The house that Facilities Management built: a story of identity and metaphor in a secondary service

McCarroll, P (2017) The house that Facilities Management built: a story of identity and metaphor in a secondary service. Culture and Organization, 23 (4). pp. 291-305. ISSN 1475-9551

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Abstract

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Concentrating on the world of Facilities Management (FM), the metaphor of house is used alongside the concept of liminality to support further understanding of its current position as a ‘secondary’ service, and overall identity within organisations at a time of transition. FM is positioned as the storyteller of its own tale, creating a journey through recognised rooms of a conventional ‘house’ that is symbolically aligned to an associated FM function. Each room, therefore, contains a projection of FM stories [Gabriel, Y. 1995. “The Unmanaged Organisation; Stories, Fantasies and Subjectivity.” Organization Studies 16 (3): 477-501] that represent different facets of the discipline as it tries to live within one ‘home’. The study uses this unconventional approach to uncover the current identity of a discipline that strives to be strategic but is often considered non-core, hidden and ‘dying’ [PFM (Premises and Facilities Management). 2014. Accessed April 20, 2017. www.pfmonthenet.net] .