Episodes

42: Carnegie Mellon Series #5 – Organizational Learning

May 3, 2018 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
We discuss Barbara Levitt and James G. March’s article “Organizational Learning,” published in the 1988 edition of the Annual Review of Sociology. Although the authors hailed from Stanford University in California, we have included this episode in our Carnegie-Mellon Series because of James March’s involvement and perspectives on organization that clearly influenced the article. This work was a literature review across various streams in organizational learning up through the 1980s. Topics include learning from experience, organizational memory, ecologies of learning, and organizational intelligence. Of particular interest is how organizational learning was defined as not an outcome but a process of translating the cumulative experiences of individuals and codifying them as routines within the organization. From this, the authors applied the brain metaphor – such as memory and intelligence – to explain the phenomenon.

41: Images of Organization – Gareth Morgan

April 3, 2018 Ralph Soule

Gareth Morgan

We conclude Season 4 with one of our most ambitious efforts, tackling Gareth Morgan’s classic book Images of Organization, originally published in 1986. This lengthy and detailed volume synthesizes an incredible range of organization theories and concepts over the previous century and presents them under the umbrella of eight distinct metaphors. Each metaphor represents a different way of understanding the existence and  dynamics of organizations, their members, and their interactions with the environment.

Each metaphor stems from distinct literature streams and management practice, and many will be familiar to our listeners — many have been discussed in the podcast before. The first is of the machine, in which the organization is a closed system and members constitute its parts. The metaphor conjures up images of Frederick Taylor and scientific management from the early 20th century, yet it is still in use today (episodes 1, 18 and 40). Next comes the organism, where the organization is explained as an adaptive, competitive whole with needs that must be satisfied to grow and prosper (episodes 9 and 16). As brains, organizations learn and self-organize (episode 4, 19, 39). As cultures, they operationalize shared values (see episodes 11, 30, and 38). These four are well-known and highlight some attractive qualities of organization, but Morgan then follows them with four others that draw attention to the darker side of organization — political system, psychic prisons, flux and transformation (episode 31), or domination (episode 17). each describing different purposes and behaviors of organizations that bridge theory and practice.

But, as Morgan warns, metaphors are a way of ‘seeing and not seeing.’ While they may stretch “imagination in a way that can create powerful insights,” there is also the “risk of distortion” (p. 5). He presents both the strengths and limitations of each metaphor—what do they explain well and what do they not explain? His work has both an academic and a practical stance. He discusses how these metaphors might form the basis … as well as provide the foundation for managers to think about organizational processes in their workplaces.

The podcasters explored both the different metaphors presented as well as the overall idea of how they might complement each other (or not). The discussion also explored current organizational and managerial issues. This includes organizational commitment, which inspired Tom to prepare a sidecast on the idea of organizational commitment to members and the historical example of Milton Hershey that is still relevant today.

Listen as the podcasters discuss and debate Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization and the use of metaphor. Afterward, ask yourself which metaphor would you use to describe your organization?

 

You may also download the audio files here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Appendix (Text version here)

Read with us:

Morgan, G. (2006). Images of Organization, Updated Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

To know more:

Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (Eds.). (2010). Metaphors we lead by: Understanding leadership in the real world. Routledge.

Burrell, G., and G. Morgan. (1989). Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis. Routledge.

Huq, J.-L., T. Reay, and S. Chreim. (2017). “Protecting the Paradox of Interprofessional Collaboration.” Organization Studies, 38: 513–538.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980/2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago press.

Tsoukas, H. (2016). “Don’t Simplify, Complexify: From Disjunctive to Conjunctive Theorizing in Organization and Management Studies.” Journal of Management Studies, 54: 132–153.

Turco, C. J. (2016). The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media. Columbia University Press.

Weick, K. E. (1989). “Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination.” The Academy of Management Review, 14: 516.

Whyte, W. H. (2013). The Organization Man. University of Pennsylvania Press.

 

40: Symposium on the Gig Economy LIVE

February 24, 2018 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

A SPECIAL EPISODE FROM OUR VERY FIRST EVENT!

Key-participants-e40
The TAOP Symposium on the Gig Economy was a unique, one-day interdisciplinary symposium on the forms and effects of management in the contemporary sharing (a.k.a. gig) economy that took place on 15 December 2017 at the University of Sussex. Blending individual and panel presentations from leading scholars and commentators with group conversations, we wanted to examine the continuities – as well as disruptions – in the ways that work is organised through, and in light of, online platforms such as uber, deliveroo, upwork.

The aim of the symposium was to advance understanding of the sharing economy, with particular attention to its relation to the classics in management and organizational scholarship; as well as to explore methods suitable to grasp the sharing economy as an object of inquiry.

We are extremely pleased with all the wonderful feedback received from the delegates, as well as with developmental feedback – thank you all so much! Reflecting on the original goals of the symposium, it seems that our ambition to hold three types of conversation in one day was perhaps too ambitious. The keynote, panels and all the panelists were amazing, but did not leave as much space for open discourse as we had envisioned. Still, the conversations we did witness and take part in were phenomenal and it really was rewarding to engage with such a diverse group of first-class (Taylor pun intended) scholars.

 

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

 

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39: Carnegie Mellon Series #4 – Organizational Choice

February 8, 2018 Ralph Soule

The podcasters discuss a fascinating article, “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice,” published in Administrative Science Quarterly back in 1972 by Michael Cohen, James March, and Johan Olsen. This is another episode from the Carnegie-Mellon University tradition, alongside Episode 4 on Organizational Routines and Episode 19 on Organizational Learning. This third installment addresses organizational decision making and choice and, like the others in this series, it changed the way people think about organizations and organizational behavior.

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Michael Cohen

This episode is the fourth in our series on the Carnegie Mellon School. The first was way back in Episode 4, in which we discussed the works of James March, Herbert Simon, and Richard Cyert regarding organization routines. The second was Episode 19, with organizational learning as the topic as we explored James March’s work on exploration and exploitation, and the third was Episode 29, where we spoke to Denise Rousseau about Herb Simon’s problematization of business education. Now we move to another important work from this School regarding organizational choice, which contributes to our present understanding of decision making in organizations.

Scholars at the time viewed decision making from a very rational perspective—a problem arises, the organization mobilizes, a solution emerges, and everyone moves on. This flew in the face of the author’s experiences, showing that matching solutions to problems was considerably messier in practice. Instead, the decision making processes appeared to be anarchic. At the time this idea of organized anarchy was quite radical. Although present organizational scholarship has grown to accept anarchy as part of the workplace… addressing organized anarchy as a serious research theme was potentially radical back in the early 1970s, especially in light of the previous work of these very authors!

The purpose of the article is to lay the foundational for a behavioral theory of organized anarchy. Using what they refer to as the garbage can model, organizations are described as “a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work” (p. 2). ‘Garbage can’ represented a useful, if unsettling, metaphor as it described organizational behavior where problems, choices, and decisions were merely tossed about into and recycled. At the center of the article is a model, presented as an iterative mathematical program, that demonstrates these behaviors in practice. Although clearly not an empirical study, the exploratory model did an excellent job of displaying some surprising behaviors as the podcasters discuss. They also showed a practical use of the model to demonstrate how various types of colleges and universities might exercise different paradigms, resulting in radically different organizational behaviors.

Join us as we discuss the garbage can model and its implications for our contemporary understanding of organizations and their management! Also available is a sidecast by Tom inspired by this episode.

 

You may also download the audio files here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Appendix (Text version here)

Read with us:

Cohen, M.D., March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P. (1972). A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative science quarterly 17(1), 1-25.

To know more:

Lomi, A. and Harrison, J.R. (2012). The Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice: Looking Forward at Forty. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 36, 3-17.

 

 

38: Socialization and Occupational Communities – Van Maanen

February 4, 2018 Pedro Monteiro

John Van Maanen

In this episode, we examine John Van Maanen’s classic ethnographic study of police recruits from an urban police department in the U.S. “Police socialization: A longitudinal examination of job attitudes in an urban police department,” published in Administrative Science Quarterly in 1975, presents Van Maanen’s study on the socialization process of new police officers from their training and indoctrination at the police academy to their early months on the beat. What he found was intriguing. Some recruits joined the force “highly motivated and committed,” but over time their attitudes changed and commitment dropped sharply and swiftly. On the job, supervisors preferred the lesser motivated patrol officers over their more committed counterparts. Officers showing initiative were seen as creating more work and inducing higher risk to others. Over a short period of time, police officers learned to “lay low, don’t make waves” through the department’s systems of rewards and punishments and a climate that encourages teamwork over individuality. The result was a major step forward in understanding socialization processes in organizations.

The study is notable for Van Maanen’s role as participant-observer. He underwent police training at the academy while interviewing other recruits and spent time on patrol with new officers. This helped him understand the recruit’s perspective, however it required him to function in a covert role. While his activities were well-understood and permitted by leaders and supervisors in the police department, they weren’t necessary understood by all officers whom he observed. Nor were they necessarily understood by the civilians whom he encountered. While Van Maanen did not find himself facing difficult or ethically challenging situations during the study, questions have since arisen about the value of using covert techniques in research. Hence, part of this episode is devoted to discussing the ethical questions and controversy on using covert methods to access populations for study that might ordinarily not provide informed consent.

Join us as we explore this terrific ethnography and understand the process of socialization from an insider’s perspective!

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

Read with us:

Van Maanen, J. (1975). Police Socialization: A Longitudinal Examination of Job Attitudes in an Urban Police Department.  Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. 20, No. 3 (1975): 207-228.

Referenced in the Episode:

Roulet, T., Gill, M., Stenger, S., & Gill, D. Reconsidering the value of covert research: The role of ambiguous consent in participant observation. Organizational Research Methods Vol. 20, no. 3 (2017): 487-517.

37: Socrates on Management – Oeconomicus by Xenophon

December 5, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
This episode takes us to ancient Greece and one of the great practical philosophers, Xenophon (pronounced ZEN-uh-phun), whose Oeconomicus may have been one of his "minor" works in the world of philosophy, but it is a fascinating work for those interested in management and organizational studies. The book is written as a dialogue, with Socrates playing a sort of narrator who engages with men and encourages them to become more virtuous, with varying success.

36: The Human Capital Hoax – Employment in the Gig Economy

November 14, 2017 Ralph Soule

Episode 36 represents a momentary break from older seminal readings to a very recent essay covering a timely topic – the negative effects of ‘Uberization’ and the gig economy on the economic and social fabric.

Peter Fleming

While the text and the phenomena are quite recent, the author analyzes these matters by re-reading a classic approach in economics and tracing its ‘dark’ influence on contemporary dynamics. The podcasters, therefore, were eager to sink their teeth into this piece as it shows how much understanding fundamental discussions might help us to make sense of current issues — an argument we explored in Episode 40, covering the Symposium on the Sharing/Gig Economy!

The Independent Social Research Foundation recently held an essay contest with the winners being published in Organization Studies journal. The runner-up was Peter Fleming’s “The Human Capital Hoax: Work, Debt, and Insecurity in the Era of Uberization,” a treatise and pointed critique of the emergence, development, implementation, and negative effects of Human Capital Theory.

Fleming’s essay traced the beginnings and promise of Human Capital Theory in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of a desire to endow workers with ‘responsible autonomy.’ The argument was that if workers were granted more freedom and authority to do their best work for the company, they would perform better. Human Capital Theory (HCT) emerged to capture how workers behaving individualistically could be viewed as capital separate from the organization itself, much like an organization’s equipment or facilities. The allure for firms is efficiency, and for workers is flexibility. But as Fleming warns, there is a ‘dark side’ to this idea, which is becoming manifest in reduced job satisfaction, poor work-life balance, deep debt for education, and intensified management of individual contracts.

What questions are unanswered? What should policymakers consider in addressing the problems Fleming raises? How does society try to rebuild the social fabric that appears to be crumbling in industrialized societies?

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

Also read a response to our podcast by one of our listeners — Reflections on The Human Capital Hoax by Benoit Gautier
Read with us:

Fleming, P. (2017). The human capital hoax: Work, debt, and insecurity in the era of uberization. Organization Studies 38(5), 691-709.

To know more:

Bregiannis, F., Bruurmijn, W. J. M., Calon, E., and Duran Ortega, M. A. (2017). Workers in the gig economy: Identification of practical problems and possible solutions. Paper submitted for the Geneva Challenge 2017.

Mumby, D. K., Thomas, R., Marti, I., and Seidl, D. (in press). Resistance redux. Organization Studies.

Also, the article has natural links to several previous episodes.

  • Episode 18 on the Gig Economy and Algorithmic Management with Arianna Tassinari, which discusses fundamental concepts of the gig economy.
  • Episode 1 on Taylor and Scientific Managementgiven that the ‘uberization’ described by Fleming represent at the same time a departure and a re-emergence of the bad sides of Tayloristic approaches.
  • Episode 34 on Trist and Bamforth’s article on organizational changein the coal mining industry; while these authors shows how industrialization/bureaucratization upset social cohesion and Fleming posits that the gig economy is undoing worker’s solidarities and creating ‘individualized’ work arrangements.

 

35: The Managed Heart – Arlie Hochschild

October 24, 2017 Ralph Soule
The Managed Heart, originally published in 1983 by Dr. Arlie Hochschild, introduced the concept of emotional labour as a counterpart to the physical and mental labour performed in the scope of one’s duties. The importance of emotional labour is made clear in Dr. Hochschild’s descrption of flight attendants, who regardless of the dispositions of airline passengers, turbulence in the flight, or personal stress is required to act and behave in ways that minimize passenger anxiety and encourage them to fly with that airline again. Thus, the book explores the challenges of stress, protecting one’s personal identity and private life, differentiated (and often unfair) gender roles, miscommunication between supervisors and workers or workers and clients, and others.

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)