(Re)Constructing Disorder: A Dynamic View on Effortful Ambiguity

Our research investigates the practice of (re)producing routines in a highly organic organisation. Through the domain of information management, we highlight that counter to mechanistic organisations, who routinise ostensively, in this organic organisation routinising is done performatively, clustering performances into prototypes of routines – a practice we refer to as ambiguation. Empirically we draw on two years of ethnographic study, revealing three distinct manifestations of the practice of ambiguation: embracing gaps; encouraging flexibility and decentralising order, which combined make routinisation itself situated, adaptive and dynamic. Our study contributes rich, in-depth data about an organic organisation, an understudied and under-theorised empirical setting and their accompanying performative routinising, thus advancing our knowledge of the dialectics of ostensive and performative routines.