Essal: Reflections on Fiction,Representation,and Organization Studies: An Essay with Special Reference to the Work of Jorge Luis Borges

Abstract

This essai examines how Borges' narrative fiction may contribute to a reconceptualization of organizational interpretation and representation, and thus complexify the thinking of both organizational theorists and practitioners. This exploration is situated against the background of an increasing awareness of the fictionality of organizational life, and a sensitivity towards the representational practices employed by organizational scholars as they seek to construct persuasive accounts of the theory and practice of organization. By pushing standard interpretative and representational practices to their limits, we can reveal their arbitrariness (and sometimes absurdity), and thus open up new positions of intelligibility. In the denatured contexts of the digital economy, Borges' fantastic fictions appear closer to temporal experience than the authoritative discourses with which mainstream organizational discourse has accustomed us.