Connection/Disconnection: Theory and Practice in Organization Control

This paper suggests that the literature on organization control could benefit from more attention to 'disconnections', particularly those that take the form of extrusions and effacements from organization processes. Pointing out that current organization researchers depend almost exclusively on 'connections' for their theorizing on control, the paper illustrates the importance of disconnections in the form of gaps, breaks and absences in three field studies. The argument of the paper is that control is an effect that is enacted in practice by a distribution of connections alongside disconnections.