Paper short abstract:

The aim of the paper is to view meetings at multinational organizations as continuous efforts to impose order (based on certain values and anticipations) to achieve strategic ends.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of the paper is to view meetings at multinational organizations as continuous efforts to impose order (based on certain values and anticipations) to achieve strategic ends. It invites to challenge the notion that organizations - national or multinational - are groups of individuals who share a set of common fundamental values.

Such a view has emerged from my long-time research on the Nordic businesses in the Baltic countries (Cimdina 2012), which shows that, despite the extensive and long-term cooperation, meetings in Nordic-Baltic organizations still display contrasting perceptions and diverse cultural rationalities. Thus, a constant re-negotiation of values and forms of cooperation is required.

Inspired by Moeran (2006), Krause-Jensen (2010), and Schwartzman (1989), the paper studies meetings as targeted communicative events in specific spatial settings through which power relations and ideological complexities are exercised, shaping cultural outlooks and foresights and leading to particular forms of organizational life.