The Territorial Organisation: History, Divergence and Possibilities

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Territorial Organisation

T2 - History, Divergence and Possibilities

AU - Marechal, Garance

AU - Linstead, Stephen Andrew

AU - Munro, Iain

PY - 2013/7

Y1 - 2013/7

N2 - This paper introduces a new field to organization studies – that of organizationalterritoriality – as well as introducing the papers to the special issue on The Territorial Organization. Organization seen as territory may functionsymbolically, offering an additional metaphor to those suggested by Morgan, or materially, taking into account existing studies of organizational space and architecture. This paper integrates perspectives from anthropology, human and economic geography, psychology, philosophy, history and literature to provideconceptual tools for developing the field. This includes considerations of macro-level nation-state political economy and corporate power, with boundarymarking and defence; the micro-level of psychosocial spaces; the meso-level of organizationally networked spaces; the role of maps and mapping; thematerialities of landscape, terroir and practices of dwelling; the symbolicsignificance of taskscapes and vistas; mobile practices of wayfaring and nomadics; and processes of territorialization, deterritorialization and reterritorialization. We argue that organizational territoriality studies(OTS) brings together a number of disciplinary perspectives that combineunderstandings of space and time with power, embodiment and materiality toshed new light on issues of culture, identity and meaning. As such it forms not simply a disciplinary subfield of organization studies, which in one sense it clearly is, but also a space of articulation, translation and exchange betweendisciplines

AB - This paper introduces a new field to organization studies – that of organizationalterritoriality – as well as introducing the papers to the special issue on The Territorial Organization. Organization seen as territory may functionsymbolically, offering an additional metaphor to those suggested by Morgan, or materially, taking into account existing studies of organizational space and architecture. This paper integrates perspectives from anthropology, human and economic geography, psychology, philosophy, history and literature to provideconceptual tools for developing the field. This includes considerations of macro-level nation-state political economy and corporate power, with boundarymarking and defence; the micro-level of psychosocial spaces; the meso-level of organizationally networked spaces; the role of maps and mapping; thematerialities of landscape, terroir and practices of dwelling; the symbolicsignificance of taskscapes and vistas; mobile practices of wayfaring and nomadics; and processes of territorialization, deterritorialization and reterritorialization. We argue that organizational territoriality studies(OTS) brings together a number of disciplinary perspectives that combineunderstandings of space and time with power, embodiment and materiality toshed new light on issues of culture, identity and meaning. As such it forms not simply a disciplinary subfield of organization studies, which in one sense it clearly is, but also a space of articulation, translation and exchange betweendisciplines

KW - organizational territoriality

KW - organizational space

KW - terroir

KW - taskscape

KW - landscape

KW - deterritorialization

KW - reterritorialization

KW - vistas

KW - nomadics

U2 - 10.1080/14759551.2013.812703

DO - 10.1080/14759551.2013.812703

M3 - Article

SN - 1475-9551

VL - 19

SP - 185

EP - 208

JO - Culture and Organization

JF - Culture and Organization

IS - 3

ER -