Organizational Theory

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.

31: Process Studies, PROS and Institutional Theory LIVE

August 15, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

With Special Guests Trish Reay, Tammar Zilber, Hari Tsoukas, and Ann Langley

Ann Langley

Hari Tsoukas

Trish Reay

Tammar Zilber

Please join us for the first of two fascinating special episodes recorded from the International Process Symposium 2017. The aim of the Symposium is to consolidate, integrate, and further develop ongoing efforts to advance a sophisticated process perspective in organization and management studies. PROS is an annual event, organized in conjunction with the annual series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies published by Oxford University Press, and it takes place in a Greek island, in June every year.

In the first installment, Dmitrijs and Ella sit down to talk to Professors Trish Reay (University of Alberta) and Tammar Zilber (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) about institutional theory. The second is a conversation that Dmitrijs and Ella had with Professors Hari Tsoukas and Ann Langley about the process view in general and about PROS, as an academic congregation, in particular. At the end of the episode, Hari and Ann say a few words about the 2018 conference, it’s theme and the motivation behind it.

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

27: Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm

April 25, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
We discuss Andrew Pettigrew's classic JMS article, "Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm,” that introduced Pettigrew's triangle of context, content, and process into the discourse on change management though his study of change in an UK chemical firm.

23: Influence of Institutions and Factor Markets

February 7, 2017 Ralph Soule
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.

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.

11: Culture and High Reliability – Bierly and Spender

May 31, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

Paul Bierly and J. C. Spencer

In Episode 11 we are joined by our resident expert, Dr. Ralph Soule (retired US Navy Captain), to discuss Culture and High Reliability Organizing (HRO). While not universally known within management and organization studies, High Reliability is concerned with formal structure and process, as well as informal commitment, motivation and trust. HRO describes a subset of hazardous organizations that enjoy a high level of safety over long periods of time. What distinguishes types of high-risk systems is the source of risk, whether it is the technical or social factors that the system must control or whether the environment, itself, constantly changes. This latter can be controversial to observers as environments change within a range of expected extremes. It is the surprise of the change, its unexpected presentation that influences the level of reliability.

High reliability organization theory and HROs are often contrasted against Charles Perrow’s Normal Accident Theory (NAT), but where Perrow believed in the inevitability of accidents in the face of ever more complex technology, HRO scholars believe that accidents can, and are avoided by means of appropriate culture and training of the workforce. The term “high reliability organization” (HRO) was coined by Rochlin, La Porte, and Roberts (1987) to describe organizations that achieve superb safety performance  under difficult circumstances and perform highly complex technical tasks in unforgiving environments. HRO scholarship has sought to resolve the organizational structure paradox between the need for centralization of knowledge to manage highly complex technical systems (systems that are too complex for any small group to understand) and the need for decentralized decision-making to prevent failure of tightly coupled parts of the system. Prior to the theory, there was no way to describe how to reconcile the paradox between technological and organizational complexity in high risk systems.

Paul Bierly and J.C. Spender’s 1995 article, “Culture and high reliability organizations: The case of the nuclear submarine,” is about the culture that underpins the reliability of nuclear submarines. They argued that culture and organizational structure are mutually reinforcing in producing high reliability. Drawing from their personal experience, the authors “argue for a multi-level model in which culture interacts with and supports formal structure and thereby produces high reliability.”

We decided to read Culture and High Reliability Organization: A Case of the Nuclear Submarine in order to get ourselves acquainted with the ideas behind the concept. The Authors, both of whom are qualified nuclear officers with the U.S. Navy, describe how certain characteristics of the culture instilled into that organization by its founder – Admiral Rickover – facilitate a safety-centred high reliability approach to operations. Fascinating stuff!

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

Read with us:

Bierly, P.E. and Spender, J.C., 1995. Culture and high reliability organizations: The case of the nuclear submarine. Journal of Management, 21(4), 639-656.

To Learn More:

High Reliability: A review of the literature (get PDF here)

Todd Conklin’s podcast – The PreAccident Investigation – Episode 40 (can be found here)