Talking About Organizations Podcast: Recent Episodes
Tom Galvin | Ralph Soule | Pedro Monteiro
Talking About Organizations is a conversational podcast where we talk about one book, journal article or idea per episode and try to understand it, its purpose and its impact. By joining us as we collectively tackle managerial and organizational problems, you get the full benefit of active and organic thinking as opposed to passive receiving that normally accompanies a monologue or a lecture. Subscribe to our feed and begin Talking About Organizations as we take on great management thinkers of past and present!
In this month’s episode, we discuss Mark Granovetter's 1985 paper, Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness. Granovetter's work provided a middle ground between two overly simplistic perspectives presented respectively by economists and sociologists-- the undersocialized view that treated individuals as isolated, purely rational agents and the oversocialized perspective that viewed individuals as enmeshed in social norms and lacking personal agency. Embeddedness allows social ties, trust, and networks to mediate economic transactions—reducing uncertainties, lowering transaction costs, and facilitating cooperation.
Coming soon! We will discuss Mark Granovetter's 1985 paper, "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness." He argued that economic behavior is not the product of isolated rational calculations, nor is it fully determined by social norms. Instead, individuals are embedded in a complex network of relationships that simultaneously provides structure and allows for personal discretion.
In Part 2 of the episode on Harry Braverman’s book Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the 20th Century, we consider the half-century since its publication and how things turned out rather differently from Braverman’s predictions at the end of the book. Algorithmic management, deunionization, globalization, and advances in technology have furthered conditions that Braverman argued against. Why is that, and what does it mean for his original thesis?
In this month’s episode, we discuss Harry Braverman’s book Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the 20th Century. Along with his criticism of how work had been systematically deskilled over time, he was also highly critical of many of the seminal authors and schools of thought that he felt enabled this shift. Among his targets were scientific management under Frederic Taylor, but also the human relations school, the Hawthorne Studies, Joan Woodward, and other seminal authors we have covered in this program. Hmm, what gives? Listen and find out.
Coming soon! We will examine Harry Braverman’s 1974 book Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the 20th Century. It is considered a foundational text on labor relations and the systematic ways that work has been deskilled over time and why. How well have his arguments stood the test of time to the present day?
In Part 2 of our episode on Barley, we conclude the discussion on the relationship that he drew among the institutionalized patterns of behavior in the hospitals, the actions that the radiologists and technologists undertook, and the subsequent changes to those patterns. How can we use these ideas to better understand work and technological change today? Are there other newer lenses with which we can make sense of on-going structuration?
This month we discuss a foundational work by Steven Barley on the introduction of new technologies into established organizations. His study of the fielding of CT scanners in two hospitals showed how established organization structures and patterns of behavior influenced actions undertaken by radiologists and the new CT technologists, which in turn changed the structures in the hospital. This study contributed to a greater understanding of the relationships between institutions and action.
Steven Barley’s career has produced considerable scholarship on meaningful work and change in organizations. This month’s episode will cover one of his earliest works on the introduction of CT scanners in two hospitals that greatly altered the structures of their respective radiology departments. Of interest was the story of how that restructuring took place. Stay tuned!
In Part 2 of our episode on Prasad, we shift our attention to his 2003 book chapter titled “The gaze of the other: Postcolonial theory and organizational analysis” that synthesizes the foundational works of postcolonial theory and tie it to cross-cultural challenges faced by contemporary organizations. We also discuss the implications of the theory in the two decades that followed given the significant global changes that have occurred. How well does the theory hold up given that some of its premises might have shifted?
Anshuman Prasad (1954-2023) was a leading scholar and development of postcolonial theory and bringing it to the domain of management and organization studies. The theory strove to explain the significance influences and impacts that Western colonialism had on non-Western cultures and its implications for organizations located in non-Western settings. We are reading two of his many works, one about the specific use of science as a tool of colonialism and the other is a book chapter that summarizes the works of the early postcolonial theorists.
Coming soon! We will cover the works of Anshuman Prasad and his development of postcolonial theory and its use in organizational analysis. By examining the origins and spread of Western thought through the colonial period, he explains how much of the Western philosophies and epistemologies remain dominant and the cross-cultural challenges that this presents.
This is Part 2 on our discussion of Fligstein’s 1996 article, “Markets as politics: A political-cultural approach to market institutions." Here we work our way through the 16 propositions” (or provocations as we would refer to them)and test them out from a contemporary view. Do they make sense in retrospect? Do they continue to lend themselves toward a useful research agenda? What alternative or additional propositions might we come up with?
Fligstein’s 1996 article, “Markets as politics: A political-cultural approach to market institutions,” was an important contribution to the field of economic sociology, countering the dominant neoclassical view of economics that failed to explain market behaviors in practice. He argued for an alternative paradigm – a “political-cultural” model that suggested that the formation of markets was part of “state building” and subjected to various social institutions that belonged to the state such as property rights and rules of exchange. A very provocative piece that bridges institution theory with theories of social action.
We will cover the economic sociology of Neil Fligstein, who countered the dominant 1990s-era neoclassical view of economics that failed to explain well various market behaviors being observed at the time. He argued for an alternative paradigm – a “political-cultural” model that suggested that the formation of markets was part of “state building” and subjected to various social institutions that belonged to the state.
We are launching the TAOP Resource Center! The Resource Center is a repository for entry-level scholars to learn more about “what’s out there.” What are the major fields of scholarship, tools of the trade, and phenomena of interest to researchers and practitioners alike. This release is an introduction to the structure of the Center and how to navigate it. We also invite contributions!
The Talking About Organizations Podcast website is more than just a host for great conversations. It is also a resource for rising scholars of organization theory and management science. And so, to launch our 10th year of podcasting and with 120+ episodes covering so many great classics of organization studies, we decided the website and the program needed a boost. Part 1 is a conversation about professional knowledge in which we explain some of the challenges that organizations face in maintain their corporate base of knowledge and expertise
In Part 2 on Zbaracki’s “The rhetoric and reality of Total Quality Management,” we look at contemporary examples of rhetoric-reality gaps. Not being confined to “business fads,” there are many other cases where threatened legitimacy of an organization can lead it to acting defensively and avoid public acknowledgement of significant problems. What can or should managers do to avoid getting caught in a “lie” (or a really robust “fish story”)?
This month we explore a renowned multiple-case study commonly assigned as foundational readings in organization studies programs. Mark Zbaracki’s “The rhetoric and reality of Total Quality Management” chronicled the development and introduction of Total Quality Management (TQM) into the corporate environment, only to find that in many cases its implementation did not align with the promises made by leaders about process improvements nor did firms fully exercise all the practices and activities that TQM required. The question that Zbaracki posed was more than to what extent did this rhetoric-reality unfold, but why?
Coming soon! You might not have heard of Total Quality Management (TQM) but you no doubt have encountered pre-packaged performance improvement programs like it. What happens when the promises and rhetoric surrounding such a program exceed the realities of its implementation? Such is the subject of Mark Zbaracki’s “The rhetoric and reality of Total Quality Management” that explored its implementation in several different sites, finding that oftentimes the pressures to maintain organizational legitimacy overtake all other considerations.
In Part 2 on DiMaggio & Powell’s “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizations,” we revisit the revisitation. 40 years following the article finds the world in the midst of the information age, while the article was still written in industrial times. Do the ideas still hold up, and might we consider isomorphism as more or less prevalent?
In this episode, we discuss “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizations,” a ground breaking article by sociologists Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell in 1983. The authors argued that the traditional views of why organizations tended to assimilate one another was not explained by the pursuit of rationality or efficiency. Rather, they did so in response to many other stimuli such as regulatory pressures, professional norms, and the need to reduce uncertainty. But why “the iron cage revisited”? The article was inspired by Weber’s use of the metaphor to describe how bureaucratization was destined to enslave humanity. That it did not (at least not to the extent anticipated) spurred the question of why else do organizations model themselves after others in their fields.
Coming soon! We will tackle “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizations,” a ground breaking article by sociologists Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell in 1983. They argued that the traditional views of why organizations tended to assimilate one another was not explained by the pursuit of rationality or efficiency. Rather, they did so in response to many other stimuli such as regulatory pressures, professional norms, and the need to reduce uncertainty.
The episode on Roethlisberger and Dickson concludes with a discussion of the contemporary meanings and importance of the Hawthorne studies. The authors concluded the book with the idea that executives should establish dedicated positions of leadership for mastering the human dimension of work in their firms and become experts in solving human problems so to maintain morale and optimize productivity. But was this heeded? Is it time to revisit this finding?
We return for another look at the Hawthorne Studies through Fritz Roethlisberger and William Dickson’s 1939 book Management and the Worker. The work chronicles five years of experiments that initially sought the optimal conditions for increased worker performance but evolved into an examination of the social controls that worker exercise over themselves for self-preservation against managerial decisions. It also includes an introspective look into the researchers themselves as they had to design new experiments to make sense of the surprising and contradictory findings. The book is incredibly detailed and laid the foundation for the development of the Human Relations tradition in organization studies.
We return for another look at the Hawthorne Studies through Fritz Roethlisberger and William Dickson’s 1939 book Management and the Worker. The work chronicles five years of experiments that initially sought the optimal conditions for increased worker performance but evolved into an examination of the social controls that worker exercise over themselves for self-preservation against managerial decisions. It also includes an introspective look into the researchers themselves as they had to design new experiments to make sense of the surprising and contradictory findings. The book is incredibly detailed and laid the foundation for the development of the Human Relations tradition in organization studies.
This is the second half of our presentation of asymposium titled “Design Choices: Examining the Interplay of OrganizationalStructure and Digital Technologies” from the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Here we will present an edited version of the question andanswer session.
This month we present a recording of a symposium titled “Design Choices: Examining the Interplay of Organizational Structure and Digital Technologies” from the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Digital technologies now underpin the very fabric of the workplace; how tasks are assigned, bundled, and monitored partially hinges on the design of such technologies. Four panelists discuss various perspectives on the matter including design thinking, disparities of structures and norms that the same technologies generate among different nations, and the need to formally differentiate design research from design practice.
This month we present a recording of a symposiumtitled “Design Choices: Examining the Interplay of Organizational Structure and Digital Technologies” from the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Digital technologies now underpin the very fabric of the workplace; how tasks are assigned, bundled, and monitored partially hinges on the designof such technologies. Four panelists discuss various perspectives on the matter including design thinking, disparities of structures and norms that the sametechnologies generate among different nations, and the need to formally differentiate design research from design practice.
We conclude our episode on economic sociology and valuation by looking at the impact work has had on contemporary research. Societies continue to wrestle with how to properly assign value to intangible things such as non-fungible tokens and other cryptocurrencies, “climate change,” and “social media.” There are also questions of the value and utility of expertise in legal proceedings – is it better to have the best expert as a witness or an expert who is a more effective communicator?
Economic sociology bridges economics and sociology, exploring questions such as how social environments explain and influence economic activities. Of interest for this episode is the subfield of economic valuation, in which researchers have been studying how the monetary worth of something is formed or constructed. One influential work is Marion Fourcade’s “Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation and the Nature of‘Nature’,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 2011. The article explores the economic valuation of peculiar goods, things that are intangible or otherwise cannot be exchanged in a market yet have a socialvalue, and uses a case study of the legal proceedings following oil spills in the US and France to explain why the monetary awards were calculated so differently from each other.
Coming soon! We enter the field of economic sociology and valuation through a comparative study by Marion Fourcade on the different legal outcomes of oil spills in the US and France. “Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation and the Nature of ‘Nature’,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 2011, presents a case study of the legal proceedings following oil spills in the US (the Exxon Valdez) and France (the Amoco Caldez) where the two lawsuits resulted in surprisingly different monetary awards to the plaintiffs. Why? The answers lie in how the nations constructed the very meaning of nature and its ostensible value.
We conclude our episode on Resource Dependence Theory (RDT) by discussing its continued influence over organization studies and management science to present day. Does RDT help us better understand how organizations try to cope with contemporary challenges like social media technologies or the impacts of the COVID pandemic and its aftermath? What would Pfeffer and Salancik have to say about the roles of managers today?
Resource Dependence Theory (RDT) represented a significant departure from extant literature on management and organization studies in the 1970s. Prior to the publication of Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald’s The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective in 1978, the social context and environment surrounding organizations were little studied. In the book, Pfeffer & Salancik argued that the behaviors or organizations and their managers were driven by the context, because of the need for resources in order to survive. Thus, managerial decisions were based far more on how to manage interdependencies with external social actors than what would presumably lead to objectively better outcomes. They believe RDT explains more accurately the kinds of managerial behaviors observed and how organizations chose (and fired) their executives than other theories of the time.
Coming soon! We will Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald’s The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective that introduced Resource Dependence Theory on how organizations were dependent on the environment for resources and survival, that the environment often included social actors who sought control over organizations, and that managerial decisions sought in turn to mitigate or respond to that control.
We conclude our episode on Robert K. Merton by examining contemporary challenges of conducting field work and the implications for the continued pursuit of rigorous science. How has field work changed or what new barriers have emerged? How must the academic community adapt to the present challenges of being able to conduct quality research?
Robert K. Merton was a sociologist who founded the study of the sociology of science, how acts of research influence and are influenced by the contexts being studied. Two of his early essays exemplify this body of work whereby he and his research teams reflect on the challenges and difficulties of performing field work. Inthis episode, we examine two speeches delivered in 1947 – “The Machine, the Worker, and the Engineer” and “Selected Problems of Field Work in the PlannedCommunity” – that exemplifies the effort to better understand how to study social change in organizations due to technology change.
We will explore two of the early works of renowned sociologist Robert K. Merton whose interests included studying the processes of field work in order to improve the quality and rigor of field studies. What are the challenges and difficulties of doing research in environments rife with conflict and tension?
In this bonus release, Tom talks about using Trist & Bamforth's study as a way of teaching professionals (student-practitioners) about managing organizational change. By telling the story in a way that does not require mastery of the coal-getting terminology, Tom shows how to bring the case study to life for a contemporary audience and help them see what the sociotechnical systems framework can do to help them understand the implications of introducing new methods or technologies without consideration of the social consequences.
This is the continuation of our review of socio-technical systems through a re-release of Episode 34 from 2017, slightly edited for clarity. Part 2 of the episode is titled "Social-Technical Systems and Organizational Theory."
With over 110 episodes in our catalogue, we decided it was time to take a step back and revisit one of our earlier episodes that continues to come up time and again. Episode 34, covering Trist & Bamforth’s study on the longwall method of coal-getting, was referenced in sixteen (16) episodes since its release. That is more than any other episode! This re-release includes a new supplement further the conversation to contemporary issues and a sidecast on the use of this study as a cautionary tale for professional education.
In Episode 114, we re-examine one of our earlier episodes that covered Trist & Bamforth’s study on the longwall method of coal-getting (Episode 34) is the most referenced of any episode we have released. In this introductory segment, Pedro & Tom take a retrospective look at the episode, why it was included in the program back in 2017, and why it continued to come up in conversation over and over again in the seven years since.
Coming soon! We will re-examine one of our earlier episodes which deserves another look. Trist & Bamforth’s study on the longwall method of coal-getting (Episode 34) is the most referenced of any episode we have released. Here we go back and look at the study with fresh eyes, bringing the conversation forward to the present day.
We conclude our discussion about the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own” by peeling back the fictionalized aspects of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) and talk about what happened with the league following World War II. What allowed it to continue for nine more years, and why did it cease? We bring the story to contemporary times where women’s team sports is a growth industry and professional leagues in basketball, soccer, and ice hockey are gaining ground in sports business in the USA.
The rapid growth of women’s professional team sports has a far-reaching history, and many contemporary women’s athletes have honored the legacy of pioneers as their inspiration. Included in this legacy is the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) that existed from 1943 through 1954 in the U.S. and popularized through the 1992 film “A League of Their Own,” directed by Penny Marshall and starring a large ensemble cast including Geena Davis and Tom Hanks. In addition to describing the lived experiences of the league’s first players, it captures how deeply embedded and institutionalized baseball was in the US such that fears of losing it due to World War II and the drafting of players into military service caused baseball owners to create a women’s league. The movie touches on various important organizational themes such as gender and organization, innovation, change, professions, morality clauses, and media engagement.
We will examine, through an organizational lens, one of the great sports comedies of the late 20th century, A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall. The movie tells the story of how the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League formed through a fictionalized account of the lived experiences of the players. The movie helped inspire the growth of women’s professional team sports that began in the 1990s and continues to this day.
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We conclude our look at Lawrence Peter’s The Peter Principle by discussing why the Principle is timeless is its quality. Our contemporary experiences with hierarchies may have changed due to greater mobility of workers, but the Principle itself provokes our thinking about management. We also discuss how Peter used satire to present his points and why it seems to be so effective in this particular instance. Is satire a reasonable method to launch and disseminate ideas, and if so, how and when it is most suitable?
The diligent administrative assistant moves up to supervisor but fails. The assembly line worker is promoted to foreman but cannot do the job. A teacher earns a deputy principal position in a school but falls flat on their face. Why is that? Why does this seem to happen across organizations?
In The Peter Principle, Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull not only provides answers to these questions, they delve into all the possible implications. The Principle goes like this, “In a hierarchy, everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” How they derived this principle the subject of our conversation that explores one of the funniest but more insightful book on the perils of organizational life ever written.
We will provide our take on The Peter Principle, the book that provided the old adage, “In a hierarchy, everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” While the book was written as satire, it touched a nerve of many people frustrated about organizational life. A fun episode!
We conclude the episode by looking to the present day and how the negotiations over work visibility has evolved since the turn of the 21st century. Have the emergence of social media, emergence of general computing platforms over the proprietary systems from the 1990s, and increased competitive pressures driving quests for efficiency challenged or reinforced the arguments that Star and Strauss made in the article? Reviews and reactions are decidedly mixed.
In this episode, we focus on the emerging discourse from the 1990s on how automated systems would potentially change the very meaning of work. The discussion is on a seminal work of Susan Leigh Star and co-author Anselm Strauss, “Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work,” published in CSCW’s flagship journal, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, in 1999. The article focuses on the challenges and risks of automating work processes without due consideration of all the invisible work done in an organization that systems designers might overlook. Moreover, it addresses the unintended consequences of making invisible background work visible, such as making it easier for managers to monitor and control.
We will discuss Susan Leigh Star’s “Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work,” published in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work in 1999. The article deals with the challenges and risks of automating work processes without due consideration of all the invisible work done in an organization that systems designers might overlook.
Since Edelman’s two articles were published, a lot of research has followed into the ever-evolving environment engulfing organizations and the legal systems they operate under. It is more important to comply with the letter of the law or its intent? Why do organizations expend so much energy trying to avoid legal liability rather than pursue the intentions of the legislators to improve employer-employee relationships, such as in the case of civil rights law that tries to eliminate discrimination from the workplace?
In this episode, we explore two articles from Lauren Edelman, “Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law” from 1992 and “The Endogeneity of Legal Regulation: Grievance Procedures as Rational Myth” from 1999. These studies showed a wide variety of organizational responses to the enactment of civil rights legislation, but that certain responses were legitimated due to their success in symbolically showing effort in addressing discrimination and thus institutionalized across other organizations.
Coming soon! We examine the works of Lauren Edelman who explored organizations and their responses to new laws that impact their relationships with employees. Using civil rights laws as an illustration, she shows how ambiguities in the law and unclear enforcement mechanisms contribute to organizations having to define and measure compliance themselves, leading to outcomes that may deviate from the law’s intentions.
Professional competition both within the personal problems jurisdiction and from outside it (e.g., insurance and accounting) continued to shape the availability and quality of mental health care to the present day. Yet the landscape has changed – social stigmas against those seeking mental health care seem to have waned. Yet, the cost and lack of access to care has also led to alternative, mostly non-professional, approaches to dealing with personal problems. Grounded on Abbott’s work, we consider some of these dynamics in a time of technological changes and increasing challenges to professions and their expertise.
In this episode, we return to Andrew Abbott’s The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor from 1989 to study in depth one of his case studies that may illuminate the present-day mental health crises gripping many nations from the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Construction of the Personal Problems Jurisdiction” chronicles how social changes from the Industrial Revolution led to the maladjustment and isolation felt by many newly industrialized workers who could no longer reach back to the stable social structure from whence they came. As a result, several professions emerged and competed for jurisdiction over the diagnosis and treatment of personal problems.
We return to Andrew Abbott’s System of Professions and examine the third of his case studies that informed his conceptual framework for understanding professional work and jurisdictional claims. “The Construction of the Personal Problems Jurisdiction” chronicled how social changes from the Industrial Revolution led to the maladjustment and isolation felt by many. As a result, several professions emerged and competed for jurisdiction over the diagnosis and treatment of such personal problems—what we currently label mental health problems.
The 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman became a seminal text for several emergent subfields such as impression management and symbolic interactionism, while also greatly influences studies of organizational behavior. But it was also a product of its time, with its many examples and explanations rooted in societal norms or behaviors that have long since changed or dissipated. How well does the original text truly stand up to today’s post-pandemic environment?
Erving Goffman’s 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life was an important attempt at explaining both apparent and hidden human behaviors across social and organizational settings. Through a comprehensive framework employing theater as a metaphor, he describes the roles of people as performers and members of an audience who try to shape the unfolding situation in ways suitable to their aims. Meanwhile, there is a backstage where people return to being themselves and proceed to set conditions for the next performance, and rules and protocols seek to protect such backstage behaviors from unwanted observation or disclosure. The aim for each person is to be seen in the best or most purposeful light.
Our next episode features Erving Goffman’s 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life that presents a comprehensive framework for understanding human interactions and impression management. Through numerous examples, he explains how humans in social settings try to read and shape the environment so they can act accordingly within it and generate the desired reactions of others present. This is accomplished through the metaphor of theater and dramaturgical analysis.
In the conclusion of this episode on Meyer and Rowan’s “Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony,” we review some of the studies that followed and how well the author’s arguments have stood the test of time. We explore contemporary examples that show how conformity to institutionalized rules is necessary for organizations to survive, yet, because they can detract from the organization’s purpose, organizations enact rituals to show that it is adhering to the “rules”, yet in practice they try to shield their core work processes from interruption or intervention.
In this month’s episode, we discuss John Meyer and Brian Rowan’s famous 1977 article “Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.” In it, they argued that “institutionalized products, services, techniques, policies, and programs function as powerful myths, and many organizations adopt them ceremonially” (p. 340), even if they result in organizations becoming less efficient or effective in their intended missions or purposes. In fact, these myths can become so powerful as to stigmatize organizations that reject them. In Part 1, we explore the author’s arguments in depth and compare it to the rational theories of organizing that dominated beforehand.
We explore John Meyer and Brian Rowan’s famous 1977 article “Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.” Coming at a time when rational theories of organizing faced multiple challengers, Meyer and Rowan proposed that institutionalization of socially accepted (or demanded) norms played a significant role in driving formal structures. The article has led to significant and relevant research in institution theory that continues to this day.
We sit down with Woody Powell and Bob Gibbons who, since 2016, have been organizing the summer institute on Organizations and Their Effectiveness at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) in Stanford, California. We ask them to reflect on the history of CASBS and the summer institute, the value of fostering interdisciplinary conversations on the study of organizations, and the way in which they design and conduct the summer institute to allow young scholars across economics, sociology, management, public policy, political science, information and communication studies, and other fields, to learn from one another.
We conclude our discussion of Alvin Gouldner two-part article, “Cosmopolitans and locals: Toward an analysis of latent social roles.” In the second part of the article, Gouldner presented an initial proposal for a taxonomy of four types of locals and two types of cosmopolitans as a way kickstart the broader research agenda. However, this groundbreaking study had some significant limitations, most notably that the separation between manifest and latent roles was problematic. After addressing the contemporary implications of this article, we cover some of the different directions followed by recent scholars to bring more clarity to the latent role construct.
Alvin Gouldner wrote the article, “Cosmopolitans and locals: Toward an analysis of latent social roles” in 1957 to propose that through the 1950s latent roles had been seriously overlooked by scholars. Manifest roles, described as those roles and role identities that are directly related to one’s defined position in the organizational structure, had been the sole focus. Latent roles comprised the complementary roles that members made salient but were not officially recognized. Instead, managers might dismiss such roles as “irrelevant, inappropriate, or illegitimate” to recognize formally despite them being essential in the organization’s social fabric.
We will discuss a two-part article by Alvin Gouldner titled “Cosmopolitans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Roles.” Before 1957, studies on work roles focused solely on manifest roles that emerged directly from the positions held. The hidden or unstated work roles had not been studies. Gouldner’s article argued that this was a major research gap and proposed six latent roles exhibited among workers in a university to kickstart the research agenda.
We conclude our discussion of Arthur L. Stinchcombe’s book chapter, “Social Structure and Organizations,” by looking at the present-day impacts. As a foundational text, Stinchcombe’s work has influenced numerous subsequent studies and has been cited tens of thousands of times. In this second part, we discuss how while Stinchcombe’s primary focus was on how societies influenced organizations, social and technological changes are raising questions on how organizations influence societies through new ideologies, employment relations, and work structures.
In a famous chapter in James G. March’s 1965 book, Handbook of Organizations, Arthur L. Stinchcombe laid out a case for expanding the study of organizations outward to include social structure bringing attention to innovation as well as imprinting and inertia. He posited that societies had significant effects on how organizations emerge and operate and that organizations, in turn, impact relations among groups in society. He presented his arguments in three parts. First, that social structures had an imprinting effect on the formation of new organizations, such that these initial forms often persisted despite efforts to change them. Thus, to the second point, each type of organization reflected the history of its creation both in terms of the organization and social structures that dominated at the time. Finally, organizations also reflect the social divisions in society, such as between higher and lower classes.
We will discuss the 1965 pathbreaking essay “Social Structure and Organizations” by Arthur L. Stinchcombe, where he articulated how societies had significant effects on organizations and that organizations in turn had effects on society. Listen to this discussion on a foundational text in organization studies.
We conclude our discussion of Barley & Kunda’s article in Organization Science titled “Bringing Work Back In.” We ask ourselves to what extent are the author’s argument still valid (in short, they certainly are) and how much more urgency there is to understand the work context given the rapid shifts in technology and the reweaving of the social fabric that has changed the meaning of work-life balance. Also, which scholars are trying to lead the way with new studies on work?
In their 2001 Organization Science article “Bringing Work Back In,” Steven Barley and Gideon Kunda lamented how the study of work, its organization, and its performance shifted after the 1950s. Work was the center of attention among the classic era of organization studies beginning with Frederic Taylor, but afterward, the focus shifted to post-bureaucratic concepts such as boundaryless organizations and networks. Barley and Kunda argues that these new ideas are not grounded in rigorous studies of how people perform work in such new organizations.
Coming soon! We will discuss Steven Barley and Gideon Kunda’s critique about how the study of work, its organization, and its performance were no longer the focus of organization studies and call for a renewed focus on work in current research.
We conclude our discussion of Alfred Sloan’s “My Years at General Motors” with a look at the post-war automotive boom to the present day and the introductions of electric cars, foreign manufacturers establishing operations within the US, and the future of transportation. We also discuss how newer emerging technologies and lean manufacturing initiatives have changed the ways that corporations operate nowadays.
Alfred Sloan was President, Chairman, and CEO of General Motors from 1923 to 1956. His memoir “My Years at General Motors” tells his story about how he took a corporation consisting of several disparate and competing companies and shaped them into division that manufactured cars tailored to different segments of society. He constantly pursued and integrated new technologies into the automobiles themselves while also shaping the buying experience through the introductions of different styles, improved relations with dealings, and financial services that rivaled banks.
Coming soon! We will dive into the history of the automotive industry with a look at Alfred Sloan’s famous memoir, “My Years at General Motors.” The book chronicles the growth of General Motors and the industry from the 1920s through the 1950s and how the corporation overcame economic crises, World War II, and the post-war automobile boom. A terrific story about executive leadership in an emerging industry and professionalism in business.
We conclude our discussion of Frederick Herzberg’s book “The Motivation to Work” and the Two-Factor theory of job satisfaction it presents. What are the implications for contemporary managers and workers? To what extent do employers default to dealing with environmental issues to stem complaints rather than takes steps to improve performance and reward achievement?
Frederick Herzberg’s “The Motivation to Work” presents the results of over 200 interviews with engineers and accountants working in the Pittsburgh area regarding what satisfied and dissatisfied them on the job. They would find that factors leading to satisfaction, such as achievement and performance, were very different than those leading to dissatisfaction, such as company policies or relationships with co-workers and managers. The result became known as Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction, also known as the motivator-hygiene theory.
Coming soon! We will discuss the studies that led to Frederick Herzberg’s two-factor theory of job satisfaction, published in the book “The Motivation to Work” with colleagues Bernard Mausner and Barbara Snyderman. The studies included interviews with over 200 engineers and accountants regarding what satisfied and dissatisfied them on the job.
For our 100th episode, we look outward toward the various fields of study that have fed into our podcast – organization studies, organization theory, management science, and others – and ask how strong or healthy those fields are. The disciple has, after all, gotten very big with thousands of scholars around the world doing important field work, research, and consultancy projects. But it has also become more fragmented and is experiencing the stresses and strains of a mature profession. So in this one-part reflection, we think about what we have learned so far in 100 episodes stretching over 7-1/2 years and where we might like to see the field go in the coming years.
We conclude our discussion of Joan Acker’s article “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations,” from 1990 and bring the ideas of feminist theories of organization to contemporary times. From economic difficulties to the effects of the pandemic, workers are increasingly having to balance work with the need to provide care to their families, but global competitive pressures are causing companies to pursue even greater efficiencies. How do Acker’s ideas help us navigate these challenging times?
Joan Acker’s 1990 article “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations” was a significant work in feminist theories of organizations. She charged that prior feminist research had wrongly assumed that organizational structures were gender neutral. Instead, everything about organizations from structures to symbols are inherently gendered, and until that was acknowledged and studied, organizations would continue to reinforce long-standing gender inequalities. The article is significant for its synthesis of a growing body of research that questioned the claims of gender neutrality in organizational practices that creates and sustains barriers to women’s equality in the workplace.
We will discuss Joan Acker’s article “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations,” from 1990. This article signaled a clarion call to change the direction of organizational research to acknowledge the inherent gendering built into processes and structures in the workplace. This would allow for the development of organizations that would be more democratic and humane.
We conclude our discussion of the classic book The Management of Innovation from Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker with a look at contemporary myths of innovation, such as the idea that innovation can or should be outsourced to small “start-up” style firms or that innovators or the process of innovation should be separated from the rest of the organization. We also look at the roles of “manager directors” or chief executives in leading innovation in their firms.
Why do firms seemingly have difficulties converting new ideas into goods or services? The answer is in the classic book The Management of Innovation from Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker that explored the difficulties that firms, industries, and even nations had in innovating due to the disruptions that it brings to power structures and social fabric in organizations. They also explored key misunderstandings about innovation (such as that the false narrative that bureaucratic structures inherently cannot innovate) and the source of of conflicts across different departments and work groups trying to innovate.
Coming soon! We will discuss The Management of Innovation from Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker, a classic of innovation theory and the source of an important theoretical construct – the mechanistic and organic systems of management. Their aim was to understand the fit of these systems with different conditions and the conflict and barriers that organizations face as they attempt to change how they operate.
We conclude our discussion of Invictus by looking through an organizational perspective at sports, social change, and the ways leaders manage organizations to build inclusive cultures. While sports can unite people, we also discuss how sports can also create or exacerbate tensions. How does one reap the possible benefits of sport and connect it to social change for higher purposes?
The 2009 film Invictus tells the story of how the first post-Apartheid President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, used sports as a unifying force to overcome lingering and bitter racial divides in the nation. The movie and the real-life events that inspired it are powerful. We will look at it through an organizational lens and discuss insights related to leadership, team building, change and other management topics.
We go to the movies – looking at the 2009 film Invictus through an organizational lens. It tells the story of Nelson Mandela from the time of assuming the Presidency of South Africa to the nation’s hosting of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. How did Mandela use sport to unite a bitterly divided nation and what insights does this story provide for management theory and practice?
We conclude our discussion of Zuboff’s "In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power" by projecting her conclusions to the present day. On the one hand, many of her findings about the creative ways that management reasserts its authority are still relevant today, but she had also offered strategies for integrating new technologies in ways that would improve both work performance and worker commitment and satisfaction. Would such strategies work today?
This month, we discuss Shoshana Zuboff’s "In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power" that examines several cases of organizations introducing information technologies in the workplace hoping to improve organizational performance, transparency, and collaboration but instead dehumanized the workplace and ushered in new ways of managerial surveillance. In Part 1, we discuss the major themes of the book, her telling of the histories of both blue- and white-collar work, and her incredible case studies.
Coming soon! We will discuss Shoshana Zuboff’s ethnographic study of how work changed with the introduction of information technologies in the 1980s. "In the Age of the Smart Machine" discusses how computers changed the meaning of work for both front line industrial workers and their managers, telling a rich cautionary tale about how these technologies upset the balance of power in the workplace and what managers did about it
We conclude our discussion of Lupton’s "On the Shop Floor" by looking at both the importance of the study as a classic example of ethnography and the benefits of participant-observation, followed by the application of Lupton’s findings in the modern post-pandemic workplace. To what extent do contemporary concerns such as the “great resignation” or “quiet quitting” echo Lupton’s findings, and what are possible implications for today’s workers and managers?
This month, we discuss examine Lupton’s famous study of worker-management relations, On the Shop Floor: Two Studies of Workshop Organization and Output published in 1963. Tom Lupton spent 12 months as a factor worker in two different settings examining why workers intentionally worked at a level below management expectations. He found that social structures formed that protected workers from overuse or abuse by management and ensured a stable pay. These structures discouraged workers from working too hard or not hard enough. In Part 1, we will examine the cases in depth and present Lupton’s findings.
We will examine Lupton’s famous study of worker-management relations, On the Shop Floor: Two Studies of Workshop Organization and Output published in 1963. This significantly overlooked study examined social structures in the workplace that kept production levels below that expected by management and why they were permitted. His findings may provide some insights into similar challenges in the contemporary workplace.
We conclude our discussion of Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger’s "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation," focusing on what occurred since the book’s publication. While communities of practice and their development and management have fueled active conversations, this was not necessary the intended direction of the book. In fact, the book raised more questions about situated learning than it answered. What does that mean for contemporary scholars, especially as new remote modes of learning are becoming more commonplace?
This month, we discuss Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger’s Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, published in 1991. This short but powerful book presents a new way of thinking about adult learning as a social activity in which experienced members of a group or community of practice share their knowledge with new members to perpetuate the group identity. They present five case studies – one by Lave herself with four from other researchers – to help broaden the perspective of how situated learning works social involvement in which newer members are initiated through the exercise of low-risk or controlled tasks. In Part 1, we present the book and the case studies to examine how the theory emerged inductively.
We will examine Lave & Wenger’s (1991) renowned book "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation" that developed a novel theory of learning. This short but powerful book presents a new way of thinking about adult learning as a social activity in which experienced members of a group share their knowledge with new members to perpetuate the group identity. It became the foundation for the rich development of literature on communities of practice!
We conclude our presentation of this year’s professional development workshop (PDW) on key approaches to the study of work with a panel discussion. Presenters Steve Barley, Gina Dokko, Ingrid Erickson, and Davide Nicolini answer some challenging questions about work, its management, and related social issues. This PDW was held at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Seattle, Washington in the U.S.
We continue with two more presentations from this year’s professional development workshop (PDW) on key approaches to the study of work. Ingrid Erickson presents on the Computer Supported Collaborative Work tradition, and Davide Nicolini discusses the Tavistock Institute and associated socio-technical systems tradition. This PDW was held at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Seattle, Washington in the U.S.
This year’s professional development workshop (PDW) on Classics of Organization and Management Theory explored key approaches to the study of work and was held at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Seattle, Washington in the U.S. It represents the fourth edition of a standing series showcasing the enduring relevance of early organizational research. Part 1 covers the first two presentations by Steve Barley on the work of the Chicago School tradition of study on work and occupations, and Gina Dokko on traditions of research into employment and careers.
We will present a recording of the presentations and panel discussion of a professional development workshop (PDW) on approaches to the study of work. This was held at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Seattle, Washington in the U.S.
We conclude our discussion of organizational secrecy using the Manhattan Project during World War II as a case study, focusing mostly on the aftermath. As the devastating effects of employing nuclear weapons is realized, key scientists from the Manhattan Project hoped that they would be banned. Instead, the Cold War ensued and proliferation became a global concern. What therefore are the longer term impacts of institutionalizing secrecy?
We are examining organizational secrecy using the Manhattan Project during World War II as a case study. The Manhattan Project came about following the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and the understanding that Nazi Germany was trying to develop a powerful weapon that could change the course of the war. Naturally, the American effort had to be kept secret to hide both the existence of the project and, failing that, any information about progress and potential employment. How did they do it and what challenges did they face? What could we learn about maintaining secrets in contemporary organizations?
We will examine organizational secrecy using the Manhattan Project during World War II as a case study. The Manhattan Project was an effort to devise, develop, and test the world’s first nuclear weapons, an effort whose public disclosure could have been devastating. From the case, we will examine what organizations decide needs to be kept from outside observation, why, how they accomplish it, and to what extent they succeed.
We conclude our discussion of Follett’s Dynamic Administration with a look at contemporary issues. The COVID-19 pandemic arguably made pragmatists of many of us as we navigated the challenges and shifted to different modes of working! But as the pandemic recedes to an uncertain new normal, now what? Can we sustain and grow ‘power-with’ and avoid falling back to old forms of competition and ‘power-over’?
We return to the works of Mary Parker Follett and expand upon “The Law of the Situation” that we covered in Chapter 5. In this episode, we revisit Dynamic Administration with a look at the first five chapters as a whole – focusing on Chapter 1 (“Constuctive Conflict”), Chapter 3 (“Business as an Integrative Unity”), Chapter 4 (“Power”), and Chapter 5 (“How Must Business Management Develop in order to Possess the Essentials of a Profession”) that introduced Follett’s conception of professionalizing business.
We return to the works of Mary Parker Follett and explore her ideas on professionalizing business. Expanding on our examination of her “law of the situation” in Episode 5, we look at constructive conflict, organizational integration, and power. Together, these ideas represent a pragmatic approach to business where collaboration is the norm and channels competition toward the good of the organization rather than any one party within it.
As we conclude our discussion of James D. Thompson’s Organizations in Action, we focus on the final chapters where Thompson proposes his theory of administration whose basic function is proposed as co-alignment. This meant that organizations had to synthesize the needs and perspectives of individual members with the many streams of institutionalized action performed by the organization. What would become of the research agenda Thompson proposed nearly 55 years ago?
We examine James D. Thompson’s Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory from 1967 that established a new direction in organization studies. Beginning with a recapitulation of the theoretical work of the time, Thompson expanded the dominant rational model of organizing with the emerging ideas about human behaviour, complexity, and the relation between organizations and their environments. The result was a proposed theory of administration that remains relevant to this day.
We will examine James D. Thompson’s Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory from 1967 that proposed a new theory of administration based on a synthesis of rational and natural models of organization and ushered management into an open-systems paradigm. A class of administrative science that still informs organizational research today!
In the conclusion of our examination of Herbert Kaufman’s “The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior,” published in 1960, we bring the results of the study to contemporary times and look at how public sector organizations have evolved in the past six decades. As Kaufman would explain in an afterword in the revised version of his book, even the Forest Service face difficulties as civil rights and other movements took hold in the time after the original study. What are the pressures facing public servants today? To what extent are the lessons of Kaufman still relevant?
This month’s episode examines a classic study in public administration, Herbert Kaufman’s “The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior,” published in 1960. The U.S. Forest Service was a widely distributed organization with its many Rangers individually assigned to manage large tracts of public land. It would have been easy for the Forest Service to lose control and fragment, but it did not. Kaufman’s study showed how and why the various techniques used by the Forest Service kept the Rangers integrated under a common vision.
This month’s release is on Herbert Kaufman’s study of forest rangers in the 1950s, looking at how the Forest Service worked to keep hundreds of Rangers scattered around the country unified under a common purpose and vision. The study is a classic of public administration and organizational behavior, showing various techniques that public sector organizations can use to hone a well-oiled bureaucracy!
In the conclusion of our examination of Isabel Menzies’ “A Case-Study in the Functioning of Social Systems as a Defence Against Anxiety,” we discuss more contemporary sources of anxiety and the various individual and collective methods used to defend against it. We generally found that what produces stress and how we cope with it may change, but the nature of anxiety and its natural presence in organizational life stays largely the same. So how can we apply Menzies’ findings to modern organizations?
This month’s episode examines one of the classic studies from the Tavistock Institute, Isabel Menzies’ “A Case-Study in the Functioning of Social Systems as a Defence Against Anxiety.” This famous study of how a teaching hospital developed odd and somewhat dysfunctional methods for protecting its nurses from anxiety and stress by effectively isolating nurses from the patients to prevent emotional attachment. Nursing students witnessing these methods in practice found them in violation of their expectations regarding care and their professional calling, and were quitting. What were these methods and why did they come about?
This month return to one of the classic studies from the Tavistock Institute, Isabel Menzies’ famous study of how a teaching hospital developed odd and somewhat dysfunctional methods for protecting its nurses from anxiety and stress. Listen here for a quick summary of the episode.
In the conclusion of our examination of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, we look more closely at how the text and its central ideas have been adopted in popular literature covering everything from business competition to personal relationships! But how does one judge whether or not an adaptation is suitable or if it is merely leveraged an ancient name to validate some pre-conceived notions?
This month’s episode examines war and how principles derived from it are presently applied to other organizational and management contexts. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is an ancient text that emerged from the Warring States period that lasted from the 5th through 3rd centuries B.C. and engulfed most of modern mainland China. It embraced the complexity of the environment of war, which therefore has allowed it to be adapted for navigating other forms of complexity such as business competition. We examine the text in its original context to understand its purpose and utility.
Now released! In our History & Culture series, we will examine Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. War is often used as a metaphor for other forms of competition, such as business and there are plenty of books in popular literature that appropriate Sun Tzu’s ideas for other purposes. But what does the text itself say and what insights in the nature and competition can we glean?
We are expanding our program and website! Opportunities to help us make TAOP a go-to resource for org. theory and management science! Find out here what we will be doing, and you might win a copy of March & Simon's Organizations! The survey is available here and is open until 13 March 2022: https://forms.gle/GXSAp294rAYNpUhW8
We conclude our examination of Granovetter’s 1973 article, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” by looking at how social networking has grown and changed in the last fifty years. Considering the emergence of information technologies and the different means available to connect with each other, along with the disruptive character of the pandemic, we discuss what has been learned over time and what it means going forward. Are we connecting better? If not, what could we be doing differently?
Granovetter’s 1973 article, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” introduced whole new ways of thinking about seemingly simple and straightforward topics and changed the direction of social research. He showed how “weak” ties, occasional connections between individuals among different networks, were powerful means for providing opportunities and new ideas not otherwise available. He also charted a way for researchers to connect micro-level interactions with macro-level patterns. The article was very successful, and whole new fields of study on social networks has emerged as a result.
This is a teaser for Episode 86, where we will examine Mark Granovetter’s “The Strength of Weak Ties” from 1973 that significantly changed the way researchers looked at interpersonal networks. How we connect with one other and for what purposes has taken on new meaning in the last few years. We will therefore give this classic article a fresh look and tackle the questions it raised as they apply to today.
We conclude our discussion of March and Simon’s Organizations with a look to the present day to see how well the book’s ideas have withstood the test of time. Are they helpful for explaining “novel” phenomena or ways of organizing? Have today’s qualitative methods made it feasible for researchers to study the more untestable propositions? How can one use the book to analyze practical problems of organizations?
In this episode, we discuss the second edition of James March and Herbert Simon’s classic text Organizations. In addition to the well-known concepts such as bounded rationality and satisficing, the book introduces an important critique of the mechanistic view that “classic” organization theory to that point approached organizations and its members. How do decisions get made? What causes individuals or join, stay in, or leave organizations? What about the causes and effects of conflict? We explore all this and more.
This is a teaser for Episode 85, on James March and Herbert Simon’s 1958 book "Organizations." It is one of the most-cited texts in organization studies, but apart from the ideas of bounded rationality and satisficing, much of the book is overlooked. In our next episode of the Talking About Organizations Podcast, we will tackle the full text and all of its propositions, many of which still ring true and deserve attention from researchers.
We conclude our discussion of Louis Brandeis’ “Business – A Profession” by looking at the contemporary situation, greatly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We consider the effects of stakeholder capitalism, increased worker dissatisfaction and willingness to leave their jobs, and other challenges , and ask ourselves to what extent might Brandeis’ ideas apply today?
What do the terms “Taylorism” or “scientific management” bring to mind? Difficult work environments? Managers push workers to their limits? Do more with less? But these were not the original intentions. The real intentions were to help workers conserve energy and complete their tasks more safely and efficiently. In an upcoming episode we will present the works of Louis Brandeis who coined the term scientific management and who wanted to professionalize business in ways that equally benefit customers and workers.
We discuss the life and works of Louis Brandeis who originated the term ‘scientific management’ that aimed at conserving effort and making work life more predictable, reducing worker stress and increasing satisfaction. He also advocated for a more altruistic and professionalized form of business leadership that served both the needs of customers or clients and those of the workers under their supervision. A collection of his lectures entitled “Business – A Profession” expounds on these ideas, and he includes a number of case studies and illustrations to show both the human and financial potential of his professed forms of management where profit would not be the only measure of a business’ success.
We conclude our discussion of Jay Galbraith’s portfolio of books and articles focusing on organizational design with a look at contemporary challenges facing managers. We raise common misconceptions about design, including those also found in Galbraith’s own work. In the process of revisiting the meaning of design, we consider how managers can leverage it to make their organizations better.
We discuss several works by Jay Galbraith on the theory and practice of organizational design, which is about creating organizations to provide better outcomes and serve the organization’s purpose and strategy. This episode begins with a focus on one of Jay Galbraith’s earlier publications, an article titled, “Organizational Design: An Information Processing View” for designing organizations to make better decisions in times of high uncertainty, and then brings in his more recent works promoting his five-point “Star Model,” a design tool for use by managers.
Concludes the presentation of a professional development workshop hosted at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management on female scholars whose works are often overlooked. Includes presentations Maja Korica on Rosemary Stewart, Maria José Tonelli on Isabel Menzies Lyth, and Lisa Cohen on Rosabeth Moss Kanter.
Presents a professional development workshop we hosted at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. It sheds light on the foundational texts of female scholars for the field of organization and management theory but whose work is often overlooked. Part 1 includes presentations by Emmanuelle Vaast on Jean Lave, Marta Calás on Edith Penrose, and Martha Feldman on Susan Leigh Star.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on societies and the workspace have demonstrated the importance of open conversations on matters of diversity and inclusion. The theme for the 37th Colloquium of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS), hosted virtually in July 2021 by the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, was “Organizing for an inclusive society: Meanings, motivations, and mechanisms.” In this special episode, we offer the keynote address of that colloquium by Mirjam van Praag, “The Value (Drivers) of Diversity: A Perspective from Research and Management Practice.” She provides insights from her research on the added value and imperative of sustaining diversity in the workplace.
We conclude our discussion of Sumantra Ghoshal’s article, “Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices,” with a further exploration of the purposes of business schools and the question of what exactly is a “good” management practice? If we are to break the feedback loop that Ghoshal is critiquing, where do we begin and what is required?
We discuss a critique of business education -- Sumantra Ghoshal’s article from the Academy of Management Learning and Education, “Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices.” He describes a feedback loop between schools and practitioners that has led to theories based on a “pretense of knowledge” that assumes causality and predictability of the business environment and a “gloomy vision” that assumes the worst of human nature. In effect, theories are built around ideas that managers cannot be trusted and matters of complexity can be managed through mathematical models, setting ethics and morals aside. A great think piece for considering the roles of business schools and professional education!
We continue our discussion of Jane Addams’ "A Modern Lear" and asked ourselves the same questions she asked. How can one approach a difficult, complex, or dynamic situation and avoid the conflagrations that engulfed the Pullman situation? To what extent can pragmatism contribute to a suitable approach for contemporary labor relations challenges?
We discuss a famous speech by Jane Addams, titled "A Modern Lear," her reflections on the events leading to and during the infamous Pullman Railway Strike of 1894. Using ideas drawn from the emergence of classic pragmatism and Shakespeare’s King Lear as an analogy, Addams took both the ownership and workers to task for the violence and provides a way to avoid a recurrence of such a tragedy. In Part 1, we discuss the reasons for the strike and how Addams’ reactions to it contributed to the speech’s content.
We continue our discussion of a classic 1954 book by Alvin Gouldner titled, 'Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.' We asked ourselves to what extent do the patterns that Gouldner and his research team uncovered still apply today, and how much do certain patterns seem to emerge more readily than others.
We discuss a classic 1954 book by Alvin Gouldner titled 'Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.' This describes the results of an ethnographic study conducted at a gypsum processing plant that included both a mine and a production line for construction materials. Gouldner and his team uncovered three distinct patterns of bureaucratic rules based on the acceptance and compliance of bureaucratic rules by workers and management.
We continue our discussion of the 1975 article by J. Richard Hackman and Greg R. Oldham in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.” We asked ourselves to what extent does the JDS apply today, by looking at a range of contexts and industries that present tough challenges for today’s job designers.
We discuss a 1975 article by J. Richard Hackman and Greg R. Oldham in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.” The purpose of the instrument was to help managers increase the motivational potential of jobs. They developed the JDS through the studies of existing jobs to determine what makes a job motivating and also how to improve the motivating potential of jobs from how they are defined and described. It remains a seminal reading in job design today. With Special Guest Lisa Cohen from McGill University.
We continue our discussion of the 1967 article from Charles Perrow, “A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Organizations.” We ask ourselves to what extent does the framework apply to any organization, and can it allow us to analyze organizations within the same industry that are otherwise incomparable – such as mass production firms or small-scale craft shops producing similar widgets.
We discuss a 1967 article from Charles Perrow, “A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Organizations.” Perrow proposed a framework for comparing organizations, largely around “technology” which in contemporary times would be taken to mean the work to be performed. The framework allows analysis of the character of the work being done, nature of the raw material (e.g., tangible objects or intangible symbols), and associated task and social structures.
In Part 2 of our episode on Selznick’s TVA and the Grass Roots, we discuss its implications on contemporary organizational studies. In many ways, the story of TVA mirrors those of many other grass-roots style operations that have taken place since. The “cooptative mechanism” Selznick identified, whereby power or the burdens of power are shared and co-evolve, showed the relevance of political relations in the legitimacy that organizations—particularly public ones—strive for in order to operate.
Philip Selznick's classic 1949 book, TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization contributed to his theory of organization. The TVA -- the Tennessee Valley Authority -- was formed to foster recovery from the Great Depression. But its very existence was controversial as it sat uncomfortably between public and private sectors, and between the federal and state levels of government. What were the challenges the TVA faced and how did this story contribute to Selznick’s theory?
We discussed how 1977, the publication date for "The Visible Hand" marked a watershed moment for middle management as it began to decline soon thereafter. Chastised as bureaucratic and a target for downsizing, middle management has been under continuous scrutiny and pressure to the present day. What might Chandler have said about this?
Alfred Chandler’s award-winning book, "The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business" provides an excellent summary of the history of American commerce from the pre-industrial era to the mid-20th century, and how new technologies and a changing society led to the creation of the modern industrial enterprise. The "visible hand" refers to the transparency and prominence of this new class of manager who coordinated and controlled these growing enterprises,
In Part 2 of this episode, we take Michael Tushman's (1977) work, "Special boundary roles in the innovation process," and apply the ideas of boundary spanning and roles of individuals in the innovation process to contemporary times. This includes research projects pursued by castmembers Pedro and Gretta, along with our special guest Hila Lifshitz-Assaf that shed light on how to better embed innovation in the culture and how to innovate more effectively and efficiently.
Discusses an important work from Michael Tushman, "Special boundary roles in the innovation process," published in Administrative Science Quarterly (1977) about how innovation benefits from individuals who communicate across boundaries. With special guest Hila Lifshitz-Assaf who has collaborated with Tushman and did her own dissertation on boundary spanning in the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
In Part 2, we discuss the implications of Weisbord's model for consultancy, particularly internal to the organization. As diagnostic models have gotten more complex, should one rely on external consultants and their expense or internal consultants who have greater knowledge of the organization but are more subject to politics? Also, how can the six-box model be used as an educational tool that teaches members how to detect and resolve problems in the organization?
Business literature is now loaded with models and frameworks designed to help organizations identify, analyze, and fix their problems. But it wasn't always this way. In the 1970s, Marvin Weisbord developed and promoted a simple framework and associated suite of tools designed for anyone to investigate what was going wrong. In this episode, we discuss one of his articles -- "Organizational Diagnosis: Six Places to Look for Trouble With or Without a Theory," published in 1976 in the journal Group and Organization Management -- that introduced his Six-Box Model of organizational diagnosis.
Part 2 of our episode on Melville Dalton's "Men Who Manage" is now released -- but this time we add a feminist perspective on managers and management. Gretta, Miranda, and Catherine welcome Judy Wajcman into the conversation to discuss her 1998 book, "Managing like a man: Women and men in corporate management," which provides an interesting contrast to the experiences expressed by the subjects of Dalton's study and whose evidence debunks many of the myths around possible gender differences in how men and women manage.
2020 ushered in a full year of major change and renewed a lot of conversations about how we work, live, and cooperate in organizations and societies. In that spirit, we discuss Melville Dalton's classic 1959 book "Men Who Manage: Fusions of Feeling and Theory in Administration." The study provided an intimate look at how men (as these were all men at the time) entered into the managerial culture of a firm, how the separations between managers are workers were structured and maintained, and how managers felt about their standing -- which ranged from secure to tenuous.
In Part 1, we focus on the study itself, which is still very relevant not only for understanding what happens within the circle of managers but also how the boundaries can exclude others, particularly along gender lines.
We continue our conversation on Ibarra-Colado's critique by discussing his proposed research agenda and recommendations for imbuing organization studies in Latin America with a regional identity. How should scholars conduct rigorous research in the region free from the constraints of tranditional measure of 'relevance' imposed by the global community of scholarship?
We discuss an important critique of the state of Latin American organization studies leveled by Eduardo Ibarra-Colado in a famous 2006 work "Organization studies and epistemic coloniality in Latin America: thinking otherness from the margins." This manifesto and call to action considers how the current scholarship paradigm controlled by an "Anglo-Euro Centre" severely disadvantages scholarship in the region. With guest Samantha Ortiz, a PhD candidate from the Emlyon Business School.
In this final release of our 5th year celebration, we welcome the perspectives of several past guests, hosts, and observers of past recordings -- with additional commentary from cast members Pedro, Miranda, Catherine, Leonardo, and Tom. Our guests discussed the experiences (and fun) of participating in the podcast, the podcast's current role and potential future directions, and the state of scholarship in organization studies. We thank our guests -- Deborah Brewis, Leon Prieto, Simone Phipps, Maja Korica, Marc Ventresca, Fabricio Neves, Polyana Silva, and Ella Hafermalz.
About a month before the anniversary, we solicited questions from our listeners about things they wanted to know or suggestions for the podcast. Out of the large number of excellent questions received; Dmitrijs, Miranda, Maikel, Jarryd, and Tom broke it down to five that we tackled and discussed in our own Talking About Organizations way. The questions covered academic publication, desires for different topics to be included in the show, on the state of organization studies today, addressing contemporary issues, and attacking wicked problems.
On October 13, 2020, we celebrate our fifth anniversary with a series of releases over next two weeks. In these release, we offer listeners an insider perspective on the making of our episodes. Dmitrijs, Pedro, Ralph, and Tom discuss how we choose an episode topic, schedule it, record it and conduct post-production, and release it through the web and RSS feeds. We also talk about the broader Talking About Organizations Network and what we enjoy most about doing the podcast.
We conclude our review of this important 2019 documentary by considering additional management theories to explain what happened. Among them are Herzberg's two-factor theory covering hygiene and motivation forms of incentives and Maurice Halbwachs' concept of collective memory and 'spaces' -- such as how the American workers recalled the facility's layout for automotive manufacturing and therefore struggled with the changes being imposed by the Chinese managers. What implications do these theories have for future multinational ventures?
American Factory is an important and powerful documentary, telling the story of cultural clashes and labor-management relations as a Chinese firm re-opened and re-purposed a closed automotive plant in Ohio. In this episode, we analyze this story through the lenses of several important organization theories and management science classics.
Andrew Abbott invited us to think more systemically about the interdependencies and how professions compete with each other over "jurisdictions," claims of ownership and responsibility over expert knowledge and its applications. So we conclude this episode with a review of one of Abbott's case studies -- that of the information professions (e.g., librarian, statistician, computer programmer) -- and consider implications for professions today.
With the growing success of the Reflections podcast, part of the Talking About Organizations Network, we invited host Tom Galvin to provide an update on big changes coming to the program and website for the fall 2020 season!
In this episode, we look at the first half and first case study of Andrew Abbott's book "The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor." In this episode, the focus is on how Abbott defines the major constructs of his framework -- professionalization, professional work (diagnosis, inference, treatment), and claims of jurisdiction. For Part 1, we concentrate on the application of Abbott's framework onn individual professions and subdivisions therein.
Join us and Dr. Ella Hafermalz for the conclusion of Episode 66 on workplace isolation. In the second part of the episode, we discuss the role of the office, how sudden mass-exposure to remote work may be exacerbating a host of underlying societal issues, as well as the extent to which technology can help organizations keep running as (or as close as) before.
We continue our series of episodes related to the social change being spurred by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic that has brought about rapid and immediate social change. In this episode, we explore the social and emotional impacts to the worker on having to work from home. For some workers, the concept of telework is hardly new. But many other vocations place great value on regular social contact with clients and customers. These include teachers, doctors, lawyers, public servants, and many others. The sudden thrust to teleworking for an unknown period of time has raised questions as to how these workers are coping with the new normal.
This time we are joined by our former podcaster - Ella Hafermalz - to discuss Tom Forester’s “The Myth of the Electronic Cottage,” an article from Futures in 1988, republished in Computers & Society in 1989.
We conclude our conversation about the Aston School with one of its founding members, Bob Hinings. In this release, we focus on the legacy and impacts of the Aston School on contemporary organization studies and its relationships with other major literature streams such as contingency theory.
The Aston Group from Birmingham, United Kingdom played a major role in the early development of organization theory and management science. Throughout the 1960s, the Aston Group performed numerous studies (the "Aston Studies") of industrial Birmingham and contributed landmark works on organizational structure, organizational analysis, and institution theory. We are honored to welcome one of its members, Bob Hinings, to our studio as a special guest to talk about the Aston School, its contributions, and some of the stories behind them.
In part 2, we explore an article from Edward Powley on activating organizational resilience — “Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis,” published in Human Relations in 2009. The article describes three different social mechanisms that are put into action according to Powley — liminal suspension, compassionate witnessing, and relational redundancy. Respectively, these mechanisms cause the organization to temporarily restructure itself to respond to the crisis, leverage interpersonal relationships within the organization more intensely, and leverage social connections across boundaries to reach out and help others outside the organization.
Crises and disasters are regular occurrences in organizational life, putting leaders into the spotlight and organizations under tremendous pressure to respond appropriately - whether it is to preserve life or salvage reputations. With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, we wanted to discuss some classic texts on organizational crises and their management. In this episode, we include Karl Weick's famous paper on the Tenerife Air Disaster when two Boeing 747s collided and an article from Edward Powley on activating organizational resilience in crisis.
This is part 2 of our case study on the Hudson's Bay Company and remote work where we focus on responses to pandemics by distributed organizations. We explore an article by Paul Hackett, titled “Averting disaster: The Hudson’s Bay Company and smallpox in Western Canada during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,” published in 2004 in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Smallpox was a feared and well-known killer in North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. But as vaccination became possible, HBC officials in Canada made some surprising decisions about employing it. Are there insights we can glean and apply to present-day crises?
We discuss two works exploring a firm that exercised remote operations as a matter of course and faced multiple pandemics during its early existence. The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) was chartered in 1670 by King Charles II at a time when the French monopolized fur trading with Native Americans in modern-day Canada. From then, the English would establish its own robust fur trading industry, establishing hundreds of posts from the western shores of Hudson Bay all across modern western Canada. The case is exceptional in demonstrating the historical challenges of remote operations, leading from a distance, trust, and control -- where communications were limited to letters sent annually with the fur shipments across the Atlantic. How could London possibly maintain oversight and exercise control under such conditions?
We are proud to support the OMT Division at the Academy of Management in producing their own podcast - The OMT Podcast! The show, hosted by Tanja Ohlson from Oxford University, will focus on interviewing members of the OMT division about their life and research. Available now on all major podcast directories as well as on http://omtweb.org/omtpodcast . Check it out!
Our discussion of WALL-E concludes with a look at dystopian fiction and how it presents class differences that suggest ways in which some will feel the burden of societal unrest more than others. This is exemplified in the movie by the way that presumably some segments of society were able to leave the wasted Earth while others might not have. How can we use organization theory, management science, and studies of leadership to understand similar phenomena going on all around us?
Movies can be effective tools for discussing concepts, ideas, and experiences about organizations and management. In this episode, we cover the 'instant' classic film WALL-E by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. WALL-E is the story of a robot who at one time was part of a massive clean-up effort on Earth while all the humans left to live on cruise ships in space. We talk about the setting and the story for clues about organizational behavior and management. Along with the movie obvious commentary on consumerism, we talk about leadership, meaning of work, and many other topics. Join Tom, Pedro, Maikel and Ralph for a fun conversation!
We conclude on episode on Dan Brass' article, "Being in the Right Place: A Structural Analysis of Individual Influence in an Organization" from Administrative Science Quarterly. In this part of the discussion, we explore Dan's mixed-methods approach that included criticality, transaction alternatives, and centrality (access and control) in the social networks of the organization. The results showed that connections in workflow, communication, and friendship networks resulted in greater perceptions of influence by others. But as we discuss, some of Dan's findings were found a bit surprising. Which ones? Listen and find out! We are once again joined by Sarah Otner.
What is power and influence? Although power appears as a multilevel concept, the early organizational literature tended to view it as wielded by people--measured as skills, traits, or competencies. This would change in the 1980s, in large part to a classic empirical study providing evidence that one's position within an organizational structure was more likely to translate into one's source of power. Dan Brass' article, "Being in the Right Place: A Structural Analysis of Individual Influence in an Organization" from Administrative Science Quarterly is the subject of this episode. In Part 1, we focus on where this article fits in the broader context of power and influence in organization studies. Joining us in the studio for this episode is Sarah Otner, a junior research fellow at the Imperial College in London.
Part 2 of our discussion of Joan Woodward's classic work on contingency theory, technology, and organization.
Joan Woodward was a pioneer in organization theory, and in this episode we explore her seminal work Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice, originally published in 1965. The book presents the results of an extensive longitudinal study of the technologies, processes, and systems used by over one hundred industrial firms concentrated in southeast England over a ten year period. The studies produced a finding that successful firms did not follow a single ‘best way’ to manage the firm, but that each had an optimal way based on the congruence or alignment between the technologies and the processes & systems to manage them. This included differences among firms regarding the dominance of marketing, research and development, and production; variations in status of employees among various roles, and variations in how success is measured. Follow-on studies examined how firms underwent transformational change from one form of industry to another, largely confirming the prior results.
Join us as we conclude talking about one of the most known theories in management and organisational behaviour! Are you theory X or theory Y? Or is there even meaning to such a distinction? What are the normative and political assumptions behind this typology? Tune in to find out more!
In this episode, we examine Douglas McGregor’s most famous work, The Human Side of Enterprise, that proposed two “theories” encapsulating management assumptions about human behavior. His Theory X described the dominant thinking of the 1950s, where managers held a dim view of employees, who were assumed to be disinclined to work and had to be coerced into doing so. McGregor felt that Theory X led to adversarial relationships between managers and workers, resulting in poorer performance and an unhealthy environment. His Theory Y saw employees as wishing to be challenged and fulfilled if properly empowered and engaged.
The book has become a staple of management literature. Numerous studies of organizations have confirmed the benefits of Theory Y assumptions serving as the foundation for performance appraisals, reward systems, working in teams, and building worker commitment to the organization. The Annotated Edition of the book, published in 2006, includes dozens of additional callouts and citations of research and vignettes of management experience, demonstrated the continued relevance of this master work.
In the 2019 workshop at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, we paid particular attention to the European(/UK) tradition as this is usually overlooked in our area (especially the work of the Tavistock Institute). We selected authors and groups representing different aspects of this approach with presentations by Sarah Kaplan (on Joan Woodward), Signe Vikkelsø (on the Tavistock Institute and Socio-Technical Systems), and Gino Cattani (on James D. Thompson). This was followed by roundtables mediated by the speakers and a plenary discussion.
The episode begins with the presentation of some “postcards” — notes sent to us from several prominent scholars who applaud the attention we are giving to the contingency approach. You can view the postcards in the gallery below. Enjoy!
This PDW represents the second edition of what we hope to be a standing series showcasing the enduring relevance of earlier organizational research and raise interest for it. We believe that paying attention to the classics of our field may complement the strong emphasis (at AOM and beyond) on new/disruptive ideas, enable cumulative insights, and promote the value of research committed to theorizing core organizational dynamics.
Join Tom, Ella, Maikel and Frithjof as they examine criticisms of the article, particularly Richard Boettger and Charles Greer’s rejoinder “On the Wisdom of Rewarding A While Hoping for B,” published in Organization Science in 1994.
Why do organizations espouse one thing but do another? This is essentially what Steven Kerr asks in his popular 1975 article in the Academy of Management Journal, “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B,” on reward systems. Using examples ranging from politics and war to business and public sector settings, Kerr found a common pattern: that the organization’s goals are too often not supported by the things they actually reward and encourage. The context and relationships among actors may differ, but the result is too commonplace to ignore.
In Part 1 of this episode, we break down Kerr’s examples (which in some cases were peculiar to 1975) and consider how generalizable they really are. We also address key differences in the 1995 update, published in the Academy of Management Executive.
Conclusion of conversation about C.C. Spauilding. His ideas are also distinctive as they reflect some form of ‘African management’ principles, the most salient being the emphasis on cooperation, echoing the African idea on cooperation (Ubuntu) and doing business also for the good of communities. The latter was important as African-Americans were/are a particularly vulnerable and discriminated minority. Spaulding also evoked a religious or spiritual dimension in his work, and some of his practices mirrored those exercised in African-American churches. Thus, one can attribute to him the practice of workplace spirituality before this concept was adopted in contemporary works. Spaulding’s work also displayed social entrepreneurship, which echoes the work of contemporary researchers like Dr. Nevena Radoynovska on how entrepreneurship can play a vital role in vulnerable populations.
Joining us for this episode are two scholars of African-American Management History — Leon Prieto of Clayton State University and Simone Phipps of Middle Georgia State University.
In this episode, we acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of Charles Clinton Spaulding, an important management thought leader who, like many African-Americans prior to the U.S. civil rights movement, has been sadly overlooked in the management canon. From 1923 until 1952, Spaulding served as the President of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest company in the U.S. owned exclusively by African-Americans, with over $40 million in assets at the time of his death.
Joining us for this episode are two scholars of African-American Management History — Leon Prieto of Clayton State University and Simone Phipps of Middle Georgia State University. Together, they authored a 2016 paper that the Academy of Management called groundbreaking, “Rediscovering Charles Clinton Spaulding’s ‘The Administration of Big Business’: Insight into early 20th Century African-American Management Thought,” and have authored several other papers bringing important attention to Spaulding and other African-American management leaders whose works deserve much wider attention!
Join us, and Prof. Stephen Cummings, for Part 2 of this discussion on Lewin's classic article. Many working in the change management arena–scholars and practitioners alike–have likely heard of Kurt Lewin’s three main phases of organizational change: (1) unfreezing, (2) moving, and (3) freezing (also commonly referred to as re-freezing). And indeed, Kurt Lewin presented those phases in his 1947 article “Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change.” But as explained by our special guest Stephen Cummings from the University of Wellington, New Zealand, this three-phased approach was not actually an important finding or outcome of the article. Without offering any empirical support or developing much detail into the phases, Lewin was simply offering ideas for further exploration. Yet these phases have been adapted into numerous change management models available in business literature.
In this episode, we are joined by Prof. Stephen Cummings (New History of Management) to address one of the foundational works in social psychology and organizational development - “Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change”. This was the first of two articles that Kurt Lewin published in the newly established journal Human Relations with the Tavistock Institute.
In the article, Lewin makes a strong case for treating the social sciences on the same level with the natural sciences–previously, social science was considered neither rigorous nor valid. Using metaphors from physics, Lewin explains social phenomena in tangible, physical terms through constructs such as “force fields.” In doing so, he explained how individuals within a social space interact in ways that could be measured similarly to physical or chemical phenomenon. And he did so using the results of studies on rather ordinary, mundane phenonena such as training on stitching machines and the crossed interactions between a husband and wife.
In Part 2 of the episode we look at how much has changed in organizations from 1980s to the present day. To what extent do Hofstede’s six factors still hold up? How salient is his model of socializing cultures between societies (“nations”) and organizations? To what extent is the construct of organizational culture being misused, such as suggested in our Episode 49 where we explored Gideon Kunda’s study of “tech culture?” Are there dangers to conflating organizational culture with climate?
Fresh off a study that identified key factors for comparing national cultures, organizational psychologist Geert Hofstede and his team set off to determine whether similar constructs could be deduced for organizational cultures. The success of this research is detailed in Hofstede's classic 1990 paper, "Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study Across Twenty Cases," published in Administrative Science Quarterly. Through surveys and interviews among members of twenty units within ten large organizations, Hofstede's team proposed six distinct determinants of organizational culture that could be compared and contrasted across all organizations.
Please also join us in welcoming 2 new podcast hosts - Jarryd and Frithjof!
Tune in for Part 2 of our discussion of Charlie Chaplin's classic film - Modern Times. What does the film have to say about such contemporary topics as gig economy, gender in the workplace and emotional labour? Join us to find out!
Routinely ranked as one of the greatest movies of all time, Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film “Modern Times” balances great physical comedy with powerful social commentary. Playing his famed “Tramp” role for the final time, Chaplin portrayed a hapless Worker on an assembly line who is tormented both by supervisors and the work itself. After being subjected to a humiliating experiment intended to improve the line’s efficiency, the Worker runs through a series of rotating jobs, stints in jail, and other misadventures as he tries to find his purpose in life.
He eventually finds his purpose through a growing relationship with the Gamine (Paulette Goddard), a tragic young woman orphaned after a worker’s strike turns violent and kills her father. She escapes becoming a ward of the state but resorts to stealing to survive until caught by the police. After the Worker sacrifices himself to save them, the two would become inseparable. Seeing a happy couple in a well-to-do, they imagine themselves being happy and carefree living together in a rundown falling-apart shack. But in the end, she cannot hide from her past as an escaped orphan. Destitute and alone, the two find themselves on a barren road — she appears to have given up on life, but the Worker convinces her to continue on and try again. They leave, walking down the road to who knows where?
As we viewed the film, our initial thoughts were about how Taylorism is portrayed and critiqued through the scenes at the factory and the social turmoil going on outside. But the film actually touches on many of the themes of this podcast. Referenced throughout the episode were Taylor (Episode 1), Maslow (Episode 3), Max Weber’s Bureaucracy (Episode 6), The Hawthorne Studies (Episode 9), Banana Time (Episode 13), Suchman’s Human-Computer Interactions (Episode 22), the Gig Economy (Episodes 36 & 40), Socialization a la Van Maanen (Episode 38), the Garbage Can Model of Decisionmaking (Episode 39), and Kunda’s Study of Tech Culture (Episode 49).
Listen as we discuss this fantastic and powerful film whose insights on work and society are still relevant today!
Please join us as we conclude discussing Rosemary Stewart's classic work on management in practice. What is the significance of this book? How does it relate to what managers do? Why are we talking about magic wands? Tune in to find out!
Continuing with our discussion of Rosemary Stewart's classic work on management in practice with the wonderful Dr. Maja Korica of Warwick Business School
So what do managers do in practice? How do they spend their time (or put another way, how does their time spend them)? Are there differences in the demands of managers in different positions, or within different organizations? These were the questions that famed management theorist Rosemary Stewart set out to uncover in her research back in the 1960s, resulting in the first edition of this episode’s subject–her book "Managers and Their Jobs: A Study of the Similarities and Differences in the Ways Managers Spend Their Time".
Join us, and our special guest Dr. Maja Korica from Warwick Business School, as we discuss this work and bring it into present-day focus.
What are the implications of The Tyranny of Light and what can it teach us about management in an increasingly digitised workplace? Join us as we conclude Episode 51 and reflect on the lasting impact of this work.
The podcast is back for 2019 with Part 2 of Episode 51 on The Tyranny of Light by Hari Tsoukas! If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, please go and do so before playing this episode as this is a direct continuation of that discussion.
"The Tyranny of Light" was a bold 1997 article that challenged conventional wisdom about the oncoming information society. The Internet, personal computers, and the dot-com boom were still new and exciting. With information technologies advancing at an incredible pace, the sky (and the capacity of silicon) was the limit. Internet start-ups were sprouting up everywhere as young entrepreneurs strove to become the next Bill Gates. Never mind that the vast majority failed and faded quickly away (see Episode 49 and the example of normative control in a tech company). The possibilities seemed endless.
But so too were the dangers. Hari Tsoukas foresaw the problems that an information dominated society might produce. Could greater access to information have undesirable consequences, such as the loss of understanding or the growth of distrust? Could an information society disrupt socio-political norms? If these became true, what would happen.
Bolstered by hindsight and knowledge of how the information society evolved, we (your intrepid podcasters) take a look back at 1997 and examine to what extent Tsoukas got the future right, and what else transpired that Tsoukas could not have known or anticipated. What does this suggest for society and its leaders today?
Do you remember the Principles of Scientific Management? The one from 50 episodes ago? As we continue to celebrate this milestone of the podcast, please join us for a trip down memory lane to Episode 1, originally aired on 13 October 2015!
But that's not it - to complement the podcast, we have produced and released the audiobook version of Taylor's classic text! So if you (or anyone you know) ever wanted to read his work but could not find the time to do so, it is now available to listen to! Featuring a new historical introduction that sets the text in contemporary management theory context, The Principles of Scientific Management is a must-have work for any serious management scholar or enthusiast. As a treat to our listeners only, this re-release of Episode 1 features the Historical Introduction chapter from the audiobook! Please share and enjoy!
You can listen to the book for free here: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B07KY2THBF/?source_code=AUKFrDlWS02231890H6-BK-ACX0-135067&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_135067_rh_uk , or get it on Amazon or iTunes.
To mark our 50th episode, we gathered all seven of us hosts to discuss what we like (and perhaps not) about the podcast and podcasting, what our favorite or most remembered episodes were, and what we have learned along the way.
Turns out, one of the key things we learned was how much such a small number of dedicated scholars and practitioners can do with a lot of motivation and energy. As we discuss, there were many in the beginning who scoffed at the idea of podcasting on classic and emerging organization theories and concepts of management science. But with over 12,000 active listeners worldwide, Talking About Organizations has proven to be useful and entertaining all at once.
Conclusion of our discussion of Gideon Kunda’s ethnography of culture engineering in high-tech corporation. What are the practical and research implications of this work?
Innovation, burn-out and power dynamics. Join us for Part 2 as we discuss these and other aspects of Gideon Kunda's ethnography of normative control in high-tech organizations!
Originally published in 1992, Gideon Kunda’s ethnographic study of a high-tech corporation altered the discourse on organizational culture. “Tech,” the firm being studied, was a firm on the rise and saw itself as a leader and ground breaker in the rapidly growing high-tech industries of the 1980s. But as the firm grew from a modest couple hundred to tens of thousands of employees and multiple sites, Tech undertook an effort to indoctrinate its members with its tried-and-true formula for success — hard work, sacrifice, and belief in the company. The degree to which this indoctrination occurred was extensive, from the choreographed leader messages, trained cultural experts and internal publications to the highly competitive and cut-throat nature of project work. Kunda captured it all in gripping detail.
The centerpiece of Kunda’s thesis was Tech’s exercise of normative control. This was ironic in a way given how Tech’s professed culture valued self-determination and autonomy. But, the rewards and sanctions were constructed to enforce a particular form of autonomy, one in which Tech extracted the most out of its people while breaking their lives in the process.
Does this mean ‘normative control’ as a mechanism for mission accomplishment is bad? As we dove into the text and applied its lessons to present-day matters, the question is actually difficult to answer as there are many factors to consider. Listen as we wrestle with this extraordinary and provocative text!
Having gone through the mechanics behind SST in Parts 1 and 2, we now ask ourselves if there is a more suitable way to measure individual time-span of discretion? Join us as we conclude Episode 48 on the Stratified Systems Theory!
How viable is SST and what are the 'real world' implications of using this theory to structure organizations? Is it really a good idea to use time-span to differentiate between the strata or is there something else?
In part 2 of the episode we delve deeper into the Stratified Systems Theory to examine the fundamental mechanics of this approach through both theoretical and practical lenses.
As bureaucracies became more prevalent as a feature of organizations post-WWII, questions surfaced as to how they could be improved. Was there an optimal way to design them? What was the best role of individual members within a bureaucracy? Could individuals be developed to handle higher level roles?
Among those asking such questions was Elliott Jaques, co-founder of the Tavistock Institute and later the author of the renowned book Requisite Organization that combined social theories with theories of organization. As a scientific approach to organizational design, the "stratified systems theory" of requisite organization sought to optimize the hierarchical structure based on the time-span of decisions at echelon. Then, using methods for measuring individual capabilities and capacity for decision making, members could be assigned posts within the organization based on best fit. Stratified systems theory (SST) established a common schema for using time-span that could be applied to any organization.
Please join us for Episode 48 as we discuss this controversial yet fascinating approach to organizational design!
Conclusion of our discussion of Albert and Whetten's paper on Organizational Identity. Learn what did happen at the US Africa Command after all and what are the practical and scholarly implications of this work. What can we learn from it and is it still relevant? For this, and more, tune in to Part 3 of the episode!
Part 2 of our discussion of Albert and Whetten's paper on Organizational Identity. Is it identity of organizations or identity in organizations? What about external perceptions of the organization? How do people fill in the blanks in their perception of organizational identity? For this, and more, tune in to part two of our conversation!
"Who are we?" - The pursuit of an answer to this tantalizingly simple question began with a book chapter written in 1985 by organization theories Stuart Albert and David Whetten. "Organizational Identity" established the construct of identity at the orgnizational level and described it as the sum of three types of claims -- claims of an organization's central character, claims of its distinctiveness from other organizations, and claims of temporal continuity that tie the present organization to its history. The chapter also raised the idea that organizations can have multiple identities, which each being more salient at different times. With seven key research questions and thirty-three hypothesis, the chapter also laid out a far-reaching research agenda.
But as we discuss in this episode, the twenty years that followed saw much of the research yield lots of confusion and consternation. David Whetten would prepare a follow-up commentary in 2006 to clarify and update the construct while addressing the conflicts.
So how useful is it? Listen in as we grapple with answering questions like, "Who are we as the Talking About Organizations Podcast?" using Albert & Whetten's construct as a starting point. We then follow with examples, case studies, and uses of organizational identity in both scholarship and practice. We hope you enjoy the discussion and find it useful for understanding the deep culture of organizations.
What a treat! An exclusive LIVE episode featuring Paul Adler, Silvia Dorado and Marc Ventresca talking about management classics. This was recorded from a PDW hosted by Pedro at the 2018 AoM Annual Meeting in Chicago, the purpose of which was to raise interest towards classic authors/ideas in the field of organization and management theory. It offered scholars from all levels the opportunity to reflect on insights of earlier scholarship and their relevance for current research, complementing the strong emphasis (on new ideas and approaches. This is of great importance as the field has thus far been more attentive to disruptions than continuities; pursuing novelty over tradition.
In the workshop, senior scholars presented talks on four classic authors (Karl Marx, Mary Parker Follett, Mary Douglas, and Albert Hirschman) to discuss their contemporary relevance. This was followed by a roundtable discussion limited to fifty participants.
The workshop demonstrated how attentive (re)readings of classic scholarship reaffirm time and time again their enduring importance. The discussion provided valuable insights on central organizational research problematics (e.g., coordination and control), stimulated complex thinking, enabled analytical comparisons between current and past phenomena (e.g., industrialization and digitization), and serve as ‘exemplars’ of academic excellence and of research that is problem-driven and focused on real-world issues.
Conclusion of our conversation with Prof Marianna Fotaki on the Fate of Whistleblowers in organizations. In this last part we offer some practical reflection and Ralph shares a personal story of how he was faced with a choice to either blow a whistle or not.
Fred Alford wrote the book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power in 2001 to understand and make sense of these experiences. Rather than a detailed telling of the whistleblowers’ stories, the book expands upon them to develop an alternative theory of organizations and their use of power. By alternating between the individuals’ and organizations’ perspective, Alford’s book challenged conventional wisdom about the nature and character of power and politics, ethics and morality, and the individual’s motivations for standing up.
In Part 2 of the episode we delve deeper into the issues of ethics, psychoanalysis, functional and dysfunctional narcissism, romantic heroism, mandated vs 'pure' whistleblowing, and the various consequences of whistleblowing that people who engage in this activity are forced to endure.
Please join us as we begin discussing C. Fred Alford’s extraordinary book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power. The book presents the troubling experiences of whistleblowers whose efforts to stand up for what was right, only to have the organizations turn on them – taking away both their professional and social lives. In this opener, our guest Prof Marianna Fotaki tells the story behind the book and we provide our initial reactions and thoughts!
We wrap up our discussion of Oliver E. Williamson's famous 1981 article, "The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach" with an exploration of related works and on-going research. Included is a review of Tom Malone et al.'s predictive look at "Electronic Markets and Electronic Hierarchies," written in 1987 when the promises of information technology were becoming reality. How well did their predictions hold up 30 years later?
Please join us as continue our discussion of Oliver E. Williamson's famous 1981 article, "The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach." Williamson proposed several important constructs in the article such as the 'efficient boundary' and how asset specificity shapes organizational behaviors. What did we think of these ideas?
Following on a theme from the previous episode, we explore an important reading that bridges organization theory with economics. This was the explicit aim of Oliver E. Williamson’s famous article, “The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1981. The article begins with a statement that the assumption of firms operating on a profit motive has not helped organization theorists understand and explain the behaviors of firms, and that economists were also finding themselves similarly limited. He thus set out on a different path and argued that transactions, not the products or services the firm provides, is a better unit of analysis.
In the discussion, we wrestle with Williamson’s central arguments and proposals, such as the construct of the efficient organizational boundary, human asset specificity and the difference types of governance structures related to it, and how markets and hierarchies represent different choices for organizing. We also explored a related article presenting early thoughts about the growing impact of rapid advances in information technology on firm and market structures. Written in 1987, Tom Malone et al.’s “Electronic Markets and Electronic Hierarchies” presages the modern online economic environment and its many virtual interactions between seller and buyers. This fascinating extension of Williamson’s ideas made a number of predictions. How many came true 30 years later?
De-centralization as a guideline or strategy is thought to promote innovation and greater participation. Organizations that de-centralize as a matter of course may view centralized hierarchy as old-fashioned, complacent, even ossified. So, what about the virtues of centralization? One of the main arguments for greater centralization in organizations is that it brings greater efficiency.
In this final part, we step out of the debate and discuss centralization vs. decentralization as ourselves. So what do we think? The results may surprise you!
The debate continues with question N2: "Why do organizations oscillate between centralization and decentralization, and is there a golden mean?". Join in as we shift the context to more contemporary matters. What are the benefits and risks of centralizing or de-centralizing organizations in modern times?
How exciting! The podcasters engaging in debate over whether centralizing is better or should organizations de-centralize? Learn about how this tension shaped the early days of the United States while Ralph and Pedro face off against Dmitrijs and Tom!
A special Thank You also goes out to Todd Bridgman and Stephen Cummings who set the tone and questions for this very first TAOP debate!
Episode 42 concludes as the podcasters discuss unlearning, present their takeaways and budding research questions based on Levitt & March's review of "Organizational Learning," our fifth episode in the Carnegie-Mellon series. What would it take for organizations to learn 'better'? How might we find out? Where does collective intelligence come in?
Also see: Episode 4 on Organizational Routines, Episode 19 on Organizational Learning, Episode 29 on Business School Design, Episode 39 on Organizational Choice, and our Series Introduction.
Episode 42 continues as we debate the gaps and lingering questions in Levitt & March's review of "Organizational Learning," our fifth episode in the Carnegie-Mellon series. What did we think about the author's views on organizational memory? What about the levels of analysis used in the text? Find out our take on these and other questions.
Please join us for the fifth episode in our Carnegie-Mellon School series as we discuss Barbara Levitt and James G. March’s brilliant literature review of “Organizational Learning,” published in the Annual Review of Sociology in 1988. This work surveyed the literature across various streams in organizational learning up through the 1980s. Topics include learning from experience, organizational memory, ecologies of learning, and organizational intelligence. Of particular interest is how organizational learning was defined as not an outcome but a process of translating the cumulative experiences of individuals and codifying them as routines within the organization. But an important question remains three decades later – do organizations really learn? Tune in as we wrestle with this question, and with many others!
Near the end of Episode 41, we discussed the themes of member commitment to the organization and an organization’s commitment to its individual members. This arose in the context of our continuing discussions of the gig economy and its impact on our understandings of organization. The ‘gig economy’ was the subject of several previous episodes (such as Episode 18 on algorithmic management and Episode 36 on human capital) and was the primary focus of our first symposium, presented in three parts as Episode 40 including a keynote address and panels on defining and researching the gig economy and related phenomena. Without revisiting those discussions, suffice to say that our dialogue raised lots of questions and concerns about the gig economy.
Our discussion of Gareth Morgan's classic 'Images of Organization' concludes as we discuss the modern-day implications of these metaphors. How can we use metaphor to better understand the interactions of organizations in the environment, and of organization and member commitment to each other? We also discuss possible areas of future research.
Our discussion of Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization continues as we explore the individual metaphors and compare them. What makes some metaphors better understood than others? How do they describe the positive and negative aspects of organizing?
Our discussion of Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization begins with an overview of the text and Morgan's use of metaphor to capture the essence of entire streams of literature into a simple idea. We also introduce several of the metaphors and show how together they tell the story of organization theory from the beginning.
Join us for the final episode of Season 4 and ask yourself - which metaphor are you?
Final panel from our Symposium on Continuities, Disruptions and Management in the Gig Economy. This panel focused on methodological issues in researching gig and sharing economy, and featured Gretta Corporaal (Oxford), Mareike Mohlmann (WBS) and Rebecca Prentice (Sussex). Please enjoy!
Please join us for the first panel of the TAOP Symposium on Continuities, Disruptions and Management in the Gig Economy, held at the University of Sussex on 15 December 2017. In this first panel, Arianna Tassinari from Warwick Business School (also Episode 18), Sarah O'Connor from Financial Times, and Natalia Levina from NYU (and part 1 of this Special) discuss the different ways how one can understand and define the gig economy.
Please enjoy!
TAOP Symposium on the Gig Economy was a unique, one-day interdisciplinary symposium on the forms and effects of management in the contemporary sharing (a.k.a. gig) economy that took place on 15 December 2017 at the University of Sussex. Blending individual and panel presentations from leading scholars and commentators with group conversations, we wanted to examine the continuities – as well as disruptions - in the ways that work is organised through, and in light of, online platforms such as uber, deliveroo, upwork.
This Special Episode presents recordings of the keynote and the two panels from the event. Part 1 features a keynote by Professor Natalia Levina of NYU.
During Episode 39 we explore a famous 1972 article in Administrative Science Quarterly from Cohen, March, and Olsen on the Garbage Can Model of Decision Making, which contained (above all things) a fully-documented computer program written in FORTRAN 66! The sidecast also included details of how they designed the program what its outputs were.
As we discuss during the podcast, this was far from an empirical study. They designed the model solely for exploratory purposes—to demonstrate an interesting concept that could apply to actual organizations such as colleges and universities of various sizes. It struck me because present-day articles devote so little time to the models in use, either mentioning minimal details in the text or providing a summary or introduction to them in an appendix. Certainly not something that could be replicated as is copy-pasted from the journal.
Our discussion of “The Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice” by Cohen, March, & Olsen, concludes with our reflections on the article. The model was provocative for its time, but what have we learned in the forty years since now that the garbage can model is better understood and accepted as common practice in organizations?
Other posts in the Carnegie Mellon School series: Episode 4 on Organizational Routines, Episode 19 on Organizational Learning, Episode 29 on Business School Design,and our Series Introduction.
Our discussion of “The Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice” by Cohen, March, & Olsen, continues as the podcasters discuss the technical aspects of the model and its implications for modern practice.
Also from the Carnegie-Mellon School series: Episode 4 on Organizational Routines, Episode 19 on Organizational Learning, Episode 29 on Business School Design,and our Series Introduction.
Please join us for the fourth episode in our series of podcasts focused on works from the Carnegie-Mellon School. For this episode, the podcasters tackle “The Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice” by Michael Cohen, James March, and Johan Olsen, published in Adninistrative Science Quarterly in 1972. The article was a radical departure from conventional thinking about choice and decision making at the time, where leaders identified problems and applied solutions rationally. Instead, the authors asserted that an organization was “a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work.”
Also see: Episode 4 on Organizational Routines, Episode 19 on Organizational Learning, Episode 29 on Business School Design, and our Series Introduction.
Our discussion of John Van Maanen's "Police Socialization" concludes with a more in-depth look at his methodology and use of 'covert' methods. As a participant-observer, Van Maanen's study included his participation in police training and joining patrols. Covert research challenges the principle of informed consent but may be necessary for conduct research on populations that are otherwise difficult to access. Through a very recent article by Thomas Roulet, et al. in Organizational Research Methods, the podcasters discuss the pros and cons of such methods and the ethical questions raised. You won't want to miss it!
Please join us as we continue talking about John Van Maanen's article, "Police Socialization: A Longitudinal Examination of Job Attitudes in an Urban Police Department." For Part 2, we look to other, more contemporary settings where similar socialization activities occur. How has our growing understanding of socialization shaped organizational life since 1975 when this article was written? How has ethnographic research evolved? Find out here!
Please join us as TAOP returns in 2018 to open a New Year with a discussion of John Van Maanen's classic work from 1975, "Police Socialization: A Longitudinal Examination of Job Attitudes in an Urban Police Department." In Part 1, Pedro, Dmitrijs, Tom and Miranda introduce the article - what Van Maanen tried to accomplish and, more importantly, how. The result was a major step forward in ethnographic research!
Please join us as we welcome Professor Peter Adamson of the LMU in Munich and the amazing History of Philosophy without any Gaps Podcast to discuss Xenophon's Oeconomicus. The book conveys an Ancient Greek dialogue between Socrates and a young wealthy man named Critobulus who seeks to expand his wealth. Part 1 presents the background of the book and the main ideas it espouses. What was Xenophon trying to say through the characters; how do we begin to relate such an ancient text to modern understandings of organization; and, most importantly, why are we reading this archaic work on a podcast about management and organization studies? Tune in to find out!
Now that Peter Fleming has made his points, where do we go from here? That is the subject of Part 3 on "The Human Capital Hoax." The podcasters synthesize the text and offer ideas for future research and practice. An exciting debate you will not want to miss!
In part 2 we continue to discuss “The Human Capital Hoax: Work, Debt, and Insecurity in the Era of Uberization,” by Peter Fleming. The article raised a number of pressing issues, such as the nature and character of modern workplace resistance and the implications of Fleming's thesis on managers and leaders.
Please join us as the podcasters engage on a timely and relevant article, “The Human Capital Hoax: Work, Debt, and Insecurity in the Era of Uberization,” by Peter Fleming. The article is a treatise and pointed critique of the emergence, development, implementation, and negative effects of Human Capital theory, which Fleming presents as having created numerous professional, economic, and social problems in the workforce. Part 1 focuses on the arguments in the article: Why did the author write it, and what are the key points?
Episode 35 concludes with the podcasters presenting their takeaways and possible areas of further research. What did they learn from the readings and dialogue? Where directions might theory and practice follow now, thirty-plus years later?
In the second part of the Episode we continue discussing implications of Hochschild's seminal work on management of emotions. What do football players, military officers and uber drivers have in common? Tune in to find out!
Tune in as we tackle a seminal work on the uses of emotion as part of one’s job, and the social and psychological implications this has on one’s role as a producer of products or provider of services. The Managed Heart,” by Dr. Arlie Hochschild, introduced the concept of emotional labour as a counterpart to the physical and mental labour performed in the scope of one’s duties. You will never look at the phrase “service with a smile” the same way again!
Join Tom as he provides a detailed summary of the discussion we held in Episode 34 on Trist and Bamforth’s work on the effects and consequences that introduction of new organizational technology may have on individual employees. This is a very important piece of research that ties into a number of foundational themes we discussed in other episodes and thus a must read (or listen!). Enjoy!
Join us as we finish discussing technological change in the coal-mining industry and how it tore apart the social structure of the workers who were supposed to have benefited from the change.
Please join us as we discuss Eric Trist’s and Ken Bamforth’s 1951 article, “Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-Getting,” published in the journal Human Relations. The article explores how a technological change in the coal-mining industry tore apart the social structure of the workers who were supposed to have benefited from the change. We talk about the story behind the article and explore its lessons in the context of contemporary technological changes and the roles of managers to consider the social impacts of transformational change in their organizations.
Tune in to this Summary of Episode 33 for an overview of Roethlisberger's "The Foreman" and for a summary of our discusssion!
Please join us for Part 2 of this fascinating discussion of Roethlisberger's classic 1945 work on the challenges and environment faced by the foreman in the organization. In this part we go through the rest of the article and discuss the four 'visions' proposed by the author!
Please join us as we open Season 4 with a discussion about Fritz J. Roethlisberger’s classic Harvard Business Review article “The FOREMAN: Master and Victim of Double Talk.” Written in 1945, the article details the challenges that industry foremen faced under intense pressures to perform despite significant technological and social changes that whittled away at their autonomy. The result? Increasing dissatisfaction, insecurity, and a reliance on ‘double talk’ – talking out of both sides of the mouth to keep supervisors appeased while paying less attention to the employees circumstances. An article that is relevant to this day!
Join Ralph as he sits down with Professors Mats Alvesson (also guest on E28) and Bjorn Erik Mork during the OLKC 2017 Conference in Valladolid, Spain to discuss Mats's keynote speech (and book!) on organizational stupidity. As always is the case with episodes such as these, expect more than a few anecdotes, insightful comments, and interesting stories! Thank you OLKC organising committee and Mats and Bjorn for making this episode possible.
Don't miss this conversation that Dmitrijs and Ella had with Professors Hari Tsoukas and Ann Langley at the wonderful PROS 2017 Conference! In the second special from this symposium, we talk about process view in general and PROS, as an academic congregation, in particular. At the end of the episode, Hari and Ann say a few words about the next conference, its theme and the motivation behind it.
Please join us for the first of two fascinating special episodes recorded from the International Process Symposium 2017. In the first instalment, Dmitrijs and Ella sit down to talk to Professors Trish Reay (University of Alberta) and Tammar Zilber (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) about institutional theory.
Please join us for the final instalment of Episode 30 and Season 3 where we discuss the relationship between George Orwell's classic 1984 and Corporate Culturalism as discussed by Hugh Willmott and Peter Fleming in their JMS Classics. Specifically, we talk about such things as newspeak and technology, as well as the inherent paradox of independence/autonomy critiqued in the articles!
Please join us for this (much delayed) conversation about Hugh Willmott's extraordinarily interesting critique of corporate culturalism - a movement within management thought that sees organizational culture and normative control as the primary means of organizing a workforce! In the first part of the episode we work on developing a common footing and a deeper understanding of what corporate culturalism is, as well as provide some examples (like Uber) and offer reflections on how this concept plays out in 'real life'.
oin Tom for a summary of our conversation with the wonderful Denise Rousseau about Herbert Simon's JMS Classic on Business Schools! Make sure to listen to this one if you don't have the time to get through the main episode just yet as the discussion about management education and the many underlying factors that we have had with Denise is really key!
In this part of the conversation with the wonderful Denise Rousseau we plunge into the deep end of what business schools are for, what are the moral foundations for management education, the role and value of authority, and the dichotomy between individual vs environmental interpretation of a person. We also discuss the relationship of business schools with actual businesses and talk about coaching and development. All in all, a fascinating episode full of reflections about management as a profession!
Please join us for this very interesting conversation with the fascinating Denise Rousseau about Herbert Simon's JMS Classic - The Business School: A Problem in Organizational Design (1967). In this episode we touch upon the now pervasive issues of managerial education, the value of teaching administration, as well as the origins of how management became an institutionalized profession.
Also, get to know Herbert Simon from anecdotes recounted by Denise, and hear what she has to say on these, and many other topics!
Join us for a brief summary of Episode 28, where we were joined by Mats Alvesson to discuss his JMS Classic "Organizations as Rhetoric". This is a synopsis of the conversation, covering a number of aspects related to epistemology, types and purpose of rhetoric, and adjacent concepts such as organizational memory and functional (as well as generic) stupidity.
In this concluding part of Episode 28 we further delve into the relationship between rhetoric and knowledge, touching upon such aspects of it as collective memory, the roles people play, fads and fashions, as well as functional stupidity.
For our sixth Journal of Management Studies Classic episode we discussed a set of articles by Professor Mats Alvesson on Organizations as Rhetoric. Focusing on the original work published in 1993, we were very pleased to welcome Mats himself as a guest on this episode!
In this paper, Mats made a series of critical claims to highlight ‘the politics and rhetoric of professions’, as opposed to an ‘essentialist’ view of organizations (Alvesson, 1993: 999). Central to his observations is a notion that although organizational knowledge is seen as key to to organizational performance, there is little grounding or relationship to external reality of such knowledge.
So, if you're interested in critical management, epistemology or anything to do with identity construction, we highly recommend that you listen to what Mats has to say on these topics!
Please join Tom as he summarizes our conversation with Andrew Pettigrew and introduces the key concepts from the reading! What a great way to refresh memory about one of the critical process-based studies in management or to introduce new scholars to the works of Andrew Pettigrew!
Join us for the second part of the conversation about Journal of Management Studies Classic article - 'Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm' - with Andrew Pettigrew. In this part we go into more depth in discussing management, transformational leadership and the role and nature of context. Andrew is a wonderful guest with much to say so make sure to listen to this one!
Join us for this episode as we sit down (literally, this time!) with Professor Andrew Pettigrew to discuss his discipline-shaping work on context and action in organizations. There is so much in this work! Not only is the article we are discussing a product of a very long-term study conducted in ethnographic tradition, but it is also one of the key sparks that ignited the engine of organizational studies that is the process-based view!
Conclusion of our conversation with Dr Thomas Roulet about Karl Weick's Journal of Management Studies Classic article - Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations. A really fun and interesting episode where we touch upon a number of key concepts in management and organization studies!
Karl Weick's enacted sensemaking is a key concept in management theory, as well as a fundamental idea behind high reliability organizing. Join us as we welcome Dr Thomas Roulet of King's College London to discuss our fourth Journal of Management Studies classic paper - Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations (1988)!
Summary of Episode 25 on a JMS Classic by Porac et al. (1989) 'Competitive Groups as Cognitive Communities'. This Episode featured the wonderful Prof Sarah Kaplan and discussed the importance of human interpretation in the strategy making process, as well as a number of other related issues.
This is a conclusion of our discussion of Porac et al. (1989) with the wonderful Prof Sarah Kaplan. Please join us as we explore such concepts as categories and talk about ontology and epistemology, the process studies perspective and strategy in practice among many other things!
Please join us for Episode 25 as we welcome Prof Sarah Kaplan to discuss another JMS Classic work entitled “Competitive groups as cognitive communities, the case of Scottish knitwear manufacturers”. This paper had a great impact in the field of management and organization in general, and on research in cognition and strategy in particular. As a matter of fact, it has contributed to the vibrant community on managerial cognition which today feeds into many areas of the field. It was also been essential for the development of the growing field of studies on the construction of markets and categories. We are very grateful to Prof Kaplan for joining us for this discussion - she was an amazing guest and a great interlocutor!
This is a summary of our conversation with Bill Starbuck about his Journal of Management Studies Classic - Learning by Knowledge-Intensive Firms. Great Episode for anyone interested in knowledge, information and collective learning!
Join us as we conclude our discussion about the classic JMS article 'Learning by Knowledge-Intensive Firms' with the author, William Starbuck! A fascinating ending to this episode with an amazing guest - so be sure to tune in!
Join us and William Starbuck as we discuss one of management's contemporary classics - Learning by Knowledge-Intensive Firms (1992)! In this work William Starbuck tackles a number of important issues to do with knowledge, knowledge work and information. A truly fascinating researcher, Bill takes us through his thinking and shares lots of insight derived through years of studying knowledge and organizations! This is an amazing conversation, so be sure to tune in to this one!
This is a Summary of our inaugural episode of Season 3 - the Journal of Management Studies Classics - where we were joined by Professor Mike Wright to discuss his work on international business and emerging economies.
Please join us and listen to our first Season 3 discussion on a 2013 work published in Journal of Management Studies, by Hoskisson, Wright, Filatotchev and Peng entitled “Emerging multinationals from mid-range economies: the influence of institutions and factor markets”. This episode also sees the participation of one of the authors of the paper, Mike Wright, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London. Together, we review the key points of the paper, its importance as one of the classics of JMS, and its legacy.
Please tune in for Episode 22 where we are joined by the fascinating Dr Barton Friedland to discuss Lucy Suchman’s book “Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Action” (2007). In it, she studied the interaction of humans with a state-of-art photocopier. Interestingly, Suchman's studies show that interaction problems are mostly due to the underpinning assumptions about users’ behaviour. More specifically, her work questions the idea that human actions are merely based on the following of plans!
Overall, this is a must-read for anyone interested in technology, humanism and post(trans)-humanism, as well as more practical issues of technology adaptation and dissemination!
The slightly belated, yet highly anticipated discussion from after the Connections in Action event is here! Join Pedro, Katharina and Brian as they reflect on what they have learned during their time at the workshop/conference. A really fascinating discussion about methodology, fundamental issues to do with actions and practices, and a bit of philosophy!
What a treat! Joining us for this Special Episode from the fascinating 'Connections in Action' workshop at the University of Warwick are Katharina Dittrich and Brian Pentland (aka Doctor Decade)! To our great delight, Doctor Decade provided the live intro music for this episode and even performed one of his songs (Ruts in the Road)!
This is a summary of Episode 20, where we held two discussions broadly grouped under the umbrella title of High Reliability in practice. Broadly focused on the 1993 classic research by Karl Weick and Karlene Roberts which asked how do complex, high risk organizations manage to work safely and reliably, our discussion in Episode 20 featured an appearance by a very special guest! Basically, Weick and Roberts went aboard a US Navy Nimitz class aircraft carrier to collect data and observe how the flight deck crew launches and recovers aircraft. When they came aboard the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, guess who was there to welcome them? Commanding officer Rear Admiral Tom Mercer! Thanks to Ralph we managed to get in touch with Tom and he joined us for part one of the discussion, so definitely listen to that if you haven’t yet.
In Part 2 we delve deeper into the article itself (Weick and Roberts, 1993) in order to understand how a high reliability way of organizing can be implemented, what are the steps, and how rigid the rules and procedures have to be. Join us for a detailed and rich in examples discussion of these very key, yet academically under-explored aspects of organization studies.
Based around a classic work by Weick and Roberts (1993) on Collective mind in organizations - where the authors observed and analyzed the way people on the deck of an aircraft carrier function in a collective manner - this episode brings you a discussion of how concepts of High Reliability (see also Episode 11) flesh out in real life!
Joining us for this episode is a very special guest - Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier on which Weick and Roberts performed their study, Read Admiral (retired) Tom Mercer! Tom is an extraordinary individual and a highly experienced leader, bearing responsibility for a multidisciplinary organization of 6000 people working everything from munitions and aircraft to baking bread and producing television. This is a must listen for a grounded, empirically saturated representation of the theoretical concepts of High Reliability Organization, and general management as such, that we cover on this podcast!
Join Miranda and Ralph as they summarise our discussion of Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning by James March. This is an excellent little segment to introduce new people to the ideas developed in this classic text, as well as to help add structure to our discussion in the main episode. As a bonus, you will also get a special emphasis from Miranda on socialisation, and some useful tips from Ralph on employee learning!
In the second half of our discussion we carry on with the examination of March's model of knowledge exploration and exploitation. Expect more up-close analysis as well as some implications of this way of looking at organizational learning.
For this episode, we read the widely cited article, “Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning,” published in 1991 in the journal Organization Science. In the paper, James March considered the relationships between exploration of new ways of doing things and the exploitation of accepted, standard practices for organizational learning. He did so in order to show that learning in organizations is still possible even in the presence of causal ambiguity. While the paper has been criticized for its very simplistic model of organizational learning and lack of empirical data, a strong point of the paper may be the general insight in provides about collective learning under ambiguous conditions.
What are the trade-offs and challenges associated with balancing exploitation and exploration? What does it mean for organizational learning? Read the paper and listen to your intrepid podcasters, as we grapple with March’s ideas in Episode 19.
Once again joined by the lovely Arianna, we summarize Episode 18 on Gig Economy and Algorithmic Management.
In the second part of our discussion we delve deeper into how management by algorithms impacts individual employees, what are the principles and potential implications of the proliferation of algorithmic management on industrial relations, and whether this can be justifiably called 'Taylorism on Steroids'.
Our Special Guest, Arianna Tassinari, brings a unique industrial relations flavour to this episode and contributes many excellent points we would probably not surface in our own accord. So listen to this! It is a real gem!
In this episode we are joined by the wonderful Arianna Tassinari to discuss a recent Financial Times article by Sarah O'Connor on gig economy, algorithmic management and labour relations!
Gig economy, as well as its benefits and limitations, has been subject to much debate in social policy and labour relations lately. Facilitated by management via algorithms, gig economy can be seen as symptomatic of another reincarnation of scientific management (initially outlined by F.W. Taylor - see Episode 1). Some notable differences/evolutions include separation of people by means of technology, as well as uncertain conditions of employment.
Join us as we (possibly) contribute to the current debate and attempt to make clearer sense of the relevant key concepts leveraging our collective experience and knowledge.
This episode is a direct inspiration for a later series of LIVE episodes from our very first event (Episode 30).
Join Dmitrijs and Pedro for a first summary duo! as they highlight the key points from Episode 17 on Tokenism by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. If you haven't listened to the episode yet, we really encourage you to do so as this is an important topic and our guest, Dr Deborah Brewis, was absolutely great at explaining the nuances of gender relations in organizations.
More on gender, tokenism, sexuality, and all things different in organizations! Join us and our Special Guest Dr Deborah Brewis for the conclusion of Episode 17 on “Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women” (1977) by Rosabeth Moss Kanter!
In this episode we are joined by Dr Deborah Brewis to discuss a classic paper by Rosabeth Moss Kanter on gender in organizations - “Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women” (1977). In this article, Kanter explores how interactions within a group or an organization are affected by the different numbers of people from distinct social types. In particular, she focuses on groups with skewed gender ratios: a high proportion of men and a small number of women – the tokens. The study is based on observations and interviews with sales teams that recently began to incorporate women in their workforce, and shows how structural factors stifled the potential of their female members.
We discuss challenges of gender integration, the theoretical underpinnings of Kanter’s framework and the relevance of the concept of tokenism in contemporary research and practice, among other things.
Another convenient featurette to introduce people to this management classic - contingency theory! Join Ralph as he summarizes our reading by Lawrence and Lorsch, covers key points from the discussion and even adds some (more) of his experience-based insight!
Advocates of contingency theory for organizations argue that an optimum approach to structural differentiation depends – is contingent – on the external and local conditions where an organization functions. This represents a departure from assumptions from the scientific management theories of Taylor and Fayol that we discussed in previous episodes of the show. It shifts the focus of organizational scholars beyond strictly internal dynamics and structure and places greater emphasis on an organization’s alignment with its external environment. Lawrence and Lorsch used the data they collected to argue that the most economically successful organizations were the ones that managed to fulfil the dual goal of differentiation (to cope with environmental uncertainty) and integration (to align the work of highly differentiated departments).
In this episode, we read the classic article “Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations” published in 1967 in Administrative Science Quarterly. In this work, Lawrence and Lorsch investigate the relation between organizational characteristics and their environment, and stipulate that an organization’s economic performance is determined by its ability to meet integration and differentiation requirements according to their environment.
The paper is based on a comparative study of six industrial organizations and data was obtained via questionnaires and interviews with senior executives. The researchers compare the degree of integration and differentiation between subgroups in each company (i.e., sales, production and research and development subsystems) as they attempt to meet requirements from their sub-environments (i.e., science, market and technical-economic). The paper shows that the most economic successful organizations were the ones that managed to fulfil the dual goal of differentiation and integration. Finally, the authors explore the conditions that lead to more or less effectiveness in integrative devices.
So, how does integration and differentiation happen? And what does it mean to meet requirements from the environment? Join us as we explore these concepts and ideas in Episode 16!
What is it about research that makes it interesting? Or, rather, at which point does a study become interesting (or not)? The more common answer to these questions would most certainly place emphasis on the results and outcomes of a study - i.e. the research is interesting if the findings are interesting. In their 2013 book - Constructing Research Questions: Doing interesting research - Mats Alvesson and Jorgen Sandberg propose that the focal point of what contributes to something being interesting is found way before any results or implications - it is found in the assumptions that go into the design of the research.
Join us as we sit down with Professor Jorgen Sandberg to talk about his book, interesting research and about how and why one might pursue it. This book is just as relevant for new researchers and research students as it is for more seasoned academics (albeit for different reasons). It highlights the importance of creativity and self-awareness when formulating research questions and gives the owner of the book practical tools for how to make their research more interesting!
Join Miranda as she summarizes our discussion with Professor Henry Mintzberg - the author of Simply Managing (2013). If you are looking for a brief overview of Henry's scholarship in general and of this book in particular, this summary is for you! Please share and get more people Talking About Organizations!
A very exciting episode featuring Prof Henry Mintzberg! In this conversation we discussed Simply Managing (2013), which is an updated study of managers conducted by Henry Mintzberg based on observing 29 managers at all levels of organizations across a range of industries and organizational structures: business, government, healthcare, and pluralistic organizations such as museums and NGO’s. It is condensed version of his earlier book - Managing, which was published in 2009. Both books address management as it is actually practiced, which Henry found to be quite different from how management scholars write about it. Simply Managing is designed to be of greatest use to practitioners, with an entertaining style and lots of boldface type to emphasize key points clearly.
In Part 2 of the episode we go through the book in a more systematic way, discussing gossip, technology and some of the interpretative models proposed by the book. At the end of the episode Henry once more outlines his views on management and education.
Sit down with us for a conversation with Henry Mintzberg about management and Simply Managing!
A very exciting episode featuring Prof Henry Mintzberg! In this conversation we discussed Simply Managing (2013), which is an updated study of managers conducted by Henry Mintzberg based on observing 29 managers at all levels of organizations across a range of industries and organizational structures: business, government, healthcare, and pluralistic organizations such as museums and NGO’s. It is condensed version of his earlier book - Managing, which was published in 2009. Both books address management as it is actually practiced, which Henry found to be quite different from how management scholars write about it. Simply Managing is designed to be of greatest use to practitioners, with an entertaining style and lots of boldface type to emphasize key points clearly.
Part 1 of the episode is a more general discussion about management and key concepts covered in the book. Tune in to hear from the author himself and to learn from the human encyclopedia of management that is Henry Mintzberg!
Summary of our discussion of Banana Time (1959) by Donald F. Roy. This paper looks at how individuals, and groups of individuals, motivate and mentally stimulate themselves in the conduct of very monotonous work. Some of the key themes we covered during the full episode are: group dynamics, scientific management, importance and role of play, social cohesion, experience of time, and monotony, back then as well as right now.
A full house of management theory, Banana Time: Job Satisfaction and Informal Interactions, is a classic ethnographic text set against the backdrop of a Tayloristic organization. The author, Donald Roy, provides an account of what it was like to work there for two months all the while dealing with extreme monotony, fatigue and multiculturalism.
While this work is not particularly 'heavy' in terms of theory and postulations, Roy alludes to, directly or indirectly (usually the latter) to such themes as Scientific Management, esprit de corps, Hawthorne Studies, motivation and self-actualization, time and motion studies, humour, play, and lived experience of time. Needless to say, this is an amazing text well-worth reading and re-reading.
Our very first Special episode has arrived! Join Dmitrijs and Ralph as they talk to Professors Paul Duguid of UC, Berkeley and Emma Bell of Open University about things like learning, education, unconferences, power and norms, race and gender, MOOC's, and, most of all, about whether conferences are well suited to do what they are supposed to do!
Paul Duguid and Emma Bell are exceptional scholars and fantastic people, so we really cannot recommend this conversation highly enough! Paul is most famous for shaping our understanding of how information is socially subjective, and Emma is doing some excellent work on media, power and this exciting concept of 'unconferences'.
This episode took place during the OLKC 2016 conference in St Andrews, Scotland and we thank Gail Greig, Kevin Orr and Christopher Mueller of Saint Andrews University, as well as the OLKC Board, for hosting it.
In this Summary of Episode 11, our resident High Reliability expert, Dr Ralph Soule, gives an overview of the context, the study and some of the key problems facing high-risk and high-reliability approaches to organizational design.
Ralph mentions that Bierly and Spender (1995) provide a description of submariner culture and how it comes about through formal in informal practices. The author’s note that submariner’s culture is risk-averse, shared between different ships, and the result of constant training in theory, operations, and responding to emergencies. The training emphasizes specific terminology, communication behaviors, formal hierarchy, and detailed knowledge of system design and performance. This is followed by Ralph drawing on his own extensive scientific and applied knowledge of operating high-risk systems to add that nuclear operator culture has many components not mentioned by Bierly and Spender such as:
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Balancing strict compliance with orders and procedures with questioning attitude
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Balancing respect for authority and knowledge with watch team backup
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Transparency (internal and external assessments and audits, letters to the Admiral)
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Critiques (where much tacit knowledge and assumptions are revealed, but often not written down)
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High standards for technical skill (certifications and training)
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Articulation of operator principles
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Standard operation procedures
If you would like to hear more from Ralph, or about High Reliability in general, do listen to our full episode. For those wishing to learn more, we are going to have another episode on High Reliability (Episode 21) with US Navy Admiral (retired) Tom Mercer.
Continuing on with our discussion of High Reliability Organizing with resident expert Dr Ralph Soule. In the final part we go into more detail on how High Reliability can be applied to other organizations, the role of culture and technology.
Join us for Episode 11 as we go into High Reliability Organizing (HRO) with this key 1995 article from the Journal of Management. HRO is a specialist sub-field in organization theory focused on the development of processes and mechanisms that remove and reduce instances of organizational failure. This is quite a big deal as organizations most usually operating HRO principles are nuclear reactors and propulsion, chemical processing, space operations and various forms of infrastructure! With the help of our resident High Reliability expert Ralph Soule we make sense of what HRO is and what role organizational culture plays in it!
Join us as we conclude our discussion of this amazing film that is 12 Angry Men! In part two we delve into knowledge and epistemology, power, motivation and leadership (among many other exciting areas). We also continue tracing themes from the film to our past episodes, including Scientific Management of F.W. Taylor, Motivation theories of Abraham Maslow and Elton Mayo, Organization theory of Chester Barnard and authority theory of Max Weber!
Join us for Episode 10 as we go to the Movies! To celebrate our 10th episode we are watching a classic film - Twelve Angry Men (1957). This is one of the film frequently used to illustrate and highlight challenges in consensus building, teamwork and leadership. On top of that, 12 Angry Men is an amazing film well worth seeing just for the pure enjoyment of it!
This is a summary of our discussion of Elton Mayo's Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization - a second text from the famous Hawthorne Studies. Listen to Miranda cover the key points of the book and of our discussion from the full episode!
Summaries are designed to deliver an overview of TAOP Episodes, or as stand-alone teaching and learning tools. They are useful both if you are a professional looking to refresh your memory about the particulars of this management theory, or if you are a student looking to get some background information to better understand your course content. Either way - check this out and let us know what you think and how we can best develop this new segment going forward!
In this concluding part of our discussion of The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization - one of the texts comprising the famous Hawthorne Studies - we devote more attention to Mayo's social commentary, the methodological implications of qualitative empirical research as well as to the remaining three case studies.
Learn more about what Mayo and colleagues did, how they came about to realize the significance of their findings, and why none of this has any bearing on the social problems of a post-WW2 industrial civilization.
For Episode 9 we turn to the famous Hawthorne Studies - a series of social experiments that gave rise to what is now a Human Resources Management approach to organizing work. Specifically we look at the second book published by Elton Mayo, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization. In this book, Mayo reports on a number of his research projects – including the studies in the Textile Mill in Philadelphia and the at the Hawthorne plant – and provides an ambitious social commentary on industrial society. In this, he dialogues with a number of authors, including Chester Barnard, and expresses some nostalgic views on the relationship between the individual, the collective, and technology. Mayo also argues for the development an understanding of humans as social beings by definition, eschewing ideas put forward by economics and traditional political scientists who espouse ideas of the likes of Hobbes, and the importance of field studies in scientific development.
A brief summary of our humongous discussion of The Functions of The Executive (1938) by Chester Barnard. Listen for key takeaways and the synopsis of the reading.
Conclusion of our discussion of The Functions of The Executive (1938) by Chester Barnard. In this final bit of the conversation we wrap the book up and suggest a way how Barnard's sometimes-quirky-and-odd writing can be best interpreted. Enjoy!
Just to remind, we began discussion of this book in Episode 7! So check that one out if you want to get full coverage of this phenomenal piece of management theory.
Kicking off the final part of our discussion of the Functions of The Executive (1938) by Chester Barnard, we talk about the executive functions and the executive process. Barnard delivers an excellent discussion on both of these, mentioning things such as communication, trust and organizational personality in the process.
In part 2 of 4 we spend quite a bit of time discussing Barnard's understanding of authority and decision-making. Because parts 1 and 2 are, basically, one separated recording, please listen to part 1 before this or it will make very little sense!
Second episode on The Functions of The Executive (1938) by Chester Barnard. This time we spent quite a bit of time talking about why people decide to cooperate and what is authority. Did you know that authority is a form of communication infused with ritual? Or, that Barnard has four criteria which need to be satisfied in order for something to qualify as a command? And that employees are free to ignore what their superiors tell them if those criteria are not met? To find out more join us as we finish discussing this grand management book!
You will notice that we split this episode into 4 parts, instead of the usual 2. This is because of how long the recordings were due to the sheer amount of ideas contained in this work. Accordingly, we will be posting Episode 8 in 4 parts.
Conclusion of Episode 7 but only half-way point in the Functions of the Executive by Chester Barnard. In the second part of this episode we take a closer look at the antecedents of organized labour, as proposed in the book. If you want to learn how individuals become phases of cooperation or what are the conditions for healthy organizational functioning, among other fascinating things, listen to this part of our conversation.
On The Functions of The Executive (1938) by Chester Barnard. Join us for this two-episode (four-part) conversation about one of the most influential management and organization texts of... well, ever!
In Part 1 of Episode 7 we talk about Parts I and II of the book, concerning Barnard's theory of what humans are and how they (we) are motivated; as well as fundamental principles of cooperation and coordination. Have you ever thought of yourself as a 'phase of cooperation' while at work? No? Well, tune in to learn why Barnard did and why it makes a degree of sense to do so!
A summary of our discussion in Episode 6 with some bonus examples and an outline of the reading. During the main episode we discussed topics such as: rules, what is bureaucracy for, and who is bureaucracy for, among many other (smaller) ones.
Listen to this summary if you would like a quick abstract of the episode, if you are interested in teaching/learning about Weberian bureaucracy, or simply to refresh you knowledge of this timeless classic.
In the concluding part of our discussion of Max Weber's bureaucracy we pay closer attention to his views on rules, the rational-legal authority principle, and to how bureaucracy works in more contemporary, horizontal forms of organization. Also, Ralph tells us about how nuclear reactors work and what is the one thing you should never do to them!
Bureaucracy. What is it? Who is it for? How does it work and what are the limits of it? Join us for this episode as we explore Max Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy and attempt to make sense of its, sometimes peculiar, implications.
In order to do so we have read two Chapters from his magnum opus - Economy and Society. Chapter 3 on Three Forms of Legitimate Domination, where he outlines his view on bureaucracy for the first time; and Chapter 11 on Bureaucracy, where he goes into more detail on how bureaucracy ought to work, why it is superior to preceding forms of organization and what are the characteristics of it.
In Part 2, we conclude our discussion of the Giving of Orders by Mary Parker Follett. Most significantly we finally arrived at an understanding of what a situation is and how it manifests itself in Follett's understanding of management. We also went in more depth on such topics as normative control, organizational and individual learning, and historical and theoretical context within which this work is situated. This has been a very enjoyable reading and a thought-provoking discussion and we urge you to join us and learn about one of the founding thinkers of management and her alternative take on how to achieve efficiency.
How to issue orders? When is it right to do so? Are you going to hurt the feelings of your employees? Does it matter? These and many other questions are at the centre of 'The Giving of Orders' (1926) by Mary Parker Follett. This seminal work written at the height of Scientific Management dares to compete with the establishment and, in doing so, contributes so much to our current understanding of business and organization. Easy to read and simple to follow, this text is a lecture given by Mary Parker Follett at a scientific management conference where she outlined a part of her scholarship - all in all, an excellent overview of something as central to management as the giving of orders.
In the final part of our discussion on organizational routines we continue examining how routines relate to the internal/external organization, what are the external stimuli and how valid is it to postulate them as catalysts for the routines, and why the more contemporary term 'routines' can be a misleading way to refer to the 'performance programmes' that the authors wrote about. Join us for this super-informative discussion as Katharina tells us everything we wanted to know about routines but were afraid to ask (well, not really - we did ask!).
In Episode 4 we are discussing the origins of organizational routines with the help of our special guest Dr Katharina Dittrich. Organizational routines are ways to reduce complexity and distribute learning throughout the organization. The idea is simple - once a problem occurred often enough and a solution has been found, the solving of this problem can become routinised so that employees no longer have to 'reinvent the wheel'. Corporate procedures such as hiring and firing and order processing are some of the examples.
Join us for part 1 of this fascinating discussion as Dmitrijs inadvertently finds himself playing a role of devil's advocate as Katharina delivers a stunning amount of knowledge about routines.
Our first special guest, Dr Katharina Dittrich explains what organizational routines are, where they came from and why and talks about how the readings she helped us pick for Episode 4 - Behavioral Theory of the Firm (1963) by Cyert and March, and Organization (1958) by March and Simon - relate to one another.
To learn more about Episode 4 and why (as well as how) it is different, check out Carnegie Mellon School Series: An Introduction from last week!
Upcoming Episode 4 is going to be focused on the “Carnegie Mellon School” with a special emphasis on organizational routines. You will note that the structure of Episode 4, and the episodes on this subject that follow, is slightly different because we have chosen to explore the ‘entire’ school by focusing on single key topics, which are identified across texts and authors. This is mostly because the authors within this tradition are not famous for just one work but have given rise to a series of what are considered to be seminal works. In this sense the Carnegie Mellon School resembles a small community of scholars in, what was at that time, a minor institution from which fundamental intellectual cornerstones emerged and which still have a great influence over management and organization studies (and many other fields as well!).
Listen to this short introduction to find our more about how such episodes are going to work and about why we decided to pay such close attention to Carnegie Mellon School in particular.
In Episode 3 we discuss what is, perhaps, one of the most famous theories in management - the pyramid of human motivation by A.H. Maslow. Maslow's name has become synonymous with achieving motivation through gradual satisfaction of five categories of physio-psychological needs. In Part 1 we discuss the significance of Maslow's actual contribution, discover key but neglected aspects of his theory, and contemplate the extent to which this framework applies to different kinds of organizations. Join the discussion as we take a fresh look at the Theory of Human Motivation, unencumbered by decades of reinterpretation!
Also, check out this video on Maslow by our friends and colleagues from The New History of Management: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dFboMWMafo
In Episode 2 we convene to discuss Chapter 4 of General and Industrial Management by Henri Fayol. This work was composed only a few years after The Principles of Scientific Management by F.W. Taylor (Episode 1) and yet it remained virtually unknown to the English-speaking world until 1949. Never the less, Fayol's ideas have been, and still are, central to management theory and practice. Join us for part one to learn what is it that makes this French mining engineer turned CEO a noteworthy figure and how his contributions still matter today.
We are proud to inaugurate the podcast with a discussion of the theory of Scientific Management by F.W. Taylor. Join Dmitrijs, Ralph, Pedro and Miranda as they talk about Taylor's views on human motivation, knowledge and expertise, role in the development of commercial bureaucracy and why he advocated management based on systematic measurement and tasks in favor of anything else.