The (in)corporated organization: organizational ontology, power, and body in evidence

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the meaning of organization through a constructionist approach. To do this, we conducted a bibliographic study on the theme, whose main aim is analyzing the differences between the realist and constructionist debates about organizational ontology. It is observed that the concept of organization becomes much broader in constructionist approaches, not limited to studying themes related only to companies, work, or industries. In this sense, to discuss the main constructionist aspects related to the concept of organization, the study on the body is regarded as one of the themes belonging to organizational studies, correlating this theme to organizing processes, which are constituted by power relations that permeate the whole social body, i.e. they occur beyond the boundaries of a company. Thus, the object of analysis of organizational studies becomes organizing, instead of organizations. To understand how these organizing processes occur, there is a need to consider that objects, senses, meanings, “realities” and “truths” are socially constructed and they do not exist a priori or pre-discursively.