Transitions in Organisational Life: A Creative Exploration 2

This paper is about the creation of new forms of expression. Its purpose is to stimulate critical reflection and debate about alternative academic discourses. The theoretical underpinnings of the paper draw on the writing of a number of researchers who have been exploring issues of representation, from ethnographic and phenomenological perspectives as well as from the field of educational research. The research, on which this paper is based, has explored how managers make meaning of significant experiences of transition in organisational life. Within this research, ten middle and senior managers were tracked through an externally-driven amalgamation process, in which their jobs were spilled and their previous organisation was absorbed into a larger entity. The managers drew images and told stories over a two-year period as the amalgamation progressed. The symbols and metaphors of the original data revealed a rich existential depth to the managers’ questions about meaning, identity, responsibility and belonging. In my research, I have used this data as the basis of songs, poetry and multi-media tracks which evoke the texture of the managers’ experiences of transition. Within this paper, I explore multiple modes of analysis, including academi