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Rethinking Hybridity in Postcolonial Contexts: What Changes and What Persists? The Tunisian case of Poulina's managers

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the importance of adopting a contextualized approach to hybridization processes that, first, takes into account the historical and cultural contexts from which hybridity emerges and, second, helps to identify the elements that change as well as those that persist when western management practices are imported into developing countries.
Abstract: Drawing on postcolonial studies of management, this article highlights the importance of adopting a contextualized approach to hybridization processes that, first, takes into account the importance of the historical and cultural contexts from which hybridity emerges and, second, helps to identify the elements that change as well as those that persist when western management practices are imported into developing countries. Using a discursive analysis, this article shows the ambivalent nature of the accounts given by managers (trained in western traditions) of the Tunisian company Poulina as they explain how they modernized their company through the implementation of a US management model. The managers' ambivalence takes on two distinct forms. First, while they seem to have internalized the rhetoric of modernization in insisting on how they used the US management model to overcome the 'dysfunctional' family-based organizational system, they simultaneously express resistance by detaching themselves from the French colonial organizational model. Second, when they describe the implementation of the US management practices and how workers resisted them, it seems that they have implicitly negotiated and reinterpreted these practices via a local cultural framework of meaning. Based on these findings, I argue that hybridity is best understood as an interweaving of two elements - the transformation of practices and cultural continuity - in which identity construction, local power dynamics and cultural frameworks of meaning jointly shape the hybridization process of management practices.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The editors of this collection declare its mission to be to ‘stimulate thinking on quality-related issues and to facilitate bringing quality into the mainstream of organisational effectiveness’, but the precise meaning of the second defeats me; in a way, this is emblematic of the volume as a whole.
Abstract: The editors of this collection declare its mission to be to ‘stimulate thinking on quality-related issues and to facilitate bringing quality into the mainstream of organisational effectiveness’ (p. ix). I understand the first of these goals, but the precise meaning of the second defeats me; in a way, this is emblematic of the volume as a whole. There is some very interesting material here, and some useful guides to prior work—but there is also much to mystify and some disappointments. The book opens with an erudite and lengthy piece by Lengnick-Hall which plays with the idea that existing Total Quality (TQ) thinking and practice is premised on stable and repetitive environments and organisations, and, in these oso-turbulent times, some new thinking is required. After a brief introduction to TQ, there is a lot of discussion on the wild and intriguing world of complex adaptive systems, with allusions to many relevant literatures. This is an important issue, and has much in common with the debates which gently rage in this journal about the prospects for rational intervention in human systems—although the article ignores Beer, Checkland and Mingers and others whose perspectives would be informative. Indeed, Lengnick-Hall’s analysis focuses on the dynamic instability of human systems rather than the subtler philosophical problems about system ontology and epistemology. Nevertheless, it would be churlish to complain about such omissions when there is such a fecund supply of citations from strategy, operations and organisational analysis, and even (curiously) the poppsychology of Michael Scott Peck. The key weakness of the article is that its abstract prognostications are under-illustrated, and careful use of real examples would make the argument more convincing. Strangely, interesting examples are only a few pages away, and the article by Easton and Jarrell on the Japanese concept of Hoshin Kanri (loosely, ‘policy deployment’, a neglected element of Japanese TQ thinking which relates to the generation and cascading of plans for operational improvement) would be an excellent starting point for a discussion of Lengnick-Hall’s themes. Easton and Jarrell compare the experiences of three US organisations who each work with some variant of the technique, and then contrast these implementations with the ‘ideal’ Japanese system—a highly formal process of planning and control which seems to lie in diametric opposition to LengnickHall’s ruminations on managing complexity. Unfortunately, comparisons are drawn against how Hoshin Kanri is supposed to work in Japan rather than against empirical data from Japanese companies: a matched pair comparison would be more interesting. Nevertheless, the chapter contains some useful commentary and some illuminating insights. Elsewhere in the book, several papers give rather cursory coverage of important ideas without offering new data or sufficient depth to really push the debates forward: Greller presents an outline of feedback in TQ systems, and Knouse examines reward and recognition schemes. Both will be useful for teaching, but had the two authors collaborated one would have expected a richer set of ideas to emerge. Harvey, Buckley and Novicevic examine the important question of how TQ ‘culture’ translates across national boundaries in multi-national corporations, but also settle for ruminations and pointers to further work rather than the presentation or discussion of data. Vaughan and Renn present a systematic and informative account of what they term ‘Customer Service Citizenship Behaviour’, and reflect on how employees and customers interact with the notions of ‘organizational justice’ and the degree of support perceived to be available in the organisation in regard to customer service. The article is well-argued and thoughtful, and is worth closer reading by anyone interested in the management of services in which direct customer–employee contact is central. The final chapter, by Handfield, Calantone and Ghosh, is the most disappointing. At last, the reader is offered a chapter with data, but the methods used are suspect and the resulting conclusions are unsupported by the research. Some rather over-ambitious claims do not seem to integrate with the more thoughtful theorisations offered earlier in the book. Incidentally, the authors ignore the controversy regarding the Baldrige award, and the view of WE Deming (whom they cite approvingly) who once wrote that the award ‘transgresses all that I try to teach’. Overall, the volume is a useful addition to the literature, although it does not live up to its potential. One might hope that for subsequent volumes there might be a greater degree of integration between the contributions, and a more obvious contribution from the academic editors. It is also plagued by more typographic errors, misspelled names, and missing references than one would expect in such an expensively produced book from a respectable publisher.

444 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 1959
TL;DR: In what case do you like reading so much? What about the type of the the muqaddimah an introduction to history book? The needs to read? Well, everybody has their own reason why should read some books.
Abstract: In what case do you like reading so much? What about the type of the the muqaddimah an introduction to history book? The needs to read? Well, everybody has their own reason why should read some books. Mostly, it will relate to their necessity to get knowledge from the book and want to read just to get entertainment. Novels, story book, and other entertaining books become so popular this day. Besides, the scientific books will also be the best reason to choose, especially for the students, teachers, doctors, businessman, and other professions who are fond of reading.

389 citations

Journal ArticleDOI

119 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that national cultures should be considered even in the global economic context, and they show that management practices are embedded in national political cultures, based on attachment to local communities and institutions, government through consensus and to conflict solving by resorting to arbitration and pragmatism.
Abstract: For over 20 years researchers have urged international managers to take culture into account. Focussing on culture raises the problem of using relevant units of analysis. This article advocates that national cultures should be considered even in the global economic context. First, analysis on the national scale makes sense when it is grounded in a political approach to culture. Second, the relevance of the national level is illustrated by the case of Switzerland. If at first sight, Switzerland is a country with multiple internal cultures and borders, a closer analysis shows that the Swiss people share a common political culture based upon attachment to local communities and institutions, to government through consensus and to conflict solving by resorting to arbitration and pragmatism. In the Swiss case, the article shows that management practices are embedded in national political cultures. Validity of the national political culture approach beyond the Swiss case is examined and implications for managers working in cross-cultural environments are discussed.

65 citations

References
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Book
01 Jun 1980
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an analysis of knowledge in everyday life in the context of a theory of society as a dialectical process between objective and subjective reality, focusing particularly on that common-sense knowledge which constitutes the reality of everyday life for the ordinary member of society.
Abstract: A general and systematic account of the role of knowledge in society aimed to stimulate both critical discussion and empirical investigations. This book is concerned with the sociology of 'everything that passes for knowledge in society'. It focuses particularly on that 'common-sense knowledge' which constitutes the reality of everyday life for the ordinary member of society. The authors are concerned to present an analysis of knowledge in everyday life in the context of a theory of society as a dialectical process between objective and subjective reality. Their development of a theory of institutions, legitimations and socializations has implications beyond the discipline of sociology, and their 'humanistic' approach has considerable relevance for other social scientists, historians, philosophers and anthropologists.

16,935 citations


"Rethinking Hybridity in Postcolonia..." refers result in this paper

  • ...This approach to national culture stands in clear contrast to previous interpretive studies inspired by the works of Berger and Luckmann (1967) or Staber (2006) which have defined and investigated culture as a collection of shared meanings....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 1975
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of the concept of culture on the concepts of man and the evolution of mind in Bali has been discussed in the context of an interpretive theory of culture.
Abstract: Part I * Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture Part II * The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man * The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind Part III * Religion As a Cultural System * Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols * Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example * Internal Conversion in Contemporary Bali Part IV * Ideology As a Cultural System * After the Revolution: The Fate of Nationalism in the New States * The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States * The Politics of Meaning * Politics Past, Politics Present: Some Notes on the Uses of Anthropology in Understanding the New States PART V * The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Lvi-Strauss * Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali * Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight

9,103 citations


"Rethinking Hybridity in Postcolonia..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Following Geertz (1973), d’Iribarne (1989) defines culture as a framework of meaning that enables actors to make sense of both the world in which they live and their own actions....

    [...]

  • ...…associated with what today seem rather old-fashioned concepts such as ‘the spirit of a nation’ (Montesquieu, 1748) or ‘national character’ (Weber, 1905) or ‘ world of avatars’ (Geertz, 1973) can persist and might be critical to a deeper understanding of hybridization processes (d’Iribarne, 2009)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action."
Abstract: Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action. The reigning model used to understand culture's effects on action is fundamentally misleading. It assumes that culture shapes action by supplying ultimate ends or values toward which action is directed, thus making values the central causal element of culture. This paper analyzes the conceptual difficulties into which this traditional view of culture leads and offers an alternative model. Among sociologists and anthropologists, debate has raged for several academic generations over defining the term "culture." Since the seminal work of Clifford Geertz (1973a), the older definition of culture as the entire way of life of a people, including their technology and material artifacts, or that (associated with the name of Ward Goodenough) as everything one would need to know to become a functioning member of a society, have been displaced in favor of defining culture as the publicly available symbolic forms through which people experience and express meaning (see Keesing, 1974). For purposes of this paper, culture consists of such symbolic vehicles of meaning, including beliefs, ritual practices, art forms, and ceremonies, as well as informal cultural practices such as language, gossip, stories, and rituals of daily life. These symbolic forms are the means through which "social processes of sharing modes of behavior and outlook within [a] community" (Hannerz, 1969:184) take place.

6,869 citations


"Rethinking Hybridity in Postcolonia..." refers background in this paper

  • ...In contrast with Ann Swidler (1986), who argues that culture influences action by shaping a repertoire or ‘tool kit’ of habits, skills and styles from which people construct ‘strategies of action’, d’Iribarne’s conceptualization of culture points to the more stable implicit framework of meaning which casts the worldview of members in a given society and shapes the matrix according to which the habits, skills, styles and practices evolve and change....

    [...]

  • ...In contrast with Ann Swidler (1986), who argues that culture influences action by shaping a repertoire or ‘tool kit’ of habits, skills and styles from which people construct ‘strategies of action’, d’Iribarne’s conceptualization of culture points to the more stable implicit framework of meaning…...

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the adoption of an organizational practice by subsidiaries of a multinational corporation under conditions of "institutional duality" is examined, drawing on institutional theory, and they identify...
Abstract: We examine the adoption of an organizational practice by subsidiaries of a multinational corporation (MNC) under conditions of “institutional duality.” Drawing on institutional theory, we identify ...

2,399 citations


"Rethinking Hybridity in Postcolonia..." refers background or result in this paper

  • ...In contrast with translation (Czarniawska & Sevón, 1996; Doorewaard & Van Bijsterveld, 2001), neo-institutional (Kostova & Roth, 2002; Zeitlin & Herrigel, 2000) and cross-cultural approaches (Jackson, 2002; Tayeb, 2001), which have contributed in different ways to the questioning of the…...

    [...]

  • ...More than a selective adaptation of MAM to fit the local context (Kostova & Roth, 2002), the new organizational practice can be understood as a product of resistance and enforcement....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 1987
TL;DR: There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack as discussed by the authors is a classic book about race relations in Britain that is still dynamite today and as relevant as ever, this Routledge Classics edition includes a new introduction by the author.
Abstract: This classic book is a powerful indictment of contemporary attitudes to race. By accusing British intellectuals and politicians on both sides of the political divide of refusing to take race seriously, Paul Gilroy caused immediate uproar when this book was first published in 1987. A brilliant and explosive exploration of racial discourses, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack provided a powerful new direction for race relations in Britain. Still dynamite today and as relevant as ever, this Routledge Classics edition includes a new introduction by the author.

2,250 citations