How Communicative Performances Can Constitute an Organization’s Self

Abstract

The creation of an organization’s self is the attribution of a collective will and agency to a group of individuals, thereby constituting them into an organization able to interact with its peers. As such, the organization’s self represents a central issue for collective action, as studied through the prism of the “communicative constitution of organizing” (CCO). Performances, as communicative and spectacular events during which a collectivity presents its self and displays a given message, represent a little-studied opportunity to understand the constitution of the organization’s self, and to explore the links between the organization’s self and the selves of its members. The empirical part of this study analyses the French feminist activist group, La Barbe, which uses innovative performances to denounce the absence of women at the top of organizations. The paper’s contribution is twofold: the analysis presents how visual and symbolic performances can help to constitute an organization’s self, notably through what performances produce for the organization: visibility, coordination and mobilization. Second, it shows the impact of performances on those who execute them, which retroactively has important organizational effects by ensuring their engagement in the organization.