Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of knotworking and what we can understand about knotworking through reading a detective story, The Sinister Pig. In “Knotworking and agency in fl uid organizational fi elds,” Yrjö Engeström refers to Tony Hillerman’s novel, The Sinister Pig, to show an emerging organizational form in real life: knotworking. Claiming that fi ction often vividly refl ects a variety of social changes, Engeström examines The Sinister Pig as a story that presents a new way of collaboration among individuals, which can be applied to his concept of knotworking. In this paper, I describe Engeström’s perspective in his article and then analyze The Sinister Pig further to conclude that the essence of knotworking lies in striving for “freedom from the bondage of habit” (Bateson, 1972, p. 304).

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