Organizational Memorialization: Spatial History and Legitimation as Chiasms

de Vaujany, François-Xavier; Vaast, Emmanuelle; Clegg, Stewart; Aroles, Jeremy

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how historical materialities might play a contemporary role in legitimation processes through the memorialization of history and its reproduction in the here-and-now of organizations and organizing. Design/methodology/approach: The authors briefly review the existing management and organization studies (MOS) literature on legitimacy, space and history; engage with the work of Merleau-Ponty to explore how organizational legitimacy is managed in time and space; and use the case of two Parisian universities to illustrate the main arguments of the paper. Findings: The paper develops a history-based phenomenological perspective on legitimation processes constitutive of four possibilities identified by means of chiasms: heterotopic spatial legacy, thin spatial legacy, institutionalized spatial legacy and organizational spatial legacy. Research limitations/implications: The authors discuss the implications of this research for the neo-institutional literature on organizational legitimacy, research on organizational space and the field of management history. Originality/value: This paper takes inspiration from the work of Merleau-Ponty on chiasms to conceptualize how the temporal layers of space and place that organizations inhabit and inherit (which we call “spatial legacies”), in the process of legitimation, evoke a sensible tenor.

Citation

de Vaujany, F.-X., Vaast, E., Clegg, S., & Aroles, J. (2021). Organizational Memorialization: Spatial History and Legitimation as Chiasms. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, 16(1), https://doi.org/10.1108/qrom-01-2020-1887

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 3, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 3, 2020
• Publication Date: 2021
• Deposit Date: Aug 4, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 17, 2020
• Journal: Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management
• Print ISSN: 1746-5648
• Publisher: Emerald
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/qrom-01-2020-1887
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1259268