OMT
Tina Dacin
Queen's U., Canada
Sonya Pyo
New York U., United States
Andrew Nelson
U. of Oregon, United States
Lee Jarvis
Warwick Business School, United Kingdom
Alison Joubert
Adelaide Business School
Alan Zhang
MIT Sloan School of Management, United States
Daphne Demetry
McGill U., Canada
Gillian Gualtieri
Barnard College
Traditions, and the custodians who maintain and preserve them, are highly valued and recognized as central for many organizational processes such as institutional persistence, organizational identity and legitimacy and strategy. In contemporary organizational settings however, traditions have come under increasing pressures that threaten their continuity. In this symposium, we explore how custodians respond to these various threats and analyze the outcomes of their strategies by focusing on traditions in unstable and turbulent contexts. The studies collectively highlight two themes under-theorized in the literature on traditions and custodial work. The first theme is change—how and to what extent do traditions change to survive a turbulent time? The second theme is custodial work as strategy—how do custodians respond to threats, creatively, collaboratively or defensively, and how do these strategies contribute to the persistence or erosion of the tradition? In connection to the AOM 2024 theme, the goal of this symposium is to generate conversations and insights into the role of custodians in innovating for the future, while preserving the traditions and values that make up the foundation of community and collective identity.
Author: Andrew Nelson – U. of Oregon
Author: Lee Charles Jarvis – Warwick Business School
Author: Alison Joubert – Adelaide Business School
Author: Alan Zhang – MIT Sloan School of Management
Author: Daphne Ann Demetry – McGill U.
Author: Gillian Gualtieri – Barnard College