Organisations- og Virksomhedsteori 1. undervisningsgang – 28. januar 2013

Lectures, Spring 2013 Week Date Subject Literature 5 Jan Introduction to the course 6 Feb Multiple Perspectives MJH, Chap 1+2 7 Winter holiday 8 Organizations and Environment MJH, Chap 3 9 Organizational Social Structure MJH, Chap 4 + Comp 10 Mar Organizational Culture MJH, Chap 6 11 Technology MJH, Chap 5 12 Organizational Power, Control & Conflict MJH, Chap 8 13 Case Work kick off 14 Apr Easter holiday 15 Case work – supervision at ITU 16 Theory in Practice / New directions in Organization Theory MJH, Chap 9+10 17 Strategizing; Intro + Decision Theory Nygaard, Chap 1+2 18 Strategizing; Agent- and Transactional cost analysis Nygaard, Chap 4+5 19 May Strategizing; Institutional- Networks theory Nygaard, Chap 8+9 20 Strategizing; Corporate Systems Theory Nygaard, Chap 10 21 Whit Monday 22 Spare week

Introduction of lecturer Name: John Tronborg Age: 43 Background: Cand. it, e-Business ITU HD(O) Strategic Management & Business Development CBS Datanom, IT Project Management Professional moves; Solution Manager, CSC External lecturer at ITU; Advanced Organization Theory (MVOT) Management Consultant Self Employed Senior Manager, ERP Advisory Ernst & Young Principal SAP Business Consulting Head of Business IT Carlsberg Denmark Head of SAP Competency centre H. Lundbeck

Course structure and content Strategizing Organizational Power, Control & Conflict Organizational Culture Technology Organizational Social Structure Organizations and Environment Theory in Practice / New directions in Organization Theory Other articles, such as Prahalad and Hamel

Introduction of Concepts and Abstractions Concepts provide mental categories for sorting, organizing and storing experience in memory. They are ideas formed by the process of abstraction, who may be defined as the ’formation of an idea by mental separation from particular instances’.

Introduction of Ontology and Epistemology Ontology is concerned about reality. It deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences Parmenides was among the first to propose an ontological characterization of the fundamental nature of reality. Epistemology is concerned with knowing how you can know. It is focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.

The three perspectives..... Modernism Symbolic Interpretivism Postmodernism Ontology Objectivism – belief is an objective, external reality whose existence is independant of our knowledge of it. Subjectivism – the belief that we cannot know an external or objective existance apart from our subjective awareness of it; that which exists is that which we agree exists- Postmodernism – the belief that the world appears through language and is situated in discourse; what is spoken of exists, therefore everything that exists is a text to be read or performed Epistemology Positivism – we discover truth through valid conceptualization and reliable measurement that allows us to test knowledge against an objective world; knowledge accumulates allowing humans to progress and evolve Interprevism – all knowledge is relative to the knower and can only be understood from the point of view of the individuals who are directly involved; truth is socially constructed via multiple interpretations of the objects of knowledge thereby constructed and therefore shifts and changes through time Postmodernism – knowledge cannot be an accurate account of truth because meanings cannot be fixed; there is no independent reality; there are no facts, only interpretations; knowledge is a power play Organizations are Objectively real entities operating in a real world. When well designed and managed they are systems of decision and action driven by norms of rationality, efficiency and effectiveness for stated purposes Continually constructed and reconstructed by their members through symbolically meditated interaction. Organizations are socially constructed where meanings promote and are promoted by understanding of the self and others that occurs within the organizational context Sites for enacting power relations, opression, irrationality, communicative distortion – or areans of fun and playful irony. Organizations are texts produced by and in language; we can rewrite them so as to emancipate ourselves from human folly and degradation Focus on organization theory Finding universal laws, methods and tech-niques of organisation and control; favors rational structures, rules, standardized procedures and routine practices. Describing how people give meaning and order to their experience within specific contexts through interpretive and symbolic acts, forms and processes Deconstructing organizational texts; destabilizing managerial ideologies and modernist modes of organizing and theorizing; revealing marginalized and oppressed viewpoints; encouraging reflexive and inclusive forms of theorizing and organizing

Introduction of Concepts and Abstractions Bike Dog Mass Computer Abstraction level Mental categories for sorting, organizing and storing experience in human memory ... The formation of an idea by mental separation from particular instances

Concepts and Abstractions Environment Culture Social Structure Technology Abstraction level Mental categories for sorting, organizing and storing experience in human memory ... The formation of an idea by mental separation from particular instances Advantages of building concepts Communication Information Processing Associations By communicating with concepts instead of particular instances, the message gets simpler and let the receiver learn by enhancing own concepts by experience. By chunking information, the human brain can process loads of information despite the limitation of thinking about 7 pieces (+/- 2) of information simountaneously. By using concepts, large amounts of information can be combined and associated, but there is a risk of leaving out too many details.

About theories Explanatory concepts relation to the phenomenon of interest Phenomenon of interest Concept: Mass E=MC2 Concept: Speed of light2 Græsk ”phaiómenon” – ´det der viser sig´ Theory is a set of concepts and the relationships between them proposed to explain the phenomenon of interest

About theories Since human behavior is unpredictable, mathematical equations are unsuited for explaining such. Alternatives: Statistical probabilities Chaos theories CAS theories Metaphors or analogues

Sources of inspiration for organization theory Symbolic Interpretive Prehistory Modern Postmodern 1900 – 1950s 1960s – 1970s 1980s 1990s Smith Marx Durkheim Taylor Follet Fayol Weber Gulick Barnard Von Bertalanffy Trist & Bamforth Boulding March & Simon Emery Burns & Stalker Woodward Lawrence & Lorsch Thompson Schütz Whyte Selznick Goffman Gadamer Berger & Luckman Weick Geertz Clifford & Marcus Saussure Foucault Bell Jencks Derrida Lyotard Rorty Lash & Urry Baudrillard Economics Political Science Cultural Anthropology Linguistics Liteary Theory Engineering Folklore Studies Postmodern Architecture Biology-Ecology Sociology Social Semiotics and Hermeneutics Poststructural Philosophy Cultural Studies Social Psychology

Multiple perspectives Different ways of looking at the world produce different knowledge and thus different perspectives come to be associated with their own concepts and theories A particular way of making beliefs, assumptions and knowledge of the world is called a paradigm In order to compare modernism, symbolic-interpretivism and postmodernism, you will need to examine the assumptions underlying each of the three perspectives

Ontology and Epistemology Ontology is concerned with our assumptions about reality. Is there an objective reality out there or is it subjective, existing only in our minds?? Depending on the perspective, one will some things status of being real, while you will disregard others Subjectivists Objectivists Things only exists when you experience and give it meaning Reality exists independently of those who live in it Paradigm Subjectivist Objectivist People create and experience realities in different ways because individuals and groups have their own assumptions, beliefs and perceptions that lead them to do so People react to what is happening around them in predictable ways, because their behaviour is a part of thye material world in which thwt live and is determined by causes, just as the behavior of matter

Ontology and Epistemology Epistemology is concerned with knowing how you can know How do humans generate knowledge, what are the criteria by which they discriminate good knowledge from bad and how should reality be represented or described? Paradigm Positivist Interpretive Assumes you can discover what truly happens in organizations through the categorization and scientific measurement of the behavior of people and systems Assumes that knowledge can only be created and understood from the point of view of the individuals who live and work in a particular culture or organization Exercise: Who has the best chances of describing reality of an organization. A employee/manager with 20 years of experience or an external consultant just entered the organization?? Please discuss in groups and argue why..

Symbol-interpretivists General influences... Modernist Symbol-interpretivists Postmodernists Systems theory. A system is comprised of subsystems, which again can be divided in subsystems, specializing further. A hierarchy of systems display 9 levels of analysis which also respects the hole and interrelated levels. Social Technical Systems Theory introduces the idea that humans work more effectively in self managed groups Contingency Theory is dealing with adapting the organization to the environment First real challenge to the modernist perspective. To observe and be observed. Special sensitivity to language because we construct, modify, make sense of and communicate reality by our language and context. Social Constructivism proposes that our social world is negotiated, organized and constructed by interpretations about what is happening based in our intersubjectivity. Enactment makes sense of the present/past and then act on that understanding …. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same…. No objectively definable social reality, everything you and I know I is relative to the moment of experience…. Signifier / Signified; no connection between words and meanings. No thoughts without language and community sepcific Discourse Analysis Deconstruction; reading and rereading texts using different context to show instability

Comparing the three perspectives..... Modernist Symbol-interpretivists Postmodernists Commit to limiting what you count as knowledge to what you can know through your five senses. What counts as data is what is collected by our five senses. Modernists claim that I saw, heard, smelled, tasted or touched my data and you can confirm them for yourself by replicating my procedures. Subjectivity undermines scientific rigor and introduces bias. Shows willingness to extend the definition of empirical reality to include forms of experience that lie outside the reach of the five senses, as do emotion and intuition. As a result of this subjectivity, their findings cannot easily be replicated by others. Understandings should not be generalized beyond the context in which they were produced. Subjectivity is a prerequisite for studying meaning. Unwillingness to seek Truth or to make permanent ontological or epistemological commitments. Ever changing philosophical standpoints to avoid some forms of knowledge over others. Knowledge is power and the development and use of knowledge is always power plays that must be resisted for the sake of the powerless.

Comparing the three perspectives..... Modernism Symbolic Interpretivism Postmodernism Ontology Objectivism – belief is an objective, external reality whose existence is independant of our knowledge of it. Subjectivism – the belief that we cannot know an external or objective existance apart from our subjective awareness of it; that which exists is that which we agree exists- Postmodernism – the belief that the world appears through language and is situated in discourse; what is spoken of exists, therefore everything that exists is a text to be read or performed Epistemology Positivism – we discover truth through valid conceptualization and reliable measurement that allows us to test knowledge against an objective world; knowledge accumulates allowing humans to progress and evolve Interprevism – all knowledge is relative to the knower and can only be understood from the point of view of the individuals who are directly involved; truth is socially constructed via multiple interpretations of the objects of knowledge thereby constructed and therefore shifts and changes through time Postmodernism – knowledge cannot be an accurate account of truth because meanings cannot be fixed; there is no independent reality; there are no facts, only interpretations; knowledge is a power play Organizations are Objectively real entities operating in a real world. When well designed and managed they are systems of decision and action driven by norms of rationality, efficiency and effectiveness for stated purposes Continually constructed and reconstructed by their members through symbolically meditated interaction. Organizations are socially constructed where meanings promote and are promoted by understanding of the self and others that occurs within the organizational context Sites for enacting power relations, opression, irrationality, communicative distortion – or areans of fun and playful irony. Organizations are texts produced by and in language; we can rewrite them so as to emancipate ourselves from human folly and degradation Focus on organization theory Finding universal laws, methods and tech-niques of organisation and control; favors rational structures, rules, standardized procedures and routine practices. Describing how people give meaning and order to their experience within specific contexts through interpretive and symbolic acts, forms and processes Deconstructing organizational texts; destabilizing managerial ideologies and modernist modes of organizing and theorizing; revealing marginalized and oppressed viewpoints; encouraging reflexive and inclusive forms of theorizing and organizing

Case Methodology Generic Case Methodology 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Problem identification and analysis of problem(s) Statement and evaluation of solutions Generation Recommen-dations and implementation Introduction Conslusion 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. An example on a specific methodology: http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/publications/qmanual/ch-08.html