Spacing Resistance in a Business School Relocation

Ari Kuismin, Janne Tienari, Emma Nordbäck, Pekka Pälli

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

In this paper, we offer an in-depth longitudinal study of a business school relocation. Focusing on the relationship between spatial practices and resistance over time, we show how faculty appropriated, reappropriated, and disappropriated their business school space, and how this “spacing” built, modified, and diluted resistance to the managerially driven relocation. Our contribution is threefold. First, we theorize resistance to managerialism in business schools as processually enacted in and through faculty’s spatial practices. Second, we theorize the contested character of organizational space as it emerges through intertwined spatial practices. Third, we elucidate how combining ethnographic inquiry with collaborative autoethnography offers a meaningful new methodological approach to exploring the business of business schools. Overall, the paper offers insights into how the potentiality of business school spaces as spaces of resistance can be realized, understood, and empirically studied.
Original languageEnglish
Peer-reviewed scientific journalAcademy of Management Learning and Education
Number of pages21
ISSN1537-260X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.10.2025
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article - refereed

Keywords

  • 516 Educational sciences
  • 512 Business and Management

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Spacing Resistance in a Business School Relocation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this