Episodes

82: Women of Organizational Scholarship — Classics AoM PDW LIVE

October 19, 2021 Greetje Corporaal
Presents a professional development workshop we hosted at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. It sheds light on the foundational texts of female scholars for the field of organization and management theory but whose work is often overlooked. Includes presentations by Emmanuelle Vaast on Jean Lave, Marta Calás on Edith Penrose, Martha Feldman on Susan Leigh Star, Maja Korica on Rosemary Stewart, Maria José Tonelli on Isabel Menzies Lyth, and Lisa Cohen on Rosabeth Moss Kanter.

81: Diversity and Inclusion — EGOS 2021 Special LIVE

October 5, 2021 Pedro Monteiro
The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on societies and the workspace have demonstrated the importance of open conversations on matters of diversity and inclusion. The theme for the 37th Colloquium of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS), hosted virtually in July 2021 by the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, was “Organizing for an inclusive society: Meanings, motivations, and mechanisms.” In this special episode, we offer the keynote address of that colloquium by Mirjam van Praag, “The Value (Drivers) of Diversity: A Perspective from Research and Management Practice.” She provides insights from her research on the added value and imperative of sustaining diversity in the workplace.

80: Management Theory & Practice — Sumantra Ghoshal

September 14, 2021 Miranda Lewis
We discuss a critique of business education -- Sumantra Ghoshal’s article from the Academy of Management Learning and Education, “Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices.” He describes a feedback loop between schools and practitioners that has led to theories based on a “pretense of knowledge” that assumes causality and predictability of the business environment and a “gloomy vision” that assumes the worst of human nature. In effect, theories are built around ideas that managers cannot be trusted and matters of complexity can be managed through mathematical models, setting ethics and morals aside. A great think piece for considering the roles of business schools and professional education!

79: Labor Relations – Jane Addams

August 10, 2021 Tom Galvin
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?

78: Patterns of Bureaucracy — Alvin Gouldner

July 13, 2021 Pedro Monteiro
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.

77: Job Design – Hackman & Oldham

June 8, 2021 Pedro Monteiro
We discuss a 1975 article by J. Richard Hackman and Greg R. Oldham in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.” The purpose of the instrument was to help managers increase the motivational potential of jobs. They developed the JDS through the studies of existing jobs to determine what makes a job motivating and also how to improve the motivating potential of jobs from how they are defined and described. It remains a seminal reading in job design today. With Special Guest Lisa Cohen from McGill University.

76: Comparative Analysis of Organizations – Charles Perrow

May 11, 2021 Pedro Monteiro
We discuss a 1967 article from Charles Perrow, “A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Organizations.” Perrow proposed a framework for comparing organizations, largely around “technology” which in contemporary times would be taken to mean the work to be performed. The framework allows analysis of the character of the work being done, nature of the raw material (e.g., tangible objects or intangible symbols), and associated task and social structures.

75: Institutionalization – Philip Selznick

April 13, 2021 Maikel Waardenburg
Philip Selznick seeded the origins of institutional theory in organization studies. He brought attention to the symbolic aspects of administration, such as when organizational tools and processes assume an importance beyond their concrete technical value—what he labelled institutionalization. In this episode, we discuss one of his classic works from 1949, TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization that contributed to his theory of organization through an examination of the Tennessee Valley Authority -- was formed to foster recovery from the Great Depression.

74: Emergence of Middle Management — Alfred Chandler

March 9, 2021 Tom Galvin
Alfred Chandler’s award-winning book, "The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business" provides an excellent summary of the history of American commerce from the pre-industrial era to the mid-20th century, and how new technologies and a changing society led to the creation of the modern industrial enterprise. The "visible hand" refers to the transparency and prominence of this new class of manager who coordinated and controlled these growing enterprises,

73: Organizing Innovation — Michael Tushman

February 16, 2021 Pedro Monteiro
Discusses an important work from Michael Tushman about how innovation benefits from individuals who communicate across boundaries. With special guest Hila Lifshitz-Assaf who has collaborated with Tushman and did her own dissertation on boundary spanning in the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).