Dmitrijs Kravcenko

24: Learning by Knowledge-Intensive Firms

February 21, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
We discuss another of the classics from the Journal of Management Studies, a paper from 1992 by William Starbuck, entitled “Learning by knowledge-intensive firms”. This time, we are very happy to be joined by the author of the work, Professor William Starbuck, one of the leading experts in Organization Theory, whose research covers an incredible number of areas of expertise, as shown in his biography. This paper is the first to discuss knowledge intensive firms, concept based on the economists’ notions of capital and labour intensive firms, and which are defined as those firms where “knowledge has more importance than other inputs” (p.715).

23: Influence of Institutions and Factor Markets

February 7, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
This is an episode in our special series of Classics in the Journal of Management Studies. Mike Wright co-authored "Emerging multinationals from mid-range economies: the influence of institutions and factor markets" in 2013 that looked at the variety in the development of emerging economies and, through institution theory, increased understanding of competition between multinational economies and the respective national ones.

22: Human-Machine Reconfigurations – Lucy Suchman

January 17, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
We discuss Lucy Suchman’s book “Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Action” that studied the interaction of humans with a state-of-art photocopier designed to be more user friendly and more helpful in solving user problems. Yet videos showed that people found it complicated and difficult. Suchman shows that these interaction problems are greatly due to the underpinning assumptions about users’ behavior, more specifically, due to the idea that humans’ actions are based on the following of plans, which she refutes.

21: Small Research, Big Issues with Brian Pentland and Katharina Dittrich LIVE

December 17, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

From the ‘Connections in Action’ workshop held by the IKON Research Unit at the University of Warwick, 5-6 December 2016

(Left-to-Right) Brian, Katharina, Dmitrijs, and Pedro

What a treat! Joining us for this Special Episode from the fascinating ‘Connections in Action’ workshop at the University of Warwick are Katharina Dittrich and Brian Pentland (aka Doctor Decade)! To our great delight, Doctor Decade provided the live intro music for this episode and even performed one of his songs (Ruts in the Road)! 

This episode has been recorded in two parts – Part 1 before the event, where Dmitrijs, Pedro, Katharina and Brian discussed what may be the issues of interest with regards to drawing connections between the macro and the micro, and Part 2, recorded after the workshop, where they reflected on all the new things that they have learned.

One of the challenges that process, practice and organizational routine studies share with other micro-sociological approaches is how to deal with some of the ‘big issues’ or ‘grand challenges’ of our times. Examples of such issues include the nature and functioning of financial markets, the rise and fall of large institutional arrangements, the global travel of idea and ideologies, inequality, the bureaucracy and its failures, climate change and the future of the planet.

The aim of the workshop was to bring together scholars who explore how we can account for and keep track of large phenomena utilising existing and new ‘micro-sociological’ and relational approaches in organization studies. The purpose of this was to (1) advance theorizing about large social phenomena, (2) re-imagine our methods of inquiry in a way that they are more productive in dealing with the complexity of contemporary organizing, (3) exchange about the challenges in doing this kind of research and (4) develop exemplary studies that pave the way for a new stream of research. The workshop was be speculative in character with the intent to learn from each other and generate new ideas through dialogue and listening. So, needless to say, this was amazing and you should definitely keep an eye out for the second iteration of the event which will take place in Zurich, Switzerland.

Also, as a bonus, here is one of the methodological postcards recorded by the editorial team of the podcast exclusively for this event. This one is provided by Dr. Christian Bueger. Enjoy!  

You may also download the audio files here: Part 1 | Part 2

Related posts from the Talking About Organizations Podcast:

Ella Hafermalz: “Reflections on the ‘Process and Practice Perspectives on Organisation Studies’ Workshop at the University of Queensland Business School”

Related episodes from Tom’s podcast Reflections on Management:

Episode 3-4. On Asking the BIG Questions

20: High Reliability in Practice – USN Rear Admiral Tom Mercer

December 17, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

With Special Guest U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tom Mercer

Karl Weick

Based around a classic work by Weick and Roberts (1993) on Collective mind in organizations – where the authors observed and analyzed the way people on the deck of an aircraft carrier function in a collective manner – this episode brings you a discussion of how concepts of High Reliability (see also Episode 11) flesh out in real life!
As stated by Weick and Roberts, the collective mind is “a pattern of heedful interrelations of actions in a social system” (p. 357). These “heedful interrelations of actions” purportedly allow near error-free performance within a given environment. One of the key aspects there is considered to be knowledge integration between, and among, a group people performing complex, high-risk, interdependent yet diverse work in close proximity to one another. Knowledge integration based on these mechanisms suggests that repeatability is a core characteristic, but, the repetitive nature of these mechanisms does not necessarily imply that patterns of knowledge integration are exactly replicated over time. This was one of the key questions tacked by Weick and Roberts – how do people re-enact the work of this nature time and time again and what happens when (if) they fail.

Joining us for this episode is a very special guest – Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier on which Weick and Roberts performed their study, Read Admiral (retired) Tom Mercer! Tom is an extraordinary individual and a highly experienced leader, bearing responsibility for a multidisciplinary organization of 6000 people working everything from munitions and aircraft to baking bread and producing television.

This is a must listen for a grounded, empirically saturated representation of the theoretical concepts of High Reliability Organization, and general management as such, that we cover on this podcast!

You may also download the audio files here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 

Read with us:

Weick, K.E. and Roberts, K.H., (1993). Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. Administrative Science Quarterly 38, 357-381.

19: Carnegie Mellon Series #2 – Exploration and Exploitation of Knowledge

November 8, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

James March

In this episode, we read the widely cited article, “Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning,” published in 1991 in the journal Organization Science. In the paper, March considered the relationships between exploration of new ways of doing things and the exploitation of accepted, standard practices for organizational learning.

James G. March is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University in management, sociology, political science, and education at Stanford University. He has been on the faculty since 1970. He is known for his contributions to organization and management theory. Together with his “Carnegie School” colleagues Richard Cyert and Herbert A. Simon, March developed a theory of the firm that incorporated aspects of sociology, psychology, and economics as an alternative to neoclassical theories. The focus of the research was on organizational behavior and the application of decision analysis, management science, and psychology in addition to theories such as bounded rationality to the understanding of organizations.

March created two basic models of organizational learning in order to consider the challenges managers face while allotting resources between exploration and exploitation: distribution of costs and benefits across time and space, and the effects of ecological interaction among members of the organization. The first model examines the case of mutual learning between members of an organization and an organizational code (also known as organizational memory) within a particular organization. The second case examined learning and competitive advantage in competition among firms for primacy. As noted in the abstract, “the paper develops an argument that adaptive processes, by refining exploitation more rapidly than exploration, are likely to become effective in the short run but self-destructive in the long run.”

March attempted to show that learning in organizations is still possible even in the presence of causal ambiguity. While the paper has been criticized for its very simplistic model of organizational learning and lack of empirical data, a strong point of the paper may be the general insight in provides about collective learning under ambiguous conditions.

What are the tradeoffs and challenges associated with balancing exploitation and exploration? What does it mean for organizational learning? Read the paper and listen to your intrepid podcasters, as we grapple with March’s ideas.

You may also download the audio files here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Read with us:

March, J. (1991). Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning, Organization Science, 2(1), pp. 71-87

To Learn More:

Levitt, B. and J. G. March. (1988). Organizational learning. Annual Review of Sociology, 14: 319-340

Gupta, A.K., Smith, K.G. and Shalley, C.E., (2006). The interplay between exploration and exploitation. Academy of Management Journal, 49(4), 693-706.

18: Gig Economy, Labor Relations and Algorithmic Management

October 18, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
We discuss an article by Sarah O'Connor exploring the impact of gig economy and algorithmic management on the employees - what their experience is like, how their work is structured, and whether being a gig economy employee is everything it panned out to be. Gig economy, as well as its benefits and limitations, has been subject to much debate in social policy and labour relations.

17: Tokenism – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

September 20, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
In this episode, we read Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s paper “Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women” (1977) which features as a chapter in her classic book, "Men and Women of the Corporation." In this article, Kanter explores how interactions within a group or an organization are affected by the different numbers of people from distinct social types. In particular, she focuses on groups with skewed gender ratios: a high proportion of men and a small number of women – the tokens. The study is based on observations and interviews with sales team which had recently started to incorporate women in its workforce and shows how structural factors stifled their potential.

16: Contingency Theory – Lawrence and Lorsch

August 30, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

Paul Lawrence (1922-2011) and Jay Lorsch

Paul Lawrence (1922 – 2011) and Jay Lorsch (1932) are/were two scholars associated with the contingency school. Important figures in the field of management and organizational studies, their collaboration produced important works including the award winning book “Organization and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration” and a series of papers which advance an open systems perspective on organizations.
The contingency school postulates that there is not one best way to structure work or an organization. An optimum course of action depends – is contingent – on the external and local conditions in which an organization is inserted. This represents an alternative to most assumptions from scientific management and shifts attention of organization scholars beyond internal dynamics to the external environment of an organization.
In this episode, we read the classic article “Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations” published in 1967 in Administrative Science Quarterly, arguably the flagship journal of our discipline. In this work, Lawrence and Lorsch investigate the relation between organizational characteristics and their environment, and stipulate that an organization’s economic performance is determined by its ability to meet integration and differentiation requirements according to their environment.

The paper is based on a comparative study of six industrial organizations and data was obtained via questionnaires and interviews with senior executives. The researchers compare the degree of integration and differentiation between subgroups in each company (i.e., sales, production and research and development subsystems) as they attempt to meet requirements from their sub-environments (i.e., science, market and technical-economic). The paper shows that the most economic successful organizations were the ones that managed to fulfil the dual goal of differentiation and integration. Finally, the authors explore the conditions that lead to more or less effectiveness in integrative devices.

So, how does integration and differentiation happen? And what does it mean to meet requirements from the environment? Join us as we explore these concepts and ideas in Episode 16! 

You may also download the audio files here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 

Read with us:

Lawrence, P., and Lorsch, J. (1967) Differentiation and Integration in Complex Systems, Administrative Science Quarterly, 12 (1), 1-47.

 

15: Doing Interesting Research with Jorgen Sandberg LIVE

August 9, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

With Special Guest Dr. Jorgen Sandberg

This episode suitable for everyone, but should be especially useful for PhD and early-career researchers!

Jorgen Sandberg

What is it about research that makes it interesting? Or, rather, at which point does a study become interesting (or not)? The more common answer to these questions would most certainly place emphasis on the results and outcomes of a study – i.e. the research is interesting if the findings are interesting. In their 2013 book – Constructing Research Questions: Doing interesting research – Mats Alvesson (Lund University, Sweden) and Jorgen Sandberg (University of Queensland, Australia) propose that the focal point of what contributes to something being interesting is found way before any results or implications. The focal point of what makes a research interesting has to do with the assumptions that go into the design of that research. 

This book is just as relevant for new researchers and research students as it is for more seasoned academics (albeit for different reasons). First and foremost it highlights the need to be creative and self-aware when formulating research questions. Alvesson and Sandberg, however, go beyond mere critique and also specific ways of how to overcome some of the issues that make research less interesting.

In the book, Alvesson and Sandberg develop a problematization methodology for identifying and challenging the assumptions underlying existing theories and for generating research questions that can lead to more interesting and influential theories, using examples from across the social sciences. They highlight that established methods of generating research questions tend to focus on ‘gap-spotting’. While they emphasize that there is nothing inherently wrong with this method, the overuse of it does mean that existing literature remains largely unchallenged. Alvesson and Sandberg show the dangers of conventional approaches, providing detailed ideas for how one can work through such problems and formulate novel research questions that challenge existing theories and produce more imaginative empirical studies. Joining us for this disc is Professor Jorgen Sandberg, one of the authors of the book! We sat down with Jorgen to talk about his work and get some clarifications about what is it that makes research interesting (and for whom), how is this relevant to new and experienced academics and what is the purpose of writing a book such as this. 

All researchers want to produce interesting and influential theories. A key step in all theory development is formulating innovative research questions that will result in interesting and significant research!

You may also download the audio files here:  E15

Read with us:

Alvesson, M. and Sandberg, J. (2013). Constructing research questions : doing interesting research. London: Sage Publications, 2013.

Alvesson M. and Sandberg J. (2011). Generating Research Questions through Problematization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247-271.

To Learn More:

Okimoto, T. (2014). Toward More Interesting Research Questions: Problematizing Theory in Social Justice. Social Justice Research, 27: 395-411.

Alvesson, M. and Sandberg, J. (2014). Has management studies lost its way? Ideas for more imaginative and innovative research. Journal of Management Studies, 50: 128-152.

Alvesson, M. and Sandberg, J. (2014). Habitat and habitus: Boxed-in versus box-breaking research. Organization Studies, 21: 967-987.

Book Review: Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research by Mats Alvesson & Jorgen Sandberg by Joanna Lenihan

Book Review by Professor Jean M. Bartunek, Department of Management and Organization, Boston College.