A
Management Theory Resource
by Michael Lissack and Kurt Richardson, Institute for the Study of Coherence and
Emergence
- Introduction
- The ‘Experience of Managing’
- Traditional Management Theory View of Management
- Action, Ambiguity, and Interpretation
- Contingency Theory
- Institutional Theory
- Resource Dependency
- Organizational Ecology
- The Chasm between ‘Real Life’ And Theory
- Bridging the Chasm
- Actor-Network Theory
- Organizational Learning
- Culture Theory
- Symbolic Action Theory
- Sensemaking
- Postmodernism and Complexity
“Managing at any time, but more than ever today, is a symbolic activity. It involves energizing people, often large numbers of people, to do new things they previously had not thought important. 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. 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. 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.”
Leonard Sayles
“I believe that management is an art – and possibly one of the most difficult ones. Just as the artist constantly and consciously works to perfect his technique and to gain mastery of his relevant skills, so must the manager. Mere technical command of the skills does not, however, produce a virtuoso or a superb manager. 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. 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. Then watch what they do. Don’t be surprised if you can’t relate what you see to those four words.”
Henry Mintzberg
“Management is tasks. Management is discipline. But management is also people. Every achievement of management is the achievement of the manager. Every failure is the failure of the manager. People manage, rather than forces or facts. 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.”
Herbert Simon
__________________________________
Introduction
The
aim of this resource guide is to help you better understand and
experience the
wisdom that underlies Mr. Simon’s above quote.
The phrase “applying them as they become appropriate” will be
the
catchphrase for the text that follows.
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. What
one should do, see, understand, or communicate are not governed by
absolutes
but by the demands of the local situation.
This review is thus an expansion of Simon’s pat phrase: the art
of
managing is knowing what to apply and when.
Most
books on management (or on management theory) are constructed around a
particular point of view. There are
books on structural contingency theory, resource dependence theory, and
corporate
ecology theory, to name a but a few examples.
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. 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. 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.
This
review is vastly different. 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. The coherence we aim
for is not based on homogeneity of perspective, but on a recognition of
“appropriateness”.
Our
audience is made up of those studying management for the purpose of
becoming
better managers. 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.
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.
Our language will attempt to be as ‘real world’ as possible. With every page the emphasis is on practical
understanding.
The ‘Experience of Managing’
What
does it mean to be a practicing day-to-day manager?
What does the experience feel like? What
questions, pressures, and situations
occur? Our aim is to get the reader past
the typical rhetoric that stems from corporate recruiters or
well-intentioned
but somewhat clueless journalists. 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. 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. To develop a
‘feel’ for the strengths and shortcomings we need to understand ‘what
management is’.
Traditional Management Theory View of Management
This begins the discussion of how
‘management scientists’, as opposed to managers themselves, answer the
questions posed above. There are other
labels for the academics and researchers interested in these questions. They include organization scientists,
specialists in organization theory and organization behavior,
strategists,
planners, and management consultants, or even ‘guru’ and ‘witch doctor’.
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. However, there are ample
controversies about the nature of the perceptions and the sense in
which a more
autonomous (objective) reality also exists. 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. Some theorists would claim to have discovered or defined a
generic
preference structure; others would presume that expectations (at least
on
average) approximate reality, at least after some time; and others
would
suggest that beliefs and perceptions may be more or less automatically
enacted
into reality. With these important qualifications, however, there is
some
general consensus that what we see or believe may at times deviate from
what is
true.
The ambiguities of
knowledge and desires reflect partly the cognitive limitations of
individuals
and organizations. 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.
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 advantages[1].
For
example, the capability of a collective to satisfy requirements of
agreement
may depend on exploiting the ambiguities of preferences and meaning.
It is also received doctrine
that the premises of
action are socially constructed. 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.
In this view, explanations of action gain legitimacy by invoking shared
understandings of proper narrative. Shared understandings are the
result of
social exchanges mediated by a complete arsenal of social elements -
social
structure, language, myth, resource distributions, etc. 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.
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. In such a view, interpretations of history are
instrumental to
the making of decisions and thus important; but there is no fundamental
interest in a theory of interpretation, or story telling. For example,
it is
clear that certain "magic numbers," such as performance measures or
summary statistics, often guide organizational action. Thus, the theory
of
action has come to emphasize theories of the politics and technology of
numbers
and the social construction of accounting. 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.
Story
telling is seen as more elemental. It is sometimes portrayed as
independent of
action and thus as a separate domain. Alternatively, action is pictured
as an
instrument in the development of interpretation, rather than the other
way
around.
Out of such
conceptions have come notions of loose coupling between the processes
of
decision making and its outcomes. 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. The community of talk is seen
as
distinct from the community of action, with different rules and
different
audiences. 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. 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. The
basic technology of organization is described as a technology of
narrative, as
well as a technology of production. The contested terrain of
organizations is
seen as a terrain of meaning.
Source: “Continuity and change in theories of
organizational action” by James G. March,
Administrative
Science Quarterly, (v41 n2), June, 1996.
Contingency Theory
There is little doubt among most
theorists that the environment strongly affects organizations. Changes in global economic conditions and
resource availability can cause business organizations to succeed or
fail. Early theorists like Chester Barnard
(cite)
recognized that organizations are often unstable and seek to survive at
all
costs. 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. 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.
Rather than start with the
individual Lawrence and Lorsch decided to start with an ecological view
of the
organizations and their environment. 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. Each sub-systems
performs a part of the task, the effects of each being integrated to
achieve
effective performance of the system.
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. 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.
Tasks are segmented into sectors for market sub-environment,
technical-economic sub-environment, and scientific sub-environment. In their theory Lawrence and Lorsch
hypothesized that these sub-systems would develop differently based on
how they
interacted with their environment.
Contingency theory suggests that
performance is determined by the organizations’ ability to cope with
its
environment. First, organizations must
balance differentiation and integration to be successful.
Second, groups that are organized to perform
simpler, more certain tasks (e.g. production groups) usually have more
formal
structure than groups focusing on more uncertain tasks (e.g. research
and
development). Therefore, it follows that
the degree of differentiation is based upon environmental requirements. Third, the time taken for sub-groups to
orient is primarily dependent on the immediacy of feedback from their
actions,
i.e. the time taken to perceive the effects caused by their actions. Thus, the degree of integration is consistent
with the requirements of the total environment.
Finally, the goal orientation of sub-units is based relative to
the part
of the environment that effects them the most.
Therefore, the degree of goal orientation is consistent with the
requirements of the total environment.
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.
Firms can reduce uncertainty through better
planning and coordination, often by rules, hierarchy, or goals. 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. When
the ‘exceptions’ become too prevalent,
they overwhelm the hierarchy’s ability to process them.
The degree of coordination is
often dependent on the number of exceptions to defined tasks. Design strategies can reduce the amount of
information processed, or increased the ability to handle more
information. All of these strategies help
to reduce the
number of exceptions that must flow up the hierarchy for resolution.
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. 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. Moving the
decision making power down in the firm to where the information exists
can
reduce uncertainty at the decision level.
This includes more direct contact between managers across
groups,
liaison personnel between groups, task forces and teams of different
kinds, and
matrix organizations.
His argument is that while some
of these strategies can reduce more uncertainty, they also require more
‘organizational investment’ and higher administrative costs. The difficulty lies in the creation of
mechanisms that permit coordinated action across large numbers of
interdependent roles. Firms must choose
the most optimal level for their immediate environment, i.e. the
strategy that
has the least cost in its environmental context.
Institutional Theory
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.
Innovative structures that improve technical efficiency in
early-adopting organizations are legitimized in the environment. Ultimately these innovations reach a level of
legitimization where failure to adopt them is seen as irrational and
even negligent.
At this point new and existing organizations will adopt the
institutionalized
structural form even if the form does not improve their efficiency.
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. These ‘institutional myths’ are
merely accepted ceremoniously in order for the organization to gain or
maintain
legitimacy in the institutional environment.
The adoption and prominent display of these acceptable
‘trappings of
legitimacy’ help preserve an aura of organizational action based on
‘good
faith’. The underlying reason is that
legitimacy in the institutional environment helps ensure organizational
survival.
These formal structures of
legitimacy can reduce efficiency and hinder the organization’s
competitive
position in their technical environment.
To reduce this negative effect, organizations often will
de-couple their
technical core from these legitimizing structures.
Organizations will minimize evaluation and
neglect program implementation to maintain external (and internal)
confidence
in formal structures while reducing their efficiency impact.
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. The efforts
to achieve rationality with uncertainty and constraint lead to
homogeneity of
structure, ‘institutional isomorphism’.
Firms will adopt similar structures as a result of three types
of
pressures:
1.
Coercive
pressures come from legal mandates, or influence
from organizations they are dependent upon;
2.
Mimetic[2]
pressures to copy successful forms arise during high uncertainty; and
3.
Normative
pressures to homogeneity come from the similar
attitudes and approaches of professional groups and associations
brought into
the firm through hiring practices.
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
If, as contingency
theory suggests, organizations are dependent on the environment for
their
survival what is the form of those dependencies? The resource
dependency theory
posits that such dependencies typically take the form of a relationship
between
themselves and other organizations. Interdependencies are mutual
dependencies
that develop to reduce the uncertainty in the relationship.
Organizations who
are dependent on the continued success of other organizations may build
"behavioral dependencies" with them to reduce risk. This often
involves increased coordination and mutual control over each other's
resources.
In modern society these dependencies have increased over time as firms
become
more specialized.
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. Groups that control the most vital
resources or
can reduce the uncertainty of other organizations have the most power. Control over resource allocation, they argue,
is an important power source. 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. Power also depends on whether
a critical resource is obtainable from other sources. 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.
The logic is that
anytime there is dependence asymmetry between organizations (or
individuals)
there is a power difference. Pfeffer and Salancik concluded that it is
possible
to conceive of organizational behavior as the consequence of
influences.
Organizational
Ecology
Organizational
ecology, or population ecology as it sometimes is referred to, is the
study of
dynamic changes within a given set of organizations. 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. 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. This approach developed from work by
Astley,
Hannan and Freeman.
Hannan and Freeman
argued that long-term change in the diversity of organizational forms
within a
population occurs through selection rather than adaptation. Most
organizations
have structural inertia that hinders adaptation when the environment
changes.
Those organizations that become incompatible with the environment are
eventually replaced through competition with new organizations better
suited to
external demands. Analysis in population ecology has three levels,
explaining:
- birth and
death rates within a population
- vital-rate
interaction between populations
- "communities
of populations" sharing similar
environments
The theory holds
that unlike evolution in animals, natural selection in organizations
does not
necessarily lead to optimization. Optimized change often depends on the
"coupling" between intent and outcome. Long-term change in the
diversity of organizational forms within a population occurs through
selection
rather than adaptation. Most organizations have structural inertia that
hinders
adaptation when the environment changes. Those organizations that
become
incompatible with the environment are eventually replaced through
competition
with new organizations better suited to external demands.
Astley’s work
contends that community ecology better explains the mechanisms of birth
and
death of populations of organizations. Community ecology focuses on how
populations of organizations interact with each other. 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. 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. 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.
Organizational
communities begin to function when they exchange resources with each
other,
rather than with the environment. As these interdependencies grow the
community
is less dependent on the environment, causing "community closure"
which inhibits the emergence of new populations. The population
increases until
the available resources become scarce, and the selection process weeds
out the
weaker firms. Once this stabilizes the populations, new
interdependencies
emerge between populations, and new populations are added to fulfill
functional
roles until the community is saturated. The railroads and
transportation system
development in the
Organizational
ecology theories are linked to both structural contingency and resource
dependence. Thus the three theories together contend that
organizational
forms:
- Exploit
dynamic resources, growing when abundant and
shrinking when scarce;
- Lose their
competitive edge as they age as new
technologies
emerge and social situations change;
- Put
processes of legitimization and competition into
opposition. At low density, growth in numbers mainly legitimizes a
population
and the organizational form it uses. But as density increases,
competition
becomes more important (especially when density is high relative to
resources).
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
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.
This disagreement separates the ‘experience
of management’ from the bulk of management literature.
The gap between them is more than wide enough
for us to label it a ‘chasm’.
Henry Mintzberg writes of some
stark different between management folklore and management fact
regarding the
nature of management. Here are what
Mintzberg describes as “four myths about the manager’s job:”
1.
Folklore: The
manager is a reflective, systematic planner.
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.
2.
Folklore: The
effective manager has no regular duties to perform.
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.
3.
Folklore:
The senior manager needs aggregated information, which a formal
management
information system best provides.
Fact: Managers strongly favor the
oral media -- namely,
telephone calls and meetings.
4.
Folklore:
Management is, or at least is quickly becoming, a science and a
profession.
Fact: The managers’ programs -- to schedule time, process
information, make decisions, and so on
-- remain locked deep inside their brains.
Mintzberg’s characterization of
‘fact’ and ‘folklore’ is stark. What Mintzberg call a gap, however, we
call a
chasm. Chasms are wider, deeper, and
more foreboding than gaps.
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.
This metaphor dominated managerial
prescriptions during the 20th century – its influence upon
the
theories of action is clear. Four simple
words – plan, organize, coordinate, and control – underlie what
managerial
actions business schools, and consulting companies have been
prescribing. 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. And, this is what prospective managers have
prepared to start doing when they might finally be labeled ‘managers’. 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.
It took many more years before the community that describes, and
prescribes, management practices considered this critique legitimate. 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.
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.
In the past life was simpler for the
manager. In this quasi-closed (rather than
open),
complicated (rather than complex) world change was slower.
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.
In a simpler world the gap between what theory prescribed and
what
managers experienced was less apparent, and far less important.
Nowadays, however, things are
very different. 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. 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. Connectivity has grown
exponentially. In this global, complex
world life moves quickly (partly as the ability to generate and make
use of
information grows), i.e. the tempo of business has increased
significantly and
is continuing to do so. The manager no
longer has the luxury of time for many decisions. This
combination of increased complexity and
tempo means that the gap has grown and become plainly more apparent
than ever
before.
Every day voices in the mass
media tell us we live in a world in which complexity is rising and
institutional orders are dissipating. 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. Management is
portrayed as the process not only of fending off, but also of sometimes
seizing
hold, of those very forces. 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.
The focus on control provides one perspective on "chaos" and the
manifold changes occurring all around us.
In
an alternative view, organizations can be viewed as systems of
interpretation
and constructions of reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). In order to
survive,
organizations must find ways to interpret events so as to stabilize
their
environments and try to make them more predictable; organizations must
also
find ways to interpret events so as to be one with the environment, an
environment that they choose. 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. When managers
'enact' the
environment, they as Weick (1995) put it: "construct, rearrange, single
out, and demolish many 'objective' features of their surroundings. ...
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
Management theory texts can
provide very useful fixes and prescriptions to assist the practicing
manager. The underlying assumptions,
however, in these texts are generally inconsistent (i.e. they are
different, or
misaligned) with those actually experienced in the real world of
managers. 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. teams comprising of members each
specializing in
a different subject) management. 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. Witness this quote from
Jeffrey Pfeffer:
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. (Pfeffer, 1993)
Around such ideas Lex Donaldson
builds an entire book – “American Anti-Management Theories of
Organization: A
Critique of Paradigm Proliferation.”
Donaldson’s book is an indictment of existing organization
theory which,
he claims, has fragmented into competing paradigms . 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.
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. 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. Furthermore, he suggests that in such unification lies the
future
agenda for research in organization theory.
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. Such a theory would
single-handedly
explain every facet of organizational thinking.
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. 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’.
It is simply not reasonable to
expect single perspective approaches to provide broad ranging
applicability. 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.
Indeed the view within physics, at least, of the existence of a
TOE is
slowly changing. 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. These theories would have
distinct areas of application rather than a single all embracing
perspective of
the universe. Management academics, as
in other sciences, seem to have crowned unification as a goal. 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.
This is not to say that the
insights derived from single minded texts have no value.
On the contrary, when applied in the
appropriate (limited) situation(s), i.e. the right place at the right
time, the
approaches may indeed prove invaluable.
However, making the connection between the situation of interest
and
theory is not a trivial undertaking. 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. 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.
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.
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.
A challenge to the modern day manager
(among many others) is to perform the same trick, i.e. 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. 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. To complicate life more, similar situations
do not necessarily result in similar outcomes.
We need to wait and see what happens before we know what happens! 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.
Of course, experience will provide a powerful (and sometimes
overwhelming) input to the decision process.
But as we all know, experience is not always appropriate for new
situations, otherwise our failure rate would be much lower than it is. 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. a clear
understanding of situatedness) will be raised time and time again
throughout
this text, and is the principal message communicated.
We will see that the ambiguity and
unpredictability of the world around us can be managed, or at least
coped.
Actor-Network Theory
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). Overtime, it has been broadened
by an international group of scholars to become a process-oriented
theory of
management. ANT is one way to represent work, which in reality is
difficult,
messy and complex. It simplifies reality
in a way that highlights how human actors and artifacts are seen as
part of the
social world.
An actor network (AN) consists of
both people and things. Both people and
things are actors in a network – they have a role to play.
Buildings, texts, or money are usually
considered to be resources or constraints.
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). Just as people act on other
people and objects, objects act on other objects as well as on people. 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. “Entities – human, technical and textual, are
compound realities, the product of a process of composition” (Callon
& Law,
1997, p. 4). According to ANT, artifacts as well as humans can be
actors,
meaning that they are capable of putting other actors into action. Artifacts can trigger and even control
humans. There is also no different
between a person and a network – a person or a position is nothing
without its
network. What is a Dean without a
faculty, students, or a university? An
office or funding? A staff or a computer?
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. This
‘struggling’ is based on the actor’s
intention and interest of the situation at hand. An
AN increases in size and strength as more
actors become enrolled. Adding only
people to the network will be insufficient.
A new machine, a new computer, classrooms, audio visual
equipment,
texts, etc., i.e. supporting infrastructure, can increase the strength
of the
network as easily as increasing the number of people.
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). In fact, it is
only through enrollment of both people and things that networks are
formed. Actors also participate in many
networks which frequently overlap and sometime compete.
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. Let
us use an analogy. In the early nineteenth
century in
Early ANT concentrated on the
ways in which it comes to seem that science gives an objective account
of
natural order: trials of strength, enrolling of allies, cascades of
inscriptions and the operation of immutable mobiles.
It drew attention to the importance of the
development of standards (though not to the linked development of
classification
systems); but did not look at these in detail.
In so doing we ‘followed the actors’.
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. However, by the very nature of
the method, we also shared their blindness.
The actors being followed did not see what was excluded: they
constructed a world in which that exclusion could occur.
ANT tenets apply to change. In
ANT the concept of a stable and aligned
network is a description of a network which is well functioning. 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. ANT forces us to consider
both human or customs of those involved in curricular change. 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
Unlike theory building in the
natural sciences, organizational theory has proceeded without a strong
sense of
collective endeavor. In the past decade
the idea of ‘organizational learning’ has captured the imagination of
both
managers and scholars. The focus on
learning has given rise to a viewpoint, in which individuals’ beliefs
and
insights are viewed as critical influences on organizational
effectiveness. 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.
Instead, organizations must at all levels be attentive to
changing
conditions, including their ability to absorb the learning at hand.
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.
His work forms the basis for many concepts and models of organizational
learning. Argyris argues that all human
action is a consequence of design - both conscious and not. In each
situation,
if-then propositions analogous to a computer program specify desired
actions.
Ineffective action is as much a result of design as is effective
action. The
idea is to simply ask people to change their programs, to improve their
own
effectiveness and the effectiveness of their organizations.
There are two
kinds of programs in people's heads; one is the espoused kind, if-then
propositions we think lie behind our actions. The other is the
‘theory-in-use’,
which is if-then propositions we actually use when we act. The problem
is that
individuals are unaware of the discrepancy between the two. This
unawareness is
partly due to learning our theories-in-use early in life. More
insidiously,
however, specific features of theories-in-use keep people unaware of
this
discrepancy. We then act upon these ‘facts’, remaining unaware of
having made
an inferential leap and thus unable to detect our errors. 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.
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. He combines technical
models with the concepts of vision and personal growth. 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.
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.
‘Learning
organizations’ are frequently portrayed as wonderful, almost magical
workplaces
that will function at once as market powerhouses and as vital
communities of
learners.
When a firm wishes
to learn about things unrelated to its ongoing activity, it must
develop what
Cohen and Levinthal labeled ‘absorptive capacity’. 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. Absorptive capacity depends on the prior
knowledge of
the firm. It may be a by-product of R&D investment or manufacturing
or through
training.
An organization's
absorptive capacity depends on individual capacities. It depends on
transfers
of knowledge across environmental boundaries and across sub-units.
“Gatekeepers” help transfer info across boundaries, and in turbulent
environments more such gatekeepers are needed to increase reception of
new
ideas. Effective communication with gatekeepers requires knowledge and
a shared
language.
Absorptive
capacity is path dependent. Accumulating absorptive capacity in one
period will
help its more efficient accumulation in the next. Also, the possession
of
related expertise might permit the firm to better understand and
evaluate the
import of, for instance, new technologies. If the firm quits absorbing,
it may
never catch up again. When new opportunities emerge, the lagging firm
may not
recognize them. As learning becomes harder, high absorptive capacity
becomes
more important manifested in increased R&D spending.
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.
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
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. This is the basis for cultural theories of
management
and organizing.
Culture is often
defined as the “glue that holds an organization together.” Sometimes
culture is
considered the character of an organization, i.e. it's climate,
ideology, and
image. Yet, people inside a specific culture do not always perceive
their
culture as a social construction; rather, they see it as an objective
reality. 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.
However, much of the literature refers to a single organizational
culture, when
in likelihood there are several organizational subcultures.
Much of the work
by Schein focuses on shared tacit assumptions are the basic unit of
culture,
and they powerfully influence behavior in organizations. 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. 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.
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. The second level of data encompasses espoused
values -
that is, readily offered reasons for the visible artifacts. 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. The idea is that once
counterproductive beliefs are articulated, it is then possible to
change them.
Schein's commitment to respecting the uniqueness of each organization's
culture
adds richness to the perspective offered by learning theory.
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. Culture
become a
living, historical product of group problem solving. They argue that
cultural
patterns cease to exist unless they are repeatedly enacted as people
respond to
occurrences in their daily lives. 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. Thus culture is both a product of structure
and
interaction.
Smircich uncovered
five research themes considering culture -- comparative management,
corporate
culture, organizational cognition, organizational symbolism, and
unconscious
processes and organization. The differences in approach to culture are
derived
from differences in basic assumptions researchers make about
"organization" and "culture". Many are based on the concept
of a metaphor and imagery, like machines, organisms, or political
arenas. 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.
Gregory faults
many organizational culture studies as failing to explore multiple
"native" views encompassing several subcultures. Instead of
emphasizing the homogeneity of culture and it's cohesive function, most
organizations should be viewed as multicultural with a considerable
divisive
potential. 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. This was the primary perspective of early industrial
sociologists,
and designed to help managers better control subordinates by taking
their
cultural reactions into account. The strength was its recognition of
the
importance of informal social organization in industry.
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. He
shows that conceptions of strategy and culture are very similar. He
notes that
if beliefs, values are different in the organization there is often a
greater
need for detailed planning. But there is also a greater probability
that plans
will not be implemented as intended, through diverse interpretation and
action.
In fact, he suggests that culture can substitute for plans more
effectively
than plans can substitute for culture. Both strategy and culture can
generate
structure.
Symbolic
Action Theory
Managers are
invariably concerned with power. While
political strategies of managers tend to be described in terms of
sources of
power which objectively exist (i.e. 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 (e.g. Pondy, 1977). However, not much empirical work on
managing
meanings to acquire power has been conducted. 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). The symbolic action perspective deals explicitly
with the
management of perceptions and meanings. 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). The
source of
power then becomes acceptance of one's construction of reality. 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.
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. Mostly these behaviors pertain to actions
that try
to communicate certain messages regardless of whether such messages
have some
basis in fact. 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.
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). One ‘reality’
defined
by organizational actors is what contingencies or resources are
critical for
the organization (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). The strategic
contingency theory
(Hickson et al., 1971), in fact, lends itself to the notion of a
socially
constructed reality. 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. A similar
argument can be
extended to resource dependence, the other dominant theory of
intra-organizational power (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978).
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; Griffin, Skivington, &
Moorhead,
1987). 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. 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.
Symbolic actions
become more effective when used persistently. As Peters stated, "senior
managers are signal transmitters, and signals take on meaning as they
are
reiterated" (1978, pp. 11-12). An action repeated often enough gives
truth
to the message being conveyed (Pfeffer, 1981b). In addition, Pfeffer
(1981a)
indicated that the concurrent use of a variety of actions sending a
consistent
message provides more potency. Thus, frequency, variety, and
consistency are
important dimensions to consider.
Sensemaking
Weick (1995)
argues that how people organize themselves, how they resolve
uncertainty and
ambiguity, and discover meaning is controllable. Sensemaking refers to
how
meaning is constructed at both the individual and the group levels.
Through the
construction of meaning, clarity increases and confusion decreases. The
decrease
of confusion leads to higher productivity, better quality, and greater
confidence in group processes. These outcomes are applicable to all
group
processes whether they be in a boardroom or in a classroom. The concept
of
sensemaking has been described as interpretation coupled with action
(Thomas,
Clark, & Gioia, 1993; Gioia, Thomas, Clark, & Chittipeddi,
1994; Weick,
1979; 1995) and therefore, reflects the combination of thought
processes with
execution of that thought.
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. Some people call it a theory, others a set of
methods, others a methodology, others a body of findings.
In the most general sense, it is all of
these. The central concept of sensemaking (Thomas, Clark & Gioia,
1993;
Weick, 1995) stands in the study for people's attempts to shape
meaningful
action by:
- Basic
values and beliefs, which are stable over time
(Schein, 1992);
- Interpretive
schemes building on the individual's
experiences from earlier action and events;
- Clues to
what of the abundant information the individual
will base action, i.e. a basis for guiding attention.
Interpretive
schemes are structured sets of pre-existing views and patterns of
events/actions that can contribute to meaning and action (Lord &
Foti,
1986). Consciously or not people tend to act in accordance with earlier
patterns, which may be developed or changed, though. Weick offers his
reader a
set of sensemaking properties to articulate the concept that would be
considering an approach to give sense in itself. These
seven sensemaking properties include:
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).
The core
assumption on which sense-making rests is the assumption of
discontinuity. This
assumption purposes that discontinuity is a fundamental aspect of
reality. It is assumed that there are
discontinuities
in all existence – between entities (living and otherwise), between
times and
between spaces. 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.
Discontinuity is an assumed "constant"
of nature generally and the human condition specifically.
Sense-making
focuses on behaviors: the step-takings that human beings undertake to
construct
sense of their worlds. These
step-takings, or communicatings, involve both internal behaviors (e.g.
comparings, categorizings, likings, dislikings, polarizings,
stereotypings,
etc.) and external behaviors (e.g. shoutings, ignorings, agreeings,
disagreeings, attendings, listenings,
etc.). 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.
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.
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.
Some of these tactics will again be repetitions of behaviors of
the past
given the rule-based characteristics of much of human behavior. What tactic is used has consequences for the
kind of idea created; and, the kind of idea created has implication for
tactic
used. In essence, the individual defines and attempts to bridge
discontinuities
or gaps. 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.
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
The
‘management science’ point of view of what management is all about has
its
analogy in the hard sciences. This is
known as the mechanistic, reductionist, or Newtonian
viewpoint (we will use these different terms interchangeably throughout
the
book). This viewpoint considers the
world at large to be linear and ultimately predictable, and therefore
controllable. This desire for control has
attracted
management scientists to the Newtonian view because of its deluded
promise of
such complete control. Linearity, and
therefore the Newtonian viewpoint, is excellent for the systems
(machines) we
design to behave predictably.
Unfortunately, organizations are not machines, and as managers
we have
severe limitations in our ability to control the design process – human
beings
are not predictable. We shall consider
further the features of the Newtonian viewpoint later, but for now we
can
summarize it’s principle implication as the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.
Therefore, reductionist thinking focuses our
attention to the characteristics of the parts, by neglecting the
relationships
between the parts.
This
viewpoint completely omits the possibility of self-organization and
emergent
behaviors, which are a source of unpredictability in the ‘real world’. Life does not always go to plan – events that
may appear to have no link with organization may be responsible for
catastrophic events further down stream; and re-organization at all
scales,
i.e. teams, group, sector, etc., might occur as a direct result of the
changing
nature of the relationships between the parts, e.g. people and
technology, that
make up the organization. These features
of real organizations are not, and cannot, be accounted for with the
adoption
of a reductionist viewpoint.
The
problem with the Newtonian view, as with all views, is that the problem
of
interest must be considered in terms of the ‘rules’ of the view. For linear systems this is not as so
important – slightly different representations will lead to slightly
different
understanding of how the system performs.
The representation will not model reality completely but will
prove to
be a very useful approximation – for linear systems. For complex
systems (we will provide a description of a complex system shortly) we
find
that slightly different representation might lead to completely different, and
possibly contradictory, understanding
of how the system performs.
Unfortunately for managers, organizations are complex systems,
and
therefore this sensitivity to viewpoint becomes critical.
Shaping the problem to fit the viewpoint is
fine when considering linear systems, but is likely to prove wholly
inadequate
for complex systems.
The
figure below illustrates this problem.
The two axes of the graphs simply represent a change in
perspective and
it’s associated change in the knowledge concerning the behavior of the
system
of interest. Perspective is used in its
broadest meaning to include the assumptions and representation (model)
of the
system of interest. We see that for a
complicated system (i.e. a system comprising a large number of weakly
interacting parts – meaning that each part could be reasonably
considered
without the need to look at it’s neighbors, e.g. a car) if we compared
the
knowledge derived from two differing perspectives, the difference
between the
knowledge sets would be proportional to the differences between the two
perspectives. On the contrary, if we
performed the same comparison for a complex system (e.g. a department),
we
would see that the two knowledge sets might be disproportionately
different we
when compared to the differences between the perspectives, i.e. the two
knowledge sets derived might be completely different.
Of course, this illustration takes a very
simplistic view of the relationship between perspective and derived
knowledge,
as well as taking a very simplistic view of knowledge, but it does
serve to
warn us of the severe limitations of our view of the world when
confronted with
organizational issues (and the need for situated thinking).
The
relationship between changes in perspective and the resulting changes
in
derived knowledge for (a) a complicated system, and (b) a complex
system.
In
the world of management and management consultancy many different
problems are
addressed with one approach, which necessarily results in shaping the
problem
to fit the viewpoint, or the current management fad.
Rather than addressing and managing the
inescapable complexity inherent within organizations (which arises
through the
interrelations between entities) traditional approaches reduce the
complexity
in a prescriptive manner. This
effectively forces the manager to forego options that might’ve been
available
to him/her through the adoption of a number of complementary
perspectives.
The
distinction between complicated (a useful approximation of the ‘old
world’) and
complex (a useful description of the ‘new world’) has critical
relevance for
the modern manager. Today’s competitive
environment has put into critical perspective the notion that by
learning
faster, and staying ever more agile, competitive advantage is yours to
keep. The environment changes in ways
which can only be selectively dealt with.
There is little chance to make use of lessons learned for they
are
lessons about an environment gone by and are out of date before they
can be
learned never mind used. Experience
still has value, but it’s application is no longer so clear cut. Where the old world was about discrete
elements, a complicated agglomeration of many discrete things, the new
world is
a complex one of interdependent and interrelated entities, of the swirl
of
events and of situations going on around us.
Perhaps
the sharpest differences can be found in the manner by which we treat
information. In the ‘old world’,
physical constraints were givens and the management challenges were
centered on
information flow and usage. In the ‘new
world’, information flow is infinite and the management challenges
center on
selection of information and adjusting to physical constraints. Video conferencing allows us the luxury of
pretending to be Dolly, cloned and duplicated out in the world. But, which meeting should be attended in
person? Whose hand needs shaking rather
than an email smilely? Humans are not
cogs of wheel, not even when they bear the label ‘employee’. Something more is needed.
In
a complex world it is not enough to understand discrete events such as
the
diary truck’s flat tire. There are so
many discrete things, events, and situations that it is foolish to
pursue their
mastery as the way to ‘make sense’ out of what occurs.
Knowing that United owns 800 airplanes will
not tell you where each of them flies and why.
Neither would a knowledge of the route structure or the cargo
demands or
passenger loads or any other single discrete piece of information.
The
complex versus complicated distinction can be most easily explained by
simply
considering the roots of the words. In
Latin plic is ‘fold’ and plex is ‘weave’.
We fold to hide facets of things and to cram more into a crowded
space. We weave to make use of
connections and to introduce mutual dependencies. Thus,
the flat tire of a local dairy farmer’s
truck may inconvenience a few customers but will not impact the food
markets of
a big city. By contrast, a closing of
O’Hare airport due to weather wreaks havoc over the
In
a complicated world, we unfold discrete elements to gain understanding
by
relieving the crowded conditions and thus exposing hidden facets. In a complex world of interweavings such an
unfolding of a discrete part will only work to change the whole. The whole may remain a whole but it will be a
different whole merely due to the tugging you have introduced.
Serendipity
is the art of making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things
managers
were not in quest of. Although this word
is widely used, few people know of its unusual history and that its
original
meaning has been lost. When this meaning
is restored, the actions that companies can take to promote serendipity
become
clear. Creativity often involves
recombining or making connections between things that may seem
unconnected. The more intricate the
connection, the
greater the intellectual distance that must be traversed to make it,
and the
greater the role for the unexpected.
Serendipity helps to bridge distances.
As
originally defined by Horace Walpole in 1754 serendipity combines a
fortunate
accident with sagacity. Sagacity is
derived from the Latin noun sagicitas (‘keenness of perception’) and
means,
according to the Oxford English Dictionary: gifted with acuteness of
mental
discernment; having special aptitude for the discovery of truth;
penetrating
and judicious in the estimation of character and motives, and the
devising of
means for the accomplishment of ends.
The modern definition puts the emphasis almost totally on
accidents and
leaves out the sagacity, the other aspect of serendipity as
Management
through control (the reductionist illusion) rather than through
understanding
and encouragement – this is the ‘easy’ option, rather than the
‘thinking man’s’
option. This is the result of the
bureaucratic view of management, which in turn is a result of taking a
complicated rather complex view of the world.
Single paradigmatic
views of management lead to ‘check-list’ approaches to management -
removing
the need to ‘think things through’, to reason. Single paradigmatic
approaches
increase the possibility of developing the wrong strategy.
Also does not adequately deal the necessary
capability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances that should be part of
any
strategy (things don’t always go as planned).
Traditional approaches see management as a separate function in
itself
rather than homing in the symbiosis, or alliance, between management
and all
other organizational activities. By
taking a single paradigmatic view of organizations, this effectively
results in
a focus upon optimization of one particular facet of an organization.
It will
become clear that this results in ‘sub-optimization’ (whatever that
might mean
for symbiotic systems!) of the overall system.
At best,
traditional approaches might see either the organization or the
environment as
a complex entity, but rarely both. And
if so, a single perspective is constructed to account for everything. This in addition to the lack of symbiotic
processes (resulting from interrelationships), results in a seriously
flawed
view of the world. Traditional methods, like the Newtonian approach,
promise
the manager the ability to have control - this is just an illusion! (as
is the
promise economic theory proposes, that the economy is predictable).
Postmodernism
In spite of the
lack of inertia in the management sciences to explore more
energetically the
multi-paradigmatic nature of management, there exists a more general
philosophical movement, which debates the nature of knowledge -
postmodernism. The following is a short
introduction to postmodernism, which highlights selected lessons that
might be
taking forward into a reformulation, or reframing (not replacement) of
management theory.
What is
postmodernism? It has been argued that
there are as many postmodernism’s as there are postmodernists
(reference).
Essentially, for the purposes of this text, postmodernism represents a
school
of thought concerning the nature of knowledge, how it is created, how
it is
maintained, how it is evolved, i.e. an epistemology.
Given the prefix post- it is implied that
postmodernism is a reaction to something called modernism.
What, therefore is modernism? It is
not exactly clear from the literature
what modernism actually is as people who are supposedly involved in
modernist
activity do not actually refer to the term readily.
We will for now assume that modernism is
synonymous with the mechanistic linear view of the world described
earlier,
i.e. that the world can be best understood by breaking-it down and
studying
it’s parts, there does exist an objective reality that can be modeled
accurately to the nth degree, and there also exists a grand
unifying
theory that describes this absolute reality absolutely (deep stuff). The fundamental changes to our view of the
world that result from assuming whether or not there exists an
objective world
is surprising and extensive.
For simplicity we
shall distinguish between two broad camps of the postmodernist
movement, namely
the skeptical and the affirmative. In
skeptical postmodernism the argument goes something like: the world is
so
complex that the goal of achieving an objective truth (“truths are
illusions of
which one has forgotten that they are truths” reference) is essentially
unachievable. From this the skeptics
derive that all perspectives are equally valid.
Unsurprisingly it has been said that skeptical postmodernism
offers “a
pessimistic, negative, gloomy assessment” of the possibilities of
social
science, and arguably management theory!
Skeptical postmodernists deny the existence of an empirical
management
theory. Though the idea of “all
perspectives are equally valid” might seem a little extreme (and of no
value in
itself) the suggestion that there does not, and will not, exist an all
embracing theory of management strikes a chord with the arguments
developing
within the social sciences (by unbeknownst postmodernists) (reference),
complexity
theorists (reference), as well as eminent theoretical physicists
(reference). This attitude to
‘meta-narratives’ is very much at odds with Pfeffer’s desires for a
single-paradigmatic view of management theory.
Affirmative
postmodernism on the other hand at least appreciates that comparisons
can be
made between viewpoints and that more value can indeed be ascribed to
one
viewpoint over another. This is of more
use to the manager if only the means by which each viewpoint could be
valued
(i.e. it’s relevance and applicability to the situation at hand) was
clear and
operationalized, i.e. there exists a well documented process that one
could to
follow that would enable an assessment of the value of each viewpoint. This is where deconstructionism comes in. “Deconstruction is an exploration within
strict boundaries of the indeterminacy’s that open up radical
reinterpretations
of such texts.” Or in layman’s terms, in
order understand a particular viewpoint one must understand completely
and
utterly the origins of the viewpoint.
Or, in terms of management theory, to appreciate whether or not
a
viewpoint has particular value to the manager in a particular setting
he/she
must be fully aware of the all assumptions, implied and explicit,
associated
with the viewpoint. If not, then
according the tenets of complexity science (which we will come to
shortly),
then there is a chance that the actions derived from adopting a
viewpoint might
be wholly inappropriate. Unfortunately
for us a complete understanding of the origins of a viewpoint is as
inaccessible as a TOE. However, the
process of attempting to uncover the ‘history’ of a viewpoint will
result in
potentially valuable reinterpretations.
Again, the theme of exploration, the employment of multiple
viewpoints
appears.
Previously it was
indicated that postmodernism does not equate to anti-modernism. Another feature of postmodernist thought is
that modernist approaches do have value (contrary to some viewpoints)
and so
should play a role in any postmodern description of management theory. “The intent is not to venerate the work of
predecessors or privilege the techniques of science; rather it is to
situate
research issues in creative tension with historical and scientific
contexts. Thus, postmodernists both
celebrate
tradition and deny the myth of progress.” (reference) – again, a view
that is
very much at odds with Pfeffer’s. Previous attempts towards management
theory
drawing from the traditional mechanistic paradigm do have value and
should
continue to play a part in future developments.
Understanding the position of, for example, structural
contingency,
resource dependence theory, and SAT, within the management theory
jigsaw is
needed. Again, we are back to the notion
of situatedness and choosing a fitting viewpoint for the situation of
interest.
Postmodernism is
characterized by “an increasing plurality of beliefs,” and the
preference for
detailed understanding of the particular, for local knowledge and local
times,
as opposed to statistical empiricism, i.e. multiple approaches combined
with
situatedness.
Complexity
Science
The management
literature, science and philosophy have another complementary
alternative in
bringing management theory ‘into the 21st century’ – it is known as
complexity
science.
As mentioned
previously in this introductory chapter, the linear view of the world
has been
found to be a very robust and persistent stance that has changed very
little
during the past four hundred years as the extent of application of the
Newtonian mechanistic paradigm has been explored. The
basic concept, which comes to us from
this long tradition of science, is that of reductionism.
Reductionist method essentially assumes that
one might understand a particular system by breaking it down and
examining its
constituent parts. The behavioral
characteristics of the whole can then be inferred by summing the parts,
i.e.
the whole is simply equal to the sum of its parts. This is essentially
what a
manager does when he/she is faced with a tricky situation - the problem
is
broken down on the assumption that by considering the different
elements
separately a ‘good’ decision concerning what action to take will be
made.
This methodology
has proved extremely powerful over recent centuries and remains to be
today. The nature of problems being
examined though has changed recently.
Primarily, technological development (particularly
communications) has
resulted in globalization, i.e. society has become more inter-connected. Rather the individuality that previously
characterized society has given way to a collectivized ecology. When investigating such systems the
reductionist paradigm appears wholly inappropriate (for reasons that
will be
detailed later).
For example,
consider water. A complete understanding
of water’s constituent molecules, i.e. H2O, which is pretty
much
what we have in modern chemistry, gives little insight into the
possible
configurations bulk water can adopt, e.g. clouds, hail, snow, etc. To appreciate these aspects of water we are
required to focus on the interactions between the parts rather than the
nature
of the parts themselves. This feature of
systems is what complexity scientists attempt to explain - the fact
that the
whole is actually greater than the sum of its parts.
The apparent
inability of linear thinking to account for macroscopic behavior
resulted in a
review of the accepted scientific doctrine that is still in its infancy
today. In the words of Mitchell:
"Scientists
in many different disciplines are increasingly sharing an impatience
with the
kind of linear, reductionist thinking that has dominated science since
Terms such as
coevolution and chaos will be defined and the value in adopting the use
of such
language will be described later, but before we move on, it might be
useful for
the reader if we take some time to describe the characteristics of a
complex
system. From Paul Cilliers Complexity and Postmodernism complex systems
are endowed with the following qualities:
1.
Complex
systems consist of a large number of elements;
2.
A
large number of elements is necessary, but not
sufficient;
3.
The
interactions between the elements are fairly rich;
4.
The
interactions are non-linear, usually have a fairly
short
range, and there are feedback loops formed from the interactions;
5.
Complex
systems are usually open systems, i.e. there are
ongoing exchanges between the system and it’s environment;
6.
Complex
systems operate under conditions far from
equilibrium, i.e. there is constant change;
7.
Complex
systems have a memory, i.e. the future depends
upon
the past;
8.
Each
element is ignorant of the behavior of the system as
a
whole.
Though not all the
above characteristics can be readily associated with an organization,
some of
them are clearly relevant in describing organizations.
Later we will provide the reader with
stronger and hopefully convincing evidence that organizations are
definitely
complex systems, thus identifying complexity science as a key component
of any
theory of management. To date, however,
a complexity-based description of management has not been fully
developed,
though progress is rapid.
This rapidly
developing area of science attempts to provide explanations of the
emergent
behaviors associated with such systems - the link between comprising
elements,
such as people, and overall system, such as an organization, behavior. By emergence we mean that events just happen
- self-organization spontaneously occurs – it is inevitable though not
obvious. For example, crashes in the
stock market occur whether we want them to or not - contrary to tight
controls
and restrictions recessions happen. This is rather worrying for the
manager. What hope does he/she have in
controlling a department, sector, etc., when new behaviors emerge
spontaneously
with apparent disregard for the manager’s will?
All is not lost. A paradox does,
however,
exist - that of control versus emergence - that a manager must
understand and
deal with.
We can see from
the above brief discussion that there are some recurrent themes
associated with
the postmodernist and complexity movements.
These themes can be summarized to just two terms – exploration and multiple viewpoints. If,
as managers, we are to manage in this
complex world, we need to explore not only within single viewpoints,
but also
within multiple perspectives. It is
important to reiterate, however, traditional management will not be
succeeded,
but will be combined with, and complemented by, a new complexity-based
perspective to form a more robust, versatile, and effective means, not
to
control, but to cope.