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Dual Iconographies and Legitimation Practices in Contemporary Organizations: A Tale of the Former NATO Command Room

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Materiality and Time

Abstract

Contemporary organizations have increasingly relied on “performative imagery” (Quattrone et al., 2012; Rose & Tolia-Kelly, 2012). This trend towards distributed, immaterial, and virtual organizations (Desanctis & Monge, 1999; Griffith et al., 2003), visual branding (Davison, 2009), as well as the development of tertiary, knowledge-oriented cities and national economies (Castell, 1989, 2000) and the disembodiment of information (MacKay, 1969; Hayles, 1999; Logan, 2012) have made the visual dimension of organizing especially salient and important. As processes and activities in organizations have become more complex and abstract, “showing” what the organization represents and what its members stand for calls for visualizing. As such, visuals and their intended meanings have become especially important tools for the organization to address its stakeholders.

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© 2014 François-Xavier de Vaujany and Emmanuelle Vaast

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de Vaujany, FX., Vaast, E. (2014). Dual Iconographies and Legitimation Practices in Contemporary Organizations: A Tale of the Former NATO Command Room. In: de Vaujany, FX., Mitev, N., Laniray, P., Vaast, E. (eds) Materiality and Time. Technology, Work and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137432124_3

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