Classics

56: Cooperative Advantage – Charles Clinton Spaulding

July 16, 2019 Pedro Monteiro
In this episode, we acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of Charles Clinton Spaulding, an important management thought leader who, like many African-Americans prior to the U.S. civil rights movement, has been sadly overlooked in the management canon. In 1927, with the U.S. in recession, Spaulding wrote a reflection of his experiences as a business leader in the Pittsburgh Courier, a widely-read newspaper, hoping to help fellow African-American business leaders overcome the economic downturn.

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

May 22, 2019 Tom Galvin
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

May 2, 2019 Tom Galvin
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.

53: Taylorism in Motion — Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times

March 14, 2019 Tom Galvin
We discuss Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film "Modern Times" balances great physical comedy with powerful social commentary. Chaplin portrayed a hapless Worker on an assembly line who is tormented both by supervisors and the work itself. After being subjected to a humiliating experiment intended to improve the line's efficiency, the Worker runs through a series of rotating jobs, stints in jail, and other misadventures as he tries to find his purpose in life.

46: Classics of Management and Organization Theory – AoM 2018 Workshop LIVE

September 12, 2018 Pedro Monteiro

With Speakers Paul Adler, Silvia Dorado, Siobhan O’Mahony, and Marc Ventresca

A special recording from a workshop on management classics held at the 2018 Academy of Management Conference in Chicago. Hosted by Pedro, this PDW intended to raise interest towards classic authors/ideas in the field of organization and management theory. It offered scholars from all levels the opportunity to reflect on insights of earlier scholarship and their relevance for current research, complementing the strong emphasis (on new ideas and approaches. This is of great importance as the field has thus far been more attentive to disruptions than continuities; pursuing novelty over tradition.

In the workshop, senior scholars presented talks on four classic authors (Karl Marx, Mary Parker Follett, Mary Douglas, and Albert Hirschman) to discuss their contemporary relevance. This was followed by a roundtable discussion limited to fifty participants.

The workshop demonstrated how attentive (re)readings of classic scholarship reaffirm time and time again their enduring importance. The discussion provided valuable insights on central organizational research problematics (e.g., coordination and control), stimulated complex thinking, enabled analytical comparisons between current and past phenomena (e.g., industrialization and digitization), and serve as ‘exemplars’ of academic excellence and of research that is problem-driven and focused on real-world issues.

We are working to include a similar workshop at next year’s conference and hope to make this a routine event at future AOMs!

Available on the website are four flyers prepared by the Talking About Organizations team that introduce each of the classic authors and a set of photographs from the event. We hope you enjoy the discussion!

All of us at Talking About Organizations are to the four terrific speakers – Paul, Silvia, Siobhan, and Marc – for their outstanding contributions!

Flyers of the Four Classic Authors Discussed:

Click on the links below to access the information sheets provided at the workshop.

Albert O. Hirschman | Karl Marx | Mary Douglas | Mary Parker Follett

Photos from the Workshop (click on a thumbnail to enlarge):

To find out more:

Adler, P. S. (2009). A social science which forgets its founders is lost. In The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies Classical Foundations. Oxford University Press.

Barley, S. R. (2015). 60th Anniversary Essay: Ruminations on How We Became a Mystery House and How We Might Get Out. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1–8.

Davis, G. F. (2016). Organization Theory and the Dilemmas of a Post-Corporate Economy. Research in the Sociology of Organizations (Vol. 48, pp. 311–322). Emerald Group
Publishing Limited.

Davis, G. F., & Zald, M. N. (2009). Sociological Classics and the Canon in the Study of Organizations (pp. 1–13). Oxford University Press.

Gay, du, P., & Vikkelsø, S. (2016). For Formal Organization. Oxford University Press.

Hallett, T., and M. J. Ventresca (2006). “Inhabited Institutions: Social Interactions and Organizational Forms in Gouldner’s Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.” Theory and
Society, 35: 213–236.

Hinings, C. R., Greenwood, R., & Meyer, R. (2016). Dusty Books?: the liability of oldness. Academy of Management Review.

Kilduff, M., & Dougherty, D. (2000). Change and Development in a Pluralistic World: the View From the Classics. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 777–782.

Lounsbury, M., & Carberry, E. J. (2016). From King to Court Jester? Weber’s Fall from Grace in Organizational Theory. Organization Studies, 26(4), 501–525.

Pugh, D. S., & Hickson, D. J. (2007). Writers on organizations.

Stinchcombe, A. L. (1982). Should sociologists forget their mothers and fathers? The American Sociologist, 17, 2–11.

Thornton, P. H. (2009). The Value of the Classics: 1–19. In The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies Classical Foundations. Oxford University Press.

44: Transaction Costs and Boundaries of the Firm – Williamson and Malone

July 16, 2018 Ralph Soule

Oliver E. Williamson

Following on a theme from the previous episode, we explore an important reading that bridges organization theory with economics. This was the explicit aim of Oliver E. Williamson’s famous article, “The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1981. The article begins with a statement that the assumption of firms operating on a profit motive has not helped organization theorists understand and explain the behaviors of firms, and that economists were also finding themselves similarly limited. He thus set out on a different path and argued that transactions, not the products or services the firm provides, is a better unit of analysis.

In the discussion, we wrestle with Williamson’s central arguments and proposals, such as the construct of the efficient organizational boundary, human asset specificity and the difference types of governance structures related to it, and how markets and hierarchies represent different choices for organizing. We also explored a related article presenting early thoughts about the growing impact of rapid advances in information technology on firm and market structures. Written in 1987, Tom Malone et al.’s “Electronic Markets and Electronic Hierarchies” presages the modern online economic environment and its many virtual interactions between seller and buyers. This fascinating extension of Williamson’s ideas made a number of predictions. How many came true 30 years later?

Tune in as the podcasters discuss the transaction cost approach to organization theory and its lasting impacts on scholarship and practice!

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

Read with us:

Williamson, O. E. (1981). The economics of organization: The transaction cost approach. American Journal of Sociology 87(3), 548-576.

Malone, T. W., Yates, J., & Benjamin, R. I. (1987). Economic markets and economic hierarchies. Communications of the ACM 30(6), 484-497.

 

34: Sociotechnical Systems – Trist and Bamforth

October 4, 2017 Tom Galvin
We discuss important article by Eric Trist and Ken Bamforth, “Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-Getting,” published in the journal Human Relations in 1951. Eric Trist was a British social scientist best known for his contributions to the field of organization development and one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute. Ken Bamforth was a miner and industrial fellow of the Tavistock Institute. The article’s subtitle is an examination of the psychological situation and defences of a work group in relation to the social structure and technological content of the work system, and explores how a technological change in the coal-mining industry tore apart the social structure of the workers who were supposed to have benefitted from the change. The technological change in question was the mechanization of the process of mining and extracting coal along a very long face, as opposed to the previous ‘hand-got’ methods where small teams would dig out coal from smaller faces.

33: Foreman – Master and Victim of Doubletalk

September 13, 2017 Ralph Soule

To open Season 4, this episode covered Fritz J. Roethlisberger’s classic 1945 article from Harvard Business Review (HBR), “The FOREMAN: Master and Victim of Double Talk.” The article resulted from a study concerning the dissatisfaction of foremen in mass production industries at the time. Foremen suffered under low pay and poor wartime working conditions. Meanwhile, management addressed the foremen’s concerns through short-sighted “symptom-by-symptom” corrective actions to little effect. As a result, foremen were leaning toward unionization, while management found itself unable to keep pace with the social implications of rapidly advancing technologies on the supervisory structure.

Fritz Roethlisberger

Roethlisberger’s essential question was this: “Can management afford not to take responsibility for its own social creations – one of which is the situation foremen find themselves?” The foreman had to lead workers toward fulfilling production requirements under increasingly complex conditions, requiring greater knowledge and skill than foremen past and yet under intensifying restrictions to their autonomy and decision making, along with a wider network of supervisors and administrative staff that the foreman must report to.

The result were conditions where the foremen became insecure due to micromanagement and being held liable for problems or issues beyond their control. The foreman could not avoid these interactions, and thus was forced to “become a master of double talk,” advising superiors of the situation at the front in ways that avoided or mitigated criticism from them. Thus, the foreman also became a victim of double talk, of a ballooning culture that saw employees as little more than cogs in the machine and foremen as barely more, yet the foremen still had to “deliver the goods.” Roethlisberger’s account of the foremen’s conditions and the roles they play in the firm are compelling and troublesome indeed, and led him to recommend an entirely new form of administrative structure with administrators being far more connected to the workers and serving as enablers to the foremen.

 “The FOREMAN: Master and Victim of Double Talk” continues to be popular in reprints and HBR considers it a classic of the journal. It also represents a recurring challenge for firms facing disruptive technologies or their rapid evolution – how do administrators keep pace with the social changes that result, so that direct supervisors remain enabled and empowered?

Join us as we talk about the article and its implications for present-day managers and firms!
Note: Scroll down further to see a Figure from the text that we referenced often.

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

Read with us:

Roethlisberger, Fritz J. “The foreman: Master and victim of double talk.” Harvard Business Review 23.3 (1945): 283-298.

To know more:

Storberg-Walker, J., & Bierema, L. (2006). “Another look at a historical foundation of HRD: F.R. Roethlisberger’s foreman.” Paper presented at the AERC, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Figure 1. Forces Impinging Upon the Foreman (from the original text)

 

 

17: Tokenism – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

September 20, 2016 Ralph Soule
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.