Page 204 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

192 Design Meets Business
et al. 2015; Sturdy et al. 2006; Garsten 1999), existing studies exclusively focus on those undergoing the liminality. The literature has been silent on the ‘ceremony masters’ or those inducing liminality in others or exis- ting research mentioned them as a negative, unintended consequence of managerial performance (Izak 2015). Ignoring how others facilitate limi- nality is warranted as Turner (1976) already wrote that liminality is often created by authority figures, such as chief-man or others that are seen as capable in a certain domain. Chapter 4 shows how creatives as ceremony masters facilitate liminality through performing the practices of ‘activa- ting’ and ‘morphing’. Moreover, this research emphasizes that liminality is not something that is suddenly ‘there’, in contrary it demands careful attention to emotional states and a constantly switching between roles to create and maintain liminality.
Further, this dissertation also adds to studies that allude to the conse- quences of liminality (Garsten 1999). So far, we know that undergoing liminality triggers all sorts of emotions, both frustrating and exhilarating emotions. It is argued that in order to trigger creativity, it is important for people to have positive emotions related to feelings of joy, freedom and social support (Czarniawska & Mazza 2003). Also, scholars showed that negative feelings such as anger or despair can hamper creative processes (Swan et al. 2016). On the one hand, this dissertation research confirms such insights (see Chapter 2 & 4). On the other hand, this dissertation research contributes to existing debates by showing that creatives can manage the consequences of liminality through (re)balancing morphing and mobi- lizing. For example, when clients are frustrated as they experience too much ambiguity around the problem domain, creatives can enhance their involvement in creative processes and identify directions for innovation. Further, when clients are excited, the creatives can support this in further encouraging them to work independently, play with new technologies and brainstorm ideas.
Further, this dissertation research shows that creatives can facilitate liminality through adopting the position of liminal beings themselves. I refer to this in our paper as a case of ‘double liminality’. Creatives can intentionally inspire flexibility and switch between roles to keep creative processes among their clients moving. The fluidity of morphing relates to emerging insights on creatives as ‘amphibians’ (Jones et al. 2016) or actors that are highly mobile and move between insider and outsider positions (Sgourev 2013). They are suitable to do so because they do not only have experience in adopting liminal positions - such as ‘mavericks’ and ‘misfits’ (Jones et al. 2016) - but also can cope with open-ended and highly ambi- guous situations in for example product innovation (Stigliani and Ravasi