Showing papers in "Organization in 2005"
TL;DR: This paper used a critical realist perspective to highlight the ambiguity and error encouraged by postmodernism's commitment to a socially constructed ontology, and proposed a more fruitful alternative based on critical realism.
Abstract: Organization Studies has recently been captured by a cultural, linguistic, poststructural or postmodern turn, the impetus for which has come from the ontological turn from a (naive) realist ontology to a socially constructed ontology. Much of the current ontological discussion is, however, characterised by ambiguity which makes it difficult to get to the bottom of ontological claims and, of course, to locate the source of any ontological errors. This paper uses a critical realist perspective to highlight the ambiguity and error encouraged by postmodernism’s commitment to a socially constructed ontology. Critical realism’s ontology is offered as a more fruitful alternative. Labour process theory, specifically agency and structure to demonstrate (i) critical realism is not damaged by many common postmodern criticisms of agency and structure and (ii) once interpreted through the prism of critical realism, there is no need to abandon this powerful analytical device.
471 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptualization of social materiality is developed whereby social processes and structures and material process and structures are seen as mutually enacting, and the relevance of "materiality" to understanding changing modes of control in organizational life is explored.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to explore the relevance of ‘materiality’ to understanding changing modes of control in organizational life. In doing this, materiality is not placed in a dualistic relationship with social relations. Rather a conceptualization of ‘social materiality’ is developed whereby social processes and structures and material processes and structures are seen as mutually enacting. In developing this concept of social materiality, I have drawn upon insights from three areas of social theory. These are studies of material culture, Lefebvre’s work on the ‘social production of space’, and sociological and phenomenological approaches to embodiment. The final section of the article explores how control and materiality are linked through spatial politics in one organizational case.
356 citations
TL;DR: The authors describe entrepreneurship in terms of Lacan's concept of the Real and Slavoj Žižek's notion of the sublime object, and make a case for a continual questioning of the subject, a questioning that is today being foreclosed by those critics who were first to call the subject into question.
Abstract: This paper engages with debates on enterprise culture and one of its key subjects—the entrepreneur. Enlisting the work of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, we attempt to explain the continuing failure of entrepreneurship discourse to assign the character of the entrepreneur a positive identity. Shifting away from stable categories such as ‘the entrepreneur’, we describe entrepreneurship in terms of Lacan’s concept of the Real and Žižek’s concept of the sublime object. This allows us to critically scrutinize the operation of the phantasmic category of the entrepreneur. In addition to indicating some prospects for the future of psychoanalytic cultural criticism in organization studies, we make a case for a continual questioning of the subject, a questioning that is today being foreclosed by those critics who were first to call the subject into question.
344 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that representational artefacts, such as concepts and models, are instrumental in inducing change in human practices, and use the work of occupational health and safety inspectors as an example to show how a practice or set of routines is made into an object of enquiry in order to generate a working hypothesis for an alter...
Abstract: One of the key concepts of the neo-institutional studies of organizations has been routine—an established, rule-governed pattern of action. The concept of routine creates difficulties when used for making sense of the emergence of new practices or change in organizations and institutions. There are two reasons for this. First, routine was introduced originally to account for the continuity of organizational life. Second, it is based on theories of action and behaviour that focus exclusively on the pre-reflective and embodied aspects of human practice. This paper seeks an alternative approach by using the concepts of epistemic object and artefact mediation of human activity. It argues that representational artefacts, such as concepts and models, are instrumental in inducing change in human practices. Using the work of occupational health and safety inspectors as an example, it is shown how a practice or set of routines is made into an object of enquiry in order to generate a working hypothesis for an alter...
320 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors rethink and reframe organizational learning in terms of organizational becoming and see these concepts as two mutually implicating ways of exploring and simultaneously constituting organizational becoming.
Abstract: In this paper we rethink and reframe organizational learning in terms of organizational becoming. We see these concepts as two mutually implicating ways of exploring and simultaneously constituting...
255 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show how the sensuous world around us is not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is an historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations, each standing on the shoulders of the previous one, developing its industry and its intercourse, modifying the social system according to the changed needs.
Abstract: ‘[Feuerbach] does not see how the sensuous world around him is not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is an historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations, each standing on the shoulders of the previous one, developing its industry and its intercourse, modifying the social system according to the changed needs. Even the objects of the simplest “sensuous certainty” are only given to him through social development, industry and commercial intercourse.’ (Marx and Engels, 1845/1968: 57–8)
243 citations
TL;DR: In contrast to the traditional view of professionalism as a position of significant status and autonomy, hard-earned and jealously guarded by occupational groups, critical perspectives have emphasized how professions act as the institutionalised form of the control of occupations, enacting the "responsibilization" of expert labour as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In contrast to the traditional view of professionalism as a position of significant status and autonomy, hard-earned and jealously guarded by occupational groups, critical perspectives have emphasized how professions act as ‘the institutionalised form of the control of occupations’ (Johnson, 1972: 38), enacting the ‘responsibilization’ (Grey, 1997) of expert labour. In this paper, I examine the complexity of employee responses to professionalization initiatives in light of work that develops a broader understanding of non-conformity in the face of similar disciplinary practices in the contemporary workplace (Kondo, 1990; Kunda, 1992; Fleming and Sewell, 2002; Collinson, 2003). I do so by relating Judith Butler’s concept of ‘performativity’ to an analysis of the professionalization of a particular sub-discipline of management: project management. I argue that performativity provides insight into the simultaneous attraction, insecurity and antipathy that professionalization arouses in employees, and offers ...
229 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the history of the new paradigm of control firstly within the managerial literature as a move from control to commitment, then through critical accounts of 'employee subjection', through to more recent discussions of the nature of resistance.
Abstract: The focus of this article is on processes of social control and the role that images and processes of identification play in effecting such control. The article begins by schematically tracing the history of the new paradigm of control firstly within the managerial literature as a move ‘from control to commitment’, then through critical accounts of ‘employee subjection’, through to more recent discussions of the nature of resistance. This history and its various puzzling inversions are then reviewed through Lacan’s account of the ‘imaginary’, and Butler’s associated re-reading of oedipal identifications. These offer an account both of the constitution of a humanist, interiorized sense of self—of the self as a discrete, autonomous, independent entity—as well as of the illusions or misunderstandings of this humanist conception of the self. It is suggested that the power of the imaginary lies in the power of recognition and the way in which this acts as a lure or trap in which we seek and find ourselves. It ...
204 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a four-month ethnography conducted in a hospital that has recently introduced a digital clinical records system is described, and the methodological aspects of this study are discussed.
Abstract: Recent years have seen growing sociological interest in the role that objects and non-human actors perform in everyday life. Whether as machines, information technologies, artworks, commodities or architectures, objects today raise issues of complexity and controversy (Pels et al., 2002). Borrowing from actor network theory the idea that humans and non-humans are actively involved in the making of social worlds, there are already those who call for a post-social world and an object-centred sociality (Knorr-Cetina, 1997). But how can non-humans be observed? Sociologists are accustomed to socio-constructionist approaches to the sociology of science, or to analyses of tools and innovations couched in terms of networks of actants; methodologically, however, it seems that ideas about how to proceed methodologically are not very well worked out. On the basis of a four-month ethnography conducted in a hospital that has recently introduced a digital clinical records system, I discuss the methodological aspects of...
203 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the problematic of embodied resistance to biometric surveillance practices is examined, and resistance is conceptualized at the interface of bodies and technologies, and is antagonistic towards categorizations and fixities produced by biometrics.
Abstract: This paper examines the problematic of embodied resistance to biometric surveillance practices. After establishing that surveillance is becoming more widespread, the paper draws on the multidisciplinary areas of organization theory, surveillance theory, and body and feminist sociology. It is argued that current theoretical resources available to organization theorists are inadequate for analysing resistance to these technologies. After an investigation of recent developments in the sociology of the body and in surveillance theory, resistance is conceptualized at the interface of bodies and technologies, and is antagonistic towards categorizations and fixities produced by biometrics. A number of resistance strategies are distilled, using feminist and post-structuralist sociology. Although it is acknowledged that the paper’s arguments do not address questions of agency and an ethics of the self, resistance arguments that challenge the totalizing impulse of surveillance practice are welcome in the face of government and private sector rhetoric about its desirability.
189 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the subject of resistance, what "counts" as resistance, and when resistance counts are discussed in the context of organization studies. And the authors argue that feminist theory has worked through these tensions in maintaining a practical politics of change and transformation whilst avoiding the problems of universalism, essentialism and privilege.
Abstract: In developing our understandings of resistance, both organization theorists and feminist theorists have struggled with issues of the subject and object of resistance. In particular, attention has been focussed on an adequate theorizing of resistance that can offer a detailed and varied understanding of the different motivations of individuals and groups to transform dominant norms. This article draws on the tensions and debates within feminist theory, to argue that feminist theory problematizes but ultimately enriches and revitalizes conceptualizations of resistance within organization studies. The article focuses on three tensions within resistance studies, namely the subject of resistance, what ‘counts’ as resistance, and when resistance counts. The article illustrates how feminist theory has worked through these tensions in maintaining a practical politics of change and transformation whilst avoiding the problems of universalism, essentialism and privilege. Feminism, in attending to these tensions, offers a contingent politics of constant vigilance within power relations.
TL;DR: The authors argue that a recognition of the fictionality of research texts implies a heightened sense of researcher-author responsibility, drawing on Derrida's theories of responsibility and undecidability.
Abstract: In this paper, we reflect on the use of fictional source material and fictional formats in organization studies in order to explore issues of responsibility in the writing of research. We start by examining how research using fictional narrative methods has worked to radically destabilize distinctions between what is real and what is fictional. In relation to this, we ask the question: if a research account can be regarded as fiction, what are the implications of this insight for the responsibilities of authors? Opposing the view that using fiction necessarily leads to an ‘anything goes’ relativism, we argue that a recognition of the fictionality of research texts implies a heightened sense of researcher-author responsibility. We see our main contribution as extending existing discussions of reflexivity in research into a consideration of issues of ethics and responsibility as it relates to the textuality of research writing. To do so, we draw on Derrida’s theorization of responsibility and undecidability...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how control in organizations is analysed by counterposing a poststructuralist reading and critique against what is identified as a critical realist account of its nature and significance.
Abstract: The paper explores how control in organizations is analysed by counterposing a poststructuralist reading and critique against what is identified as a critical realist account of its nature and significance. Drawing primarily upon Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, it argues that critical realist analysis exemplifies a position in which science is privileged and dualism is defended, in contrast to Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory where dualism is refused and there is a stronger commitment to emancipation. These differences between these versions of critical analysis are related to the more familiar terrain of organizational analysis examined in Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis; and, more specifically, in their discussion of the challenge posed by ethnomethodology to more established, commonsensical forms of analysis. The problematizing of commonsense found in ethnomethodological studies, it is suggested, has affinities with the deconstructive impulse of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory but, crucially, the former lacks the latter’s politicoemancipatory intent (see also Pollner, 1991). In Burrell and Morgan’s terms, Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory is more radical than radical humanism (e.g. Critical Theory) in rejecting the latter’s ontology as well as refusing the sociological regulationism attributed to interpretivist analysis. The paper closes with a series of reflections upon the relevance of discourse theory for theorizing contemporary control.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the decline of Weber's iron cage of rationality has exposed us neither to the freedom of a garden of earthly delights nor to the desolation of the law of the jungle.
Abstract: Max Weber’s metaphor of ‘the iron cage’ has provided an abiding image of organizations during the high noon of modernity. But these organizations—rigid, rational and bureaucratic—may no longer be sustainable in our times. Instead of a preoccupation with efficient production and rational administration, management today is increasingly turning to the consumer as the measure of all things, a consumer who seeks not merely the useful and the functional, but the magical, the fantastic and the alluring. Management of organizations thus finds itself increasingly preoccupied with the orchestration of collective fantasies and the venting of collective emotions through the power of image, in what Ritzer has named the cathedrals of consumption, such as shopping malls, tourist attractions and holiday resorts. The core thesis of this paper is that decline of Weber’s iron cage of rationality has exposed us neither to the freedom of a garden of earthly delights nor to the desolation of the law of the jungle. Instead, I ...
TL;DR: The authors argue that, through calculative practices, New Zealand universities are being positioned and are positioning themselves in the neo-liberalizing spaces of university education, giving rise to new views of the university and altering the behaviours of staff and students.
Abstract: Consistent with an ongoing experience of neo-liberal experimentation, tertiary sector reform in New Zealand is being driven by the ambition to re-create universities in a qualitatively new form. We argue that, through calculative practices, New Zealand universities are being positioned and are positioning themselves in the neo-liberalizing spaces of university education. In turn, these calculative practices are giving rise to new views of the university and altering the behaviours of staff and students. We draw attention not only to the constitutive power of calculative practices, but also to the political contestations that surround them. Our conclusion is that, because of these contestations, the spaces and subjectivities of the neo-liberalizing university are multiple and contradictory. The attempted reinvention of New Zealand universities will have varied effects and give rise to multiple political forms.
TL;DR: In this paper, a re-conceptualization of strategic practice as a process where strategists routinely draw upon four forms of knowledge, which arguably'makes up' any 'discourse'.
Abstract: This paper responds to the empirical and analytical challenge that surrounds tracing the constitution of 'power effects of corporate strategy discourse' notably documented in Knights and Morgan's seminal contribution. To meet the empirical challenge,interaction is centralized and ethnographies of strategists at-work are extended to include audiorecording their naturally occurring talk-based interactive routines over time/space. To meet the analytical challenge, the paper turns to two distinct social science traditions—Habermas' critical social theory and ethnostudies set against the stance of 'supplementation'. Habermas' schema suggests a re-conceptualization of strategic practice as a process where strategists routinely draw upon four forms of knowledge, which arguably 'makes-up' any 'Discourse'. These knowledges concern the external, social and subjective domain with the overarching knowledge being language use. Each also raises associated validity claims. While brief, the ethnomethodological perspectiv...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that in a cinema field, managing artistic pressures for distinctiveness versus business pressures for profits drive filmmakers' quest for optimal distinctiveness, seeking both exclusive (unique style) and inclusive (audience appealing) artwork with legitimacy in the field.
Abstract: This paper advances a micro theory of creative action by examining how distinctive artists shield their idiosyncratic styles from the isomorphic pressures of a field. It draws on the cases of three internationally recognized, distinctive European film directors –Pedro Almodovar (Spain), Nanni Moretti (Italy) and Lars von Trier (Denmark). We argue that in a cinema field, managing artistic pressures for distinctiveness versus business pressures for profits drive filmmakers’ quest for optimal distinctiveness. This quest seeks both exclusive (unique style) and inclusive (audienceappealing) artwork with legitimacy in the field. Our theory of creative action for optimal distinctiveness suggests that film directors increase their control by personally consolidating artistic and production roles, by forming close partnership with a committed producer, and by establishing their own production company. Ironically, to escape the iron cage of local cinema fields, film directors increasingly control the coupling of art and business.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take Weick's theory of sense making as illustrative of a socioconstructionist conception of sensemaking and learning in organization studies and examine the methodological approaches used in this theory.
Abstract: Taking Weick’s theory of sensemaking as illustrative of a socioconstructionist conception of sensemaking and learning in organization studies, I examine the methodological approaches used in this r...
TL;DR: This paper explores how the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for software development affects the object of software developers’ work and thereby affects organization structure.
Abstract: This paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the effects of bureaucratic rationalization on relatively non-routine, knowledge-work activities. It focuses on the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model (CMM®) for software development. In particular, it explores how the CMM affects the object of software developers’ work and thereby affects organization structure. Empirical evidence is drawn from interviews in four units of a large software consulting firm. First, using contingency theory, I address the technical dimensions of the development object. Here CMM implementation reduced task uncertainty and helped master task complexity and interdependence. Second, using institutional theory, I broaden the focus to include the symbolic dimensions of the object. Adherence to the CMM involved the sampled organizations in efforts to ensure certification, and these symbolic conformance tasks interacted in both disruptive and productive ways with technical improvement tasks. Finally, using cultur...
TL;DR: In this article, the utility of a semiotically grounded approach to the analysis of organizational aesthetics is illustrated, based on a critique of the tendency to romanticize the notion of idealism.
Abstract: This article seeks to illustrate the utility of a semiotically grounded approach to the analysis of organizational aesthetics. Developed from a critique of the tendency to romanticize the notion of...
TL;DR: In this article, a re-presentation of the concept of triangulation in organizational research is presented, which suggests a shift from the "triangulation of distance" tradition to a more reflexive consideration of "researcher stance" in terms of perspective, data capture, reflexivity and metatriangulation.
Abstract: This paper extends the discussion of postmodern thinking in organizational theory through a re-presentation of the concept of triangulation in organizational research. Initially triangulation is defined through the contrasting lenses of positivism and post-positivism/postmodernism and analysed as a metaphor for fixing and capturing the research subject. Subsequently triangulation is ‘re-presented’ as ‘metaphorization’—in terms of process and movement between researcher-subject positions. Rethinking the lines and angles of enquiry in triangulation, the paper suggests a shift from the ‘triangulation of distance’ tradition to a more reflexive consideration of ‘researcher stance’. This movement is represented across three perspectives: the researcher as a follower of nomothetic lines; the researcher as the taker of an ideographic overview; and the researcher as the finder of a particular angle. The implications of this re-presentation are then discussed in terms of perspective, data capture, reflexivity and metatriangulation.
TL;DR: This paper argued that the state-level institutional power structures that participated in the importing of the SM and HR models also took part in the negotiations and struggles that formed their social meanings, the way in which they changed during the move from one context to another, and the fundamental social assumptions that become institutionalized as part of the process of the models' institutionalization.
Abstract: The paper brings together insights from the neo-institutional approach and that of ‘translation’ to analyse the politics of management glocalization. Based on the cases of the translation of two management models—Scientific Management (SM) and Human Relations (HR) in Israel—the paper argues that the state-level institutional power structures that participated in the importing of the SM and HR models as an answer to their political needs also took part in the negotiations and struggles that formed their social meanings, the way in which they changed during the move from one context to another, the way in which they are justified in the new social context, and the fundamental social assumptions that become institutionalized as part of the process of the models’ institutionalization.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the ability of labour process theory to account for the persistence of managerial control under the apparent conditions of greater autonomy and discretion we have come to associate with knowledge work.
Abstract: This article assesses the ability of labour process theory (LPT) to account for the persistence of managerial control under the apparent conditions of greater autonomy and discretion we have come to associate with ‘knowledge Work’. LPT has traditionally problematized control around the need to resolve ‘the indeterminacy of labour’—that is, how do managers ensure that workers’ actual labouring efforts approach their potential labour power? In contrast, I propose that it is more useful to problematize control around the ‘indeterminacy of knowledge’—that is, how do managers ensure that workers’ cognitive efforts approach their full cognitive potential? A common response to the problem of the indeterminacy of knowledge has been to cede discretion to workers so that they can exercise their mental capabilities in order to provide their organizations with solutions to workplace problems. I will show, however, that this still requires the operation of disciplinary mechanisms that perpetuate managerial control und...
TL;DR: In this paper, a post-structural feminist reading of the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and its components is presented, showing that gender is deeply embedded within the concept.
Abstract: In this paper we present a feminist reading of the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and its components. We propose that although the OCB discourse in the literature is presented as gender-neutral, gender is deeply embedded within the concept. We reveal the gendered nature of the concept in two ways. First, drawing on a poststructural feminist perspective, the analysis examines the rhetorical nature of the text, the language and metaphors used in the definition of the concept of OCB and its different dimensions. Second, using a critical post liberal perspective, which considers gender as socially constructed and focuses on gender/power relations, the analysis explores how the constructs of the OCB concept are defined and enacted in ways which culturally differentiate men and women, and reveals the dynamics through which the use of this concept reproduces the gendered division of labor and inequality between women and men in organizations. The importance of this critique is that it highl...
TL;DR: For example, the Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization as mentioned in this paper only mentions organizational control eleven times in the index, mostly related to teamwork, although a closer reading indicates this is partly a weakness of the indexing with a number of chapters at least touching upon'managerial regimes' and alternative systems of managerial control.
Abstract: Control lies at the heart of organization theory. A central feature of organization is control and without (some form of) control organizing is not possible; notions of ‘structuring’, ‘job design’ and ‘coordination’ are redolent of control. This is equally true whether one considers ‘mainstream’ organization theoretical concerns with the coordinated interaction of formal organization or the ‘critical’ organization theorists’ emphases on power, domination and emancipation. And yet, explicit discussion and debate of organizational control has become increasingly less common. As Child (2005: 111) has recently observed, ‘Control is an essential and central process of management yet . . . it is strangely neglected by many writers on organization’. He makes the point through a swift reading of various organization theory handbooks that have recently been produced. For example, the Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behaviour edited by Locke (2000) or The Companion to Organizations compiled by Baum (2002) make scant explicit reference to organizational control. Moreover, the emphasis on ‘new organizational forms’ has further contributed to a downplaying of aspects of organizational control; for example, books by Pettigrew and Fenton (2000) and Brown and Eisenhardt (1998) make little explicit reference to such issues (Child, 2005: 136). Even in the recently published Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization edited by Ackroyd et al. (2005), control only appears eleven times in the index, mostly related to teamwork, although a closer reading indicates this is partly a weakness of the indexing with a number of chapters at least touching upon ‘managerial regimes’ and alternative systems of managerial control. Another (partial) exception is the Oxford Volume 12(5): 603–618 ISSN 1350–5084 Copyright © 2005 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
TL;DR: This paper argued that these constructions of me as an author indicate that organization studies still struggle with the idea of sex representing a meaningful topic of enquiry, and that such attributions of authorship point to interesting questions concerning the methodology of sex research and the influence that an author's biography has on their research direction.
Abstract: My personal and professional lives have blurred into each other throughout my academic career. This paper focuses on one aspect of this blurring—that certain colleagues believe I am intimate with my coauthors, and that I engage in or have experienced the sexual activities which my research has explored—and seeks to account for this interpretation of my private life through the lens of my public endeavours. In discussing such ‘signings’ of my work, I suggest that they are underpinned by the heterosexual matrix, and perhaps ratify my participation in the academy as a woman. Moreover, such attributions of authorship point to interesting questions concerning the methodology of sex research and the influence that an author’s biography has on their research direction. I also contend that these constructions of me as an author indicate that organization studies still struggles with the idea of sex representing a meaningful topic of enquiry.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that there is a contradictory relationship of instrumental empathy between the capitalist firm and the customer, and sales management and sales workers attempt to manage this contradiction by promoting the enchanting myth of customer sovereignty.
Abstract: Although the point of selling is one of the key moments of exchange where the latent contradictions in capitalist social relations may become manifest, there is a gap in our knowledge about exactly what form of consumption takes place within sales interactions. The key contribution of this paper is that it offers an original conceptualization of the form of consumption that is promoted within the sales interaction. It argues that sales management and sales workers tend to promote not only rational information exchange and trust-building but also enchantment. There is a contradictory relationship of instrumental empathy between the capitalist firm and the customer, and sales management and sales workers attempt to manage this contradiction by promoting the enchanting myth of customer sovereignty. Here consumption involves the customer experiencing a sense of sovereignty but in such a way that space is also opened up for the sales worker substantively to influence the behaviour of the customer. Managerialis...
TL;DR: This paper examined the rhetorical practices of journalists in a recent case of industrial restructuring in the financial services, focusing on key arguments put forward by the journalists' rhetorical constructions, arguing that these arguments are an essential part of the legitimization and naturalization of specific presuppositions held by the audience.
Abstract: Despite the central role of the media in contemporary society, studies examining the rhetorical practices of journalists are rare in organization and management research. We know little of the textual micro strategies and techniques through which journalists convey specific messages to their readers. Partially to fill the gap, this paper outlines a methodological framework that combines three perspectives of text analysis and interpretation: critical discourse analysis, systemic functional grammar and rhetorical structure theory. Using this framework, we engage in a close reading of a single media text (a press article) on a recent case of industrial restructuring in the financial services. In our empirical analysis, we focus on key arguments put forward by the journalists’ rhetorical constructions. We maintain that these arguments—which are not frame-breaking but rather tend to confirm existing presuppositions held by the audience—are an essential part of the legitimization and naturalization of specific...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the organization and management practices within early medieval Irish monastic communities focusing on the inter-related themes of monastic structures, strategy, control, identity and community.
Abstract: This paper sets out to explore the organization and management practices within early medieval Irish monastic communities Focusing on the inter-related themes of monastic structures, strategy, control, identity and community, the paper examines the peculiar parallels between these ancient religious communities and contemporary knowledge-intensive firms The paper then goes on to highlight the key contributions of this medieval monastic perspective for the understanding and study of contemporary knowledge-intensive firms
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the organizational features of enterprise partnership that transcend particular national or economic settings and suggest that these allow partnerships to be interpreted as a procedural consensus between management and employees to develop pathways to advance fairness and performance at work.
Abstract: This paper develops analytical arguments to highlight three distinctive attributes of enterprise partnership. First of all, the literature on the theory of the firm is used to suggest that enterprise partnership represents a credible alternative to the dominant ‘leadership model’ of organizational change. Second, it highlights the organizational features of enterprise partnerships that transcend particular national or economic settings and suggests that these allow partnerships to be interpreted as a procedural consensus between management and employees to develop pathways to advance fairness and performance at work. Third, it suggests that the diffusion of enterprise partnership requires the support of extra-firm institutional frameworks. The paper is both a literature review and theory-building exercise.