46), (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2002).

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space of a building before it is built, the inhabitant or users of the building can form conceived spaces of other spaces, once inside the already built house and experiencing its spatial practice. Users of the physical space can therefore conceive their own spaces once experiencing the spatial practice of a particular space. Bachelard (1964/1958), for instance, finds the house to be a nest for dreaming, a shelter where imagining can take place. Houses, persists Bachelard, are absolute necessities for contemplating people, and are even shelters for imagination itself. Bachelard’s argument could be understood as suggesting that all spaces are rooted in places and in the conceptual world of Lefebvre, representations of other spaces can be conceived in particular spatial practices. Although Bachelard speaks of houses, he also encompasses huts, shelters, cottages and the nooks and crannies in these constructions. Thus, not only the creators of huts or other physical spaces can experience mental spaces, but also their users can form conceived spaces of other spaces once experiencing spatial practices. The representational spaces, finally, embody symbolisms of writers and designers who describe what they see. The representational spaces dominate; they overlay physical space, using it symbolically rather than physically. Representational spaces involve the production of space over time, and space, in interaction, constructs meaning. Here, representational spaces are simultaneously real and imagined. The triad of spatial practice, representations of space and spatial representation suggests that space is used, imagined and practiced, i.e. perceived, conceived and lived.

Moving spaces What Lefebvre leaves out in his conceptualisation of spaces is the ongoing process of transforming and moving, and the labour needed to move from one time-space to another. Movement is central to this chapter on circulating images since it stresses the relation between diffusion and translation (Latour 1996:118f.) and between transportation and transformation (Latour 1997:174f.). Time and space do not exist a priori, but are consequences of how different bodies relate to each other. With this relational perspective, Latour argues for the necessity to recognise that there are as many spaces and times as there are relations. Latour (1997) convincingly describes the relation between transportation and transformation using a thought example of two twin travellers. The first traveller heads off into a hot and humid jungle, working hard and sweating to pursue her way through jungle thickness. For each and every step she takes, her body is inscribed with wounds and scars by thorns and bushes. While she cuts her way into the jungle with a hatchet, the jungle marks its way into the body of this twin traveller. Thus, she is physically transforming

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while travelling through the jungle. The travel is permanently interrupted through the competing ends and goals of other entities like branches and sticks. The other twin, however, is sitting in a first class passenger train. The landscape is rushing by and he feels no sweat while being transported, since he is sitting in an air-conditioned train without moving. The three-hour train ride did not affect him more than possibly wrinkling his pants. All entities involved in the travel are in alignment in the same direction: the steel, railroad, and switches. During this almost uneventful travel he was merely transported and only negligibly transformed. Now, where does this illustration take us? It focuses the labour needed to move from one time-space to another. The male traveller, on the one hand, is only negligibly transformed with each step he takes. In fact, he does not even take a step in the train to continue his travel. The train is not working on his body, maybe only on the pants. The woman traveller, on the other hand, is transformed with each step she takes. A lot of labour is needed in two ways; the jungle is standing up against her travel, and she has to work hard to cut her way through the jungle. The same example also illustrates the production of meaningful places, of event-producing topoi. The high-speed train between Paris and Geneva no longer stops at the station in Culoz, a place that was earlier the junction for all trains going to and from the Alps and Switzerland. Earlier, the inhabitants of the town had the dignity of being able to make the train stop. Now the train rushes through the station. Culoz, which was earlier an important place, is now just a glimpse, an instant just like any other frame of the millions of frames the traveller sees through the window along the journey. The place is no longer eventful; it is not memorable to the passengers anymore. The potential relationships between passengers and inhabitants of Culoz are brought to zero, and hence the small station, in Latour’s terms, no longer counts. The train traveller has to take fewer others into account when the train no longer stops in Culoz. The station is now an intermediary; it provides a smooth passage. But it used to be a mediator having impact on paths and forms. The appearance of Culoz used to make the train driver slow down and stop. The city made a difference; it provided the possibility of transformation while it now is nothing more than a dot along the smooth trajectory of transportation (Latour 1997). Lefebvre (1991/1974) uses the notion of the triad in a spatial theory that concerns the relational as a tool for speaking of absolute space and abstract space. The production of space for use can be connected to absolute spaces. Although located nowhere in particular, absolute spaces could satisfy individual needs and desires since they embody all possible places. Absolute space may thereby be built, formulated or crafted in response to personal needs. As regards abstract space, however, Lefebvre illustrates abstract space with capitalism (since a Marxist himself). Capitalism is an all-encompassing 291

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set of relationships, ideologically grounded and, due to its many relationships, hard to produce resistance against. This space is powerful because actors cannot choose but to be submissive since its elements are lifted from relational local settings to the global-abstract level. They need to obey to the paths of abstract space, to follow its dictates and its instructions. Lefebvre’s concept of abstract space thereby serves as a point of departure for speaking of images that circle and move around the world, in terms of spacing. Michael Foucault suggested a concept that could be used as a link between absolute and abstract space, in a lecture held in Paris to a group of architects. His interest was geared toward heterotopias, sites “that are endowed with the curious property of being in relation with all the others, but in such a way as to suspend, neutralise, or invert the set of relationships designed, reflected or mirrored by themselves” (Foucault 1997:352). Utopias, argues Foucault, are imaginary forms of current society that are inverted or perfected. Just like the meaning of the word utopia suggests non-place, there are no sites for utopias. Heterotopias, on the other hand, are very much real and represent, contest, and invert other places in society. A heterotopia is a place where we can find peace, retreat, and rest. It is a place “in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralise, or invent the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect” (Foucault, 1997). Foucault exemplifies heterotopias with places such as cemeteries, libraries, ships, trains and museums. A heterotopia could be a boat, which “… is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea.” Heterotopias have very specific functions, although these may shift over time. They are capable of “juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are themselves incompatible”. The examples Foucault uses are oriental gardens and libraries that provide a possibility to experience plants and books from different localities. Heterotopias “presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable,” and may require rites of passage to be accessible. Entry may be compulsory like a prison, religious like a mosque, or hygienic like a sauna. Finally, heterotopias come into being in relation to all spaces that exist outside of them. At the same time that they denote a characteristic space that is unlike any other space, they also function as microcosms that reflect larger orders and cultural patterns. We now have a set of concepts of spatial practice, representations of space, representational spaces, absolute space, abstract space and heterotopias from which to gain a spatial understanding of city images. In the next section, IT-related images of Stockholm will be illustrated.

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Illustrating images of Stockholm My previous studies of IT ventures in Stockholm have been guided by what city informants have told me were crucial to the development of the Stockholm region at the end of 1990s. It has been the creation and spread of an IT net based on fibre optics (Dobers 2001). It has been the surge of broadband in Sweden in general and Stockholm in particular (Dobers 2002). It has been activities like the Stockholm Challenge or the TIME.Stockholm events around the annual October TIME Week. And it has been the development of images of Stockholm as an IT City, based on all kinds of substantial efforts in constructing information and communication networks in a very broad sense. The chapter starts from three independent studies of the competitiveness of European regions or countries: A cover feature of an international business magazine and two studies of regional and national competitiveness provide proxy data, albeit generated for other purposes, yet usable as illustrations here: They have in common that they add to the image of Stockholm as an IT City (or Sweden as an IT nation). In the context of this chapter they therefore function as illustrations for how an understanding of Stockholm as an advanced IT city region is created and maintained beyond the hype of the 1990s. The first example is the cover of the European edition of Newsweek in which “Shining Stockholm” was presented as the leading broadband and Internet capital in Europe (February 7, 2000). The issue had a special cover

Figure 18.1. Cover of the European edition of Newsweek, February 7, 2000. (Printed with kind permission of A. Farnsworth/The Image Works and Newsweek.)

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article on Stockholm labelled “Hot IPOs and Cool Clubs in Europe’s Internet Capital”. Several IT ventures such as Boo Com, valued at a billion Swedish Kronor on the Stockholm exchange, were hot; Stockholm’s clubs and bars were cool; and broadband was booming (see Figure 18.1). The former Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh (now deceased), and the Swedish Ambassador to the USA, are both known for having blown-up the Newsweek cover to be a large wall chart. At times during 2000 and 2001, Foreign Minister Lindh welcomed foreign guests and gave interviews to international press in front of this wall chart. In the article, Stockholm and its suburb of Kista are described in terms of the many corporations in the field of mobile technologies, applications and services. More than one year later, those IT ventures were not as hot as they used to be, the reputation of Stockholm as an Internet City might have become lukewarm, and the broadband boom had gone bust (Dobers 2002). According to the article, Stockholm/Kista has evolved into the world’s Mobile Valley, a thumbnail image premised on the supposed widespread use of mobile technologies (for another paper on Stockholm as the mobile city, see Hallin, 2003). The image of Mobile Valley is probably one of the most spread images of industries related to information and communication technologies. Another example is from Wirtschaftswoche, the German business magazine, in August 2002. In their study of 214 regions in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, Wirtschaftswoche, together with the research institute Empirica Delasasse, ranked these regions in accordance with their competitiveness. Five underlying criteria were used and weighted differently

Table 18.1. Top ten of the Wirtschaftswoche ranking of 214 European regions (No. 33: 8 Aug., 2002). Ranking

Stockholm (Sweden)

2

Utrecht (The Netherlands)

3

Munich (Germany)

4

Geneva (Switzerland)

5

Zürich (Switzerland)

6

Luxembourg (Luxembourg)

7

Amsterdam/North Holland (The Netherlands)

8

Southampton/South East (Great Britain)

9

Brussels (Belgium)

10

294

Region

1

Vevey/Waadt (Switzerland)

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in the overall score: profitability and dynamics (25 %)3, strength of innovation (25 %)4, high-tech potential (20 %)5, market potential (15 %)6 and quality of life (15 %)7 (see Table 18.1 for the Wirtschaftswoche 2002 top ten regions). The third illustration is also the most recent one. By early 2003, the business information arm of The Economist Group, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), published their fourth annual e-readiness ranking of the world’s 60 largest economies (EIU 2003). About 100 quantitative and qualitative criteria make up the ranking that is organised into the following six categories: connectivity and technology infrastructure (25 %)8, business environment (20 %)9, consumer and business adoption (20 %)10 and legal and policy environment (15 %)11, social and cultural infrastructure (15 %)12 and supporting e-services (5 ).13 The top ten countries are (compare Table 18.2):

Table 18.2. The EIU 2003 e-readiness ranking with top ten countries (EIU, 2003:4). 2003 E-readiness ranking

2002 Ranking

Country

2003 E-readiness score (of 10)

2002 Score

1

4 (tie)

Sweden

8.67

8.32

2

7

Denmark

8.45

8.29

3 (tie)

2

Netherlands

8.43

8.40

3 (tie)

1

USA

8.43

8.41

3 (tie)

3

Great Britain

8.43

8.38

6

10

Finland

8.38

8.18

7

11 (tie)

Norway

8.28

8.17

8

4 (tie)

Switzerland

8.26

8.32

9

6

Australia

8.25

8.30

10 (tie)

9

Canada

8.20

8.23

10 (tie)

14

Hong Kong

8.20

8.13

3

Economic growth per capita, long term development of GNP, number of new jobs. Number of registered patents, R&D costs and R&D employment in companies. 5 Number of employees in high-tech industries, R&D costs at universities. 6 Spending power per capita, consumers in the region, traffic density, transportation nodes. 7 Tourism, number of hotel beds and hotel nights, risk of accidents, weather. 8 Fixed-line penetration, mobile-phone penetration, Internet penetration, PC penetration. 9 Strength of the economy, political stability, regulatory environment, taxation. 10 State spending on information technology as proportion of GDP, level of e-business. 11 Overall political milieu, policy towards private property, government digital age vision. 12 Level of education and literacy, level of Internet literacy, degree of entrepreneurship. 13 Availability of e-business consulting and technical support services online. 4

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Although this ranking is focusing on countries, and not regions or cities, it gives a contextual understanding of international images of individual regions. In the 2003 ranking, the EIU concluded that: Sweden has deposed the US for the top slot by wholeheartedly embracing the Internet society and revolutionising the way that business, including government business, is done (…) particularly Scandinavian countries have gained ground. Sweden is now the front-runner, and Denmark (2nd place), Finland (6th) and Norway (7th) have each advanced significantly over last year’s ranking (EIU 2003:2).

Obviously not created directly by Stockholm city managers, such studies add to the legitimacy of Stockholm as a modern and information technological advanced city region. They shape images that international corporations, tourists, city managers of other cities and even inhabitants have of Stockholm. They invoke expectations that we have for the future prosperity of the Stockholm region and its international competitiveness. A quick search on Google (27 May 2003) reveals how related images of Stockholm and other cities circle around the globe to be used by any interested party:

Table 18.3. Hits on Google while searching on “Mobile Valley” related terms (May 27, 2003). Searched term

Hits on Google

581

260

172

161

142

70

49

29

12

28

11

Most hits refer to the term of Mobile Valley. Some of the hits of e-readiness rankings refer to specific regions other than in Sweden (12 refer directly to Stockholm). Almost as many hits that refer to Stockholm as the Internet Capital of Europe refer to London instead (24 hits). The point here is not to dwell on statistical figures concerning which term is most commonly used, etc. The Google searches serve here as an illustration of images circulating the Internet and do not cover all the appearances there have been in regular 296

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press. Henceforward, when talking about images of Stockholm as a modern city in the digital age, Stockholm as an IT City, Stockholm as the mCity (Hallin 2003), or Stockholm as the Mobile Valley, I will refer to these broad images by using the “Mobile Valley image”, or simply “MV-Image”.

Performative imageries Images of Stockholm as an IT City did not stay local on the cover of Newsweek, in the pages of Wirtschaftswoche, or in a PDF file of Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). They travel the world and quickly become connected to elements in other action nets in which their meaning most certainly changes. These illustrative images, labels or names circulate on the globe and give rise to many creative imitation processes in the quest for unique identities (Sevón 1996). Figure 18.2 illustrates how elements of “silicon” and “valley”, borrowed from the probably most known ICT region in the world (with more than 326,000 googled hits on the Internet on May 27, 2003), circulate to other regions of the world, and to other industries like the life sciences (see Figure 18.2 below). As an example, the figure shows how many “Silicon Everythings” emerge throughout the world, and not only in the USA. Also, we can see that “Everywhere Valleys” emerge simultaneously, suggesting that regions with these imitated regional names borrow fame and fortune from the regional advantage of, for instance, Silicon Valley or Route 128 in the USA (Saxenian 1996; Lee, Miller, Hancock et al. 2000).

Figure 18.2. Imitating and moving images throughout the world.

As we have seen from the imitation and travel of elements of the Silicon Valley image, we have taken part in the representations of the imagery space from the senders’ perspective. However, once users of images in a mental meaning step inside the MV-image and close their eyes, they can potentially 297

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go on a creative stroll and reach any other imaginative space they wish. Such a mental stroll may (but does not have to) open up a space in which other times and spaces can be represented through the individual’s conception. Inside of the MV-image, actors can conceive other spaces, although, while on their mental stroll, their physical location does not have to be in Stockholm. Thus, representations of space are linked to the relations between lived spaces and mental concepts of other spaces. This is to say that users of particular city images can think of and relate to other imaginary city spaces. Before experiencing the MV-Image, it is in spatial terms void of meaning. It is what Latour (1997) called an instant flickering by. Once using a city image a space of meanings from other times and other spaces may be produced, dependent only on the creativity and conception of the temporal user. The initial idea behind the Newsweek cover of 2000, the Wirtschaftswoche study of 2002, and the EIU study of 2003, was to sell their products of business magazines and consultancy reports. How such articles and reports are read, however, is beyond the scope of its creators: editors, journalists, and consultants. Apparently, there were too many stakes and actors wanting to use these images as part of describing an abstract space of the socalled “new economy” (Holmberg, Salzer-Mörling and Strannegård 2002), the “digital age” (Engeli 2000) or the “network society” (Castells 1996; Dijk 1999). The images started living a life of their own and were mobilised as an argument in a negotiation space, i.e. “a space, a period of time, a set of resources in which innovation may take place” (Law and Callon 1992:27). They were an argument in a negotiation space that sought to prove that Newsweek is modern, reporting up to the minute economic fads. They were an argument that the Wirtschaftswoche was conducting their own and independent study of European regions. And they were an argument that the EIU was creating a demand for many nations to buy their study of the world’s 60 largest economies. This is to say that the MV-image is an absolute space that did not stay disconnected. It set out on journeys across the world, both materially in articles, reports and pictures, and ideologically in the minds of city managers and inward investors. The MV-image links other places, other times and other images of Silicon Valley or Biotech Valley through the absolute space that other actors mobilise. It works best when it is in the hands of others. Such images are attractive because they are multi-functional and can be used since they fit into trans-local spaces (Czarniawska and Joerges 1996). Thus, they have an ability to fulfil organising, spacemaking and framing (Callon 1998, 1999). What, then, does the MV-image achieve? It is an idea so meaningful and simultaneously void of meaning that it manages to be used in different contexts. Through its multi-contextuality, it attracts a large number of allies that help to enhance its raison-d’être since it enables other actors to engage 298

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in spacing, timing and acting. It becomes co-opted into the international flow of ideas and artefacts of how city regions are perceived, conceived and lived. As a perceived space in magazines and reports, the MV-image is physical in the sense that it is an artefact made up of text, numbers and photography. It is mediated through the production and reproduction of magazines and reports and when other newspapers pick up the news. It is created in interaction between journalists, editors, photographers and researchers; hence the production of the MV-image is highly social. The MV-image is a physical object with a particular location in time and space. As a conceived space, the physical aspects of the MV-image play no lead role. Here the MV-image becomes sensory through entering the mental domain. For the reader and the user, the conceived space is not a result of interaction with humans, but with the conceived space as it is produced in interaction with the image. And to transform into a conceived space for the user it needs to be used. Journalists of newspapers refer to the original study of the Wirtschaftswoche and Empirica Delasasse. The Foreign Minister, and Swedish Ambassadors around the world, referred to the Newsweek cover and article. And economists around the world at present discuss the shortcomings and merits of the premises of the EIU study. The production of space, in a conceived sense, is thereby activated in use. The MV-image enables the production of conceived space for the user, just as it produced a conceived and eventually perceived space for the original creator. As a conceived space, the MV-image is physical but heterotopian. It provides the opportunity, in use, to produce heterotopias. Before a user enters the mental realm of MV-images, it is, as a conceived space, void of meaning. But in its use, the conceived space is produced, and thereby its heterotopian features may be activated. As a lived space, the MV-image is dematerialised. It takes the form of symbols, signs, and representation. It is through losing its materiality that the MV–like images are able to be imitated and travel to new regions and new industries. First, it is within the perceived space of the creator that the MV-image is formed. But then, it is when journalists, researchers, economists and politicians use the MV-image in their work that the MV-image is turned into an imagined, mental construct, materialised not as a physical object but in representations such as texts, stories or images. The MV-image as representation thus enables it to travel. As a lived space it thrives on the attractiveness of isolation, it moves into the realm of the symbolic and representational. Inclusion and incorporation in culturally important action nets produces a stream of winners. Exclusion and excorporation, on the other hand, brings nothing. Protests to certain images cannot be silent and restricted to a single locality. Counter-movements must build action nets just like the ones that 299

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are contested (Latour 1988/84). In order to contest what is called the global-abstract, it is necessary to be trans-local and local-concrete. Reactions against images will be co-opted: the fact that an image becomes visible requires the construction of relations and action nets. Hence, to actively criticise the image of Stockholm as the Mobile Valley, it seems necessary to be part of a competing abstract space that is just as strong. Manuel Castells could be said to have strengthened the attempt to establish Finland as a Mobile Valley when he co-authored a book with a Finnish author in which Finland and Nokia-land are imagined as the Mobile Valley (Castells and Himanen 2002).

Empty space or illusionary images? Can, then, the image of Stockholm as a Mobile Valley be conceptualised as a Foucauldian heterotopia? In one way the answer is yes, and in another it is clearly no. The MV-image of Stockholm is still locally rooted in and around Stockholm and connects to other conceived spaces. By its specific intended function, its link to other acts of timing and spacing, and its existence outside everyday life of city inhabitants, the MV-image matches Foucault’s heterotopian requirements. But this goes only for the MV-image as a perceived and conceived space. Foucault argued that heterotopias have specific functions. In the case of the MV-image, it is exactly the lack of specificity regarding its spacing that enables it to accumulate different times and different places by different means of action. To economic journalists at Swedish daily newspapers, to the research group at the foreign ministry of Sweden, or to scholars interested in the image economy (Schroeder 2002), the MV-image is a representational space. Challenged by the emptiness of their newspapers, monthly reports to ambassadors or papers to be presented at conferences, they are looking for representational spaces by which creative, convincing and novel stories can be produced. Reduced to an image on a cover, or to an odd text in a book on entrepreneurship, the passive MV-image is stripped of its experiential qualities. We cannot touch it, we cannot slip into it (can we ever touch or slip into an image?); we can only read about it and take part in the MV-image in a non-experiential way. The MV-image is transformed into a representational space, passive by itself, performing however one chain in the author’s chain of arguments for other purposes. Their intention was to establish a convincing and dominating story, an imagery space in Newsweek and Wirtschaftswoche, an imagery space at Digital Communities 2003 in Stockholm, or EGOS 2003 in Copenhagen, imposed on the reader. As a representational space, the MV-image performs in the name of the business magazine, in the name of the intelligence unit, in the name of the uni-

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versity. The MV-image, once an absolute space with experiential, physical and conceptual anchorage, changes character and transforms into a topoi in the abstract space, into another performative element of an action net. And the MV-image as an abstract space turns into a temporarily stabilised techno-economic network (Callon 1991) of city images. As a representational space, the MV-image is no longer a heterotopia, since it became part of an abstract space, another action net, and it lost its experiential access. But what made the MV-image become co-opted in a connected and already manifested action net so quickly? A feasible explanation is that the MV-image constructed an empty space at other space fillers’ disposal. The MV-image turns back into an absolute space when it loses the degrees of stability of an abstract space. Stability, or lability, is thus another perspective of understanding space. Jerzy Kociatkiewicz and Monika Kostera, much along the same lines as Tuan (1997), distinguish between space and place in terms of stability: place implies stability, and space mobility (Kostera and Kociatkiewicz 1999). To Kociatkiewicz and Kostera this mobile feature of space is important when they focus on the empty spaces: “Emptiness remains, however, the integral part of every ordered space, the invisible conjunction between its different aspects. It is in these empty spaces that possibilities for change are hidden, beyond the rational designs for development and transformation” (Kostera et al. 1999:47). The empty spaces, in Kociatkiewicz’ and Kostera’s view, are “… non-colonised places and places which neither the designers nor the managers of perfunctory users wish, or feel need to, earmark for colonisation. They are, we may say, ‘leftover’ places which remained after the job of structuration has been performed on such spaces that really matter …” (Bauman 2001). The MV-image is however the opposite of the empty spaces that Kociatkiewicz and Kostera suggest. The MV-image provides something else than “non-place” (Augé 1992), “nowhereville” (Benko 1997), “silent places” (Libeskind 2000) and “junk space” (Koolhaas 2001). Such places and spaces are devoid of symbolic expressions, contain nothing, and produce nothing. The goal of the MV-image, however, is the active spacing of emptiness, which is not a leftover, but a result of strategic intentions that are constantly produced and reproduced. An empty space has to be constructed, given meaning to and involve interaction. This is to say that spaces need to be mobilised, to involve others in an interactive process. Spacing can thus not occur in isolation, but requires interaction between actants, human or non-human. The MV-image thus provides an opportunity for spacing, a performative possibility for framing the situation, for incorporating or excorporating (Latour 1991). As the introduction of a special issue of Empty Spaces (Kostera 2000) suggests, emptiness inspires creativity, and thereby it offers freedom to participants. Peter Brook speaks of the same thing in terms of possibilities: 301

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An empty space makes it possible for a new phenomenon to come to life for anything that touches on content, meaning, expression, language, and music, which can exist only if the experience is fresh and new. However no fresh and new experience is possible if there is not a pure, virgin space ready to receive it (Brook 1990, 1968).

The MV-image provides an empty space, perceived and conceived, willing to receive the thoughts, wishes or desires of the one entering this mental realm. The MV-image may be seen as a tool that provides an empty space with performative capabilities. It permitted Newsweek to fill the empty space of the business magazine. It permitted the decorators of the Swedish Foreign Ministry to fill their empty walls. It allowed scholars to give presentations and write papers for conferences. The empty spaces have to be endowed with legitimate content, i.e. ideas materialised in texts or artefacts, and seen as legitimate by other actors. Empty spaces as absolute spaces, endowed with content can be connected to other temporary bounded spaces, and thereby take part in a large, interconnected action net of both human and non-human actors that end up in abstract spaces and stripped from its performative start. The different ways in which the IT-related images of Stockholm and Sweden were used illustrate the processes of formulating and constructing empty spaces, and eventually endowing them with content. Each initiator of a project, whether it is to write an article, write a report, fill the cover of a magazine, or create positive backgrounds for interviews, brackets time and space in such a way that spaces endowed with content are produced. Problems are constructed and questions formulated. These problems and questions produce expectations on solutions and answers. Empty spaces as absolute spaces need to be endowed with content, which opens up a possibility for actors to endow the empty spaces with ideas and artefacts that other people consider meaningful, relevant and performative. Therefore, the MV-image as a representational space illustrates different ideas depending on the context at hand: a comment on the IT boom of the late 1990s, a study of the competitiveness of European regions or some of the world countries, or an overwhelmingly positive image of Stockholm. The answer to the question of whether the image of Stockholm as the Mobile Valley, as the IT City or as the mobile City is pure fiction, imagery illusions, or empty spaces at other space fillers’ creative disposal, remains unformulated in this chapter. That is up to the reader to conclude. The chapter, however, has made a point in showing that the MV-image as an empty, representational space allows for an ever-increasing amount of actors to fill their empty spaces in many creative ways.

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