Obstfeld presentation

David Obstfeld will be presenting his research on Friday, Feb 20th from 10-11:30am in the dean’s conference room (Business & Economics building, room 253).  Here’s his title and abstract:

Creative projects:
A less-routine approach toward getting new things done

 This paper presents a framework for action that accounts for both how organizations get routine things done and pursue markedly new things through “creative projects.”  Based on this framework, organizational routines and creative projects are viewed as trajectories occurring along a continuum of interdependent action differing in degree of repetitiveness, not in kind; functionally different, but sharing the same representational space.  An ethnographic case study of an automotive prototype purchasing process and two initiatives to redesign that process is used to compare an organizational routine with creative projects occurring within the same organizational setting, and to further explicate the framework.  Case analysis reveals how projection and planning (the ostensive aspect), as well as combinatorial action, knowledge articulation, and contingency management (the performative aspect), unfold differentially in organizational routines and creative projects.  This paper contributes to our understanding of different forms of organizational change and provides a framework to examine the role of non-routine organizing at several levels of organizational analysis.