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Guess who's coming to dinner? Structures and uses of liminality in strategic management consultancy

Guess who's coming to dinner? Structures and uses of liminality in strategic management consultancy
Guess who's coming to dinner? Structures and uses of liminality in strategic management consultancy
Organizational studies have recently drawn our attention to the importance of liminality in our working lives. This transitional timespace is characteristic of precarious or mobile employment such as temporary, project and consulting work especially. It is understood as a fluid and largely unstructured space where normal order is suspended and which is experienced as both unsettling and creative. This article critically explores liminality through a detailed study of the neglected activities of business dinners and back-stage management consultancy. We argue that liminality can in fact be a highly and multi-structured, comfortable and strategic or tactical space. We find that the use of wider norms and routines of eating and socializing as well as of hierarchical patterns of working and of exclusion and inclusion shape the experience and outcomes of liminality. Moreover, we highlight how the context of liminality is sustained by highly structured organizational activities in the production of domestic and public meals. We conclude that business meals mark a traditional, rather than modern, practice where ‘official secrets’ continue to grease the wheels of commerce. At the most senior levels especially, the liminality between work and private spheres can be far from unsettling and fluid.
0018-7267
929-960
Sturdy, Andrew
b4f5bb1a-a3e1-44c3-99ef-d7e617e39c60
Schwarz, Mirela
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Spicer, Andre
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Sturdy, Andrew
b4f5bb1a-a3e1-44c3-99ef-d7e617e39c60
Schwarz, Mirela
0219feb7-5955-4baa-b7b9-940cd6fe4558
Spicer, Andre
6d638d24-262a-4958-ac83-e1f2cd7a431d

Sturdy, Andrew, Schwarz, Mirela and Spicer, Andre (2006) Guess who's coming to dinner? Structures and uses of liminality in strategic management consultancy. Human Relations, 59 (7), 929-960. (doi:10.1177/0018726706067597).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Organizational studies have recently drawn our attention to the importance of liminality in our working lives. This transitional timespace is characteristic of precarious or mobile employment such as temporary, project and consulting work especially. It is understood as a fluid and largely unstructured space where normal order is suspended and which is experienced as both unsettling and creative. This article critically explores liminality through a detailed study of the neglected activities of business dinners and back-stage management consultancy. We argue that liminality can in fact be a highly and multi-structured, comfortable and strategic or tactical space. We find that the use of wider norms and routines of eating and socializing as well as of hierarchical patterns of working and of exclusion and inclusion shape the experience and outcomes of liminality. Moreover, we highlight how the context of liminality is sustained by highly structured organizational activities in the production of domestic and public meals. We conclude that business meals mark a traditional, rather than modern, practice where ‘official secrets’ continue to grease the wheels of commerce. At the most senior levels especially, the liminality between work and private spheres can be far from unsettling and fluid.

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Published date: July 2006

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 37039
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/37039
ISSN: 0018-7267
PURE UUID: b7d0253b-394a-4ce7-a599-3b050cc3537d

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Date deposited: 19 May 2006
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 07:58

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Contributors

Author: Andrew Sturdy
Author: Mirela Schwarz
Author: Andre Spicer

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