|
|
Introduction
|
| 1 |
“Managing
at any time, but more than ever today, is a symbolic activity. |
| 2 |
It
involves energizing people, often large numbers of people, to do new
things they previously had not thought important. |
| 3 |
Building
a compelling case – to really deliver a quality product, to double
investment in research and development, to step out and take risks each
day (e.g. |
| 4 |
make
suggestions about cost-cutting when you are already afraid of losing
your job) – is an emotional process at least as much as it is a
rational one.” Tom Peters “The achievement of stability, which is the
manager’s objective, is a never-to-be-attained ideal. |
| 5 |
He is
like a symphony orchestra conductor, endeavoring to maintain a
melodious performance in which the contributions of the various
instruments are co-ordinated and sequenced, patterned and paced, while
the orchestra members are having various personal difficulties, stage
hands are moving music stands, alternating excessive heat and cold are
creating audience and instrumental problems, and the sponsor of the
concert is insisting on irrational changes in the program.”
|
|
“I believe that
management is an art – and possibly one of the most difficult ones. |
| 6 |
Just as
the artist constantly and consciously works to perfect his technique
and to gain mastery of his relevant skills, so must the manager. |
| 7 |
Mere
technical command of the skills does not, however, produce a virtuoso
or a superb manager. |
| 8 |
It is
that extra something which each of us brings from within ourselves that
makes the difference – vision judgement, awareness of the world around
us, and responsiveness to that world, which leads to success. |
| 9 |
Managing
is a matter of the mind and the character.” Sir John Harvey-Jones “If
you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they
plan, organize, co-ordinate and control. |
| 10 |
Then
watch what they do. |
| 11 |
Don’t
be surprised if you can’t relate what you see to those four words.”
Henry Mintzberg “Management is tasks. |
| 12 |
Management
is discipline. |
| 13 |
But
management is also people. |
| 14 |
Every
achievement of management is the achievement of the manager. |
| 15 |
Every
failure is the failure of the manager. |
| 16 |
People
manage, rather than forces or facts. |
| 17 |
The
vision, dedication and integrity of managers determine whether there is
management or mismanagement.” Peter Drucker “Behaving like a manager
means having command of the whole range of management skills and
applying them as they become appropriate.”
|
| 18 |
The
phrase “applying them as they become appropriate” will be the
catchphrase for the text that follows. |
| 19 |
If we,
as authors, gave any philosophy to impart to you, our readers, it is
that management theory, management practice, and management science are
all situated skills. |
| 20 |
What
one should do, see, understand, or communicate are not governed by
absolutes but by the demands of the local situation. |
| 21 |
This
review is thus an expansion of Simon’s pat phrase: |
| 22 |
the art
of managing is knowing what to apply and when. |
| 23 |
Most
books on management (or on management theory) are constructed around a
particular point of view. |
| 24 |
There
are books on structural contingency theory, resource dependence theory,
and corporate ecology theory, to name a but a few examples. |
| 25 |
There
are also books which seek either to explain how a manager might make
use of these theories or how some other manager did so with regard to a
particular company or event in time. |
| 26 |
The
entire management strategy field is devoted to such theories and
resulting tales, as is most of what gets labeled organizational
behavior or as organizational dynamics. |
| 27 |
Whether
deliberate or not, the implication of developing such single
perspective theories (or monism) is that there does in fact exist some
all embracing theory of management that can be applied globally to all
management issues. |
| 28 |
This
review is vastly different. |
| 29 |
While
the authors do have an underlying point of view, a view that stresses
the situated nature of management, the lessons presented involve
multiple perspectives and multiple paradigms. |
| 30 |
The
coherence we aim for is not based on homogeneity of perspective, but on
a recognition of “appropriateness”. |
| 31 |
Our
audience is made up of those studying management for the purpose of
becoming better managers. |
| 32 |
We make
no claims that the text that follows will be the acme of academic
argument, for the arguments of management academics are often
irrelevant to the practicing manager. |
| 33 |
Instead
of attempting to teach you how to win polemic wars at the university,
we strive to aid you in better understanding the toolbox of multiple
perspectives that you, as a manager, have at your disposal. |
| 34 |
Our
language will attempt to be as ‘real world’ as possible. |
| 35 |
With
every page the emphasis is on practical understanding. |
| 36 |
What is the ‘Experience of Managing’? |
| 37 |
What
does it mean to be a practicing day-to-day manager? |
| 38 |
What
does the experience feel like? |
| 39 |
What
questions, pressures, and situations occur? |
| 40 |
Our aim
is to get the reader past the typical rhetoric that stems from
corporate recruiters or well-intentioned but somewhat clueless
journalists. |
| 41 |
It is
very important to have a clear appreciation of the ‘experience of
management’ to allow intelligent and informed critique of the various
management approaches. |
| 42 |
How can
we have “command of the whole range of management skills and [apply]
them as they become appropriate” if we do not have a ‘feel’ for the
strengths and shortcomings of the different perspectives. |
| 43 |
To
develop a ‘feel’ for the strengths and shortcomings we need to
understand ‘what management is’. |
| 44 |
Traditional Management Theory View of
Management
|
| 45 |
There
are other labels for the academics and researchers interested in these
questions. |
| 46 |
They
include organization scientists, specialists in organization theory and
organization behavior, strategists, planners, and management
consultants, or even ‘guru’ and ‘witch doctor’. |
| 47 |
Action, Ambiguity, and Interpretation
|
|
The idea that the bases
of action are not "reality" but perceptions of reality is close to a
received doctrine these days. |
| 48 |
However,
there are ample controversies about the nature of the perceptions and
the sense in which a more autonomous (objective) reality also exists. |
| 49 |
Almost
all students of action allow actors some kind of subjective control
over the normative and perceptual factors guiding their actions, though
they differ in their assumptions about the extent to which subjective
judgments and "objective reality" diverge. |
| 50 |
Some
theorists would claim to have discovered or defined a generic
preference structure; |
| 51 |
others
would presume that expectations (at least on average) approximate
reality, at least after some time; |
| 52 |
and
others would suggest that beliefs and perceptions may be more or less
automatically enacted into reality. |
| 53 |
With
these important qualifications, however, there is some general
consensus that what we see or believe may at times deviate from what is
true. |
| 54 |
The
ambiguities of knowledge and desires reflect partly the cognitive
limitations of individuals and organizations. |
| 55 |
Such a
conception leads both to an interest in improving the capabilities of
human actors to approximate the decision-theory ideal and to a
fascination with systematic bias in judgments and in collective
decisions. |
| 56 |
Ambiguity
can, however, also be seen as a fundamental feature of life, one that
endures despite the best efforts of reformers and has even be portrayed
as having survival advantages1. For example, the capability of a
collective to satisfy requirements of agreement may depend on
exploiting the ambiguities of preferences and meaning. |
| 57 |
It is
also received doctrine that the premises of action are socially
constructed. |
| 58 |
Preferences,
expectations, identities, and definitions of situations are seen as
arising from interactions within a social system, thus as embedded in
social norms and cultural conventions of discourse. |
| 59 |
In this
view, explanations of action gain legitimacy by invoking shared
understandings of proper narrative. |
| 60 |
Shared
understandings are the result of social exchanges mediated by a
complete arsenal of social elements - social structure, language, myth,
resource distributions, etc. |
| 61 |
While
such exchanges may result in divergence of belief, as, for example, in
the exchange between enemies or in processes of individualization, more
of the recent interest has been in convergent diffusion processes by
which perceptions, desires, and rules tend to become shared for a
period of time. |
| 62 |
The
stories that are told by decision-makers can be viewed as instrumental
premises of action, as they are by most students of decision making. |
| 63 |
In such
a view, interpretations of history are instrumental to the making of
decisions and thus important; |
| 64 |
but
there is no fundamental interest in a theory of interpretation, or
story telling. |
| 65 |
For
example, it is clear that certain "magic numbers," such as performance
measures or summary statistics, often guide organizational action. |
| 66 |
Thus,
the theory of action has come to emphasize theories of the politics and
technology of numbers and the social construction of accounting. |
| 67 |
Grander
derivatives of a subjectivist stance, however, identify humanity not so
much with action as with interpretation, with explanations of action,
history, and the self. |
| 68 |
Story
telling is seen as more elemental. |
| 69 |
It is
sometimes portrayed as independent of action and thus as a separate
domain. |
| 70 |
Alternatively,
action is pictured as an instrument in the development of
interpretation, rather than the other way around. |
| 71 |
Out of
such conceptions have come notions of loose coupling between the
processes of decision making and its outcomes. |
| 72 |
Decision-making
processes are seen as signals and symbols of legitimacy, and thus
valuable in their own right, regardless of any consequences for
decision outcomes. |
| 73 |
The
community of talk is seen as distinct from the community of action,
with different rules and different audiences. |
| 74 |
As a
result, organizations can talk about some things about which they
cannot act and can act on some things about which they cannot talk. |
| 75 |
The
symbolic meaning of decisions has come to be recognized as a vital
aspect of decision making that is not necessarily linked to decision
implementation. |
| 76 |
The
basic technology of organization is described as a technology of
narrative, as well as a technology of production. |
| 77 |
The
contested terrain of organizations is seen as a terrain of meaning. |
| 79 |
“Continuity
and change in theories of organizational action” by James G. March
|
|
Contingency Theory |
|
There is little
doubt among most theorists that the environment strongly affects
organizations. |
| 80 |
Changes
in global economic conditions and resource availability can cause
business organizations to succeed or fail. |
| 81 |
Early
theorists like Chester Barnard (cite) recognized that organizations are
often unstable and seek to survive at all costs. |
| 82 |
In a
seminal article Lawrence and Lorsch (cite) develop an open systems
theory of how organizations and organizational sub-units adapt to best
meet the demands of their immediate environment. |
| 83 |
By an
open systems theory we simply mean that the organization is open to the
environment, an exchange of resources occurs across the
organization/environment boundary. |
| 84 |
Rather
than start with the individual Lawrence and Lorsch decided to start
with an ecological view of the organizations and their environment. |
| 85 |
In
their theory an organization is defined as a system of interrelated
behavior of people that are performing a task that has been
differentiated into several distinct sub-systems. |
| 86 |
Each
sub-systems performs a part of the task, the effects of each being
integrated to achieve effective performance of the system. |
| 87 |
Differentiation
is defined as the state of segmentation of the organizational systems
into sub-systems, each of which tends to develop particular attributes
in relation to the requirements posed by it’s relevant external
environment. |
| 88 |
Whereas,
integration is defined as “the process of achieving unity of effort
among the various sub-systems in the accomplishment of the
organization’s task.” Basic sub-systems are seen as sales, production,
and R&D, for example. |
| 89 |
Tasks
are segmented into sectors for market sub-environment,
technical-economic sub-environment, and scientific sub-environment. |
| 90 |
In their
theory Lawrence and Lorsch hypothesized that these sub-systems would
develop differently based on how they interacted with their environment. |
| 91 |
Contingency
theory suggests that performance is determined by the organizations’
ability to cope with its environment. |
| 92 |
First,
organizations must balance differentiation and integration to be
successful. |
| 93 |
Second,
groups that are organized to perform simpler, more certain tasks (e.g. |
| 94 |
production
groups) usually have more formal structure than groups focusing on more
uncertain tasks (e.g. |
| 95 |
research
and development). |
| 96 |
Therefore,
it follows that the degree of differentiation is based upon
environmental requirements. |
| 97 |
Third,
the time taken for sub-groups to orient is primarily dependent on the
immediacy of feedback from their actions, i.e. |
| 98 |
the
time taken to perceive the effects caused by their actions. |
| 99 |
Thus,
the degree of integration is consistent with the requirements of the
total environment. |
| 100 |
Finally,
the goal orientation of sub-units is based relative to the part of the
environment that effects them the most. |
| 101 |
Therefore,
the degree of goal orientation is consistent with the requirements of
the total environment. |
| 102 |
In the
same vain Galbraith suggested that the greater the uncertainty of the
task, the greater the amount of information that must be processed
between decision-makers during the execution of the task to get a given
level of performance. |
| 103 |
Firms
can reduce uncertainty through better planning and coordination, often
by rules, hierarchy, or goals. |
| 104 |
The
critical limiting factor of an organizational form, therefore, becomes
the ability to handle the non-routine events that cannot be anticipated
or planned for. |
| 105 |
When
the ‘exceptions’ become too prevalent, they overwhelm the hierarchy’s
ability to process them. |
| 106 |
The
degree of coordination is often dependent on the number of exceptions
to defined tasks. |
| 107 |
Design
strategies can reduce the amount of information processed, or increased
the ability to handle more information. |
| 108 |
All of
these strategies help to reduce the number of exceptions that must flow
up the hierarchy for resolution. |
| 109 |
Galbraith
believed that variations in organizations are variations in strategies
to increase pre-plan ability and to decrease the level of performance
required for continued viability. |
| 110 |
He
defines a continuity of organizational forms that firms utilize to
reduce this uncertainty, including creation of slack resources,
creation of self-contained tasks, and creation of lateral relationships. |
| 111 |
Moving
the decision making power down in the firm to where the information
exists can reduce uncertainty at the decision level. |
| 112 |
This
includes more direct contact between managers across groups, liaison
personnel between groups, task forces and teams of different kinds, and
matrix organizations. |
| 113 |
His
argument is that while some of these strategies can reduce more
uncertainty, they also require more ‘organizational investment’ and
higher administrative costs. |
| 114 |
The
difficulty lies in the creation of mechanisms that permit coordinated
action across large numbers of interdependent roles. |
| 115 |
Firms
must choose the most optimal level for their immediate environment, i.e. |
| 116 |
the
strategy that has the least cost in its environmental context. |
|
Institutional
Theory |
| 117 |
Closely
related to contingency theory, institutional theorists assert that the
institutional environment can strongly influence the development of
formal structures in an organization, often more profoundly that market
pressures. |
| 118 |
Innovative
structures that improve technical efficiency in early-adopting
organizations are legitimized in the environment. |
| 119 |
Ultimately
these innovations reach a level of legitimization where failure to
adopt them is seen as irrational and even negligent. |
| 120 |
At this
point new and existing organizations will adopt the institutionalized
structural form even if the form does not improve their efficiency. |
| 121 |
Meyer
and Rowan argue that organizations are driven to incorporate the
practices and procedures defined by failing rationalized concepts of
organizational work and institutionalized in society. |
| 122 |
These
‘institutional myths’ are merely accepted ceremoniously in order for
the organization to gain or maintain legitimacy in the institutional
environment. |
| 123 |
The
adoption and prominent display of these acceptable ‘trappings of
legitimacy’ help preserve an aura of organizational action based on
‘good faith’. |
| 124 |
The
underlying reason is that legitimacy in the institutional environment
helps ensure organizational survival. |
| 125 |
These
formal structures of legitimacy can reduce efficiency and hinder the
organization’s competitive position in their technical environment. |
| 126 |
To
reduce this negative effect, organizations often will de-couple their
technical core from these legitimizing structures. |
| 127 |
Organizations
will minimize evaluation and neglect program implementation to maintain
external (and internal) confidence in formal structures while reducing
their efficiency impact. |
| 128 |
DiMaggio
and Powell argued that organizational structure, which used to arise
from the rules of efficiency in the marketplace, now arise from the
institutional constraints imposed by the state and the professions. |
| 129 |
The
efforts to achieve rationality with uncertainty and constraint lead to
homogeneity of structure, ‘institutional isomorphism’. |
| 130 |
Firms
will adopt similar structures as a result of three types of pressures: |
| 131 |
Coercive
pressures come from legal mandates, or influence from organizations
they are dependent upon; |
| 132 |
Mimetic
pressures to copy successful forms arise during high uncertainty; |
| 133 |
Normative
pressures to homogeneity come from the similar attitudes and approaches
of professional groups and associations brought into the firm through
hiring practices. |
| 134 |
They
add that the rate of institutional isomorphism is increased when firms
are highly dependent on the institutional environment, exist under high
uncertainty or ambiguous goals, or rely extensively on professionals. |
|
Resource
Dependency |
| 135 |
If, as
contingency theory suggests, organizations are dependent on the
environment for their survival what is the form of those dependencies? |
| 136 |
The
resource dependency theory posits that such dependencies typically take
the form of a relationship between themselves and other organizations. |
| 137 |
Interdependencies
are mutual dependencies that develop to reduce the uncertainty in the
relationship. |
| 138 |
Organizations
who are dependent on the continued success of other organizations may
build "behavioral dependencies" with them to reduce risk. |
| 139 |
This
often involves increased coordination and mutual control over each
other's resources. |
| 140 |
In
modern society these dependencies have increased over time as firms
become more specialized. |
| 141 |
Pfeffer
and Salancik suggested that it is the organization's dependence on the
environment that makes the external constraint and control of
organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable. |
| 142 |
Groups
that control the most vital resources or can reduce the uncertainty of
other organizations have the most power. |
| 143 |
Control
over resource allocation, they argue, is an important power source. |
| 144 |
This
power basis can arise from possession of the resource, ownership of the
resource, control of access to the resource, control of actual use of
the resource, or making the rules that regulate the resources. |
| 145 |
Power
also depends on whether a critical resource is obtainable from other
sources. |
| 146 |
Dependence
can then be defined as the product of the importance of a given input
or output to the organization and the extent to which it is controlled
by a relatively few organizations. |
| 147 |
The
logic is that anytime there is dependence asymmetry between
organizations (or individuals) there is a power difference. |
| 148 |
Pfeffer
and Salancik concluded that it is possible to conceive of
organizational behavior as the consequence of influences. |
|
Organizational
Ecology |
| 149 |
Organizational
ecology, or population ecology as it sometimes is referred to, is the
study of dynamic changes within a given set of organizations. |
| 150 |
Using
the population as their level of analysis, population ecologists
statistically examine the birth and mortality of organizations and
organizational forms within the population over long periods. |
| 151 |
Population
ecologists take an evolutionary view of organizational change, assuming
that organizations descend from previous or existing organizations and
that population-level change in organizational forms is usually slow
and continual. |
| 152 |
This
approach developed from work by Astley, Hannan and Freeman. |
| 153 |
Hannan
and Freeman argued that long-term change in the diversity of
organizational forms within a population occurs through selection
rather than adaptation. |
| 154 |
Most
organizations have structural inertia that hinders adaptation when the
environment changes. |
| 155 |
Those
organizations that become incompatible with the environment are
eventually replaced through competition with new organizations better
suited to external demands. |
| 156 |
Analysis
in population ecology has three levels, explaining: |
| 157 |
1.
birth and death rates within a population 2. vital-rate interaction
between populations 3. "communities of populations" sharing similar
environments The theory holds that unlike evolution in animals, natural
selection in organizations does not necessarily lead to optimization. |
| 158 |
Optimized
change often depends on the "coupling" between intent and outcome. |
| 159 |
Long-term
change in the diversity of organizational forms within a population
occurs through selection rather than adaptation. |
| 160 |
Most
organizations have structural inertia that hinders adaptation when the
environment changes. |
| 161 |
Those
organizations that become incompatible with the environment are
eventually replaced through competition with new organizations better
suited to external demands. |
| 162 |
Astley’s
work contends that community ecology better explains the mechanisms of
birth and death of populations of organizations. |
| 163 |
Community
ecology focuses on how populations of organizations interact with each
other. |
| 164 |
Using
the population as the basic unit of analysis it explains organizational
evolution as the joint product of forces that simultaneously produce
homogeneity and stability within populations, and diversity between
them. |
| 165 |
The
birth of new organizational species, considered a random event, opens
up new avenues of development in what is inherently an unpredictable
pattern of evolution. |
| 166 |
This
process lies in a fortuitous set of conditions that promote the
emergence of mutant forms, where technological innovation is the
organizational analogy to biological mutation. |
| 167 |
Organizational
communities begin to function when they exchange resources with each
other, rather than with the environment. |
| 168 |
As these
interdependencies grow the community is less dependent on the
environment, causing "community closure" which inhibits the emergence
of new populations. |
| 169 |
The
population increases until the available resources become scarce, and
the selection process weeds out the weaker firms. |
| 170 |
Once
this stabilizes the populations, new interdependencies emerge between
populations, and new populations are added to fulfill functional roles
until the community is saturated. |
| 171 |
The
railroads and transportation system development in the US is an example
of a community created by technology. |
| 172 |
A
saturated community is unstable and will ultimately collapse with new
innovations. |
| 173 |
Organizational
ecology theories are linked to both structural contingency and resource
dependence. |
| 174 |
Thus
the three theories together contend that organizational forms: |
| 175 |
*
Exploit dynamic resources, growing when abundant and shrinking when
scarce; |
| 176 |
* Lose
their competitive edge as they age as new technologies emerge and
social situations change; |
| 177 |
* Put
processes of legitimization and competition into opposition. |
| 178 |
At low
density, growth in numbers mainly legitimizes a population and the
organizational form it uses. |
| 179 |
But as
density increases, competition becomes more important (especially when
density is high relative to resources). |
| 180 |
All
three perspectives focus analysis above the level of a specific
organization, and both emphasize a long-term historical view. |
|
The Chasm Between ‘Real Life’ and
Theory |
| 181 |
The
contrast between the experience of management and traditional
management theories highlight a clear disagreement between the
practicing managers’ experiences and the management world described by
mainstream management academics. |
| 182 |
This
disagreement separates the ‘experience of management’ from the bulk of
management literature. |
| 183 |
The gap
between them is more than wide enough for us to label it a ‘chasm’. |
| 184 |
Henry
Mintzberg writes of some stark different between management folklore
and management fact regarding the nature of management. |
| 185 |
Here
are what Mintzberg describes as “four myths about the manager’s job:”
|
| 186 |
Folklore:The manager is a
reflective, systematic planner. |
| 187 |
Fact: Study after
study has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace, that their
activities are characterized by brevity, variety and discontinuity, and
that they are strongly oriented to action and dislike reflective
activities. |
| 188 |
Folklore: The
effective manager has no regular duties to perform. |
| 189 |
Fact: In addition to
handling exceptions, managerial work involves performing a number of
regular duties, including ritual and ceremony, negotiations, and
processing of soft information that links the organization with its
environment. |
| 190 |
Folklore: The
senior manager needs aggregated information, which a formal management
information system best provides. |
| 191 |
Fact:
Managers strongly favor the oral media -- namely, telephone calls and
meetings. |
| 193 |
Folklore: Management is,
or at least is quickly becoming, a science and a profession. |
| 195 |
Fact: The managers’
programs -- to schedule time, process information, make decisions, and
so on -- remain locked deep inside their brains. |
| 201 |
Mintzberg’s
characterization of ‘fact’ and ‘folklore’ is stark. |
| 202 |
What
Mintzberg call a gap, however, we call a chasm. |
| 203 |
Chasms
are wider, deeper, and more foreboding than gaps. |
| 204 |
The
origins of the chasm date back at least as far as Henri Fayol, a French
industrialist who in 1916 introduced the view of management as some
kind of machine. |
| 205 |
This
metaphor dominated managerial prescriptions during the 20th century –
its influence upon the theories of action is clear. |
| 206 |
Four
simple words – plan, organize, coordinate, and control – underlie what
managerial actions business schools, and consulting companies have been
prescribing. |
| 207 |
Furthermore,
and possibly more significant, many managers assumed that this is what
they should do, as well as non-managers thinking that, that was
actually what ‘real’ managers were doing. |
| 208 |
And,
this is what prospective managers have prepared to start doing when
they might finally be labeled ‘managers’. |
| 209 |
It was
not until the 70s that some scholars, most notably Mintzberg, began to
describe these four words are more like ‘folklore’ about management,
rather than facts. |
| 210 |
It took
many more years before the community that describes, and prescribes,
management practices considered this critique legitimate. |
| 211 |
This
reluctance to accept the traditional view as folklore rather than fact
has to do, not only with institutional momentum for the contrary, but
because previously accepted view was simpler and therefore easier to
assimilate and implement. |
| 212 |
It
wasn’t really until the onset of globalization in the business world
that the far-reaching risks associated with such a simple perspective
of management were realized. |
| 213 |
In the
past life was simpler for the manager. |
| 214 |
In this
quasi-closed (rather than open), complicated (rather than complex)
world change was slower. |
| 215 |
A
manager not only had a simpler system to deal with, but also he/she
generally had more time to make decisions, and also more time realize
whether the decision was correct or not, and then still more time to
put things right if they were wrong. |
| 216 |
In a
simpler world the gap between what theory prescribed and what managers
experienced was less apparent, and far less important. |
| 217 |
Nowadays,
however, things are very different. |
| 218 |
Primarily
as a direct result of the rapid development of IT, systems are more
connected and the geographical boundaries of old are no longer
physically bound (or close) a region from the rest of the world. |
| 219 |
The
ability to connect to the rest of the world allows and organization to
influence and to be influenced by a greater network of organizations,
societies, etc. |
| 220 |
Connectivity
has grown exponentially. |
| 221 |
In this
global, complex world life moves quickly (partly as the ability to
generate and make use of information grows), i.e. |
| 222 |
the
tempo of business has increased significantly and is continuing to do
so. |
| 223 |
The
manager no longer has the luxury of time for many decisions. |
| 224 |
This
combination of increased complexity and tempo means that the gap has
grown and become plainly more apparent than ever before. |
| 225 |
Every
day voices in the mass media tell us we live in a world in which
complexity is rising and institutional orders are dissipating. |
| 226 |
In such
a world, organisational science studies ways of fending off the forces
of chaos that are, so to speak, always just around the corner. |
| 227 |
Management
is portrayed as the process not only of fending off, but also of
sometimes seizing hold, of those very forces. |
| 228 |
The
traditional management literature -- the stuff from which most of our
MBA led generation is taught -- tends to speak of an objective world
where interactions can be described in linear terms, where words have
singular meanings, and where prediction and control are paramount. |
| 229 |
The
focus on control provides one perspective on "chaos" and the manifold
changes occurring all around us. |
| 230 |
In an
alternative view, organizations can be viewed as systems of
interpretation and constructions of reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). |
| 231 |
In order
to survive, organizations must find ways to interpret events so as to
stabilize their environments and try to make them more predictable; |
| 232 |
organizations
must also find ways to interpret events so as to be one with the
environment, an environment that they choose. |
| 233 |
A
central concern of organization science is that of understanding how
people construct meaning and reality, and exploring how that enacted
reality provides a context for action. |
| 234 |
When
managers 'enact' the environment, they as Weick (1995) put it: |
| 235 |
"construct,
rearrange, single out, and demolish many 'objective' features of their
surroundings. |
| 237 |
they
unrandomize variables, insert vestiges of orderliness, and literally
create their own constraints." Through this process of sensemaking and
reality construction, people in an organization give meaning to the
events and actions of the organization. |
|
Bridging the Chasm |
| 238 |
Management
theory texts can provide very useful fixes and prescriptions to assist
the practicing manager. |
| 239 |
The
underlying assumptions, however, in these texts are generally
inconsistent (i.e. |
| 240 |
they
are different, or misaligned) with those actually experienced in the
real world of managers. |
| 241 |
The main
criticism of the traditional management texts is the implied notion
that single viewpoint approaches have the ‘capacity’ to deliver the
necessary breadth and depth to address the vast array of management
issues – from simple number crunching problems to multi-disciplinary
team (i.e. |
| 242 |
teams
comprising of members each specializing in a different subject)
management. |
| 243 |
By
contrast, the main criticism traditionalists have of the ‘others’ is
that by refusing to focus management studies on a single perspective
theory, the potential political and influential clout of management
academics has been vastly reduced. |
| 244 |
Witness
this quote from Jeffrey Pfeffer: |
| 245 |
Without
a recommitment to a set of fundamental questions and without working
through a set of rules to resolve theoretical disputes, the field of
organization studies will remain ripe for a hostile takeover. |
| 246 |
(Pfeffer,
1993) Around such ideas Lex Donaldson builds an entire book – “American
Anti-Management Theories of Organization: |
| 247 |
A
Critique of Paradigm Proliferation.” Donaldson’s book is an indictment
of existing organization theory which, he claims, has fragmented into
competing paradigms3. Donaldson argues that this profusion of
perspectives is driven not by a genuine need to further the body of
knowledge, but by a “push for novelty fuelled by individual career
interests” typical of the academic environment – a rather cynical
attitude. |
| 248 |
He
asserts that the resulting fragmentation of the field into mutually
incompatible ideas has significantly weakened organization theory as an
intellectual enterprise worthy of attention and support. |
| 249 |
Donaldson’s
book calls for building a unified theory of organizations by selective
addition of elements from organizational ecology, institutional theory,
resource dependency, agency theory, and transaction cost economics to a
base of structural contingency theory. |
| 250 |
Furthermore,
he suggests that in such unification lies the future agenda for
research in organization theory. |
| 251 |
The
inference of this suggestion is that there indeed exists a grand, all
embracing, theory of management, synonymous with the concept of the
‘theory of everything’ (TOE) from physics. |
| 252 |
Such a
theory would single-handedly explain every facet of organizational
thinking. |
| 253 |
For
example, it would cover such areas as the role(s) of subjective
elements such as emotions, language, human interaction, as well as the
more objective elements, such as organizational form, business value
chain, etc. |
| 254 |
Not
only does such a theory supposedly exist, but, if it were adopted as
‘gospel’, management academics might gain the clout now exercised by
economists and ‘gurus’. |
| 255 |
It is
simply not reasonable to expect single perspective approaches to
provide broad ranging applicability. |
| 256 |
This is
particularly true given the complex nature of today’s business
environment and the resulting vast array of different scenarios a
manager might face. |
| 257 |
Indeed
the view within physics, at least, of the existence of a TOE is slowly
changing. |
| 258 |
Stephen
Hawking in his latest revision of the bestseller “A Brief History of
Time” has hinted that the useable features of a TOE will more than
likely comprise a number of separate theories. |
| 259 |
These
theories would have distinct areas of application rather than a single
all embracing perspective of the universe. |
| 260 |
Management
academics, as in other sciences, seem to have crowned unification as a
goal. |
| 261 |
In our
opinion, the belief and therefore the focus on the search for a unified
theory of management is resulting in the closing down and overlooking
of potentially exciting and valuable (to managers as well as academics)
avenues of research. |
| 262 |
This is
not to say that the insights derived from single minded texts have no
value. |
| 263 |
On the
contrary, when applied in the appropriate (limited) situation(s), i.e. |
| 264 |
the
right place at the right time, the approaches may indeed prove
invaluable. |
| 265 |
However,
making the connection between the situation of interest and theory is
not a trivial undertaking. |
| 266 |
If we
consider the challenges to humankind throughout its own evolutionary
journey, we suppose that many occasions prehistoric man came face to
face with a sabre toothed tiger or something less dangerous, like a
wooly mammoth for example. |
| 267 |
In the
early days, prehistoric man was not equipped with a perspective that
allowed him to distinguish between the mortally dangerous tiger and the
mammoth. |
| 268 |
A number
of painful lessons later, our simple hunter developed an appropriate
model that improved his/her chances of walking away intact after an
encounter with a tiger of a mammoth. |
| 269 |
Prehistoric
man had developed an understanding of the situation that allowed him to
identify what was important to consider in order to take an appropriate
course of action. |
| 270 |
A
challenge to the modern day manager (among many others) is to perform
the same trick, i.e. |
| 271 |
to
recognize the pertinent features of a situation, develop or apply a
theory explaining the relationships between the pertinent features, and
then make a decision based on the predictions/understanding the
application of the theory derives. |
| 272 |
Because
of the complexity inherent in many such situations it is impossible to
know beforehand what is important to consider, and therefore what model
to apply and what will happen. |
| 273 |
To
complicate life more, similar situations do not necessarily result in
similar outcomes. |
| 274 |
We need
to wait and see what happens before we know what happens! |
| 275 |
This is
not a very satisfactory for the manager, in fact it’s the end of life
as we know it – particularly for the prehistoric men culled by the
sabre toothed tiger. |
| 276 |
Of
course, experience will provide a powerful (and sometimes overwhelming)
input to the decision process. |
| 277 |
But as
we all know, experience is not always appropriate for new situations,
otherwise our failure rate would be much lower than it is. |
| 278 |
The
necessary managerial skill of recognizing (through identification of
what’s important for the particular situation – context) which
viewpoint to adopt for a given situation (i.e. |
| 279 |
a clear
understanding of situatedness) will be raised time and time again
throughout this text, and is the principal message communicated. |
| 280 |
We will
see that the ambiguity and unpredictability of the world around us can
be managed, or at least coped. |
|
Actor-Network
Theory |
| 281 |
The
original development and application of actor-network theory (ANT) was
concerned with the sociology of science and was pioneered by Michael
Callon (1986) and Bruno Latour (1987). |
| 282 |
Overtime,
it has been broadened by an international group of scholars to become a
process-oriented theory of management
|
| 284 |
ANT is
one way to represent work, which in reality is difficult, messy and
complex. |
| 285 |
It
simplifies reality in a way that highlights how human actors and
artifacts are seen as part of the social world. |
| 286 |
An
actor network (AN) consists of both people and things. |
| 287 |
Both
people and things are actors in a network – they have a role to play. |
| 288 |
Buildings,
texts, or money are usually considered to be resources or constraints. |
| 289 |
But if
we consider objects as playing an active rather than a passive role in
the construction of an organization, the role(s) of objects change(s). |
| 290 |
Just as
people act on other people and objects, objects act on other objects as
well as on people. |
| 291 |
For
example, a burned out light bulb on an overhead projector not only
changes the actions of the presenter who must now speak without his/her
transparencies, but is also changes the usefulness of the projector
itself – which gets turned-off and moved to the corner. |
| 292 |
“Entities
– human, technical and textual, are compound realities, the product of
a process of composition”
|
| 294 |
According
to ANT, artifacts as well as humans can be actors, meaning that they
are capable of putting other actors into action. |
| 295 |
Artifacts
can trigger and even control humans. |
| 296 |
There
is also no different between a person and a network – a person or a
position is nothing without its network. |
| 297 |
What is
a Dean without a faculty, students, or a university? |
| 298 |
An
office or funding? |
| 299 |
A staff
or a computer? |
| 300 |
According
to ANT actors are fighting or struggling in the process of networking,
and their fights and struggles are the driving force in this process. |
| 301 |
This
‘struggling’ is based on the actor’s intention and interest of the
situation at hand. |
| 302 |
An AN
increases in size and strength as more actors become enrolled. |
| 303 |
Adding
only people to the network will be insufficient. |
| 304 |
A new
machine, a new computer, classrooms, audio visual equipment, texts,
etc., i.e. |
| 305 |
supporting
infrastructure, can increase the strength of the network as easily as
increasing the number of people. |
| 306 |
For
example, the military refer to communication systems as a ‘force
multiplier’ as the availability of such equipment multiplies the
strength of the military force (by supposedly making them more
efficient). |
| 307 |
In
fact, it is only through enrollment of both people and things that
networks are formed. |
| 308 |
Actors
also participate in many networks which frequently overlap and sometime
compete. |
| 309 |
ANT
tells us quite clearly that a theory should not be judged according to
an absolute set of indicators, but according to the work that it does
in the world. |
| 310 |
Let us
use an analogy. |
| 311 |
In the
early nineteenth century in England there were a huge number of capital
crimes – starting from stealing a loaf of bread and onwards…. |
| 312 |
However,
precisely because the penalties were so draconian, few juries would
ever impose the maximum sentence; |
| 313 |
and
indeed there was actually a drastic reduction in the number of
executions even as the penal code was progressively strengthened. |
| 314 |
Here
are two ways of writing history – one can either concentrate on the
creation of the law; |
| 315 |
or one
can concentrate on the way things worked out in practice. |
| 316 |
This is
very similar to the position taken by Latour (where he says we can
either look at what scientists say that they are doing – working within
a purified realm of knowledge – or at what they are actually are doing
– manufacturing hybrids). |
| 317 |
Both of
these are valid kinds of account. |
| 318 |
Early
ANT concentrated on the ways in which it comes to seem that science
gives an objective account of natural order: |
| 319 |
trials
of strength, enrolling of allies, cascades of inscriptions and the
operation of immutable mobiles. |
| 320 |
It drew
attention to the importance of the development of standards (though not
to the linked development of classification systems); |
| 321 |
but did
not look at these in detail. |
| 322 |
In so
doing we ‘followed the actors’. |
| 323 |
We
shared their insights (allies must be enrolled, translation mechanisms
must be set in train so that, in the canonical case, Pasteur’s
laboratory work can be seen as a direct translation of the quest for
French honor after defeat in the battlefield), their perspectives, and
their traumas. |
| 324 |
However,
by the very nature of the method, we also shared their blindness. |
| 325 |
The
actors being followed did not see what was excluded: |
| 326 |
they
constructed a world in which that exclusion could occur. |
| 327 |
ANT
tenets apply to change. |
| 328 |
In ANT
the concept of a stable and aligned network is a description of a
network which is well functioning. |
| 329 |
Walsham
(1997) points out that successful networks of aligned interests are
created through the enrollment of a sufficient body of allied
interests, which make sure that they will act in a way that maintains
the network. |
| 330 |
ANT
forces us to consider both human or customs of those involved in
curricular change. |
| 331 |
It asks
us to consider how actors become enrolled in new networks, how the
network elements change in relationship to each other, and how
sub-networks are formed. |
|
Organizational
Learning |
| 332 |
Unlike
theory building in the natural sciences, organizational theory has
proceeded without a strong sense of collective endeavor. |
| 333 |
In the
past decade the idea of ‘organizational learning’ has captured the
imagination of both managers and scholars. |
| 334 |
The
focus on learning has given rise to a viewpoint, in which individuals’
beliefs and insights are viewed as critical influences on
organizational effectiveness. |
| 335 |
Organizational
learning theorists, like Argyris, Senge, Cohen and Levinthal propose
that it is not enough for leaders to design appropriate organization
structures and continue to make well-reasoned decisions. |
| 336 |
Instead,
organizations must at all levels be attentive to changing conditions,
including their ability to absorb the learning at hand. |
| 337 |
Argyris
is widely cited as a pioneer in organizational change efforts and
credited with a lifetime of sustained creative thinking about
intervention in complex systems. |
| 338 |
His
work forms the basis for many concepts and models of organizational
learning. |
| 339 |
Argyris
argues that all human action is a consequence of design - both
conscious and not. |
| 340 |
In each
situation, if-then propositions analogous to a computer program specify
desired actions. |
| 341 |
Ineffective
action is as much a result of design as is effective action. |
| 342 |
The
idea is to simply ask people to change their programs, to improve their
own effectiveness and the effectiveness of their organizations. |
| 343 |
There
are two kinds of programs in people's heads; |
| 344 |
one is
the espoused kind, if-then propositions we think lie behind our actions. |
| 345 |
The
other is the ‘theory-in-use’, which is if-then propositions we actually
use when we act. |
| 346 |
The
problem is that individuals are unaware of the discrepancy between the
two. |
| 347 |
This
unawareness is partly due to learning our theories-in-use early in life. |
| 348 |
More
insidiously, however, specific features of theories-in-use keep people
unaware of this discrepancy. |
| 349 |
We then
act upon these ‘facts’, remaining unaware of having made an inferential
leap and thus unable to detect our errors. |
| 350 |
Argyris
defines ‘actionable knowledge’ as specifying both the skills required
to produce a new state as well as the contextual conditions necessary
to help maintain it, and maintains that if organizational researchers
wish to produce actionable knowledge, they must focus on
theories-in-use. |
| 351 |
As one
of the scholars that has popularized the concept and practice of
organizational learning, Senge's overriding goal is to synthesize
technical and behavioral learning issues. |
| 352 |
He
combines technical models with the concepts of vision and personal
growth. |
| 353 |
In the
context of system dynamics' history of focusing on technical issues,
the behavioral theories underlying his work are comparatively less
developed, but reflect an awareness of the importance of both cognitive
and affective issues. |
| 354 |
Inspired
by systems thinking and driven by a commitment to team learning and
shared vision, his aim is to involve people throughout the organization
in learning. |
| 355 |
‘Learning
organizations’ are frequently portrayed as wonderful, almost magical
workplaces that will function at once as market powerhouses and as
vital communities of learners. |
| 356 |
When a
firm wishes to learn about things unrelated to its ongoing activity, it
must develop what Cohen and Levinthal labeled ‘absorptive capacity’. |
| 357 |
This
capacity for learning refers to the ability of a firm to recognize the
value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to
commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities. |
| 358 |
Absorptive
capacity depends on the prior knowledge of the firm. |
| 359 |
It may
be a by-product of R&D investment or manufacturing or through
training. |
| 360 |
An
organization's absorptive capacity depends on individual capacities. |
| 361 |
It
depends on transfers of knowledge across environmental boundaries and
across sub-units. |
| 362 |
“Gatekeepers”
help transfer info across boundaries, and in turbulent environments
more such gatekeepers are needed to increase reception of new ideas. |
| 363 |
Effective
communication with gatekeepers requires knowledge and a shared language. |
| 364 |
Absorptive
capacity is path dependent. |
| 365 |
Accumulating
absorptive capacity in one period will help its more efficient
accumulation in the next. |
| 366 |
Also,
the possession of related expertise might permit the firm to better
understand and evaluate the import of, for instance, new technologies. |
| 367 |
If the
firm quits absorbing, it may never catch up again. |
| 368 |
When
new opportunities emerge, the lagging firm may not recognize them. |
| 369 |
As
learning becomes harder, high absorptive capacity becomes more
important manifested in increased R&D spending. |
| 370 |
In
summary, Senge's models of the dynamics of systems (or organizations)
provide valuable strategic insights that neither of the other two
behavioral theories contain. |
| 371 |
Argyris
compels us to address the fundamental sources of ineffectiveness found
in interpersonal conversation, and builds a case that there is no way
to avoid some of this long hard work in pursuing organizational
learning. |
|
Culture Theory |
| 372 |
Some
scholars have realized that the people with whom we interact have a
wealth of habits, rituals, verbal and non-verbal languages, laws,
taboos, values, assumptions, history, myths, rituals, stories, and
legends, which must be considered in any interaction with them. |
| 373 |
This is
the basis for cultural theories of management and organizing. |
| 374 |
Culture
is often defined as the “glue that holds an organization together.”
Sometimes culture is considered the character of an organization, i.e. |
| 375 |
it's
climate, ideology, and image. |
| 376 |
Yet,
people inside a specific culture do not always perceive their culture
as a social construction; |
| 377 |
rather,
they see it as an objective reality. |
| 378 |
In the
mind of most cultural theorists culture is not objective but highly
subjective, and expresses the values or social ideals and the beliefs
the organizational members come to share. |
| 379 |
However,
much of the literature refers to a single organizational culture, when
in likelihood there are several organizational subcultures. |
| 380 |
Much of
the work by Schein focuses on shared tacit assumptions are the basic
unit of culture, and they powerfully influence behavior in
organizations. |
| 381 |
Culture
is a learned product of group experience and its strength is a function
of the convictions of an organization's founders, the stability of the
group or organization, and the intensity and nature of past learning
experiences. |
| 382 |
Beliefs
held by founders and leaders are extremely powerful in this model,
carrying on for years after the founders have ceased to run the
organization. |
| 383 |
Schein
argues for the need to decipher an organization's culture by eliciting
data about cultural artifacts such as dress codes, ways of talking to
the boss, and other visible evidence of a culture. |
| 384 |
The
second level of data encompasses espoused values - that is, readily
offered reasons for the visible artifacts. |
| 385 |
The
third and most subtle level captures shared underlying assumptions,
which require some probing to be uncovered, such as through discussing
inconsistencies between artifacts and what Argyris called espoused
values. |
| 386 |
The
idea is that once counterproductive beliefs are articulated, it is then
possible to change them. |
| 387 |
Schein's
commitment to respecting the uniqueness of each organization's culture
adds richness to the perspective offered by learning theory. |
| 388 |
Van
Maanen and Barley view culture as a set of solutions devised by a group
of people to meet specific problems posed by the situations they face
in common. |
| 389 |
Culture
become a living, historical product of group problem solving. |
| 390 |
They
argue that cultural patterns cease to exist unless they are repeatedly
enacted as people respond to occurrences in their daily lives. |
| 391 |
Culture
is manifested in norms, rules, and codes that people use to interpret
and evaluate their own behavior as well as the behavior of others, but
it only endures as values that are transmitted from one generation to
the next. |
| 392 |
Thus
culture is both a product of structure and interaction. |
| 393 |
Smircich
uncovered five research themes considering culture -- comparative
management, corporate culture, organizational cognition, organizational
symbolism, and unconscious processes and organization. |
| 394 |
The
differences in approach to culture are derived from differences in
basic assumptions researchers make about "organization" and "culture". |
| 395 |
Many
are based on the concept of a metaphor and imagery, like machines,
organisms, or political arenas. |
| 396 |
Her
argument is that our thinking and assumptions are constrained by our
choice of metaphor, in the linking of images of organizations and of
culture. |
| 397 |
Gregory
faults many organizational culture studies as failing to explore
multiple "native" views encompassing several subcultures. |
| 398 |
Instead
of emphasizing the homogeneity of culture and it's cohesive function,
most organizations should be viewed as multicultural with a
considerable divisive potential. |
| 399 |
Her
idea is that a more holistic culture paradigm tries to show how culture
parts function to maintain the integrity of the group's social
structure. |
| 400 |
This
was the primary perspective of early industrial sociologists, and
designed to help managers better control subordinates by taking their
cultural reactions into account. |
| 401 |
The
strength was its recognition of the importance of informal social
organization in industry. |
| 402 |
Weick
uses a cognitive perspective to make the point that organizations are
networks of shared meaning or shared frames of reference, organized
patterns of thought. |
| 403 |
He
shows that conceptions of strategy and culture are very similar. |
| 404 |
He notes
that if beliefs, values are different in the organization there is
often a greater need for detailed planning. |
| 405 |
But
there is also a greater probability that plans will not be implemented
as intended, through diverse interpretation and action. |
| 406 |
In fact,
he suggests that culture can substitute for plans more effectively than
plans can substitute for culture. |
| 407 |
Both
strategy and culture can generate structure. |
|
Symbolic
Action Theory |
| 408 |
Managers
are invariably concerned with power. |
| 409 |
While
political strategies of managers tend to be described in terms of
sources of power which objectively exist (i.e. |
| 410 |
those
determined by characteristics of the organization and its environment),
political influence behaviors can also operate within the interpretive
paradigm via the notion of socially constructed reality
|
| 412 |
However,
not much empirical work on managing meanings to acquire power has been
conducted. |
| 413 |
Most of
the studies on intra-organizational power fall instead under the
functionalist perspective, which relies on objective conditions or
sources of power (Bradshaw-Camball & Murray, 1991). |
| 414 |
The
symbolic action perspective deals explicitly with the management of
perceptions and meanings. |
| 415 |
Symbolic
actions target perceptions in situations where there really are no
goods and services that can be exchanged, and thus serve as a basis for
claiming power (Pfeffer, 1981b). |
| 416 |
The
source of power then becomes acceptance of one's construction of
reality. |
| 417 |
Symbolic
actions are those actions which enable the acquisition of power despite
the absence of favorable conditions found in the context or situation
within which it is operating. |
| 418 |
The
symbolic action notion is similar to social influence theory (Tedeschi
& Melburg, 1984), which argues that where the influencer does not
possess objective characteristics, he/she needs to engage in various
impression management behaviors to create the image that otherwise
would have been created by those objective characteristics. |
| 419 |
Mostly
these behaviors pertain to actions that try to communicate certain
messages regardless of whether such messages have some basis in fact. |
| 420 |
They
serve to create an image, a reality that is favorable to the actor, so
that the same ends are achieved as when favorable conditions actually
exist. |
| 421 |
The
notion of socially constructed reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1966)
suggests that through the use of language and symbolic actions,
organizational actors influence definitions of ‘reality’, and that it
is on the basis of this constructed reality, rather than the objective
or materially concrete reality, that organizational members act
(Pfeffer, 1981a, 1982). |
| 422 |
One
‘reality’ defined by organizational actors is what contingencies or
resources are critical for the organization (Pfeffer & Salancik,
1978). |
| 423 |
The
strategic contingency theory (Hickson et al., 1971), in fact, lends
itself to the notion of a socially constructed reality. |
| 424 |
Its
components of ability to cope with uncertainties and
non-substitutability suggest that one needs to be able to demonstrate
and call attention to the fact that not only has one dealt successfully
with these critical contingencies, but that one has the sole and
requisite expertise to handle such affairs and deliver the expected
results. |
| 425 |
A
similar argument can be extended to resource dependence, the other
dominant theory of intra-organizational power (Pfeffer & Salancik,
1978). |
| 426 |
Political
language and symbols can be utilized not only to directly influence
definitions of what contingencies and resources are important, but also
to shape the evaluative frame, particularly the values and norms used
by organizational actors in judging and making choices (Frost, 1989; |
| 427 |
Griffin,
Skivington, & Moorhead, 1987). |
| 428 |
Frost
(1989), for example, wrote about three fundamental issues that need to
be considered in understanding and utilizing politics in HRM. These
interrelated issues, addressing the questions of "doing things right,"
"doing the right things," and "what is right," involve values and norms
of various organizational actors who influence the resolution to these
questions. |
| 429 |
Empirical
support for Frost's (1989) argument comes from Enz's (1988) finding
that top management's perception of value similarity was the strongest
predictor of departmental power. |
| 430 |
Symbolic
actions become more effective when used persistently. |
| 431 |
As
Peters stated, "senior managers are signal transmitters, and signals
take on meaning as they are reiterated"
|
| 433 |
An
action repeated often enough gives truth to the message being conveyed
(Pfeffer, 1981b). |
| 434 |
In
addition, Pfeffer (1981a) indicated that the concurrent use of a
variety of actions sending a consistent message provides more potency. |
| 435 |
Thus,
frequency, variety, and consistency are important dimensions to
consider. |
|
Sensemaking |
| 436 |
Weick
(1995) argues that how people organize themselves, how they resolve
uncertainty and ambiguity, and discover meaning is controllable. |
| 437 |
Sensemaking
refers to how meaning is constructed at both the individual and the
group levels. |
| 438 |
Through
the construction of meaning, clarity increases and confusion decreases. |
| 439 |
The
decrease of confusion leads to higher productivity, better quality, and
greater confidence in group processes. |
| 440 |
These
outcomes are applicable to all group processes whether they be in a
boardroom or in a classroom. |
| 441 |
The
concept of sensemaking has been described as interpretation coupled
with action (Thomas, Clark, & Gioia, 1993; |
| 442 |
Gioia,
Thomas, Clark, & Chittipeddi, 1994; |
| 443 |
Weick,
1979; |
| 444 |
and
therefore, reflects the combination of thought processes with execution
of that thought. |
| 445 |
The
term sense-making has come to be used to refer to a ‘theoretic net’, a
set of assumptions and propositions, and a set of methods which have
been developed to study the making of sense that people do in their
everyday experiences. |
| 446 |
Some
people call it a theory, others a set of methods, others a methodology,
others a body of findings. |
| 447 |
In the
most general sense, it is all of these. |
| 448 |
The
central concept of sensemaking (Thomas, Clark & Gioia, 1993; |
| 449 |
Weick,
1995) stands in the study for people's attempts to shape meaningful
action by: |
| 450 |
1)
Basic values and beliefs, which are stable over time (Schein, 1992); |
| 451 |
2)
Interpretive schemes building on the individual's experiences from
earlier action and events; |
| 452 |
3)
Clues to what of the abundant information the individual will base
action, i.e. |
| 453 |
a basis
for guiding attention. |
| 454 |
Interpretive
schemes are structured sets of pre-existing views and patterns of
events/actions that can contribute to meaning and action (Lord &
Foti, 1986). |
| 455 |
Consciously
or not people tend to act in accordance with earlier patterns, which
may be developed or changed, though. |
| 456 |
Weick
offers his reader a set of sensemaking properties to articulate the
concept that would be considering an approach to give sense in itself. |
| 457 |
These
seven sensemaking properties include: |
| 458 |
being
grounded in identity construction, retrospect, enactive of sensible
environments, social, ongoing, focused on extracted cues, and driven by
plausibility rather than accuracy (Weick, 1995). |
| 459 |
The
core assumption on which sense-making rests is the assumption of
discontinuity. |
| 460 |
This
assumption purposes that discontinuity is a fundamental aspect of
reality. |
| 461 |
It is
assumed that there are discontinuities in all existence – between
entities (living and otherwise), between times and between spaces. |
| 462 |
It is
assumed that this discontinuity condition exists between reality and
human sensors, between human sensors and the mind, between the mind and
tongue, between the tongue and message created, between message created
and channel, between human at time one and human at time two, between
human one at time one and human two at time one, between human and
culture, between human and institution, between institution and
institution, between nation and nation, and so on. |
| 463 |
Discontinuity
is an assumed "constant" of nature generally and the human condition
specifically. |
| 464 |
Sense-making
focuses on behaviors: |
| 465 |
the
step-takings that human beings undertake to construct sense of their
worlds. |
| 466 |
These
step-takings, or communicatings, involve both internal behaviors (e.g. |
| 467 |
comparings,
categorizings, likings, dislikings, polarizings, stereotypings, etc.)
and external behaviors (e.g. |
| 468 |
shoutings,
ignorings, agreeings, disagreeings, attendings, listenings, etc.). |
| 469 |
Sense-making
assumes there is something systematic about individual behavior when
the individual is reconceptualized not as an entity but as an
entity-behaving at a moment in time-space. |
| 470 |
It is
assumed that the individual constructs ideas of these moments, that
these constructions are themselves strategies, that these constructions
are sometimes repetitions of ideas used in the past and sometimes newly
created in terms of how the individual defines the new situation. |
| 471 |
It is
further assumed that the individual will implement his/her pictures
using behavioral tactics, which are responsive to the individual's
ideas of the situation. |
| 472 |
Some of
these tactics will again be repetitions of behaviors of the past given
the rule-based characteristics of much of human behavior. |
| 473 |
What
tactic is used has consequences for the kind of idea created; |
| 474 |
and,
the kind of idea created has implication for tactic used. |
| 475 |
In
essence, the individual defines and attempts to bridge discontinuities
or gaps. |
| 476 |
It is
this focus on gap-defining and gap-bridging which is seen as offering a
way of introducing order to conceptualizations of individual behavior. |
| 477 |
It is
not the individual entity that is seen as ordered but rather the
gap-defining and gap-bridging that is ordered. |
|
Postmodernism and Complexity |
| 478 |
The
‘management science’ point of view of what management is all about has
its analogy in the hard sciences. |
| 479 |
This is
known as the mechanistic, reductionist, or Newtonian viewpoint (we will
use these different terms interchangeably throughout the book). |
| 480 |
This
viewpoint considers the world at large to be linear and ultimately
predictable, and therefore controllable. |
| 481 |
This
desire for co |