How Social-Symbolic Work Changes Places
Loading...
Access rights
openAccess
CC BY
CC BY
publishedVersion
URL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
This publication is imported from Aalto University research portal.
View publication in the Research portal (opens in new window)
View/Open full text file from the Research portal (opens in new window)
View publication in the Research portal (opens in new window)
View/Open full text file from the Research portal (opens in new window)
Unless otherwise stated, all rights belong to the author. You may download, display and print this publication for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Date
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
36
Series
Journal of Management Studies, Volume 62, issue 8, pp. 3425-3460
Abstract
We advance the social-symbolic work perspective by developing an understanding of places as objects characterized by location, materiality, function, and symbolic meaning and which can be changed through social-symbolic work. Drawing from a longitudinal study of the ‘Empty Homes’ Programme in England, our analysis identifies an unfolding process of social-symbolic work through which organizational actors change three distinct places – a historic chapel hall, a village public tavern, and derelict terraced houses – into social housing. Our findings develop a theoretical model of how social-symbolic work changes place objects through a process involving dislodging functionality of how a place is actually used, inscribing liminality, and consolidating coherence across new function, new symbolic meaning and reconstructed materiality at a fixed geographic location. This process creates a new place as a social-symbolic object that is both stable and dynamic. Our findings and model contribute to the social-symbolic work perspective and have broad relevance within the management studies literature to research on place and organizational and institutional change processes.Description
Other note
Citation
Wright, A L, Lang, R & Kibler, E 2025, 'How Social-Symbolic Work Changes Places', Journal of Management Studies, vol. 62, no. 8, pp. 3425-3460. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13178