Purpose This article introduces the Quantum Organizational Field (QOF), a bounded conceptual framework that brings into dialogue Lewin’s field theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Quantum Field Theory (QFT) analogies to reconceptualize how strategy, structure, culture, and management systems interact in shaping organizational coherence, behavior, and change. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a conceptual theory-building approach based on interdisciplinary synthesis. Drawing selectively on organizational field theory, QFT as a bounded analogical resource, and Lacanian registers, it develops an interpretive, model-generative framework for examining simultaneity, mediated interaction, interpretive coherence, and emergent organizational dynamics. Findings QOF is presented as a multi-layer model in which strategy, structure, culture, and management systems are interdependent organizational domains shaped by recurrent mediating forces: interpersonal force, entrepreneurial force, managerial force, and leadership force. Organizational outcomes depend on the interaction of structural alignment, force balance, and interpretive coherence, while mechanisms such as reinforcement, damping, cross-domain spillover, threshold rupture, and interpretive drift explain how fields become stabilized, destabilized, or reconfigured over time. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual study, it offers heuristic and diagnostic value rather than predictive precision, providing a foundation for future qualitative, comparative, and mixed-method research. Social implications QOF offers leaders a diagnostic lens for monitoring alignment, imbalance, and symbolic strain, supporting more anticipatory and coordinated intervention. Originality/value The article contributes by developing a bounded interdisciplinary synthesis, defining QOF as a relational diagnostic framework, and establishing a multi-layer model that supports future empirical inquiry.
Sant’Anna et al. (Mon,) studied this question.