Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Organization Studies, 41 (1), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Organization Studies page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/OSS on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Performing a myth to make a market
T2 - The construction of the ‘magical world’ of Santa
AU - Palo, Teea Erja Marjaana
AU - Mason, Katherine Jane
AU - Roscoe, Philip
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Organization Studies, 41 (1), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Organization Studies page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/OSS on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - If you believe in Santa, do not read this paper. Through an in-depth, qualitative, empirical study, we follow the Santa myth to a remote northern location in Lapland, Finland where, for 1 month a year, multiple actors come together to create a tourist market offering: the chance to visit Santa in his ‘magical world’. We explore how the myth is transformed into reality through performative, organisational speech acts, whereby felicitous conditions for the performance of visits to Santa are embedded in a complex socio-material network. We develop the performative turn (Gond et al., 2016) in organisational studies by introducing a new category of speech act, ‘translocution’, a compendium of imagining, discussing, proposing, negotiating, and contracting that transforms the myth into a model of an imaginary-real world. Through translocutionary acts, actors calculate, organise the socio-material networks of the market, and manage the considerable uncertainty inherent in its operation. Details of the myth become market facts, while commercial constructs fade into the imaginary. The result, when felicitous conditions are achieved, is a ‘Merry Christmas’ of magical, performative power.
AB - If you believe in Santa, do not read this paper. Through an in-depth, qualitative, empirical study, we follow the Santa myth to a remote northern location in Lapland, Finland where, for 1 month a year, multiple actors come together to create a tourist market offering: the chance to visit Santa in his ‘magical world’. We explore how the myth is transformed into reality through performative, organisational speech acts, whereby felicitous conditions for the performance of visits to Santa are embedded in a complex socio-material network. We develop the performative turn (Gond et al., 2016) in organisational studies by introducing a new category of speech act, ‘translocution’, a compendium of imagining, discussing, proposing, negotiating, and contracting that transforms the myth into a model of an imaginary-real world. Through translocutionary acts, actors calculate, organise the socio-material networks of the market, and manage the considerable uncertainty inherent in its operation. Details of the myth become market facts, while commercial constructs fade into the imaginary. The result, when felicitous conditions are achieved, is a ‘Merry Christmas’ of magical, performative power.
KW - imaginary-real
KW - market
KW - myth
KW - performativity
KW - Santa Claus
KW - speech act
KW - translocution
U2 - 10.1177/0170840618789192
DO - 10.1177/0170840618789192
M3 - Journal article
VL - 41
SP - 53
EP - 75
JO - Organization Studies
JF - Organization Studies
SN - 0170-8406
IS - 1
ER -