Management and organization studies is increasingly concerned with organizing for a ‘better’ world. To draw actors in and mobilize them for such organizing – put differently, to animate organizing – affect deeply matters. Atmospheres constitute a key affective means to this end and prior work has begun to explore how atmospheres are produced in and through space. However, we still have a limited understanding of how atmospheres animate organizing in and through space which I explore in this study. This question is important because it illuminates affect as a central aspect of organizing for a ‘better’ world. Based on an ethnographic study in a social entrepreneurship center and co-working space, I identify atmospheric pull, atmospheric slack, and atmospheric drift as ways in which atmospheres (dis)animate organizing. This study contributes to organizational literature on atmospheres and space. First, it shows how atmospheres are shaped by bodies that are physically absent, alongside physically present ones. Second, this study adds further nuance to the limits of controlling atmospheres by demonstrating the central role of affective expectations. Third, this study extends an understanding of space as multiple and processual by showing how space is a fleeting accomplishment that (dis)animates organizing through the affective qualities of atmospheres.
