Violins, venues and vortexes : interrogating pre-reflective relationality in orchestral work : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management at Massey University, Manawatū Campus, Palmerston North, New Zealand

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Date
2022
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Massey University
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Abstract
This thesis explores the social structures of organising through an analysis of pre-reflective relationality in orchestral performance across three exemplary settings. These are: the opening stanza of a performance by the orchestra in which I play; a highly regarded performance by a well-known orchestra and conductor; and a concert performed under the shadow of COVID-19. Within these contexts, the player’s relationship with instrument and score, the role of the conductor, relations between conductor and player, and the player’s relations with audience, artifact and colleague are discussed. The study draws on autoethnography and the descriptive phenomenological method of Giorgi (2012). This framework allows work practices that are specialized, tacit, and entrenched to be interrogated through the theoretical lens of Merleau-Ponty’s (1968) late ontology as represented by the constructs of reversibility, écart, and Flesh. The research contributes to organisational knowledge on three dimensions. The contribution to theory is made through the interrogation of the pre-reflective relational bonds in symphony orchestras, first between individuals and artifacts, and then between individuals and colleagues, which shape the inter-collegial ‘between space’ (Ladkin, 2013) where the organizing of performance – the music-making itself – happens. The contribution to method is made in the exploration of specialized personal experience for research purposes through Giorgi’s framework and Merleau-Ponty’s constructs, while the contribution to practice builds on this foundation by using Merleau-Ponty’s ideas to acknowledge the inanimate alongside the human and so offer a fresh starting point for the understanding of organizational relationality. This approach also allows orchestral performance to emerge as a primordially interwoven, inherently reversible meshwork of relational connectivity harnessed in pursuit of a collective purpose. As organizations look beyond COVID-19 to a world where the virtual and hybrid must be accommodated alongside the longstanding and traditional, holistic approaches such as the one offered here will resonate with researchers and managers alike as they come to terms with relational structures and organizational contexts transformed by the combined effects of pandemic-related disruption and technological change.
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Orchestra, Music, Performance, Social aspects, Organization, Merleau-Ponty, coordination, pre-reflective relationality, reversibility, autoethnography, COVID-19 pandemic, between space, hybrid work practices
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