OT Teil 2

→ Social/psychological effects on productivity

• Efficiency of labour
• Social/psychological effects
• Social needs
• Informal organization
• Hawthorne Effect

→ Eggiciency of organizational design in relation to different contingency factors

• Efficiency of structures
• Internal/external contingencies
• Dimensions of structure
• Fit

→ Strategies for managing resource dependence

• Resources
• Dependence and power
• Symbiotic vs. competitive interdependence
• Control of resources
• Strategies for avoiding control

→ Evolution of new organizational forms

• Population
• Variation/selection/rention
• Inertia
• Organizational blueprint

→ Environmental impact on organizational structures (legitimation)

• Institution
• Legitimacy vs. efficiency
• Myths of rationality
• Technical vs. institutional environment
• Organizational field
• Isomorphism (coercive, mimetic, normative)
• Decoupling (Logic of confidence/ good faith)

→ How do organizations "construct" their environments

• Cognition/meaning
• Enactment
• Scheme of interpretation
• Cue
• Organizational interpretation modes

→ Emancipation of suppressed individuals

• Research interests
• Emancipation
• Power/domination
• Value-laden knowledge

Different theories might...

1. address different phenomena (e.g. environmental impact, internal efficiency, processes of change)
2. address different aspects of the same phenomenon (social vs. technical aspects of the division of labour)
3. provide competing explanations for certain phenomena (e.g. efficiency vs. myths of rationality)

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Two Dimensions:

1. Methodical assumption: subjective vs. objective
2. Knowledge Interest: change vs. regulation

⇒ Radical Humanist, Radical Structuralist, Interpretivist, Functionalist

1. Weber's concept of Bureaucracy: Interpretivist (3)
2. Taylorism: Functionalist (4)
3. Human Relations Movement: Functionalist (4)
4. Contingency Theory: Functionalist (4)
5. Resource Dependence: Functionalist (4)
6. Organizational Ecology Theory: Functionalist (4)
7. New Institutionalism: Interpretivist (3)
8. Critical Management Studies: Radical Humanist (1)
9. Management and organizational cognition: Radical Humanist (1)

"Incommensurability" of paradigms

• Radical differentness
• Competing positions
• Lack of accepted system of reference for evaluating positions

→ According to the criteria defined by a particular paradigm, certain statements are true or false, but they are not true or false in general.

• Isolationism
• Back to Basics (dogmatic): functionalist
• Anything Goes
• Multiparadigm Perspectives (dialogue across paradigms)

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• object of research (what do you want to explain)
• research interest (why do you want to explain it)
• strategy for dealing with incommensurability)

Conflict between Institutions and Institution and Efficiency

1. Rejecting institutional requirements
2. Rigid conformity with institutionalized prescriptions
3. Cynical acknowledgement of structures being inconsistent with work requirements
4. Promising reforms
5. Decoupling of formal structure and activities

Process of Decoupling

• Goals are left ambiguous or vacuous
• Categorical ends are substituted by technical ends
• Data on technical performance are eliminated or redered invisible
• Informal coordination
• Important: the "appropriate" vocabulary

• General faith as long as institutions are formally complied with
• "Consideration of face"
• Tactics: avoidance, discretion, overlooking

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Organizations that constitute the relevant environment and therefore the frame of reference for the organizations to be investigated

e.g. competitors, key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, organizations providing similar products or services)

Convergence processes between organizations within an institutional field

1. Coercive isomorphism (by force): as a result of politically motivated pressure → Law

2. Mimetic isomorphism: as a result of responses to uncertainty and ambiguity → M-form

3. Normative isomorphism: as a result of professionalization → Incentive plans

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+ Institutional pressure (large vs. small organizations)

+ Technical efficiency (large-scale vs. customized production)

higher likelihood of adoption

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• Discovery of the relevance of social institutions for organizations
• Re-discovery of legitimacy as central criterion besides efficiency
• New perspective on rationality
• Fruitful approach for cross-country comparisons

• Organizations are treated as passive with regard to institutional requirements
• Change of institutions is not explained (just initial stages)
• Effects of power are hardly mentioned

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