Ralph Soule

87: The Art of War (and Management?) — Sun Tzu

This month’s episode examines war and how principles derived from it are presently applied to other organizational and management contexts. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is an ancient text that emerged from the Warring States period that lasted from the 5th through 3rd centuries B.C. and engulfed most of modern mainland China. It embraced the complexity of the environment of war, which therefore has allowed it to be adapted for navigating other forms of complexity such as business competition. We examine the text in its original context to illustrate the need to understand the purpose and utility of classic texts.

79: Labor Relations – Jane Addams

We discuss a famous speech by Jane Addams titled, A Modern Lear, her reflections on the events leading to and during the infamous Pullman Railway Strike of 1894. Using ideas drawn from the emergence of classic pragmatism and Shakespeare’s King Lear as an analogy, Addams took both the ownership and workers to task for the violence and provides a way to avoid a recurrence of such a tragedy. What insights are applicable to today’s contemporary situation? Can pragmatism provide a way forward?

72: Organizational Diagnosis — Marvin Weisbord

Business literature is now loaded with models and frameworks designed to help organizations identify, analyze, and fix their problems. But it wasn't always this way, and in fact a half century ago there were few general-purpose models available that were well-suited for the task. Enter Marvin Weisbord who in the 1970s developed and promoted a simple framework and associated suite of tools designed for anyone to investigate what was going wrong. In this episode, we discuss one of his articles -- "Organizational Diagnosis: Six Places to Look for Trouble With or Without a Theory," published in 1976 in the journal Group and Organization Management -- that introduced his Six-Box Model of organizational diagnosis.

69: Our 5th Anniversary Special!

Celebrate five years of the Talking About Organizations Podcast with us!!!

Happy 5th Anniversary!!!

On October 13, 2015 — The Talking About Organizations Podcast descended upon the unsuspecting world of academia with the release of Episode 1: Scientific Management – F.W. Taylor’s One Best Way, covering the much misunderstood and severely misrepresented work of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Our original quartet of podcasters Dmitrijs, Ralph, Pedro, and Miranda (aka 3 late-stage PhD students and Ralph) took a leap of faith to get behind something they truly believed in – that the field of management and organizational studies was in trouble because of systemic neglect of its own history and foundations, and that a semi-serious podcast might be a way to help fix that. Still, the question remained – would this project last beyond the first few releases, would it have lasting value, or would they succumb to excessive workload and finally heed the word of their more serious colleagues about not wasting time on silly things and publishing papers instead, if they ever wanted to get a job in academia? 

And here we are five years later — with many new cast members and sixty-nine episodes under our belt — and still going strong! Reaching beyond the traditional canon of classics with the works of Fayol, Maslow, Weber, and so many others; we have included more recent “classics” such as Hochschild, Kerr, and Forester; commentaries on movies, plays, and documentaries from Twelve Angry Men to American Factoryand various conference specials from the Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Capabilities conference and the Academy of Management‘s annual meeting. Our podcast reaches thousands of listeners each month and is included in the curriculum of at least (confirmed) thirty-eight business schools and universities around the world! 

And so, on October 13, 2020 (in a year when any sort of festivity is a welcome diversion), we are celebrating our fifth anniversary with a series of releases spread out over the next two weeks. Details on each of the releases are below. Come join us and share a virtual beverage of your choice as we ring in five years of Talking About Organizations!

Note: Pictured from L to R: Pedro, Catherine, Maikel, Dmitrijs, Tom, Leonardo, Miranda, Ralph

Part 1 (released October 13th). “Behind the Curtain: How We Do the Podcast”

In these release, we offer listeners an insider perspective on the making of our episodes. Dmitrijs, Pedro, Ralph, and Tom discuss how we choose an episode topic, schedule it, record it and conduct post-production, and release it through the web and RSS feeds. We also talk about the broader Talking About Organizations Network and what we enjoy most about doing the podcast.

 

Part 2 (released October 13th). “Questions from our Listeners”

About a month before the anniversary, we solicited questions from our listeners about things they wanted to know or suggestions for the podcast. Out of the large number of excellent questions received; Dmitrijs, Miranda, Maikel, Jarryd, and Tom broke it down to five that we tackled and discussed in our own Talking About Organizations way. The questions are:

  1. I was thinking about the politics of publishing in peer-review nowadays. What does a naive junior scholar need to know to get their work published – down to the nitty-gritty? Would that be something?
  2. We would like to hear more about <pick one: sociomateriality studies / strategy as practice / charisma in leadership in small and medium sized firms, etc.> What are the gaps that we need to plug?
  3. In 1993 Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote a highly cited article in AMR called Barriers to the Advancement of Organizational Science: Paradigm Development as Dependent Variable. In it he argues that the field of organisational science (i.e., management and organisational studies) displays a high degree of dissensus compared with other social science disciplines such as economics and political science.  “The question for organizational science is whether the field can strike an appropriate balance between theoretical tyranny and an anything goes attitude, which seems to be more characteristic of the present state.” My question, to draw upon the technology product terms, is this is a bug of our discipline or a feature?
  4. I think the podcast could provide some further understanding for the issues we are facing right now and how org theory can help tackle them: virtual work / remote work, the end of the office, conspiracy theories, heavy disruption, mental exhaustion and burn out, high uncertainty, etc. I believe existing theories have a lot to say about those contemporary issues. I think you should also consider covering new papers or books rather than very established ones or streams of literature. e.g. the pieces that get awards if they explore new perspectives or literatures? Not things we have seen a large number of times! (we also included a related question submitted to us at the last minute about mini-meetings and remote work)
  5. How can the podcast explore grand challenges or wicked problems? There is not always a single seminal work that encompasses such problems, which are pervasive in our modern environment.

 

Part 3 (released October 21st). “Perspectives of our Guests”

In this final release of our 5th year celebration, we welcome the perspectives of several past guests, hosts, and observers of past recordings — with additional commentary from cast members Pedro, Miranda, Catherine, Leonardo, and Tom. Our guests discussed the experiences (and fun) of participating in the podcast, the podcast’s current role and potential future directions, and the state of scholarship in organization studies. We thank our guests for taking time out of their busy schedules to talk with us!

  • Ella Hafermalz — Former co-host of the program who participated in ten episodes — 28 (Organizations as Rhetoric), 31 (Process Studies), 35 (Emotional Labor), 41 (Images of Organization), 49 (Engineered Culture & Normative Control), 50 (50th Episode celebration), 51 (Tyranny of Light), 53 (Charlie Chaplain’s Modern Times), 57 (Reward Systems), and 66 (Workplace Isolation, as returning Special Guest)
  • Deborah Brewis — Guest of Episode 17 on Rosabeth Moss Kanter and tokenism; Deborah was instrumental in establishing our thematic collection with the Management Learning Journal.
  • Simone Phipps & Leon Prieto — Guests of Episode 56 on Charles Clinton Spaulding and African-American contributions to management scholarship.
  • Maja Korica — Guest of Episode 52 on Rosemary Stewart and management in practice.
  • Marc Ventresca — Guest of Episode 46, covering a professional development workshop (PDW) on classics of organization theory and management science at the Academy of Management annual meeting in 2018
  • Fabricio Neves & Polyana Silva — Two of our loyal listeners who even joined the virtual audience for recordings of Episode 64 (Disasters and Crisis Management) and Episode 66 (Workplace Isolation)

 

 

68: Globalization and Culture Clashes — “American Factory” (Documentary)

Movie Poster

American Factory is an important and powerful documentary, telling the story of cultural clashes and labor-management relations as a Chinese firm re-opened and re-purposed a close automotive plant in Ohio. Six years earlier, in 2008, General Motors (GM) shuttered its Moraine, Ohio automotive plant, rendering thousands of workers unemployed. Then in 2014, China’s Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co. Ltd. purchased the facility and sought to re-purpose the plant to manufacture automotive glass. With it came a bold vision, workers emigrating from China would pair up with re-hired GM employees. Despite a substantial pay cut, the re-opening of the factory signaled a new hope for the American workers.

Alas, it would not be easy.

Using a fly-on-the-wall style of documentary, directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert allow viewers an up-close look at both American and Chinese workers and managers as they struggled to bring the new plant to profitability. The camera was kept very close as workers formed, stormed and, to an extent, normed during the first couple years. But some cultural barriers proved too difficult for quick solutions. From differing conceptions of company loyalty to opposing perspectives on corporate values workplace relations, safety, compensation, and unionization, Bognar and Reichert showed how the Americans and Chinese faced and (only occasionally resolved) conflict.

We analyzed this film through the lenses of several important organization theories and management science classics. Among them are Herzberg’s two-factor theory covering hygiene and motivation forms of incentives and Maurice Halbwachs’ concept of collective memory and ‘spaces’ — such as how the American workers recalled the facility’s layout for automotive manufacturing and therefore struggled with the changes being imposed by the Chinese managers.

Part 1. A new factory; An emerging culture clash
 
Part 2. On incentives, leadership, and the future of work

 

Watch with us:

Reichert, Je. & Benello, J. P. (Producers), & Bognar, S. & Reichert, Ju. (Directors). (2019). American factory. USA: Higher Ground Productions.

To Learn More:

Halbwachs, M., (1992). On collective memory. University of Chicago Press. http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/hawlbachsspace.pdf

Herzberg, F. (1966). Work and The Nature of Man. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co.

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B. (1959). The Motivation to Work. New York: Wiley

Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2011). Managing the unexpected: Resilient performance in an age of uncertainty (Vol. 8). John Wiley & Sons.

Related Episodes from the Talking About Organizations Podcast:

Episode 16, “Contingency Theory — Lawrence & Lorsch.”

Episode 54, “Measuring Organizational Cultures — Hofstede.”

Episode 60, “Contingency Theory — Woodward.”

64: Disasters and Crisis Management – Powley and Weick

Karl Weick

Crises and disasters are regular occurrences in organizational life, putting leaders into the spotlight and organizations under tremendous pressure to respond appropriately — whether it is to preserve life or salvage reputations. With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, we wanted to discuss some important texts on organizational crises and their management, and in this episode we present two. The first text is a classic case study — Karl Weick’s famous paper from 1990 titled “The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster,” published in the Journal of Management. The Tenerife air disaster (also referred to as ‘airport disaster’) occurred at Gran Canaria Airport in 1977 when fog and poor communications between the tower and the pilots of two Boeing 747s resulted in a collision that destroyed both planes and resulted in the death of 583 people. Weick’s retrospective analysis shows how several factors set conditions that “encouraged the occurrence and rapid diffusion of multiple small errors.” 

The second article helps answer the question, “How does an organization rebound from crisis?” We explore an article from Edward Powley on activating organizational resilience — “Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis,” published in Human Relations in 2009. The article describes three different social mechanisms that are put into action according to Powley — liminal suspension, compassionate witnessing, and relational redundancy. Respectively, these mechanisms cause the organization to temporarily restructure itself to respond to the crisis, leverage interpersonal relationships within the organization more intensely, and leverage social connections across boundaries to reach out and help others outside the organization.  Together these readings can help us understand what it takes to analyze an emerging crisis situation and mobilize to confront it. 

Part 1: What happens to an organization under crisis?
Part 2: How can organizations become more proactive and prepare better for crisis?
 
Read With Us:

Powley, E. H. (2009). Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis. Human relations62(9), 1289-1326.

Weick, K. E. (1990). The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster. Journal of management16(3), 571-593.

62: Consumerism & Meaning at Work — WALL-E

Andrew Stanton – Director of “WALL-E”

As we demonstrated in previous episodes about “Twelve Angry Men” and “Modern Times,” movies can be effective tools for discussing concepts, ideas, and experiences about organizations and management. Add to this the ‘instant’ classic film WALL-E, released in 2008 by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. WALL-E is the story of a robot who at one time was part of a massive clean-up effort on Earth while all the humans left to live on cruise ships in space. But the effort failed centuries earlier, and now WALL-E continued his duties all alone — accompanied only by a cockroach. When a probe returns to Earth searching for renewed signs of life, WALL-E follows the probe back to the lead cruise ship and learns how much the humans have devolved over the centuries. The story is about awakening, about recognizing how one is bounded and shut off from a wider world. The film was hailed as one of the best of the 2000s.

In this episode, we talk about the setting and the story for clues about organizational behavior and management. (Spoiler alert!) Through flashback images and other evidence, we learn of the backstory about how one corporation called “BuyNLarge” — came to dominate both public and private sectors of society, providing everything for the humans, and doing so in an indulgent fashion. Eventually, the humans kept buying and consuming until the garbage overtook everything. But on the cruise ship (Axiom), the vision of BuyNLarge is realized as the humans do indeed live in a paradise where they can buy and consume just about anything they want. Meanwhile, BuyNLarge’s CEO Shelby Forthright is portrayed only minimally, yet is a central figure in the film. His decision making centuries earlier set in motion the chain of events that led to the Axiom remaining in space far longer than originally planned. Organizational behavior, leadership, change, culture, automation and artificial intelligence — we discuss these topics and more! Listen in as Tom, Pedro, Maikel, and Ralph have a fun conversation discussing this wonderful film!

Part 1. Talking About Organizational Behavior and Leadership Through Film

 

Part 2. What We Can Learn from Dystopian Fiction?

 

Watch With Us:

WALL-E (film). (2008). Director: Andrew Stanton. Pixar Animation Studios.

Related Episodes of the Talking About Organizations Podcast:

Episode 1: Principles of Scientific Management – F.W. Taylor’s One Best Way 

Episode 3: Theory of Human Motivation – Abraham Maslow

Episode 6: Bureaucracy – Max Weber

Episode 13: Banana Time – Donald Roy

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

To Know More:

Anteby, Michel. (2003) “The Moralities’ of Poaching: Manufacturing Personal Artifacts on the Factory Floor.” Ethnography, 4(2): 217-239.

Faraj, Samer, Stella Pachidi, and Karla Sayegh. (2018). “Working and organizing in the age of the learning algorithm.” Information and Organization, 28(1): 62-70.

Mintzberg, Henry. (1980). “Structure in 5’s: A Synthesis of the Research on Organization Design.” Management science 26(3): 322-341.

List of Movies Relevant for Management — https://twitter.com/search?q=%23LeoMovieList&src=typd&f=live

Featured Image Credit:  Lenin Estrada via Pexels.com, Creative Commons License 0

59: Theory X and Y – Douglas McGregor

Douglas McGregor

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.

55: Group Dynamics and Foundations of Organizational Change – Kurt Lewin

We discuss Kurt Lewin's article, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics," that makes a strong case for treating the social sciences on the same level with the natural sciences--previously, social science was considered neither rigorous nor valid. Using metaphors from physics, Lewin explains social phenomena in tangible, physical terms and explains how individuals within a social space interact in ways that could be measured similarly to physical or chemical phenomenon.

54: Measuring Organizational Cultures – Hofstede

Geert Hofstede

Fresh off a study that identified key factors for comparing national cultures, organizational psychologist Geert Hofstede and his team set off to determine whether similar constructs could be deduced for organizational cultures. The success of this research is detailed in Hofstede’s classic 1990 paper, “Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study Across Twenty Cases,” published in Administrative Science Quarterly. Through surveys and interviews among members of twenty units within ten large organizations, Hofstede’s team proposed six distinct determinants of organizational culture that could be compared and contrasted across all organizations.

In Part 1 of this episode, veteran TAOP podcasters Tom and Ralph welcome two of our newest cast members Jarryd and Frithjof. Together they review the article, its methodology and results, and its significant in the study of organizational behavior. Then in Part 2, the podcasters look at how much has changed in organizations from 1980s to the present day. To what extent do Hofstede’s six factors still hold up? How salient is his model of socializing cultures between societies (“nations”) and organizations? To what extent is the construct of organizational culture being misused, such as suggested in our Episode 49 where we explored Gideon Kunda’s study of “tech culture?” Are there dangers to conflating organizational culture with climate?

Part 1. Studying Culture — From Societies to Organizations (released 2 May 2019)

 

Part 2. Value and Pitfalls of Treating Culture Like a Rheostat (released 8 May 2019)

Read With Us:

Hofstede, G., Neuijen, B., Ohayv, D.D. and Sanders, G., 1990. Measuring organizational cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases. Administrative science quarterly 35(2), pp. 286-316.

Related Episodes in Tom’s podcast Reflections on Management

Episode 3-6. Can One Really Plan Culture Change?

To Know More:

Schein, E. H. (2010) Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kunda, G. (2006). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation, Revised Edition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.