Performative Silences: Potentiality of Organizational Change

The article highlights the importance of silence in the processes of change in organizations, and the claim is that silence distributes authority, responsibility and decision-making processes. It thus adds to existing organization literature applying a performative approach that silence is neither static nor neutral. It has performative effects. Silencing as an act, rather than a noun, is conceptualised as a central ‘configurating actor’ of change. Through the description of minute details from a videotaped supervision session in the mental healthcare sector, it is shown how different performative configurations of silence makes people relate to each other in new ways and influence new work practices. In spite of its somewhat immaterial connotations, using an Actor-Network Theory approach to organization studies, silencing is conceptualised as both a means and an effect of change efforts, which are socio-materially based.