Exploring interventions for relational knowing and caring in management and organization studies
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School of Business |
Doctoral thesis (article-based)
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Authors
Date
2024
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
38 + app.98
Series
Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL THESES, 97/2024
Abstract
The dissertation engages with feminist theory, art, and materiality to approach knowing from a relational perspective. It is comprised of a summary and four essays that together answer the research question of 'How can a relational approach to knowing foster possibilities for organizing through empathy and care?'. The first essay delves into the realm of arts-based methods in management education, specifically examining how an artistic intervention can cultivate empathy as a form of relational knowing. Focused on addressing work-related uncertainty among doctoral students during the COVID-19 pandemic, the essay highlights the limitations of normative approaches and the significance of cultivating sensitivity towards ambiguity. The second essay explores collaborative collage writing as a methodological contribution to writing differently in management and organization studies. Engaging in poetic exchanges, this collaborative writing practice disrupts self-judgment and encourages vulnerable relations. The essay positions collage writing as an empathic practice fostering embodied reflexivity and self-compassion. The third essay challenges conventional perceptions of artistic interventions by embracing the concept of 'tinkering.' Framing tinkering as an artistic intervention, the essay promotes the idea that anyone can initiate and explore artistic expressions, contributing to feminist resistance within the business school. Tinkering is presented as a means of fostering vulnerable embodied reflections and attuning to both human and non-human elements. The fourth essay centres on the organizing potential of care for orienting agencies and relations in ways that nurture interdependencies. It departs from a post-human perspective on practice theory to direct attention to how caring orientations emerged through dialogical engagements between humans and non-humans. This essay identifies competing caring orientations and sheds light on the dominance of human-centric organization and theorizing. The dissertation offers three contributions to the feminist knowledge production in management and organization studies. First, it theorizes artistic interventions as activities capable of disrupting the dominant logico-rational approach and facilitating empathic knowing to address work-related uncertainty. Second, it extends the method of collaborative collage, presenting it as an experimental writing practice that fosters empathic and embodied reflexivity. Third, it elaborates on how care can be approached as a form of organizing based on an ongoing 'call-and-response' sensitivity to the relation with the other, where needs and interests emerge rather than being predefined. Overall, this work proposes a speculative approach to researching and theorizing organizations, challenging the hegemonic knowledge production practices within the business school, and advocating for space that embraces ambiguity, difference, and multiplicity.Description
Supervising professor
Moisander, Johanna, Prof., Aalto University School of Business, Department of Management Studies, FinlandThesis advisor
Kuismin, Ari, Dr., University of Jyväskylä, FinlandHuopalainen, Astrid, Dr., Aalto University School of Business, Department of Management Studies, Finland
Keywords
artistic intervention, feminisms, materialities, empathy, care, writting differently
Other note
Parts
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[Publication 1]: Lafaire, A. P., Kuismin, A., Moisander, J., & Grünbaum, L. (2022). Interspace for empathy: engaging with work-related uncertainty through artistic intervention in management education. Culture and Organization, 28(3–4), 227–244.
DOI: 10.1080/14759551.2022.2029442 View at publisher
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[Publication 2]: Lafaire, A.P., Soini, A., & Grünbaum, L. (2022). In lockdown with my inner saboteur: A collaborative collage on self-compassion. Gender, Work & Organization, 29(4), 1331–1345.
Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202208104678DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12799 View at publisher
- [Publication 3]: Lafaire, A.P., Tinkering in the business school as artistic intervention. Manuscript under review in a journal.
- [Publication 4]: Wickström, A., Lafaire, A.P., Kangas-Müller, & L., Soini, A. Entangled with a communal sauna: Caring as material-discursive response to vibrant matter. Manuscript under review in a journal