OT Teil 2

Discussing conditions and relations of power determining a social order

Are there alternative possibilities of organizing?

Establishing practices for social change

How can reality be constructed differently?

Status Quo

• Financial objectives
• Interest of powerful shareholders
• Strategic plans are formulated at the top of the hierarchy
• Implementation by sanction and control

Change

• Formation of strategies is a process of social construction
• Strategic plans should be developed in domination-free discourse (participation)

Status Quo

• Organizational structures and cultures as means of domination

Change

• Creation of more humane work places
• Forms of participation
• Alternatives to the bureaucratic model of organization
• Communication is crucial

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• Reflection on the role of the researcher
• Clear definition of research interests
• Particular sensitivity to the aspect of "power" in organizations

• Critical researchers are themselves not exempt form the politics of research (relation between research process and reported findings)
• "Wielding a moral hammer" (When is something wrong or not right?)
• Finding a feasible stance for intervention
• Relation to "reality" (What is "real" if any form of positivism is rejected?)

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→ Modes of domination in organization (rationalization/ bureaucracy)

• Process of rationalization /rationality
• Ideal types
• Legitimacy/efficiency
• Power/authority (domination)
• Charismatic/traditional/legal authority
• Bureaucracy

→ Efficiency of organizational designs (re. use of labour)

• Efficiency of labour
• Division manual(intellectual work
• Scientific method: experiment
• Task-and-bonus system
• Functional foremanship (planning/production foremen)

→ 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)