Nineteenth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

This paper explores the role of the paperwork in decision-making processes for organizational collaborations. It looks at business proposals, agreements, concept notes, and profiles as narratives that embark upon a promise of the future. Organizational morality is understood in the amalgamation of what is “eminently practical” and “exceptionally personal.” The paperwork enables frames for rules of engagement between parties. It allows negotiators to weave narratives based on fragmented parts of their personal and organizational stories. This study attempts to unravel the processes that consultants use to mediate tensions, disagreements, conflicts, possibilities, and opportunities in generating paperwork. What goes missing? Are there details that are deliberately made discreet? How do we understand the promise of the future based on current practices, projections, and valuations? This study builds on insights from extensive fieldwork in education and healthcare organizations. It brings out key processes over engagement in paperwork in landmark deals. It explores how this engagement with paperwork enables different choices made during adversity, growth, successes, and failures within organizations. The research considers the importance and neglect of paperwork in decisions that reveal vision, approaches, values, and focus of organizational leaders. It questions the “reasonableness” of such decisions that rely upon a taken-for-granted grasp of the professional activity. It seeks to problematize the idea of “expediency” and lays out territories that represent personal narratives in organizational working.