Among Friends: The Role of Friendship in Alternative Organizations

Monika Kostera; Marta Szeluga-Romańska

Among Friends: The Role of Friendship in Alternative Organizations

Publication date: 30.06.2021

Media Management, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 245 - 265

https://doi.org/10.4467/23540214ZM.21.015.13410

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Titles

Among Friends: The Role of Friendship in Alternative Organizations

Abstract

Friendship, a mutual and profound relationship, permeates history of human culture and occurs in all social situations, including professional and informal human activities. In organizations, it develops through processes of communication and generates a communication culture of kindness and support. Organizational friendship enhances work engagement and satisfaction, as well as helps to promote individual ends. This article investigates the more vital significance of friendship in alternative organizations. Such organizations, operating at the margins of the currently dominant profit-oriented business model, offer a plethora of insights of possible structures and practices. Our ethnographic qualitative research shows the implications of workplace friendship as organizing principle. It helps to make organizations more humane, and redressed the moral imbalance, so prevalent in contemporary organizing and management. This has important implications for any kind of communication, creating social awareness around important themes related to management and organizations. Patterns of friendship are meaningful for organizing and organizations and their most vital significance concerns the area of social communication.

JEL: Z130

Keywords

communication, alternative organizing, social networks, economic sociology

economic sociology, communication, alternative organizing, social networks

References

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Information

Information: Media Management, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 245 - 265

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/23540214ZM.21.015.13410

Article type: Original article

Titles:

Polish:

Among Friends: The Role of Friendship in Alternative Organizations

English:

Among Friends: The Role of Friendship in Alternative Organizations

Authors

Monika Kostera

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5303-5544

Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Gołębia 24, 31-007 Kraków, Poland

Marta Szeluga-Romańska

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7383-5709

Gdańsk University of Technology
Poland

Published at: 30.06.2021

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY

Percentage share of authors:

Monika Kostera (Author) - 50%

Marta Szeluga-Romańska (Author) - 50%

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Publication languages:

English

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