Social Psychology of Organizations

Organizational learning II: Theory, method and practice

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Organizations face institutional complexity whenever they confront incompatible prescriptions from multiple institutional logics. Our interest is in how plural institutional logics, refracted through field-level structures and processes, are experienced within organizations and how organizations respond to such complexity. We draw on a variety of cognate literatures to discuss the field-level structural characteristics and organizational attributes that shape institutional complexity. We then explore the repertoire of strategies and structures that organizations deploy to cope with multiple, competing demands. The analytical framework developed herein is presented to guide future scholarship in the systematic analysis of institutional complexity. We conclude by suggesting avenues for future research.

Institutional Complexity and Organizational Responses

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Readings and responses 2. Preface to the 1st edition 3. Introduction to the 1st edition 4. Interactive artifacts 5. Plans 6. Situated actions 7. Communicative resources 8. Case and methods 9. Human-machine communication 10. Conclusion to the 1st edition 11. Plans, scripts and other ordering devices 12. Agencies at the interface 13. Figuring the human in AI and robotics 14. Demystifications and re-enchantments of the human-like machine 15. Reconfigurations Notes References.

Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions

We offer as our main theoretical contribution a conceptual framework for how the past is evoked in present identity reconstruction and the ways in which the past influences the articulation of claims for future identity. We introduce the notion of textual, material, and oral memory forms as the means by which organizational actors evoke the past. The conceptual framework is applied in a study of two occasions of identity reconstruction in the LEGO Group, which revealed differences in ways that the past was evoked and influenced claims for future identity. Our study suggests that 1 a longer time perspective in the use of memory enabled a longer time perspective in formulating claims for future identity, 2 a broader scope of articulated identity claims for the future was related to the combination of a broader range of memory forms, and 3 the depth of claims for future identity was related to the way in which memory forms were combined. At a more general level, our paper illustrates how viewing identity construction from the perspective of an ongoing present adds a new dimension to understanding the temporal dynamics of organizational identity.

A Temporal Perspective on Organizational Identity

1. Organization in a Tangled World 2. Process Views of Organization 3. Alfred North Whitehead on Process 4. Bruno Latour on Relativizing the Social and the Becoming of Networks 5. Niklas Luhmann on Autopoiesis and Recursiveness in Social Systems 6. James March on Decision Processes and Organization: A Logic of Streams 7. Karl Weick on Organizing and Sensemaking 8. A Scheme for Process Based Organizational Analysis 9. Some Implications for Organizational Analysis

Understanding organization as process : theory for a tangled world

1. Introduction PART I. SOME PROBLEMS OF ORGANIZATION THEORY, AND THE POTENTIAL OF PROCESS ORGANIZATION THEORY 2. Why assumptions in organization theory do not work for organizing in a world on the move 3. Assumptions for organizing in a world on the move PART II. TOWARDS A PROCESS THEORY OF ORGANIZATION 4. Temporality and process 5. Organization, meaning structures, and time 6. Articulatory modes and agency PART III. PROCESS THEORY AND SELECTED ASPECTS OF ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT 7. Organizational continuity and change 8. Managing and leading in time 9. Culture, identity and institutions 10. Some thoughts on studying process 11. A plea for mystery Annex 1. The theoretical framework in brief and an explanatory cartoon

A Process Theory of Organization

Constructing macro actors according to ANT "My name is Lifebuoy". An actor-network emerging from an action-net Technological strategy as macro-actor: How humanness might be made of steel The little engine that could: On the "managing" qualities of technology Artifacts rule! How organizing happens in open source software projects Organizational routines and the macro-actor The organization as nexus of institutional macro actors: The story of a lopsided recruitment case Powers in a factory Macro-actors and the sounds of the silenced Inscribing organizational change with information technology The internet web portal as an enrolment advice The making of knowledge society: Intellectual capital and paradoxes of managing knowledge The re-formatting of electricity, and the making of a market Explaining the macro-actors in practice Productive power, organized markets and actor-network theory Actor-networks: ecology and entrepreneurs Net-working on a neonatal intensive care unit: The baby as virtual object

Actor-network theory and organizing

A basic tenet of this article is that the nature of an organization’s or group’s boundaries influences the ability of its members to exert influence on other organizations and groups. The organizations in the study are of different size and form, including an informal group, institutional sub-units, educational institutions and a virtual organization. A framework of interpretation is developed to assist in the distinction between organizations on the basis of their boundary properties. The framework is applied to the setting up and development of a virtual organization. It is used to interpret how three key developments between the organizations were possible due to differences in their respective boundary characteristics. The findings are critiqued and implications are suggested.

Tor Hernes

Papers

A Temporal Perspective on Organizational Identity

Understanding organization as process : theory for a tangled world

A Process Theory of Organization

Actor-network theory and organizing

Studying Composite Boundaries: A Framework of Analysis