2026-09-22T00:10:54Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1269632021-07-05T14:03:20Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Susan S. Silbey.
Mellody, James Corbett.
Sloan School of Management.
Sloan School of Management
2020-09-03T16:45:34Z
2020-09-03T16:45:34Z
2020
2020
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126963
1191221555
Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, May, 2020
Cataloged from the official PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 44-50).
Within organizations, "core" functions directly contribute to organizational production, whereas "peripheral" functions offer support by maintaining key infrastructure. Commonly viewed as indirect contributors or even adversaries to value, peripheral functions operate from positions of low authority and status, struggling to achieve their mandates and to build relationships that enable them to deliver optimal value to organizations. I argue that the peripheral status of these functions stems from a biased valuation process, in which compliance work, often negatively valued, is highly visible, whereas work inherently valuable to organizational pursuits is less visible. Building on an ethnographic study of peripheral Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) professionals in a university setting, this paper shows how these workers, recognizing that existing narratives undervalued their contributions, enacted their own narratives to address the visibility issues inherent in the valuation process. In doing so, these workers achieved higher status and more functional relationships with core workers. Specifically, EHS professionals first minimized the visibility of disruptions due to compliance, thereby building relationships of client service. Second, EHS professionals made visible inherent connections between their work and core organizational goals, thereby breaking down barriers between peripheral and core work, and building partnerships with core workers.
by James Corbett Mellody.
S.M. in Management Research
S.M.inManagementResearch Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management
50 pages ;
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Sloan School of Management.
Invisible value : how peripheral functions display their worth using narrative action
How peripheral functions display their worth using narrative action
Thesis
application/pdf
2020-09-03T16:45:33Z
Publication
Master
Sloan
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>Within organizations, "core" functions directly contribute to organizational production, whereas "peripheral" functions offer support by maintaining key infrastructure. Commonly viewed as indirect contributors or even adversaries to value, peripheral functions operate from positions of low authority and status, struggling to achieve their mandates and to build relationships that enable them to deliver optimal value to organizations. I argue that the peripheral status of these functions stems from a biased valuation process, in which compliance work, often negatively valued, is highly visible, whereas work inherently valuable to organizational pursuits is less visible. Building on an ethnographic study of peripheral Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) professionals in a university setting, this paper shows how these workers, recognizing that existing narratives undervalued their contributions, enacted their own narratives to address the visibility issues inherent in the valuation process. In doing so, these workers achieved higher status and more functional relationships with core workers. Specifically, EHS professionals first minimized the visibility of disruptions due to compliance, thereby building relationships of client service. Second, EHS professionals made visible inherent connections between their work and core organizational goals, thereby breaking down barriers between peripheral and core work, and building partnerships with core workers.</Abstract>
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