Researching culture and organization; what possibilities?

ABSTRACT

Research into organizational culture seems to have come to a stillstand. In its heyday in the 1980s and 90s two crucial problems were voiced: (i) Is organizational culture really manageable? and (ii) Is organizational culture something an organization has (i.e. is it an identifiable variable) or something it is (i.e. is it an ontological prerequisite to the organization’s very ‘being’?). This article proposes that Aby Warburg’s ‘science without a name’ where ‘culture’ is identified with ‘ontology’ is a way out of what seems to be the current impasse in organizational culture research. Warburg conceptualized ‘culture as ontology’ as: M + P = N (Memory + Punctum = Notions that Abide). It will be argued that Viveiros de Castro’s current ‘turn-to-ontology’ in anthropology affirms the basic insights from Warburg’s ‘science without a name’ and is an inspiration for (re-)actualizing the M + P = N approach, with the understanding of ‘culture’ is informed by a Deleuzian ontology of repetition and difference.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational culture
• Aby Warburg
• M + P = N
• Turn-to-ontology
• Repetition and difference
• Viveiros de Castro

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Belonging to a prominent banking family himself, this surely is to be seen as self-referential.