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Whose line is it anyway? De-signing organisational change in the case of MyAirport moving to become more sustainable

Paul W Chan and Vivian Liang

In: 28th European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS) Colloquium; 05 Jul 2012-07 Jul 2012; Helsinki. 2012.

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Abstract

The article draws on an ongoing ethnographic study of an international airport, known as MyAirport, and its desire to become a more ‘sustainable’ airport. By employing frame analysis, inspired by the tradition of Goffman’s social interactionism, we attempted to identify the multiple ways in which ‘sustainability’ was framed by a variety of social actors at MyAirport. In so doing, we attempted to show the indeterminate nature of changing as we traced the way the ambitions of becoming more ‘sustainable’ was made sense of in everyday occurrences at MyAirport. Therefore, the main contribution of this article lies in the treatment of organisational change as an ongoing process of changing and sense-making. By following our social actors, observing their daily practices, and articulating their multiple frames of ‘sustainability’ work, we provide richer accounts of how changing in organisations are mobilised, often through conceptualisations of the present and re-conceptualisations of the ever growing past. Change is therefore not a static and stable point of destination, waiting for the researcher to analyse; rather changing demands getting close to the actions as organisations constantly move, get moved and evolves.

Bibliographic metadata

Type of resource:
Content type:
Type of conference contribution:
Publication date:
Conference title:
28th European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS) Colloquium
Conference venue:
Helsinki
Conference start date:
2012-07-05
Conference end date:
2012-07-07
Abstract:
The article draws on an ongoing ethnographic study of an international airport, known as MyAirport, and its desire to become a more ‘sustainable’ airport. By employing frame analysis, inspired by the tradition of Goffman’s social interactionism, we attempted to identify the multiple ways in which ‘sustainability’ was framed by a variety of social actors at MyAirport. In so doing, we attempted to show the indeterminate nature of changing as we traced the way the ambitions of becoming more ‘sustainable’ was made sense of in everyday occurrences at MyAirport. Therefore, the main contribution of this article lies in the treatment of organisational change as an ongoing process of changing and sense-making. By following our social actors, observing their daily practices, and articulating their multiple frames of ‘sustainability’ work, we provide richer accounts of how changing in organisations are mobilised, often through conceptualisations of the present and re-conceptualisations of the ever growing past. Change is therefore not a static and stable point of destination, waiting for the researcher to analyse; rather changing demands getting close to the actions as organisations constantly move, get moved and evolves.
Language:
eng
Related website(s):
  • Related website http://www.egosnet.org/2012_helsinki/general_theme

Institutional metadata

University researcher(s):

Record metadata

Manchester eScholar ID:
uk-ac-man-scw:170237
Created by:
Chan, Paul
Created:
18th September, 2012, 13:42:16
Last modified by:
Chan, Paul
Last modified:
7th January, 2014, 22:50:26

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