Interactionist Practices as Sources of Tensions: A Dynamic Perspective

Existing studies present interactionist practices as a way to handle existing tensions at a given hierarchical level. However, our understanding of how tensions are (1) generated through interactionist practices (2) in a larger organizational space remains limited. This chapter aims, therefore, to shed light on how managers’ interactionist practices generate tensions during the managerial innovation adoption process. Through a single case study, we show that, as a company progressively adopts a managerial innovation, managers engage, with upper, lower, and similar hierarchical levels, interactionist practices of different types: organizational, discursive, and power. These interactionist practices generate different tensions (identity, performing and organizing tensions) at different hierarchical levels (Top-Managers, Middle-Managers, and employees). Our findings depict how managerial interactionist practices (1) generate intertwined tensions “within” actors, “between” actors but also “across” actors; (2) combine through time and space to give rise to tensions.