Organizationality and alterity: looking for signs of organizing in an online community of practice
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19245/25.05.pij.8.2.5Keywords:
organizationality, alterity, community of practice, alternative organizing, Teal organizingAbstract
This article develops an understanding of how we might better theorise alternatives outside of formal organizations through an attention to the interplay between identity and alterity. Reporting on a netnography of an online community of practice, the article presents four qualitative markers that signal the importance of alterity to theorising alternatives outside of formal organizations. The principal contribution of this article lies in how it extends the growing literature on organizationality to incorporate empirical findings pertaining to this alternative organizational setting. It builds on extant work that argues organizationality is accomplished through identity claims to draw attention to the importance of ‘alterity claims’. It looks for signs of organizing in an online community of practice and, through what is found, demonstrates how alternative approaches demand we reconsider the implications of our habitual theorizing of organizing outside of formal organizations. It argues that an attentiveness to ‘alterity claims’ helps us can help us to better theorise alternative organizational practices and subjectivities.
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