S&O Monthly Seminar

Unusual organizations: the Sicilian Mafia

Tuesday January 4th 2022, organized online by zoom

We’ll have a pleasure to welcome Eero Vaara, Professor in Organizations and Impact at Saïd Business School who will present his paper What can we learn from studying unusual organization? Findings about strategic ambiguity around the Sicilian Mafia followed by Q/A.

Abstract :
This session focuses on how scholars can learn from studying unsual organizations. A recent study of strategic ambiguity around the Sicilian Mafia (Giulia Cappellaro, Amelia Compagni & Eero Vaara) is used as a case in point. Through an in-depth historical study of the Sicilian Mafia between 1963 and 2018, we develop a model of strategic ambiguity maintenance. We focus on three struggles between the Mafia and state representatives and show how they centered on different types of ambiguity: ambiguity as opacity, equivocality and absurdity. We elaborate on the strategies enacted by the Mafia and the responses by state representatives and their implications for ambiguity over time. The main contribution of our paper is that it advances understanding of the maintenance of strategic ambiguity by organizations that need to protect themselves from public scrutiny. More specifically, it enriches understanding of the key process dynamics, the type of struggles, and the discursive and non-discursive strategies employed in the process. Our analysis also extends research on clandestine organizations and illuminates the relationship between (strategic) ambiguity and secrecy. By so doing, this analysis both broadens our understanding of ambiguity and serves as an example of organization research with societal relevance.

For more information, please contact Iiris Sacchet: sacchet@hec.fr