Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

out in an organization. Apparently organizational members do something else as that
they are believed to do. The difference between what is intended or planned with
what really happens even stimulated a doubt whether organizations are manageable
(Stacey, 2010; Weggeman, 2003). The discussions within OMS have elicited curiosity
towards what really happens within organizations when policy is developed and
implemented.
Insider and ‘personal’ research
Interest in what is happening within organizations has stimulated a growing tradition
of insider research which aims to provide “… important knowledge about what organizations
are really like, which traditional approaches may not be able to uncover.”
(Brannick and Coghlan, 2007: 72). A need for close analysis is underlined for instance
through organizational auto-ethnographic accounts (Parry and Boyle, 2009). Parry
and Boyle state that organizational auto-ethnographic researchers can provide firsthand
accounts of taboo topics such as sexual harassment, motherhood at work or
highly charged emotional situations in the workplace. In their view an organizational
auto-ethnography can connect the micro and daily and mundane aspects of organizational
life with broader political and strategic organizational agendas. Organizational
auto-ethnography is research from a ‘personal’ perspective. Maybe research from a
‘personal’ perspective is representative for the science of organizational muddling
through (Lindblom, 1959).
Self-ethnography, insider research, local heuristics...
Alongside insider research and organizational auto-ethnography one can read about
self-ethnography (Alvesson, 2003), at-home ethnography (Alvesson, 2009), insider
ethnography (O'Reilly, 2009), story-telling (Koch, 1998; Tesselaar and Scheringa, 2008),
local heuristics (Thomas, 2012) and ‘withness’-thinking (Shotter, 2006). In these different
approaches we are reminded of the process-like or dialogical character of human
acting (Koch, 1998; Shotter, 2006; Tesselaar and Scheringa, 2008), craftsmanship
(Thomas, 2012) and that doing research as a observing participant is worthwhile and
potentially revealing (Alvesson, 2003, 2009; Brannick and Coghlan, 2007; O'Reilly, 2009).
In a general sense it is assumed that insider research offers knowledge which cannot
be disclosed from the outside. For this assumption several reasons are forwarded. It is
proclaimed that organizational realities are constituted by the acting of real persons
and not by some abstract disembodied agents (Simpson, 2009). That means that
organizational life is to be found with and could be best described by those who
‘create it’. In their daily coping with their organizational reality, organizational members
gain superior knowledge about what is going on, which no one else can offer
(O'Reilly, 2009). At least it is suggested (Sonnaville, 2005) that in doing research from
the outside many things remain uncovered, apparently because people prefer not to
wash one’s dirty linen in front of an external researcher. For instance interviewing
organizational members runs the risk of wishful thinking because “in general people
have a tendency to present themselves from their best side.” (Baarda and Goede, 2011: 224).
1. Introduction: research into performativity from a ‘personal’ perspective | 17