Barbara Czarniawska
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199594566
- eISBN:
- 9780191595721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199594566.003.0008
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
The received view of organizations is that they are tools used to achieve collective goals. This chapter presents the possibility that, like all tools that become cumbersome, obsolete, or simply ...
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The received view of organizations is that they are tools used to achieve collective goals. This chapter presents the possibility that, like all tools that become cumbersome, obsolete, or simply inadequate, organizations can hinder organizing. Like tools, they do have a solid existence that cannot be ignored. And just like tools, they can be put to unexpected uses: they can become an obstacle to the achievement of collective goals. A return to the generic meaning of the term “organization” as a synonym of constructed order may reveal intricacies of organizing that have been obscured by the presently ruling conceptualization.Less
The received view of organizations is that they are tools used to achieve collective goals. This chapter presents the possibility that, like all tools that become cumbersome, obsolete, or simply inadequate, organizations can hinder organizing. Like tools, they do have a solid existence that cannot be ignored. And just like tools, they can be put to unexpected uses: they can become an obstacle to the achievement of collective goals. A return to the generic meaning of the term “organization” as a synonym of constructed order may reveal intricacies of organizing that have been obscured by the presently ruling conceptualization.
Robert Chia
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199594566
- eISBN:
- 9780191595721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199594566.003.0007
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
Process is an ambivalent term. Its use in organizational research and theorizing is widespread. Yet, there are important subtle differences in how the term is understood. Process may be construed ...
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Process is an ambivalent term. Its use in organizational research and theorizing is widespread. Yet, there are important subtle differences in how the term is understood. Process may be construed either as an epiphenomenon of substantial organizational entities or as a primary condition of reality from which the phenomenon of organization spontaneously emerges. Each perspective gives rise to a different theoretical focus and agenda for the field of organization studies. In this chapter, I explore new avenues for understanding process and organization. I show that the idea of ultimate reality as formless, undifferentiated, and ceaselessly changing has been a basic intuition of the ancient Oriental world since time immemorial; one that remains widespread and influential in shaping contemporary Eastern mentalities and dispositions. I further show how this Oriental metaphysical attitude towards process, flux, and self‐transformation enables us to better appreciate the phenomenon of social organization as essentially the cumulative effect of a stabilizing, simple‐locating, and identity‐creating human impulse. From a process organization perspective then, organization studies ought to be more concerned with analyzing the dominant organizational mentalities involved in structuring social reality than with the analysis of “organizations.”Less
Process is an ambivalent term. Its use in organizational research and theorizing is widespread. Yet, there are important subtle differences in how the term is understood. Process may be construed either as an epiphenomenon of substantial organizational entities or as a primary condition of reality from which the phenomenon of organization spontaneously emerges. Each perspective gives rise to a different theoretical focus and agenda for the field of organization studies. In this chapter, I explore new avenues for understanding process and organization. I show that the idea of ultimate reality as formless, undifferentiated, and ceaselessly changing has been a basic intuition of the ancient Oriental world since time immemorial; one that remains widespread and influential in shaping contemporary Eastern mentalities and dispositions. I further show how this Oriental metaphysical attitude towards process, flux, and self‐transformation enables us to better appreciate the phenomenon of social organization as essentially the cumulative effect of a stabilizing, simple‐locating, and identity‐creating human impulse. From a process organization perspective then, organization studies ought to be more concerned with analyzing the dominant organizational mentalities involved in structuring social reality than with the analysis of “organizations.”
Barbara Czarniawska
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198296140
- eISBN:
- 9780191716584
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198296140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
This book provides an alternative perspective on organization studies, introducing an approach that draws on narratology, literary theory, cultural studies, and anthropology, contrasting it with the ...
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This book provides an alternative perspective on organization studies, introducing an approach that draws on narratology, literary theory, cultural studies, and anthropology, contrasting it with the assumptions of the positivist social science. It reflects on such issues as possibility of combining narrative and scientific knowledge, the presence and absence of plot in organization studies, the dominance of the realistic stylization in organization studies, the relationship between organization studies and detective stories, and the challenge of polyphony in organization studies. The aim of the book is to demonstrate how the art of persuasion (as opposed to the simple presentation of facts) can be deployed in social sciences in general and in management and organization studies in particular. Management and organization studies confront the world that is polyphonic and polysemic. The task of the discipline is to render this state of affairs in adequate texts.Less
This book provides an alternative perspective on organization studies, introducing an approach that draws on narratology, literary theory, cultural studies, and anthropology, contrasting it with the assumptions of the positivist social science. It reflects on such issues as possibility of combining narrative and scientific knowledge, the presence and absence of plot in organization studies, the dominance of the realistic stylization in organization studies, the relationship between organization studies and detective stories, and the challenge of polyphony in organization studies. The aim of the book is to demonstrate how the art of persuasion (as opposed to the simple presentation of facts) can be deployed in social sciences in general and in management and organization studies in particular. Management and organization studies confront the world that is polyphonic and polysemic. The task of the discipline is to render this state of affairs in adequate texts.
Majken Schultz, Steve Maguire, Ann Langley, and Haridimos Tsoukas
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199640997
- eISBN:
- 9780191738388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640997.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
The introductory chapter elaborates on the relevance of a process perspective to studies of identity, and presents the eleven individual chapters included in this volume, which focuses specifically ...
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The introductory chapter elaborates on the relevance of a process perspective to studies of identity, and presents the eleven individual chapters included in this volume, which focuses specifically on the concept of “identity” in and around organizations. The constructing of identities—those processes through which actors in and around organizations claim, accept, negotiate, affirm, stabilize, maintain, reproduce, challenge, disrupt, destabilize, repair, or otherwise relate to their sense of selves and others—has become a critically important topic in the study of organizations. Part I of the volume presents seven chapters dealing explicitly with this theme, while Part II offers four complementary contributions that address broader issues in process organization studies.Less
The introductory chapter elaborates on the relevance of a process perspective to studies of identity, and presents the eleven individual chapters included in this volume, which focuses specifically on the concept of “identity” in and around organizations. The constructing of identities—those processes through which actors in and around organizations claim, accept, negotiate, affirm, stabilize, maintain, reproduce, challenge, disrupt, destabilize, repair, or otherwise relate to their sense of selves and others—has become a critically important topic in the study of organizations. Part I of the volume presents seven chapters dealing explicitly with this theme, while Part II offers four complementary contributions that address broader issues in process organization studies.
Barbara Townley
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199298358
- eISBN:
- 9780191700880
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199298358.003.0006
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
A contextual rationality recognizes that rational action does not need to be fully aware of the reasons for action, nor does it have to be fully informed of the causal efficacy of action for it to ...
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A contextual rationality recognizes that rational action does not need to be fully aware of the reasons for action, nor does it have to be fully informed of the causal efficacy of action for it to constitute a rational thing to do. Both elements may be left to the ‘context’ in which the action takes place to gain their significance as rational action. This chapter outlines how contextual rationality has been handled in organization studies and illustrates how context is integral to the functioning of rationality.Less
A contextual rationality recognizes that rational action does not need to be fully aware of the reasons for action, nor does it have to be fully informed of the causal efficacy of action for it to constitute a rational thing to do. Both elements may be left to the ‘context’ in which the action takes place to gain their significance as rational action. This chapter outlines how contextual rationality has been handled in organization studies and illustrates how context is integral to the functioning of rationality.
R. Daniel Wadhwani and Marcelo Bucheli
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199646890
- eISBN:
- 9780191756320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646890.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges presented by the incorporation of historical research and reasoning into management and organizational studies, and argues that the value of ...
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This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges presented by the incorporation of historical research and reasoning into management and organizational studies, and argues that the value of history lies in its ability to offer unique perspectives on management, organizations, and markets, rather than in providing a longitudinal version of social scientific explanations. Researchers interested in the use of history will need to recognize its distinct epistemic assumptions and its employment of a retrospective viewpoint to understand organizational behavior and cognition, and to understand the particular methodological approaches the historical perspective entails. The chapter introduces these issues and examines them against the backdrop of growing interest in the use of historical evidence and reasoning to study organizations. It introduces the essays contained in the collected volume Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods and frames them in relationship to the broad topic of historical methods in organizational research.Less
This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges presented by the incorporation of historical research and reasoning into management and organizational studies, and argues that the value of history lies in its ability to offer unique perspectives on management, organizations, and markets, rather than in providing a longitudinal version of social scientific explanations. Researchers interested in the use of history will need to recognize its distinct epistemic assumptions and its employment of a retrospective viewpoint to understand organizational behavior and cognition, and to understand the particular methodological approaches the historical perspective entails. The chapter introduces these issues and examines them against the backdrop of growing interest in the use of historical evidence and reasoning to study organizations. It introduces the essays contained in the collected volume Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods and frames them in relationship to the broad topic of historical methods in organizational research.
Hüseyin Leblebici
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199646890
- eISBN:
- 9780191756320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646890.003.0003
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
This chapter explores the evolving relationship between organization studies and history, specifically business and management history during the first decade of the 21st century. The front end ...
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This chapter explores the evolving relationship between organization studies and history, specifically business and management history during the first decade of the 21st century. The front end provides a descriptive investigation on the status of historical research in the management field and the nature of interdisciplinary discourse in related fields such as sociology and economics. The second part explores possible reasons behind the limited expansion of interdisciplinary work by bringing various arguments about the nature of explanation, description, and causal arguments developed in different disciplines. A strong integration between these cultures of inquiry requires not only understanding but also appreciating the epistemological and ontological foundations of the other side in order to make such integration possible. The concluding section provides a short catalogue of alternatives for a more productive cooperation between these two fields and suggests that a more fruitful solution is to focus on transdisciplinary rather that interdisciplinary research.Less
This chapter explores the evolving relationship between organization studies and history, specifically business and management history during the first decade of the 21st century. The front end provides a descriptive investigation on the status of historical research in the management field and the nature of interdisciplinary discourse in related fields such as sociology and economics. The second part explores possible reasons behind the limited expansion of interdisciplinary work by bringing various arguments about the nature of explanation, description, and causal arguments developed in different disciplines. A strong integration between these cultures of inquiry requires not only understanding but also appreciating the epistemological and ontological foundations of the other side in order to make such integration possible. The concluding section provides a short catalogue of alternatives for a more productive cooperation between these two fields and suggests that a more fruitful solution is to focus on transdisciplinary rather that interdisciplinary research.
Behlül Üsdiken and Matthias Kipping
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199646890
- eISBN:
- 9780191756320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646890.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
This chapter examines how the relationship between history and what is now known as organization studies has unfolded over the past 100 years. Our central argument is that the significance of history ...
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This chapter examines how the relationship between history and what is now known as organization studies has unfolded over the past 100 years. Our central argument is that the significance of history has been shaped largely by the evolution of the broader field of business education and research, though with some geographic variation. Thus, the fairly strong early link with history weakened significantly after the 1950s due to the post-war shift towards scientization in US business schools and the ensuing specialization and fragmentation into sub-fields, which not only resulted in a separate disciplinary identity for organization studies but also marginalized business and management history within business education and research. The chapter traces these changes chronologically, addressing, at the end, the recent revival of interest in history and the intellectual context paving the way for a rapprochement, as well as different directions for furthering the relationship between history and organization studies.Less
This chapter examines how the relationship between history and what is now known as organization studies has unfolded over the past 100 years. Our central argument is that the significance of history has been shaped largely by the evolution of the broader field of business education and research, though with some geographic variation. Thus, the fairly strong early link with history weakened significantly after the 1950s due to the post-war shift towards scientization in US business schools and the ensuing specialization and fragmentation into sub-fields, which not only resulted in a separate disciplinary identity for organization studies but also marginalized business and management history within business education and research. The chapter traces these changes chronologically, addressing, at the end, the recent revival of interest in history and the intellectual context paving the way for a rapprochement, as well as different directions for furthering the relationship between history and organization studies.
Michael Rowlinson and John Hassard
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199646890
- eISBN:
- 9780191756320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646890.003.0006
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
Organization studies and business history are situated in the wider historical context of the cultural turn in society in the late 20th century and the culture wars that broke out over ...
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Organization studies and business history are situated in the wider historical context of the cultural turn in society in the late 20th century and the culture wars that broke out over multiculturalism. The prospects for a rapprochement between business history and organization studies brokered by cultural theory are considered. The focus is on the problematic issues of narrative and identity and the implications for conducting historical research in organization studies. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first gives an outline of the cultural, or culturalist turn in history, and its implications for business history. The second part then considers the prospects for a culturally informed ‘historic turn’ or historical reorientation in organization studies. The third part identifies examples of what could be called deconstructionist history in organization studies. The final part then considers the prospects for a self-conscious return to narrative history, informed by cultural and organization theory.Less
Organization studies and business history are situated in the wider historical context of the cultural turn in society in the late 20th century and the culture wars that broke out over multiculturalism. The prospects for a rapprochement between business history and organization studies brokered by cultural theory are considered. The focus is on the problematic issues of narrative and identity and the implications for conducting historical research in organization studies. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first gives an outline of the cultural, or culturalist turn in history, and its implications for business history. The second part then considers the prospects for a culturally informed ‘historic turn’ or historical reorientation in organization studies. The third part identifies examples of what could be called deconstructionist history in organization studies. The final part then considers the prospects for a self-conscious return to narrative history, informed by cultural and organization theory.
Majken Schultz, Steve Maguire, Ann Langley, and Haridimos Tsoukas (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199640997
- eISBN:
- 9780191738388
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640997.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
The constructing of identities—those processes through which actors in and around organizations claim, accept, negotiate, affirm, stabilize, maintain, reproduce, challenge, disrupt, destabilize, ...
More
The constructing of identities—those processes through which actors in and around organizations claim, accept, negotiate, affirm, stabilize, maintain, reproduce, challenge, disrupt, destabilize, repair, or otherwise relate to their sense of selves and others—has become a critically important topic in the study of organizations. This volume attempts to amplify—and possibly refract—contemporary debates among identity scholars that question established notions of identity as “essence,” “entity,” or “thing.” It calls for alternative approaches to understanding identity and its significance in contexts in and around organizations by conceptualizing it as “process”—that is, being continually under construction. On the basis of diverse theoretical and philosophical traditions and contexts, contributions by leading scholars to this volume offer new perspectives on how individual and organizational identities evolve and come to be constructed through ongoing activities and interactions.Less
The constructing of identities—those processes through which actors in and around organizations claim, accept, negotiate, affirm, stabilize, maintain, reproduce, challenge, disrupt, destabilize, repair, or otherwise relate to their sense of selves and others—has become a critically important topic in the study of organizations. This volume attempts to amplify—and possibly refract—contemporary debates among identity scholars that question established notions of identity as “essence,” “entity,” or “thing.” It calls for alternative approaches to understanding identity and its significance in contexts in and around organizations by conceptualizing it as “process”—that is, being continually under construction. On the basis of diverse theoretical and philosophical traditions and contexts, contributions by leading scholars to this volume offer new perspectives on how individual and organizational identities evolve and come to be constructed through ongoing activities and interactions.
JoAnne Yates
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199646890
- eISBN:
- 9780191756320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646890.003.0011
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
This chapter introduces business historical methods to organizational scholars by comparing them to qualitative methods in organization studies. After describing the split between qualitative and ...
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This chapter introduces business historical methods to organizational scholars by comparing them to qualitative methods in organization studies. After describing the split between qualitative and quantitative methods in organizational and historical studies, the chapter discusses similarities and differences in data sampling and access, explicitness of methods, temporality, varieties of and preferences for data types, and genres of publication. It ends with recommendations for how historical scholars can make their research more visible in management journals: incorporate oral interviews and retrospective analyses to triangulate with the contemporaneous documentary record, leverage the view from the future allowed by historical research, shift more emphasis to article writing while also working to convince management scholars of the value of scholarly books, and adapt the historical article genre to better fit with that followed in organizational journals, including making methods more explicit.Less
This chapter introduces business historical methods to organizational scholars by comparing them to qualitative methods in organization studies. After describing the split between qualitative and quantitative methods in organizational and historical studies, the chapter discusses similarities and differences in data sampling and access, explicitness of methods, temporality, varieties of and preferences for data types, and genres of publication. It ends with recommendations for how historical scholars can make their research more visible in management journals: incorporate oral interviews and retrospective analyses to triangulate with the contemporaneous documentary record, leverage the view from the future allowed by historical research, shift more emphasis to article writing while also working to convince management scholars of the value of scholarly books, and adapt the historical article genre to better fit with that followed in organizational journals, including making methods more explicit.
Martin Fuglsang and Bent Meier Sorensen
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748620920
- eISBN:
- 9780748652365
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748620920.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book focuses on the implications of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's thinking on the social sciences and organisation. It is concerned with the most basic notions of ‘the social’. It seeks ...
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This book focuses on the implications of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's thinking on the social sciences and organisation. It is concerned with the most basic notions of ‘the social’. It seeks both to comprehend the ‘multiplicity’ of the social — in Deleuzian terms, the ‘becoming’ of the social itself; and it seeks to develop a new social analytical practice. Each of the chapters aims to show the strength of as well as practice the radicalism of a Deleuzian and Guattarian approach to social science and organisation studies. This book is about order, subjectivity, art, capitalism and the construction of a social ontology. It avoids scholasticism by foregrounding its authors' shared concern for practical issues. How is social order constituted? How is resistance possible between the rush of capitalism and the overcoding of the State? How are thinking and living possible? This book raises these questions and many more.Less
This book focuses on the implications of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's thinking on the social sciences and organisation. It is concerned with the most basic notions of ‘the social’. It seeks both to comprehend the ‘multiplicity’ of the social — in Deleuzian terms, the ‘becoming’ of the social itself; and it seeks to develop a new social analytical practice. Each of the chapters aims to show the strength of as well as practice the radicalism of a Deleuzian and Guattarian approach to social science and organisation studies. This book is about order, subjectivity, art, capitalism and the construction of a social ontology. It avoids scholasticism by foregrounding its authors' shared concern for practical issues. How is social order constituted? How is resistance possible between the rush of capitalism and the overcoding of the State? How are thinking and living possible? This book raises these questions and many more.
Glenn R. Carroll and Kieran O’Connor
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226127156
- eISBN:
- 9780226127293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226127293.003.0012
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
This concluding chapter provides a synthetic review of the research program on biology and organizational behavior laid out in the book. Taking a broad view, the chapter suggests that the book ...
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This concluding chapter provides a synthetic review of the research program on biology and organizational behavior laid out in the book. Taking a broad view, the chapter suggests that the book reflects two main themes that contain unique and somewhat separate sets of issues for organization studies, a first theme that focuses primarily on the organic basis of behavior including genes, and a second theme that explicitly brings evolution and evolutionary processes into the picture. Although these two themes can be discussed in relative isolation because they each raise important unique issues and challenges to behavioral researchers, the chapter also considers the two themes jointly and simultaneously. Doing so is important because the promise of combining the two approaches makes this “biological foundations” project unique and potentially path-breaking. But the combination also makes the project extremely challenging and perhaps daunting for reasons articulated in the chapter.Less
This concluding chapter provides a synthetic review of the research program on biology and organizational behavior laid out in the book. Taking a broad view, the chapter suggests that the book reflects two main themes that contain unique and somewhat separate sets of issues for organization studies, a first theme that focuses primarily on the organic basis of behavior including genes, and a second theme that explicitly brings evolution and evolutionary processes into the picture. Although these two themes can be discussed in relative isolation because they each raise important unique issues and challenges to behavioral researchers, the chapter also considers the two themes jointly and simultaneously. Doing so is important because the promise of combining the two approaches makes this “biological foundations” project unique and potentially path-breaking. But the combination also makes the project extremely challenging and perhaps daunting for reasons articulated in the chapter.
Alan Baron, John Hassard, Fiona Cheetham, and Sudi Sharifi
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198813958
- eISBN:
- 9780191851865
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198813958.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies, Public Management
The literature on management and organization studies suggests the time is right for a focus on ‘care and compassion’. The aim of this book is to answer this call by examining the cultural changes ...
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The literature on management and organization studies suggests the time is right for a focus on ‘care and compassion’. The aim of this book is to answer this call by examining the cultural changes found within a particular ‘compassionate organization’—an English hospice—from its altruistic beginnings to the more professionalized culture of today. The study seeks to understand how its members identify or fail to identify with an organization where issues of life and death take centre stage and explores some of the problems the Hospice faces regarding its representation in society. These strands are then drawn together to consider the interrelationships between culture, identity, and image in the organization. An ethnographic approach—including participant observation, extended interviews, and group meetings—was used to study this organization over a period of almost two years. This enabled the production of a nuanced, sensitive, and holistic interpretation of the case study Hospice as inferred from the views of both insiders and outsiders. The findings shed new light on the literature in management studies by proposing a view of culture as a sense-making context that facilitates group socialization underpinning a sense of personal and organizational identity. The study suggests a link between culture and group identification, making discussions about culture almost inseparable from those around identity. With regard to identity and image, however, the study suggests a dynamic and iterative relationship with a continuous flow between interpretation and reinterpretation influenced by the all-pervading cultural context.Less
The literature on management and organization studies suggests the time is right for a focus on ‘care and compassion’. The aim of this book is to answer this call by examining the cultural changes found within a particular ‘compassionate organization’—an English hospice—from its altruistic beginnings to the more professionalized culture of today. The study seeks to understand how its members identify or fail to identify with an organization where issues of life and death take centre stage and explores some of the problems the Hospice faces regarding its representation in society. These strands are then drawn together to consider the interrelationships between culture, identity, and image in the organization. An ethnographic approach—including participant observation, extended interviews, and group meetings—was used to study this organization over a period of almost two years. This enabled the production of a nuanced, sensitive, and holistic interpretation of the case study Hospice as inferred from the views of both insiders and outsiders. The findings shed new light on the literature in management studies by proposing a view of culture as a sense-making context that facilitates group socialization underpinning a sense of personal and organizational identity. The study suggests a link between culture and group identification, making discussions about culture almost inseparable from those around identity. With regard to identity and image, however, the study suggests a dynamic and iterative relationship with a continuous flow between interpretation and reinterpretation influenced by the all-pervading cultural context.
Phaedra Daipha
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226298542
- eISBN:
- 9780226298719
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226298719.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This book draws on a two-year ethnography of forecasting operations at the National Weather Service (NWS) to theorize decision-making in action. Contrary to popular wisdom, weather forecasters are ...
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This book draws on a two-year ethnography of forecasting operations at the National Weather Service (NWS) to theorize decision-making in action. Contrary to popular wisdom, weather forecasters are considerably better than most other so-called expert decision-makers at mastering uncertainty. Following them in their quest for ground truth, therefore, promises to hold the key to the analytically elusive process of diagnosis and prognosis as it actually happens. That is the ultimate objective of this book—by systematically excavating how weather forecasters achieve a provisional coherence in the face of deep uncertainty, how they harness diverse information to project themselves into the future, it endeavors to develop a better conceptual framework for studying uncertainty management in action. Accordingly, the six empirically substantive chapters of the book illuminate key aspects of the process of meteorological decision-making at the NWS: the institutionalized socio-technical environment in which forecasters operate, the forecast production routine; the distillation of atmospheric complexity; the negotiation of accuracy and timeliness in the face of hazardous weather and after a missed forecast; the organization of future anticipation at different time horizons; the tradeoffs of offering expert advice to multiple audiences. The proposed conceptual framework provides the analytic tools to maintain sustained attention to the stable cultural and broader social field of decision-making practice but without losing sight of the situationally-driven micro-context of action and interaction. It reinstates decision-makers as makers of decisions, creatively implementing institutional goals in locally rational ways in order to fashion a workable solution to the decision-making task at hand.Less
This book draws on a two-year ethnography of forecasting operations at the National Weather Service (NWS) to theorize decision-making in action. Contrary to popular wisdom, weather forecasters are considerably better than most other so-called expert decision-makers at mastering uncertainty. Following them in their quest for ground truth, therefore, promises to hold the key to the analytically elusive process of diagnosis and prognosis as it actually happens. That is the ultimate objective of this book—by systematically excavating how weather forecasters achieve a provisional coherence in the face of deep uncertainty, how they harness diverse information to project themselves into the future, it endeavors to develop a better conceptual framework for studying uncertainty management in action. Accordingly, the six empirically substantive chapters of the book illuminate key aspects of the process of meteorological decision-making at the NWS: the institutionalized socio-technical environment in which forecasters operate, the forecast production routine; the distillation of atmospheric complexity; the negotiation of accuracy and timeliness in the face of hazardous weather and after a missed forecast; the organization of future anticipation at different time horizons; the tradeoffs of offering expert advice to multiple audiences. The proposed conceptual framework provides the analytic tools to maintain sustained attention to the stable cultural and broader social field of decision-making practice but without losing sight of the situationally-driven micro-context of action and interaction. It reinstates decision-makers as makers of decisions, creatively implementing institutional goals in locally rational ways in order to fashion a workable solution to the decision-making task at hand.
Eitan Y. Wilf
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226606835
- eISBN:
- 9780226607023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226607023.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter introduces the main question the book addresses, namely how to explain the rise in innovation’s popularity together with the mounting suspicion that innovation has become a catch-all ...
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This chapter introduces the main question the book addresses, namely how to explain the rise in innovation’s popularity together with the mounting suspicion that innovation has become a catch-all phrase that is devoid of meaning. It situates the rise of business innovation in the context of post-Fordist flexible accumulation and argues that the study of business innovation provides an opportunity to contribute to critical studies of capitalism as a future-producing and future-oriented social configuration with respect to three main concerns in such studies: commodity fetishism, “unmet” consumer needs, and the production of the future. The chapter’s first half presents the book’s main argument, the ethnographic setting and fieldwork, and the outline of chapters. Its second half provides a detailed analysis of one historical context that explains the emergence of business innovation as a key dimension of the contemporary business world. It argues that throughout the twentieth century organizational and management theorists gradually began to conceptualize organizations as entities whose logic encompasses uncertainty as a natural component that provides a crucial resource for their survival, and that a number of organizational theorists consequently turned to the creative arts in general, and jazz music in particular, in search for adequate organizational models.Less
This chapter introduces the main question the book addresses, namely how to explain the rise in innovation’s popularity together with the mounting suspicion that innovation has become a catch-all phrase that is devoid of meaning. It situates the rise of business innovation in the context of post-Fordist flexible accumulation and argues that the study of business innovation provides an opportunity to contribute to critical studies of capitalism as a future-producing and future-oriented social configuration with respect to three main concerns in such studies: commodity fetishism, “unmet” consumer needs, and the production of the future. The chapter’s first half presents the book’s main argument, the ethnographic setting and fieldwork, and the outline of chapters. Its second half provides a detailed analysis of one historical context that explains the emergence of business innovation as a key dimension of the contemporary business world. It argues that throughout the twentieth century organizational and management theorists gradually began to conceptualize organizations as entities whose logic encompasses uncertainty as a natural component that provides a crucial resource for their survival, and that a number of organizational theorists consequently turned to the creative arts in general, and jazz music in particular, in search for adequate organizational models.
Alan Baron, John Hassard, Fiona Cheetham, and Sudi Sharifi
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198813958
- eISBN:
- 9780191851865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198813958.003.0010
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies, Public Management
This chapter discusses the findings of the study through the lens of the academic literature on management and organization. Initially the authors revisit the questions that form the basis of this ...
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This chapter discusses the findings of the study through the lens of the academic literature on management and organization. Initially the authors revisit the questions that form the basis of this research and examine the relative inaccessibility of the culture concept and the challenges this brings for ethnographic researchers. They then examine the nature of the relationship between culture, identity, and image as supported by the results of this investigation and frame the analysis within a broader contextual discussion of hospice history and tradition. Finally they offer further reflections on organization culture as variously an integrating, differentiating, and ambiguous phenomenon, and on the image of the hospice as seen through the eyes of significant ‘others’ in its institutional environment, and notably other healthcare professionals.Less
This chapter discusses the findings of the study through the lens of the academic literature on management and organization. Initially the authors revisit the questions that form the basis of this research and examine the relative inaccessibility of the culture concept and the challenges this brings for ethnographic researchers. They then examine the nature of the relationship between culture, identity, and image as supported by the results of this investigation and frame the analysis within a broader contextual discussion of hospice history and tradition. Finally they offer further reflections on organization culture as variously an integrating, differentiating, and ambiguous phenomenon, and on the image of the hospice as seen through the eyes of significant ‘others’ in its institutional environment, and notably other healthcare professionals.
Paul R. Carlile, Davide Nicolini, Ann Langley, and Haridimos Tsoukas (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199671533
- eISBN:
- 9780191751189
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199671533.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
The contributions collected in this volume emerged from the Third International Symposium on Process Organization Studies held in Corfu in June 2011, bringing together a diverse group of scholars ...
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The contributions collected in this volume emerged from the Third International Symposium on Process Organization Studies held in Corfu in June 2011, bringing together a diverse group of scholars energized by process ideas. This volume is composed of papers which all share a focus on materiality, process and organizing. Ironically, although human lives towards the second half of the last century have become increasingly mediated by objects and artifacts and have depended heavily on the functioning of technical systems, materiality in a broad sense became relatively marginalized as a topic of research interest. This volume contributes to redressing the balance by drawing together the work of scholars involved in exploring the sociomaterial dimensions of organizational life. The authors represented in the book offer a new conceptual repertoire and vocabulary that allows us to think and talk more deeply about the social and material as being inherently entangled. Like the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, this collection displays the richness that characterizes process thinking, and combines philosophical reflections, with novel conceptual perspectives and insightful empirical analyses.Less
The contributions collected in this volume emerged from the Third International Symposium on Process Organization Studies held in Corfu in June 2011, bringing together a diverse group of scholars energized by process ideas. This volume is composed of papers which all share a focus on materiality, process and organizing. Ironically, although human lives towards the second half of the last century have become increasingly mediated by objects and artifacts and have depended heavily on the functioning of technical systems, materiality in a broad sense became relatively marginalized as a topic of research interest. This volume contributes to redressing the balance by drawing together the work of scholars involved in exploring the sociomaterial dimensions of organizational life. The authors represented in the book offer a new conceptual repertoire and vocabulary that allows us to think and talk more deeply about the social and material as being inherently entangled. Like the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, this collection displays the richness that characterizes process thinking, and combines philosophical reflections, with novel conceptual perspectives and insightful empirical analyses.
Megan Raby
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635606
- eISBN:
- 9781469635613
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635606.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
The 1960s and 1970s saw a wave of highly influential publications on problems of the distribution and ecological controls on species diversity, which drew heavily on data from key tropical field ...
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The 1960s and 1970s saw a wave of highly influential publications on problems of the distribution and ecological controls on species diversity, which drew heavily on data from key tropical field sites. Yet, at this same moment U.S. scientists’ future in the tropics was thrown into question. Revolution swept Cuba and protests erupted in Panama against the U.S. occupation of the Canal Zone. U.S. tropical biologists confronted the loss of access to their most important tropical stations. They responded by realigning themselves, creating professional organizations, and taking new steps toward international collaboration. As chapter 5 explains, they also recast their justifications for the support of basic research. Tropical research was not merely in the U.S. national interest, they began to argue; understanding the biological diversity of the tropics was essential for sustainable global development.Less
The 1960s and 1970s saw a wave of highly influential publications on problems of the distribution and ecological controls on species diversity, which drew heavily on data from key tropical field sites. Yet, at this same moment U.S. scientists’ future in the tropics was thrown into question. Revolution swept Cuba and protests erupted in Panama against the U.S. occupation of the Canal Zone. U.S. tropical biologists confronted the loss of access to their most important tropical stations. They responded by realigning themselves, creating professional organizations, and taking new steps toward international collaboration. As chapter 5 explains, they also recast their justifications for the support of basic research. Tropical research was not merely in the U.S. national interest, they began to argue; understanding the biological diversity of the tropics was essential for sustainable global development.
Raghu Garud, Barbara Simpson, Ann Langley, and Haridimos Tsoukas
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198728313
- eISBN:
- 9780191795275
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198728313.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
This introductory chapter clarifies how contemporary organizational scholars view emergence and novelty. As the use of these terms has grown, their meanings have become increasingly diffuse. In ...
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This introductory chapter clarifies how contemporary organizational scholars view emergence and novelty. As the use of these terms has grown, their meanings have become increasingly diffuse. In response, the chapter explicates three lenses that tease out core distinctions between different philosophical and theoretical approaches to studying emergence. Each of the three lenses-spatial emergence, relational emergence, and temporal emergence-is based on a unique pairing of underlying assumptions about the exogenized or endogenized nature of both space and time. Each also has particular implications for practitioners seeking insights into emergence, and for researchers conducting studies on emergence. The chapter also introduce the other chapters in this volume, which offer a variety of philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives on the theme of novelty emergence. Chapters in Part I engage directly with this theme. The chapters in Part II address developments more generally in the domain of process organization studies.Less
This introductory chapter clarifies how contemporary organizational scholars view emergence and novelty. As the use of these terms has grown, their meanings have become increasingly diffuse. In response, the chapter explicates three lenses that tease out core distinctions between different philosophical and theoretical approaches to studying emergence. Each of the three lenses-spatial emergence, relational emergence, and temporal emergence-is based on a unique pairing of underlying assumptions about the exogenized or endogenized nature of both space and time. Each also has particular implications for practitioners seeking insights into emergence, and for researchers conducting studies on emergence. The chapter also introduce the other chapters in this volume, which offer a variety of philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives on the theme of novelty emergence. Chapters in Part I engage directly with this theme. The chapters in Part II address developments more generally in the domain of process organization studies.
