Chapter 1: Is God Greater Than Tenure?

As a management scholar, I had a walk with God. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I sought to aid residents in the flood-damaged city of New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA), through my knowledge and use of organizational theories. I created a project inspired by my academic interest in crowdsourcing, which at the time was an emerging phenomenon of organized volunteering and pooling of efforts and resources. This chapter chronicles how the Gentilly Project, originally inspired by my combined science and public service motivations, became a catalyst for transforming how I conceived and enacted my scholarly identity. Using an autoethnographic approach, I present a series of devotionals to review and reflect on the episode that recast how I envisioned myself and operated as a scholar. Leaning into relation with God to order my steps, I led local residents and volunteers to complete a districtwide survey of NOLA’s Gentilly neighborhoods—without budget, fundraising, and project plan—within 32 days.

The writing of history is a conceit of the survivors. Since survival is temporary, history is ephemeral. So, I will tell a story. It is not the only such story that could be told in the world of organizational studies, but it happens to be the one I know … (March, 1996, pp. 278–287)