Engaging Teams: Missions, Management and Everyday Life

Abstract

Drawing upon the extended symbolic interactionist tradition, this paper examines management activities in the context of office holders and teams. As researchers, if we wish to fully appreciate management in everyday life, then we must pay particular attention to teams, team creation and teamwork, for it is through people doing things together that organizational life is realized. Specifically, I examine the relevance of performance teams, legacy teams, legislated teams, mission-based teams, and the relevance of secrecy for enacting teams. Encouraging an attentiveness to perspectives and activities of office holders, this paper resists more structural renderings of organizational life and encourages researcher to attend to management in the making.