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

Abstract

The paper will attempt to explore the simultaneity in emotion and reason in the decision-making processes of strategic organisational collaborations. Here, strategic meetings are being analysed as distinct events where narratives are understood in the amalgamation of what is “eminently practical” and “exceptionally personal.” Promoters, chairmen, CXOs and consultants provide explanations for their strategy based on interest, passion, challenges and life experiences. Emotions have a huge role to play in how these explanations turn into stories, stories that go beyond the compartmentalized categories of proposals, techno-commercial facts, figures, terms and conditions. The attempt in the paper is to weave observations and narratives from the fieldwork. panning for five years in sectors of public provisioning. The aim will be to use the anthropological framework to unravel situations and details where emotions were a key to organisational strategy. The paper ethnographically describes how tensions, disagreements, passion, love, anger and fear come to take a significant place in boardroom discussions. Faced with different dynamics of interactions in a meeting, the purpose of the research is highlight the personal journeys of these reputed entrepreneurs and consultants to see how they articulate their love for their work, their desires, fears and challenges while deliberating upon key strategies for collaborations in consortia. The attempt will be to create foundations for how we look at the making and remaking of the “Entrepreneurial Self” that gives new dimensions to the discourse on economic rationality.