The turn to work in organization and management theory: Some implications for strategic organization

Abstract

Over the past decade, the study of management and organization theory has experienced a significant ‘turn to work’. This turn to work has not, however, been a return to the study of the forms of work that have been the traditional focus of organizational scholars. Instead, the turn to work involves a widespread scholarly engagement with new forms of work that involve individuals and organizations purposefully and strategically expending effort to affect their social-symbolic context. For example, boundary work (Gieryn, 1983; Kreiner et al.,2009), identity work (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010; Watson, 2008) and institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006; Zietsma and Lawrence,2010) have all become important areas of scholarship despite being largely unknown or unexplored just a few years ago. Although the streams of research on various new forms of work are largely disconnected at present, we argue that together they represent an important trend in the study of management and organization with important ramifications for researchers interested in strategic organization. In this essay, we introduce the turn to work, explain what it is and why it has occurred, discuss its implications for the field of strategic organization and propose some new research directions for strategic organization that incorporate this turn to work.