Showing papers in "Organization Studies in 2017"

The Human Capital Hoax: Work, Debt and Insecurity in the Era of Uberization:

Abstract: Human capital theory – developed by neoclassical economists like Gary Becker and Theodore Schultz – is widely considered a useful way to explain how employees might enhance their value in organizat...

Co-constructing a Sense of Community at Work: The Emergence of Community in Coworking Spaces:

Abstract: As more individuals are working remotely, many feel increasingly isolated and socially adrift. To address this challenge, many independent workers are choosing to work in coworking spaces – shared ...

Integrating Dialectical and Paradox Perspectives on Managing Contradictions in Organizations

Abstract: We present a typology and process model that integrate dialectical and paradox perspectives on managing contradictions in organizations. Whereas paradox research depicts tensions between contradictory elements as irreconcilable and best managed through acceptance and synergy, the dialectical perspective portrays the relationship of such elements as adversarial and transformed through conflict. Our integrated typology and process model account for both dialectical and paradox approaches to managing contradictions and also identify two approaches, assimilation and adjustment, which combine the two. The model also identifies a key contingency, the expected distribution of power between contradictory elements, as a key influence on actors’ approaches to managing contradictions. For paradox researchers our integrated model emphasizes the need for more attention to the political, institutional, and social contexts of contradictions, practices for managing conflict, and transformation of organizational contradic...

The Interplay between Intuition and Rationality in Strategic Decision Making: A Paradox Perspective

Abstract: Both intuition and rationality can play important roles in strategic decision making. However, a framework that specifically accounts for the interplay between intuition and rationality is still missing. This study addresses this gap by using a paradox lens and conceptualizes the intuition–rationality duality as a paradoxical tension. We draw on seven case studies of innovation projects to empirically derive a three-step process for managing this intuition–rationality tension through paradoxical thinking. Our empirical data suggest that management of the tension starts with preparing the ground for paradoxical thinking by creating managerial acceptance for the contradictory elements of rational and intuitive approaches to decision making. The process then continues by developing decision-making outcomes through the integration of intuitive and rational practices. Finally, the outcomes of paradoxical thinking are embedded into the organizational context. For each step of the model, we indicate a set of practices that, by leveraging intuitive or rational characteristics of decision making, practitioners can use to deal with this cognitive tension in the different steps of our model.

We have to do this and that? You must be joking: Constructing and responding to paradox through humor

Abstract: This paper adopts a practice approach to paradox, examining the role of micro-practices in shaping constructions of and responses to paradox. Our approach is inductively motivated. During an ethnographic study of an organization implementing paradoxical goals we noticed a strong incidence of humor, joking, and laughter. Examining this practice closely, we realized that humor was used to surface, bring attention to, and make communicable experience of paradox in the moment by drawing out some specific contradiction in their work. Humor thus allowed actors to socially construct paradox, as well as—in interaction with others—construct potential responses to the multiple small incidences of paradox in their everyday work. In doing so, humor cast the interactional dynamics that were integral in constructing two response paths: (i) entrenching a response, whereby an existing response was affirmed, thereby continuing on a particular response path, and (ii) shifting a response, whereby actors moved from one respo...

Adding Complexity to Theories of Paradox, Tensions, and Dualities of Innovation and Change: Introduction to Organization Studies Special Issue on Paradox, Tensions, and Dualities of Innovation and Change

Abstract: Approaches to paradox have deep historical roots. Eastern philosophers such as Lao Tzu and Confucius described the world as a mystical interplay of interdependent contradictions (Chen, 2002; Li, 2014). The Tao te Ching, for example, opens with the puzzling and circular first line, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” Western scholars such as Aristotle and Hegel depicted paradox as irrational and unsolvable puzzles or double binds. The classic example is the liar’s paradox, with the statement “I am lying” leading one in strange loops between honesty and falsehood. Both these traditions stress that our greatest insights derive from grappling with intricate, interwoven and often irrational contradictions.

Knots in the Discourse of Innovation: Investigating Multiple Tensions in a Reacquired Spin-off:

Abstract: We examine the case of a corporate spin-off, in which its reacquisition by the parent firm radically changed its structure and culture Employing a discourse lens, we study paradoxical tensions of innovation as key members “talk into being” the paradoxical circumstances of their environment From our analysis, we develop the concept of tensional “knots,” discursive formulations in which members construct tensions, not only as co-occurring, but as Gordian (inseparable) entanglements of interdependence Knotted tensions can be amplifying (exacerbating) or attenuating (improving) in their effects on one another, but with very different consequences to innovative action Specifically, knotted tensions and the way in which members manage them set up counter-intuitive logics that serve to justify courses of innovative action or inaction We propose a process model advancing understanding of interlinked tensions in more complex ways than current paradox theory allows We conclude with a discussion of our contrib

Becoming Salient: The TMT Leader’s Role in Shaping the Interpretive Context of Paradoxical Tensions

Abstract: How do paradoxical tensions become salient in organizations over time? Ambidexterity and paradox studies have, thus far, primarily focused on how tensions inside organizations are managed after they have been rendered salient for actors. Using a longitudinal, embedded case study of four strategic business units within a media organization, we theorize the role of the top management team leader’s practices in enabling tensions to become salient for their respective lower-level managers when there are initial differences in how tensions are interpreted across levels. Our findings extend a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing by adding interpretive context as an enabling condition that shapes the emergence of salience through the provision of a constellation of cues that guide sensemaking. Informed by a practice-based perspective on paradox, we also contribute a conceptual model of leadership as practice, and outline the implications for ambidexterity studies.

Agency and Institutions in Organization Studies

Abstract: Agency and institutions are essential concepts within institutional theory. In this Perspectives issue, we draw on a select group of Organization Studies articles to provide an overview of the topic of agency and institutions. We first consider different ways of defining agency and institutions and examine their implications for institutional theory. We then analyse the relationship of actors and institutions through four lenses – the wilful actor, collective intentionality, patchwork institutions and modular individuals. Our analysis leads us to dissociate agency from individuals and view it as a capacity or quality that stems from resources, rights and obligations tied to the roles and social positions actors occupy. Roles and social positions are institutionally engineered. It is social actors qua occupants of roles and positions (not individuals) that enter the social ‘stage’ and exercise agency.

When Bureaucracy Meets the Crowd: Studying “Open Government” in the Vienna City Administration:

Abstract: Open Government is en vogue, yet vague: while practitioners, policy-makers, and others praise its virtues, little is known about how Open Government relates to bureaucratic organization. This paper presents insights from a qualitative investigation into the City of Vienna, Austria. It demonstrates how the encounter between the city administration and “the open” juxtaposes the decentralizing principles of the crowd, such as transparency, participation, and distributed cognition, with the centralizing principles of bureaucracy, such as secrecy, expert knowledge, written files, and rules. The paper explores how this theoretical conundrum is played out and how senior city managers perceive Open Government in relation to the bureaucratic nature of their administration. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to empirically trace the complexities of the encounter between bureaucracy and Open Government; and second, to critically theorize the ongoing rationalization of public administration in spite of cons...

Computer Games and Organization Studies

Abstract: Computer games and organizations are becoming increasingly interwoven in the 21st century. Sophisticated computer games connected by networks are turning into spaces for organizing. Therefore, it may not be surprising that conventional organizations are now scrounging these games for novel ways to enhance efficiency. The result is the formation of game/organization hybrids; uneasy recontextualizations of partly incompatible ideas, values and practices. We begin this essay by elucidating what it is socially that makes something a game by exploring the notion’s anthropological foundations. We then introduce two examples of actual game/organization hybrids; raiding in computer games and gamification in formal organizations. We conclude by discussing the implications of such hybridization and suggest venues for how organization and management scholars can benefit from studying computer games and theories of play.

Englishization, Identity Regulation and Imperialism

Abstract: What are the power/identity implications of the increasing Englishization of non-Anglophone workplaces around the world? We address this question using an analytical framework that combines a focus on micro/meso-level processes of identity regulation with attentiveness to the macro-level discourse of English as a global language. Drawing on reflexive fieldwork conducted at a major French university, we show how Englishization is bound up with processes of normalization, surveillance and conformist identity work that serve to discipline local selves in line with the imperative of international competitiveness. Concomitantly, we also show that Englishization is not a totalizing form of identity regulation; it is contested, complained about and appropriated in the creative identity work of those subject to it. Yet, moving from the micro/meso- to the macro-level, we argue that Englishization is ultimately ‘remaking’ locals as Anglophones through a quasi-voluntary process of imperialism in the context of a US-...

Transcendence through Rhetorical Practices: Responding to Paradox in the Science Sector

Abstract: Organizations are often required to meet contradictory but interrelated objectives. An important response to such paradoxes is transcendence: the ability to view both poles of the paradox as necessary and complementary. Despite the centrality of transcendence to existing frameworks within the paradox literature, we still know little about its practice. We address this gap by surfacing and analysing rhetorical practices across three science organizations. We outline four rhetorical practices that constitute transcendence (Ordering, Aspiring, Signifying, and Embodying) as well as the underlying features of these practices that explain how they construct a response to paradox. In particular, we show that transcendence entailed balancing the enabling features of focus (paradoxical content/context), time (stability/change) and distance (maintaining/reducing). Finally, we develop a dynamic view of transcendence as a process of oscillation, showing how these practices are bundled together and interrelate to construct moments of transcendence.

Culture, conditions and paradoxical frames.

Abstract: Organizational contexts establish conditions that seem paradoxical, but it is unclear when and why individuals notice and respond to paradoxes. This paper examines how culture and conditions interact to shape whether individuals adopt paradoxical frames. We used cooperation and competition among American and Chinese people as an empirical setting. Using lay categories as a theoretical framework, we predicted that specific types of conditions, colleagues’ outperforming and out-helping each other, can be interpreted as instances of both cooperation and competition. Study 1 found that Chinese people were more likely than Americans to adopt paradoxical frames in just these types of conditions and that the cross-cultural difference was attributed to differences in paradox mindset. Study 2 found that in just these types of conditions, Chinese people were more likely to engage in simultaneously cooperative and competitive behavior and this was attributed to differences in the use of paradoxical frames. Thus, cul...

Partners for Good: How Business and NGOs Engage the Commercial–Social Paradox:

Abstract: Businesses and NGOs are collaborating more frequently to address social issues with commercial solutions, yet not all collaborations work well. We wanted to know why some collaborations struggle where others succeed. We studied five projects in India in which businesses bought goods and services from NGOs that employed disadvantaged people. Two of these five projects met the expectations of both parties, whereas the other three did not. By drawing on the paradox literature, we argue that the project’s success indicates that the business and NGO engaged the commercial-social paradox. We found that in the projects that worked well, the two parties held fluid categories, i.e. they saw differences between business and NGO as contextual and aimed to find creative workarounds to emergent problems. In the projects that did not work well, businesses and NGOs imposed categorical imperatives, i.e. they saw sharp differences that they intensified by imposing standardized and familiar solutions on their partner. We c...

Being an early-career CMS academic in the context of insecurity and ‘excellence’: the dialectics of resistance and compliance

Abstract: Drawing on a dialectical approach to resistance, we conceptualise the latter as a multifaceted, pervasive and contradictory phenomenon. This enables us to examine the predicament in which early-career Critical Management Studies (CMS) academics find themselves in the current times of academic insecurity and ‘excellence’, as gleaned through this group’s understandings of themselves as resisters and participants in the complex and contradictory forces constituting their field. We draw on 24 semi-structured interviews to map our participants’ accounts of themselves as resisters in terms of different approaches to tensions and contradictions between, on the one hand, the interviewees’ CMS alignment and, on the other, the ethos of business school neoliberalism. Emerging from this analysis are three contingent and interlinked narratives of resistance and identity – diplomatic, combative and idealistic – each of which encapsulates a particular mode (negotiation, struggle, and laying one’s own path) of engaging with the relationship between CMS and the business school ethos. The three narratives show how early-career CMS academics not only use existing tensions, contradictions, overlaps and alliances between these positions to resist and comply with selected forces within each, but also contribute to the (re-)making of such overlaps, alliances, tensions and contradictions. Through this reworking of what it means to be both CMS scholars and business school academics, we argue, early-career CMS academics can be seen as active resisters and re-constituters of their complex field.

Institutional complexity and individual responses : delineating the boundaries of partial autonomy

Abstract: This research was funded by the Department of Health, and by the National Institute for Health Research, Health Service and Delivery Research (NIHR HS&DR) programme (project number 09/1001/40).

The Gentle Art of Retroduction: Critical Realism, Cultural Political Economy and Critical Grounded Theory:

Abstract: This article, first, proposes critical grounded theory (CGT) as a way to develop systematically an array of methods and theoretical propositions into a coherent critical methodology for organization studies (and beyond). Second, it demonstrates CGT’s usefulness through a case study of competing recovery projects from the Icelandic financial crisis. CGT is developed in engagement with the emerging paradigm of cultural political economy (CPE) and its preferred method of critical discourse analysis (CDA). CPE analyses the evolution of ‘economic imaginaries’ in both their structural/material and semiotic/discursive dimensions. This requires a critical realist, multi-dimensional research strategy which emphasizes ethnographic methods and substantial theoretical and historical work. The proposed methodology of CGT enables a retroductive research process that combines deductive theoretical deskwork with inductive fieldwork enabled by grounded theory tools to analyse organizational process, stability and change.

Towards a Performative Theory of Resistance: Senior Managers and Revolting Subject(ivitie)s:

Abstract: This article develops a performative theory of resistance It uses Judith Butler’s and Karen Barad’s theories of performativity to explore how resistance (to organizational strategies and policies) and resistants (those who resist such strategies and policies) co-emerge, within and through complex intra-actions of entangled discourses, materialities, affect and space/time The article uses empirical materials from a case study of the implementation of a talent management strategy We analyse interviews with the senior managers charged with implementing the strategy, the influence of material, non-sentient actors, and the experiences of the researchers when carrying out the interviews This leads to a theory that resistance and resistants emerge in moment-to-moment co-constitutive moves that may be invoked when identity or self is put in jeopardy Resistance, we suggest, is the power (residing with resistants) to say ‘no’ to organizational requirements that would otherwise threaten to render the self abject

Resistance through compliance: The strategic and subversive potential of frontstage and backstage resistance

Abstract: Cynicism, gossip, foot-dragging, simulation of productivity, etc. have been regarded by some scholars as manifestations of resistance that are subtle and unobtrusive, but still real and effective. ...

Where to seek strategic assets for competitive catch-up? a configurational study of emerging multinational enterprises expanding into foreign strategic-factor markets

Abstract: Emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs) often engage in strategic-asset-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) for competitive catch-up. This study explores the linkages between an EMNE’s competitive scenario consisting of a configuration of its awareness-motivation-capability (AMC) conditions and the comparative institutional advantages of its strategic-asset-seeking destination. Our configurational analyses of Chinese FDIs in the technology-intensive industries of OECD countries reveal a taxonomy of four distinct asset-seeking strategies of EMNEs. Our findings shed novel insights into the strategic variations within EMNEs based on a theoretically and methodologically extended AMC framework. This study also extends the varieties of capitalism literature by addressing the implications of comparative institutional advantages for foreign entrants, rather than domestic incumbent firms.

The Values of Strategy: Valuation Practices, Rivalry and Strategic Agency:

Abstract: The concept of value is held dear by strategy theorists and practitioners alike as they share a concern about value creation, value propositions, value add, value chains, shareholder value and a plethora of other value constructs. Yet, despite its centrality, the concept of value has attracted limited attention in strategy scholarship. Most commonly, notions of value as profit or utility, inherited from economic theory, are assumed rather than analyzed. This paper advances the discussion of value in the strategy discourse by conceptualizing value as a correlate of valuation practices. Following this view, value is neither understood as the property of an object nor as a subjective preference; rather, values are constituted through valuation practices including rankings, ratings, awards, reviews and other valuation mechanisms that bestow values upon things in the first place. The paper explores this idea through analyzing valuation practices and their constitutive mechanisms; and it exploits this idea for ...

Organizing solidarity initiatives: a socio-spatial conceptualization of resistance

Abstract: This paper offers a spatial conceptualization of resistance by focusing on the practices through which solidarity initiatives constitute new resistance socio-spatialities. We discuss two solidarity...

Protecting the Paradox of Interprofessional Collaboration

Abstract: We studied an interprofessional collaboration to understand how professionals engaged with paradox in collective decision-making. At the beginning of our study, we observed vicious cycles in which conflict led to negative tension. Professionals were holding tightly to a particular pole of the paradox, and the higher-status pole was consistently overrepresented in collective decision-making. By the end of our study we observed the presence of virtuous cycles, where conflict led to more positive tension, and where professionals engaged in collective decision-making with more equal representation of conflicting approaches. We call this change process protecting the paradox and we identify three strategies that support this process: (1) promoting equality of both poles, (2) strengthening the weaker pole, and (3) looking beyond the paradox by focusing on desired outcomes. We contribute to the paradox literature by showing how vicious cycles can be shifted to virtuous cycles, how professionals and managers can ...

Materializing Power to Recover Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract: Through the development of CSR ratings, metrics and management tools, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is currently materialized at an unprecedented scale within and across organizations. However, the material dimension of CSR and the inherent political potential in this materialization have been neglected. Drawing on insights from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and the critical discussion of current approaches to power in CSR studies, we offer an alternative sociomaterial conceptualization of power in order to clarify how power works through materialized forms of CSR. We develop a framework that explains both how power is constituted within materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘assembling / disassembling’, and how power is mobilized through materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘overflowing / framing’. From this framework, we derive four tactics that clarify how CSR materializations can be seized by marginalized actors to ‘recover’ CSR. Our analysis aims to renew CSR studies by showing the potential of CSR for progressive politics.

Becoming the Leader: Leadership as Material Presence:

Abstract: This paper seeks to understand leaders as material presences. Leadership theory has traditionally explored leaders as sites of disembodied traits, characteristics and abilities. Our qualitative, mixed method study suggests that managers charged with the tasks of leadership operate within a very different understanding. Their endogenous or lay theory understands leadership as physical, corporeal and visible, and as something made manifest through leaders’ material presence. This theory-in-practice holds that leadership qualities are signified by the leader’s physical appearance: the good leader must look the part. Actors consequently work on their own appearance to present an image of themselves as leader. They thus offer a fundamental challenge to dominant exogenous, or academic, theories of leadership. To understand the unspoken assumptions that underpin the lay theory of leadership as material presence, we interrogate it using the new materialist theory of Karen Barad and the object relations theory of Christopher Bollas. This illuminates the lay theory’s complexities and sophisticated insights. In academic terms it offers a theory of how sentient and non-sentient actors intra-act and performatively constitute leadership through complex entanglements that enact and circulate organizational and leadership norms. The paper’s contribution is thus a theory of leadership micro-dynamics in which the leader is materialized through practices of working on a corporeal self for presentation to both self and others.

Brand-Centred Control : A study of internal branding and normative control

Abstract: In this article I present brand-centred control as a new form of normative control and examine the ways in which it affects employees. To do so, I draw on the results of a qualitative case study of ...

Book Review: Jody Hoffer Gittell Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of Relational Coordination:

Abstract: At least as far back as the work of Mayo and his colleagues, which spawned the Human Relations School, scholars and practitioners have pursued the holy grail of discovering how to improve organizational performance while simultaneously enhancing the quality of employees’ working lives. Since the work of the Human Relations school, we have seen a variety of contributions including advocacy of post-Fordist production, post-bureaucratic organizations, empowerment, teamwork and more recently high performance work systems. What has united these approaches is an apparent belief that within capitalist work organizations it is possible to meet both managerial and employee needs to a significant extent, without fundamentally challenging managerial prerogative. Put another way, the emphasis has been on pursuing mutual gains for managers and employees through humanistic and developmental approaches to work and management. Jody Hoffer Gittell’s Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of Relational Coordination can be seen as another contribution to this broad body of work. The central argument put forward in this book is that if organizations are to succeed in increasingly competitive and volatile environments, they are more likely to do so by pursuing ‘high-road’ approaches – emphasizing mutual gains for employers and employees – than by pursuing ‘low-road’ approaches involving cost-cutting and work intensification. Hoffer Gittell contends that the key to a high-road approach is relational coordination, which she explains as involving ‘coordinating work through high-quality communication, supported by relationships of shared goals, shared knowledge and mutual respect’ (p. 4). Relational coordination is facilitated by what Hoffer Gittell calls ‘relational interventions’, ‘work process interventions’ and ‘structural interventions’. Relational interventions are aimed at facilitating organizational changes to enhance communication, and appear in many ways to be similar to the kind of approach associated with the organizational development (OD) movement, in that facilitators work with employees to help them develop better relationships and communication mechanisms. Work process interventions involve a collaborative process of job and process redesign to improve effectiveness and communication. Structural interventions encompass the implementation of systems which support relational coordination, such as collective accountability and reward systems, systems for information sharing and inclusive team meetings. Essentially the argument for relational coordination is that it integrates worker skills and tasks into a whole, thereby increasing effectiveness and efficiency, but also that it creates a shared sense of identity within organizations which employees find intrinsically rewarding and motivating. To deliver maximum gains in terms of performance, relational coordination must be extended to 696424OSS0010.1177/0170840617696424Organization StudiesBook Review book-review2017

The Politics of Everyday

Abstract: Stealing, doing something unauthorized, occupying places, feeling silly and on the edge… how can we account for these practices that make the everyday? Why would the notion of everyday be interesting for understanding people’s experiences at work? How can we make sense of the myriad of disconnected actions, gestures and encounters that make the everyday? This essay takes its inspiration from Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau’s specific investigations of everyday life to draw a picture of current workplaces; it aims to capture some particulars of symbolic and material life at work, as well as some representations of lived experiences that are shared by people at work. We defend a dialectical view of the everyday by showing the link between forces of alienation and forces of emancipation. We draw from interviews to suggest the extraordinary influence of the ordinary actions over our lives.

The Spectacle and Organization Studies

Abstract: The aim of this essay is to revisit Guy Debord’s critical theory of the spectacle as formulated 50 years ago in the ‘Society of the Spectacle’ in light of the contemporary production of spectacles. Debord’s arguments about appearance, visibility and celebrity are echoed in the way organizations increasingly focus on their brand, image, impression, and reputation. Yet, the role of spectacles in organizational life has remained under-researched in organization studies. As the boundaries between fact and fiction, reality and representation, substance and appearance become increasingly blurred, questions about the production and effects of spectacles seem more pertinent than ever. Are representations faithful mirrors of reality, or attempts to conceal reality? Do they replace reality, or bring new realities into being? By articulating three possible understandings of the spectacle, as fetishism, hyper-reality or performativity, this essay invites organization scholars to examine the organization of the real a...