Managing as transcending: An ethnography

The aim of this paper is to better understand how management influences organizational becoming. We suggest an alternative conceptualization based on the strong process view. Management is regarded as a process of enactment. Past and future situations are immanent in situations of the present, in the form of experiences and expectations. In turn, each present situation has an impact beyond the situation only. Through enactments, the situation is transcended, thereby influencing temporally and spatially dispersed situations. By mobilizing specific experiences of the past and expectations about the future, management judges and justifies current issues. In this process, management influences the transcendence of the actual
situation, potentially influencing organizational becoming in the future. Our case study of a Swiss textile company reveals several modes of how management creates such potentialities for future
enactments.