Organization recent issues

Analysing, Accounting for and Unmasking Domination: On Our Role as Scholars of Practice, Practitioners of Social Science and Public Intellectuals

Golsorkhi, D., Leca, B., Lounsbury, M., Ramirez, C. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

Over the last 30 years, there has been an increasing interest in organizational analysis for the work of Pierre Bourdieu. However, the consequent body of literature often lacks an integrated comprehension of Bourdieusian theory and therefore fails to fully exploit its potentialities. In this essay, we argue for a more systematic engagement with the work of Bourdieu by organizational scholars and emphasize the opportunity to develop cumulative research on domination within and between organizations. The means by which systems of domination are reproduced without conscious intention by agents is a central issue for Bourdieu and arguably the primary reason for the development of his theoretical framework. It is thus through the study of domination that one can acquire a panoramic vision of Bourdieusian concepts that have been otherwise too often tackled separately. Moreover, domination is also a key entry to the understanding of how social scientists produce their own knowledge and of their role as members of society. We emphasize that as scholars, we have a moral responsibility to be reflexive about our practice and the social worlds we study in order to ultimately use the knowledge we produce to inform and direct social progress.

The Role of Domination in Newcomers' Legitimation as Entrepreneurs

De Clercq, D., Voronov, M. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

Drawing on Bourdieu’s social theory, we theorize two facets of legitimacy bestowed upon newcomers entering a field: institutional legitimacy, which represents the extent to which newcomers conform with the field’s current power arrangements (‘fit in’) and innovative legitimacy, which pertains to the extent to which newcomers challenge these arrangements (‘stand out’). We conceptualize newcomers’ ability to be endowed with these two facets of legitimacy by field incumbents as a necessary condition to be legitimized as ‘entrepreneurs’ and highlight the forces of domination inherent in this process. We further discuss the intricate and possibly conflicting relationship between incumbents’ expectations about the need for newcomers to fit in and stand out and how newcomers can artfully navigate between these two demands by artfully managing the meaning associated with their and others’ activities. Finally, we discuss the relationship between newcomers’ endowment with legitimacy and the reproduction or transformation of the field’s power arrangements.

The Hysteresis Effect as Creative Adaptation of the Habitus: Dissent and Transition to the 'Corporate' in Post-Soviet Ukraine

Kerr, R., Robinson, S. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

How might Bourdieu’s concept of the hysteresis effect be operationalized in order to understand dissent from, and compliance with, domination in a specific period of social and organizational transition? We employ the Bourdieusian concepts, in particular ‘forms of capital’, ‘hysteresis effect’ and ‘habitus’ to examine the production and reproduction of domination within a British international organization (the ‘Corporation’) operating in transitional post-Soviet Ukraine. Our argument is that the communist-era dissident habitus was better adapted to the changed socio-economic circumstances of postcommunism and was able to creatively adapt to the Corporation through identifying homological processes of domination and adopting homological dissident strategies. The hysteresis effect might therefore provide an explanation of how workers make sense of their new environment based on their habitus, on their capacity to decipher homologies between the previous context and the new one, and on how the dominated that dissent reuse or adapt their strategies in and to this new context. This article makes contributions to the study of domination in organizational contexts at three levels. At the theoretical level, through organizational-based empirical work we build on and develop Bourdieu’s concept of the hysteresis effect by demonstrating the role of the hysteresis effect in the creative reproduction of dissent as a habitus. Our substantive contribution adds a new perspective to the literature on ‘transition’, providing a fine-grained study of how domination was produced within the Western organization in post-Soviet Ukraine.

Domination in Organizational Fields: It's Just Not Cricket

Wright, A. L. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

This article demonstrates how deep engagement with Bourdieu’s theory of the field enriches scholarly understanding of institutional processes. A historical narrative of institutional formation and change in firstclass County cricket in England as a field of restricted cultural production is presented. The narrative illustrates how focusing attention on the position of agents within the field, the relations of production within the field, and the social context, which includes social class, provides a path for analysis of institutional processes which is dynamic, multi-level and nuanced. Bourdieu’s conception of fields as a struggle for capital between agents strategizing to improve field position illuminates the importance of social class to institutional processes, an effect that has been under reported by the most popular approaches to institutionalization in the extant literature.

The Endless Fields of Pierre Bourdieu

Friedland, R. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

Laying out the logic of Bourdieu’s approach to institutional fields, this essay argues that Bourdieu’s theorization of the logic of practice is a generic contest for domination in a plurality of homologously organized fields. Bourdieu aligns all practices through the logic of domination, which allows him to homologize group relations in every field. This homologization depends on a homogenization of fields, the sociological effacement of their cultural specificity. The essay then contrasts Bourdieu’s model of the practical logic of fields to Friedland’s understanding of the institutional logic of practice.

Book Review: Thinking the Art of Management: Stepping into 'Heidegger's Shoes' , David M. Atkinson. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2007. 272 pp., {pound}55.00, ISBN 139780230553743 (hbk)

Dunne, S. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

Review: Organizations: Management Without Control, Howard P. Greenwald. Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2008. 528pp., $62.95, ISBN: 9781412942478 (pbk)

Scott, C. R. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

Review: Finding Feminized Economics: A Postcapitalist Politics, J. K. Gibson-Graham, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. 316 pp., ISBN 0816648042 (pbk)

Schaefer, Z. A. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

Call for Papers--Special Issue on Capitalism in Crisis: Organizational Perspectives

Morgan, G., Froud, J., Quack, S., Schneiberg, M. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:57 PDT

Between Innovation and Legitimation-- Boundaries and Knowledge Flow in Management Consultancy

Sturdy, A., Clark, T., Fincham, R., Handley, K. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

Management consultancy is seen by many as a key agent in the adoption of new management ideas and practices in organizations. Two contrasting views are dominant—consultants as innovators, bringing new knowledge to their clients or as legitimating client knowledge. Those few studies which examine directly the flow of knowledge through consultancy in projects with clients favour the innovator view and highlight the important analytical and practical value of boundaries— consultants as both knowledge and organizational outsiders. Likewise, in the legitimator view, the consultants’ role is seen in terms of the primacy of the organizational boundary. By drawing on a wider social science literature on boundaries and studies of inter-organizational knowledge flow and management consultancy more generally, this polarity is seen as problematic, especially at the level of the consulting project. An alternative framework of boundary relations is developed and presented which incorporates their multiplicity, dynamism and situational specificity. This points to a greater complexity and variability in knowledge flow and its potential than is currently recognized. This is significant not only in terms of our understanding of management consultancy and inter-organizational knowledge dynamics and boundaries, but of a critical understanding of the role of management consultancy more generally.

United in Diversity? Disciplinary Normalization in an EU Project

Ahonen, P., Tienari, J. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

Managing diversity has emerged as a timely issue in organizations operating in the global economy. We contribute to the critical literature on diversity and its management in transnational organizations by exploring ways in which diversity is discursively (re)constructed in a European Union Framework Programme project. We draw on Michel Foucault’s insights on the specificity of the relations and mechanics of power, and the connections between disciplinary power, normalization and knowledge. We conceptualize the EU Framework Programme system as a disciplinary apparatus (dispositif)—a network of time-, place- and field-specific disciplining discursive practices—and approach diversity in an EU project as a technology of normalization. Managing diversity becomes thus understood both as an enabling and a limiting exercise of disciplinary power.

Positioning Lawyers: Discursive Resources, Professional Ethics and Identification

Kuhn, T. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

Critics assert that lawyers’ subject positions make them accomplices to corporate domination. Work on subject position formation, however, frequently ignores either identifications with particular organizations or the manifold discourses circulating around those organizations. To address this, I asked junior corporate attorneys at a large US law firm to reflect on the accusation of being a ‘corporate lackey’. In their responses were four forms of discursive resource that evinced varied sources of identification. The analysis shows that the discursive resources reinforced one another in a ‘reticulated’ fashion: conditioned by encompassing discourses of managerialism and legal professionalism, they supported a particular mode of subjectivation. From this finding, I argue for the need to contextualize studies of professionals in multiple discourses, the advantages of studying arrays of discursive resources and the importance of surfacing ‘submerged’ discursive resources.

The Call Centre and its Many Players

Winiecki, D. J. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

Call centres have been presented as a poster child for many things ranging from a leap in management success, to a locale of total panoptic power, to electronic sweatshops, to the latest effort in deskilling physical and emotional labour for corporate profit, to an outpost of corporate empire. Proponents of these positions frame their assertions with theoretical positions that advance particular views of either ‘nature’ or ‘society’ as the commonsensically-present ‘active ingredient’ behind the forces at play. Aided by actor-network theory, this article attempts to avoid these theoretically-constructed positions to describe how some of the many and varied actors (both human and non-human) contribute to the day-to-day production of call centres and call centre work in and of themselves. Through this analysis, the article demonstrates how artefacts produced in the field itself both help and enable self-discipline of the living in an ongoing reflective accomplishment of order.

The Politics of the Behavioural Revolution in Organization Studies

Tadajewski, M. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

This article addresses the behavioural revolution in organization studies of the 1950s. It tries to unravel, via Foucaultian ‘eventalization’, the conditions that made the ‘behavioural sciences’ emerge at that historical juncture. I argue that the relationship of the Ford Foundation with the Graduate School of Industrial Administration and concomitantly with Herbert Simon, James March and others, was firmly embedded in the Cold War politics of the time. These relationships mirrored governmental, public policy, education and foundation concerns with socialism, as well as communist infiltration in the universities at a formative period in the development of organization and management studies, contributing to functionalism and positivism being institutionalized in these disciplines.

'Working Together?': The Salvation Army and the Job Network

Garland, D., Darcy, M. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

This article explores the changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as manifested in the development and implementation of employment policy in Australia between 1998 and 2007. This exploration focuses on the introduction of market discourse throughout the contracting process, in particular how this discourse seeks to reconstruct service users as ‘consumers’, and the Salvation Army’s response to this. By studying the ways in which this religiously and socially motivated non-profit organization sought to mediate neo-liberal discourses of competition and consumerism, we seek to shed light on the processes and pressures affecting faith-based and other non-profit organizations that increasingly find themselves acting as agents of government policy under the principles of New Public Management (NPM).

Call for Papers--Special Issue on Organizing Christmas and Beyond

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

Call for Papers--Special Issue on Interrogating Organization Through the Postcolonial

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:50:12 PDT

The Debate That Won't Die? Values Incommensurability, Antagonism and Theory Choice

Tadajewski, M. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:52:58 PDT

In this article, I examine a recent turn in the paradigm debate towards the incommensurability thesis and the proposed possibility of adjudication between theories from different paradigms. In particular, I argue that McKelvey and Baum's views (among others) appear to be based on a desire to reduce paradigmatic pluralism and, in turn, reduce uncertainty about what is the empirically valid view among competing theories. By contrast, I make the case that an incommensurability of values still permeates any attempt to engage in theory-adjudication. Such values, I assert, will stall any attempt to adjudicate between theories from different paradigms. In the face of widespread cognitive bias, confirmation bias and belief perseverance, we cannot, I conclude, hope to deal with this issue in any satisfactory way.

Encountering the Arugula Leaf: The Failure of the Imaginary and its Implications for Research on Identity in Organizations

Driver, M. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:52:58 PDT

The article reviews research on identity in organizations. It suggests that current research reiterates imaginary constructions of identity by which identity can be defined as coherent or fragmented. Based on a psychoanalytic understanding of subjectivity, it explores how articulating identity as lack may unsettle such imaginary constructions. The article develops the significant implications this has for how identity is conceptualized and researched and, importantly, how the failure of imaginary identity constructions relates to resistance and control in organizations. The article provides new directions for the study of identity in organizations particularly with respect to widening the discursive spaces in which creative identity struggles occur.

`It's a Bit Like Being a Robot or Working in a Factory': Does Braverman Help Explain the Experiences of State Social Workers in Britain Since 1971?

Carey, M. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:52:58 PDT

State social work in Britain has experienced radical and sustained reforms which have seen it move from being an aspiring profession to an increasingly marginalized part of a receding state welfare sector. Neo-liberal reform, and in particular the privatization of state social work, has encouraged greater managerial control, increasing regulation, workloads and deskilling for social workers. Drawing from empirical evidence, this article critically assesses the role of the state social worker since their expansion in Britain from 1971. This is achieved by considering the validity of Braverman's (1974) thesis to practitioners' experiences in the context of three (proposed) eras within the relatively brief life span of the social service department. Despite prominent deficiencies, it is argued that Braverman's overall sentiment, and many of the specific nuances of his theory, still offer much in helping us to contextualize the changing nature of state social work, as a labour process held within the increasingly `competitive' state. Finally, some suggested components of a possible reformed labour process theory that accommodate the specific dynamics of state social work are provided.

Corporate Codes of Ethics and the Bending of Moral Space

Jensen, T., Sandstrom, J., Helin, S. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:52:58 PDT

What happens when corporate codes of ethics (CCEs) `go to work', and how do they influence moral practice? Even though previous research has posed these or similar questions, the role and the effect of the CCE are still dubious. In this article, it is argued that this is predominantly because previous research is fixed in a position in which CCEs are passive artefacts with no capability of bending space, and in which agency and morality are limited to the human sphere only. An approach to the study and understanding of CCEs in which the travel of the CCE is made the focus of the research is therefore developed. The code comes alive in a heterogeneous materiality, travelling as a result of a wide range of translations, and granted an epistemological capability of influencing humans' world-views and moral practices. The approach is illustrated with a case study on CCE-implementation and it is concluded that through generating more accounts like this, researchers and practitioners are not only in a better position to understand how CCEs `go to work', but also in a better position to shoulder moral responsibility.

Peasants Against MNCs and the State: The Role of the Bergama Struggle in the Institutional Construction of the Gold-Mining Field in Turkey

Ozen, S., Ozen, H. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:52:58 PDT

In this article, we argue that the emergent literature that integrates the neo-institutional and social movement theories for a better understanding of institutional change offers a partial picture concerning the roles of the state and society in institutional wars due to its preoccupation with the liberal polities prevalent in the Anglo-Saxon countries. We suggest that the macro-institutional perspective that recognizes the influences of varied polities should be introduced to this emergent literature, if it is to provide a full picture. Incorporating the macro-institutional insights into the integrative approach, we examine a struggle between a group of protesters, a multinational gold-mining company and governmental actors regarding an environmental issue in Bergama, Turkey, where a statist polity mediates worldwide currents towards the neo-liberal order. The findings indicate that the Turkish state repressed the mobilizations against the neo-liberal construction of the mining field and reinforced the existing neo-liberal logic in the mining field through introducing a new regulatory framework. On the basis of the findings, we suggest that both the trajectory and consequences of institutional wars are influenced by the kind of polity in which they take place.

Institutional Heterogeneity and Change: The University as Fool

Kavanagh, D. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:52:58 PDT

While institutional theory has focused on the effect of institutions on individual organizations, this article addresses the relationships between institutions. Using a case history approach, it examines the relationship of one institution, the University, within an institutional complex. The study suggests that the University acts and has a role akin to the Fool in the medieval royal court. The Fool is embedded in a multiplicity of loyal yet agonistic relationships with a collection of `Sovereign' institutions, such as the Church, the State, the Nation, the Corporation and the Professions. Akin to the Fool, the University's skills at normative narrating, sorting and playing are central to the creation and maintenance of a semiotic nexus and the process of institutionalization and de-institutionalization. In turn, these semiotic resources are utilized in the practice of educating. The article concludes by examining how the metaphor of the Fool provides a way of re-thinking these practices.

From Temples to Organizations: The Introduction and Packaging of Spirituality

Zaidman, N., Goldstein-Gidoni, O., Nehemya, I. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:52:58 PDT

This article is based on a research of Israeli spiritual consultants and their interaction with local organizations. The incorporation of ideas of spirituality into the world of efficient management and organizations seem on the outset to be `unnatural'. We show that while this inherent contradiction does not disappear, spiritual consultants employ various ways to overcome the anticipated resistance and to make an impact. These ways include not only attentive processes of selection and reframing of ideas before introducing them to the new setting, but often enough also methods of concealing and lack of transparency in the consultants' interactions with managers and or employees. We use domestication, as a key analytical concept. In spite all the familiarization and disguising techniques, spiritual consultants do bring new ideas into the organizational context. Unlike conventional consultants, they set an emphasis on the individual's awareness of his or her body, thoughts and feelings at the moment and by that challenge management expectation that employees would conform to their jobs and roles. Finally, we argue that consultants create `noise' in terms of the ideas that they promote but most of them `keep order' in terms of the way they choose to deliver these ideas.

Storytelling and Change: An Unfolding Story

Brown, A. D., Gabriel, Y., Gherardi, S. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

Change spawns stories and stories can trigger change. Stories can also block change and can define what constitutes change. In this Introduction to the special issue, the special issue editors explore some of the current debates on stories and organizational change, introduce the articles that are included in the issue, identify some prominent themes (power, identity construction and defence, plurivocality, knowledge transfer, boundary unfreezing, sense-making and sense-destroying) and some possible blind spots (authenticity, narrative structure). In this way, they offer a conspectus on the current state of play in this field, signalling some challenges and directions for the future.

Anti-dialogic Positioning in Change Stories: Bank Robbers, Saviours and Peons

Beech, N., MacPhail, S. A., Coupland, C. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

Stories people tell of going through change incorporate and react to others around them. Positions can be taken in stories that tend towards the monological, having a singular perspective and being somewhat sealed off from others. Alternatively, stories can tend towards the dialogical, a multiple, less certain and more interactive mode. We explore multiple stories of an organizational change and analyse a paradoxical situation that emerges. We argue that although the stories may have the appearance of being dialogical, they can be seen as co-existing but self-sealing, or anti-dialogic. We introduce an interruption to the story and discuss a possibility for challenging anti-dialogic positioning in change stories.

From Loss to Lack: Stories of Organizational Change as Encounters with Failed Fantasies of Self, Work and Organization

Driver, M. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

This study advances research on storytelling and organizational change by exploring forty stories of change from a psychoanalytic, particularly Lacanian, perspective. It suggests that stories of organizational change serve an important and, to date, under-explored role as creative and empowering encounters with failed fantasies of self, work and organization. Implications for research on storytelling and organizational change are discussed.

On Telling Stories But Hearing Snippets: Sense-taking from Presentations of Practice

Sims, D., Huxham, C., Beech, N. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

The practice of inviting managers and leaders to make formal presentations telling the story of their experience to others is widespread. In this article we explore these as a way of looking at how audiences learn and change from stories they are told. We considered a range of speakers from high profile `circuit speakers' to little known `experience sharers'. We develop a conceptualization of the way members of an audience learn from the stories that are told by speakers. We started from the expectation that people would feel that they had learned most from stories that came over as `factual description', with causal connections, attributed agency and intentional acts. Our investigation, however, found that people remembered, and said that they had changed because of, stories that were rich in `decorative' detail but which had little practical detail on what the speaker actually did or why. What was retained by audience members were snippets of a story which could be reconstituted later by the listener for their own purposes.

Moving Away from Chronological Time: Introducing the Shadows of Time and Chronotopes as New Understandings of `Narrative Time'

Pedersen, A. R. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

This article aims to present and explain `time' as a theoretical and a narrative concept. Most studies of change management define time as chronological time. This article presents two alternative time definitions: the shadows of time and the chronotopes, pointing toward understanding time as an asymmetric literary genre in futures studies of change management.

Challenging Hegemonic Masculinities: Men's Stories on Gender Culture in Organizations

Murgia, A., Poggio, B. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

The article emphasizes the importance of storytelling in helping or hindering a change in organizational practices brought about by the entry into force of a legislative measure. It concentrates in particular on the introduction of a normative change intended to reshape the dominant gender order by giving fathers the same rights to parental leave as mothers. Whilst storytelling can be an instrument of change, it may also be perceived and used as a means to prevent such change and to consolidate dominant models. In the latter case, analysis of rebellious and marginal voices reveals hegemonic practices and brings out viewpoints silenced by the official versions. The stories of eight men, belonging to different organizations, who have experienced parental leave, enable analysis to be made of the ways in which organizational storytelling can support or prevent the introduction of a change which challenges the symbolic gender order within organizations.

Storytelling and `Character': Victims, Villains and Heroes in a Case of Technological Change

Whittle, A., Mueller, F., Mangan, A. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

In this article we examine the role of stories in the temporal development of images of the self at work. Drawing on an in-depth case study of technological change in a UK public-private partnership, we highlight the role of stories in the construction, maintenance and defence of actors' moral status and organizational reputation. The analysis focuses on the development of one `character' as he shifted from the role of innocent victim to implied villain to heroic survivor within the stories constructed during routine work conversations. We argue that stories are intimately linked to the forms of `moral accounting' that serve to deal with the challenges to `face' and social positioning that accompany `failed' organizational change. Stories, we suggest, are likely to be invoked when an interactional encounter threatens the participants' sense of social worth. Stories in which we present ourselves in a positive light—for instance as virtuous, honourable, courageous, caring, committed, competent— comprise a key component of face-saving strategies designed to maintain our social positioning: processes that are often intensified during periods of organizational change.

Constituting Change and Stability: Sense-making Stories in a Farming Organization

Peirano-Vejo, M. E., Stablein, R. E. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:13:27 PDT

Recognizing the multiplicity of stories and possible interpretations in any narrative approach, we develop our `story' (i.e. this journal article) within the emerging tradition of responsible writing. We conceptualize organizational change as the normal condition of organizing rather than as an episodic event. In these circumstances, sense-giving and sense-making stories were found to be important in handling and creating instances of stability. Further, we attempt to show how old stories are told in new ways, while adapting to changing needs of its members created by contextual developments. We provide a discursive analysis of an institutional video on Knowledge Management, four in-depth interviews with members of the Argentine Association of Regional Consortiums of Agricultural Experimentation (AACREA), a rural farming association and a set of twenty-one interview transcripts from the institution's archives. An analysis of dualities present in the stories show how change is both managed (sense-giving) and understood (sense-making). We refer to five of these dualities and show how the tension they carry is functional and productive to the growth and development of the organization.