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If These Walls Could Talk: The Mutual Construction of Organizational Space and Legitimacy

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  • François-Xavier de Vaujany

    (Dauphine Recherches en Management, Université Paris-Dauphine, 75775 Paris Cedex, France)

  • Emmanuelle Vaast

    (McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0G4, Canada)

Abstract

Organizational spaces project claims of organizational legitimacy while also constituting physical environments where work happens. This research questions how organizational space and legitimacy are mutually constituted over time as organizations experience shifts in work and institutional demands.Building on a qualitative case study of Paris Dauphine University, a French university founded in the late 1960s that has, since its inception, occupied the former North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters, we theorize the dynamic intersection of organizational space and legitimacy over time. The case study demonstrates how spatial practices of appropriation, reappropriation, and disappropriation intersect with and inform what we call “spatial legacies” that function to establish or repair an alignment between organizational space and legitimacy. Spatial practices of appropriation and reappropriation build and manipulate spatial legacies, whereas spatial practices of disappropriation attempt to break away from such legacies. Appropriation and reappropriation involve managing spatial legacies to maintain the alignment between organizational space and legitimacy claims. Disappropriation involves trying to erase or alter these legacies to realign the space to changing legitimacy claims. This research adds to the literature on sociomateriality by adopting a longitudinal perspective that highlights legacies as nondeterministic outcomes of past imbrications of the social and the material, to research on legitimacy by conceptualizing it as a sociomaterial construction, and to research on organizational spaces by revealing the institutional underpinnings of spatial transformations. This research also holds practical implications by highlighting the relationships between space as it is designed and used and an organization’s legitimacy claims and by showing how claiming the immutability or flexibility of a space can be legitimizing for an organization.

Suggested Citation

  • François-Xavier de Vaujany & Emmanuelle Vaast, 2014. "If These Walls Could Talk: The Mutual Construction of Organizational Space and Legitimacy," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 713-731, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:25:y:2014:i:3:p:713-731
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2013.0858
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. François-Xavier de Vaujany & Nathalie Mitev & Sytze Kingma, 2018. "Proceedings of the 8th Organizations, Artifacts and Practices Workshop, New Ways of Working (NWW): Rematerializing Organizations in the Digital Age. 20nd - 22th June 2018 Amsterdam," Post-Print halshs-01818149, HAL.
    2. François-Xavier de Vaujany, 2018. "Legitimation process in organizations and organizing: An ontological discussion," Post-Print halshs-01840927, HAL.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15198 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Weinfurtner, Tania & Seidl, David, 2019. "Towards a spatial perspective: An integrative review of research on organisational space," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(2).
    5. Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, Aurélie, 2021. "“Seeing to be seen”: The manager’s political economy of visibility in new ways of working," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 605-616.
    6. François-Xavier de Vaujany, 2018. "Legitimation process in organizations and organizing: An ontological discussion 1," Post-Print halshs-01868090, HAL.
    7. François-Xavier de Vaujany & Emmanuelle Vaast, 2016. "Matters of visuality in legitimation practices: Dual iconographies in a meeting room," Post-Print hal-01767067, HAL.
    8. Eivor Oborn & Michael Barrett & Wanda Orlikowski & Anna Kim, 2019. "Trajectory Dynamics in Innovation: Developing and Transforming a Mobile Money Service Across Time and Place," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(5), pages 1097-1123, September.
    9. Willems, Thijs & van Marrewijk, Alfons, 2017. "Construindo uma colaboração? Da co-locação à des-locação em um centro de controle ferroviário," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 57(6), October.
    10. Paul Pierce & Francesca Ricciardi & Alessandro Zardini, 2017. "Smart Cities as Organizational Fields: A Framework for Mapping Sustainability-Enabling Configurations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-21, August.
    11. Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2021. "Do coworking spaces promise a revolution or spark revenge? A Foucauldian spatio-material approach to the re-spatialization of remote work in coworking spaces," Post-Print hal-03330208, HAL.

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