In their 2001 Organization Science article “Bringing Work Back In,” Steven Barley and Gideon Kunda lamented how the study of work, its organization, and its performance shifted after the 1950s. Work was the center of attention among the classic era of organization studies beginning with Frederic Taylor, but afterward, the focus shifted to post-bureaucratic concepts such as boundaryless organizations and networks. Barley and Kunda argues that these new ideas are not grounded in rigorous studies of how people perform work in such new organizations.
Frederick Herzberg’s “The Motivation to Work” presents the results of over 200 interviews with engineers and accountants working in the Pittsburgh area regarding what satisfied and dissatisfied them on the job. They would find that factors leading to satisfaction, such as achievement and performance, were very different than those leading to dissatisfaction, such as company policies or relationships with co-workers and managers. The result became known as Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction, also known as the motivator-hygiene theory.
We discuss Shoshana Zuboff’s "In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power" that examines several cases of organizations introducing information technologies in the workplace hoping to improve organizational performance, transparency, and collaboration but instead dehumanized the workplace and ushered in new ways of managerial surveillance. In Part 1, we discuss the major themes of the book, her telling of the histories of both blue- and white-collar work, and her incredible case studies.
This month’s episode examines one of the classic studies from the Tavistock Institute, Isabel Menzies’ “A Case-Study in the Functioning of Social Systems as a Defence Against Anxiety.” This famous study of how a teaching hospital developed odd and somewhat dysfunctional methods for protecting its nurses from anxiety and stress by effectively isolating nurses from the patients to prevent emotional attachment. Nursing students witnessing these methods in practice found them in violation of their expectations regarding care and their professional calling, and were quitting. What were these methods and why did they come about?
In this episode, we discuss the second edition of James March and Herbert Simon’s classic text 'Organizations.' In addition to the well-known concepts such as bounded rationality and satisficing, the book introduces an important critique of the mechanistic view that “classic” organization theory to that point approached organizations and its members. How do decisions get made? What causes individuals or join, stay in, or leave organizations? What about the causes and effects of conflict? We explore all this and more.
We discuss a classic 1954 book by Alvin Gouldner titled, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy. This describes the results of an ethnographic study conducted at a gypsum processing plant that included both a mine and a production line for construction materials. Gouldner and his team uncovered three distinct patterns of bureaucratic rules based on the acceptance and compliance of bureaucratic rules by workers and management – patterns still relevant today.
2020 ushered in a full year of major change and renewed a lot of conversations about how we work, live, and cooperate in organizations and societies. In that spirit, we discuss Melville Dalton's classic 1959 book "Men Who Manage: Fusions of Feeling and Theory in Administration." The study provided an intimate look at how men (as these were all men at the time) entered into the managerial culture of a firm, how the separations between managers are workers were structured and maintained, and how managers felt about their standing -- which ranged from secure to tenuous. In Part 1, we focus on the study itself, which is still very relevant not only for understanding what happens within the circle of managers but also how the boundaries can exclude others, particularly along gender lines.
The work of certain groups of specialists in society is a crucial theme for those interested in organizations. And it became particularly relevant in light of the COVID-19 pandemic as debates emerge on whether “experts” got things wrong or how decision-makers have decided (or not) to listen to the professionals. But who exactly are the “professionals” anyway? Is it just doctors, lawyers, educators? How do they work? Are all professionals created equally? Why some wield more attention than others? Sociologist Andrew Abbott does more than answer these questions, he constructed a comprehensive framework to analyze the meaning of professional work and how professions form and compete with each other.
The text for this episode is Andrew Abbott’s 1989 book The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. This book is a watershed in our understanding of professions and their work. While previous literature had a focus on distinctive occupational groups and their professionalization projects, Abbott invited us to think more systemically about the interdependencies and how professions compete with each other over “jurisdictions,” claims of ownership and responsibility over expert knowledge and its applications.
This is the first of two planned episodes covering this magnificent work. In this episode, the focus is on how Abbott defines the major constructs of his framework — professionalization, professional work (diagnosis, inference, treatment), and claims of jurisdiction. We concentrate on their application in individual professions and subdivisions therein, followed by a discussion of one of Abbott’s case studies — that of the information professions (e.g., librarian, statistician, computer programmer). The insights shed light the modern-day issues facing professions today such as the public health sector who have been under intense scrutiny in the pandemic.
Part 1. What distinguishes professional work?
Part 2. Contemporary challenges for professions and professionals
Abbott, A. (1995). Boundaries of Social Work or Social Work of Boundaries?: The Social Service Review Lecture. Social Service Review. 69 (4), 545-62.
Bechky, B. A. (2003). Object lessons: Workplace artifacts as representations of occupational jurisdiction. American Journal of Sociology, 109(3), 720-752.
Related Episodes:
Episodes 7&8: Two episodes covering Chester Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive — Episode 7 on “Phases of Cooperation” and Episode 8 on “The Ends of Men“
What is power and influence? Although power appears as a multilevel concept, the early organizational literature tended to view it as wielded by people–measured as skills, traits, or competencies. This would change in the 1980s, in large part to a classic empirical study providing evidence that one’s position within an organizational structure was more likely to translate into one’s source of power. Dan Brass’ article, “Being in the Right Place: A Structural Analysis of Individual Influence in an Organization” from Administrative Science Quarterly is the subject of this episode.
Brass studied the relative positions of 140 non-supervisory members of a newspaper publishing company. His mixed-methods approach included a number of variables such as criticality, transaction alternatives, and centrality (access and control) in the social networks of the organization. The results showed that connections in workflow, communication, and friendship networks resulted in greater perceptions of influence by others. Such individuals were also more likely to be promoted within the organization. Workers in some specialized or boundary-spanning positions were well-postured to gain influence by maintaining broader social networks than one’s duties would normally require.
The impact of the article is still significant today, as the structural perspective on individual influence is now generally accepted. It also kickstarted a long and industrious career for Brass who has written extensively on social network(ing), power, and influence to the present day.
Joining us in the studio for this episode is Sarah Otner, a junior research fellow at the Imperial College in London. Giving credit where due, it was Sarah’s suggestion that we cover this theme as it has greatly influenced her work. After this episode, we believe you too will be convinced that this article is deserving of being called a “classic.”
Part 1. On Power, Influence, and Networks (and the Growth of ASQ)
Part 2. In What Way Were Brass’ Findings Surprising?
Betancourt, N., Kovacs, B., & Otner, S. (2018). The perception of status: How we infer the status of others from their social relationships. Network Science, 6(3), 319-347.
Borgatti, S. P., & Foster, P. C. (2003). The network paradigm in organizational research: A review and typology. Journal of Management, 29(6), 991-1013.
Brass, D. J., Galaskiewicz, J., Greve, H. R., & Tsai, W. (2004). Taking stock of networks and organizations: A multilevel perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 47(6), 795-817.
Burt, R. S. (2009). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Harvard University Press.
Friedkin, N. E. (2006). A structural theory of social influence (Vol. 13). Cambridge University Press.
Ibarra, H. (1993). Network centrality, power, and innovation involvement: Determinants of technical and administrative roles. Academy of Management Journal, 36(3), 471-501.
Ibarra, H. (1993). Personal networks of women and minorities in management: A conceptual framework. Academy of Management Review, 18(1), 56-87.
Kleinbaum, A. M. (2012). Organizational misfits and the origins of brokerage in intrafirm networks. Administrative Science Quarterly, 57(3), 407-452.
Krackhardt, D. (1990). Assessing the political landscape: Structure, cognition, and power in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 342-369.
Magee, J. C., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Social Hierarchy: The self‐reinforcing nature of power and status. Academy of Management Annals, 2(1), 351-398.
Kilduff, M., & Brass, D. J. (2010). Organizational social network research: Core ideas and key debates. Academy of Management Annals, 4(1), 317-357.
Otner, S. M. (2018). Near-winners in status competitions: Neglected sources of dynamism in the Matthew Effect. Journal of Management Inquiry, 27(4), 374-377.
In this episode, we examine Douglas McGregor’s most famous work, The Human Side of Enterprise, that proposed two “theories” encapsulating management assumptions about human behavior. His Theory X described the dominant thinking of the 1950s, where managers held a dim view of employees, who were assumed to be disinclined to work and had to be coerced into doing so. McGregor felt that Theory X led to adversarial relationships between managers and workers, resulting in poorer performance and an unhealthy environment. His Theory Y saw employees as wishing to be challenged and fulfilled if properly empowered and engaged.
The book has become a staple of management literature. Numerous studies of organizations have confirmed the benefits of Theory Y assumptions serving as the foundation for performance appraisals, reward systems, working in teams, and building worker commitment to the organization. The Annotated Edition of the book, published in 2006, includes dozens of additional callouts and citations of research and vignettes of management experience, demonstrated the continued relevance of this master work.
Part 1. Examining Theory X and Theory Y
Part 2. Does Theory Y Really Work? Is Theory X Really All that Bad?
Read With Us:
McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. McGraw‐Hill: New York. McGregor, D. (2006). The human side of enterprise, annotated edition. McGraw-Hill: New York.
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