A Brief, 3,000-Year History of the Effects of Technology
on the Future of Organization
In a volume that reflects on the effects of technology from multiple
disciplinary perspectives, it seems appropriate to ground that reflection in the
famous opening of Marshall McLuhan’s most influential work, Understanding
Media:
In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all
things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be
reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the
message. That is merely to say that the personal and social
consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves –
result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each
extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. … Many people
would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one
did with the machine, that was its meaning or message. In terms of
the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another
and to ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned out
cornflakes or Cadillacs. The restructuring of human work and
association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the
essence of machine technology. The essence of automation technology
is the opposite. It is integral and decentralist in depth, just as the
machine was fragmentary, centralist, and superficial in its patterning
of human relationships. (McLuhan, 1964, p. 7-8)
1
In essence, the objective of this chapter – namely, reconsidering the nature
of organization itself, and tracing its history through the cultural epochs defined by
successive transformations in human communication – is complete in that one,
tightly-woven paragraph. Each successive period, from the primary orality of
Ancient Greece through to contemporary, multi-way, instantaneous, electronic
interchange, can be characterized according to the ways in which the prevailing
form of human interaction, “altered our relations to one another and to ourselves”
(McLuhan, 1964, p. 8). In particular, the unique forms and structures of
interpersonal association – organization – are characteristic of the age in question.
Those forms and structures shed light on the complex interconnections among the
societal institutions that govern, educate, facilitate commerce, and foster artistic
reflection on the culture of the day.
Thus arises the central question of this chapter: How has organization as a
distinct entity1 both shaped, and been shaped by, the dominant technology of
human interaction throughout the history of Western civilization? Further, is there
an overarching understanding of organization that can account for its dominant
form in each of the four major cultural epochs identified by the Toronto School of
Communication (de Kerckhove, 1989; Blondheim & Watson, 2007): primary orality
of Ancient Greece, phonetic literacy leading to the manuscript culture of the Middle
1
I suggest that it might be useful to consider organization not in the generic sense of a
collaborative undertaking or enterprise, but as an autonomous entity, agent or actor.
Organization in this sense (denoted by the use of italicized text) can be thought of as having
behaviours, characteristics, and externally perceived intent distinct from those of its
members. Organization (without italicization) denotes a generic or, in some cases, specific
grouping of people.
2
Ages, the “Gutenberg Galaxy” of mechanization peaking at the Industrial Age, and
today’s era of instantaneous, multi-way, electric communication?
Blondheim and Watson (2007), and other authors in their edited volume,
draw particularly from the works of Harold Adam Innis, the political economist,
and media observer and philosopher, Marshall McLuhan to demonstrate how it is
the nature of technological media – from the spoken, written and printed word,
through various modes of transportation and trade, to contemporary information
and communication technologies – to create change in both human cognitive
processes and social institutions. Some authors (de Kerckhove, 1989; Gibson,
2000) include the classicist, Eric Havelock as a key member of the Toronto School
for his contribution of the effects of phonetic literacy on the changes in Greek
society described by Plato (Havelock, 1963). Using somewhat more contemporary
language, I describe the primary thesis of the Toronto School as follows:
The Toronto School holds that the dominant mode of communication
employed in a society or culture creates an environment from which
the defining structures of that society emerge. These structures might
include those institutions that define the way commerce and
economics are conducted, the ways in which the people govern
themselves, the forms and expressions of religion, how the populace is
educated, and … what is accepted as knowledge. (Federman, 2007)
If this distinctive interpretation of history is indeed valid, then the ways in
which people come together, and have come together for collective endeavours
throughout the ages, should closely correspond to the nature and effects of the
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dominant mode of communications at the time. For example, one would expect that
in pre-literate, Ancient Greece, the democratic organization that saw its zenith in
Periclean Athens would emerge from an environment shaped by direct,
participatory and collective authority, corresponding to the lack of an authoritative
“author,” or controlling central figure in the narrative culture of primary orality.
Similarly, cultures in the early stages of phonetic literacy would likely develop the
concept of delegation via proxy authority, emerging over time into a large central
bureaucracy among the literate, with those who are illiterate subject to the control
of those who held the power of the written word. Over time, a mechanized-print
culture would be expected to develop organization structures that fragment
integral processes into various stations or offices, linked functionally with an
externally imposed, objective purpose. Finally, in an age of massive, instantaneous,
multi-way electronic communications, organizational forms might emerge that
hearken back to aspects of Athenian democracy. These new forms would challenge
the underlying assumptions of industrial efficiency that are predicated on
functional decomposition and sequential assembly – two concepts that could
equally characterize print literacy and modern organization theory.
But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us first go back in time
approximately 3,000 years to revisit an ancient culture that, as will be shown
later, could be considered to be remarkably contemporary in nature.
4
Primary Orality and the Organization of Athenian Democracy
After the overthrow of the tyrant Hippias close to the turn of the fifth
century, B.C., Cleisthenes, with the support of his politically powerful clan,
established a new system of governance for Ancient Athens. This system was
specifically designed to minimize the possibility of one individual accumulating
sufficient power and influence to enable a return to tyrannical rule (Whitehead,
1986). Rather than tribes that were traditionally based on strong family ties,
Cleisthenes established fundamental sovereign power in the local village or town,
called a deme. Ten tribes, or phylei, were defined, each organizing between six and
twenty-one demes, creating phylei of approximately similar population. To
minimize intertribal inequities with respect to resources or access to
transportation, each phyle included demes from city, coastal, and inland regions.
Cleisthenes also instituted citizenship reforms that enabled more direct
participation in governance. Although far from modern democratic conceptions of
universal suffrage, equality and fundamental freedoms, Cleisthenes’s reforms
enabled all freeborn males over the age of 18 whose fathers were citizens to
automatically become citizens, irrespective of property ownership or lack of noble
lineage. The approximately quarter-million people of Athens were governed by a
general assembly – ecclesia – comprising nearly 30,000 eligible citizens, of which
approximately 8,000 were required for a quorum. The agenda and day-to-day
governance responsibilities of the ecclesia fell to the boule, a steering committee of
sorts comprised of 500 members, selected by lot from among the phylei. Each
phyle appointed 50 men to serve on the boule for one year; no person could serve
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as a member of the boule more than twice in his lifetime, thereby limiting the
potential for an individual to accumulate excessive administrative power
(Cummings & Brocklesby, 1993; Ober, 2006; Whitehead, 1986).
Individual responsibilities rotated among the people who were amateurs at
their respective jobs. Ober (2006) observes that, “in the Athenian model there was
very little in the way of executive-level command and control, and nothing like a
formal hierarchy” (n.p.). Rather, political power was collectively shared among
non-professional citizens who were convened in physical proximity in the ecclesia.
Their collective powers of reward and sanction could only be enacted via an annual
“performance review” of responsible individuals’ respective contributions to, or
potential for undermining, the political and cultural norms of society. Any
individual who was deemed to have accumulated too much personal power could
be ostracized – in effect, banished by vote of the ecclesia general assembly for ten
years, although this was considered to be an extreme action, rarely undertaken.
Since boule councillors sat for only a year, there was little opportunity for a
self-serving institutional culture to develop. Further, because of the high degree of
participation, there was tremendous transparency into the boule’s operation, and a
common knowledge and sense of the intricacies and complexities of decision
making developed among the general population. Ober, for example, focuses
extensively on the concentration of knowledge among a relatively local populace as
the key reason for the structural success of Athenian democracy:
Both specialized technical knowledge and generalized tacit knowledge
necessary to making good decisions are increasingly accessible to the
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deliberations of the group as a whole. As councillors learn more about
who was good at what and who to go to for what sort of information,
they become more discriminating about their recommendations and as
a result the whole council is increasingly capable of doing its difficult
job well. Moreover, because each councillor has a local network of
contacts outside the council, each councillor is a bridge between the
council and some subset of the larger population. … Athens as an
organization comes to know a lot of what the Athenians know as
individuals. (Ober, 2006, n.p.)
Concentration of power or influence was explicitly discouraged by design,
not to mention the threat of ostracism. More than knowledge, however, it was the
strong sense of identity, and the economic and affective ties with the greater
organization of Athens and simultaneously, the councillors’ local deme or home
village that ensured optimal decision-making. Individuals in positions of influence
maintained their strong connections to their respective social contexts – their
demes, and resource-balanced phylei – thereby grounding their decision making in
both local and more widely applicable considerations.
From an organizational systems perspective, Cummings and Brocklesby
(1993) summarize some of the key characteristics of Athenian democracy during
what is often called the Golden Age. First, the governance structure was recursive,
meaning that the smaller organization of the deme appears similar in structure to
the phyle, or tribe, which itself appears similar to the organization of the polis, or
city-state as a whole. The overall organization was organic, emerging from the
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bottom-up, as opposed to being an externally conceived structure being imposed on
the social environment. Manville and Ober describe it as a “system [that] was not
imposed on the Athenian people, but rather it grew organically from their own
needs, beliefs, and actions – it was as much a spirit of governance as a set of rules
or laws. … [T]he system was holistic – it was successful because it informed all
aspects of the society” (Manville & Ober, 2003, p. 50).
Individual jobs were rotated among the boule members so that there was
both a continual growth in overall opportunity, expertise and experience, as well
as a safeguard against concentrating knowledge (and therefore power and
influence) in any one individual or small group. The organization design
specifically mitigated against the formation of bureaucracy. Accordingly,
accountability was to the whole of the citizenry, administered via either the
general assembly, or law courts that were comprised of limited-term, appointed
citizens, “many of whom, due to the "multiskilled" nature of the system, had been
in positions similar to those being evaluated. This may have alleviated the
animosity often directed toward specialist internal auditing units within many,
particularly modem, organizations” (Cummings & Brocklesby, 1993, p. 348).
Decision making processes in Ancient Athenian democracy were both
centralized and decentralized according to what made sense in the circumstance,
as opposed to having been procedurally imposed. Whitehead (1986) notes that the
site of pertinent knowledge determined the “common sense” site of decision
making rather than any constitutionally or procedurally predetermined office.
Territorial behaviour that is often associated with bureaucratic control appears to
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have been absent from this system, likely because the transient nature of any
individual’s responsibility decouples their personal status and identity from their
responsibility (i.e., bureaucratic office) they held at any given time. Simply put, no
individual had a vested interest in accumulating power via control, since the
system was specifically designed to protect against such a concentration of power.
Rather, power and influence could only be generated through garnering public
support.
In short, the organization of Athenian democracy reflected its culture.
Cummings and Brocklesby (1993) describe that culture as “unified and cohesive at
all levels of the system” (p. 349). Individual subcultures among the phylei and
demes were respected: local, traditional beliefs were maintained so as not to be
“abrasive” towards the organization as a whole. And, it was not that Ancient
Athens was particularly homogeneous. In fact, Ober (2006) describes the total
population as being quite diverse: “With a total population averaging about a
quarter million, and an adult male citizen population averaging around 30,000,
Athens was vast city, a Mediterranean crossroads with an ethnically diverse
population, including naturalized citizens with prominent political careers” (n.p.)
Nonetheless, Cummings and Brocklesby report that “the citizenry shared a common
bond and identity when viewing themselves in relation to outsiders. They were a
breed apart. This ‘identity’ was often rallied around in times of adversity and
celebration. A perception of shared adversity, and a common cause, helped enhance
unity among the citizenry” (p. 350). There was also a strong sense of reciprocity
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among the populace – inculcated through cultural and religious norms and
practices – that translated effectively to civic (organizational) expectations.
Ancient Greece in the fifth century B.C. was also a primary oral society.
Understanding the characteristics of primary orality offers an insight into the
underlying cultural context of the Athenian organizational structure.
Walter Ong (1982) describes the primary attributes of orality. Orality is
evanescent, existing only at, and for, the time that it is created. Its structure is
formulaic, additive and recursive, rather than hierarchically organized, with
complex subordinate constructions. Orality exists “close to the human lifeworld”
(p. 42); in other words, events and circumstances expressed in a primary oral
society are concrete and subjective rather than abstract and expressed from an
objective standpoint. Ong further characterizes oral engagement as “agonistically
toned” (p. 43), leading to active, direct engagement, argument, and verbal combat,
unlike written literacy whose tone is more detached, even when arguing or
refuting another author’s writing. With respect to the nature of learning, orality is
“empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced” (p. 45). Oral
learning is based in communal, actively participatory experience in which the
participants help to create the experiential learning environment rather than being
at a cognitive, temporal and physical distance from the source of knowledge.
Finally, orality creates community, and is necessarily homeostatic, requiring
constant repetition and continual engagement for its continuity and survival.
It is easily seen how the organizational structure of the Athenian polis
emerges from the effects of primary orality. The three principal administrative
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bodies, the ecclesia, its steering council of 500, the boule, and the law courts, are
constituted into existence at, and for, the time that they sit – four times a month
for the larger body, annually for the boule and as needed for jurors. Rather than
being fixed, the governance structures are homeostatic, requiring a continual flow
of participants in order to sustain. Whitehead (1986) notes that the polis, phylei
and their component elements replicated the natural structure of the local deme –
what could be considered a higher level of organization replicated the lowest level.
Decision making among the members of the ecclesia was more often than not
a noisy affair, with robust confrontations among diverse opinions being relatively
common. Although those with specific knowledge offered their expertise on
matters ranging from military to religious, that expert advice did not always carry
the day. Ober (2006), for example, recounts Herodotus’s story of Themistocles
proposing an expansion of the Athenian navy in the 5th c. B.C. When Persia invaded
Greece, the citizens were forced to make a decision: whether to flee their homes,
attempt to defend their city-state on land which would likely end in defeat, or meet
the invaders in battle at sea. Elders sought the advice of the Oracle at Delphi who,
in characteristic fashion, provided an ambiguous, but apparently pessimistic
response. Ober notes,
In a hierarchical political order, there would never have been a public
debate on the oracles. In a traditional republican Greek regime (e.g.
Sparta), in which such issues were discussed in public, the
authoritative opinion of elders, backed by religious experts, would
prevail. But in democratic Athens the premise was that all citizens had
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the right to publicly express their views and that each knew
something that might be important in deciding on the best policy. No
plan could be adopted if it contradicted the knowledge and will of the
majority of the Assembly. (Ober, 2006, n.p.)
Among these citizens were those who were intimately involved in
provisioning the naval fleet, and in its operation, who could offer particular
knowledge that recontextualized the Oracle’s prediction. The eventual plan – to
engage the Persians in a naval battle – “rested on the conviction that that even the
poorest Athenians, the ones who would be rowing the warships, knew something
important about how to defend the community.” Here, Ober draws a conclusion
from the contemporary ground of the so-called knowledge economy. However, the
forum of participatory engagement that settled on what proved to be the correct
tactical decision is consistent with the notion that in a primary oral society,
hierarchical religious authority could be legitimately challenged by those who are
physically present, based on how each individual constructs meaning from both
personal and shared contexts – a communal, actively participatory experience.
The political decline of post-Periclean Athens is largely attributed to
broadening the scope of Athenian political influence to incorporate poleis that did
not share Athenian cultural grounds and traditions. More important, perhaps, was
the fact that administration was being spread farther and wider over larger
geographic areas, counter to the primary oral tradition that grounded the Athenian
system: “It was Alexander, and then the Romans, who would display more
adequate procedures for the development and maintenance of large and diverse
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empires… Demagogy would have been disastrous for a system such as that of
Athens, with its properties of individual participation in return for collective
government” (Cummings & Brocklesby, 1993, p. 355).
The argument that Cummings and Brocklesby suggest to explain the decline
of post-Periclean Athens and the concomitant rise of Alexander and the Romans
exactly corresponds to that of the Toronto School. The environmental influences of
phonetic literacy enable not only long-distance communication, but true delegation
of authority by proxy and the creation of an efficient bureaucracy. McLuhan points
out that:
…an increase of power or speed in any kind of grouping of any
components whatever is itself a disruption that causes a change of
organization. … Such speed-up means much more control at much
greater distances. Historically, It meant the formation of the Roman
Empire and the disruption of the previous city-states of the Greek
world. Before the use of papyrus and alphabet created the incentives
for building fast, hard-surface roads, the walled town and the citystate were natural forms that could endure. (McLuhan, 1964, p. 90)
He goes on to observe that “the Greek city-states eventually disintegrated by
the usual action of specialist trading and the separation of functions… The Roman
cities began that way – as specialist operations of the central power. The Greek
cities ended that way” (p. 97).
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Phonetic Literacy, the Romans and the Catholic Church
Phonetic literacy is a very ingenious invention and proved to be an excellent
choice for expanding empires, spheres of influence, and spans of control across
vast geographies. The written word travelled well, alleviating the necessity for
transporting the person along with his ideas or pronouncements. Instrumentally,
phonetic literacy takes what is integral – the words coming from someone’s mouth
– and fractures them, separating sound from meaning. That sound is then encoded
into what are otherwise semantically meaningless symbols that we call letters.
Those letters are then build up hierarchically, from letters into words, from words
into sentences, from sentences into paragraphs, and from paragraphs into scrolls,
and later books.
More important, the phonetic alphabet introduced into an extant primary
oral culture produces a cognitive shift in that culture concerning not only what is
known, but what can be known. Instead of knowledge being a direct experience
that passes from person to person, in a sense of a bard or story-singer2 reliving the
experience for his audience, literacy means that what is to be known is only a
written representation of the actual, visceral experience that comprises
knowledge. Literacy separates the knower from that which is to be known, and
inserts both a proxy representation in the form of words, and an author who
2
The term “story-singer” is a reference to the discoveries of Milman Parry and Albert Lord
in the primary oral society of South Serbia in the early 20 th century. See Parry, A. (1971).
The making of Homeric verse: The collected papers of Milman Parry. Oxford: Oxford
University Press; and Lord, A. B. (2000). The Singer of Tales, Second Edition. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
14
asserts his authority with respect to that representation, between the knower and
the known.
As I have described elsewhere (Federman, 2005; 2007), with phonetic
literacy, a central authority figure such as an emperor or dictator could utter a
command or edict and have his words recorded onto a scroll. That scroll could be
given to a messenger whose chariot would carry both him and the message to the
far reaches of the empire – an enactment to which McLuhan (1964) alludes in the
chapter name, “Roads and Paper Routes.” The recipient of that scroll could then
accurately reproduce the precise words of the emperor at a location far removed
from the central seat of control – Rome, for instance – without having directly
heard those words himself. This, of course, is notably different from the
circumstance of a primary oral culture.
There is, as well, an additional aspect germane to the emergence of a
dispersed organization that was transported via scroll along with the words. The
recipient of the scroll, say the governor of a distant province, also received the
proxy authority of the emperor – the authority to carry out whatever orders those
words conveyed in the name of the emperor. To be truly literate means that a
person would somehow ascribe attributes of reality to words – proxy
representations that are, in actuality, merely ink marks on linen or papyrus or
sheepskin. To be truly literate means that a person would be able to call into
existence the power and authority of an unseen, and often unknown, author by
uttering the sounds represented by these ink marks. In effect, that literate person
would somehow inherit aspects of that author’s authority by the proxy vested in
15
those written words. Those who were literate and thus had command of the word
became, in the eyes of the largely illiterate masses of their time, the
personification of the proxy authority of the emperor or dictator. Or, as in the case
of the growing dominance of the Church in the early Middle Ages, he who had
command of the Word became the proxy of God, himself. It is perhaps not
surprising that the New Testament Book of John begins with the invocation, “in the
beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” (John
1:1; emphasis added).
Hierarchical structure – the basic construct of phonetic literacy – and proxy
delegation of authority are key characteristics of a bureaucratic organization.
Hence, by the middle ages, the Church began to emerge as a remarkably functional
administrative agency, taking on aspects that, in retrospect, have become known as
bureaucracy. As the Roman Empire declined, so too did secular administrative
authority. The Church administration filled the power void, assuming many of the
responsibilities of local municipal and regional administration (Miller, 1983).
Prior to the ninth century, local churches were privately founded and
maintained by a local patron. Local clergy – bishops and priests – were primarily
subjects of the patron, with little control exerted by Rome. In most instances, the
lay patron appointed the local clergy who owed primary allegiance not only to the
local patron, feudal lord, or king, but as well to the local diocese cathedral chapter
of clerics that advised the bishop. As Maureen Miller describes:
All in all, the Church in the ninth century was local, decentralized and
intertwined with the secular power. The bishop or abbot answer to his
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king more than the pope, many proprietary churches were just
beginning to answer to the bishop rather than their lay proprietor and
the pope can hardly be said to have exerted universal authority. This
local and feudalized organization of the Church matched the local,
feudalized, “tribalized” nature of society during the ninth century.
(Miller, 1983, p. 280)
This description corresponds well to a society fractured by the effects of
literacy: the literate elites creating an administrative bureaucracy that oversees
the illiterate masses who still live within a "tribal," that is, primary oral,
subculture. Still, the early Church did not yet possess an effective, universal means
of wielding and enforcing its administrative control through the proxy exercise of
power at a distance. It was only in the ninth century that the practice of
excommunication began to establish what Miller terms a “corporate identity” for
the Church, thereby enabling it to assert more centralized power through delegated
control.
Although it had been previously available as a disciplinary measure,
excommunication served only as an ecclesiastical sanction in the early Middle
Ages. By the ninth century, however, those who were excommunicated could hold
neither military nor public office, and civil magistrates enforced excommunication
dictates of the local bishop. Excommunication evolved into a powerful force for
corporate discipline, not only removing an individual from participation in the
spiritual realm, but in the realm of civic engagement as well.
17
In practical terms, the extension of excommunication from its strictly
ecclesiastical context to one that affects all of one’s community life – in this case,
effectively separating an individual from active participation in the society in
which they lived – is consistent with the environmental influences of phonetic
literacy. As I mentioned earlier, phonetic literacy separates that which is integral
into individual, functional components, enabling distance between an individual
and what they once possessed as intrinsic to their being – be it knowledge via an
author’s authority, governance via proxy delegation, craft skill via functional
decomposition, or even one’s place in society through excommunication.
Although similar to the relatively rarer practice of ostracism in Athenian
democracy, there is a key distinction – a reversal (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1988), in
fact – that, again, is indicative of the environmental differences between primary
oral, and phonetically literate, societies. Ostracism (lasting ten years) required a
consensus vote of thousands of fellow citizens in the ecclesia – an expression of a
common societal mind that one had accumulated too much individual power.
Excommunication permanently banished a non-compliant individual on the say-so
of one man who possessed the delegated proxy of what was becoming supreme
authority in the Church and through much of Western European society.
Through the codification of canon law, and its universalizing throughout
Western Europe, papal legal authority was effectively established by the eleventh
century. Pope Gregory VII in the late-eleventh century established a more formal
bureaucratic system of Church offices and functions, eliminating both the influence
of local, lay patrons to install clerical officials, and the earlier practice of
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nepotistic and hereditary influence by establishing clerical celibacy. Church power
and operations were grounded in legal authority, ultimately arbitrated by the
central authority of the pope and officials in Rome. Those in relatively superior
positions appointed those officials in subordinate positions, with the rule of
(canonical) law holding supreme. Even for the pope himself, the office was distinct
from the individual holding it (Miller, 1983). The effect of literacy in enabling the
solidification of bureaucracy as a governing principle is demonstrably evident:
Although Church government from the earliest times depended upon
written records, the increased dependence upon law and central
authority in the governance of the Church made written documents
even more essential to Church administration. Whereas the Chancery
under Gregory VII consisted of seven notaries, soon thereafter it grew
to one hundred scribes and a corresponding number of higher officials
to carry out the responsible duties. (Miller, 1983, p. 285)
The emerging bureaucracy of the Church influenced secular organizations
throughout European society as well. From the twelfth century, bureaucratic and
administrative practices common in the papal chancery began to be introduced into
royal chanceries. Primarily because of their literacy – but equally, because of the
opportunity for Church control to infiltrate secular institutions – bishops, cardinals
and other churchmen populated, and were highly influential in, royal
administration throughout the Middle Ages. Note, for instance, the derivation of
the word “clerk” from “cleric” (Tierney, 1992). Miller sums up the significance of
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organizational change through the Middle Ages and, consistent with literacy, its
slow, but pervasive replication:
The High Medieval reorganization of Church government created a
streamlined, hierarchical organization and increased papal power so
vastly… These papal claims aided the growth of civil government … by
sharpening ideas about secular authority. And, on a practical level, the
Church aided secular rulers in developing their own administrations
by supplying a model of administration and trained personnel. Most
important for the development of modern organization was the
Church’s borrowing of Roman law which, incorporated into the canon
law, was most influential in developing public law in the emerging
nation states. (Miller, 1983, p. 289)
None of this organizational evolution could have occurred without the
presence of phonetic literacy to both enable the instrumental skill of those who
possessed it, and to create an appropriate cognitive environment that could
conceive of, and create, bureaucracy.
Gutenberg’s Influence: Mechanization, and the Rise of Modern Organization
“Printing from movable types was the first mechanization of a complex
handicraft, and became the archetype of all subsequent mechanization. … Like any
other extension of man, typography had psychic and social consequences that
suddenly shifted previous boundaries and patterns of culture” (McLuhan, 1964, p.
20
171-172). Notably, the era ushered in by Gutenberg’s iconic printing of the bible on
a movable type press has as its hallmark uniformity of production, and economical
repeatability from an original specimen. Eisenstein (1979) points out that scribed
manuscripts could well be duplicated were they sufficiently important – items like
royal edicts and papal bulls. However, it was the mass production of both the
mundane and the masterful, the triumphant and the trivial, that the mechanized
printing press enabled. More important, however, were the advances in structural
elements that overlaid the actual text to make the eventual book more attractive to
readers. Eisenstein elaborates:
Well before 1500, printers had begun to experiment with the use of
graduate types, running heads ... footnotes ... tables of contents ...
superior figures, cross references ... and other devices available to the
compositor - all registering the victory of the punch cutter over the
scribe. Title pages became increasingly common, facilitating the
production of book lists and catalogues, while acting as
advertisements in themselves. Hand-drawn illustrations were
replaced by more easily duplicated woodcuts and engravings - an
innovation which eventually helped to revolutionize technical
literature by introducing exactly repeatable pictorial statements into
all kinds of reference works. (Eisenstein, 1992, p. 52-53)
Uniformity, repeatability and structuring elements that are distinct from,
but support, the content are indeed the hallmarks of both books, and the societal
culture that arose from the environment of mechanized print – and mechanization
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and industrialization in general. The general availability and economy of printed
materials fostered an explosion of literacy in the various vernacular languages of
Europe, and wrested control of education from the Church. Setting the stage for the
Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, print literacy created yet another cognitive
shift in the psycho-social environment that gave dominance to the practices of
objectivity, separation and distance, and functional decomposition in almost every
aspect of human endeavour: from literature (with an all-seeing, all-knowing
author with his own distinct narrative voice) and art (perspective), to philosophy
(Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason), architecture (Italian piazzas) and science (with
the supposedly neutral, objective observer), including the emergence of
engineering, anatomy (considered at the time more akin to contemporary
biomechanics) and modern manufacturing. As one might expect, that psycho-social
shift also set the stage for the multi-layered, bureaucratic, administratively
controlled, hierarchical organization (Eisenstein, 1992; Federman, 2007; McLuhan,
1962) that helped usher in modernity.
In the context of the modern organization, the three dominant effects of
what McLuhan calls the “Gutenberg Galaxy” – uniformity, repeatability and
supportive, structuring elements – are best documented by the three chroniclers of
post-industrial age management: Frederick Winslow Taylor, Max Weber and Henri
Fayol.
Taylor’s landmark, 1911 work, Principles of Scientific Management, outlines
his basic precepts to achieve uniform, repeatable, and efficient management of
labour: (1) Decompose work into tasks, or “elements” and develop “a science” for
22
each one; (2) Select and train workers according to a scientific approach; (3)
Create cooperation between workers and managers to ensure the work is being
done according to the developed science; and (4) Divide the work between
managers and workers, so that each performs the tasks to which they are
respectively suited – workers are suited to “do” and not think, while managers are
suited to think and not do. Indeed, Warner and Witzel point out that Taylor’s
scientific management principles were a result of the need created for
“professional managers” when ownership separated from management control in
the late nineteenth century. Its apparent effectiveness became legendary
worldwide: For the first half of the twentieth century, Taylor’s “American ‘way’ of
doing business was seen as superior to all others” (Warner & Witzel, 1997, p. 264).
If Frederick Taylor’s application of rational science was seen as a superior
way of doing work, Max Weber’s “ideal type” of rational control was – and in many
circles, still is – seen as a superior way of organizing work for maximum
efficiency. It is commonly accepted that Weber’s bureaucracy describes an
administrative structure in which there is a clear division of labour defined along
the lines of hierarchical class. Managers occupy functional offices with a clear
distinction being made between the permanence and functional necessity of the
office and the person who contingently holds that office or position. Administrative
operations are governed by well-articulated, explicit and codified rules that apply
not only to the labourers, but to the professional administrators themselves.
Among those rules are the specifications for administrator compensation:
administrators do not earn their income directly from the production under their
23
purview nor from the privilege of administration, but rather from a rule-based
salary.
Although bureaucracy seems to provide an efficient and apparently fair
means of control through equally applied rules and well-documented processes,
there is a danger that the rules themselves become paramount, without
consideration for the ensuing effects on people’s lives. “We become so enmeshed in
creating and following a legalistic, rule-based hierarchy that the bureaucracy
becomes a subtle but powerful form of domination” (Barker, 1993, p. 410). In fact,
Weiss (1983) maintains that Weber’s expression of the concept of Herrschaft refers
specifically to domination, rather than the softer, more “managerial” notion of
leadership. According to Roth and Wittich’s interpretation of Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft – Economy and Society (Weber, 1978) – those so dominated by
bureaucratic rules do so more or less willingly, requiring only a “minimum of
voluntary compliance” (p. 212) and conformity to rules reflexively legitimated by
the bureaucratic system itself.
Weber’s use of the term “ideal type” is not necessarily to be interpreted as
the “most desirable” form, or most efficient. Rather, Weiss (1983) suggests that
Weber’s then-contemporary usage more closely relates to an archetype – an
objective model that is, in practical circumstances, unattainable. Similarly, in
maintaining that bureaucracy represents rational control, Weber is not referring to
it necessarily being reasonable, merely logical: “Bureaucratic authority is
specifically rational in the sense of being bound to discursively analyzable rules”
(1964, p. 361). As well, such authority is not meant to suggest culturally normative
24
behaviour, administrative direction consistent with the underlying values, mission,
vision or intentions of the organization, or even efficient operations: “Weber was
concerned with domination rather than efficient coordination” (Weiss, p. 246).
Weber himself called this rational but oppressive form of social control an
“iron cage” that dominates not just people’s behaviours, but other, potentially
alternative, means of control: “Once fully established, bureaucracy is among those
social structures which are the hardest to destroy. Bureaucracy is the means of
transforming social action into rationally organized action. … [an individual]
cannot squirm out of the apparatus into which he has been harnessed” (Weber,
1978, p. 987-988). With earlier forms of hierarchical control, such as those
exhibited in the medieval Church, a human presented the face of control to those
controlled even in the presence of written rules. Modern bureaucracy as
documented (but not necessarily prescribed) by Weber, introduced a form of
mechanized separation by creating an abstract system of processes that nominally
implements and enforces the rules, removing human discretion, emotion and
ultimately, direct human responsibility for action and consequences. In effect, the
organization subsumes and subjugates itself to a mechanized, administrative
automaton: bureaucracy becomes an administrative machine of which people are
merely components, replicating the mechanizing and dehumanizing effects of
industrial, factory apparatus.
Taylor and Weber clearly contributed ideas and principles that encompass
two of the three aforementioned hallmarks of mechanized, industrial, modern,
organization structure – uniformity and repeatability. By “scientifically” measuring
25
the best worker’s performance and seeking to replicate that performance in other
workers under the direction of managers, Taylor sought to create uniformity and
efficiency in production. Weber’s ideals of rational bureaucracy in which human
judgement was removed from operational decisions in favour of systematic, rulebased processes ensured repeatability throughout an organization, especially when
direct supervision was impractical, if not impossible. Henri Fayol’s contribution to
modern management was to provide the third component, namely, the elements
that structure professional management practice itself.
Fayol’s classic chapter on General Principles of Management from his 1949
book, General and Industrial Management first appeared in a 1916 bulletin of the
French mining industry association, and is considered by some to be the wellspring
of modern management practice. In it, he describes his fourteen principles through
which managers “operate” on the workers: “Whilst the other functions bring into
play material and machines the managerial function operates only on the
personnel. The soundness and good working order of the body corporate depend on
a certain number of conditions termed indiscriminately principles, laws, rules”
(Fayol, 1949, p. 19). However, unlike his American and German counterparts in
this modern managerial triumvirate, Fayol eschewed rigidity and absolutism in
management practice: “it is all a question of proportion. Seldom do we have to
apply the same principle twice in identical conditions; allowance must be made for
26
different changing circumstances, for men just as different and changing and for
many other variable elements” (p. 19)3.
Still, by his own description, Fayol’s fourteen principles provide the
structuring elements that are distinct from, but support the content of
management decisions. These principles include:
1. Division of work, “not merely applicable to technical work, but without
exception to all work … result[ing] in specialization of functions and
separation of powers” (p. 21).
2. Authority and responsibility, “the right to give orders and the power to
exact obedience” (p. 21). Bound up with this principle is the “need for
sanction,” both positive and negative, corresponding to taking
responsibility for acting with legitimate authority.
3. Discipline, based on agreements between the organization and its
workers, irrespective, according to Fayol, of whether those agreements
are explicit, tacit, written, commonly understood, “derive from the wish
of the parties or from rules and customs” (p. 23).
3
Despite Fayol’s arguably more enlightened contribution to management theory, Taylor
and Weber seem to have “won” in influencing both management education and practice
throughout the 20th century. For example, Jones (2000) chronicles contemporary
implementation of Taylor’s methods on the factory floor, while Barrett (2004) describes
Taylor and Weber’s influence in an online software development environment. Wilson
(1995) demonstrates how information technology recreates Taylor and Weber’s principles
in the guise of what has been commonly known as knowledge management and
organizational reengineering – the latter made (in)famous by Hammer and Champy (1993)
– “to obviate the need for the more traditional organizational structures … [that] has
resulted in a relentless drive towards organizational (workforce) conformity in response to
the demands of greater technological efficiency” (Wilson, p. 59).
27
4. Unity of command, so that any individual has only one direct superior
exercising legitimate authority.
5. Unity of direction, expressing one plan and one ultimate leader for the
organization.
6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest, “the fact that
in a business the interest of one employee or group of employees should
not prevail over that of the [business] concern” (p. 26).
7. Remuneration of personnel, assuring “fair remuneration” for services
rendered, encouraging “keenness,” and “not lead to over-payment going
beyond reasonable limits.” (p. 28). Fayol encourages bonuses to “arouse
the worker’s interest in the smooth running of the business” (p. 29),
which means not only providing a motivation to work efficiently as
recommended by Taylor (1911), but to enact control and ensure compliant
behaviour as described by Weber (1978).
8. Centralization, that Fayol claims “like division of work … belongs to the
natural order; … the fact that in every organism, animal or social,
sensations converge towards the brain or directive part, and from the
brain or directive part orders are sent out which set all parts of the
organism in movement” (p. 34).
9. Scalar chain, the linear hierarchy of authority along which information
passes, with the proviso that, for the sake of efficiency a direct “gang
plank” of communication is permitted between employees at equivalent
28
levels of responsibility in two, distinct reporting chains, with the
permission of their respective managers.
10. Order, referring to both “material order … a place for everything and
everything in its place” (p. 37) for supplies, and “social order … the right
man in the right place” (p. 38) for the job, echoing both Taylor and
Weber.
11. Equity, or equality of treatment, best accomplished it seems under welldefined rules with sound managerial judgement.
12. Stability of tenure of personnel, that expresses in other words the
concepts of professionalism and specialization.
13. Initiative, “thinking out a plan and ensuring its success” (p. 40), notably
“within the limits imposed, by respect for authority and for discipline”
(p. 41).
14. Esprit de corps, through which Fayol warns against a manager dividing
his4 team or “sowing dissention among subordinates” (p. 41), and,
interestingly, misusing written communication: “it is well known that
differences and misunderstandings which a conversation could clear up,
grow more bitter in writing” (p. 42).
It seems that in Fayol’s experience, separation, isolation, and creation of
division among people is a recognized consequence – and according to Taylor and
4
Gender specific, since managers were exclusively male in Fayol’s context.
29
Weber, perhaps even the tacit objectives – of the industrialized environment
enabled by mechanized print literacy.
Ubiquitous Connectivity and Pervasive Proximity:
The context for organization of the present
In his book, The Rise of the Network Society, Manuel Castells describes the
evolution of large corporations over the final quarter of the 20th century. The
(primarily Western European and North American) corporate response to the rapid
increase of global capital and labour markets in the 1980s was downsizing and
labour savings. These actions were predicated on the assumption of privileged –
“oligopolistic,” as Castells describes it – market ownership based on trademark
possession, image, or simple longevity. However, this reactionary response
towards achieving internal economy did not address the real challenges that were
emerging: those manifest in the global economy and the concomitant deployment
of new technologies by more nimble competitors. “The large corporation had to
become primarily more effective than more thrifty,” writes Castells. “The
networking strategies added flexibility to the system, but they did not solve the
problem of adaptability for the corporation” (1996, p. 164).
The problem of adaptability started to be addressed in the late 1980s and
early 1990s by corporations decentralizing business units and granting them
increased autonomy. Such decentralization was enabled by network technologies
and the explosive growth in global communications infrastructure, the dominant
mode of communications in this, the fourth Toronto School cultural epoch of
30
Western civilization. These largely technological advances facilitated the
continuous flow of information among the newly (pseudo-)independent business
units, and throughout what were quickly becoming intricate networks of trading
partners. Such change represented a significant shift in the operational paradigm
for managers who, collectively, had known only vertical organizations initially set
out according to Fayol’s principles for the last hundred years or so. As Castells
astutely notes,
The most important obstacle in adapting the vertical corporation to
the flexibility requirements of the global economy was the rigidity of
corporate cultures. … In the 1980s, in America, more often than not,
new technology was viewed as a labor-saving device and as an
opportunity to take control of labor, not as an instrument of
organizational change. (Castells, 1996, p. 168-169)
Realizing the limitations of this perspective, traditional corporations have
subsequently begun the transition from vertical to horizontal, effectively becoming
networks themselves. Castells continues:
I propose a definition of the network enterprise: that specific form of
enterprise5 where the system of means is constituted by the
intersection of segments of autonomous systems of goals. Thus the
components of the network are both autonomous and dependent vis-à-
5
Castells identifies two distinct analytical descriptions of organizations: “organizations for
which the reproduction of their system of means becomes their main organizational goal;
and organizations in which goals, and the change of goals, shape and endlessly reshape the
structure of means” (1996, p. 171). The first is bureaucracy; the second, enterprise.
31
vis the network, and may be a part of other networks, and therefore of
other systems of means aimed at other goals. The performance of a
given network will then depend on two fundamental attributes of the
network: its connectedness, that is its structural ability to facilitate
noise-free communications between its components; its consistency,
that is the extent to which there is sharing of interests between the
network’s goals and the goals of its components. (Castells, 1996, p.
171; emphasis in original)
Many authors have described the historical perspective within which one
can make sense of contemporary multi-way, instantaneous communications
(Castells, 1996; de Kerckhove, 1995, 2002; Federman, 2005c; McLuhan, 1962,
1964; Ong, 1982). As I have outlined throughout this chapter, at each of the major
nexus periods at which the speed and geographical scope of human
communications accelerate significantly, the social underpinnings of the society of
the day – and specifically the nature of organization – change significantly. In
composing a history of the future of organization, that future is contextualized by
the acceleration and period of extraordinary transformation that is now occurring.
This period was first heralded by Morse’s demonstration of the telegraph in 1844,
and created a contemporary era of instantaneous, electrically-enabled
telecommunications, contracting both physical and temporal separation on a global
scale.
Castells echoes the primary thesis of the Toronto School of Communication,
capturing the extent of, and essential reason for, the change when he writes,
32
“because culture is mediated and enacted through communication, cultures
themselves – that is, our historically produced systems of beliefs and codes –
become fundamentally transformed, and will be more so over time, by the new
technological system” (Castells, 1996, p. 357). The experience of the most recent of
these changes – that is, the effects of instantaneous, multi-way communication
technology on people – have been diversely documented. Rheingold (1993) writes
about so-called virtual communities, while Turkle (1995) characterizes expression
of identity “on the screen.” de Kerckhove (1998) describes connectivity that
multiplies effective intelligence in a “web society,” and Eric McLuhan (1998)
outlines the nature of “electric crowds.” Organization theorists project these
effects onto conceptions of organizations of the future, both for good (Boyett &
Conn, 1991; Wenger, 1998), and for ill (Gee, Hull, & Lankshear, 1996). I have even
examined and questioned how the motivational relationships between organization
as a distinct entity and individuals change under these conditions (Federman,
2006).
What is unique about the beginning of the twenty-first century is that, on
one hand, many people are experiencing the effects of always being connected to
some multi-way communications mechanism for the first time in their lives, and
are slowly adapting to it. On the other hand, a large and growing demographic
have never not known such connectivity:
Unlike we who were socialized and acculturated in a primarily literate
societal ground, in which our experience with technology and media is
primarily within a linear, hierarchical context – all artefacts of
literacy – today’s youth and tomorrow’s adults live in a world of
33
ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity. Everyone is, or soon
will be, connected to everyone else, and all available information,
through instantaneous, multi-way communication. This is ubiquitous
connectivity. They will therefore have the experience of being
immediately proximate to everyone else and to all available
information. This is pervasive proximity. Their direct experience of
the world is fundamentally different from yours or from mine, as we
have had to adopt and adapt to these technologies that create the
effects of ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity.
(Federman, 2005, p. 11; emphasis added)
This startling divide in the embodied – or as some might consider,
disembodied (Federman, 2005b; E. McLuhan, 1998; McLuhan, 1964) – experience
of ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity (UCaPP) means that each
group’s conception of the same observed artefact or phenomenon is different, an
understanding consistent with a constructivist standpoint. To the chronically
literate,6 the capabilities of instantaneous communications create efficiency as
they are instrumentally applied to existing processes that have been conceived in
the context of an industrialized world. Castells (1996), for example, invests two
entire chapters of his Rise of the Network Society devoted to the changes in both
6
A neologistic phrase I use to describe those who have difficulty adapting to the effects of a
UCaPP world, and hence construct meaning from a ground of deterministic causality, and
the predominance of literate effects, with vision as the dominant mode of perception. See
McLuhan, 1962 and 1964.
34
organizations and the nature of work itself, all within the governing framework of
organization-as-container – albeit an interconnected container.
Some see the application of what are often considered as emancipating or
democratizing technologies as the potential antidote to the deleterious, and
counter-productive, aspects chronicled by Weber, Fayol and Taylor that I
abbreviate to BAH – bureaucracy, administrative control, and hierarchy. However,
as Ahuja and Carley (1999) discover when they examine structures of power and
control in so-called virtual organizations, traditional levels of authority permeate
the virtual organization with respect to authority and decision making. Technology
alone is not sufficient to overcome workers’ socialization in traditional hierarchies,
particularly when power is involved. In a similar vein, Alberts and Hayes (2003),
writing about United States military command and control – an archetypal BAH
structure – in the information age, identify that the dysfunctional aspects of
hierarchies are primarily founded in wielding power and authority. Modern
technologies that may streamline information flow throughout an otherwise
bureaucratic organization do not, in themselves, correct this cultural conditioning.
The cultural conditioning to which I refer is interestingly characterized by
Bruno Latour as the processes through which nonhumans become a collective with
humans. It is, in his words, the “crossover, which consists of the exchange of
properties among humans and nonhumans,” “enrolment” of nonhumans into the
collective, “mobilization of nonhumans in the collective … resulting in strange new
hybrids,” and the particular direction and extent that the new collective takes with
its new hybrid actants (1999, p. 194). Latour’s characterization is, not surprisingly,
35
consistent with the action of communication technologies on societal structures as
described by the Toronto School.
Specifically, since the rise of the Industrial Age in Europe in the eighteenth
century, peaking at the turn of the twentieth, mechanistic, industrial organization
was enrolled (in the Latourian sense) and imbued humanity with many of its
nonhuman characteristics, and in particular, those that comprise BAH. In this
sense, I would argue that the distinctions among the constituent components of
organization are not only constructed, but constructed specifically in the service of
establishing and preserving control in favour of the nonhuman elements of this
particular entanglement, according to the particular cultural environment of
interpersonal engagement. Since the introduction of phonetic literacy and the
subsequent emergence of early bureaucracies in the Middle Ages, Western society
has been socialized to accept the construction that BAH control mechanisms are not
only normative, but natural – just human nature.
Consider almost any circumstance in which more than a trivial number of
people organize to collaborate on accomplishing a common objective over a notinsignificant period of time. It would be rare indeed for an organizational form not
to emerge that does not possess – to a greater or lesser degree – attributes
consistent with elements of bureaucracy, administrative control, and hierarchy.
Common experience would suggest that the presence, and dominance, of these
three aspects becomes more apparent with the increase in the number of people
involved, or the duration of the collaborative endeavour, or both. Indeed, these
nonhuman, BAH elements of organizational entanglement with humans seem
36
almost to have been purposefully designed as control mechanisms of (nonhuman)
systems over (human) people, as documented by both medieval Church scholars,
such as Miller (1983) and Tierney (1992), and reported by the seminal
management writers, such as Taylor (1911), Weber (1964; 1978) and Fayol (1949),
among many others.
BAH-dominant organizations entwine the technologies – or “ways of doing”
as expressed by Ursula Franklin (1990) – of bureaucracy, administration, and
hierarchy with people to create a relatively new actant, one that was named as
early as 1956, “the organization man” (Whyte, 1956), or as I would now adjust the
term, organization-man.7 Citing more contemporary and instrumental examples,
Franklin points out that such incarnations are specifically “control-related
technologies, those developments that do not primarily address the process of
work with the aim of making it easer, but try to increase control over the
operation” (Franklin, 1990, p. 18). The nonhuman aspects of BAH-dominant
organizations are:
Prescriptive technologies [that] eliminate the occasions for decisionmaking and judgement in general and especially for the making of
principled decisions. Any goal of the technology is incorporated a
priori in the design and is not negotiable. … The acculturation to
7
Although Whyte’s landmark book has more to do with the transformation of the American
businessman from the clichéd rugged individualist to one that must face a collaborative
social ethic in the context of organization (and the resultant conflict with the so-called
Protestant work ethic), my usage here retrieves Whyte’s cliché in a new form: a Latourian
entanglement that creates a new human-nonhuman actant, particularly effected by BAH
dynamics.
37
compliance and conformity has … diminished resistance to the
programming of people. (Franklin, 1990, p. 25; emphasis in original)
The overwhelming majority of the working and volunteering population –
indeed, almost every single person currently over thirty years of age in a
managerial, supervisory, or other decision-making position – has known only the
culture of the BAH-organization-man collective. Now, under UCaPP conditions, a
new nonhuman (technological) actant is introduced to the collective. Especially
because of the consequences of social networks that emerge because of pervasive
proximity, the collective is in the process of assuming more humanistic qualities,
those of complex, direct and indirect relationships. Thus organization is ripe for
reconception, away from the instrumentality imposed by its BAH nonhuman
aspects, in favour of humanistic elements that will reform the collective to be
consistent with the intimate effects of UCaPP.
Valence theory and contemporary organization
To be useful in a contemporary context, a new theory of organization must
possess certain attributes, and claim certain capabilities. First, it must be able to
account for both the more conventional BAH-organizations as well as those that are
non-traditional, or not generally thought of as an organization per se. Some of
these less obvious examples of organization might include such entities as
distributed communities of practice, ad hoc working groups – including
“skunkworks” operations – within the context of a traditional organization, trans-
38
national research networks, so-called virtual teams, World of Warcraft adventure
parties, conventions or conferences at various stages of their existence, activist
demonstrations perhaps happening simultaneously among various cities around
the world, and so forth.
Second, a new theory of organization should be able to explain issues and
problematics associated with organizational change, including mergers,
acquisitions, divestitures, restructuring, large-scale layoffs, rapid expansion
programs, and the like, especially as they pertain to clashes among differing
corporate cultures, for example. The explanations should be accomplished within
the framework vocabulary of the theory itself, rather than by analyzing the
situation in isolation. Similarly, to have wide applicability and utility, a new
organizational theory should be able to provide useful guidance for policy and
procedural decisions within an organization in a way that explicitly acknowledges
the complex connectedness that is characteristic of an increasingly UCaPP world.
The contemporary organizational theory literature is rife with postbureaucratic, and post-hierarchical, proposals, agendas, case studies, and critical
examinations. They are all, of historical necessity, grounded in the world of BAH.
Thus, a fourth criterion for the new theory is that it cannot use language that is
informed, influenced by, or referentially beholden to, bureaucracy, administrative
control, or hierarchy.
To find evidence that supports the emergence of a new, fundamental theory
of organization that will be consistent with the dominant environment of
interpersonal engagement, that is, consistent with the Toronto School of
39
Communication theory, I have recently conducted an ethnographic study across a
broad range of organization types. Conventional thinking has traditionally
suggested that industry sector divisions, or market conditions, or profit objectives
are useful and determinant discriminators relative to organizational analysis.
However, in light of the main thrust of this chapter – that the dominant conception
of organization in each historical context corresponds to the dominant effects of
the structuring mode of communication in that cultural era – such discriminators
must be called into question. Under UCaPP conditions, one would expect to find
commonality among organizations that exhibit characteristics and behaviours more
consistent with contemporary times – irrespective of sector, objectives and similar
designators – and commonalities among organizations that are more-BAH in their
natures.
The participant organizations include a Fortune 50 multinational
corporation in the technology sector, a four-year-old start-up company that offers
web-based services, a marketing, branding and advertising corporation based in
New York that is part of an international conglomerate, a social justice nongovernmental organization that is explicitly organized according to feminist
principles, and a provincial ministry in Canada.
Consider the similar natures of two of the participating organizations. They
both espouse and have established normative behaviours to practice a culture of
collaboration among their members, irrespective of individual status, hierarchical
position or seniority in the organization, or relative experience. In each case, the
most junior among the employees are often “invited to the table” to fully
40
participate in significant decision-making processes together with the most senior.
They each distinguish between collaboration and simple teamwork. In the context
of a more traditional BAH-organization, teamwork is grounded in ensuring an
appropriate flow of information and knowledge. Each person participating in a
team effort can justify their presence based on a predetermined need and a
perceived potential to contribute to satisfying that need. On the other hand, true
collaboration accompanies the notion that certain participants’ contributions may
not be known beforehand, but their participation is likely to be beneficial to an
emergent outcome. According to one participant, collaborators are “like minded …
willing to at least ask the same questions, even if we’re not coming up with the
same answers.”
Both organizations have a culture of “checking in” rather than “checking
up,” in which there is collective accountability and responsibility for outcomes and
subsequent effects of actions, rather than individuals being held to account.
Individual performance is not so much based on objective, quantifiable measures,
or attainment of predetermined objectives (although these are not excluded from
consideration), but rather qualitatively, on how well other members of the
organization perceive the individual is collaborating and contributing to the
success of the enterprise. There is considerable autonomy and individual agency
afforded to individual members; it is institutionally easy to initiate and gain
support for initiatives, with a minimum of bureaucratic or administrative
procedure. Finally, there is a strong and explicit rejection of the “command and
control” style of leadership – both overt command and control from legitimated
41
leaders in the organization, and the more subtle concertive control described by
Barker (1993).
Despite their similarities, according to conventional descriptors, these two
organizations could not be more dissimilar. One organization is Inter Pares, a
globally operating, social justice NGO based in Ottawa, explicitly organized and
managed according to feminist principles. It is a not-for-profit agency that is
politically active, tending to work with marginalized and oppressed peoples – most
often women – in the emerging world. Their thematic foci tend to be related to
issues like water autonomy, sustainable agriculture, community rebuilding after
war, and similar humanitarian endeavours. The other organization is Unit 7, a
direct marketing and advertising agency in New York City, and part of Omnicom –
the largest advertising, marketing, branding, and public relations conglomerate in
the world. Unit 7 is a for-profit corporation, tending to work with some of the
largest, capitalistic industries and organizations in the U.S., including
pharmaceuticals, financials, health care, industrials, and manufacturing. It would
be challenging to explain the behavioural and cultural similarities between Inter
Pares and Unit 7 according to a form-follows-function approach characteristic of a
BAH conception of organization. Fortunately, that approach is not necessary:
society has crossed the “break boundary” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 38) of the nexus
period between the “Gutenberg Galaxy” and the UCaPP era.
42
The reversal in outlook that occurs across a cultural break boundary is both
stunning and remarkable for its simultaneous simplicity and profundity8. For
organization specifically, the reversal becomes evident in the transformation of its
raison d’être. The BAH-organization is purposeful, that is, to accomplish
predetermined objectives and outcomes that follow and fulfil the organizational
vision. In reversal, the UCaPP-organization participates in and contributes to the
effects of complex interactions enabled under contemporary conditions of
ubiquitously connectivity and pervasive proximity. It reflects the corresponding
changes from an eventual future representing separation in time and space to the
immediacy and presence of the present, from planned outcomes to direct and
indirect effects, from vision as the dominant sensory metaphor to one that is more
consistent with immediacy and effect – touch. The almost obligatory, sometimes
bordering on narcissistic, vision statement – answering, when, where and how do
we see ourselves – transforms on the contemporary side of the break boundary to
the tactility statement: a thoughtful and contextually considered response to, who
do we want to touch, and how do we want to touch them, today?
Margaret Wheatley observes the phenomenon of transiting through the
contemporary period of change when she writes, “here we sit in the Information
Age … trying to make senses of the complexity that continues to grow around us. …
8
A number of McLuhan’s books after Understanding Media deal with the issues and effects
of reversal. For example, Take Today: The executive as dropout (1972, with Barrington
Nevitt), and War and Peace in the Global Village (1968, with Quentin Fiore) both consider
the disruptive reversal effects of an instantaneously interconnected world. For a more
analytical treatment of the nature of reversal, see Laws of Media (1988, with Eric
McLuhan), especially Chapters 3 and 5.
43
Quantum physicists observe connections between particles that transcend space
and time … our acts of observation change what we see” (1992, p. 145). Complex
interactions enabled by the dominance of instantaneous, multi-way electronic
communications lead Manuel Castells (1996) to reframe organizational trajectory
from vertical to horizontal, enabling the emergence of the network enterprise.
Mark Granovetter (1973) describes “the strength of weak ties” that demonstrates
the efficacy of indirect, networked relationships in a large social network for
diffusion of information and influence. Even my earlier research (Federman,
2005c) demonstrates that, with respect to individual intrinsic motivation in the
workplace, it’s not what you do, but how you interact while doing it, that counts.
They are these various descriptions of the characteristic phenomenon of
fundamental cultural change in our society that have been voiced by various of my
research participants, perhaps best summed up in this observation: “Where we
[think] we are going to influence the world, what we’re also finding is that parts of
the world are influencing us” (“Roger” – a pseudononymous participant). Those
that touch cannot help but be touched.
Indeed, they are relationships, connections and emergent effects, far more
than defined boundaries, production processes, functions and responsibilities, that
seem to be more apropos with respect to understanding contemporary
organization. As McLuhan describes in the opening to Understanding Media, it is
“depth of involvement … and human association that our preceding mechanical
technology had destroyed” (1964, p. 7) that is key to understanding the reversal.
Thus, in terms of organization, there may be a useful vocabulary of relationship
44
that frames its nature and characteristics using the concept of valences – the
capacity to connect, unite, react or interact with – among both individuals and
other organizations. Thus, I provisionally define Organization as that emergent
form resulting from two or more individuals, or two or more organizations, or
both, that share multiple valences at particular strengths, with particular
pervasiveness, among its component elements at a particular time.
Certain valences come quickly to mind based on common experience and
certain literature that has attempted to account for organizational behaviour.
These include relationships that are economic, socio-psychological, knowledge,
identity, and ecological in nature. More specifically:

Economic valence relationships represent connections or bonds
established among individuals, organizations, or both founded on
exchanges of value – goods, services, commodities, money, and
combinations among these;

Socio-psychological valence relationships represent emotional and
psychological connections, be they positive or negative in effect. These
are affective bonds that might account for volunteerism, charitable
works, emotional or psychological dependencies, feelings of security or
insecurity, intrinsic motivation and demotivation, and the like;

Knowledge valence relationships refer to connections established on the
basis of exchanges of experience, expertise, skills and learning, both
what an individual might bring to an organization, and what an
organization might provide to the individual or another organization. In
45
the contemporary discourse of the so-called knowledge economy,
knowledge is often constructed as a commodity in a primarily economic
exchange. However, this consideration itself may enable a researcher to
usefully problematize the concept of knowledge economy, as well as shed
light on the nature of organizational valences themselves, as will be
considered later in this chapter;

Identity valence relationships reflect the observation that individuals
construct their identity partly on the basis of their associations with
organizations in which they are members, and an organization constructs
its identity partly on the basis of its individual and collective associations
with its members, be they individuals or other organizations; and

Ecological valence relationships respect the reality that organizations do
not form in an environmental vacuum, but rather are in relation with the
natural environment, and therefore exchange energy with, and occupy
space in their terrestrial surroundings. Including Ecological valence
relationships among the foundational organizational relationships may
facilitate minimizing externalities among a collection of interacting
organizations.
These five valence relationships among individuals, organizations, and
environments – economic, socio-psychological, knowledge, identity and ecological
– express organization’s tactility: the effects organization creates within its total
environment, in other words, the complex sphere of its influence. How well the
actual direct and indirect effects match organization’s expressed tactility
46
intentions, and how well both feedback and feedforward loops inform
organization’s ability to express and enact those intentions, reflect organization’s
effect-iveness in the contemporary context – literally, the measure and
management of effects, the expression of tactility. These concepts, together with
the aforementioned definition comprise the Valence Theory of Organization.
The contemporary era has been called the knowledge economy – a term
popularized, if not coined, by Peter Drucker. In The Age of Discontinuity, he writes:
From an economy of goods, which America was as recently as World
War II, we have changed into a knowledge economy. ... Today the
centre [of the American work force] is the knowledge worker, the man
or woman who applies to productive work ideas, concepts, and
information rather than manual skill or brawn. ... this group will
embrace the majority of Americans at work in the civilian labor force.
(Drucker, 1969, p. 263-264)
McLuhan describes how “automation” creates a consolidation, a
reintegration of previously fractured and fragmented human interaction via
knowledge: “Automation creates roles for people, which is to say depth of
involvement in their work and human association that our preceding mechanical
technology had destroyed” (1964, p. 7). He goes on to explain the role of
information in this contemporary reversal: “Automation is information and it not
only ends jobs in the world of work, it ends subjects in the world of learning. It
does not end the world of learning. The future of work consists of learning a living
in the automation age” (p 346). Similarly, Nonaka, Toyama and Konno cite no
47
fewer than fourteen sources to support their claim that “management scholars
today consider knowledge and the capability to create and utilise knowledge to be
the most important source of a firm’s sustainable competitive advantage. The
raison d’être of a firm is to continuously create knowledge” (2000, p. 5-6).
In the Valence Theory of organization knowledge is but one of the five
bonding relationships. It may be easy to understand how the acceleration of
communication via networked, electronic technologies seems to preference
information and knowledge. After all, it is information that is readily transmitted
via such communication technologies – the content of communication channels.
However, McLuhan reminds us that the “content of a medium is like the juicy piece
of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind” (1964, p. 18).
Rather, one must pay attention to the message of a medium: “the change of scale or
pace or pattern that [a technology] introduces into human affairs” (p. 8). This, and
contemplating how information seems to be preferentially elevated in stature by
some management writers, raises an interesting consideration.
Authors around the world, from Drucker (1969) in the U.S. to Nonaka and
his various collaborators (1995; 1998; 2000) in Japan, argue that knowledge has
become among the most precious of value-creating commodities for the
contemporary organization. To be sure, it is often the case that an individual
worker has only his or her knowledge, experience and expertise to offer an
employer; the employer, in return, offers opportunities, experiences and the ability
to expand his or her expertise through acquiring knowledge as key elements in the
“employability contract” (Manville & Ober, 2003). In Valence Theory terms, then,
48
how does one distinguish between knowledge that has become commodified and
sold as the product of one’s labour – that is, a fungible commodity that should
rightly be accounted for by the Economic valence relationship – and Knowledge
that is itself a distinct valence relationship, creating connection and bonds among
individuals and organization?
Nonaka’s treatment of knowledge in organizational terms offers a clue to
this conundrum. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), and Nonaka and Konno (1998) apply
the Japanese philosophical concept of ba – translated as “place” – to their
exploration of the places and processes through which knowledge is created in an
enterprise. In fact, they “have adapted it for the purpose of elaborating our model
of knowledge creation. For those unfamiliar with the concept, ba can be thought of
as a shared space for emerging relationships” (1998, p. 40).
Nonaka borrows the concept of ba from Nishida Kitaro. Nishida is often
considered the father of contemporary Japanese philosophy, as he was the first to
synthesize a philosophy that is indicative if not exemplary of the effects of
pervasive proximity, namely juxtaposition of diverse contexts. Nishida was able
“to generate a creative synthesis of Eastern and Western philosophy … includ[ing]
but go[ing] beyond the demonstrative thinking that is characteristic of the West
and both arrive at unobjectifiable ultimate reality and give it a logical articulation
by conceptually expressing the inexpressible” (Nishida, 1990, p. x). Nishida
introduces the concept of basho, the place of engagement in which self recognizes
and engages other, and thereby comes into being from a state of “absolute
nothingness” (1970, p. 44). It is a place of “pure experience,” in which “knowledge,
49
feeling and volition are undifferentiated. Ultimate reality is not merely known
cognitively but also felt or realized emotionally and volitionally. The unity of
intellectual knowledge and practical emotion-volition is the deepest demand of
human beings, and it indicates the living ultimate reality” (1990, p. xviii).
Nishida (1970) begins with the individual – the self – and how, in true Zen
fashion, the self is at once self-determining and determined by basho in relation, in
effect, crossing Zen with Buber’s I-thou:
Self-consciousness exists at the point where the self sees itself in
itself. It exists at the point where the place (basho) is selfdetermining. But to see the self in the self would seem to be
impossible. … Yet it must still be determined by other individuals in
one respect. … The individual person, being a truly self-determining
individual, is determined by such a place. (Nishida, 1970, p. 44-45)
He goes on to explain the action of basho in the determination – emergence
in more contemporary language – of existence in relation:
Mutually determining individuals require some spatial relationship in
which they exist, i.e., something like an absolute space. This is a field
in which they determine one another. … And if, on the contrary,
something wholly external to the self itself is conceived, it could
neither be related to the self nor function in opposition to the self. For
in order for there to be the mutual determination of individuals, the
50
external must be internal and the internal must be external. (Nishida,
1970, p. 47)
Remarkably, in this mind-bending description, Nishida seems to be
expressing the very contemporary notion of autopoiesis in systems theory.
Autopoiesis was first proposed by Maturana and Varela (1980) and described by
Capra (1996) as systems that are self-bounding, self-generating and selfperpetuating, rather than being constructed according to an externally imposed
structure.
Nishida continues: “[Self-determination] must rather signify a place in
which things are mutually determining, which is, as it were, a physical space of
personal action. … In it, process has the meaning of a place and the place has the
meaning of process” (1970, p. 47-48; emphasis added). The processes to which
Nishida refers can be interpreted to mean the relational processes from which the
“mutual determination” of individuals and places-of-engagement emerge. Hence,
the concept of basho can be thought of as being the ur-place, so to speak, from
which ba-forms of valence relationships emerge to create connections and
interactions among people that at once determine and are determining – in other
words, to create emergent organization.
Thus, one can distinguish between a ba-form of valence relationship and its
corresponding fungible form (f-form). This distinction – supported by the empirical
evidence from the research study – answers the earlier question of how to
understand the two types of knowledge, one that is commodity and one that
contributes to the emergence of organization. Whereas fungible knowledge – f-
51
Knowledge – is a more instrumental commodity for which one might be financially
compensated as an employee, Knowledge-ba is information, experience, expertise
and wisdom that one contributes to create an environment amenable for
collaboration, individual autonomy and agency, and collective responsibility – all
characteristics shared by organizations subjectively deemed to be more-UCaPP,
that is more consistent with contemporary circumstances.
The evidence9 suggests that there are both fungible- and –ba forms for each
of the valence relationships. The fungible forms are primarily instrumental in
nature, and tend to be more isolated in their effects with respect to the other
valence connections in a given organization. On the other hand, the –ba forms of
valence relationships tend to be more interconnected in complex networks of
effects among each other. For the other valence relationships:

Economic: f-Economic has been the predominant valence relationship
through the modern era, and tends to dominate management discourse. It
is, of course, the mutual exchange of goods and services, the value
provided by both individuals and organizations. Economic-ba acts in
reversal in a reflexive manner, reflecting how an individual’s (or
reciprocally, organization’s) contribution is valued by those with whom
the individual (or organization) is in relation.

Identity: Identity-ba reflects the sense of belonging, community and
inclusiveness that organization members experience by virtue of being a
9
Preliminary at the time of this writing. Some aspects are as yet speculative based on early
analyses, pending a more in-depth review of the data.
52
member. f-Identity reflects the value of the tacit endorsement that
membership in organization suggests.

Socio-psychological: Socio-psychological-ba reflects the overall affective
connection that is created in spaces of engagement. It may correspond to
intrinsic motivation based on the effects that one creates within one’s
individual or collective environment (Federman, 2005c). In contrast, fSocio-psychological valence reflects aspects of extrinsic motivation or
psychological behavioural manipulation, for example, when an individual
is strongly encouraged to identify and align him/herself with the
organization (Gee, Hull, Lankshear, 1996).

Ecological: By f-Ecological, I refer to the exchange of energy that
characterizes “deep ecology” (Daly & Cobb, 1989; Daly, 2004) and the
more relational view of sustainability. Arguably, the Brundtland
Commission (World Commission, 1987) definition of sustainability and
various “greening” initiatives such as so-called carbon footprint
offsetting actually create f-Economic and f-Socio-psychological valence
bonds rather than any form of Ecological valence relationship. Ecologicalba may reflect the effects of organizations’ collective engagement with
public space and the physical environment. Perhaps reflecting the
relative newness and lack of true engagement with Ecological issues – for
example, most organizational ecological initiatives tend to be adjunct to
53
the organization’s “mission” – there was scant evidence of the effects of
Ecological valence relationships that emerged from the study’s data.
Contemporary enterprises are very rarely, if ever, all BAH or all UCaPP in
their behaviours. Rather, one might conceive of a spectrum of behaviours that span
between the polarities of BAH and UCaPP, with individual organizations expressing
tendencies that locate them along the spectrum, sometimes more-BAH, sometimes
more-UCaPP in nature. Of the five participating organizations in the research
study, two subjectively appear to exhibit more-BAH tendencies and two exhibit
more-UCaPP tendencies. One organization, in the midst of considerable growth
during the year of the study, is in the middle of the spectrum. As an
entrepreneurship, the initial members of that organization chose to create a
corporate culture that was more consistent with UCaPP behaviours. However, in
facing extremely rapid growth in its membership among those members10 that are
commonly considered to be customers and employees, the organization is facing
pressures to become more isomorphic with conventional organizations, and thus
has begun to adopt more-BAH behaviours in many aspects of its operations.
Those organizations that exhibit more-BAH tendencies also express
considerably stronger f-forms of the valence relationships, with fewer interactions
among the valence relationships themselves. For example, participants from the
government ministry reported extreme BAH behaviours among various anecdotes
in a variety of contexts. Not surprisingly, the various valence connections to the
10
Given the definition of organization in terms of two or more individuals, or
organizations, or both that share multiple valences, those who have been considered as
54
government ministry organization appeared to be systematically isolated one from
the other. For example, there was neither satisfaction nor motivation (Sociopsychological valence) reported relative to providing valuable service (Economic
valence) among members with any significant length of tenure; some experienced
individuals were reluctant to admit being a member of this organization in social
circumstances (negation of Identity valence) – and the valence relationships
themselves were exclusively fungible in nature.
Economic connections tend to predominate in more-BAH organizations, with
other relationship forms taking subordinate priority. In contrast, organizations
judged to be more-UCaPP in nature demonstrate more examples of the ba-forms of
valence relationships, with a multiplicity of complex interactions among the
various valences, interlinking effects of Economic, Socio-psychological, Identity,
and Knowledge relationships among each other. The relative importance of the
various valences in influencing decisions and day-to-day practices tend to be
considerably more balanced among the more-UCaPP organizations, exemplified in
hiring practices, individual performance evaluation, and the relationships forged
with those organizational members commonly called customers and suppliers.
Reflecting on the notion of “knowledge economy,” and the extreme emphasis
among the management literature on f-Knowledge as economic commodity, it is
clear that such a construction represents the application of a BAH ground to the
figure of instantaneous, multi-way communication technology as the current,
dominant form of human engagement. Indeed, if the medium of Valence Theory has
separate constituencies among employees, customers and suppliers would all equally be
55
validity and usefulness according to the Toronto School thesis, the “knowledge
economy” and its concomitant adjuncts – knowledge worker, knowledge
management and the like – reflect Marshall McLuhan’s aphorism, that “the first
use of a new medium is always a replay of an old one. To solve unemployment by
replaying the old work and job patterns in the new information environment is the
natural impulse of all ‘practical’ men with their feet on the ground.11” (McLuhan &
Nevitt, 1972, p. 230). Those managers – indeed, almost all who have been involved
in any sort of leadership or managerial capacity in formal, informal and nonformal organizations of any kind – were socialized in modernity prior to the break
boundary of the UCaPP era. They would therefore use the instrumentality of the
new medium – a means to efficiently move and commodify information – to
reconstruct industrial manufacturing in a new way. Industrialization of
information reconstitutes bureaucracy, administrative control and hierarchy into a
knowledge economy, together with the resulting culture and values of the old
medium, namely, the space of the Gutenberg Galaxy.
From BAH to ba: Organization of the future
In a Valence Theory conception of organization, traditional fractioning and
fragmenting designations tend to be largely irrelevant to understanding behaviours
members of a Valence Theory constructed organization.
11
McLuhan’s use of the word “ground” is a characteristic play on words. Having one’s “feet
on the ground” refers to being anchored and rooted in either practical, mundane matters,
or being resistant to change – having “feet of clay.” Additionally, McLuhan uses the word
“ground” to refer to the context in which these apparently practical men were socialized –
the world of mechanization and industrialization arising from the Gutenberg Galaxy.
56
and informing decision making. Thus, polar designators such as for-profit vs. notfor-profit, private vs. public sector, corporate vs. volunteer, legitimated vs. ad-hoc
organizations often become counterproductive limitations on the scope of decision
possibilities. In a more-UCaPP organization that would endeavour to find balance
among ba-valence considerations, decision makers have a wider range of feasible
courses of action than would be available to them predicated on more traditional
conceptions of the purposeful organization. Certainly, evidence shows that Valence
Theory enables more diverse considerations to be equitably included in decisionmaking conversations.
Valence Theory also provides a richer vocabulary with which to understand
and anticipate the complex effects of decisions taken. It tends to illuminate issues
of individual and collective motivators and demotivators among all members, and
is thus more effective at identifying potentially problematic issues of
organizational culture. Because it focuses on interpersonal engagement, dynamics
and relationships, Valence Theory provides a particularly useful lens with which to
understand organizational change. In particular, Valence Theory allows one to
more precisely characterize the differences between more-BAH organizations –
those that are closer to the Industrial Age in their expressed behaviours – and
more-UCaPP organizations – those more consistent with today’s circumstances. The
following chart compares and contrasts aspects of more-BAH and more-UCaPP
organizations.
More-BAH Organizations
Organizations are primarily purposeful; all other
More-UCaPP Organizations
Organizations are primarily relational, with the
57
considerations are secondary to the mission and
purpose, mission, and tactility being emergent from
primarily economic considerations.
the relationships among the specific people and
organizations that comprise the membership.
Organizations have well-defined boundaries.
Organizations are contingent and constantly in flux,
with the actual constituents at any time depending
on the context.
Costs are externalized as much as possible.
Costs are, by definition, internal to the organization
via f-Economic valence, and therefore must be
completely and collectively accounted for.
People are interchangeable so long as they have
People, by definition, cannot be interchangeable
appropriate qualifications; the “office” or function
since changing the people changes the nature of
sustains.
the valence relationships, and therefore changes
the organization.
Individual humanity (e.g., expressed by one’s direct
Individual humanity scales consistently through
superior) scales to collective callousness (e.g.,
feedback and feedforward effects, and complex
expressed organization-wide, often in the name of
interactions among the valences (especially SP-ba,
fairness).
and I-ba).
Privileged class is exclusively involved in decision-
Decision making is collaborative, with the most
making (i.e., some people are thinkers, others are
effective decisions coming from heterogeneous
doers).
groups that change from time to time.
Command and control management; the most
The most effective form of leadership and power is
effective form of power is coercive (via reward and
referent. Command and control management
punishment).
cannot be effective without damaging the fabric of
ba-form relationships.
Individuals are systemically disempowered via the
Change begins where it begins, with systems of
notion of “change begins at the top.” The myth of
individual and collective autonomy and agency
58
hierarchical merit is linked to a patriarchal social
being institutionally supported. With a strong sense
and class model, leading to the so-called Peter
of organization-ba, when no one is in charge,
Principle12.
everyone is in charge.
“Work” and “life” are mutually exclusive. Work-life
Work and life are integral. Work-life balance is
balance is measured by the time not being spent in
achieved when individual members and their
one or the other pursuit.
personal values are validated by how their
organizational contributions are truly valued.
In some ways, the organization of Ancient Athenian democracy shares
characteristics with contemporary UCaPP organization. Individuals tend to feel
stronger intrinsic bonds to the organization that reciprocally tends to better
integrate economic endeavours with other important aspects everyday experience.
Individuals seem to have greater autonomy, agency, and stake in the overall
outcome in both of these organization forms that are, remarkably, over 3,000 years
apart in time. The UCaPP organization that is consistent with contemporary times
is, as McLuhan anticipates, a retrieval of an “older, previously obsolesced ground
[that] is brought back and inheres in the new form” (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1988, p.
99). Between the ancient and contemporary, the fragmentation, separation and
specialization that are reversals characteristic of environments of phonetic, and
later, print literacies, enabled the BAH world to emerge in a manner consistent
with the discourse of the Toronto School of Communication.
12
“In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.” The
principle was coined by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter in his eponymous, 1968 book, written with
Raymond Hull.
59
The modern BAH organization focused strongly on controlling workers’
behaviours and identities, and by extension, controlling the behaviours and
identities of people throughout society. Decade by decade through the 20th century,
this approach transformed into what might be considered more humanistic means
of control, but always with the objective of first serving the predominantly
economic aims of organization, and those in hierarchically superior classes,
primarily defined in strictly economic terms (Gee, Hull & Lankshear, 1996; Kelly,
2001).With a fundamental reversal of conception of organization, from a functional
or purposeful focus to one that first considers human interactions and
interpersonal dynamics, every aspect of management practice can be probed,
questioned and potentially changed.
The research from which Valence Theory emerges suggests that the ensuing
changes in practice can be accomplished without necessarily compromising
acceptable and respectful economic performance. Rather than living in a world in
which people are wittingly or unwittingly controlled by organizations, a Valence
Theory conception of organization reverses this dysfunctional dynamic, enabling
people to be in charge of creating relationships and perceiving effects in the
context of our contemporary UCaPP world.
60
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