Organizational Theory

Why your TeamSTEPPS program may not be working

by Timothy Clapper

Clapper, T. C., & Ng, G. M. (2012, in press). Why your TeamSTEPPS program may not be working. Clinical Simulation in Nursing. doi:10.1016/j.ecns.2012.03.007

Co-authored with Grace Ng

Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety ® (TeamSTEPPS) is a patient safety tool developed... more Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety ® (TeamSTEPPS) is a patient safety tool developed by the defense industry and based on four competencies: leadership, communication, situational monitoring, and mutual support. Unfortunately, there are barriers that prevent TeamSTEPPS from reaching its full potential, including: (a) lack of administrative support and resources, (b) lack of training focus to address hierarchal differences and incivility at all levels of health care practice and administration, (c) inadequate TeamSTEPPS instruction and simulation practices, and (d) educators’ resistance to change from crew resource management concepts. Suggestions for improvement include providing command and health care agency emphasis for the TeamSTEPPS program, providing adequate material and personnel resources, designing training that is geared to trainer implementation at the departmental level, prioritizing and saturating training, and striving toward a just culture.

In praise of the parasite: The dark organisational theory of Michel Serres

by Steve Brown

Draft pre-publication version of Brown, S.D. (2012) In praise of the parasite. Informática na educação: teoria e prática, in press

Michel Serres’ concept of ‘the parasite’ provides for a sustained rethinking of basic categories in social science. As... more Michel Serres’ concept of ‘the parasite’ provides for a sustained rethinking of basic categories in social science. As an example of post-Kantian philosophy, Serres critiques the classical logic of identity as based on a ‘third man’ argument. This third space – personified as the parasite – is essential to thinking communication and transformation in systems. Parasitism operates through the logic of taking without giving or ‘abuse value’. But the parasite nevertheless makes exchange possible by creating connections between otherwise incommensurable forms of ordering. Human relations oscillate through periods of disequilibrium, often involving scapegoating and exclusion, as parasitic cascades emerge. However, parasites in the form of jokers and quasi-objects create powerful mechanisms for creating collectivity and individuality. The ‘dark organizational theory’ of Serres allows for adequate descriptions of these processes.

Review of 'The Spatial Construction of Organization.' Tor Hernes. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2004).

by Jerzy Kociatkiewicz

Published (2004) in Scandinavian Journal of Management 20/4: 396-398
Unformatted copy
DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2004.08.001

Space is a rather vaguely defined but nevertheless (or perhaps consequently) a widely used concept, employed both as... more Space is a rather vaguely defined but nevertheless (or perhaps consequently) a widely used concept, employed both as metaphor and designation. Tor Hernes’ book is an attempt to examine and describe the various ways in which space could be relevant to organization theory.

Review of 'Management Writing Out of Bounds: Writing after postcolonialism.' Alexander Styhre. Liber and Copenhagen Business School Press, Malmö (2005).

by Jerzy Kociatkiewicz

Published (2007) in Scandinavian Journal of Management 23/2: 225-227
Unformatted copy
DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2007.02.002

Whatever the form of academic research, the results are almost invariably presented as a written text. Indeed, even... more Whatever the form of academic research, the results are almost invariably presented as a written text. Indeed, even when the means of presentation are non-traditional, the result can still be interpreted as text. Its creation can thus also be perceived as writing. There is no doubt that academic writing is a topic worthy of detailed discussion and, appropriately, it has received a fair amount of attention over the previous few decades. Alexander Styhre’s Management writing out of bounds, a recent contribution to that debate, couples the idea of multiplicity of possible academic writing styles and strategies to the notion of postcolonialism, i.e. the breakdown of the universalist claims of the Western civilization.

The impact of the Bologna process on academic staff in Ukraine

by Marta Shaw

Co-authored with David W. Chapman and Nataliya L. Rumyantseva

Academic staff in Ukraine face a convergence of institutional and professional pressures precipitated by a national... more Academic staff in Ukraine face a convergence of institutional and professional pressures precipitated by a national economic crisis, projected declines in enrolment and dramatic changes to institutional procedures as institutions implement the Bologna Process. This article examines the extent to which these pressures are reshaping the way academic staff engage in their day-to-day work, their careers and their role in their university. Findings indicate that faculty are caught in a confluence of conflicting demands that elicits adaptive coping strategies and threatens to undermine national efforts to modernise Ukraine’s higher education system.

La gestion prévisionnelle des effectifs au CEA : un processus évolutif de construction de sens

by Alain Klarsfeld

Article paru en 2009 dans la revue Gestion 2000 volume 26/2, p. 19-42
Co-écrit avec Olivier Musseau et Florance van den Boom

Notre propos se situe à l’articulation entre gestion des ressources humaines et management stratégique : même dans un... more Notre propos se situe à l’articulation entre gestion des ressources humaines et management stratégique : même dans un environnement prévisible, dans lequel on peut dire qu’il existe une « stratégie » et même une programmation des activités, on ne peut parler de « déclinaison » des objectifs d’un niveau vers les objectifs de niveau n-1 et donc de « besoins » découlant de ces objectifs et encore moins de « mesure » d’un écart entre ressources et besoins, concepts pourtant centraux dans la notion de gestion prévisionnelle des effectifs. Les objectifs des unités et leurs besoins en personnel ne « découlent » pas de la stratégie de l’organisation dans son ensemble et même des programmes spécifiques qu’elle poursuit. De même il n’existe pas de représentation allant de soi quant aux activités réalisées par l’organisation. Activités et objectifs sont interprétés par les acteurs à différents niveaux, et les choix finalement réalisés résultent d’une interaction complexe, parfois conflictuelle, entre ces différents niveaux et ces différents acteurs.

Turning Practically: Broadening the Horizon

by Olav Eikeland

Introduction by Olav Eikeland and Davide Nicolini to Special Issue of Journal of Organizational Change Management,pp. 164-174, Vol.24, No. 2, 2011, on Changing Practice Through Reflection

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, positioning the articles... more Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, positioning the articles in relation to the current “turn to practice” within organisation and management studies.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper introduces a schematic classification of ways of putting practice at the centre of the concern of social scientists depending on the interest of the researcher and his/her position with regard to the object of the research.

Findings – The paper finds that turning to practice does not necessarily, or simply, equate with becoming more engaged, or with making social science relevant, or with moving social science closer to the practical concerns of separate practitioners. It is argued that the effort should be concentrated on developing a type of theory that helps practitioners articulate what they already do, and therefore somehow know. The model for this way of theorising would therefore be not physics or astronomy but rather grammar – a discipline that although just as old, has been based traditionally on a very different relationship between knower and known.

Practical implications – The paper argues that when conceived after a grammatical model, “theory” may become a resource to be used in action and for action to produce emancipatory awareness and trigger change through critical reflection.

Originality/value – The papers in this special issue constitute an initial contribution in this direction as they indicate different ways in which theory, when developed “with” and “amid” and not “for” or even “about” practitioners, may become a powerful trigger of change and transformation.

Domination, self-determination and circular organizing

by Georges Romme

Published in: Organization Studies, 1999

The emergence of self-organizing forms of control, based on the idea of self-determination, have challenged... more The emergence of self-organizing forms of control, based on the idea of self-determination, have challenged traditional forms of control based on the concept of domination. As such, self-determination has been put forward as an alternative rather than as a complement to domination. This paper describes and explores the circular forms of organizing that have been emerging in several parts of the world, viewing them as a possible synthesis of two existing archetypical concepts of power-self-determination and domination. In particular, the emergence of circular organizing in the Dutch company Endenburg Elektrotechniek is documented and interpreted. This case illustrates how a circular structure can be superimposed on the administrative hierarchy, with the latter continuing to play a substantial role in controlling and managing work processes. In the absence of a single ultimate authority, organizational control is exercised through feedback rather than power. As a result of this study, circularity of power is shown to be an interesting theoretical and instrumental concept.

Murky Power: ‘Think Tanks’ as Boundary Organizations

by Tom Medvetz

A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism

by Samuel Stroope

Activists and incumbents tying for change: The interplay between agency, culture and networks in field evolution

by Wouter Stam

Forthcoming in Academy of Management Journal

This paper examines organizational field change instigated by activists. Contrary to existing views emphasizing... more This paper examines organizational field change instigated by activists. Contrary to existing views emphasizing incumbent resistance, we suggest that collaboration between incumbents and challenger movements may emerge when a movement's cultural and relational fabric becomes moderately structured, creating threats and market opportunities but remaining permeable to external influence. We also elucidate how lead incumbents' attempts at movement cooptation may be deflected through distributed brokerage. The confluence of cultural and relational structuration which results accelerates the pace, but dilutes the radicalness of institutional innovation, ensuring ongoing, incremental field change. Overall, this paper contributes to the emergent literature on field dynamics by uncovering the evolution and outcomes of collaborative work at the intersection of movements and fields.

Normes et écriture de l'organisation

by Sylvie Grosjean

De La Broise, P., Grosjean, S (2010), Études de communication, No.34, 2010, p. 9-22.

La question des normes constitue un objet éminemment heuristique pour la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales,... more La question des normes constitue un objet éminemment heuristique pour la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales, et plus particulièrement en sciences de l’information et de la communication, sachant que l’activité sociale est tout à la fois tributaire et productrice de ces normes. De nombreux chercheurs, tant français que nord-américains, ont étudié le rôle de diverses formes de textes, d’écritures dans les organisations. Le numéro 34 d’ Études de communication invitera donc à prendre la mesure de l’écrit, celui-ci étant vu comme un objet de transaction, d’interaction, d’archivage et de pouvoir. L’entrée par l’écriture, dans l’articulation du procès et du dispositif, donnera à lire un ordre négocié de la prescription où les langages de la norme disent autant les contextes dans lesquels elle opère que la prescription elle-même. Cette livraison franco-canadienne voudrait ouvrir la discussion sur les manières dont le texte est « investi » et comment, en retour, il « investit » l’organisation. Quels sont ces textes qui, entre l’esprit et la lettre, feraient de l’action collective leur obligée ? Pourquoi, et comment, feraient-ils autorité ? Et le font-ils effectivement ?

CARLOS QUINTERO ORGANIZATIONS STRUCTURE, DECISION MAKING PROCESSES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC GOVERNANCE

by Carlos Quintero Castellanos

Draft of the paper presented at the 4th Latinamerican European Meeting in Organizations Studies in Axixic, Jalisco.

The present paper is a partial result of an ongoing research project. The question of this research is: How does the... more The present paper is a partial result of an ongoing research project. The question of this research is: How does the organizational decision making structure allows an organization to have a successful reform? In the literature about governance, the institutional dimension is well established. In the same literature, the organizational expression is not so well established. Trying to fill this void, I elaborated, inspired by the “Garbage Can Model” of Cohen et al (1972),  five categories to analyze the organizational decision making process’s structure. Those categories are: Participants access, Responsibility among the participants in the decision making processes, Formalization of the decision making processes, Disperse attention between issues in the decision making processes and, Integrality of the decision. With these categories I’ve studied a public sector organization with the intention of know how does the specific characteristics of those decision making structures help or difficult a successful reform.

Cómo hacer organización sin palabras: Performatividad y Silencio

by Benoit Cordelier

Resumen:

La teoría de los actos de habla ha sido muy influyente en la comunicación organizacional y ha... more Resumen:

La teoría de los actos de habla ha sido muy influyente en la comunicación organizacional y ha facilitado el desarrollo de teorías originales, a raíz de las diferentes ramas que posee. Pese a ello, no siempre los actores de la organización pueden expresar sus voluntades, y sus silencios pueden surtir efecto. Por lo tanto, estudiar el silencio como acto performativo, permite evidenciar los aspectos que se callan en la estrategia de un actor. Aquello, obviamente, plantea ciertas dificultades conceptuales y metodológicas que este artículo se propone explorar. Así, con base en un caso de cambio organizacional, se estudiarán los elementos contextuales y teóricos, así como las condiciones de felicidad necesarias para que se realice la performatividad del acto de silencio.

Palabras clave:
Acto de habla, acto de silencio, cambio organizacional, estrategia, temporalidad.

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Abstract:

Speech act theory has been very influential in organizational communication and made possible the appearance of original theories that evolved from its many developments. Nonetheless, organizational actors are not always able to express their will and their silences may have an effect. Therefore, studying silence as a performative act allows to highlighting the unspoken aspects of an actor’s strategy. This arises obviously some conceptual and methodological difficulties that we are going to explore in this article. With an organizational change case as a field, we study the needed contextual and theoretical elements, felicity conditions for the performativity of a silence act to be possible.

Key concepts:
Speech act, act of silence, organizational change, strategy, temporality.

Organizational Memory: From Expectations Memory to Procedural Memory.

by Joris Ebbers

Ebbers, J.J. and N.M. Wijnberg (2009).
Published in: British Journal of Management, 20 (4), 478-490.

Organizational memory is not just the stock of knowledge about how to do things, but also of expectations of... more Organizational memory is not just the stock of knowledge about how to do things, but also of expectations of organizational members vis-à-vis each other and the organization as a whole. The central argument of this paper is that this second type of organizational memory –organizational expectations memory– is a necessary precondition for successfully creating and maintaining organizational procedural memory, which is at the basis of organizational performance. If members of organizations have fewer expectations of being rewarded beyond what is stipulated in formal contracts, these individuals are less likely to risk investing in collective tacit and firm-specific knowledge resources and more likely to focus on building individual and mobile knowledge resources that have value outside the boundaries of the organization. A case study of latent organizations in the Dutch film industry is presented to support the central argument and suggests further avenues of research, in particular concerning the effects of labour mobility on organizational expectations memory.

Latent Organizations in the Film Industry: Contracts, Rewards and Resources.

by Joris Ebbers

Ebbers, J.J. and N.M. Wijnberg (2009).
Published in: Human Relations, 62 (7), 987-1009.

The main aim of this article is to study the extent to which the project-based organization (PBO) and the latent... more The main aim of this article is to study the extent to which the project-based organization (PBO) and the latent organization determine the actual behavior of actors in a project-based industry and how this is mediated by the types of contracts and rewarding practices these organizational forms allow. Labor contracts connected to the PBO are mostly transactional in nature, while the members of the latent organization are linked by relational contracts. Interviews with Dutch film producers show that the transactional contracts connected to the PBO are less important than the relational contracts connected to the latent organization in governing the actual behavior of the involved actors. Relational contracts that structure relationships in the latent organization allow flexible rewarding practices, just as in `normal' organizations. In turn, employees prove willing to assist the organization in handling environmental uncertainty by making resources available without insisting on immediate compensation.

Autonomía y adaptación organizativa: los centros de investigación ante los cambios del entorno”

by Luis Sanz-Menendez

Luis Sanz Menéndez & Laura Cruz Castro (2001)
“Autonomía y adaptación organizativa: los centros de investigación ante los cambios del entorno”,
Published in "Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas" nº 95, pp. 37-67.

El sistema de investigación es altamente dependiente de los recursos que le suministra el sistema político. Los... more El sistema de investigación es altamente dependiente de los recursos que le suministra el sistema político. Los investigadores tienen la expectativa de que el gasto público en I+D aumente, pero el encarecimiento de la investigación y la emergencia de problemas financieros de los gobiernos han hecho perder relevancia en la agenda política a la ejecución directa de la I+D. Esa
situación se ha observado en los centros de investigación de titularidad estatal en España, que han disminuido su peso en el conjunto de la actividad investigadora, mientras aumentaban los mecanismos de financiación competitiva como método de intervención gubernamental.
La reducción de las ayudas directas es un problema que afecta a las condiciones de ejecución de la investigación, tanto para los investigadores como para los centros. El objetivo de este artículo
es analizar cómo un conjunto de centros de investigación públicos han respondido a la reducción de recursos transferidos directamente por la Administración. Tras constatar la diversidad
de respuestas para adaptarse y hacer frente al descenso de las transferencias directas del Estado, se construye una explicación de carácter institucionalista basada en el nivel y el tipo de autonomía
de que disponen los centros y los investigadores.

Coping with environmental pressures: public research organisations responses to funding crises

by Luis Sanz-Menendez

Luis Sanz Menéndez; Laura Cruz Castro (2003)
“Coping with environmental pressures: Public Research Organizations responses to funding crisis”,
Research Policy vol 32, n.8. September 2003, pp. 1293-1308.

The research system is highly dependent upon the resources provided by the political system. Rising costs of research... more The research system is highly dependent upon the resources provided by the political system. Rising costs of research projects and the emergence of financial problems in government have triggered a reduction in direct support to public research organisations (PROs). The aim of this paper is to analyse how a group of Spanish public research organisations affected by the reduction in direct transfers of State funds have reacted to this situation. By reviewing the PROs’ responses, an institutionalist
argument is built up based on the degree and type of autonomy which the centres and researchers enjoy. Factors which explain the diversity in response of the centres in their funding strategies are: (a) the political autonomy of the PROs with respect to their tutelary ministries, and (b) the autonomy of the researchers within the organisation, the nature of the individual incentive programmes and their level of dependence on collective resources.

Laura Cruz Castro; Luis Sanz Menéndez (2007) “New legitimation models and the transformation of the research field”. International Studies of Management and Organization, vol. 37, n.1, 2007, p. 27-52,.

by Luis Sanz-Menendez

"Published in "International Studies of Management and Organization", [special issue on Organizing Science (edited by Joanne Duberley & Laurie Cohen)] vol. 37, n.1, 2007, p. 27-52,.

The public research sector is changing all over Europe. New semi-public research centers have emerged and now coexist... more The public research sector is changing all over Europe. New semi-public research centers have emerged and now coexist with the traditional public research centers in the same organizational field. It is argued that these changes are mostly policy driven and that the main mechanism is the emergence of new legitimation models of what research and research centers should be for, with a strong emphasis on excellence in science, technology transfer, and service to society. Governments have changed the way they distribute resources or create research structures according to these changing models. As in many other events of the history of science and technology policy, the boundary struggles and changes are underlying issues in this paper. This transformation in the institutional environments of the research centers has instigated changes in the structure of the organizational field of research, mainly reflecting the emergence of new types of organizations and their search for management flexibility and the diversification of funding sources.

Research Evaluation in Transition: Individual versus Organisational Assessment in Spain

by Luis Sanz-Menendez

Laura Cruz-Castro; Luis Sanz-Menéndez (2008)
“Research Evaluation in Transition: Individual versus Organisational Assessment in Spain”,
in The Sociology of Sciences Yearbook, [The Changing Governance of the Sciences. The Advent of the Research Evaluation Systems, (edited by Richard Whitley and Jochen Gläser)], vol 26, 2008, Springer: Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, 2008, pp. 205-223.

Research evaluation has been an essential practice of the regular functioning of the research system (Zuckerman and... more Research evaluation has been an essential practice of the regular functioning of the research system (Zuckerman and Merton, 1971; Cole and Cole, 1973). Reputational competition (Merton, 1957; Ben-David, 1971, 1972; Whitley, 2000; Dasgupta and David, 1994) has been shaped by mechanisms of evaluation of research mostly identified with the practice of peer review for journals’ publications (Campanario, 1998 a, b; Cole, 1998). Some of these practices for publishing papers or awarding prizes have been extended to the allocation of the funding for research from governments or intermediary organisations (Chubin and Hackett, 1991; Cole, Rubin and Cole, 1978).
More recently, state research evaluation systems (RES)1 have been developed in a number of countries in the context of new public management practices, scarce public funds and increasing accountability requests (Georghiou, 1995), and the allocation of resources for organizations and programs has become more and more connected to the evaluation of research (Geuna and Martin, 2003; Liefner, 2003). Additionally, the dominant ex ante or project appraisal approaches have been complemented by the institutionalisation of retrospective ex post evaluations of research performance2, as the papers by Kneller, Cozzens ands others in this volume discuss