Barbara Czarniawska
Biographic Data
| ID | 88136 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Barbara Czarniawska |
| GIVEN NAMES | Barbara |
| FAMILY NAME | Czarniawska |
| SIGNATURE | CZARNIAWSKA B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Gothenburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7052-3606 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 79 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 391 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 74 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Covid-19 Stories from the Swedish Welfare State: The Pandemicracy
Waking Up to a New World
Narrative glimpses of organizing
FNEGE 4, ABS 2
Teoria organizacji i literatura piękna w jednym stoją domu
Organisation theory began to be appreciated in the 1960s when it became clear that neither economics nor psychology could explain the phenomena of organising purely in the language of economics, whereas these phenomena were becoming more and more central to the functioning of modern society. Enterprises and organised institutions were becoming increasingly complex and their activities could not be explained by a combination of economic laws and p…
Organizing Integration of Refugees: Translation and Hybridization
How is integration organized in practice, and what role do hybrids play in such practices? Based on fieldwork on two integration support initiatives for recent refugees in one of Sweden’s largest cities, this paper critically engages these questions, focusing in particular on integration as a multi-directional, ambiguous process that is shaped by the intervention of a great many agents. In line with previous research, we conclude that practices o…
Organizing as a mode of existence
This article explores Bruno Latour's innovative perspectives on the study of organisations. It goes back to his speech at EGOS in 1993. In it he asked what the sociology of science could contribute to the study of organisation. For Latour, organisation is achieved through interactions that also consider the artefacts that enable interactions to last and to act at a distance. He introduces the idea that organisation is an act of dispatchment: a hu…
L'organisation comme mode d'existence
L'article explore les perspectives novatrices de Bruno Latour pour l'étude des organisations. Il remonte à son discours prononcé à EGOS en 1993. Il y posait la question de savoir ce que la sociologie des sciences pouvait apporter aux études sur l'organisation. Pour Latour, l'organisation se réalise à travers des interactions prenant en compte aussi les artefacts qui permettent aux interactions de durer et d'agir à distance. Il introduit l'idée qu…
Organising Immigrants' Integration: Practices and Consequences in Labour Markets and Societies
The focus of the chapters is on actions, processes, and complexity of organising practices, in contrast to more policy-oriented works.
Organizing Immigrants' Integration: Practices and Consequences in Labor Markets and Societies
Do robots and companies get along in science fiction
Do robots and companies get along in science fiction
Dans cet article, nous analysons les craintes et les espoirs suscités par l’automatisation, tels qu’ils se reflètent dans la culture populaire depuis l’invention du terme « robot » jusqu’à l’engouement médiatique actuel. Ces espoirs et ces craintes ont-ils changé ou sont-ils demeurés les mêmes ? Les changements ont-ils reflété les changements réels de la robotique ? Nous analysons comment ce sujet a été traité dans la science-fiction des années 1…
Organizing in the Roman Empire
In her chapter, Czarniawska gives us the opportunity to imagine the origins of organizing in the still significant legacy of the Romans and their long-lasting empire. Her reflections are not so much concerned with the organizational and economic aspects of the Empire, but of the imbricated relationship of the Roman management of military and civil administration. She focuses, in particular, on the financial, agricultural, industrial, and trade di…
Research Note. A Culture of Costs versus A Culture of Expenses
When there is money spent on products of culture, are those costs or expenses? An answer to that question may be of importance not only to accountants and auditors, and it can vary among cultures. This article compares the way the issue is presented by two fiction writers, one Swedish and one British
Gendered references in organization studies
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to point out a worrisome phenomenon and suggest some ways of dealing with it. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a historical analysis of references in organization studies. Findings The finding of this paper concludes that the proportion of women authors is low and is increasing very slowly. Research limitations/implications Some simple solutions may be applied, even if they alone will not solve the pro…
Joan in my life
Is it possible to study anxiety in organizations
Anxiety has been traditionally studied by asking people to describe their emotions, or by deducing their emotions from their observable behavior. Such methods are, however, ethically doubtful in case of organization studies. Organization scholars do not have a moral right to ask people about their emotions. Further, there is no guarantee that people who were asked describe their emotions correctly. Even more uncertain is the idea of deducing emot…
Organization studies as symmetrical ethnology
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to challenge some of the taken for granted assumptions of contemporary ethnographic practice by exploring reasons for fieldwork and the debt that is owed to those in the field. Design/methodology/approach Exploring traditional and contemporary reasons for fieldwork and comparing ostensive and performative styles of reporting organization studies. Findings The argument is that traditional ethnographic approache…
A willing slave: Reflections on E-Books
This text is a personal confession projected at the background and history of e-books. Like with any new technologies, their introduction evoked hopes and fears. As technical problems vanish, and new habits are forming, the readership of e-books grows
A Research Agenda for Management and Organization Studies
Contents: Introduction 1. History of Management - What is the Future for Research on the Past? Marie Laure Djelic 2. In Search of What Accounting is not: Speculations on the Future of Valuing, Transparency and a New Aesth-etics for Governing Capitalism and Democracy Paolo Quattrone 3. From Marketing to Market-things and Market-ITing: Accounting for Technicized and Digitalized Consumption. Franck Cochoy, Jan Smolinski and Jean-Sebastien Vayre 4. S…
Research Agenda for Management and Organization Studies
Marknadsföring i cyberrymden: William Gibsons värld
Science fiction literature is known for not only describing unknown worlds, but also for presenting worlds alternative to those real, and for predicting, if not directly shaping the future. These observations have been often illustrated by the writings of William Gibson. In a series of novels beginning with Pattern Recognition (2003), he described a world of digital commerce and digital marketing that seems to be portraying present developments i…
Social Science Research: From Field to Desk
What, why, and how? Reviewing literature Designing the study Interviewing Observation on the move: Shadowing Following objects and quasi-objects Tools for fieldwork Surviving in the field: Practicalities and personalities Excursions into the cyberspace Analysing field material Text analyses Writing it up Good academic writing: Beauty & credibility When to stop, and what to do next
Why I think shadowing is the best field technique in management and organization studies
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of shadowing as a field technique. Design/methodology/approach – This piece takes the form of a viewpoint. Findings – Barbara Czarniawska describes the methodological journey that led her to the adoption of shadowing approaches in her organizational research. Originality/value – This invited commentary is informed by extensive experience of using shadowing to gather data in organizationa…
Nomadic Work as Life-Story Plot
Coping with Excess: How Organizations, Communities and Individuals Manage Overflows
On Time, Space, and Action Nets
Laboratory studies, especially those by Latour and Woolgar (1979/1986) and Knorr Cetina (1981) have proved to be an invaluable source of inspiration for students of organizing. Laboratories, however, are primarily reminiscent of simple factories, an organization form that is no longer central in today's world of work organizations. Two aspects of factory-like organizing are problematized in this paper: the dominance of chronological time and the …
Consulting as a Liminal Space
The growing literature on management consulting views consultants as allies of management, in temporary positions of power. This article attempts to complement this perspective by assuming a metaphor of consulting as a liminal space. Liminality is a condition where the usual practice and order are suspended and replaced by new rites and rituals. We build on the anthropological analyses of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner to find theoretical su…
Emerging Institutions: Pyramids or Anthills
In the present text, an institution is understood to be an (observable) pattern of collective action, justified by a corresponding norm. By this definition, an institution emerges slowly, although it may be helped or hindered by various specific acts. From this perspective, an institutional entrepreneur is an oxymoron, at least in principle. In practice, however, there are and always have been people trying to create institutions. This article de…
The uses of narratology in social and policy studies
This article suggests possible multiple uses of narratology in social and policy studies. It starts with a brief history of the narrative turn in social sciences. The structure of the remainder of the text follows the trajectory of a research project. First there is a suggestion that researchers may learn from narratologists how to monitor the construction of narratives in the field of social practice, how to look for narratives in documents, and…
Organizing: How to Study It and How to Write About It
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review emerging approaches to field studies of organizing that aim to avoid the problems of traditional methods and techniques. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based in pragmatist philosophy and constructionist perspective. Within this frame, the paper starts with a brief history of fieldwork methods in organization study, continues by diagnosing their shortcomings in the light of contemporary deve…
Doing Gender unto the Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations
Although ‘doing gender’ has been recently defined as an accomplishment, an element of social practice, this understanding of the concept needs to be extended to coercive action such as subtle workplace discrimination. Even though great effort has been invested in revealing the dynamic of such social practices, the researcher's task is not easy for a variety of reasons. This type of study is difficult to conduct by following traditional research d…
Cyberfactories: How News Agencies Produce News
Have you ever wondered how organizations decide which news is important? This insightful book portrays in detail everyday work in three news agencies: Swedish TT, Italian ANSA and the worldwide Reuters. This unique study is about organizing rather than journalism, revealing two accelerating phenomena: cybernization (machines play a more and more central role in news production) and cyborgization (people rely more and more on machines). Barbara Cz…
Organization Theory Meets Anthropology: A Story of an Encounter
This text briefly depicts the history of an encounter between anthropology and organization theory in the Anglo-Saxon literature in the period 1990-2010 as seen by an organization scholar. In focus are some stable characteristics and some changes in this relationship, against the background of wider developments in societies and in social sciences. The article ends with suggestions concerning future possibilities of combining the insights of the …
The Thin End of the Wedge: Foreign Women Professors as Double Strangers in Academia
The impetus for this study was an observation that many of the first women to obtain chairs at European universities were foreigners. Our initial attempt to provide a statistical picture of this proved impossible, because there were numerous problems deciding the contents of such concepts as ‘first’, ‘university professor’ and ‘foreigner’. We have therefore focused on four life stories. It turns out that being a ‘double stranger’— a woman in a ma…
Karl Weick: Concepts, Style and Reflection
Gabriel Tarde and Big City Management
This text focuses on the wealth of insight that Tarde has to offer organization theory. It revolves around three pairs of concepts: imitation and invention, identity and alterity, custom and fashion; illustrating their relevance for understanding organizing by relating them to a study of big city management. Imitation, according to Tarde, is the main mechanism of sociality, the main mode of binding people (and things) to one another. If so, how c…
Having Hope in Paralogy
L'A. enonce dix propositions apparemment contradictoires, qu'il juge a meme de stimuler la recherche en organisation. Les paradoxes qui en decoulent demandent non a etre resolus, mais temoignent de la pertinence des questions a la base du developpement de la discipline. C'est ainsi, par exemple, que l'on trouve simultanement les exigences de proximite et de distance, de pluralivocalite et d'univocalite parmi les recommandations methodologiques ex…
Organization studies as symmetrical ethnology
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to challenge some of the taken for granted assumptions of contemporary ethnographic practice by exploring reasons for fieldwork and the debt that is owed to those in the field. Design/methodology/approach Exploring traditional and contemporary reasons for fieldwork and comparing ostensive and performative styles of reporting organization studies. Findings The argument is that traditional ethnographic approache…
Narrating organization studies
This chapter depicts a personal and a professional trajectory caused by the narrative turn in the social sciences. It went from an original enchantment to a more distanced and nuanced approach, but in the end the narrative take established itself firmly in social studies, in this chapter exemplified by organization studies. Of great importance were the charismatic guides to the narrative, such as Jerome Bruner and Alasdair MacIntyre, who translat…
Is it possible to study anxiety in organizations
Anxiety has been traditionally studied by asking people to describe their emotions, or by deducing their emotions from their observable behavior. Such methods are, however, ethically doubtful in case of organization studies. Organization scholars do not have a moral right to ask people about their emotions. Further, there is no guarantee that people who were asked describe their emotions correctly. Even more uncertain is the idea of deducing emot…
Organizing Integration of Refugees: Translation and Hybridization
How is integration organized in practice, and what role do hybrids play in such practices? Based on fieldwork on two integration support initiatives for recent refugees in one of Sweden’s largest cities, this paper critically engages these questions, focusing in particular on integration as a multi-directional, ambiguous process that is shaped by the intervention of a great many agents. In line with previous research, we conclude that practices o…
Women and Work in Family Soap Operas
The starting point of this article is the assumption that images of work and organizing produced by popular culture both reflect and shape actual practices. Among various genres of popular culture, soap operas deserve more attention. This article analyses three local soap operas: one Italian, one Swedish and one South African. All three focus on family life — a focus typical for the genre. We trace the side topic of women at work and women and wo…
How critical does the management research need to be
Changing organizations in a changing institutional order: The reform of warsaw's governance system 1
This paper reports a part of a field study dedicated to the issues of big city management, focusing on an introduction of a new governance system in the city of Warsaw. The study shows complexities of public sector reforming, which are common to many a public administration, although the normative theories do not pay them much heed. It also reveals the specificity of this particular administrative reform, which took place in the context of and as…
Translating Organizational Change
Travels of Ideas
Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity (New Practices of Inquiry)
A Four Times Told Tale: Combining Narrative and Scientific Knowledge in Organization Studies
The present article applies such reflection to organization theory texts, revealing differing ways in which facts and metaphors, logic and stories are woven together. In conclusion, the genre of organization theory is submitted to an institutional analysis
A Narrative Approach to Organization Studies
Concocting a Device The Narrative in Social Sciences and Organization Studies Is There a Method in the Study? Anthropology as a Frame of Mind Positioning in the Field, or the Other as Myself Science as Conversation A Story of Referencing and Referencing as a Story Telling Doing the Reading and Doing the Writing From the Field to the Text
Who is Afraid of Incommensurability
Changing organizations in a changing institutional order: The reform of warsaw's governance system 1
This paper reports a part of a field study dedicated to the issues of big city management, focusing on an introduction of a new governance system in the city of Warsaw. The study shows complexities of public sector reforming, which are common to many a public administration, although the normative theories do not pay them much heed. It also reveals the specificity of this particular administrative reform, which took place in the context of and as…
Writing Management: Organization Theory as a Literary Genre
This book provides an alternative perspective on organization studies, introducing an approach that draws on narratology, literary theory, cultural studies, and anthropology, contrasting it with the assumptions of the positivist social science. It reflects on such issues as possibility of combining narrative and scientific knowledge, the presence and absence of plot in organization studies, the dominance of the realistic stylization in organizati…
Management she wrote: Organization studies and detective stories
It has been postulated that social sciences in general and organization theory in particular can profit from parallels and analogies with fiction literature. As the main form of expression in social sciences, like in literature, is a written product, inspired imitation can visibly improve the literary forms of organization theory, without diminishing its specificity. This essay argues that one genre in fiction literature is especially suitable fo…
A Narrative Approach to Organization Studies
Narrative, Interviews and Organizations
Anthropology and Organizational Learning
The concept of organizational learning does not often appear in anthropological literature. The only instance I have found of the term’s use in that field is in Hutchins (1995), where it is borrowed from organization theory. There are several reasons for this paucity, and it might be instructive to take a look at some of them.
Having Hope in Paralogy
L'A. enonce dix propositions apparemment contradictoires, qu'il juge a meme de stimuler la recherche en organisation. Les paradoxes qui en decoulent demandent non a etre resolus, mais temoignent de la pertinence des questions a la base du developpement de la discipline. C'est ainsi, par exemple, que l'on trouve simultanement les exigences de proximite et de distance, de pluralivocalite et d'univocalite parmi les recommandations methodologiques ex…
Remembering while Forgetting: The Role of Automorphism in City Management in Warsaw
This article summarizes the results of a study of city management in Warsaw. Contrary to the common opinion, the difficulties in effective city management in Warsaw do not stem from its communist past, but from a veneered sedimentation of a rationalist-legalist frame of action. These problems are aggravated by a negative attitude toward imitation of foreign models. The article discusses possibilities for reframing that are created by automorphism…
This Way to Paradise: On Creole Researchers, Hybrid Disciplines, and Pidgin Writing
When I was beginning my research career in the 1970s, the first wave of ‘interdisciplinary studies’ came in. A group of researchers from different disciplines would receive common funding to study the same phenomenon. The desired result was a complete description of the ‘object’ from all possible ‘sides’, contributing to a ‘holistic image’. The actual result was a bunch of separate reports, unintelligible to anyone from another discipline, sour f…
Consulting as a Liminal Space
The growing literature on management consulting views consultants as allies of management, in temporary positions of power. This article attempts to complement this perspective by assuming a metaphor of consulting as a liminal space. Liminality is a condition where the usual practice and order are suspended and replaced by new rites and rituals. We build on the anthropological analyses of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner to find theoretical su…
Narratives in Social Science Research
The Narrative Turn in Social Studies How Stories Are Made Collecting Stories Narratives in an Interview Situation Reading Narratives Structural Analyses Close Readings Poststructuralism, Interruption, Deconstruction Reading Social Sciences Writing Social Sciences Narrativizing Social Sciences
Web Woman: The On-line Construction of Corporate and Gender Images
One of the many interesting applications of information technology is ‘business on the net’ and, within this trend, the appearance of virtual females whose job it is to assist customers by giving advice and delivering information. These creatures raise a host of interesting questions about corporate image, but also about humanness and femininity. Who or what do they represent: the companies that produced them? their designers? society’s dreams—bo…
The ‘Narrative Turn’ in Social Studies
Gabriel Tarde and Big City Management
This text focuses on the wealth of insight that Tarde has to offer organization theory. It revolves around three pairs of concepts: imitation and invention, identity and alterity, custom and fashion; illustrating their relevance for understanding organizing by relating them to a study of big city management. Imitation, according to Tarde, is the main mechanism of sociality, the main mode of binding people (and things) to one another. If so, how c…
On Time, Space, and Action Nets
Laboratory studies, especially those by Latour and Woolgar (1979/1986) and Knorr Cetina (1981) have proved to be an invaluable source of inspiration for students of organizing. Laboratories, however, are primarily reminiscent of simple factories, an organization form that is no longer central in today's world of work organizations. Two aspects of factory-like organizing are problematized in this paper: the dominance of chronological time and the …
Metaphors as enemies of organizing, or the advantages of a flat discourse
Article Metaphors as enemies of organizing, or the advantages of a flat discourse was published on March 25, 2004 in the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language (volume 2004, issue 166)
Good Novels, Better Management: Reading Organizational Realities in Fiction
Karl Weick: Concepts, Style and Reflection
Doing Gender unto the Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations
Although ‘doing gender’ has been recently defined as an accomplishment, an element of social practice, this understanding of the concept needs to be extended to coercive action such as subtle workplace discrimination. Even though great effort has been invested in revealing the dynamic of such social practices, the researcher's task is not easy for a variety of reasons. This type of study is difficult to conduct by following traditional research d…
Sociology (43 works) · Computer Science (30 works) · Philosophy (29 works) · Management and Organizational Studies (27 works) · Political science (26 works) · Epistemology (21 works) · Art (16 works) · Law (16 works) · History (15 works) · Linguistics (13 works)