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11-13 June 2009, Pissouri, Cyprus
Conveners:
Tor Hernes, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark th.ioa@cbs.dk
Sally Maitlis, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia,
Canada,
maitlis@sauder.ubc.ca
Haridimos Tsoukas, ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece &
University of Warwick, UK,
htsoukas@alba.edu.gr
Abstracts listed in numerical order
2/68
PROS-005
Sensemaking In Three Modes: High Flyers In The French Air Force
Max Boisot, Catherine Thomas, Valerie Merindol, Evelyne Rouby, David Versailles
Abstract
High reliability organizations, implicitly maximize reliability while treating performance as a
constraint. Yet we find situations in which it is high reliability that needs to be treated as the
constraint while performance is to be maximized. This yields a dynamic that differs from those in
which reliability is maximized. The need for a trade-off between performance and reliability – the
recent financial crisis provides one example - injects a level of tension in the system that adds to an
agent’s sense making load. In this paper we explore the issue by looking at two distinct situations: 1)
where reliability requirements trump performance requirements; 2) where performance requirements
trump reliability requirements.
After briefly reviewing the relevant literature our paper develops a theoretical framework
that will help us to explore the issue. To ground our discussion, it then offers two case studies of
French air force pilots. One, focusing on air displays, describes a highly demanding collaborative
undertaking by one of the world’s foremost air display squadrons, the Patrouille de France. The other,
focusing on combat, describes a collaborative response between pilots under adversarial conditions,
ones in which they are jointly required to confront an enemy. Both cases require different trade-offs
between performance and reliability.
The paper then discusses the sense making implications of our study. Mindfulness allocates
scarce resources of attention to competing claims. An exclusive requirement for high reliability
implicitly erodes the legitimacy of competing claims – such as those for high performance. It secondranks them. The opportunity cost incurred on the performance front is judged acceptable given what
is at stake on the reliability front. In this paper we are interested in situations in which high reliability
is no longer the default assumption, in which a failure of performance can be as consequential as a
failure of reliability. We argue that in such situations the nature of the frame that is brought to bear
on the situation will change. In particular, we expect to see the trade off at work in the way that
mindfulness now has to be allocated to competing requirements, sometimes drawing upon a severely
constrained attention budget. Making good use of that budget requires integrating three types of
knowledge: 1) embodied, 2) narrative, 3) abstract-symbolic.
We find that where the interaction between agents is wholly collaborative – the air display case –
high performance and high reliability can work in tandem so that the trade-off between them is not
too demanding and can be routinized, releasing attentional resources for investing in the refinement of
performance Where, by contrast, agent interaction is collaborative but constrained by adversarial
conditions – the air combat case - the trade off between high performance and high reliability is much
more difficult to reach and to stabilize. Routinization here becomes more elusive and claims on the
attentional resources of agents will be much greater. The scope for sense making will thus differ as
between the two situations. We distinguish three modes of sense making: 1)The expected expected –
cognitive models are aligned with the states of the world - they allow prediction and routines; 2) The
expected unexpected – cognitive models are partially aligned with the states of the world - they allow
anticipation and adaptation; 3) The unexpected unexpected – cognitive models are not aligned with the
states of the world - crisis follows
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PROS-006
A Process Theory Of Naturalistic Decision-Making In Emergency Management
Clive Smallman
Lincoln University, Faculty of Commerce, PO Box 84, Canterbury, New Zealand.
Email: clive.smallman@lincoln.ac.nz
John S. Ash
Cambridge University, Judge Business School, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1AG, United
Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Humans make decisions almost continuously in dynamically fluid processes. They often operate under
time constraints and may enjoy or suffer significant social and evaluative consequences. Decisions are
made based on the interpretation of a wide array of cues from each of the worlds of human existence.
Hence, decision-making is a complex psychosocial function in which physical, social, personal and
spiritual processes interact, interpreting physical, social, personal and spiritual cues to reciprocally
cause behaviours that in turn change the processes and cues from which they were born. Even allowing
the decisions made are momentarily synoptic, the true complexity of any decision is exacerbated by
the passage of time.
Based on this process ontology of decision-making, we consider an empirical study of the process of
emergency command. Drawing on social cognitive theory, social interactionismand naturalistic decisionmaking theory, we propose that an actor’s activity is defined through contextual processes that meet
with their internal needs and biography and that together these govern their intentions. Hence,
individuals operate in a broad system of processes, and an individual’s framing of this environment
develops in them a personal sense of action.
We observe in our subjects habitual relationships in the texture of processual interactions between
crew commanders, incident ground cues, resources and victims. Our observations reflect the
sensitivity of crew commanders to an open and dynamic experiential field, the resources available to
them, incumbent constraints, and their readiness to act. Hence, people in general construct their
worldview and produce continuity of action by subconsciously and consciously inquiring about context
and developing generalized ways of dealing with particular scenarios. Rescues may be similar, but are
always unique, inherently interesting, and their situational cues demand the attention of crew
commandeers, such that they become processes of inquiry and attempted control. Much of what crew
commanders do is trained habit, but, they also reflect upon habit, interpreting the unique attributes
of the context that they are presented with. Hence, they act based not just upon habit, but also
reflexively, and it seems that it may be the reflex actions that lead to high cost accidents.
We contend that habits reflect those elements of actions that are ‘rationalizable’, but that
reflexes are in response to ‘non-rationalizable’ tasks, and as an engineering task in which many ‘inputs
are inherently unpredictable’, emergency rescue is easily conceptualized as ‘non-rationablizable’.
Dominant within the field of non-rationality is the role of the victim, and our evidence strongly
demonstrates that it is the victim that in some cases renders emergency operations fundamentally
non-rationalizable. Furthermore, we find that this is what forces the breakdown of habits in the face
of actual situations. We contend that in some situations crew commanders lose perspective. Where
they should be neutral about setting and dynamically adjusting goals in a rescue whilst empathising
(seeing the issue through others perspectives) with their colleagues and the object of the rescue (the
‘victim’) instead they identify with their colleagues and the victim (their problems become the
commanders problems). Rationality disappears and poor decision making ensues.
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PROS-009
Absolutely Fabulous! Fabulation and Organisation-Creation in Processes of
Becoming-Entrepreneur
By Daniel Hjorth,
Affiliation: Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School
Email: Dhj.lpf@cbs.dk
Abstract
This paper seeks to apply a processual thinking of subjectivity in the study of ‘becoming entrepreneur’.
Through analysing Foucault’s idea of subjectification, by the help of Deleuze’s comments and
elaborations, I seek to clarify one of the mysteries in entrepreneurship research – the continuously
vanishing entrepreneur in processual studies of entrepreneurship. To avoid performative contradiction,
I try to contextualise this attempt in guiding principles provided by process-philosophy. Without a
process-view, ‘the subject’ as entity and self-constitutive res cogitans (thinking thing or mind) will take
priority over subjectivation, and we will loose our possibility to study the process of becoming-subject
in its own terms (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002). Understanding entrepreneurship as organisation-creation
(Vesper, 1980; Gartner; Katz and Gartner, 1988) I here add a processual conceptualisation to the
study of such processes. Drawing on previous emphases on the importance of the narrative-creative
side for actualising entrepreneurial ideas (Aldrich and Fiol, 1994; Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001; Gartner,
2007; Steyaert, 2007; Hjorth, 2007; Hjorth and Steyaert, 2004) this study also affirms this by
introducing the concept of fabulation as a narrative performance of imagination. The paper thus
theorises becoming-entrepreneur by the concepts of imagination, fabulation, and subjectification.
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PROS-015
Organizing as a rhetorical meta-process of relating
John Sillince,
Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow,
John.sillince@gsb.strath.ac.uk
This paper views organizing as a meta-process that relates the three processes of changing tropes,
orchestrating rhetorics and speaking in context.
Changing tropes.
The establishing, theorising, diffusing and destroying of enduring
constitutions, contracts and other means of fixing and thus reifying any acts of organizing is achieved
by means of a sequence of tropes. White (1985) has suggested that acts of organizing are socially
constructed in a sequence of tropes in the following order : metaphor (persuade people that a new
future reality has affinities with existing and familiar reality and thus persuade them that it is
possible to get from the present to the future reality), metonymy (persuade people that there is a
recipe that gets them to the new future reality), synecdoche (generalise from these small local actions
and so standardise the reality), and irony (call the new reality into question and so create the need for
a new inaugurating metaphor). So for example first there is thunder (metaphor of God’s anger), then
what can we do? (metonymic recipe of sacrifice), then how do we ensure someone doesn’t let the side
down and get us struck down by God’s anger? (synecdoche making sacrifice into a law), then negative
feedback (ironic awareness that sacrifice doesn’t stop the thunder). The irony trope takes us full
circle and destroys such arrangements in order to motivate the inauguration by metaphor of another
cycle.
Orchestrating rhetorics. Organizing involves rhetoric that emphasises context, switches
perspectives, creates consistency, and creates purpose. Based on a theoretical derivation of these
processes, Sillince (2005) has suggested that there are several rhetorical processes in organizations
that enable the development of rhetorical arguments about strategy. The process of emphasising
context makes rhetoric relevant and appropriate to circumstances by pointing to specific facts and
examples. The process of switching perspective acknowledges multiple viewpoints and interprets each
voice in a particular way by positioning, critiquing or affirming. The process of creating consistency
constructs rules, frameworks and systems and resolves conflicts using reasons, causes and means ends
arguments. The process of creating purpose uses expressions of intention and values to motivate
directed activity. Orchestrating rhetorics is ensuring each of these processes is given relative
prominence in the appropriate context and that the rhetorics keep the organization aligned with its
environment.
Speaking in context. Rhetoric is acted out as a drama that is theatrically contextualised,
where the context can be understood in terms of act (what is argued), scene (where and when is the
rhetoric used), agent (who was the source of the rhetoric, who was the audience), agency (how was the
audience persuaded) and purpose (why the problematic issue seems so important and urgent) (Burke,
1969).
I suggest that organizing is a meta-process that relates the three processes of changing
tropes, orchestrating rhetorics and speaking in context.
References
Burke, K. 1969. A grammar of motives. Berkeley CA. University of California Press.
Sillince J.A.A., 2005, A contingency theory of rhetorical congruence, Academy of Management Review,
30 (3), 608-621.
White, H. 1985. Tropics of discourse: essays in cultural criticism. Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins
University Press
6/68
PROS-016
Making Mundane Experience Sensible: A Relational Approach
Ann L Cunliffe
University of Hull
a.cunliffe@hull.ac.uk
Christine Coupland
Nottingham University Business School
Chris.Coupland@nottingham.ac.uk
Process philosophy has been garnering increasing attention in the field of organization studies, along with two main
debates: the nature of process ontology (e.g. Tsoukas & Chia, 2002) and how to capture the complexity of social
life from a process perspective (e.g. Schatzki, 2003). A key issue connecting both debates is how to avoid what
Bergson calls the mechanistic mode of the intellect – the dependence on rational, linear, episodic causality – to
explain the complex, emergent and interrelated nature of social phenomena. Much of the research in this field is
at the organizational level, examining strategy, change, decision making, learning, etc. processes, and takes an
entitative approach when examining the relationship between objects (such as systems, events and agents). We
wish to engage with these debates – but at a different level and from a different ontology – by focusing attention
on the process of sense making and meaning making as an integral part of our everyday interaction. We argue that
we make our lives sensible always in relation to others, and therefore sense making is an ongoing intersubjective
process, taking place in our mundane interactions. This requires a process ontology situated within a broadly social
constructionist perspective that emphasizes the relational and embodied nature of or lives.
Our relational orientation draws on the work of Merleau-Ponty, and Ricoeur, who see intersubjectivity as “the
presence of others in myself or of myself in others (Merleau-Ponty, 1964: 97), as two individuals always selves inrelation-to-others. From this perspective, sense making is a dialogical and dialectical process of interpretation in
which we make the mundane (our everyday experience) sensible. A process:

in which as we interpret our surroundings we are also enacting and interpreting ourselves (Ricoeur,
1976, 1992).

embedded in unique moments of dialogic and responsive interaction in which no one person is in
control (Bakhtin, 1986).

both retrospective and prospective involving interpretations of past, present and future possibilities.
which is dialectical – a complex interweaving of self-other, of retrospective and prospective,
intellectual and embodied, routine and creative, explicit and intuitive sense making.
We will illustrate our conceptual position with data from managers.

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PROS-018
How Giddens Structuration can become a Perspective of Continuity and
Change
La Rocca Santa
University of Bergamo and
Bergamo School of Management
ABSTRACT
From the Eighties the strategy field has moved into the practice domain taking its main inspiration
from Giddens’ structuration. Strategy research has then evolved focusing on instantiation as micro
strategizing. This research has deepened through other sociologies which however have often
disconfirmed critical sociology aim to overcome dualism. In fact, research has looked towards Gidden’s
institutional arguments about realms and dimensions, claiming to be following a process perspective,
while actually forgetting Giddens’ premise that those realms and dimensions temporary suspend the
inextricable structure-action interdependence. By exploring “The Constitution of Society” (Giddens,
1984) this paper underlines that structuration becomes a process ontology only by making daily
instantiation primary over ‘virtual’ structure. It also shows that Giddens’ instantiation realizes
continuity only by dealing in the middle place of practice with the incommensurability between the
structure’s power to enable/constrain actions and human power-to-do-otherwise. It also shows that
structuration looses the objectivity-subjectivity symmetry by assuming that the state of affair is
given and external to duality, since this assumption shadows the phenomenological side of the
structure-action dichotomy making it asymmetrical. This paper explores structuration inner
inconsistencies. It then adds some phenomenological literature which helps reconstituting the
practices-action symmetry, thus overcoming structuration inconsistencies, while providing some
philosophical justification of the middle place of instantiation that effectively responds to the
conflation critique. Life experience also provides structuration with an empirical style which enhances
its power to inspire process and practice research. Orr’s ethnography will be used to build related
practical arguments. Above all this paper shows that, by embedding the variability of life experience,
structuration can explain at the same time continuity and change. The strategizing discourse will
finally be the opportunity to underlie the impossibility to distinguish in the middle place of practice
strategic management from entrepreneurship.
PROS-019
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Being-in-the-world, practical rationality, and organizational research: Notes for theory development
Jörgen Sandberg - UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Australia
Haridimos Tsoukas - ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece & University of Warwick, UK
During the last three decades scholars and practitioners have expressed an increased dissatisfaction with existing
organizational theories’ capacity to explain and inform organizational practice. A particular concern is that existing theories
have limited relevance for organizational practice (Bartunek, Rynes, and Ireland 2006; Sandberg and Alvesson forthcoming;
Schön 1983; Starbuck 2006; Van de Ven 2007; Van de Ven & Johnson 2006), do not pay enough attention to process (Porter,
1991), while some scholars have even argued that many theories are not only of limited value but are even dangerous to
organizational practice (e.g., Goshal 2005).
In the paper we contend that a major reason behind the dissatisfaction with many organisational theories is that they have been
developed within the framework of scientific rationality. It makes them unable to capture and highlight how organizational
practice is constituted. This is because scientific rationality forces organizational scholars to impose a scientific logic on
practice, which is fundamentally different from the logic underlying practice. The aim of the paper is to elaborate practical
rationality as an alternative framework for theory development, and point out how such a framework enables us to develop
theories that capture the logic of practice in a more adequate way and, thus, be more relevant to organizational practice.
Several attempts to overcome the theory - practice discrepancy have been made, such as action research (Argyris and Schon
etc.) and the move from theory-driven to more problem-centred research (Novotony, Scott and Gibbons 2001; Van de Ven
2007). They are however likely to fail because they try to solve the theory – practice gap within scientific rationality. More
direct attempts to challenge the framework of scientific rationality also exist. Critical theorists, such as Habermas and
Horkheimer, and scholars in our own field like Alvesson and Willmott have criticized the scientific rationality framework for
several decades. Their critique has mainly focused on the negative consequences of scientific rationality, such as its tendency to
reduce human action to simple means-end instrumentality. Postmodernists have further challenged the idea of scientific
rationality, primarily by highlighting the ambiguous and context dependent character of knowledge.
There are, however, much older philosophical traditions that have not only provided a substantial critique of scientific
rationality but also developed alternative frameworks that specifically try to understand the logic underlying practice (cf. Dunne
1993). There are at least four such philosophical strands: The Aristotle tradition, phenomenology, pragmatism and Wittgenstein.
In this paper, we use these traditions as resources for elaborating practical rationality as an alternative framework for theory
development.
A core feature of scientific rationality is its assumption that human reality is constituted by specific entities (human beings,
material, artefacts, tools etc.) with particular properties that become related through human activities. From this follows the
assumption that the most basic form of knowing is the subject – object relation. Through that relation we develop knowledge
about aspects of our world in order to get by. Hence, human action and activities are seen as ultimately based on the knowledge
generated through the subject – object relation. This leads to the assumption that the logic of practice is constituted by that
relation. Scientific knowledge is typically regarded as superior to the one developed by practitioners as it has been developed
through scientific methods. It is therefore assumed that work practices can be substantially improved if they are based on
scientific knowledge. As Schön (1983:21) pointed out: “According to the view of technical rationality - the view of professional
knowledge which has most powerfully shaped both our thinking about the professions and the institutional relations of research,
education and practice – professional activity consists in instrumental problem solving made rigorous by the application of
scientific theory and technique”.
The philosophical traditions that we use for developing the framework of practical rationality challenge the scientific rationality
assumption that the epistemological subject – object relation constitutes the logic of practice. In his existential ontology, for
example, Heidegger shows that the subject – object relation is not our most basic form of knowing but being-in-the-world
(Heidegger 1962/1927: 49-58). It stipulates that we are inevitably intertwined with our world through our engagement in
specific ways of being-in-the-world, such as the practices of cooking, driving, parenting, teaching, managing, engineering, and
nursing. It is our ways of being-in-the-world that enable us to make sense of ourselves, others, and things we use, deal with and
encounter in our everyday activities. For example, in their existential ontological study of professional competence in corporate
law, Sandberg and Pinnington (in press) identified distinct ways of practising corporate law, which distinguished and integrated
specific self-understanding as lawyers, a range of work activities, other people such as clients and other lawyers, and tools like
legal resources, computers, and clothes into distinct forms of competence in corporate law. In other words, existential ontology
shows that the subject – object distinction presupposes our specific ways of being-in-the-world. Therefore, according to the
framework of practical rationality, what constitutes the logic of practice is not the epistemological subject – object relation but
the entwinement with our specific social practices.
The insight that the logic underlying practice is radically different from the one that underlies scientific rationality has major
implications for theory development within organization studies. It suggests that, in order to be able to develop theories more
relevant to practice, we need to shift framework for generating theories, from scientific rationality to practical rationality.
Such a shift enables us to develop more process-oriented accounts that pay attention to actors’ developing experience and their
modes of response. In particular, it brings us closer to understanding how organizational practice is constituted in its enactment
and performance over time. What such a shift implies more precisely for theory development and how theories developed within
the framework of practical rationality are more relevant to organizational practice will be further elaborated in the paper.
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PROS-021
Weak Cues And Attentional Triangulation: The Pearl Jam Concert Accident At
Roskilde Festival
Morten Thanning Vendelø
Copenhagen Business School
e-mail: mtv@cbs.dk
Claus Rerup
University of Western Ontario
Richard Ivey School of Business
e-mail: crerup@ivey.uwo.ca
Abstract
The onset of accidents in organizations often happen long before the actual event, suggesting that
the accidents could have been prevented if attention had been paid to weak cues signaling danger.
However, some accidents incubate in a matter of minutes or hours, making it harder to notice weak
cues and stop the event from unfolding.
In this paper, we use a multi-method historical ethnography of Roskilde Festival – an annual
Danish rock festival that attracts 80.000 people – to better understand how organizations can detect
and mitigate swiftly incubating accidents. Our data covers the festival from 1971 to 2008 with a
special emphasis on a swiftly incubating accident that occurred during a concert with Pearl Jam in
2000. Nine young men died during the incident. Our data include archival documents, semi-structured
interviews, training to be a security guard, and working as a security guard during five concerts.
The study makes several contributions. First, our elaboration of the concept of attentional
triangulation emphasizes that organizations operating in contexts that are prone to swiftly incubating
accidents can benefit from developing attentional structures that proactively help its members to
notice, interpret, and act on weak cues signaling danger. Second, we show how an organization through
a tragic rare event can learn to prevent future accidents by improving its quality of attentional
triangulation.
PROS-022
Sensemaking and instrument-mediation – The case of a hospital
10/68
Anja Kernand Philippe Lorino
In this article we analyze the role of instrument-mediation for sensemaking and instrument integration into human
activity as an organizational process or “organizational becoming” (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). While Weick’s concept of sensemaking
(Weick, 1969, 1979, 1995) opens the path way from an individual, mental and cognitive based understanding of organizing to one
as collective, open and enacted in communication, dialogue and action, his work does not develop the role of instrument-mediation
for this new understanding of organizing. To extent Weick’s concept by exploring the role of instrument-mediation for
sensemaking, we draw on results of a longitudinal field study and on general instrument-use theories from psychology (Vygotsky,
1930/1978) and philosophy (Cassirer, 1910/23, 1923/55, 1942/2000; Dewey, 1938/1980).
The latter theories have underlined the crucial role of instrument mediation for all intelligent human action. They
develop an understanding of human action in which artefacts do not determine meaning and action, but mediate it. Mediation
implies that artefacts are engaged in human beings’ collective action and this engagement creates their meaning for activity. In
this case artefacts are not objective and given substances, but they are transformed into instruments mediating activity
(Cassirer, 1910/23). Appropriating artefacts human groups appropriate the social, in the form of generic and culturally built
(Vygotsky, 1930/1978) ways of obtaining practical results (Dewey, 1938/1980), and transform it. As this process is inherently
interpretive, situated and collective, the meaning of artefacts is not given and fixed, but dynamic and evolving. Instruments are
designed during mediation. Instrument-mediation is enabling for activity. It activates cognitive abilities, creates a common
world, enables dialogue and communication, learning, development and emancipation. Thus artefacts may be instruments for
collective reflection. But this transformation of artefacts into instruments for collective reflection on activity is not given. This
research has the objective to explore more in-depth the role of instrument-mediation for sensemaking and more specifically the
process of how artefacts may or may not be transformed into instruments for sensemaking as collective reflection on activity.
In a three year longitudinal field study on the use of management accounting tools in the cardiology department of a
public hospital in France we analyzed situations of instrument-mediation. The focus of the analysis was how health care
professionals (clinicians and managers) at clinical unit level use these tools to manage day to day health care. Initially,
organizational members had intended to use these tools to analyze health care activity and improve efficiency. Achieving this
objective was not straightforward, but a highly complex task. One of the main problems organizational members were
confronted with was to find meaningful ways to integrate tools into daily health care activity.
On the basis of the field study we distinguish two types of situations. In the first type management accounting tools
were the objects of sensemaking and could not be transformed into means of mediation for sensemaking as collective reflection
on activity. In these situations, management accounting tools could not be integrated in meaningful ways within health care
activity. Management accounting tools were experienced as a bureaucratic constraint or even as machinery which produced
undesired effects, such as gaming or manipulation. Initially, professionals had no intention of gaming, but eventually they saw
themselves as the victims of perverse effects: they had to game, even if they did not want to, as this course of action was
dictated by the internal logic of the system. In turn, their perception of themselves as victims added to their feelings of
hostility towards and frustration about central management systems, viewed as impenetrable substances. Lack of dialogue, time
and resources, strict top-down management, and pressure for short-term results were linked with these situations.
In the second type of situation, management accounting tools could be integrated in meaningful ways within health care
daily activity. In these situations management accounting tools became means to reflect on and develop health care activity.
Values and objectives of health care were not pushed into the background for the sake of managerial objectives. Rather issues
such as quality of care came into the foreground. Quality and efficiency were not viewed as two different objectives imposing
trade off and choices, but they constituted one another. Management accounting tools, an example of organizational artifacts
which aggregate, fuse and link multiple processes over time and space into single indicators, provided a powerful tool for the
analysis of activities and the collective construction of meaning in contexts characterized by a high division of labour,
distributed practices and knowledge. As a common frame of reference, management accounting tools helped to raise issues of
coordination and articulation between practices and departments. Instrument-mediation supported collective inquiries across
departments and professions, and the construction of plausible stories on activity (Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld, 2005). By
triggering doubt and surprise, hypothesis building, inquiries and storytelling, instrument-mediation enabled organizational
members to reflect on their activity. Through inquiries instruments were developed. Indicators which were initially not
considered as relevant for an analysis of activity became the focus of inquiries. As hypotheses, inquiries, stories and reflection
developed, so did the instrument. Through instrument-mediation activity was imagined differently and redesigned. In those
cases instrument-mediation led to the development of health care activity. It appeared that artifacts could be transformed into
instruments mediating activity if those who carry out the evaluated activities had an active participation in inquiries and in
building plausible stories. Dialogue was thus a condition for effective and enabling instrument-mediation (Adler and Borys, 1996).
This has implications for research and the practice of organizing. Effective organizing requires that organizational
artefacts such as management accounting tools are not only nor mainly used for control or decision-making in the usual sense,
but are transformed into instruments mediating sensemaking, through collective inquiries into practice and the collective
construction of stories. Then they can become major modes of coordinating, articulating, learning and development. As
instruments are actually redesigned when used, dialogue with the designers of central management tools and feedback from
users are essential. It is crucial to overcome the view that management tools are merely a means for sensemaking among
managers or accountants. Artifacts can only be transformed into instruments for sensemaking if inquiries and stories are
collectively conceived across practices, units and professions, such as physicians, nurses and hospital managers. In those crossfunctional settings, the practical meaning of management tools is not the simple result of deliberate managerial action, but the
emerging outcome of complex organizational processes of interaction. Research about management tools should focus on those
situated processes of sensemaking mediation across boundaries.
11/68
PROS-024
The Flesh and Blood of Administration: Questioning the Either-Or Distinction Between
Technical Rationality and Improvisation in Organizing
Erlend Dehlin
Associate Professor
Trondheim Business School
Email: erlend.dehlin@hist.no
Mob: +47 93 40 94 98
Abstract
The principal matter for this paper is to study theoretically and empirically the either-or distinction
between technical rationality and improvisation in everyday organizing processes. Firstly, on the basis
of a practical philosophical investigation of improvisation and technical rationality, the paper offers an
elaborate framework for understanding organizing under the heading “improvising man”. The essential
postulate underpinning this framework is that improvisation can be seen as a cornerstone of all
organizing. Resulting from this is an image of organizing as a process of improvisation which in practice
might involve using technical rationality as a sensemaking tool, something which defies a categorical
separation between the two.
Secondly, as a further exploration of the practical intricacies between improvisation and technical
rationality, the paper presents a qualitative ethnographic study of how administrative activities relate
to improvisation in everyday organizing. A combination of shadowing and interviewing eight department
managers and one section manager at a major Norwegian hospital has allowed the construction of
multiple narratives which deepen the theoretical aspects of “improvising man”, and which supports the
speculation that administration and improvisation are not separate traits. Even if they differ on a
conceptual level, improvisation is on a practical level found to be a cornerstone of everyday organizing
which might involve technical rationality through the contextual utilization of administrative tools such
as plans, structures and systems. Organizing is not found to be a matter of either employing
improvisation or not doing so. It is not found to be a question of either employing technical rationality
or not, or of imposing administrative measures or not. Rather, organizing is found to be a process of
improvisation where one can make use of these and utilize them intelligently in the unique and
emergent setting at hand to ensure (technical) workability. Lastly, and normatively, the study suggests
that good organizing can be found in improvisation, which involves acting sensibly in the emerging
context of which oneself is the co-author. The source of effectiveness lies in the spontaneously
constructed here-and-now, which continuously conveys social and physical elements determining what is
workable and not. As a consequence technical rational models should not be seen as restraint-jackets,
but as tools of improvisation to be used with caution.
12/68
PROS-026
Strategic Change In Pluralistic Environments: A Process Perspective
Winston Kwon
Research Fellow
Centre for Strategic Management
Lancaster University Management School
Lancaster, LA1 4YX, UK
w.kwon@lancaster.ac.uk
Tel: +44 1524 592440
Julia Balogun
Professor of Strategic Management
Centre for Strategic Management
Lancaster University Management School
Lancaster, LA1 4YX, UK
Pluralistic organizations present unique challenges for senior managers seeking to affect
strategic change. Greater consensus on values, beliefs and goals is often required to motivate the
diverse groups of stakeholders needed to decide upon and enact initiatives for change than in more
traditional settings. Existing research in this area however, has tended to focus on the form of
interaction between senior managers and the rest of the organization to the exclusion of content
within those interactions, the form and content within and between crucial stakeholder groups, and
over timeframes too short to adequately understand the relationship between strategic actions and
organizational outcomes. We attempt to address these issues through a longitudinal study of a
business school over a 20-year period across seven strategic initiatives. Through an analysis of the
empirical data based on the framing perspective, we develop a four-phase model of strategic initiative
development in which we track how the meaning of an initiative evolves over its life cycle, and a
typology of supporting and contesting strategies used by organizational actors to promote and oppose
those initiatives in each of these phases. Through this study, we hope to provide some insight into: how
strategic initiatives develop, the factors that determine why some initiatives fail while others
succeed, and the processes through which initiatives are disseminated across the organization and to
external audiences to affect lasting organizational change.
13/68
PROS-030
Temporal agency: Using time to frame organizational change
Elden Wiebe
Saint Mary's University
Sobey School of Business
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada B3H 3C3
Phone: 902-496-8730
Fax: 902-420-5119
Email: elden.wiebe@smu.ca
ABSTRACT
This qualitative study explores the relationship between time and organizational change, a recently
emerging area of scholarly interest. Through the narrative analysis of managers’ own stories of
change, I discern five distinct ‘worlds’ of organizational change within the ‘same’ significant
government mandated organizational change in the ‘same’ organizational context (i.e. continuing care in
the health care sector). The analysis provides evidence that managers exercise temporal agency as
they make sense of their experiences of change. That is, in their narratives, managers actively
configure the relationship between the past, present, and future in different ways. In doing so,
managers construct the organizational change, and thus their enacted reality of that organizational
change, in different ways. This work contributes to our knowledge of organizational change and
augments recent work linking time and agency.
14/68
PROS-031
The Implementation Process of Management Practices: A Discursive Devices
Perspective
Frank Mueller
School of Management,
University of St Andrews,
frankmueller100@yahoo.co.uk
Andrea Whittle
Cardiff Business School
Colum Drive
whittlea@cardiff.ac.uk
Extended Abstract
In this paper we contribute to our understanding of the implementation process by analysing how a
Discursive Devices Analysis (DDA) can help us in analyzing the fine-grained linguistic mechanisms
employed in the implementation of management ideas and techniques. We draw on insights from the
field of Discursive Psychology (DP), in particular the work of Potter, Edwards and others associated
with the Loughborough school, in addition to the work of Erving Goffman. In the case of our study, we
analyse the discursive devices used by trainers to facilitate the diffusion of a quality management
initiative in a U.K. public-private partnership organisation. These discursive devices, we suggest,
comprise a key element of the skilled and creative social practice that is often ‘behind the scenes’ and
therefore a poorly understood element of the diffusion of ideas across an organization.
Our study shows how the ‘change champions’ responsible for training employees about a new
‘quality’ idea were creative in employing discursive devices that attempted to find new angles with
which to position themselves, appeal to the interests of the audience, ‘sell’ the new idea, deal with
resistance and identify and empathise with the audience. Rather than repeating the official quality
‘script’, we found that implementation was facilitated by the use of a range of discursive devices that
creatively and skilfully addressed the concerns of the local audience. This table summarizes our
empirical findings:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Event
Opening a training
session
Dealing with audience
resistance
Informal talk during a
coffee break
Discursive Devices
Empathy, Interest Attribution, Footing Shift,
Objectification, Membership Categorisation.
Routinisation, Footing Shift, Stake inoculation,
Empathy, Identification.
Footing Shift, Show Concession, Personalisation,
Spontaneity.
15/68
PROS-034
A dialectical and pluralistic perspective on identity work in organizations
Hamid Bouchikhi
ESSEC Business School - France
John R. Kimberly
The Wharton School - University of Pennsylvania - USA
The concept of identity has generated a sustained flow of publications in the field of organization
studies following the release of Albert and Whetten’s seminal work (Albert & Whetten, 1985).
Upon close examination, however, the growing body of literature appears as highly heterogeneous
(Ravasi & van Rekom, 2003) leading Elstak to remark that “the concept of organizational identity is
regarded as a sanctuary for all the different voices and perceptions of an organization” (Elstak, 2008).
The lack of consensus on basic definitional and methodological issues has led some scholars to doubt
the usefulness of the concept (Cornelissen, 2002) while others defended its relevance despite the lack
of a coherent paradigm (Alvesson, Aschcraft, & Thomas, 2008; Gioia, Schultz, & Corley, 2002).
While the sceptics and promoters of identity in organization studies disagree fiercely as the strong
tone of the debate between Cornelissen (2002)and Gioia et al.( 2002) shows, both camps share a
monistic bias. The critics think that a polymorphous concept such as identity can not constitute solid
ground for building a research paradigm. The proponents, on the other hand, recognize that the field
is characterized by multiple views of identity, and methodological diversity, but argue that these are
common to nascent paradigms. The field, they tell us, is already evolving toward common understanding
of what identity stands for, and consensus on research questions and methods (van Rekom, Corley, &
Ravasi, 2008). We doubt that this is the case and believe that a monistic theory of identity in
organization studies is neither practically possible, nor theoretically desirable.
To overcome the monistic bias, we need to make an intellectual shift from a substantive to a
processual conception of identity. Such a conception begins with putting identity work in organizations,
not organizational identity, at the core our theorizing.
The shift from substance to process is required because what actors, and researchers, see is not the
identity of an organization but multiple and, often contradictory, processes by which stakeholders
define, reinforce, challenge or alter the answers to the question of who they are as individuals, groups,
organizations or even nations.
Putting identity work at the core of theorizing activity enables us to open the identity “Pandora box”
and uncover the multiple and dialectical tensions that run through any organization with regard to
“Who we are” questions.
References
Albert, S. & Whetten, D. A. 1985. Organizational Identity. Research in Organizational Behavior, 7:
263.
Alvesson, M., Aschcraft, K. L., & Thomas, R. 2008. Identity Matters: Reflections on the Construction
of Identity Scholarship in Organization Studies. Organization, 15(1): 5-28.
Cornelissen, J. P. 2002. On the Organizational Identity Metaphor. British Journal of Management,
13(3): 259-268.
Elstak, M. N. 2008. The Paradox of the Organizational Identity Field. Corporate Reputation Review,
11(3): 277-281.
Gioia, D. A., Schultz, M., & Corley, K. G. 2002. On Celebrating the Organizational Identity Metaphor: A
Rejoinder to Cornelissen. British Journal of Management, 13(3): 269-275.
Ravasi, D. & van Rekom, J. 2003. Key Issues in Organizational Identity and Identification Theory.
Corporate Reputation Review, 6(2): 1.
van Rekom, J., Corley, K., & Ravasi, D. 2008. Extending and Advancing Theories of Organizational
Identity. Corporate Reputation Review, 11(3): 183-188.
16/68
PROS-035
Very Near to a Kind of Unconsciousness: Collective Acts of Virtuosity in the
Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race
MARK DE ROND, Judge Business School, Cambridge University
ANTHONY KING, Dept of Sociology and Philosophy, University of Exeter
Abstract
The problem of coordination remains at the core of social theory. By what means do individuals in
groups align their behaviours to form coherence? How is coordination achieved, and how is it sustained,
between individuals who have few cues available to them, and little or no recourse to communication?
We investigate a decisive sporting moment – the 2007 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race – to
examine the means by which human groups create and maintain simultaneity of effort and optimize
boat speed. Optimizing boat speed requires near-perfect coordination – or ‘rhythm’ – between eight
oarsmen in a thin and unstable, sixty-foot carbon fibre shell. Given the importance of regularity in
breathing, and absence of eye contact, opportunities for interpersonal communication are few and far
between. Thus, while the example may seem trivial (particularly for those with no interest in sport), it
would seem to lend itself exceptionally well to examining the problem of coordination in human
interaction.
This paper is structured in five sections. It opens with a narrative on the 2007 Boat Race with
particular emphasis on a decisive two-minute episode in which Cambridge ‘find their rhythm’ and come
from behind to row past Oxford on the outside of the biggest bend on the Championship course. For it
is this ‘finding rhythm’ that has long been the Holy Grail in competitive rowing. Indeed, coaches and
oarsmen go to enormous lengths to inculcate this ultimate collective act of virtuosity.
This narrative is followed by an attempt at contextualization in the relevant literature in the
sociology of sports (Section 3) and in social theory more broadly (Section 4). Of particular interest
are related works of Hockey, Csikszentmihalyi, Bourdieu, Durkheim, Collins, Chambliss and Wacquant.
Section 4 describes the ethnographic method as the basis for our observations. This is followed by a
discussion and a conclusion.
We find strong support for Chambliss’ salute to the mundane – effective rowing is mostly the
result of repetition. While rhythm rises from the tedium of training over long periods of time this
alone may not be sufficient. Our example suggests that performative acts of unification, conducted in
the name of rhythm, can help orient crew members towards a unified goal. Insofar as these acts are
emancipatory, and thus provide a sense of ownership, they help reinforce this singular orientation.
We also note that Bourdieu’s habitus is less helpful than his practical theory in explaining such
collective acts of virtuosity as demonstrated in the 2007 Boat Race. For group rhythm emerges as a
self-conscious collective practice in the course of a myriad of interactions – generated not by, but
between, individuals.
17/68
PROS-038
Moving Beyond Recipes: The Process Of Building Effective Stakeholder Engagement
PAMELA SLOAN & DAVID OLIVER
HEC Montréal
pamela.sloan@hec.ca
david.oliver@hec.ca
ABSTRACT
The ability to engage with stakeholders - individuals or groups who can affect or are affected
by the activities of an organization - can have crucial implications for organizational sustainability and
long-term growth. To date, many scholars have focused on the challenges and risks posed by
stakeholders, while the idea of engagement - which stresses the positive involvement of stakeholders remains under-theorized, as have individual characteristics and interpersonal dynamics in stakeholder
relationships.
In this paper, we attempt to reintegrate the role of the manager into the study of stakeholder
engagement, in order to develop richer theory on such processes. Our study focuses on stakeholder
partnership, an emerging approach to stakeholder engagement. We develop an interpretive case study
of a multi-stakeholder partnership developed among a multinational company (MC), five indigenous
organizations located near MC’s facilities as well as two levels of government. The partnership was
formed to address an impending shortage of entry-level skilled workers. In response to this issue, a
senior human resources manager within the company initiated a process of partnership building with
local indigenous communities– where there was a rapidly growing youth population—long overlooked by
the company’s hiring process. A formal agreement was signed in November 2003, and the process of
developing the partnership drew on a formalized, step-by-step partnership guide or “recipe”. However,
the signing ceremony was followed by a long period of inactivity. The case study documents how the
managers were able to restart the process, leading ultimately to a partnership considered a “success”
by all participants, and used as a model for similar arrangements elsewhere.
Using both participant observation and interview data, our analysis focuses on critical
incidents-- unexpected events that served as turning points in the partnership, and had a major impact
on its success. In examining how the participants responded to these incidents, we identified
practices that followed the formalized approach suggested in the stakeholder literature, including
data-gathering through consultative processes to ascertain stakeholder interests, forming advisory
council to guide decision-making, and setting up monitoring processes to track results. Written guides,
templates and “best practice” checklists were also used as aids in this process. However, we also noted
novel and emotionally-laden practices related to meeting agenda-setting; inclusion and exclusion of
advisory council members; and the use of informal debriefings and personal disclosures to build
relationships among the participants.
We propose that the rationally-drive practices were manifestations of an orientation toward
control, use of fixed plans to set direction, and metrics as sources of momentum. The emotionallyladen practices were indicative of an orientation toward accepting vulnerability, setting direction
through open-ended agendas, and momentum produced through energizing “moments.” We suggest
that these practices contributed to the development of emotional engagement, which complemented
the more formalized, rationally-driven processes that traditionally characterize stakeholder
engagement. The critical incidents triggered switches between the two modes, yielding the possibility
of trust-building among partners. These emotionally-laden moments appeared to allow a shift from
normatively-articulated “best practices” to more fluid approaches. The incidents also served as tests
of commitment, and the ways that managers dealt with them fostered the sustainability of the
partnership and an increased commitment by each of its members.
PROS-042
Scientific Collaboration across Knowledge Domains: A Process View
18/68
Hille Bruns - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Collaboration is commonly regarded as critical for organizational performance because it enables the
integration of various domains of specialization. This is associated with innovation, learning, and
knowledge production (Tushman 1977; Edmondson 2002; Carlile 2004; Wuchty, Jones et al. 2007).
However, it has also been observed that different domains of expertise come with different ways of
perceiving and thinking, which makes cross-domain collaboration hard (Dougherty 1992; Boland and
Tenkasi 1995; Leonard and Sensiper 1998). Complex problems that involve highly specialized knowledge
thus pose an extraordinary challenge for organizations. This article examines one such case, namely
how experts collaborate to develop knowledge together in cross-disciplinary cancer research.
The paper presents findings from 18 months of field research at two top universities in the US. The
study followed a practice based view of knowledge (e.g. Orlikowski 2002) that suggests that knowledge
is tied to work practice. Hence, the field study involved observation of the work practices and
research meetings, interviews, and archival material. The two relevant types of work practice in this
kind of cancer research are computational modeling and molecular biology experiments. Evidence was
compared across 12 research projects, of which 9 across domains and 3 within domains. Data was
analyzed to identify the work pattern in collaboration as well as those features that sustained this
pattern.
Findings suggest that the process of collaboration unfolds in a cycle of alternating phases of individual
and collective work. Next to the domain-specific work practices (modeling/experiments), the study
delivers evidence of five collaborative practices – try-out, projection, joint assessment, consultation,
and expert decision-making. Scientists apply these collaborative practices in order to integrate
idiosyncratic contributions into a coherent unit. The paper argues that scientists succeed in
collaborating across domains because the collaborative practices are shared across domains and thus
cross-link domain-specific practices and expertise. This study contributes to the literature in building
process theory on cross-domain collaboration. It presents a dynamic model of knowledge development
in collaboration across diverse domains of expertise.
Boland, R. J. and R. V. Tenkasi (1995). "Perspective Making and Perspective Taking in Communities of
Knowing." Organization Science 6(4): 350-372.
Carlile, P. (2004). "Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for
Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries." Organization Science 15(5): 555-568.
Dougherty, D. (1992). "Interpretive Barriers to Successful Product Innovation in Large Firms."
Organization Science 3(2): 179-202.
Edmondson, A. C. (2002). "The Local and Variegated Nature of Learning in Organizations: A GroupLevel Perspective." Organization Science 13(2): 128-146.
Leonard, D. and S. Sensiper (1998). "The role of tacit knowledge in group innovation." California
Management Review 40(3): 112-+.
Orlikowski, W. J. (2002). "Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed
Organizing." Organization Science 13(3): 249-273.
Tushman, M. L. (1977). "Special Boundary Roles in the Innovation Process." Administrative Science
Quarterly 22(4): 587-605.
Wuchty, S., B. F. Jones, et al. (2007). "The Increasing Dominance of Teams in Production of
Knowledge." Science 316: 1036-1039.
19/68
PROS-043
Studying Metaphors-in-use In Their Social and Institutional Context – Sensemaking
and Discourse Theory
Silvia Jordan
Department of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation
Innsbruck University School of Management
Universitätsstrasse 15, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
silvia.jordan@uibk.ac.at (corresponding author)
Hermann Mitterhofer
Department of Education
University of Innsbruck
Schöpfstraße 3, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
hermann.mitterhofer@uibk.ac.at
Abstract
In this paper, we will expand metaphor theory – as a specific methodology to study sensemaking in
organizations - by a critical perspective that takes the social and institutional context of metaphorsin-use into account. We link metaphor theory and sensemaking by means of conceptual metaphors to
discourse theory, specifically to the discourse analysis of the German linguist Jürgen Link. He defines
discourse as an institutionalized, ordered mode of speaking that is bound to actions and is exerting
power. Thus, sensemaking, as a structuring principle, takes place within a complex system of
institutions, power relations and continuous enactment in terms of a ‘practice,’ a process of relating
discoursive and non-discoursive elements in place. We illustrate our conceptualization of a ‘critical
metaphor theory’ by means of empirical vignettes drawn from a study on the implementation of key
performance indicators in a manufacturing company. Contextualized (critical) metaphor analysis shows
that organizational members theorize upon this organizational change differently, viewing it either as
an extensive change initiative or as a minor initiative reinforcing the company’s existing strategies and
shared ways of thinking and acting. Thus, not only are the new key performance indicators applied to
make sense of past and prospective events, but the performance indicators as indicators of a more or
less comprehensive change initiative are themselves made sense of. We show what kinds of metaphors
are linked to different ways of sensemaking and analyze the social and institutional context of these
metaphors-in-use.
20/68
PROS-044
Controversies in an Information Technology Appropriation Process: Towards a
Conceptual Framework
Anthony Hussenot
Public Research Centre Henri Tudor
29, avenue J.F. KennedyL-1855 Luxembourg
anthony.hussenot@tudor.lu
Abstract:
This paper deals with the appropriation of Information Technologies from the controversies deployed
in time. Based on the Actor-Network Theory (Callon 1986 2001; Akrich and Latour 1992; Akrich et al.
2002ab; Latour 1988 2005), the controversy concept is presented as a conceptual tool to follow and to
describe the appropriation processes. The aim is to put forward a conceptual framework to describe
and to follow the controversies in time. Controversy is defined as a dissident action, calling into
question associations in socio-technical networks. Based on a descriptive approach, an analysis of
controversies breaks up with power struggle approaches. From this conceptual framework, the
NotePlus case illustrates the controversy concept. For 30 months (January 2004 – June 2006), we
studied an Information Technology appropriation, named NotePlus, nearby 45 teachers of a secondary
school. The results analyze three controversies from the implementation to the stabilization of the
appropriation process. The last section of this paper will discuss the conceptual framework. We
highlight the strengths and the weaknesses of the controversy concept to describe and analyze the
appropriation processes.
Key words:
Controversy, Appropriation, Organizational Process, Actor Network Theory, Information Technology
21/68
PROS-048
Intellectual Entrepreneurship in the Historical Development of Organization
Theory
William Mckinley
Department of Management
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
E-mail: decline@siu.edu
This paper focuses on the process of intellectual development in organization theory, and
particularly the role of intellectual entrepreneurship in that process. Intellectual entrepreneurs are
scholars who play a central role in the creation of new perspectives in the discipline, and intellectual
entrepreneurship refers to the set of activities they engage in as they perform that role. These
activities include specification of the domains of new perspectives, posing of research questions to
guide further investigation, production of theoretical frameworks to provide hypotheses for testing,
and investment in the creation of data sets and measuring instruments.
This paper compares the intellectual entrepreneurship exhibited by the founders of three
perspectives that occupy important parts of the contemporary organization theory attention space:
resource dependence theory, population ecology, and neo-institutional theory. While the activities of
the intellectual entrepreneurs who were central to the formation of these three perspectives show
some similarities, there are also important differences. Specifically, I argue that the intellectual
entrepreneurship characteristic of these perspectives varies along several distinct dimensions.
The first dimension is continuity of commitment. I suggest that the intellectual entrepreneurs
who were involved in the emergence of the resource dependence perspective in the late 1970s showed
considerably less continuity of commitment to the perspective than the intellectual entrepreneurs
involved in the development of population ecology. The intellectual entrepreneurs spearheading the
growth of neo-institutional theory exhibited continuity of commitment midway between that of the
resource dependence entrepreneurs and the ecology entrepreneurs.
On two other dimensions, degree of investment in instrumentation and attention to
restructuring the perspective, the rankings of the three perspectives are similar.
Ecology
entrepreneurs made much greater investments in instrumentation than their counterparts in the
resource dependence perspective or the neo-institutional theory perspective. That investment has
revealed new phenomena but also built some rigidity into the empirical research of the ecologists.
Ecologists have also devoted the most attention to restructuring their perspective to take account of
critiques and to incorporate empirical anomalies, but on this dimension, the neo-institutional theory
entrepreneurs are a close second. Entrepreneurs connected with the ongoing development of neoinstitutional theory have restructured the perspective significantly, to the point that some of the
logic underlying contemporary neo-institutional theory appears to be a complete reversal of the logic
represented by Meyer and Rowan’s foundational statement.
In the full paper these ideas will be developed, and emphasis placed on the point that the
differences in intellectual entrepreneurship between the three perspectives represent variations in
type, but not necessarily quality, of scholarship. Understanding these differences will provide a
better grasp of the diverse intellectual processes through which the multi-schooled structure of
contemporary organization theory has evolved.
PROS-052
A Mathematical Process View Of Change And Innovation
22/68
William DeJong and Gea Mulder
INI-Research; The Netherlands; dejong@ini-research.nl ; mulder@ini-consult.nl
In congruence with the increasing turbulence of organizational life in the Internet Age, the attention for
continuous organizational change is growing and more and more theorists adopt a process orientation on
organizations, seeking a dynamic way of understanding organizational phenomena. Unfortunately, change theory
does not dispose of robust methods to capture continuous change, which handicaps a process orientation. In
addition, this difficulty has negative consequences for the practice of changing. Tsoukas and Chia (2002, 569)
remark, “Unless we have an image of change as an ongoing process, a stream of actions, and a flow of situated
initiatives, as opposed to a set of episodic events, it will be difficult to overcome the implementation problems of
change programs reported in literature.” In this paper we present a mathematical process view of organizational
change and innovation as a contribution to the search for more robust methods to capture continuous
organizational change.
When observing organizational phenomena from a process view, flow, flux, becoming, and transformation
are seen as their essence rather than substance, being, and temporal appearance. This orientation traces back to
the doctrine of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (ca. 535-475 BC) that "everything is flowing" – panta
rhei – which has been developed further by process philosophers as James (1909) and Rescher (2001). A process
orientation looks beyond substance and appearance, and has a natural link with metaphysics into which it may
easily drift away. Mathematics can prohibit this by capturing orientations, views and ideas on change, process,
flow, flux, becoming, and transformation, within a formal unambiguous framework. Such a framework may seem
unnecessary, restrictive, or deterministic and thus incompatible with a process view, but the history of science
shows that the mathematical formalization of a phenomenon – deterministic or undeterministic – usually boosts
the theorizing and research of it, and often challenges established theories. In this tradition, Poole and Van de
Ven (2004a, xi) have formalized organizational change mathematically as “… a difference in form, quality, or state
over time in an organizational entity…. Change in any of these entities can be determined by measuring the same
entity at two or more points in time on a set of dimensions, and then comparing the differences over time in these
dimensions”. In this formalization, Poole and Van de Ven, take a static view of change. We draw on Poole and Van
de Ven's formalization of change, but take a process view and capture continuous change as a moving state vector
within or beyond its initial system space, which allows to focus on the flow, flux and dynamic behavior of change
processes. Our mathematical representation of continuous change makes clear that a process view cannot abstain
from substance and state, as the narrative representation of continuous change by Heraclitus – panta rhei –
confirms: flow can only be talked about by referring to things.
We use the metamorphosis of the customer support department of a software company (Orlikowski,
1996) to demonstrate that the representation of organizational change as a moving state vector and the usual
representation as a change story are equivalent and interchangeable. This allows to connect our mathematical
process view with the narrative knowledge base of change theory. Our approach results in a mathematical
formalization of innovation, reveals a mathematical and empirical dichotomy between innovation and ordinary
change, and generalizes the concept of innovation. Subsequently, we construct a logical framework that defines
four types of movement through system space. We investigate each type with computer simulations using yet
existing computer programs and connect in addition each type with the corresponding change stories provided by
the literature. This reveals fundamental differences between the distinguished types of change in their
movement through system space in general and in their dynamics of planning, acting and learning, and energy and
human dynamics in particular. The system space based classification of change we present distinguishes real types
of change instead of ideal types (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995), and functions therefore as a lens on continuous
organizational change that facilitates a process view of organizations and enhances our insight into the dynamics
of change. Finally, we discuss our findings and sketch new directions for the advancement of process oriented
change theory, in particular in the field of organizing and sensemaking.
James, W. 1909 (republished 1977). A Pluralistic Universe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Orlikowski, W. (1996). ‘Improvising organizational transformation over time: A situated change perspective’.
Information Systems Research 7, pp. 63-92.
Poole, M.S. and A.H. Van de Ven, eds. (2004a). Handbook of organizational change and innovation. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rescher, N. (2001). Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Tsoukas, H. and R. Chia (2002). ‘On organizational becoming: rethinking organizational change’. Organization
Science 13, pp. 567-582.
Van de Ven, A.H. and M.S. Poole (1995). ‘Explaining development and change in organizations’. Academy of
Management Review, 20, pp. 510-540.
23/68
PROS-053
Ecological Sensemaking
GAIL WHITEMAN
Rotterdam School of Management - Erasmus University
WILLIAM H. COOPER
Queen’s School of Business
Managerial crises happen infrequently, but they happen in many settings. Crises happen in the
market (Greenspan 2008), in the woods (Maclean 1992), in the air (Weick and Roberts 1993), in
boardrooms (Eichenwald 2000), on Everest (Krakauer 1997), on launch pads (Starbuck and Farjoun
2005), and on the street (Van Maanen 1988). The term resilience usually refers to the ability to
rebound after a stress or crisis (Hamel and Valikangas 2003; Richardson 2002). While managers are
understandably interested in the ability of firms to bounce back after a forced merger or economic
collapse, we can also learn about resilience from more adventurous locations and from non-business
actors.
For instance, Weick (1993) analyzed the crisis management approach of a small team of
firefighters using the 1949 Mann Gulch fire in Montana. In Mann Gulch, 12 young firefighters out of a
crew of 15 perished in an unexpectedly large blaze after a lightning storm started a wilderness fire.
Weick examined why team members perished despite the fact that the crew foreman, Wagner Dodge,
had a solution to prevent death: lighting a grass fire and lying down in the ashes. The ability to make
social sense of team members’ actions while under duress emerged as a key factor in the resilience of
groups facing potential disaster. People pay attention to an ‘enacted environment,’ one that emerges
from their social preconceptions of a ‘real’ environment which constrain their sensemaking ability
(Weick 1988). Managerial crises often occur because organizations and their members have exceeded
limits (Farjoun and Starbuck 2007). Resilience is higher in organizational teams that are heedful of
each other’s emerging social account because they develop an interrelated and collective sense of a
situation (Weick and Roberts 1993). While this approach to resilience is clearly useful for
understanding the social and organizational world, the literature on sensemaking remains de-natured
(Shrivastava 1994). That is, research is primarily focused on understanding social processes (Maitlis
2005). Only a few studies recognize the importance of making sense of ecosystems (e.g., Gephart
1996; King 1995; Whiteman et al. 2004).
In this paper we explore the concept of ‘ecological sensemaking’ – the ability to make sense of
one’s immediate natural environment – as an overlooked dimension of managerial resilience. In order to
support our conceptual claim, we present findings from two empirical studies that share a similar
managerial context – that is, the resilience of a team in the face of an immediate threat from the
natural environment. In the first study, we present ethnographic data on how the first author was
confronted with an unexpected and life-threatening incident in the subarctic while she was conducting
research on the management practices of Indigenous Peoples (Whiteman and Cooper 2000). In the
second study, we re-code the data used in Weick’s (1993) study, ‘The collapse of sensemaking in
organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster,’ published originally in Administrative Science Quarterly. We
ask: was ecological sensemaking an overlooked but important factor in the Mann Gulch disaster? We
conclude that it was. We argue that Weick’s earlier account was de-contextualized, that the local
ecosystem was largely absent from his original analysis. In contrast, our results show how the ability
(or inability) of the firefighters to individually and then collectively make sense of the unique
ecological and geographic dimensions of Mann Gulch contributed significantly to their survival and
demise. A social account of the Mann Gulch disaster is only part of the story.
Our article is organized in a non-traditional way given its grounded theory approach. We first
describe our methodology and then present an ethnographic episode from the field (Goodall 2008; Van
Maanen 1998). We compare this with existing theory on resilience. We next present findings from
our reanalysis of the Mann Gulch disaster. We end by discussing implications of ecological sensemaking
to research on sustainability (Holling 1986; Folke et al. 2002).
24/68
PROS-054
Organizing Ambiguity: Intent and Choice in Sensemaking
Sally Davenport
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
E-mail : sally.davenport@vuw.ac.nz
Shirley Leitch
University of Wollongong
Australia
Email: sleitch@uow.edu.au
Abstract
The strategic employment of ambiguity within communication was brought to prominence by Eric
Eisenberg in his 1984 essay aimed at countering the prevailing ideology of clarity and openness as
competence in organizational communication theory and research. Strategic ambiguity is defined as
the deliberate, intentional use of ambiguity in communication in order to create a ‘space’ in which
multiple interpretations by recipients are enabled and to which multiple responses are possible. The
observation that strategic ambiguity results in the co-creation of meaning arises because the
ambiguity is not an attribute of the communication per se, ‘it is a relational variable which arises
through a combination of source, message, and receiver factors’. Thus strategic ambiguity is an
intertextual phenomenon and situated so the production and reception contexts of the communication
are inseparable from the message itself. In this paper we wish to explore in more depth, the
intentional aspects of strategic ambiguity to enrol the recipient actively in choosing how to interpret
the message. In particular, we are interested in strategic ambiguity as a social strategy in that its use
is ‘determined by its effects on listeners and readers and the consequences of these effects in
shaping the speaker or writer’.
To begin our elucidation, we will review the use of ambiguity in organizational communication and
related discursive concepts in the linguistic, political and legal communication and, more recently,
organizational literatures. With a few exceptions, the potential of intentional use of ambiguity in a
creative sense in organizational discourse has not been widely canvassed in the literature and its
existence may still be viewed as a problem. What is evident, with its increasing dissemination in the
organizational literature, however, is that there appears to be some equivocality over the implications
of the intentional implementation of ambiguity in discourse. We will explore the sources of the
uncertainty surrounding what is, and what is not, strategic ambiguity.
The confusion over the concept of strategic ambiguity and its implementation has arisen, we
believe, because of two characteristics that are not necessarily taken into account. First, for its use
to be strategic there has to be intent rather than coincidence in the formation of the ambiguous
message, so we will summarise the literature on the notion of strategic intent, as inducement to
participate, in communication. Second, the producer of the message must assume that the recipient of
the ambiguous communication will perceive it as equivocal and respond creatively but possibly
unpredictably to the multiple choices offered by the ambiguity. Thus we will review the literature on
interpretation of communications as part of the notion that the intentional use of ambiguous
communication is a social discourse strategy.
Following this review of the nuances in the use of ambiguity in communication, we will describe a
framework encompassing types of discursive ambiguity in communication with the delineators being the
notion of intent and the perception of choice by the recipient. We will discuss some of the issues that
are evident in trying to research different components of the framework, such as recognising intent
prior to the communication relationship as opposed to labelling it as intent in retrospect. Irrespective
of these potential issues, we believe this framework will help both to clarify the notion of strategic
ambiguity and differentiate it from related concepts, as well as to further the understanding of, and
potential uses of, this discursive strategy in organizational sense-making.
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PROS-055
Prospective Sense Making in Interaction
Nick Llewellyn and Robin Burrows,
IROB Group, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Previously, authors have argued for the notion of prospective sense making, the idea that sense works
forwards as well as backwards (Gioia and Mehra 1996). In the field of organizational sense making, this
has significance not least because Karl Weick understands sense making as an entirely retrospective
process. Weick dismisses the idea of forward looking sense making as a kind of ‘lay myth’ (Gioia and
Mehra 1996: 1229). For him, ‘sense is made of future events by imagining that they have already
occurred and then infusing this elapsed experience with meaning’ (Gioia and Mehra 1996: 1229). Whilst
Gioia and Mehra initially found this problematic, and despite ‘fretting over the idea for some time’,
Gioia finally conceded to Weick’s way of thinking, arguing ‘it was quite a task to work out a good way of
arguing for such a process’ (Gioia 2006: 1718).
But it is not an impossible task. Indeed, it is one already substantially addressed by scholars
working in the fields of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA). In these fields authors
have long since worked with the idea that sense making has both retrospective and prospective
dimensions (Garfinkel 1967; Goodwin 2006). These approaches already have a ‘good way of arguing for’
and empirically analyzing how sense is pushed forwards in interaction.
Drawing on EM/CA, the present paper explores one aspect of prospective sense making, how
people see what’s coming. The empirical focus is how stances and future actions are anticipated and
made anticipatable. A basic feature of social and organizational life is that some activities and courses
of action are done with a degree of delicacy, which allows the other party to see where things are
leading, the writing on the wall. This applies quite obviously to occasions where people have bad news to
report. That someone has not got the job, is about to lose their job, has lost a lot of money, has
serious health problems, etc. People tend not to just deliver bad news. In systematic ways, the
recipient is prepared for what is coming. This may be done so clearly there is no need to actually
deliver the news. This is just the most obvious example, there are many others. For example, it is
often apparent that someone is about to reject an offer or invitation before they have actually said
anything. The absence of an immediate acceptance, some mitigation or delays, etc., may be enough to
reveal the projected action. These processes may have material consequences, the offer or invitation
may be withdrawn. The present paper explores this work, through which forthcoming actions, positions
and stances are projected ahead of time, casting a shadow over the future that might be resisted, but
which cannot be ignored.
The paper then evaluates the kinds of organizational processes that might involve prospective
sense making of this kind. On some occasions, people might not ‘reveal their hand’, but rather allude to
its contents. This might have definite consequences. It might allow alignments to be revealed without
anyone explicitly stating a position. It might allow possible conflicts to become apparent before anyone
has ‘put anything on the table’. Once apparent, such positions can then be accommodated in the way
interaction unfolds. There may be a whole collection of organizational processes made possible by ways
in which people push sense forwards in interaction.
References
Garfinkel, Harold. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Goodwin, C. (2006). Retrospective and Prosepctive Orientation in the Consturction of Argumentative
Moves. Text, 26(4/5): 443-61.
Gioia, D, A. (2006). On Weick: An Appreciation. Organization Studies, 27(11): 1709-21.
Gioia, D, A. and Mehra, A. (1996). ‘Sense Making in Organizations: A Review’. Academy of Management
Review, 21(4): 1226-40.
26/68
PROS-056
Giddens À La Carte? Appraising Empirical Applications Of Structuration Theory In
Organization Studies
Frank den Hond, f.den.hond@fsw.vu.nl
Kees Boersma, fk.boersma@fsw.vu.nl
Both authors are at: VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Social Sciences
De Boelelaan 1081, 1081HG Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Abstract
Structuration Theory (Giddens 1979; 1984) has been used in the field of organization studies because
the notion of structuration speaks to recurrent issues in this field: whether and how structures can be
used and modified by organizations and their members (Whittington 1992), the understanding of
processes of institutionalization (Barley and Tolbert 1997), the development of new insights and
theory through offering a new conception of the structure-agency paradox (Poole and Van de Ven
(1989). Arguably, structuration theory has offered an attractive approach to the ontology of
organizations.
Although Giddens’ theory has the potential of providing insight in processes of structuration in
particular empirical settings, it does not include clear guidelines for their practical investigation. The
lack of clear operational definitions of structure and agency, its highly abstracted level of theorizing,
and the very nature of the duality of structure and agency, have made the application of Structuration
Theory in empirical organizational research difficult. Given this challenge, we seek to appraise to what
extent and how it has been used, as well as to discuss how it may be used well, in the field of
organization studies.
After a brief overview of the theory itself, we proceed by (1) analyzing the nature of the
references made to Giddens’ Structuration Theory within the field of organization studies, (2)
analyzing which research strategies have been used to empirically apply Structuration Theory in this
field, and (3) evaluating how well Structuration Theory has been applied in a number of exemplary
empirical studies. Upfront we want to make clear that it is not our stance that ‘more’ usage of Giddens
is necessarily ‘better’. Precisely because Structuration Theory is not easily applied empirically, we
treat this as a question that warrants debate.
27/68
PROS-057
Processing non-sense: An empirically-based model of sensemaking about organizational
communication
Colleen Mills
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
ABSTRACT: - Examining how employees make sense of workplace communication provides a powerful
new way to understand the dynamic and unfolding processes we call ‘the organisation’. This paper
presents a highly integrative empirically-based model that captures how workers make sense of
organizational communication during times of uncertainty and change. At its heart are five interpretive
discourses (detached, operational, aligned, oppositional and alienated). These integrate affect,
cognition and circumstance to provide the means for converting non-sense into sense. Affective
engagement provides the central sensemaking driver, determining the ideational resources that
comprise the discourses and contributing to discourse deployment. The model is significant as it
provides a new explanatory framework for the increasingly popular notion that the organization is “a
relentless process in pursuit of itself” (Cooper, 2007, p.1547). It also advances our concept of
sensemaking, incorporating affect and extending Weick’s (1995) properties of sensemaking in a way
that is consistent with Shotter’s (1993) communication-experience loop.
Key Words: sensemaking model, organizational communication, interpretive discourses, integrated
processes, process organization studies
References
Cooper, R. (2007). Organs of process: Rethinking organization. Organization Studies, 28(10), 15471573.
Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational realities: Constructing life through language. London: Sage.
Weick, K. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
28/68
PROS-058
Toward a Process Model of Venture Capital Emergence: The Case of Botswana
David Lingelbach
Stevenson University and Johns Hopkins University
Evan Gilbert
University of Stellenbosch
ABSTRACT
Venture capital (VC) is concerned with seed, startup, and early stage investing in firms involved with
innovative products or processes. Existing variance studies of VC provide an incomplete understanding
of VC emergence, emphasizing either macro-level enabling conditions or the efficient fund-level
operation of the VC cycle. Following Tsoukas and Chia (2002), our study focuses on the nonprototypical portion of the VC phenomenon, which is found in weak institutional environments
characteristic of many developing countries. In these contexts, VC is more likely to be an unstable
organizational form and hence subject to change. As a consequence, new VC forms and emergence
processes may arise in these environments, providing data in support of a more complete, processual
model of VC emergence.
This paper reports findings of an exploratory case study of the VC emergence process in Botswana.
Our main contribution is to develop a multi-stage process model of VC emergence. Our model consists
of four processes: simultaneity (enabling), coproducing (bonding), diffusing, and replicating via the VC
cycle. This model suggests that the establishment of appropriate simultaneity conditions—capital,
entrepreneurs and specialized financial institutions—enables the diffusion of VC models and related
institutions from other populations. In the presence of an equity gap, government investors and
private fund managers need to then cooperate to fill the equity gap, creating the signal necessary for
replication of VC funds through the operation of the VC cycle.
We also contribute to the VC literature by showing that the diffusion of VC models and related
institutions from other populations plays an intermediate role in the emergence process, following the
establishment of simultaneity conditions, paralleling coproduction between government investors and
fund managers, and preceding the operation of the VC cycle. The resulting model provides a more
complete understanding of the VC emergence process and augments existing theoretical perspectives
by emphasizing emergence as a dynamic change process. Our model should dampen policymaker
enthusiasm for VC as a “silver bullet” in the entrepreneurship development process, suggests the
importance of sequencing in the design of government programs supporting VC development, calls
attention to the limits of engineering coproduction in stimulating VC emergence in emerging markets
contexts, and highlights the importance of an economy’s status as a limited access order in facilitating
VC emergence. Fund managers and high-potential entrepreneurs can play a vital role in facilitating VC
emergence through more careful pre-planning and the establishment of innovation associations.
29/68
PROS-061
In Search of Selves: making sense of individual and organisational identities
Dr. Jan Myers
Wales Institute for Research into Co-operatives
Cardiff School of Management
Wales
jmyers@uwic.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
This paper is based on research undertaken with chief executives (CEOs) of UK-based local
development organisations (LDAs), such as councils for voluntary service and social action centres. As
titular heads of their organisations, UK LDA CEOs are increasingly taking a leading role in relationships
with other agencies and as ambassadors for their organisation and the sector as a whole. In this
latter arena, cross-sector knowledge, political awareness and influence in brokering relationships and
advocating the position of the sector can make a difference to LDA CEO self-concept, their extended
self-image and co-regulated identity. The processes of sense making in these contexts involves
emotional and personal connection: how these CEOs manage emotions and feelings resulting from their
perceptions of how others see and judge them and also how they can shape and influence the
perceptions of others. Furthermore, an aspect of this emotional management is not to consider nonprofit CEOs only in terms of their alienation and disconnection from other sectors (their
independence) but also to consider how they create bonds and connections across professional
boundaries while maintaining their sense of self (their interdependence).
The impact of time is also considered, that is, our sense of self as being both socially
constructed and dynamic. In order to explore this, the paper employs a dramaturgical framework to
describe the processes by which we present and maintain an impression of our selves as both credible
and sincere while avoiding contrivance. This ‘authenticity’ can be seen in terms of how LDA CEOs look
at their professional and personal lives as somewhat an extension of each other: their personal values
and commitments keep them doing what they are doing and the dissonance that many feel in dealing
with what they see as “social injustice” is contingent to sensemaking and performing. For LDA CEOs,
this appears to be rooted in a commitment to working in a “marginalised” sector, to broad societal aims
of social change and to addressing the needs for social justice.
The focus of the paper is therefore not how LDA CEOs organise and schedule operational
tasks, control and direct resources or how they use training and development tools and techniques to
make themselves more effective as managers. Rather, it considers how proficiently CEOs, in their own
terms, make sense of and handle complex and ambiguous relationships in real world practice. This
paper draws on identity creation as a root act of sensemaking and provides an exploration of the
creation and maintenance of both individual and organisational identities, where LDA CEOs seek to
maintain a coherent and plausible account of themselves and their behaviours as competent and
leaderful individuals.
PROS-062
Towards a Biopolitical Conception of Organization: Organism and the “New
Health”
30/68
Bernadette Loacker, Iain Munro, Richard Weiskopf
School of Management, University of Innsbruck, Austria
“Being new, nameless, hard to understand, we premature births of an as yet
unproven future need for a new goal also a new means - namely a new health,
stronger, more seasoned, tougher, more audacious, and gayer than any previous
health.” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science)
This paper will evaluate the significance of the organism metaphor for organization in terms of Foucault’s concept
of biopolitics. The paper will also consider how new biopolitical techniques of control are being developed which
challenge the assumption of traditional homeostatic models. This paper develops Foucault’s original conception of
biopolitics, drawing on the process philosophies of De Landa (2000) and Deleuze and Guattari (1988).
Adam Smith drew on the metaphor of the organism in order to explain the benefits of competition and free trade
to his readers back in 1776. Smith explained that individual self–interest or “self-love”, as he termed it, would
lead every man to continually improve his own condition. He argued that the interactions of many individuals each
seeking to improve their lot, would eventually lead to the good of the society as a whole. He made an analogy
between the health of the human body and the health of the economy, where “self-love” is the guiding principle by
which the body can maintain its strength and vigour. The interference of any experts, such as doctors in the case
of the human body, or government officials in the case of the economy, is dismissed by Smith as being nothing
more than “absurd”. Such meddling will interfere with the naturally established homeostasis. Since the time of
Adam Smith’s writing, the concept of the organism has been drawn upon frequently in explanations of how
organizations function and how they might be improved. Gareth Morgan (1996) has identified the metaphor of the
organism as one of the key “images” for the understanding of organizations today. Indeed, alongside the machine
metaphor, the organism has been perhaps the dominant motif for understanding organizations in the business
literature. This is evident from the discourse in which terms such as health, adaptability, competition, and
surviving in a hostile environment are commonplace.
The organism metaphor naturalizes a particular set of cultural forces that are associated with the rise of
industrial capitalism, and as such, this metaphor can be seen as what Roland Barthes termed a “mythology,” which
has its roots going all the way back to Adam Smith. But this mythology raises the very important question of the
relationship between organization and life. In terms of this link between organization and life, the organism
metaphor may be seen as being very closely associated to Foucault’s conception of “biopolitics”. According to
Foucault (2004) disciplinary power, which was focused upon an “anatomo-politics of the body,” is being supplanted
by biopolitical techniques for the management of populations. Foucault (2007) observed that norms of disciplinary
society that were concerned with the treatment of individual bodies (“normation”) are being supplemented by
statistical norms for the regulation of populations (“normalization”). Power thus operates on the organism on the
level of the individual’s body and upon the population as a (statistical) whole. The concept of a healthy equilibrium
and other associated norms becomes a regulative principle for the new science of political economy. Theories of
the self-regulation of the organism parallel the political economic theories of both liberalism and neo-liberalism.
Biopolitics thus develops new techniques that focus on the management of the population, regulating the
circulation of people, commodities, diseases, crimes, and so on. Liberalism itself provides “the general framework
of biopolitics.” (Foucault, 2007, p.383). According to Foucault biopolitics and liberalism develop hand in hand,
where: “Bio-power was without question an indispensable element in the development of capitalism; the latter
would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and the
adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes.” (1981, p.140-141).
Recent years have seen the development of statistical theories that explicitly criticized the notion of
homeostatic equilibrium, most notably the theories of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and fractal mathematics
(De Landa, 2000; Mandelbrot and Hudson, 2004; Ormerod, 2005; Prigogine and Stengers, 1984). This paper will
map out some of these novel approaches to organization and consider the extent to which they map out new
biopolitical strategies for organizing. These strategies are creating new rules and techniques for the formation of
human capital that allow for what Foucault (2007) described as “centrifugal” systems of control, which he
contrasted with “centripetal” systems of discipline. It is with the dawn of these new biopolitical strategies that
Foucault speculated on the formation of “genetic human capital”, alongside which will be the creation of “new
monsters” which will be “beyond all human sovereignty” (Foucault, 2004, p.254). These biopolitical strategies aim
to “take charge of life” (Foucault 1981, p.143), channelling the process of life’s becoming into a system of
economic circulation, although life itself “constantly escapes them” (Foucault 1981, p.143).
31/68
PROS-063
Making Sense – An Alternative to Cognitive Representationalism and the
Formative Role of Language
Joep Cornelissen
University of Leeds
Robin Holt
University of Liverpool
We investigate criticism of Weick's theory of Sensemaking in organizations along three persisting
themes. First, the theme of cognition whereby what is of sense and made sensible is largely conscious
and centred within the socially-interacting and environmentally contextualized individual. We argue
more attention might fruitfully be given to the unconscious and specifically to mood. Second, the
theme of retrospection in which understanding is said to emerge backwards as lives that are being
lived forwards become subject to periodic reflection. We argue much in the way of sense emerges
from a future oriented condition of dwelling. Third, the theme of the conditions of sense that in much
of the sensemaking literature retain a overtly pragmatic atmosphere where sense is equated with the
recovery of effective human habit. We argue for a more questioning consideration of our meaningful
relationship with things. Throughout these investigations we use the later work of Martin Heidegger to
consider sense-making amid the wider questionability of being and the conditions of being.
32/68
PROS-065
Bakhtin meets Whitehead: A process view of leadership
Muayyad Jabri
School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, University of New England
Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia, mjabri@une.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 6773 2051
Much of our prevailing knowledge of leadership is generally predicated on traits (substance) and styles,
rather than the on-going experience of the act of leading. Leadership still sees ‘being’ of the person,
whether leader or follower, as stable and enduring. All this seems to have led to an overmastering
conception of leadership, so much so that the prospect for ‘becomingness’ to inhere the act of leading
is inhibited. This is troubling ― for it impedes leadership from conceptions of life and becoming.
With a view of advancing leadership as dependent on becoming, this paper works out its position by
searching for some possible likeness, or affinity, that might exist between Whitehead’s notion of
process (1956) and Bakhtin’s work on dialogue (1990). The search is not about dovetailing the work of
Bakhtin and that of Whitehead. Rather, it is more about finding an interface that would implicate
leadership. A meeting between Bakhtin and Whitehead can be useful. Process can be better construed
and lived through dialogue. Hence, there appears to be something potentially useful in seeing the act
of leading from a process perspective achieved through dialogue.
Both, Whitehead and Bakhtin, questioned Kant's reliance on the existence of things-in-themselves.
And, in fact, Bakhtin shares with Whitehead the desire to reconcile the division between the objective
and the subjective. Bakhtin sees reality as a process achieved through dialogue. That is where the
novel emerges as an outcome of the dialogue between characters. His conception of utterance endows
his work with facets characteristic of process (for example, architectonics, centripetal and
centrifugal, transgredience, etc.). His treatment of becoming is relational (Jabri et. al., 2008). Bakhtin
notes that: “I live in a world of others’ words. And my entire life is an orientation in this world, a
reaction to others’ words” (1986: 143).
For whitehead, process, too, is based on language. Language has two functions, according to
Whitehead. The first is to “converse with another.” The other function is to “converse with oneself”
(1956: 46). Whitehead sees “language as thought” and that “thought is language” (1956: 48).
Elsewhere, Whitehead sees language as an expression form one’s past into one’s future” (1956: 46). His
notion of process assumes dependence on speech (parole), rather than langue. Freedom of thought,
depicting changes in process, is made possible by language. Importantly, Whitehead sees language as
“immersed in the immediacy of social intercourse” (1956: 55), hence dialogic in orientation with others.
_______________________
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other essays. (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. McGee,
Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Jabri, M., Adrian, A. and Boje, D. (2008). Reconsidering the role of conversations in change
communication: a contribution based on Bakhtin. Journal of Organizational Change Management,
Vol. 21, 667-85.
Whitehead, A. N. (1956). Modes of thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
33/68
PROS-068
The importance of Callon’s scallops, and why they deserve to be looked at again in the
light of process thinking
Tor Hernes, Copenhagen Business School. Th.ioa@cbs.dk
Michel Callon’s (1986a) study of researchers, scallops and fishermen connecting into an actor-network, was instrumental in
founding Actor-Network Theory (ANT). More than the actual findings of the article it is the process related assumptions in
Callon’s paper that set the stage for over two decades of instructive studies of social and technology development processes.
This paper reviews key assumptions in Callon’s article and argues why some of them deserve to be examined anew. The analysis is
done against a wider background of process thinking of which the paper suggests four basic principles: becoming, heterogeneous
relationality, referential wholes, and contingency. Of these four principles it is the last – contingency – whichis given particular
attention. It is suggested in particular that incorporating actors’ contingent observations is not developed in Callon’s paper, but
nevertheless represents a potentially important contribution towards further theorizing of technological development
processes. This is what the paper at the end refers to as the process of actualization and realization, which, it is argued, is
underdeveloped in Callon’s work.
What sets human actors aside from artifacts, is their ability to make sense of possibilities by creating abstractions
(Whitehead, 1929) from an equivocal world (Weick, 1995). Assessing the potentiality represented by an element, and gradually
turning it into an actuality is a capacity reserved human actors, although the process of turning possibilities into actualities may
not be done without the help of artifacts. Still, virtual possibilities are real not only when they are translated and enrolled into
the network. They are also real as and when they are seen as possible actualities for the network, in a translated form. Human
actors observe possibilities for inclusion (or exclusion) from actor networks.
In Callon’s paper this can be seen in the beginning of the process, where the researchers observe the fact that
scallops are successfully domesticated in Japan. This observation is translated into an actuality in the St. Brieuc Bay. From then
on, however, it seems that the human actors (researchers and fishermen) are less active in their search for new possibilities.
The story continues to be told in terms of the actualities of the process, in the absence of new potentialities. From a certain
point onwards it seems that entities do not exist as realities before they are actualised. Hence, the processes of actualization
are largely devoid of the type of sensemaking that process theory would normally include as being indispensable for a process to
go on.
This gradual elimination of potentiality in the story as it is told appears logical in the sense that the story is due to
‘end’ at the end of the article, as is the case in virtually all scientific reporting. Thus, as the story progresses, the range of
options open to the actors is narrowed down.
The playing down of human sensemaking and the potentiality that it represents to processes may be understood in the light of
the principles underlying actor-network theory. In the work by Callon, human actors are present and important, but their
influence is balanced by the principle of symmetry. In fact, Callon outlines three principles (that of agnosticism, generalised
symmetry, and free association), which belong logically to one another. Agnosticism implies impartiality of analysis when it comes
to actors engaged in controversy. Thus, for example, the social should be treated with much the same possibility of being
unpredictable as should be the natural. Generalised symmetry implies a commitment to explain conflicting viewpoints in the same
terms. It implies that human actors should not be privileged over artifacts in terms of the language that we use to explain their
roles and influence in the formation of networks. This may be seen in Callon’s discussion of the larvae, their propensity for
tearing loose from their collectors, and the way that they need to be ‘convinced’ or ‘lured’ to not tear themselves loose from
their achorings. Finally, the principle of free association, which implies the abandonment of all a priori distinctions between the
natural and the social.
Agnosticism, symmetry, and free association, are principles developed in Callon’s paper, but they are principles that still
dominate Actor-Network Theory. For example, Latour (1993) picked up Callon’s definition of symmetry from Callon’s Scallops
paper. Latour (1999; 2007) has later evoked the principle, while emphasizing that symmetry does not imply pre-given equal
characteristics to humans and non-humans. Symmetry is to be seen as the various competencies that agents (objects) may swap
with one another (Latour, 1999). To account for symmetry in analysis is to avoid the a priori imposition of asymmetry between
human intentional action and a material world of causal relations (Latour, 2007:76).
Symmetry may serve as a good principle for understanding how humans and non-humans translate one another. However, it
impoverishes the analysis unnecessarily by refusing contingent thinking to humans because it cannot be swapped with nonhumans. Contingencies exist, not as factors that determine what is going to happen next, but rather as ‘horizons’ (Heidegger,
1927) from which actors draw in reproducing possible futures. The horizons, brought forward from the past, represent factors
that influence what is projected (or framed) as a possible future. This is what confers upon these factors the status of
contingencies. Thus, actors have some leeway in their choice of what to retain from the past while at the same time being
temporary products of that very past.
The main point is that contingencies, although they are constitutive of processes, are not settled in advance. On the contrary,
they are latent and inherently uncertain, although they may appear as more or less decisive to actors. Their decisiveness,
however, cannot be assessed by actors at the time when they make selection, but can only be guessed at and brought into focus
by actors. Choices are not normally made as choices per se, but as enacted working hypotheses, directed how the world may
possibly become. In Schutz’ (1967:59) words, ‘Every projection of action is rather a phantasying of action, that is, a phantasying
of spontaneous activity, not but the activity itself. It is an intuitive advance picturing which may or may not include belief, and,
if it does, can believe positively or negatively or with any degree of certainty.’
Such projection cannot be done by material objects, and hence they cannot be swapped with material objects, to employ Latour’s
term. They can only be done by human agents, individually or together.Only individuals and collectivities can “be in the world”,
because being in the world is constituted by understanding (Heidegger, 1927). But human actors embody more competencies
which cannot be swapped with non-humans. They can perform contingent sensemaking.
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PROS-070
Organizing and Management: on the introduction of a new grammar
Karin Holmblad Brunsson
Uppsala University
karin.brunsson@fek.uu.se
Abstract: This paper argues that ideas of organizing and process organizations are coupled to a
mistrust of management, in particular the hierarchies that the management concept presumes. As soon
as these ideas are put into practice organizational hierarchies reappear, however, as do managers and
management. While recommendations for process organizations describe a return to a pre-Taylorist
and pre-Fayolist situation, attempts to make real-life organizations into process organizations vary,
and include procedure enforcement, rationalization, reorganization, and inter-organizational cooperation. A radical shift of the organizational grammar, as the literature postulates, does not
materialize. Instead, organizations use ideas of process organizations as an ideologically flavored
Mädchen für Alles, and this in turn makes process organizations difficult to define and discern. It is
suggested that, with time, organizations return to a Fayolist type of management and that this
development lies inherent in the organizing and process organization ideas. Processes turn into
procedures, and a transitory gerund reverts to a full sentence.
35/68
PROS-073
The Sensemaking Dynamics of Leadership Practice
Brigid Carroll1 and Barbara Simpson2
Abstract
This paper seeks to re-theorise the relationship between sensemaking and sensegiving in order
to better contribute to contemporary leadership theory. Leadership traditionally has been associated
primarily with sensegiving, which is understood as both framing the orientation of and outcome from
sensemaking. However we argue that this positioning of sensegiving is not as useful as it might be in
informing understandings of the work and practice of leadership, especially as contemporary
leadership scholarship shifts away from strongly individualistic and positional assumptions. We
propose that the social and retrospective properties of sensemaking in particular, require renovation in
order to animate sensegiving as a more useful construct in leadership theory. Thus we attempt to
offer a more subtly nuanced and more complex view of the social and temporal aspects of sensemaking
and sensegiving as theoretically distinct but also mutually embedded.
In constructing our argument we seek to build on the pragmatist ideas that are already
threaded through Karl Weick’s formulation of sensemaking. We propose that further theoretical
extension can usefully be gained by drawing in Mead’s notion of gestural transaction, and Peirce’s
abduction. This approach suggests that sensegiving involves imagining compelling futures and using
these to influence the future anticipations of others. So, if the work of leadership is to be more fully
understood, there is a need to pay attention not only to the identity-building dynamics that extract
meaning from the cues of the past, but also to the practices of anticipating different futures and the
ways in which these anticipations shape actions, including the thinking and talking actions of
organizational members, as they arise in the present moment.
A participant group of 24 senior middle managers engaged in long term leadership development
is drawn upon for an empirical exploration of the sensemaking and sensegiving terrain. This group was
selected because 1) they have both chosen, and been chosen, to build a connected, collaborative and
collective leadership layer in their organization; 2) as middle management they reflect a contemporary
and contested leadership positioning; and 3) they voluntarily engaged in sustained sensemaking over
time in order to construct an intentionally leadership-centred relationship with their CEO and
Executive. The data involves approximately 80 postings across 6 online forums where they engaged
transactionally in conscious and explicit sensemaking.
From this data, we have identified six different discourses that positioned the group in terms
of its readiness, willingness and capacity to practice leadership. Four of these discourses offered
alternative identity positions to the ones already accomplished by the group, yet only two of the four
could enable a dynamic relationship with the promise of ‘joining-up’ the leadership between this middle
management group and the CEO/ Executive. We draw a number of conclusions as a result on this
inquiry. Firstly that shared identity work provides the connection between sensemaking and
sensegiving, and secondly that sensegiving would be better understood in leadership terms as not the
shaping or framing of the perspectives of others but as the influencing of movement and dynamism
towards imagined and hoped for futures.
1
2
University of Auckland Business School, Auckland, New Zealand
Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, United Kingdom
36/68
PROS-074
Thinking, Acting, and Organizing – Towards a heuristic to study processes of handling
paradoxes inspired by social systems theory
Harald Tuckermann (Institute of Management, University of St.Gallen) &
Miguel Pina e Cunha (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Abstract:
Within a complex world, management is increasingly confronted with paradoxes that it needs to
address in order to be successful. Many academic studies present possible solutions, results or ways of
handling paradoxes either on the individual and group level, or on the organizational level. The former
research focuses on individual or group strategies of handling paradoxes, like confronting, accepting or
transcending them. The latter stream takes the organization as a unit of analysis and we learn about
coopetition, ambidexterity, glocalization, improvisation or (de-)centralization, for instance.
Interestingly, there are only a few empirical works taking a process perspective, i.e. focusing on how
paradoxes are observed and on how strategies for their handling come into being within organizations.
What we know regards three analytical levels: first, learning to think paradoxically individually; second,
group processes to reflect and to develop ways of handling paradoxes; and third, the relation between
such groups and the organization. One area that remains under researched is the interaction between
these levels. Taking a Luhmannian social systems perspective, we explore how the three levels can be
conceptually incorporated. We aim to synthesize an organizational approach to study the process of
handling paradoxes in organizations.
Our argument draws on two exemplary works within the process perspective. One concerns processes
of thinking paradoxically and of acting to handle paradoxes within the group level. The other focuses
more broadly on organizing to unfold paradox and provides insights into the relation of the group with
the organizational level.
In our view, it takes thinking, acting and organizing in combination to handle paradoxes within
organizations. We propose the “TAO-Heuristic” to integrate the three analytical levels in order to
contribute to the handling of paradoxes. For practice, the heuristic could serve as a map to distinguish
the levels at which paradoxes and at which possible ways of handling arise. For both aspects, we
suggest to developing a parallel structure of systematically related communicative settings. Such a
structure could allow the organization to observe and act upon emerging paradoxes as these
phenomena unfold. The organization could move towards a more mindful organizing that focuses on how
to develop ways of handling paradoxes within organizations.
With the TAO-Heuristic we contribute to the call for adopting a “paradoxical lens” in the literature on
organizations. Such a perspective not only adds to the variety of understandings, like that of change
processes or of management itself as paradoxical. It also reinforces to view organizing as process.
Paradoxes do not contain permanent solutions but rather require continuous observing, acting and
organizing within the specific context of an organization.
37/68
PROS-075
Prospective Sensemaking and the Management of Institutional Risk
Robert P. Gephart, Jr. and Cagri Topal
University of Alberta School of Business
Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA T6G 2R6
Tel: 001-780-492-5715; E-mail: Robert.gephart@ualberta.ca; cagritopal@yahoo.com
Sensemaking is the process by which people create, interpret and recognize meaningful features of
the world (Gephart, 2004). Although retrospective sensemaking has been addressed in most
sensemaking research, sensemaking can also be prospective. Prospective sensemaking has a “future
oriented focus” that involves “the conscious and intentional consideration of the probable future
impact of certain actions, and especially non-actions, on the meaning construction processes” of social
actors (Gioia, Thomas, Clark and Chittipeddi, 1994: 378). For example, sensemaking practices were
used to prospectively create an enforceable organizational reality that allowed the forced removal of
an organization’s leader (Gephart, 1978: 553). And “prospective sensemaking” was used in a strategic
change program to substantially redefine a university’s “philosophy, values and ‘mindset’” (Gioia, et.al.,
1994: 366).
Prospective sensemaking thus emerges as a promising research topic. Prospective sensemaking
seeks to create meanings for events that will occur in the future. It involves meaning creation and
interpretation related to future institutional and organizational events.
In this paper we investigate the social practices that constitute prospective sensemaking and
show that prospective sensemaking concerning risk is an essential aspect of strategy formation. We
address two questions: 1) ‘how does prospective sensemaking construct particular institutional risks?’
and 2) ‘how do institutions and institutional actors construct operational plans and make the plans
legitimate or socially acceptable’?
The research setting is a public hearing into a proposed ‘sour gas’ development in a rural
community in Alberta, Canada conducted by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. The hearing
sought input to plan for the safe, effective and economic drilling and operation of two proposed sour
gas wells (Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, 2002 & 2003). The hearing engaged multiple
stakeholders in prospective sensemaking about how to drill for and extract highly toxic “sour gas”
(H2S or hydrogen sulfide gas) that is fatal in concentrations exceeding 800 parts per million. In the
paper, we use qualitative methods to analyze transcripts of the hearing. The analysis surfaces
features of prospective sensemaking, identifies institutional risks, and addresses how prospective
sensemaking relates to institutional risk management.
References
Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. 2002 & 2003. Notice of hearing application nos.1253701,
1253703 and 1261233. Evansburg, Alberta, November 26, 2002; reopened in Stony Plain, Alberta, May
1, 2003. Calgary: Alberta Energy and Utilities Board.
Gephart, R.P. 1978. Status degradation and organizational succession: an ethnomethodological
approach. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23, 553-581.
Gephart, R.P. 2004. Sensemaking and new media at work. American Behavioral Scientist, 48, 479-495.
Gioia, D. A., Thomas, J. B., Clark, S. M. and Chittipeddi, K. 1994. Symbolism and strategic change in
academia: the dynamics of sensemaking and influence. Organization Science, 5 (3), 363-383.
38/68
PROS-080
Beyond ontology: towards a methodological vocabulary for researching processes as
becoming
Jenny Helin, PhD Candidate and Leif Melin,
Professor of Strategy and Organization
Centre for Family Enterprise and Ownership
Jönköping International Business School
Scholars producing ‘strong’ process studies have been creating novel contributions to organizational
academics and practitioners. Within this stream of research, one of the influential directions is the
development of a ‘becoming ontology’ (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). This direction recognizes ‘that reality is
in perpetual flux and transformation and hence unrepeatable through any static conceptual framework
or paradigm of thought’ (Chia, 1996: 46). While the essence of a becoming ontology mainly has been
discussed from philosophical and theoretical points of view, methodological considerations are still
quite vague. The becoming ontology suggests a rather dramatic shift in organization research, because
of its ‘entirely different set of ontological commitments, epistemological priorities and theoretical
foci’ (Chia, 1996: 34). But we need to consider the methodological concerns of such a shift accordingly.
For instance, if organizations are to be understood in terms of on-going transformations and flows –
how can they be approached in empirical research projects? And, if it is the spontaneous and unique
interactive moments that are crucial for understanding organizational becoming - what are the
methodological implications of this way of thinking? There is a need for scholars to engage in a
‘translation’ of the philosophy of becoming into a methodological language from where our research
practices can develop further.
Our main argument is that such a methodology needs to depart from the same ontological
assumptions as the becoming philosophy does. Thus, it has to be a methodology that rests on strong
processual conditions which thereby questions the mainstream view that organizations is a stable
entity to be found ‘out there’. Quite contrary, from a becoming process perspective, the organization
itself is a question and not a given (Hernes, 2008).
In the paper, the ontological and epistemological assumptions are discussed and ‘broken down’ into
methodological concerns that are of core in a becoming methodology. These concerns are circulated
around issues such as how we can relate to people in the ‘field’ and how processes of becoming can be
approached and captured in empirical studies. In the discussion, a shift from aboutness-thinking to
withness-thinking (Shotter, 2008) is suggested and a withness-framework for a becoming methodology
is developed. This framework departs from ‘a dynamic form of reflective interaction that involves
coming into contact with another’s living being, with their utterances, with their bodily expressions,
with their words, their works’ (Shotter, 2005: 10).
The withness-framework is focusing on three essential methodological concerns: (1) What kind of
engagement lays the ground for becoming research – towards relational access, and (2) What should be
focused on in becoming research – addressing in-betweenness, and (3) How can becoming processes be
captured – moving around in the making. The withness-framework thereby calls for being wholly and
emotionally in the moment, and simultaneously, to move along with the becoming processes.
In the elaboration of the withness-framework, empirical illustrations from an in-depth research
project about governance processes in two family firms are integrated. These illustrations points to
the challenges of embracing the ‘fuzziness’ and unforeseen developments that evolves in empirical
studies from a ‘strong’ process perspective (Hernes, 2008). On the other hand, it also shows the
possibilities of creating new thoughts, novel connections and ‘once-occurring events’ that arouse in the
interaction between the involved people in the research project.
The main contribution of the paper lies in the ideas about how to conduct informed empirical
research from a becoming perspective.
39/68
PROS-082
What If... Institutions Were Processes?
Elke Weik
University of Leicester
e.weik@le.ac.uk
Abstract
“Institutions endure.” (Clemens & Cook, 1999:441) This rather nasty trait, I believe, makes them an
interesting object of study for process theory. For it is easy to see the advantage of process theory
in explaining (organizational, institutional or societal) change, instability or conflict. But how does it
construe endurance, permanence, stability?
My paper will investigate this question using as an example the founding of the University of Paris,
which is perhaps the oldest university in Europe and certainly the role model for the institution
“university”. The empirical data allows me to compare pre- and post-foundation phases in order to look
for differences in how processes work and are related to one another.
On the theoretical level, I will try to move away from the – rather trivial – notion of process as a
“flow” and apply a more sophisticated framework mainly drawing on Whitehead’s ideas of potentialityactuality, relativity, and concretion-abstraction. Some of these ideas have already been put to use by
Bakken and Hernes (2006) as well as Hernes and Weik (2007), and I will use the present paper to
further develop and link the notions.
Briefly, the basic considerations for creating a framework for a processual understanding of
institutions are:
Starting from Giddens’s (1993) definition of institutions as “binding time and space”, I want to explore
how arrangements that were initially on a purely local level, start to “bind” time and space. This seems
to happen through particular processes, in this case: chains of actions, starting to influence other
processes in a permanent, and thus for humans: reliable, manner. This influencing can, I believe, be
modelled in process theoretical terms with the notions of potentiality-actuality and relativity.
Processes influencing each other reciprocally then create patterns on various levels of analysis. An
important aspect of this “move through the levels” is the alternating application of concretion or
abstraction as particular instances become universalised and vice versa, new universal schemes applied
in different contexts. This is what institutionalist theory calls “translation” (Zilber, 2008).
References
Bakken, T., & Hernes, T. 2006. Organizing is Both a Verb and a Noun: Weick meets Whitehead.
Organization Studies, 27(11): 1598-1616.
Clemens, E., & Cook, J. 1999. Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change. Annual
Review of Sociology, 25: 441-466.
Giddens, A. 1993. The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hernes, T., & Weik, E. 2007. Towards a Theory of Becoming. In R. Lang, & A. Schmidt (Eds.),
Individuum und Organisation: 73-96. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag.
Zilber, T. 2008. The Work of Meanings in Institutional Processes and Thinking. In R. Greenwood, C.
Oliver, R. Suddaby, & K. Sahlin (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism:
151-169. Los Angeles: Sage.
40/68
PROS-084
Collaborative development process of a new organizational and leadership model in
hospital surgery
Anu Kajamaa3, Yrjö Engeström, Hannele Kerosuo (University of Helsinki, Finland) & Päivi Laurila
(Oulu University Hospital, Finland):
Abstarct
Industrial management principles such as process thinking, rationalization of care processes and
process redesign have become commonly used in health care quality management, since mid- 1990s.
Results of the studies provide guidelines, for example, on how to develop efficiency and fluency of the
processes in hospitals. In our paper we open up the notion of rationalized, standardized processes,
which typically sees processes as linear, rather isolated and well bounded. However, course of the
processes may be unpredictable and processes are usually influenced by other elements of the
organization. Multiple, interdependent and interacting processes often take place simultaneously. We
therefore define processes as only partially scripted strings of actions, often interacting with other
parallel processes. We suggest that process models need to be expanded from single processes to
include this notion of interconnectedness of multiple processes.
In our paper, we present a case example from hospital’s surgical operating unit where we conducted an
activity theoretically oriented development process, which aimed at improving the difficult situation
the unit was facing. The professionals brought their knowledge and experiences to so called Change
Laboratory setting. The laboratory provided a space for collective analysis of the crisis like situation
and a new organizational and leadership model was eventually, collectively created. In the paper we
explore the collaborative development process of the new model. The focus in the process was in
large-scale transformations, which does not mean a quick fix of organizing the work, but may take
years to carry out in an organization. In our view the potentials of process redesign are very limited
when there is no viable community that owns the process. We state that the success of process
implementation and formation of a collaborative community depends on the organizations’ ability to
manage interplay between processes and to develop flexible coordination between parallell and
interacting processes. Collective, multiprofessional negotiation is needed to understand the
consequences of conducted actions and to develop sense of community and shared ownership and
responsibility of the complex processes.
3
The corresponding author Anu Kajamaa (MA, Researcher & Doctoral Student) can be contacted at Center for Activity Theory
and Developmental Work Research, P.O. Box 26, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
Phone: +358408232358, anu.kajamaa@helsinki.fi
41/68
PROS-086
A Sensemaking Explanation of Opportunity Recognition
Zipi Shperling
Associate Professor of Strategic Management
The Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo
School of Management and Economics
Antokolski St. 4;Tel Aviv;ISRAEL;64044
TelFax: +972-77-9241623
E-mail: zipis@post.tau.ac.il
Abstract
At the heart of the field of entrepreneurship is the belief that some individuals are more able than
others to recognize promising market opportunities, and then commit resources to those opportunities,
before the relationship between that commitment and its potential performance outcomes becomes
known to other market participants. What remains unclear in this literature, however, is where these
opportunities come from.
There are two schools of thought regarding this question. The ‘rational’ school views opportunities as
objective phenomena that wait to be discovered through a linear process of exploration, evaluation,
and exploitation (Shane, 2000, 2003; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000; Kirzner, 1997). In contrast, the
‘creation’ school views opportunities in more subjective terms, where the entrepreneur actively invents
a market-based advantage, which has not previously existed (Alvarez & Barney, 2005; 2007; Baker &
Nelson, 2005; Sarasvathy, 2001).
In this paper, we propose a theory for integrating the contributions of the two schools by focusing on
the thought processes that precede discovery and creation processes. In so doing, we offer a more
realistic and holistic understanding of the origins of opportunities. Our theory’s unit of analysis is the
sensemaking processes, or the interplay of action and interpretation (Weick, Suthcliff & Ostfeld,
2005), which individuals encounter when faced by ambiguous (unfamiliar) situations. We draw on
Csikszentmihayalyi’s (1990) four-stage flow model to enrich our understanding of these processes. We
argue that the more aware an individual is about the tensions that characterize an ambiguous situation,
the greater is his capacity to discover creative opportunities and create discovered opportunities.
42/68
PROS-090
The 2-loop model – IT-related change in the mangle of practice
Lars-Olof Lychnell, PhD Candidate
lasse.lychnell@hhs.se
Mats Lundeberg, Professor
mats.lundeberg@hhs.se
Pär Mårtensson, Assistant Professor
par.martensson@hhs.se
Center for Information Management
Stockholm School of Economics
SWEDEN
Drawing on concepts from Andrew Pickering’s mangle of practice, the authors propose a 2-loop model
that takes both the planned and the emergent aspects of IT-related organizational change into
consideration as two parts of an inseparable whole.
In this paper, the gap between managerial change initiatives and the always already-changing texture
of the organization is discussed from a process view. Many researchers have pointed out the
importance of taking an emergent perspective when accounting for the consequences of IT-related
change initiatives in organizations. However, planning is an influential aspect of change initiatives, and
goals and intentions play a significant role in real life.
The aim of this paper is to further the understanding of the interplay between development processes
and use processes, and how this interplay over time shapes and re-shapes the outcome of IT-related
change initiatives. The paper takes an emergent perspective on IT-related organizational change and,
furthermore highlights the importance of the processes of managerial planning and implementation.
It is shown that the process of IT-related change may be understood in terms of the 2-loop model. In
the model, one loop illustrates the processes of development in which people working with IT-related
change are trying to model the future state of the organization, and to construct and implement a
solution in order to change the way people and artefacts are working.
The other loop illustrates the processes of use in which the people in the organization go on with their
day-to-day practices of which the intended solution is just one part of the organizational routines they
perform. In use, the solution and the day-to-day practice are “mangled” together, resulting in often
unexpected consequences that sometimes come as a surprise for the people working with IT-related
change.
This takes the process into additional iterations of development and use, until it finally finds rest in an
interactive and temporary stabilization. This idea emphasizes the highly temporary quality of the
situation and the fact that it is nothing inherently stable in the situation itself.
43/68
PROS-091
Why organizations (sometimes) fail to learn from critical incidents: a tale of nuclear
safety regulation
Johan M. Sanne,
Dept. of Technology and Social Change,
Linköping University, Sweden
Abstract
Why do organizations sometimes fail to learn in ways that would enable them to requisitely make sense
of what happens to them? The 1979 TMI accident in the USA was constructed as a “focusing event”:
If evidence of misplaced assumptions is strong enough and the outcome is severe enough, the accident
may be socially constructed so as to cause paradigmatic organizational changes. In this paper, I will
explore the non-construction of focusing events through examining why the nuclear power industry in
less than two years normalized a recent (2006) nuclear power incident in Sweden that initially
critically challenged the industry’s understanding of plant design and operation. Normalization was the
result of industry experts’ knowledge practices: the non-investigation of salient issues as well as
experts’ inability to adequately make sense of parts of what they actually observed. I will argue that
systematic biases in these practices informed both how the industry designed the plant and how they
investigated the incident, blocking opportunities for revising knowledge practices in ways that could
prevent future incidents.
The paper draws upon both incident reports and interviews, focusing the organizational learning
required within the regulatory model used, the safety case. The regulatees produce a safety case,
including claims to sufficient knowledge about relevant risks, through risk analysis and learning from
incidents, as well as associated means to manage identified risks. The regulator scrutinizes whether
the safety case complies with relevant regulations, approves of it or request revisions.
The concepts of focusing events, bounded practices and knowledge production are helpful to make
sense of organizational learning processes salient to safety case regulation. Organizational learning will
be seen as knowledge production as elaborated within social studies of science and technology, arguing
that knowledge is socially constructed, and that what is knowledge is defined by relevant producers
and users. Bounded practices have both an institutional and a conceptual dimension. The institutional
dimension draws upon the means that organizations or industries use when producing knowledge but
also the rationales of and limits to scrutiny. The conceptual dimension draws upon the bounded
rationalities, cultural values, mind-sets, rules of thumb or heuristics that practitioners make use of
when interpreting data. Bounded practices are a necessary feature of organizational knowledge
production and any organizational learning will be framed by specific bounded practices. However,
under certain conditions they generate erroneous, systematic, assumptions about relevant risk objects
with hazardous consequences.
The Forsmark incident was not constructed as a focusing event since the industry’s bounded practices
made experts verify that, after minor modifications, the plant was sufficiently safe and that the
organization was sufficiently trustworthy. Moreover, since the bounded practices made experts’
inadequately recognize safety-critical issues and safety-critical processes, they both informed the
design errors and the inability to identify the processes behind them, thus blocking opportunities for
radical reform of these processes. The paper will make a contribution to both theories of regulation,
focusing on the analysis of the safety case model, and to theories of organizational learning from
incidents and accidents. Policy implications include the need for revising conceptual and institutional
means for safety case regulation, making radical learning possible.
44/68
PROS-093
Performance Crisis, and organisational sense making: A narrative perspective
Joseph Lampel & Nermeen Mustafa
Cass Business School
106 Bunhill Row
London EC1Y 8TZ
lampel@city.ac.uk
n.mustafa@city.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
Its 8:00 a.m. on the 17th of September 2008. Long queues quickly begin to form outside many of
Northern Rock’s UK branches. These are queues of anxious customers eager to withdraw their cash
deposits completely; some withdrawing as much as £500,000 and placing them in carrier bags.
Northern Rock is a case of organisational performance crisis which received a high level of publicity.
An identity tension is created once there is a misalignment between organisational identity and
performance; particularly from the perspective of the shareholders. This makes it a strong case for
examining identity tension caused by this misalignment.
The study aims to examine organisational sense making and rationalisation of crisis situations. It will
take a narrative approach to studying this phenomenon. Organisational crisis response strategy and
identity tension management as manifested in its letters to shareholders in the annual reports will be
examined and attention will be paid to discursive strategies employed to textually weave crisis
response and identity/performance realignment into biographical narratives.
45/68
PROS-097
Refining Process Thinking in Organizational Research: Insights from Deleuze
Eleni Lamprou
LSE Fellow - UK
Haridimos Tsoukas
ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece and University of Warwick, UK
Abstract
In recent years we have witnessed an increasing interest in theorizing the organization in process
terms, although ‘process’ has been translated in diverse ways. From initial conceptualizations of the
organization informed by historicity and context, process lately denotes an alternative ontological lens.
Under this lens, grounded on process philosophy, change is conceptualized as ‘what there is’, what the
organization emerges from. Reviewing such contributions to organizational research, we wish to drive
this stream of studies further. We argue that, despite their fundamental contribution, these studies
present certain limitations. Specifically, they retain residual notions of stability and understandings of
repetition, and do not explore the significance of affect to the emergence of the organization. We
maintain that these limitations restrain process thinkers from gaining invaluable insights on
organizational phenomena. Drawing from the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, we seek to address these
limitations through revisiting the concept of ‘organizational becoming’. In this direction, organizational
becoming is conceptualized as a process which ‘affects’ organizational members – in - interaction. This
process involves experiencing the recurring expression of ‘difference’ within ‘disconcerting events’,
accommodating it through ‘intensive’ cognition and, ultimately, ‘passively’ following paths to resolve
such events. These experiences are highly individualized, yet they do give way to a coherent
organization. As to elaborate the proposed theoretical framework, illustrations are employed from the
extant literature.
46/68
PROS-101
1
The evaluation of knowledge claims: a case study of an innovation project
Kristian Peters1,3, Laura Maruster1 and René J. Jorna1,2
@ {k.peters@rug.nl, l.maruster@rug.nl, r.j.j.m.jorna@rug.nl}
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, PO BOX 800, 9700 AV, Groningen, The Netherlands
2
Frisian Academy, PO BOX 54, 8900 AB, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands - 3 Corresponding author
“The future of making profit out of music is by selling highly personalized music; unique and tailormade compositions that are produced in the same way composers worked for kings and queens in the
Baroque.” – by an owner of a record label.
This article is not about music, nor a new strategy for record labels to compensate for diminishing CD
sales. However, if you care about music this statement probably arouses you. One of the first
questions you ask yourself is whether the statement is valid: “Is it true?” A group of marketers of a
large record company may ask the same. In this study, we focus on how organizations answer this
question.
The statement is an example of a knowledge claim. A knowledge claim is an explicit form of knowledge
articulated as an assertion, conjecture, or theory. Organizations create and use knowledge claims to
build strategies, models, designs, and procedures. Between creation and usage of knowledge claims,
organizations evaluate their validity.
Based on a review of knowledge management and innovation literature, we conclude that a theory
explaining how organizations evaluate knowledge claims is largely missing. What we find in the
literature are theories that are conceptual and normative, and have restricted viewpoints. A theory
that explains knowledge claim evaluation in a way that is more heterogeneous and that has been
investigated in empirical settings, could lead, for example, to enriched explanations of the failures or
the successes of innovations.
In this paper, we present two results of our research in progress. Firstly, we present an overview of
the foremost knowledge claim evaluation theories found in knowledge management literature. We
explain and categorize the theories by introducing three approaches toward knowledge claim
evaluation: the Open approach, the Managerial approach, and the Entrepreneurial approach.
Secondly, we present the results of an empirical pilot study of knowledge claim evaluation in an
innovation project. Innovation projects provide an important setting for analyzing the evaluation of
knowledge claims. Since most knowledge claims in an innovation project are new to the organization,
other criteria and grounds than existing knowledge or practical experience, need to be applied. We
specifically analyze how the three approaches toward knowledge claim evaluation manifest itself in an
innovation project. The empirical setting of this study is situated at the headquarters of a building
technology multinational, where a new pricing method is developed for its regional companies.
Time and social interaction are essential factors in analyzing knowledge claim evaluation. We
incorporate insights from epistemology and argumentation theory in our analysis and interpret case
data from a multi-theory perspective. We use a visual mapping and quantitative strategy to understand
the qualitative data.
The results indicate a dominant position for one of the identified approaches towards knowledge claim
evaluation in the project, i.e. the Managerial approach. The principal implication of this is that a large
part of the creation and evaluation of knowledge remains in the hands of the management, instead of
in the hands of the assigned project team. The role of authority in knowledge claim evaluation is
discussable. Our observations mirror the concerns raised by authors in the field who state that the
potential value of a critical project team remains unexploited in the Managerial approach.
Furthermore, we have found project events where the two other approaches (i.e. Open and
Entrepreneurial) were in place. This result shows that knowledge claims are not evaluated in a single
way as is suggested in literature. The study sets a first step in improving our understanding of
knowledge claim evaluation in innovation.
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PROS-105
From motivation to motivating: change and context in motivational processes
José Navarro¹, Lucía Ceja² and Carlos Arrieta Salas³
¹Affiliation: Social Psychology Department, University of Barcelona.
Email address: j.navarro@ub.edu
²Affiliation: IESE Business School, University of Navarra.
Email address: LCeja@iese.edu
³Affiliation: School of psychology, University of Costa Rica.
Email address: clas14@gmail.com
Abstract.
To understand the mechanisms that rule employee behavior, has been an activity of interest for
organizational behavior scholars throughout history. The scientific and applied literature about work motivation is
wide and a myriad of theoretical models have been developed with the aim of understanding the “how” and “why”
of motivational behavior. Most of these theoretical propositions have been consolidated within the field of work
and organizational psychology, such as the needs fulfillment theories (Maslow, McClelland & Alferder), the
valences-expectancies theories (Vroom, Porter & Lawler), the goal setting theory (Locke & Latham), the
organizational justice and fairness theories (Adams, Leventhal, Greenberg, Cropanzano), the job characteristics
model (Hackman & Oldham), the self-determination theory (Decy & Ryan), and the social cognitive theory
(Bandura). All these theoretical approaches are shaped within a classic conceptualization of the organization and
therefore are far away from the constructivist and complex perspectives, which are interested in the action of
“organizing” instead of focusing on the organization as a stable entity.
Recently, there has been a growing feeling of dissatisfaction regarding some of the propositions held by
these classic theories, and their core hypotheses have been questioned. These critiques have emerged within the
selfsame classical paradigm, and a few have emphasized new ways of understanding motivation through alternative
theoretical approaches. An assumption that has received criticism is the one concerning the stability of
motivation. In other words, to perceive motivation as a stable process that can be monitored by the commonly
used tools, such as general questionnaires. ¿What have been the main contributions of these critiques? ¿What is
their reason for existing and why have they appeared?
Generally, it has been argued that motivation is a function of the interaction between the individual and
his or her context and since both can experience changes (for example changes in the individual needs or
modifications in the management systems of the organization) motivation can be considered, a changing process.
Nonetheless, research focusing on these changes is almost non-existent. In contrast, cross sectional research
interested in the antecedent processes that determine the level of motivation or the effects that motivation has
on specific areas of organizational behavior (i.e. performance) has dominated the field. The over reliance on cross
sectional research has derived in a shared understanding of motivation as a stable process.
Recent theoretical propositions (Dalal y Hunin, 2008) as well as empirical findings (Ceja & Navarro 2009;
Navarro & Arrieta, in press) have suggested that motivation is rather an unstable, uncertain and volatile process
that depicts constant changes and fluctuations across time. Similarly, it has been found that still with constant
context conditions, the levels of motivation reported by participants is often highly unstable, up to the point that
the intra-subject variability can be higher than the inter-subject variability. This has also been detected by other
areas of research (i.e. performance; Yeo & Neal, 2004).
The appearance of these findings is no longer considered as casual. The classical theories were
formulated during the last century, this is the 50s and 70s, when the organizational reality, as well as the social
and cultural contexts, were significantly more stable. Nevertheless, since motivation is also an interaction with
the context, it has become more evident that it presents greater signs of instability than of stability.
We need to formulate new theories and models that can challenge the established propositions. To
achieve this, we propose two key factors: 1) to consider motivation as a process that evolves and presents
continuous changes across time, and 2) to contemplate motivation in relation to the context (organizational, social
and cultural) in which it evolves. Therefore, we must incorporate to the current research agenda studies that use
longitudinal designs and incorporate time to analyze the evolution of motivation as well as ethnographic studies,
which can contribute to the understanding of how the individual and context interact with each other to shape
motivational behavior. The approach that should be adopted is to go beyond the perception of motivation as an
object and conceptualize it as an interactive process that is continuously evolving and self-organizing.
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PROS-110
The Process Perspective on Trust in Organizations
Søren Jagd, Department of Communication,
Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark
Abstract
Several trust researchers have pointed to the relevance of the process perspective for
understanding trust in organizations (Dibben 2000; Nooteboom & Six 2003; Möllering 2006;
Khodyakov 2007) and they have, together with several other trust researchers, contributed to
unfolding the process perspective in the study of trust in organizations. In this paper I review
these attempts to apply the process perspective in trust research focusing on the main questions
asked from a process perspective on trust.
One question is how the trust process gets started. A number of researchers have argued that
‘blind trust’, meaning trust that goes against, overlook or ignores rational or institutional good
reasons, is actually quite functional in starting trust processes (Möllering 2006). Another, rather
similar argument, stress the gift-giving perspective on starting trust processes. Trust is started by
one actor making himself/herself vulnerable towards other actors. According to this perspective
giving trust as a gift creates a non-binding obligation to reciprocate this ‘trust-gift’. When the
trust-gift is reciprocated, a trust process gets started that may or may not grow and develop over
time.
Another important question is how the trust process may grow and develop over time? An early
model showing how trust may develop is Dale Zands ‘spiral reinforcement model of the dynamics of
trust’ (Zand 1972), pointing that disclosure of information, acceptance of influence and acceptance
of the control of others have a feedback relationship with trust, reinforcing initial trust. Another
important early model is Alan Fox’ (1974) ideal-typical model of two radically different trust
dynamics, low-trust and high-trust dynamics. Based on whether managers is signalling that the do
trust or that they do not trust employees, employees respond by behaving accordingly. When
trusted, employees tend to behave in a way that reciprocates the initial trust, leading to a hightrust dynamics.
A third important question is how to understand the transformations of the meaning of trust in the
course of a relationship’s history. Several trust researchers have argued that the meaning of trust
may change radically over time, as exemplified by Roy Lewicki and Barbara Bunker’s (1995, 1996)
describing three types of trust, illustrating stages of trust development over time: calculus-based
trust, knowledge-based trust, and identification-based trust. This stage model, in line with several
other models, illustrate that trust may not only grow stronger over time, but the frame in which
the actors understands trust may change radically as trust develops.
A fourth important question is what trouble and deception means for the development of trust
processes? Frédérique Six (2005) argues that trouble may not harm trust, but may even be crucial
for the building of trust, because it is in instances of trouble that the trustworthiness of the other
is revealed. Recently the relationship between deception and trust has been explored (Möllering
2009).
Last, I discuss why the process perspective may be important for the study of trust in
organisations. The process perspective may help recognizing the reflexivity of trust development in
time and space (Möllering 2006; Khodyakov 2007), and the trust perspective may, more generally,
be a fruitful framework for studying the complexities of the development of trust over time.
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PROS-112
Designing as practice: Purposive interventions to develop shared
understanding
Isabelle Reymen1, Mariann Jelinek2, Hans Berends1
1 School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology
2 Mason School of Business, College of William & Mary and Eindhoven University of Technology
The development of shared understanding is crucial in collaborations between experts and their
clients, especially for creative work in innovation and design processes. Studies reveal that physical
and visual artifacts play a crucial role in the development of shared understanding. Technologymediated environments have been developed to increase shared understanding in design processes. Yet
it is unclear what process interventions the participants can make to foster the requisite shared
understanding. Our study addresses the question of how participants deliberately seek to develop
shared understanding through interactions in design processes.
We take a process perspective to analyze real-world design processes, within the crucible of a
concrete design project, drawing on video recordings of actual architect-client interactions for the
design of a crematorium in UK. Process study methodology is used for analyzing the primary video
data, examining activities performed by architect and client in two of their meetings. Illustrations
from other client interactions and product design activities corroborate our views.
Our analysis results in three main findings: First, the data clearly reveal that the development of
shared understanding is facilitated by purposive process interventions, i.e. specific interactions such
as a meeting, the use of questions to draw out information, and the summarizing of consensus
decisions. Architect and client jointly affect one another’s perspective to facilitate joint learning and
develop sufficient shared understanding. Second, in these interactions, three levels of nested subprocesses (sequences over time that build toward an outcome) are distinguished to advance the design
(architectural plan) to successive stages of increasing clarity and detail: micro-processes of the
interactions in design meetings with attention to relational politics, power plays etc.; meso-processes
of the evolution of the design over the design process (across several meetings); and macro-processes
of construction approval, regulation etc. within a larger institutional frame. These processes are not
just “about” the design, but affect the design profoundly. Third, we found iterative patterns (series of
interactions) that emerge throughout the processes, namely patterns of inquiry (asking questions,
summarizing responses), and patterns of corroboration (strengthening solutions by testing them
against intended use).
We conclude that the development of shared understanding can be fostered by deliberate
interventions; that nested sub-processes help to explain why and how shared understanding develops in
design processes; and that the recurrent patterns that comprise these processes are deliberate and
systematic. This study contributes to the design literature with a more detailed model of the
development of shared understanding in design processes. Architect-client efforts are not dissimilar
to the collaborations of engineering efforts, new product design groups, service design teams, or
similar joint innovation efforts by multiple hands of much broader interest. As such, understanding
how the parties interact to develop a shared understanding may open a pathway into wider
understandings about cooperative innovation efforts so central to contemporary innovation in alliances.
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PROS-113
Event Sensemaking, Vocabularies of Organizing, and Cultural Change in Social Systems
William Ocasio
Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
Jeffrey Loewenstein
McCombs School of Business - The University of Texas at Austin
Amit Nigam
New York University - Wagner School of Public Service
ABSTRACT
Theoretical Question: The objective of this paper is to develop theory on whether and how event sensemaking
leads to cultural change at different levels of analysis: work groups, organizations, communities of practice, and
organizational fields. In particular we highlight the antecedents and consequences of four ideal-typical processes
of event sensemaking observed in prior research: breakdown, affirmation, dominance, and dialectics.
Personal motivation: The first author is working with the others in two separate but related projects: The first is
a theory paper (Loewenstein and Ocasio, 2009) on how the specialized vocabularies that emerge in the process of
organizing (a) generate cultural structure for members of social systems—a patterned network of cultural
categories, toolkits, taxonomies, and logics of action, and (b) how vocabularies enable and constrain subsequent
organizing through their effects on cultural resonance, contradiction, and reification. The second is an empirical
paper (Nigam and Ocasio, 2008) on how attention to Clinton’s health care reform led to two interacting forms of
environmental sensemaking (representation and theorization) and how this process led to the transformation of
institutional logics in the hospital industry. At the intersection of the two papers is a theoretical hole—a process
theory of whether and how event sensemaking leads to change and transformation in vocabularies of organizing
and in resulting cultural components: cultural categories, toolkits, and logics, and their interrelationships.
Motivation for the Sensemaking Community: A key aspect of organizing is the social process of making sense of
events (Isabella, 1990; Peterson, 1997; Weick, 1995). Although the literature on sensemaking does not always
explicitly invoke the literature on culture, the process of sensemaking relies on pre-existing cultural systems of
meaning—cultural categories, vocabularies, toolkits, and logics of action--to make sense of events. The process of
sensemaking also has the potential to change cultural systems of meaning. Yet whether and how event sensemaking
results in significant change in cultural elements or cultural structure is not well understood. Prior research, for
example, shows evidence of multiple processes and outcomes: cultural breakdowns and dissolution as in Weick’s
(1993) analysis of the Mann Gulch fire; affirmation of core cultural identities, as in Dutton and Dukerich’s (1991),
analysis of response to the homeless crisis in the NY Port Authority; power struggles that lead to dominance of
one institutional logic, as in Rao, Durand, and Monin’s (2003) analysis of identity struggles among practitioners of
French cuisine; and dialectic process that synthesizes competing logics as in the emergence of a managed care
logic, which integrated corporate and market logics in the U.S. hospital industry (Nigam and Ocasio, 2008). All
four processes and outcomes can occur. But we do not know when and why each one occurs and how the processes
produce lasting change to cultural systems of knowledge. We seek to develop theory that helps answer this
question.
Approach: Our approach to culture builds on Loewenstein and Ocasio’s (2009) theory of how vocabulary structure
enables and constrains organizing. That theory is multi-level and cross-level and so is this one. Culture is viewed
as distributed knowledge among members of social systems (Tsoukas, 1996). Vocabularies of organizing,
specialized sets of words and idioms that are used to make sense of and coordinate organizing activities, are a
critical part of cultural knowledge that binds together the common ground of shared cultural knowledge with the
distributed knowledge of cultural objects, activities, and language possessed by various individuals and groups
within the social system. Cultural change can be generated by and observed through changes in the structure of
vocabularies of organizing.
Outline of our Ideas
1. We define events as material changes in organizing (objects, activities, and discourse) that are subject to
collective attention. Although attending to events is itself a product of sensemaking (Weick, Sutcliffe,
and Obstfeld, 2005), we focus our theory on what transpires after initial attention is granted.
2.
Event sensemaking involves both perception and reliance on cultural categories.
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3.
Most event sensemaking is routine and relies on existing vocabularies, thereby resulting in limited cultural
change.
4.
When participants in collective sensemaking cannot agree on what language to use to make sense of the
event, this highlights existing contradictions and differentiation in the culture (and vocabulary structure)
of the social system. Event sensemaking is then either (a) heightened if people care and are not
otherwise distracted, or (b) the event is ignored and put aside and conflict and contradictions avoided.
5.
Continued event attention leads to one of four ideal types of sensemaking: breakdown, affirmation,
dominance, and dialectic.
6.
7.
Continued event sensemaking leads to various forms of vocabulary change
a.
New words and idioms (often through metaphors and word combinations)
b.
New forms of indexing, or ways of combining words in texts and conversations
c.
New typical members of cultural categories
d.
Metonymic shifts in word meaning
Breakdown results from lack of time, lack of accessible resources (cultural and material), or dissolution
of dominant coalitions due to attractive alternatives and too much cultural differentiation.
8.
Affirmation requires developing culturally resonant forms of discourse (particularly 6 a, b, or c above)
that alter the vocabulary slightly but affirm rather disturb prevailing dimensions of cultural logics of
action. Affirmation is more likely to occur with time for reflection, and with limited existing
contradictions and differentiation in cultural logics. Affirmation may lead, however, to future
contradictions and cultural differentiation.
9.
Dominance results from power struggles and existing cultural contradictions and differentiation.
Dominance, like affirmation involves vocabulary shift (6a-6d). Dominance involves achieving resonance
with some dimensions of existing cultural logics at the expense of other dimensions.
10. Dialectics also involves vocabulary shift (6a-6d) but rather than resonating with existing dimensions of
cultural logics results in the formation of new dimensions that resonate with new forms of organizing and
new patterns of discourse.
11. Cultural change involves both bottoms-up and top-down processes.
a.
Bottoms-up processes involve cultural accretion, as small scale changes in patterns of vocabulary
use combine and accumulate into larger scale shifts in vocabulary structure.
b.
Top-down processes involve the explicit formulation and adoption of cultural models.
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PROS-116
Just One Problem after Another: Institutional Change and the Transformation of
Interorganizational Fields
Steve Maguire, McGill University
ABSTRACT
This study seeks to reconcile endogenous and exogenous theories of institutional change in
interorganizational fields by exploring the possibility that some events which appear exogenous are in
fact produced endogenously by institutionalized practices but hidden by dominant technological frames
which overlook unintended causal connections. Because technological frames are necessarily incomplete
(Callon, 1998), they result in what is termed “overflowing” in Actor Network Theory and “externalities”
by economists. This research takes “unintended consequences” seriously, focusing on them as
inevitable outcomes of organizing which can fuel change in the very practices that generate them. It
draws upon a historical qualitative analysis of the field of agricultural chemicals, documenting and
analysing the cycles of institutional change in the pesticide industry from its inception over one
hundred years ago to its mature state at the end of the 20th century. The analysis focuses on
processes through which institutional transformations of the industry came about and, specifically, on
the role played by problems of unintended consequences, including a continuing series of novel risks to
human health and the environment. These risks have resulted in a series of major realignments of
institutional arrangements in the field as they have been characterized, assessed and managed.
This research builds both conceptually and methodologically on Leblebici et al.’s (1991) longitudinal
study of processes of institutional change in the US radio broadcasting industry. Whereas the work of
Leblebici et al. (1991) focuses on the interactive dynamics of market actors in a field and emphasizes
the role of peripheral players in the transformation of an interorganizational field, our study focuses
on non-market actors and addresses the role of “new entrants” into fields – social groups (or
organizations speaking on their behalf) who at one point in time are outside the field but who
subsequently enter because of unanticipated problems or risks imposed upon them. Similar to that
seminal work, it develops a cyclical process model of institutional change, but one which differs in
proposing unintended consequences rather than competition for scarce resources as its motor for
institutional transformation. Whereas Leblebici et al. (1991) conclude that the organization of a field
is not permanent but depends upon institutionalized definitions of what is being transacted and that
these evolve due to competition over scarce resources which leads to innovation, this paper argues
that the organization of a field is not permanent but depends upon institutionalized definitions of
externalized problems and risks associated with what is being transacted and that these evolve due to
societal processes of risk characterization, assessment and management. In other words, closure and
stabilization of a technological frame and the institutionalization of associated practices establishes
the conditions and sets in motion the very processes that ultimately undermine the frame and
practices. The paper concludes with a discussion of how these findings generalize and apply to other
fields; and argues that the proposed alternative model is especially relevant to our contemporary “risk
society” (Beck, 1992), characterized as it is by institutional contests over widespread risks to human
health and the environment generated by industrial activity.
REFERENCES
Beck, U., 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage Publications.
Callon, M. 1998. An Essay on Framing and Overflowing: Economic Externalities Revisited by Sociology.
pp. 244–269 in M. Callon (ed.) The Laws of the Markets. Oxford: Blackwell.
Leblebici, H. Salancik, G. Copay, A. & King, T. 1991. Institutional change and the transformation of
interorganizational fields: An organizational history of the US radio broadcasting industry.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 36(3): 333-363.
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PROS-118
Re(Dis)Covering Organizational Forming: The Case Of Ireland’s Industrial
Development Authority
Paul F. Donnelly
Dublin Institute Of Technology
Email: Paul.Donnelly@Dit.Ie
Organizational form, as an issue, has been the focus of attention since Weber’s formulation of the
ideal-type bureaucracy. For organizational scholars, the very concept of form is at the heart of
organization studies, such that “[w]here new organizational forms come from is one of the central
questions of organizational theory” (Rao, 1998: 912). The Weberian “ideal type,” with its focus on
the ontological possibility of identifying form, represents the inaugural moment in organization
theory. Since that moment, and based on the need to say what is “organization” as the condition
for having “organization theory,” it is a requirement of organization theories that they address
“knowledge about organization” based on a boundary-making condition, no matter whether it is
through contingencies, legitimization, evolution or cost-reduction.
As such, much organizational theorizing views form as something already formed, as an essence,
with the attention focused on what constitutes form. Said differently, all that dominant
theoretical perspectives are able to do is to address form by way of classification, without
accounting for the process of forming, which does nothing but to reiterate that the only way to
think about form is through ontological reification privileging classifying schemes.
By
problematizing the focus on “form” I take issue with the largely ahistorical and aprocessual
character of much organizational theorizing. With this as my point of departure, I argue for
knowing the organizational as an ongoing process – i.e., “forming” over knowing “organizational form”
by way of classification.
Considering the above, therefore, a number of questions arise: does history end once we have
classified?; does forming continue to happen once we have classified?; what about a way to theorize
forming?; how to understand forming over form? More broadly, “can we think any other way” (Calás &
Smircich, 2003: 49), such that we do not become enmeshed in, and continue to reproduce, the
problems we encounter when engaging with largely aprocessual and ahistorical theoretical lenses?
These questions lead me to the more processually and historically sensitive lens of path dependence
theory. Through the contributions of path dependence theory, and with Ireland’s Industrial
Development Authority as empirical example, my paper seeks to address the concerns in the literature
with regard to process, history and new ways of theorizing and studying organizational form(ing), in so
doing maintaining an opening toward organizational forming in organizational theorizing and research.
REFERENCES
Calás, M.B. & Smircich, L. 2003. To be done with progress and other heretical thoughts for
organization and management studies. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 21: 29-56.
Rao, H. 1998. Caveat emptor: The construction of nonprofit consumer watchdog organizations. The
American Journal of Sociology, 103(4): 912-961.
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PROS-119
A Process Perspective on Contemporary Information Systems Development
Laurie McLeod and Bill Doolin
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Information systems (IS) development is a phenomenon of considerable research interest and
practical importance. Many organisational activities involve or are underpinned by IS, and IS play a
significant role in contemporary global, distributed and network organisations. In order to develop a
more sophisticated understanding of how IS development is enacted in practice, this paper applies a
process perspective to this complex and multidimensional organisational phenomenon. Such a
perspective treats the outcomes of IS development as the effects of complexes of processes,
focusing attention on the situated and emergent enactment of technological change in organisations.
In the paper, a combination of temporal bracketing, narrative analysis and visual representation is used
to analyse the sequence of social action and organisational processes involved in an IS development
project in a large New Zealand organisation, and to develop an explanation of how and why the
particular project outcome developed over time. The project studied was followed ‘in action’ for over
two years. It involved the development of a sophisticated financial database model using a purchased
commercial software package and external development consultants.
Underpinning and informing the process analysis of the project is the construction and utilisation of a
theoretical model of IS development as a situated, sociotechnical process. Drawing on concepts from
structuration theory and the sociology of technology, the model considers the situated actions and
practices of various individuals and groups involved in IS development, the ways in which these are
enacted within different contextual elements and structures, and the role of existing and new
technological artifacts in this process. IS development is characterised as emergent, with change
occurring dynamically from a complex trajectory of situated interactions (in which meanings and
actions are negotiated), intended and unintended consequences, and a recursive relationship between
structure and action. Such a perspective acknowledges the non-linear and iterative nature of IS
development processes.
The process analysis presented illustrates how a seemingly small, well-defined project experienced the
delays and difficulties that might be expected in larger, more complex projects. It offers insights into
the role of sense-making and ‘translation’ by internal and external actors, the influence of initial
characterisations of the nature of the project, the way project artifacts and representations
functioned as ‘boundary objects’ in the negotiation of meaning and time, how the enactment of project
processes was shaped by organisational structures and technological conditions of possibility, and the
effects of unanticipated events and unintended consequences. The analysis suggests that process
studies of IS development, previously applied to relatively large and contested IS developed over a
long timeframe, can also be usefully employed to understand and explain much smaller and less
politically-charged IS projects. The micro-level analysis reveals the complex and situated nature of
the sociotechnical interactions that constitute even these routine organisational activities.
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PROS-120
Story, Process and Sense: Reconsidering the role of narrative in sensemaking
research
Thomas Basbøll,
Copenhagen Business School
Like stories, processes unfold. But do processes also unfold like stories? There are, in fact, many
reasons to doubt the analogy between processes and stories. Narratives, for example, generally
proceed by way of discrete events that reduce a manifold of options to a sequence of realized actions.
Processes, by contrast, remain processes “all the way down” and do not collapse the multiplicity of
possible worlds into the one actual or realized world. Understanding a sensemaking process and their
effect on organizations, therefore, may require that we break with the narrative framing that events
themselves, and, especially, the actors that are implicated in them, invite. This does not mean inventing
an alternative narrative. Rather, it means conducting a non-narrative analysis that identifies the
processes that subtend a particular event rather than positing those processes as substances
themselves. I will be reading two published studies of sensemaking processes with this in mind.
Karl Weick’s study of the Mann Gulch disaster (ASQ, 1993) has long served as compulsory reading for
students of sensemaking. Its analytic framework is very much a narrative one and its direct invocation
of “cosmology” as a philosophical discipline makes it an obvious precursor of process organization
studies. Ryan Quinn and Monica Worline (Org. Science, 2008) have recently used it as a model for
their own study of the sensemaking processes that enabled the crew and passengers of United Airlines
Flight 93 to overpower their hijackers and prevent them from reaching their target on September 11,
2001. Their analytical approach is even more explicitly narrative. These studies offer ideal material to
explore the narrative approach to process organization studies.
I will take a deconstructive approach in this paper, identifying key tensions within and between the
two texts. Both leave on the side the narrative pressures that shaped the account presented by their
sources prior to their own analysis. Both the firefighters in Weick’s study and the passengers in
Quinn and Worline’s study, after all, were implicated in what would be explicitly referred to as
“tragedies”, which is simply the name of a narrative genre. This genre, which shaped not only the
events themselves but our account of them then becomes the basis for explanations of the outcomes.
The identity-construction of the firefighters suggests, as Quinn and Worline emphasize, a marshalling
of narrative resources (a story each firefighter told or did not tell about himself). The availability of
narrative resources made the resistance of the passengers and crew of UA93 possible. The absence of
such resources doomed the firefighters in Mann Gulch.
These explanations are of course immediately plausible. Indeed, they are as plausible as the stories we
construct around them. The question is not, of course, whether they are true, but whether they are
adequate to the processes studied. This is really methodological issue: our only sources of information
about the events in question are already published and highly dramatic accounts of the actions of
particular characters (heroes, villains, fools, louts). There is a real danger of simply reproducing the
narrative that has dominated the construction of popular myths and legends. These need not be false
in order to cover over the real process. By breaking with the narrative framing, and re-thinking the
episodes as a confluence of processes from which events emerged in non-linear and recursive ways,
rather than following one after another towards their tragic climax, we can get a deeper insight into
what “collapsed” on the firefighters in Mann Gulch and what “enabled” the passengers of UA93 to rise
up. At the end of Young Men and Fire, Norman Maclean speaks of a “conflagration” of forces, and I will
suggest that this image more adequately expresses the vitality of genuine becoming that conditioned
the events under study.
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PROS-121
Sensemaking, Security and the Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes
Ian Colville, University of Bath, and Mike Carter & Annie Pye, University of Exeter
Abstract
The point of terrorism is to terrorise, to cause pandemonium amongst a target population at both
psychological and institutional levels so there is no sense of security. The point of counter-terrorism
is to organize activities to prevent or negate the effects of terrorism, to psychologically and
institutionally create a sense of security. This point/ counter-point is a game of high stakes and deadly
consequences. At precisely 10.06am on Friday 22 nd July 2005 in London, Jean Charles de Menezes was
shot dead by specialist firearms officers from the London Metropolitan Police Service who believed he
was a suicide bomber about to blow himself and others up at Stockwell Underground station. By the
end of the day, it became clear that Mr de Menezes was not a terrorist but an innocent man, an
electrician on his way to work.
This paper considers the processes involved in organizing to counter terrorism and how those
processes are prone to failure. It does so from a theoretical and practical point of view by adopting
the sensemaking perspective and making it work both as a topic of academic scholarship and as a
resource for understanding practice. From an academic perspective, if we understand organizational
sensemaking first and foremost as to how something comes to be an event for organizational members
and secondly, what the event means (Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld, 2005), then by focussing on the
events of 22 July and how they came into being, we understand the relationship between the
processual becoming (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002) and the eventual and here eventful, being. By taking a
moment-by-moment and frame-by-frame analysis of the 36 minutes between the surveillance starting
and ending with this shooting, we explore the relationship between becoming /organizing and being
/organization. That is, we explore not only the flights but also the perchings (James, 1890) which give
meaning(s) and consequences.
Practically, we conclude that if one seeks to learn the lessons from lapses in reliability of such
organizing processes, then one should avoid codifying those lessons in a planning tool as it could well be
that practical advice derived from theory is counter productive: that instead of countering terrorism,
it ends up doing its work, which is effectively what happened at Stockwell tube station that day.
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PROS-124
Narrowing Processes: On the Dynamics of Organizational Path Dependence
Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow
Freie Universität Berlin
This paper aims at elaborating on the dynamics of narrowing organizational processes. As there are
different types and forms of organizational processes (life-cycles, waves, circles, etc.), the paper
starts with a discussion of the basic ingredients of an organizational process theory. Three features
are assumed to be salient:
(1) A process contains several events and/or decisions.
(2) These events do not happen separately, they amount to a sequence with its own order.
(3) The result (or better: the focused intermediate state) is basically imprinted by the foregoing
process and its characteristics (“history matters”).
This exposition sets a counterpoint to Rational Actor Theory and neoclassical decision theory which
explain results/decisions by rational calculi and deny the importance of the process for explaining the
(optimal) result. Influences from the foregoing process are considered – if at all - as disturbing or
distorting factors.
Our focus is on a special type of organizational processes which progressively exclude alternatives. In
extreme cases these narrowing processes may even lead into a lock-in. We offer a framework designed
to explain the emergence, shaping and stabilization of such processes and expose organizational path
dependence as its most extreme form. At the heart of cases of path dependence is an entrapping
process which over the time dramatically narrows the scope of action. Path dependence stands at the
same time for processes which change their basic character throughout the sequencing in significant
ways. We suggest subdividing the whole process of evolving path dependence into three stages
governed by different causal regimes and constituting different settings for organizational action and
decision making. At the beginning the situation is conceived as open, in a second phase self-reinforcing
dynamics are likely to structure the field and to privilege progressively a special solution. Actions in
Phase II are, however, still contingent; they are “nonergodic”, i.e. they are not accidental, but do not
yet fully converge to a fixed point distribution. The final stage ends up in a lock –in. The framework
will be illustrated by case studies.
The suggested framework will be further refined to clarify in more detail the logic of path-building
processes. Its distinguishing features will be pointed by contrasting it with other process theories
which also highlight the importance of initial conditions and events for organizational development,
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PROS-125
A penny for your thoughts: Reconsidering the interplay of action and reflection
Panagiotis Kokkalis and Mike Zundel
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, UK
‘Reflective thinking’ and ‘routinized action’ are conventionally conceived to be necessary, but
fundamentally oppositional components of organizational learning processes. In cognitive accounts,
learning has been conceptualized in terms of schema, frames and maps which are contained and
sequentially coded and de-coded in the mental faculty (Spender 2008; Holman et al. 1997). From this
view, the mind has the function of a container, storing definite, factual aspects of ‘what is the case’
(Elkjaer 2004; Chia and Holt 2008). Hence, the individual stands over and against what is to be known;
the objective world (Hoy 2006). The characterization of ‘thinking’ as theoretical and detached
establishes an autonomy of thought over against acting and doing (Heidegger 1977/1967). This
elevation of thinking over acting has been criticized in the wake of the integration of pragmatist,
social learning, and experience-based approaches in the organizational learning literature. The work
John Dewey (1910) and Donald Schön (1983; 1987), especially, has heralded a shift in focus towards
the appreciation of spontaneous, intuitive, and artistic performance of the actions of everyday life and
the situated and intuitive knowing that affords proficient practical engagement in situations of
uncertainty and uniqueness.
In this paper, we propose that the work of the continental philosopher Martin Heidegger (1962/1927)
can add significantly to our understanding of learning in the organization studies literature. Both
Dewey and Heidegger take a resolute stance against the prevailing elevation of the subject over and
above all else and shift the locus of understanding towards practical and situated engagement with the
world. Both authors also place emphasis on the flux and incessant becoming of the self, which is
ordered by a teleological directedness of all human activity. Finally, like Dewey and like the related
work of Schön, Heidegger highlights the entangledness of everyday habitual and practical engagement
with instances of surprise and reflection. Crucially, however, he characterizes practical engagement as
ontologically prior, attributing merely a secondary and derivative role to reflective (or deliberate)
processes.
We suggest that Heiddegger’s austere and meticulous delineation of the processes involved in
‘reflection’ in moments of interruption offers a comprehensive account of the hanging together of
concern and that with which we concern ourselves, that complements, but also extends current
debates on organizational learning processes. ‘Reflection’, thus, is not a primary way of engaging with
the world, but coincides with instances in which the wordly context is indicated in moments of
breakdown or through signs or assertions. Moreover, reflection needs to be understood in conjunction
with instances of practical and un-reflective engagement through which we encounter the world in a
practical and ready-to-hand manner within our existential past, present and future. What shows up in
moments of ‘reflection’ is thus not an objective world viewed from distanced and disengaged position,
but entities as possibilities in their hanging together, already structured and grounded in something we
have in advance; guided by a point of view, which fixes that with regard to which what is understood is
to be interpreted. Interpretation, finally, is largely rooted in the publicness of the social world, which
delimits the range of possibilities for the being of entities (Heidegger 1962/1927: 192; 235).
In this paper we attempt to engage in these concepts and outline how this perspective can add to the
existing pragmatist re-conceptualizations of learning and how such thinking may aide our understanding
of the learning processes in organizations.
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PROS-126
Sensemaking and scenarios: embedded organisational processes for revealing and
tackling uncomfortable knowledge
ANGELA WILKINSON4, TRUDI LANG5, KATHLEEN SUTCLIFFE6
In April 2008, 75 participants gathered at the University of Oxford to participate in the second
Oxford Futures Forum (see http://www.oxfordfuturesforum.org.uk/). The aim of this meeting was to
bring scenario and sensemaking scholars and practitioners together to explore the synergies and
differences between work on sensemaking established by Karl Weick and the tradition of scenario
practice established by Pierre Wack. One of the points of commonality discussed at the Forum was
how both processes have to encounter and engage with ‘uncomfortable knowledge’ (defined as
knowledge which is either unimaginable, undiscussable, unnoticeable, or unarticulated) to be successful.
Both sensemaking and scenario work are processes embedded in organisational activities. Sensemaking
is activated when the flow of action in relation to these activities becomes “unintelligible in some way”
(Weick et al 2005: 409). Scenario work is a deliberated process of sensemaking which is triggered
when uncertainty within an organisation’s environment “stops being predictable” (Ramirez, Selsky and
van der Heijden 2008:22). Scenarios reveal the dominant scripts and schema that are influencing the
detection of new cues and signals about the future.
Sensemaking and scenario work have three things in common: a concern with ‘talking sense into being’
to enable action (a normative orientation); an acknowledgement that sensemaking is retrospective; and
a common concern with plausibility rather than accuracy. They differ in that scenario work is more
episodic while sensemaking is ongoing.
For both to engage successfully with uncomfortable knowledge, they must deal with doubt; ignorance;
power and language. Doubt must be embraced and hunches nurtured (Locke et al 2008); ignorance must
be understood as being co-produced with knowledge (Ravetz 1987) and constructed either intentionally
or as a consequence of other processes (Smithson 2008); power must be appreciated in all its
situational modalities; and language needs to be understood as knowledge - that it is both structured
and structures reality (Normann 2001).
If uncomfortable knowledge is not appreciated, a likely result is stupidity. Stupidity, from a
sensemaking perspective, occurs when a system of actors become complicit in sustaining ‘non-sense, i.e.
continuing to use the wrong cues, scripts, or schemas to make (wrong) ‘sense’ that then leads to
isolated failure or systemic crisis. In this paper we make a number of suggestions for sensemaking and
scenario work that enables uncomfortable knowledge to be revealed and engaged thereby assisting
organisations to avoid the risks of stupidity.
4
Angela Wilkinson, Director of Scenario Planning and Futures Research, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society,
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. angela.wilkinson@sbs.ox.ac.uk
5
Trudi Lang, DPhil Candidate, SAID Business School Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of
Oxford, Park End Street, Oxford, UK. trudi.lang@sbs.ox.ac.uk
6
Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Research, Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of
Business Administration and Professor of Management and Organizations, University of Michigan Ross School of
Business, MI, USA. ksutclif@umich.edu
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PROS-127
Linking the concepts of bridging and sensemaking perspectives in the study of
organizational communication: discussed in light of military interdisciplinary
coordination
Sigmund Valaker
The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment
Sigmund.valaker@ffi.no
Abstract
This paper seeks to explore the links between the concept of bridging in communication as developed
by Ragnar Rommetveit, and the notion of sensemaking as developed by Karl Weick. In particular how
these perspectives may be combined in the study of coordination among members of multidisciplinary
organizations will be discussed. By taking as an example military interdisciplinary coordination the
paper tries to ground the discussion in an empirical case.
Bridging as used by Rommetveit is about the process of mutually constructing shared meaning in
communication. In this perspective meaning is an emerging property of communication and not
something to be transferred between interlocutors.
There seem to be several links between the notion of bridging and sensemaking. Bridging is about how
meaning is developed in communication. Similarly Weicks theorizing on sensemaking concerns the
development of meaning in the context of organizing. The aspect of acknowledgment of others
utterances as meaningful is a crucial aspect of bridging, and similarly the sensemaking perspective
emphasizes the importance of acknowledgement of others understanding as essential to organizing.
This suggests an interesting complementarity between the notion of bridging and sensemaking in the
sense that the bridging perspective may provide an analytical tool at the micro level of communication.
Coordination of military work among members of various services and units may be a case in point to
illustrate how bridging may complement sensemaking perspectives on organizing. A field work carried
out during a Norwegian military exercises suggests that the way in which some actors with variety of
perspectives and professional roles communicate, may be conceived of as both a bridging process and a
sensemaking process. In particular the way in which meaning is constructed through the use of maps
may be discussed as a case of bridging and an example of how sense of the situation is constructed at
various levels of the military organization.
The paper concludes with a remark on how the notions put forward can be further elaborated and on
how it might contribute to research on organizational communication in a general and communication
between different organizational members holding various perspectives in particular. This, include
possible criticisms of the approach of linking bridging and sensemaking in organizational studies.
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PROS-130
Strengths and Limitations of Different Types of Process Studies Of Organizational
Ethics and Implications For Organizational Studies
Richard P. Nielsen,
Boston College and ALBA
A “process “ approach is different than a “thing” approach to organization studies (Weick,
1979; Tsoukas and Chia, 2002; Nayak, 2008), communicative ethics (Habermas, 1990), and
organizational ethics (Trevino and Weaver, 1994; Nielsen, 1996). There are also different types of
process studies of organizational ethics that combine descriptive, causal, normative, and aesthetic
dimensions. This presentation compares strengths and limitations of the different types of process
approaches. All types make important contributions.
Examples of four types of process studies are: (1) Descriptive studies , e.g., case studies of
how organizations develop and administer ethics codes (Manley, 1991); (2) Causal and descriptive
studies, e.g., studies that consider the factors that cause ethics codes to be more and less effective
as social control mechanisms (Weaver, Trevino, and Cochran, 1999); (3) Normative, descriptive, and
causal studies, e.g., an analysis of how and why problematical ethics behaviors are structurally related
to and caused by the private equity – leveraged buyout form of finance capitalism (Nielsen, 2008); (4)
Aesthetic, descriptive, causal, and normative process studies, e.g., studies that describe and analyze
how an organization’s processes include normative and aesthetic dimensions and are effective in
building organizational community and effectiveness (Gardiner, 1923; Orwell, 1937; Whyte, 1943;
Smith, Child and Rowlinson (1990).
A key strength of descriptive process studies is that they can provide the basic descriptive
data that can be used for further and different types of analyses. Strengths of causal and descriptive
studies are that they provide basic data, causal understanding, and can contribute to improved
managerial practice. A key limitation of descriptive and causal studies is the separation of descriptive
and causal understanding from normative understanding. That is, these types of studies in a sense
leave out the reason for being of ethics, the normative dimension. In addition and absent the
normative dimension, these types of non-normative causal and process studies have very limited
actionable knowledge since a key part of managerial praxis is managing in a normative direction
(Argyris and Schon, 1988; Argyrs, 1993; Nielsen, 1996; Tsoukas and Cummings, 1997; Nielsen and
Tsoukas, 2007). The key strength of combined descriptive, causal, and normative studies is that they
directly address the normative reason for being of ethics processes in a diagnostic, causal way that
can guide managerial actions (Argyris and Schon, 1988; Argyris, 1993; Nielsen, 1996; Tsoukas and
Cummings, 1997; and, Nielsen and Tsoukas, 2007).
The key strength of studies that combine aesthetic, descriptive, causal, and normative
processes is that they can combine the strengths of the previous approaches and are consistent with
the classical ideal of praxis which joins scientific, normative, and aesthetic concerns. This is
particularly important for organizational ethics praxis since broader understanding that includes
aesthetic and emotional understanding can facilitate sympathy and engagement as opposed to
compartmentalized cognitive understanding that is independent of engagement (Gadamer, 1989a;
Nielsen and Tsoukas, 2007). Unfortunately, such combined studies are rare, but they do exist and are
very important (Gardiner, 1923; Orwell, 1937; Whyte, 1943; Smith, Child and Rowlinson (1990).
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PROS-131
Sensemaking Processes In The Virtual Context. The Impact On Organizational And
Individual Identity.
EVANGELIA BARALOU
ALBA GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL
GREECE
The paper aims to explore, theoretically, the development of organizational and individual identity,
through processes of sensemaking, associated with issues that arise in virtual teams. The paper adopts
a dialogical approach and explores internal and external dialogues that enable and frame sensemaking,
with others and with artifacts, available in multiple front and back regions. Drawing on Vygotsky,
Bakhtin, Goffman and Tsoukas, the paper aims to develop a more coherent theoretical framework that
takes a sensemaking approach to identity formation, in the virtual context.
While formation of identity, according to the postmodern view, is contextual, gendered, rooted in
class, race, ethnicity, etc., the virtual context offers the opportunity to play with this contextual
information and discursively construct and frame it. The paper takes into account the specific
characteristics of the virtual context, mediated by ICTs interaction, lack of shared time and place,
ability to play with multiple voices, abstract sense of social presence, disembedding and reembedding
mechanisms, narrowed range of nonverbal symbolic cues that can be transmitted to distant others,
continuous misinterpretation of meanings. Based on the above unique characteristics, it is argued that
the virtual context represents a rich site to explore the development of identity, by bringing to the
surface sensemaking processes that are continuously decontextualized and recontextualized between
members of virtual teams.
Drawing on Weick (2001) who argues that people learn about and make sense of their environments,
retrospectively, by taking account of their actions; and on Schwandt (2005) who suggests that
sensemaking involves social interaction between what is happening in the organization and its
environment, sensemaking, in this paper, is viewed as a discursive construction constituted in the
process of social interaction. The three phases of sensemaking, suggested by Weick (2001), enactment
(what I say), selection (until I see), and retention (what I think) are viewed as discursively constructed
and mediated by ICTs (Orlikowski, 2007). In the virtual context, enactment can be chaotic (discuss
multiple understandings of a given problem or situation) and open to multiple interpretations through
the continuous application of disembedding and reembedding mechanisms. To cope with ambiguity and
adapt to the more abstract social context, people bring into play multiple voices, chat with others
simultaneously or not, at back regions to enact responses. During the selection phase, members in the
virtual context, perceive and choose plausible interpretations by making connections in particular ways
through decontextualization and recontextualization of meanings. During the third phase of the
sensemaking process, the selected interpretation is a collective experience, that may be retained for
use as abstract knowledge that later becomes embedded in action.
While Weick (1995) suggests that people learn about their identities by projecting them into an
environment and observing the consequences, the paper explores how in the virtual environment, the
phases of sensemaking serve the discursive development of individual and organizational identity.
Following Vygotsky (1934), the paper looks at how members of the virtual teams use social discourse to
understand their identity by making sense of the identities of others. Drawing on Bakhtin (1929), the
paper looks at sensemaking processes as dialogical and aims to conceptualize how in the virtual context
the development of identity is constructed through the use of multiple voices and through the choice
among multiple identities that are enabled in the various front and back regions (Goffman, 1959).
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PROS-133
The Emergence and Maintenance of Organizational Routines: A Situated Action
Perspective
Dionysios D. Dionysiou
ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece
Haridimos Tsoukas
ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece and University of Warwick, UK
ABSTRACT
Despite significant developments in our understanding of organizational routines, our
knowledge about how routines actually emerge and how they are maintained is still limited. Classic
accounts take the emergence of routines largely for granted, while performative accounts have not
been extended to explore how routines emerge. In this paper we aim to build on the insights of
performative accounts and address the question: how do routines emerge, and how are they
maintained? Regarding routines’ emergence, the development of an account of routines’ formation will
enhance our understanding of routines as a process phenomenon. Without such understanding we miss
the connection between the ongoing, dynamic flow of organizing activity and the particular realizations
of it in organizations, that is, coordinated, coherent action (Weick, 1979, 1995). Establishing this
connection would enable researchers and practitioners to develop a more complete understanding of
the underlying dynamics of routines’ emergence and therefore, may result in the more effective
implementation and performance of routines in different situations. As far as the maintenance of
routines’ is concerned, we seek to build on the valuable insights provided by Feldman and Pentland
(2003) who argue that the ostensive aspect of routines, conceptualized as the structural pole of the
duality, is responsible for the observable regularity of organized activities. Understanding how the
ostensive aspect of routines emerges may advance our knowledge about how routines are maintained
and shed more light into the relationship between the ostensive and the performative aspects of
routines. Thus, we seek to further radicalize Feldman and Pentland’s (2003) performative account by
showing how the ostensive part of routines is itself performatively formed and sustained, as well as
the role of shared or aligned understandings of participants in these processes.
More specifically, we draw on Weick, Mead, Feldman and Pentland, in order to construct an account of
the process of emergence and maintenance of organizational routines from the situated actions and
understandings of participants. Routines emerge, we argue, through role-taking, which enable
participants to abstract and generalize. We further argue that a crucial factor that influences the
process of how routines emerge and are maintained is the uncertainty of the task involved. High- and
low-uncertainty tasks present actors with different requirements for role-taking and abstractioncum-generalization, which influences the way the ostensive aspect of routines is formed and how it is
related to the performative aspect.
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PROS-135
Phenomenal Projects: Alliances As A Process Of Becoming
Tyrone S. Pitsis, Siggi Gudergan, Stewart R. Clegg, Alfons van Marrewijk
Centre for Management & Organization Studies
University of Technology, Sydney
Abstract
In this paper we draw upon the pragmatic phenomenology of Austrian philosopher Alfred Schutz (1967; 1971) to discuss and
make sense of how managers both simultaneously innovate their practices, and are created by their practices. We draw upon
managerial life in a mega-project alliance studied between 2003 and 2009 in which several large public and private organizations
formed a shared risk-reward alliance to deliver major infrastructure in the outer regions of Sydney. The project was offered
as an exemplar in the experiences of the actors not only in terms of its organizational design, but also in terms of a lack of
historical grounding, in that there were few similar project forms of organization that could function as points of comparison
from which they could draw expertise and experience.
Managers found themselves co-creating and co-opting practices in a twofold way; one involved conceptualizing practice ‘as is’
while the other sought to transform this taken-for-granted approach through ‘innovative’ practice. In other words, in the
former, managers made sense by coopting the past (what they did) into the present (how they are doing things now) out of their
stock of expert knowledge as project management practitioners. In the latter, when they experienced events or objects outside
their current stock of knowledge (i.e. a surprise) they made sense of the present (what they do now) by projecting it into the
future (what they will do from now on) as an innovation in management practice – or as a projected future perfect act (Pitsis,
Clegg, Marosszeky, & Rura-Polley, 2003). In a Schutzian sense, all this is done in an inter-subjectively framed process.
By inter-subjectivity, Schutz (1967) was referring to the taken for granted, collectively generated stock of knowledge about
how one makes sense of one’s world and how they act upon that world. Nothing is ever made sense of free of its social context,
and language, signs and symbols are the taken-for granted shared tools of a social system. While Schutz deals with very simple
projects, such as posting a letter, we extrapolate key points for a larger picture.
From our reading of Schutz, objectivity and subjectivity are less important or salient than inter-subjectivity in the
phenomenology of the social world – in this case the social world of the alliance. If management’s experience of work is intersubjectively created and understood, then the process of how people co-create meaning in that world is an important but
problematic field of research, theory and practice. Alliances involve multiple actors with often covert and overt differences in
their taken-for-granted stock of knowledge (such as knowledge of problem solving, patterns of behaviour and routines etc), and
occur in highly uncertain and ambiguous contexts, often involving multiple levels of identity (i.e. parent organization identities,
alliance organization identity, profession and individual identities). For these reasons they pose several challenges for alliance
practice and, especially, alliance management. In alliances people from diverse knowledge, skills, and expertise, cultures come
together to complete a project framed by the expectation that they will do so in a collaborative way.
The collaborative framing makes this project very different from many organizational contexts in which one seldom deals with
fundamentally diverse world views. The reality is that doing ‘collaboration’ is extremely complex and problematic because actors
experience ‘shocks’ from other world views that can, at times, be entirely foreign – yet actors are expected to work closely and
productively to deliver stated objectives and outcomes. Making sense of the process of becoming an alliance practitioner has
important implications for managerial practice because little is understood about how alliances foster outstanding experiences
(for managers, employees and stakeholders), beyond limited, rational measures of success that are often outcomes focused
rather than process focussed.
Grounded in our longitudinal study of a mega-project alliance, we offer a model that considers how actors drive the creation of
an alliance practice identity7 through four phenomenological processes: the natural view; shocks; inter-subjective re-authoring,
and narrative capital building (Bjorkeng, Clegg & Pitsis, forthcoming; Carlsen & Pitsis, forthcoming; Carlsen & Pitsis, 2009; Pitsis,
2007). The natural view refers to the taken for granted ways in which people narrate their identity in making sense of their life
on projects. In the natural view people make sense through retrospective reflection on how they do things as an experienced
practitioner – it is the managers ‘reality’ or ‘real world’ view of alliance practice based on a general stock of practice knowledge.
Shocks refer to the glimpses of multiple realities that open up the manager to alternative realities of how things are done.
Shocks can be positive in the sense that they open-up hope for better practice (See Carlsen & Pitsis, forthcoming), or can be
negative in the sense that they can create conditions of animosity, distrust, relationship breakdown and self-interested
behaviour. Inter-subjective re-authoring refers to the construction of a new identity as managers act upon and make sense of
shocks (Carlsen, 2006; Carlsen and Pitsis, forthcoming; Bjorkeng et al, forthcoming) in developing a sense of ‘new’ or ‘innovative’
practice – or a unique alliance practice. Finally, narrative capital building refers to the collection of positive stories that become
part of the practitioner’s identity as an alliance practitioner (see Carlsen & Pitsis, 2008). Together, these four processes
provide a framework upon which to make sense of alliance practice, and a powerful phenomenological tool for not only reflectionin-action (Yanow & Tsoukas, 2007) but also for how life on alliances are conceived, established and managed.
7
By alliance practice identity we are referring to the growing recognition and relevance of ‘alliance practitioners’ or ‘alliance
professionals’; this is demonstrated through the internationalisation of associations dedicated to alliance practice such as The
Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (in USA and Europe), The Alliancing Association of Australasia, and also the
growing number of alliance managerial positions (such as director of strategic alliancing, alliance manager, and so on.
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PROS-136
Organizational identity and sensemaking processes: The case of an organization facing
with the disparition of its sense-giving leader
Thomas Paris (CNRS – HEC Paris)
thomas.paris@polytechnique.fr
Groupe HEC
1 rue de la Libération
78350 Paris
Frédéric Leroy (Audencia nantes Ecole de Management)
fleroy@audencia.com
Audencia Nantes
8 route de la Jonelière
44000 Nantes
Abstract
This research aims to study the complex relationships between organizational identity, sensemaking processes and organizational
practices. It is based on an in-depth study of the reorganization of a prestigious gastronomy restaurant which lost its founder,
its creative driver, its manager when the Chef suddenly died. This disrupted event provoked an organizational crisis and required
to redefine organizational identity. This study helps us to better characterize organizational identity and to propose several
hypotheses concerning its nature and its dynamics.
Theoretical framework
In their seminal paper, Albert & Whetten (1985) present organizational identity as “what is central, distinctive and enduring
about an organization”. These properties of centrality, continuity, coherence, distinctiveness are studied by Whetten & Mackey
(2002). Organizational identity then provides the members of the organization with a sense, a continuity, with reference points
in space and in time However, from its very beginning, this notion thus appeared paradoxical (Ravasi & Schultz, 2006): identity
can be considered as static or dynamic, as something real or a shared mental representation. Identity can be seen as more or
less stable, unique or multiple, monolithic or fragmented, ideographic or holographic. Whether organizational identity is static or
dynamic is another element of dilemma (Elsbach & Kramer, 1996), Pratt & Foreman (2000). This is why it can be analyzed
through a constructivist, approach considering it as instable and dynamic (Corley, et al 2006). This social constructionist
perspective highlights the dynamism in organizational identities and studies how members reconsider the sustainability of
presumed core and distinctive features (Corley & Gioia, 2004). For instance, refuting the ontological approach that apprehends
identity as a substance, a stable core, Gioia et al. (2000) define identity as always redefined by the members of the
organization. In the same vein, Tsoukas & Chia (2002) consider identity as an on-going process. Organizational identity is
fragmented, composite and always changing. In this perspective, analyzing organizational identity as providing people with a
unifying interpretation framework becomes more difficult to assume.
In this paper, we analyze identity from the point of view of the individuals in the organization and, following Weick, Sutcliffe &
Obstefeld (2005) agenda, we study the interplay between sensemaking processes and the transformation of organizational
identity.
Empirical study
This research is based on an in-depth study of the reorganization of Le Relais Bernard Loiseau, a prestigious restaurant famed
for its high gastronomy. In 2003, the Chef B.Loiseau died, leaving behind him a company with some 100 employees. His death
meant that the firm had lost its founder, creative force, manager and emblematic icon. Bernard Loiseau indeed played multiple
roles: he was the inventor of a new culinary style, he was the head of the kitchen. He also maintained high visibility in the
restaurant among both the customers and the staff as a whole, guiding, motivating and correcting them. Finally, he was the
establishment’s ambassador to the media, where his image attracts many customers. B.Loiseau was the person who had
transmitted to everyone the energy required to make his restaurant reach the elite of gastronomy. Loiseau’s death was a
disrupting event (Elsbach & Kramer, 1996) that implied an emotional outburst threatening the sustainability of existing
organizational identity (Bouchikhi & Kimberly, 2003). This led organizational members to engage in explicit and implicit reflection
on identity issues and to develop new interpretations of what their organization was about.
Loiseau’s widow decided to carry on her husband’s work. This decision required respecting and reinforcing Loiseau’s culinary
principles in order to convince the personnel, the customers, and the critics of a true continuity. But it also demanded some
managerial reorganization and culinary innovation. The challenge was thus to be creative while remaining faithful to the Loiseau
spirit. As Corley & Gioia (2004) underline, uncertainties about what is really central to and distinctive about the organization
require organizational leaders to fill a “void of meaning” and to reconstruct a consistent narrative for internal and external
audiences, helping members rebuild their sense of who they are as an organization.
According to this “sensegiving imperative” the restaurant was reorganized, the work practices in the kitchen and in the dining
room analyzed. The new chef was in charge to reproduce Loiseau’s creations but also to innovate. This was facilitated by his long
experience and collaboration with B.Loiseau. His innovations remained faithful to the cuisine grammar of Loiseau but they
introduced a bit more inventiveness and complexity into the dishes. For the new chef, it was merely an adaptation adding greater
variations than existed beforehand.
However the transformations imposed in the establishment met resistance and gave way to more or less marked situations of
conflict. The personnel of long tenure, in particular those who consider themselves having earned the three star rating with
Bernard Loiseau, called into question the legitimacy of the new leaders (Mrs. Loiseau and the new CEO), both foreign to the
universe of gastronomy, and both women in a traditionally male trade. It was believed that they dilute the Bernard Loiseau
spirit, and that organizational changes were contrary to the tradition that built the establishment’s success. The scrutiny also
reached the new Chef the changes made to the menu. The resistance came from the maîtres d’hôtel or the headwaiters who set
themselves up as guardians of the temple and repositories for what Loiseau’s cuisine should be. They felt that the innovations
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were too original and betrayed Loiseau spirit. Some creations were considered incompatible with the Bernard Loiseau spirit.
Therefore there were multiple and conflicting interpretations about the “cultural heritage” and about the practices that people
perceived as a legacy of a shared past (Orlikowski, 2002) and as core and distinctive organizational features.
These conflicts stimulated organizational leaders to resolve the confusion surrounding identity beliefs and make new sense of
“who we are as an organization.” A new definition of the organization’s identity was built. It was presented as radically new, but
rather as a rediscovery of values and attitudes that were already part of the collective heritage of the organization.
Results of the research and propositions
Our research suggests that the essence of organizational identity inside organizations is to be conflictual and that this conflict
is an attempt to respond to substantial organizational changes. In the case of Bernard Loiseau, we can view organizational
identity both as something to be preserved, and as a periodically reinterpreting process looking for convergence. We thus
suggest that organizational identity is a “focal point” (Schelling, 1960). Everybody sought the answers to the crisis situation in a
Golden Age referring to Bernard Loiseau style but with different interpretations. Another focal point was the image the
organization sent outside. According to some scholars (Gioia, Schultz, & Corley, 2000), the members of an organization may want
to make the organizational identity match with the external images of the organization.
We also propose that organizational identity is not only multiple and composite (Pratt & Foreman, 2006) but also essentially
loose. It’s the only way for it to sustain an ongoing company (Fiol, 2002): In the Bernard Loiseau case, when the staff members
thought about the essence of the culinary, they avoided a too formalized definition of identity. A too strict definition would
surely meant to exclude any dish was not made by Bernard Loiseau himself.
We finally suggest that searching for organizational identity may refer to a legitimacy deficiency of the management staff:
When action is not a problem, organizational identity is not an issue. For instance, with the success of the new dishes, resisting
people easily accepted the new culinary and managerial directions. And finally Loiseau’s style and identity was finally defined as
“innovation”! Thus as far as the legitimacy of the new management staff is get, the issue of organizational identity is not crucial.
67/68
PROS-140
(Not) Doing Sensemaking on Time
M.Laura Frigotto
Dep. of Management and Computer Science
University of Trento
marialaura.frigotto@unitn.it
Alessandro Narduzzo
School of Economics and Management
Free University of Bolzano Bozen
narduz@unibz.it
Sensemaking has been conceptualized at the individual and group level as “the ongoing retrospective
development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing” (Weick, Sutcliffe and
Obstfeld 2005: 409). Despite sensemaking being itself a process, the dimension of time has hardly
stimulated specific reflections.
The relevance of time in sensemaking is suggested by several well-known cases of failure in
sensemaking (Weick 1993; Weick 2005; Weick and Roberts 1993; Weick 1990) which also display a
problem with time shortage that underlies the whole process. Moreover, time shortage is a typical
condition that penalizes sensemaking, as people are pushed to seek for confirmations of their previous
expectations (Weick 1995:153; Starbuck and Milliken 1988), rather than “reworking the ways they
label and categorize what they see” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001).
The purpose of the paper is to discuss the role of time in sensemaking. We specify the research topic
by distinguishing between time in terms of ‘when’ and ‘how long’, and we ask: when is time for
sensemaking? And how much time is necessary for making sense of a situation? In general, sensemaking
is a resource-absorbing (i.e. attention, time) process and is typically fundamental in situations
characterized by resource shortage. Weick and Sutcliffe (2001) suggest to anticipate sensemaking by
extending existing mental models or by exploring new ones (in ways which remind of March Sproull and
Tamuz (1991) multiplication of observers, or of imaginative stories). This anticipation though is
constrained by the limited ability of humans of release imagination from experience, so that the
unexpected can only partially avoid long sensemaking processes.
Orlikowski and Yates’ (2002) analysis of the temporal structure of organizational activity offers
another perspective: time is no longer regarded as an exogenous element, but it is an intrinsic
characteristic of organizational processes, and as such, time can be providing opportunities for
sensemaking or not.
Further, these temporal slacks may be manipulated by organizations through design. The theoretical
analysis developed in this paper on the chronological unfolding of sensemaking offers a better
understanding of the process itself, in particular for those situations characterized by time pressure.
References:
March J.G, L.S. Sproull and M. Tamuz (1991) “Learning from samples of one or fewer”. Organization
Science, 13,, 2, 1-13.
Orlikowski W.J. and J. Yates’ (2002) “It’s about Time: Temporal Structuring in Organizations”.
Organization Science, 13, 6, 684-700.
Starbuck W.H. and F. J. Milliken (1988) “Challenger: Fine-Tuning The Odds until Something Breaks”.
Journal of Management Studies, 25, 319-340.
Weick K.E. (1990) The Vulnerable System: An Analysis of the Tenerife Air Disaster. Journal of
Management, 16, 3, 571-596.
Weick K.E. (1993) “The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster”.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 628-652.
Weick K.E. (1995) Sensemaking in Organzations. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Weick K.E. and K.H. Roberts (1993) “Collective Mind in Organizations: Heedful Interrelating on Flight
Decks”. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 3, 357-381.
Weick K.E. and K.M. Sutcliffe (2001) Managing the Unexpected. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Weick K.E., K.M. Sutcliffe and D. Obstfeld (2002) “Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking”.
Organization Science, 16, 4, 409-421.
68/68
PROS-144
Organizational Learning Through Problem Absorption: Towards A Processual
View
Sergey E. Osadchiy
Irma Bogenrieder
Pursey P.M.A.R. Heugens
Rotterdam School of Management - Erasmus University
Abstract
Organizational learning is often conceptualized as a process by which organizations develop rules,
procedures and routines for solving recurring organizational problems (e.g., Levitt and March 1988;
March et al. 2000). Over time, a repertory of ‘tried-and-tested’ solutions is built up in organizational
memory, and, insofar as these can be used to deal with or ‘absorb’ new problems, the perceived need to
search for alternative solutions is reduced (Levitt and March 1988). In the literature on the dynamics
of organizational rule systems in particular (e.g. March et al. 2000), this notion of ‘problem absorption’
has been used to explain why the availability of codified and prescribed solutions to problems in the
form of written rules tends to reduce the impetus for further learning and codification efforts
(Schulz 1998). Excessive problem absorption stemming from bureaucratic incapacity (Merton 1940)
and garbage can decision processes (Cohen et al. 1972) may thus be a crucial mechanism responsible
for structural inertia in bureaucratic organizations (Hannan and Freeman 1984).
In the present paper we examine the phenomenon of ‘problem absorption’ more closely from
the process perspective (e.g. Tsoukas and Chia 2002), arguing that it need not always imply the
absence of organizational learning. On the contrary, insofar as it involves “imaginative extension” of
existing rules to non-prototypical cases (Tsoukas and Chia 2002: 574; Tsoukas and Vladimirou 2001)
and thus the ongoing construction and reconstruction of the very meaning of those rules in practice,
problem absorption actually constitutes a micro-level equivalent of what Corley and Gioia (2003: 625)
termed ‘semantic learning’. Furthermore, we show how under certain conditions the cumulative effects
of such learning via repeated absorption of novel problems by rules can give rise to more radical
transformation of the organizational rule system. Finally, our analysis highlights the crucial role of
played by reflexivity on the part of both rule makers and rule users in enabling such changes to occur
(Antonacopoulou and Tsoukas 2002).
References
Antonacopoulou, Elena, and Haridimos Tsoukas 2002 ‘Time and reflexivity in organization studies: An
introduction’. Organization Studies 23/6: 857-862.
Cohen, Michael D., James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen 1972 ‘A garbage can model of organizational
choice’. Administrative Science Quarterly 17/1: 1-25.
Corley, Kevin G., and Dennis A. Gioia 2003 ‘Semantic learning as change enabler: Relating organizational
identity and organizational learning’ in The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and
Knowledge Management. M. Easterby-Smith and M. A. Lyles (eds.), 623-638. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hannan, Michael T., and John Freeman 1984 ‘Structural inertia and organizational change’. American
Sociological Review 49/2: 149-164.
Levitt, Barbara, and James G. March 1988 ‘Organizational learning’. Annual Review of Sociology 14:
319-40.
March, James G., Martin Schulz, and Xueguang Zhou 2000 The dynamics of rules: Change in written
organizational codes. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Merton, Robert K. 1940 ‘Bureaucratic structure and personality’. Social Forces 18/4: 560-568.
Schulz, Martin 1998 ‘Limits to bureaucratic growth: The density dependence of organizational rule
births’. Administrative Science Quarterly 43/4: 845-876.
Tsoukas, Haridimos, and Efi Vladimirou 2001 ‘What is organizational knowledge?’ Journal of
Management Studies 38/7: 973-993.
Tsoukas, Haridimos, and Robert Chia 2002 ‘On organizational becoming: Rethinking organizational
change’. Organization Science 13/5: 567-582.