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A processual and (post) humanist reading of ethnography, innovation, and gender in organizations

This study offers a particular reading of ethnography, innovation processes, and gender performances. By attending to processes, (gender) performances, and their effects, the thesis brings out the consequences of a specific approach - a processual, poststructuralist and posthumanist one - for gender (how performances include and exclude people), research methods (what we are responsible for in our ethnographies), and innovation (a politics of who acts in innovation processes and a politics of what innovation processes are about). The thesis draws on empirical material collected through an ethnographic study in two research organizations, a biomedical research centre based in Italy (BfL), and the British branch of an IT multinational (Techie). Through the analysis of the material, the thesis develops three contributions. As a first contribution, I offer a stronger process-oriented reading of innovation and show how a lens founded on the intertwinement of “performativity” and “enrolment” integrates extant innovation models by adding two dynamics (constructing and effecting), and by re-looking at the role of objects in shaping innovation processes. As a second contribution, I empirically address the lack of research on gender and innovation in management literature, by shedding more light on if, how, and with what consequences gender dynamics are enacted and shape innovation processes and its people. The third contribution refers to the elaboration of a theoretical framework enabling a politically responsible ethnographic practice, and accounting for differences as a methodological premise for grasping a phenomenon.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:647961
Date January 2014
CreatorsPecis, Lara
PublisherUniversity of Warwick
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/67598/

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