Page 34 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

22 Design Meets Business
These questions are central in this dissertation research in which I explore how creatives cope with their changing work and occupations as a conse- quence of collaborating with business.
1.6. Adopting a Practice Lens
In this dissertation, I adopt a practice lens. A practice lens denotes a family of theoretical approaches that start from the assumption that social life is being produced in people’s ongoing (inter)actions (Schatzki et al. 2001; Feldman & Orlikowski 2011; Nicolini 2012; Nicolini & Monteiro 2016). Scholars adopting the practice lens share the idea that organiza- tional reality is not a static entity or stable disposition, but rather consti- tuted through the (inter)actions of people. In terms of research methods, a practice lens therefore benefits from “bringing work back in” (Barley & Kunda 2001: 84), collecting detailed data of the actual work people do.
In their study, Feldman and Orlikowski (2011) specified three different ways in which organizational scholars can adopt a practice lens. They diffe- rentiate between the empirical, theoretical and philosophical focus. To begin with, the empirical focus foregrounds the study of the actual work of practitioners to better understand organizational outcomes, answering the question of ‘what’ people do in organizational settings. Scholars in various domains of organizational studies might adopt this approach, not necessarily contributing to existing theories of practice (see for example the work of Dougherty 2004; Weick & Roberts 1993). Similar to the empi- rical focus, the theoretical focus also explores people’s doings. Yet, the theoretical focus moves beyond the level of everyday actions by identif- ying and explaining recurrent behavioral patterns. In other words, studies adopting the theoretical focus develop theory that explains ‘how’ actual work is generated and maintained across space and time (see for example the work of Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984; Schatzki et al. 2001). Finally, the philosophical focus moves to an even more conceptual level of analysis. The philosophical focus is grounded in the ontological statement that the world is made through people’s actions, rather than external to people themselves. Research with a philosophical focus tries to answer the ques- tion ‘why certain practices are enacted’, exploring for example the status of a phenomenon (see the work of Schatzki et al. 2001). While the studies in dissertation draw on core elements of the theoretical and philosophical focus, the empirical focus is leading.
Although the practice lens draws from different perspectives and propels various forms of organizational research, there a few features that all practice studies share. Below I outline three key features, which