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.
2020 ushered in a full year of major change and renewed a lot of conversations about how we work, live, and cooperate in organizations and societies. In that spirit, we discuss Melville Dalton's classic 1959 book "Men Who Manage: Fusions of Feeling and Theory in Administration." The study provided an intimate look at how men (as these were all men at the time) entered into the managerial culture of a firm, how the separations between managers are workers were structured and maintained, and how managers felt about their standing -- which ranged from secure to tenuous. In Part 1, we focus on the study itself, which is still very relevant not only for understanding what happens within the circle of managers but also how the boundaries can exclude others, particularly along gender lines.
In Episode 56, we opened a window to the world of African-American studies in management studies when we discussed the work of Charles Clinton Spaulding. We now continue the effort to expand the canon of organization theory and management science, this time focusing on Latin America. Worldwide, much of the theorizing and publishing of research has been greatly influenced by a dominant mode of thought originating in western Europe, the U.S., and Canada. Mainstream journals and institutions located in these centers have produced great scholarship. But its perspective is frequently parochial. Or more specifically, it is assumed to be global despite being based on a particular reality of organizing and managing. Also, the political economy of knowledge is such that scholars in the periphery have been wrapped into colonial dynamics which prevented the emergence of a distinctive body of knowledge reflective of the richness of their contexts.
Such is the critique leveled by Eduardo Ibarra-Colado, whose famous 2006 work “Organization studies and epistemic coloniality in Latin America: thinking otherness from the margins” represents a manifesto and call to action by all scholars to consider how the current paradigm severely disadvantages scholarship in Latin America — a region that includes Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. This region is home to both global enterprises and deeply historic indigenous cultures, each with important stories to tell about organizations and organizing. Ibarra-Colado charges that the current approach to scholarship forces Latin American scholars to forgo their own identity and assume that of what he called the “Anglo-Euro-Centre” that disproportionately controls the generation of knowledge in unhelpful ways.
Joining Pedro, Leonardo, and Tom to discuss this text is our special guest Samantha Ortiz, who joined us for this episode from Mexico City. She is a PhD candidate at EM Lyon Business School and has conducted multiple research projects in Latin America. Samantha is familiar with the situation described by Ibarra-Colado and she shares her take on the matter in this episode.
Part 1. Analyzing epistemic coloniality in Organization Studies (released 10 September 2020)
Part 2. Pursuing a post-colonial research agenda with Ibarra-Colado (released 17 September 2020)
Read With Us:
Ibarra-Colado, E. (2006). Organization studies and epistemic coloniality in Latin America: thinking otherness from the margins. Organization, 13(4), 463-488.
To Know More:
Alcadipani, R., Khan, F. R., Gantman, E., & Nkomo, S. (2012). Southern voices in management and organization knowledge. Organization 19(2), 131–143.
Boyacigiller, N.A. & Adler, N.J. (1991). The parochial dinosaur: Organizational science in a global context. The Academy of Management Review16(2), 262.
McDonnell, E. M. (2017). Patchwork leviathan: How pockets of bureaucratic governance flourish within institutionally diverse developing states. American Sociological Review82(3), 476–510.
Ortiz, C. S. (2020). Caring as an organizing principle: Reflections on ethnography of and as care. Journal of Management Studies. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12614
Stark, D. (1989). Bending the bars of the iron cage: bureaucratization and informalization in capitalism and socialism. Sociological Forum4(4), 637–664.
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 Mento American Factory; and 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:
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?
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?
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?
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)
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)
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:
The work of certain groups of specialists in society is a crucial theme for those interested in organizations. And it became particularly relevant in light of the COVID-19 pandemic as debates emerge on whether “experts” got things wrong or how decision-makers have decided (or not) to listen to the professionals. But who exactly are the “professionals” anyway? Is it just doctors, lawyers, educators? How do they work? Are all professionals created equally? Why some wield more attention than others? Sociologist Andrew Abbott does more than answer these questions, he constructed a comprehensive framework to analyze the meaning of professional work and how professions form and compete with each other.
The text for this episode is Andrew Abbott’s 1989 book The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. This book is a watershed in our understanding of professions and their work. While previous literature had a focus on distinctive occupational groups and their professionalization projects, Abbott invited us to think more systemically about the interdependencies and how professions compete with each other over “jurisdictions,” claims of ownership and responsibility over expert knowledge and its applications.
This is the first of two planned episodes covering this magnificent work. In this episode, the focus is on how Abbott defines the major constructs of his framework — professionalization, professional work (diagnosis, inference, treatment), and claims of jurisdiction. We concentrate on their application in individual professions and subdivisions therein, followed by a discussion of one of Abbott’s case studies — that of the information professions (e.g., librarian, statistician, computer programmer). The insights shed light the modern-day issues facing professions today such as the public health sector who have been under intense scrutiny in the pandemic.
Part 1. What distinguishes professional work?
Part 2. Contemporary challenges for professions and professionals
Abbott, A. (1995). Boundaries of Social Work or Social Work of Boundaries?: The Social Service Review Lecture. Social Service Review. 69 (4), 545-62.
Bechky, B. A. (2003). Object lessons: Workplace artifacts as representations of occupational jurisdiction. American Journal of Sociology, 109(3), 720-752.
Related Episodes:
Episodes 7&8: Two episodes covering Chester Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive — Episode 7 on “Phases of Cooperation” and Episode 8 on “The Ends of Men“
In this episode (which took place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic), we explore the social and emotional impacts to the worker on having to work from home. For some workers, the concept of telework is hardly new. But many other vocations place great value on regular social contact with clients and customers. These include teachers, doctors, lawyers, public servants, and many others. The sudden thrust to teleworking for an unknown period of time has raised questions as to how these workers are coping with the new normal.
The Aston Group was based in the United Kingdom and played a major role in the early development of organization theory and management science. Starting in the 1960s, they carried out a program of research that departed from the comparative study of work organizations in the Birmingham area in the UK and contributed landmark works on organizational structure and the development of contingency approach. Derek S. Pugh (pictured, 1930-2015) led the Group that included, among others, Bob Hinings, John Child, Lex Donaldson, David Hickson, Roy Payne, Diana Pheysey, and Charles McMillan. The collective spirit and the participation of scholars from a wide range of disciplines including psychology, sociology, political science, and economics make it reminiscent of the work of another important group, the Carnegie-Mellon School covered in several episodes in the podcast.
We are therefore honored to welcome one of its members, Bob Hinings, as a special guest to talk about the Aston School, its contributions, and some of the stories behind them. Our conversation centered on the four papers published in Administrative Science Quarterly which revolutionized our understanding of organization structure, organizational forms and bureaucracy as well as expanding the methodological toolkit of organizational and management researchers. Specifically, the first papers proposed a new multidimensional conceptualization of bureaucracy in terms of formal organization structure (1963) and examined the clustering of these dimensions based on work organizations that lead to the now-famous notion of structuration of activities and concentration of authority (1968). Subsequent papers explored how the context impacts organization structure (e.g., size, control, location, dependence on other organizations) evidencing the particular importance of size (1969a). Finally, they brought together these multiple insights into a taxonomy of different structures and forms of bureaucracy (1969b).
Part 1. Who was the Aston Group and Why Did They Form?
Part 2. The Aston School’s Legacy and How it May View Contemporary Organizations
Read With Us:
Pugh, D. S., Hickson, D. J., Hinings, C. R., Macdonald, K. M., Turner, C., & Lupton, T. (1963). A conceptual scheme for organizational analysis. Administrative science quarterly, 289-315.
Pugh, D. S., Hickson, D. J., Hinings, C. R., & Turner, C. (1968). Dimensions of organization structure. Administrative science quarterly, 65-105.
Pugh, D. S., Hickson, D. J., Hinings, C. R., & Turner, C. (1969a). The context of organization structures. Administrative science quarterly, 91-114.
Pugh, D. S., Hickson, D. J., & Hinings, C. R. (1969b). An empirical taxonomy of structures of work organizations. Administrative science quarterly, 115-126.
To Know More:
Donaldson, L., & Luo, B. N. (2014). The Aston Programme contribution to organizational research: a literature review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16(1), 84-104.
Greenwood, R., & Devine, K. (1997). Inside Aston: a conversation with Derek Pugh. Journal of Management Inquiry, 6(3), 200-208.
Hinings, C. R., Hickson, D. J., Pennings, J. M., & Schneck, R. E. (1974). Structural conditions of intraorganizational power. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22-44.
Kostera, M. (2020). The Imagined Organization: Spaces, Dreams and Places. Edward Elgar Publishing.
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 relations, 62(9), 1289-1326.
Weick, K. E. (1990). The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster. Journal of management, 16(3), 571-593.
For this episode we discuss the history of a classic firm which exercised remote operations as a matter of course and faced multiple pandemics during its early existence. The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) was chartered in 1670 by King Charles II at a time when the French monopolized fur trading with Native Americans in modern-day Canada. From then, the English would establish its own robust fur trading industry, establishing hundreds of posts from the western shores of Hudson Bay all across modern western Canada. The case is exceptional in demonstrating the historical challenges of remote operations where communications were limited to letters sent annually with the fur shipments across the Atlantic. How could London possibly maintain oversight and exercise control under such conditions?
