Editing narratives of change. Identity and legitimacy in complex innovative infrastructure organizations

Abstract

This paper is based on two PhD projects on cultural change and innovation in complex infrastructural networks. The research projects focus on alternative ways in which particular narratives (and counter narratives) are transformed into organizational practice. Data collection is based on ethnographic reconstruction. In this paper we will argue that the acceptance, adoption and dissemination of narratives in innovation based contexts is closely linked to processes of identification and legitimation. We will introduce and analyze two cases in which different types of organizational enactment occur: the case of the Dutch Railways and the case of the ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. We conclude that four types of change scripts (blind scripts, dynamic scripts, transformative scripts and direct scripts) are related to the discursive practices that occur in dynamic processes of organizational change. These change scripts lead us to a better understanding of innovation dynamics, especially regarding the ways narratives of change are transformed into praxis through processes of social editing.