Browsing by Subject "Impermanence"

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Communicating impermanence : temporal structuring of the COVID-19 pandemic in everyday organizational life
(2020-08-14) Cicchini, Emily Jane Ball; Ballard, Dawna I.; Barbour, Joshua B.; McGlone, Matthew S; Gregg, Benjamin G
Impermanence is an essential yet understudied aspect of organizational communication. This study addresses the research question: How do people communicate about (or avoid communicating about) impermanence in the workplace? Taking impermanence—defined simply as the fact that reality is constantly in flux, transient, and effervescent—as a fundamental condition of life, this dissertation explores to what extent impermanence can be identified through organizational communication. During the onset of an unprecedented cosmological event (Weick, 1995), the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork through an established, mid- size non-profit organization while employed in a leadership role. Building upon 10 particular actions Weick (2012) used to describe organizational impermanence—believing, discarding, doubting, enacting, interrupting, labeling, reasoning, repeating, seeing, and substantiating— observations were taken on how members accepted and avoided the pandemic through everyday communication. These 10 actions have been further arranged through existing models of temporal structuring (Orlikowski & Yates, 2002; Ballard & Seibold, 2003, 2004) along five multidirectional feedback cycles—processes of confidence, awareness, influence, continuity, and affirmation. Further analysis explores how these cycles identify and express the lived experience of impermanence. I aim to further the paradigm of "the impermanent organization" (Weick, 2012), as well as temporal structuring and feedback cycles, so that researchers have more tools to describe and identify how impermanence is (or is not) communicated in the workplace. Finally, I will offer some practical recommendations for leadership and members of organizations on how to adapt to and cope with impermanence in daily life.
Contextualizing impermanence : reevaluating the planning paradigms of Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh
(2020-05-06) Bashar, Samira Binte; Sletto, Bjørn
The current planning paradigms of Rohingya refugee camps lie at the intersection of impermanence and adhocracy. This study seeks to explore the extent to which adhocracy has contributed to a strategy of impermanence in the Rohingya refugee camp, and how adhocracy has limited recognition of the human rights of Rohingya refugees and served to discount the spirit of the Rohingya community as reflected in their everyday practices. The study underscores the fact that refugees are seen as subjects of exclusion, blurring the line between permanence and impermanence in the planning domain. Also, by pursuing strategies of negotiation and appropriation of space as part of everyday practices, Rohingya refugees do not accept their status as refugees nor do they wish to be incorporated into the host community.
Pursuing painting as a dissolving nebula
(2022-05-10) Pepin, Alexandre; Canright, Sarah; Brauntuch, Troy
This report outlines important ideas that form the philosophical ground of my painting practice. First, Ideas of impermanence, detachment, interconnectedness, and equanimity are investigated through the themes of Defeat, of the Nebula, and of Barthe’s Neutral. Then, material decisions and pictorial strategies are explored and connected to these themes. This report is as much a description of the content of my work as it is a reflection on the intense experience of doing an MFA.