Towards an articulation of the material and visual turn in organization studies

International audienceContemporary organizations increasingly rely on images, logos, videos, building materials, graphic andproduct design, and a range of other material and visual artifacts to compete, communicate, form identityand organize their activities. This Special Issue focuses on materiality and visuality in the course of objectifyingand reacting to novel ideas, and, more broadly, contributes to organizational theory by articulating theemergent contours of a material and visual turn in the study of organizations. In this Introduction, weprovide an overview of research on materiality and visuality. Drawing on the articles in the special issue, wefurther explore the affordances and limits of the material and visual dimensions of organizing in relation tonovelty. We conclude by pointing out theoretical avenues for advancing multimodal research, and discusssome of the ethical, pragmatic and identity-related challenges that a material and visual turn could pose fororganizational research