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MARCH FREE ACCESS ARTICLE
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FREE to access until 31 March 2016:
Discipline and punish? Strategy discourse, senior manager subjectivity and contradictory power effects
Penny Dick and David G Collings
Human Relations 2014 67(12): 1513–1536
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/67/12/1513.full.pdf+html
This interesting study of strategy as discourse provides an interesting re-look at the power dynamics of strategy discourse, manager subjectivity, and the expression of dissent. This is a scholarly piece of writing on the nature of power and strategy that makes very effective use of qualitative data obtained from a single interview of a senior executive of a multinational firm. A compelling and rich analysis focuses on the ways in which the power effects of strategy discourse can create points of instability in that very discourse. The study demonstrates how strong theorizing combined with close textual analysis can yield important insight into the complexities and contradictions of strategy discourse. It is an insightful application of the discursive psychology approach to examine more localized power effects of strategy discourse, showing how these effects can "contradict and undermine each other" to produce "points of instability within the discourse that expose its fragility and contingency." In so doing, this study problematizes "how power operates from within strategy discourse itself."
Abstract
Responding to calls to incorporate a more dispersed and localized conceptualization of power in the study of strategy as discourse, in this article we illustrate that while investing senior managers with the authority to speak and enact strategy, at one and the same time strategy discourse renders this group highly visible and vulnerable. Using a Foucauldian-inspired discursive psychology approach to provide a critical analysis of brief stretches of talk in a research interview, we expose the inherent instability and contingency of strategy discourse as it is used to construct and reconcile contradictory accounts of corporate success, failure and senior manager subjectivity. Our core contribution is to show that resistance to strategy discourse is discernible not only through how lower level or other actors contest or undermine this discourse but also by observing the efforts of corporate elites to manage temporary breakdowns (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2011) that disrupt the background consensus that ordinarily provides strategy discourse with its 'taken-for-granted' quality. Resistance, we argue, is not only an intentional and oppositional practice but also inheres within the fine grain of strategy discourse itself, manifested as a 'hindrance and stumbling block' (Foucault, 1978) in the highly occasioned and local level of mundane interaction.
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MARCH 2016 69(3) ISSUE ARTICLES:
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/3.toc
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
'Curiouser and curiouser!': Organizations as Wonderland ‒ a metaphorical alternative to the rational model
Darren McCabe
Human Relations, published online before print March 8, 2016, doi:10.1177/0018726715618453
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/04/0018726715618453?papetoc
This article will appear in the April 2016 special issue:
Beyond Morgan's eight metaphors: Adding to and developing organization theory
Guest Edited by Anders Örtenblad, Linda L Putnam and Kiran Trehan
Abstract
The metaphors in Morgan's (1986) Images of Organization largely imply order, rationality, stability and manageability. This reflects that the text is concerned with facilitating the design and management of organizations. This article draws on Lewis Carroll's (1865) novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to propose Wonderland as an alternative metaphor that places at centre stage issues such as absurdity, irrationality, uncertainty and disorder. Rather than a marginal or temporary aberration, it is argued that such conditions need to be understood as an everyday experience for many. This metaphor is important because those who are tasked with managing organizations may find it stressful and puzzling that they are so inept, when they compare their experiences and achievements with the rational model. In this sense, it offers both comfort and perhaps encouragement, but it should also foster humility and caution in terms of what those at the top can achieve. Likewise, those on the receiving end of irrational decisions or who reside in absurd worlds can gain solace from knowing that they are not alone, whilst those concerned with resisting such conditions can find strength in the knowledge that those in positions of authority are not omniscient/omnipotent.
On temporary organizations: A review, synthesis and research agenda
Catriona M Burke and Michael J Morley
Human Relations, published online before print March 8, 2016, doi:10.1177/0018726715610809
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/04/0018726715610809?papetoc
Abstract
Despite the ascendency of temporary organizations to common practice in many industries, and their expansion as an area of academic inquiry, research evidence on their genesis, development and impact remains fragmented across diverse fields, many of which fail to engage with each other. Our purpose in this article is to bring greater systematics to the scholarship on temporary organizations through documenting their evolution and assembling their bricolage. To this end, we first define and delineate the concept of the temporary organization and we develop an inductively derived framework for organizing the literature comprising individual/team attributes and interior processes, task attributes, tensions between the temporary organization and the permanent organization, networks and organizational fields and performance/outcomes of temporary organizations. Following an explication of these attributes and the dominant relationships between them, we suggest how this nascent area of inquiry might advance through the identification of a number of significant research opportunities. Finally, we highlight the consequences for broader management and organization theory development.
Imagining organization through metaphor and metonymy: Unpacking the process–entity paradox
Dennis Schoeneborn, Consuelo Vasquez and Joep Cornelissen
Human Relations, published online before print March 3, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715612899
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/03/0018726715612899?papetoc
This article will appear in the April 2016 special issue:
Beyond Morgan's eight metaphors: Adding to and developing organization theory
Guest Edited by Anders Örtenblad, Linda L Putnam and Kiran Trehan
Abstract
Within organization studies, Morgan's seminal book Images of Organization has laid the groundwork for an entire research tradition of studying organizational phenomena through metaphorical lenses. Within Morgan's list of images, that of 'organization as flux and transformation' stands out in two important regards. First, it has a strong metonymic dimension, as it implies that organizations consist of and are constituted by processes. Second, the image invites scholars to comprehend organizations as a paradoxical relation between organization (an entity) and process (a non-entity). In this article, we build on Morgan's work and argue that flux-based images of organization vary in their ability to deal with the process-entity paradox, depending on the degree to which its metaphorical and metonymic dimensions are intertwined. We also examine three offsprings of the flux image: Organization as Becoming, Organization as Practice, and Organization as Communication. We compare these images regarding their metaphor–metonymy dynamics, the directionality of their process of imagination, and their degree of concreteness. We contribute to Morgan's work, and to organization studies more generally, by offering an analytical grid for unpacking different processes of imagining organization. Moreover, our grid helps explain why images of organization vary in their ability to comprehend organizations in dialectical and paradoxical ways.
'Trapped' by metaphors for organizations: Thinking and seeing women's equality and inequality
Linzi J Kemp
Human Relations, published online before print March 3, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715621612
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/03/0018726715621612?papetoc
This article will appear in the April 2016 special issue:
Beyond Morgan's eight metaphors: Adding to and developing organization theory
Guest Edited by Anders Örtenblad, Linda L Putnam and Kiran Trehan
Abstract
Gender was consistently identified as a major force in all editions of Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006), yet 30 years after publication of Morgan's (1986) seminal work, women's equality remains elusive in twenty-first-century workplaces. This state of affairs became the stimulus for the present research study, and its purpose the exploration of influences on women's equality and inequality from the eight metaphors contained in Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006). Data were collected from a sample of 70 articles in 30 leading academic journals that referenced Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006), and were analyzed for within-domains similarity between the eight metaphors and imageries of women in organizations. The results were then investigated for women's equality and inequality via content analysis. Four themes of influences on women's equality and inequality were identified from these metaphors for organizations. The implications of these findings are discussed, and two novel images are introduced to progress equality for women. The contribution to scholarly knowledge from this study is the proposition that the influence of these metaphors for organizations has in effect trapped ways of seeing and thinking regarding women's equality and inequality. The practical value of the current study lies in the proposal of new images to release organizational praxis for women's equality to become a real force in twenty-first-century organizations.
Safety climate and increased risk: The role of deadlines in design work
Kevin Daniels, Nick Beesley, Alistair Cheyne, and Varuni Wimalasiri
Human Relations, published online before print March 3, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715612900
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/03/0018726715612900?papetoc
Abstract
Although much research indicates positive safety climate is associated with reduced safety risk, we argue this association is not universal and may even be reversed in some contexts. Specifically, we argue that positive safety climate can be associated with increased safety risk when there is pressure to prioritize production over safety and where workers have some detachment from the consequences of their actions, such as found in engineering design work. We used two indicators of safety risk: use of heuristics at the individual level and design complexity at the design team level. Using experience sampling data (N = 165, 42 design teams, k = 5752 observations), we found design engineers' perceptions of team positive safety climate were associated with less use of heuristics when engineers were not working to deadlines, but more use of heuristics when engineers were working to deadlines. Independent ratings were obtained of 31 teams' designs of offshore oil and gas platforms (N = 121). For teams that worked infrequently to deadlines, positive team safety climate was associated with less design complexity. For teams that worked frequently to deadlines, positive team safety climate was associated with more design complexity.
Injustice hurts, literally: The role of sleep and emotional exhaustion in the relationship between organizational justice and musculoskeletal disorders
Caroline Manville, Assâad El Akremi, Michel Niezborala, and Karim Mignonac
Human Relations, published online before print March 3, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715615927
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/03/0018726715615927?papetoc
Abstract
The physical health consequences of perceived injustice at work are an important yet underexplored area of research. Using the job-stress recovery literature as an overarching framework, we argued that incomplete recovery because of sleep disorders and subsequent emotional exhaustion is a possible underlying mechanism through which organizational justice relates to employee musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). Using both self-administered questionnaires and medical examination to assess MSD, we tested our argument in two studies. Based on a randomly selected sample of employees from a variety of organizations, Study 1 found organizational justice to be negatively related to MSD through diminished sleep-related disorders. Using a sample of employees in nursing homes for the elderly, Study 2 extended these results by showing that the organizational justice–MSD relationship is sequentially mediated by sleep disorders and emotional exhaustion.
When and how does functional diversity influence team innovation? The mediating role of knowledge sharing and the moderation role of affect-based trust in a team
Siu Yin Cheung, Yaping Gong, Mo Wang, Le (Betty) Zhou, and Junqi Shi
Human Relations, published online before print February 23, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715615684
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/02/19/0018726715615684?papetoc
Abstract
Findings from prior research on the relationship between functional diversity and team innovation have been inconclusive. This study aims to reconcile the mixed findings in the literature by investigating how functional diversity may influence team innovation and when such influence may or may not occur. The view of teams as information processors suggests that functionally diverse teams may capitalize on their knowledge benefits to produce innovations through knowledge sharing. However, knowledge sharing and subsequent team innovation do not necessarily occur in functionally diverse teams. Drawing on the motivated information processing in groups theory, we propose that affect-based trust in a team moderates the effects of functional diversity on team innovation (via knowledge sharing). The results based on a sample of 96 research and development teams indicate that functional diversity had a negative indirect relationship with team innovation via knowledge sharing when affect-based trust in a team was low, and this relationship became less negative as the level of affect-based trust in a team increased. The relationship was not significant when affect-based trust in a team was high.
Othering, ableism and disability:
A discursive analysis of co-workers' construction of colleagues with visible impairments
Nanna Mik-Meyer
Human Relations, published online before print February 4, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715618454
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/02/04/0018726715618454?papetoc
Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore how able-bodied co-workers engage in the 'othering' of colleagues with impairments. Taking a discursive analytical approach, the article examines interviews with 19 managers and 43 colleagues who all worked closely with an employee with cerebral palsy in 13 different work organizations. The primary finding of the article is that co-workers spontaneously refer to other 'different' people (e.g. transvestites, homosexuals, immigrants) when talking about a colleague with visible impairments. This finding suggests that disability is simultaneously a discursive category (i.e. the discourse of ableism prevents co-workers from talking about the impairments of a colleague) and a material phenomenon (i.e. employees with impairments are a distinct category of employees in the eyes of the co-workers). Othering of employees with disabilities thus demonstrates contradictory discourses of ableism (which automatically produce difference) and tolerance and inclusiveness (which automatically render it problematic to talk about difference).
Do women advance equity?
The effect of gender leadership composition on LGBT-friendly policies in American firms
Alison Cook and Christy Glass
Human Relations, published online before print February 3, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715611734
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/22/0018726715611734?papetoc
Abstract
We advance the literature on the demographic factors that shape organizational outcomes by analyzing the impact of the gender composition of firm leadership on the likelihood that a firm will adopt lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-friendly policies. Drawing on social role and token theory, we test the relative impact of CEO gender and the gender composition of the board of directors separately and together in order to identify the effects of gender diversity at the top of the organization. We rely on a unique data set that includes corporate policies (gender identity and sexual orientation non-discrimination policies, domestic-partner benefits, and overall corporate equality index scores) as well as the gender of the CEO and board of directors among Fortune 500 firms over a 10-year period. Our findings suggest that firms with gender-diverse boards are more likely than other firms to offer LGBT-friendly policies, whereas findings for firms with women CEOs offer mixed results.
What do employees want and why?
An exploration of employees' preferred psychological contract elements across career stages
Chin Heng Low, Prashant Bordia, and Sarbari Bordia
Human Relations first published on February 3, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715616468
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/02/03/0018726715616468?papetoc
Abstract
Employees' psychological contracts comprise their beliefs about what they have to contribute to their organizations and what inducements they will receive in return. One recommended approach to attract and retain employees is to design psychological contracts that allow them to contribute in desirable ways and receive attractive inducements. However, we know little about the factors that affect psychological contract preferences. We present a qualitative study on the preferred psychological contracts of employees who are in different career stages. Our findings reveal that the roles and self-concepts that employees take on at a particular career stage may shape preferences for stage-relevant contributions and inducements. These findings advance psychological contract theory by highlighting the plausible link between employees' career stages and their psychological contract preferences.
Self and senior executive perceptions of fit and performance:
A time-lagged examination of newly-hired executives
Jia Hu, Sandy J Wayne, Talya N Bauer, Berrin Erdogan and Robert C Liden
Human Relations, published online before print February 3, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715609108
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/02/03/0018726715609108?papetoc
Abstract
Drawing on the person–organization fit literature and person-categorization theory, we proposed that new executive performance depends on both their self-perceptions as well as their fit as seen by senior executives. Using three-phased, multisource data from newly-hired executives of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company across their first six months on the job, we found that senior executive pre-entry person–organization fit expectations of their followers (new executives) are positively related to their post-entry person–organization fit perceptions through the partial mediating role of their leader–member exchange relationships. Furthermore, results also revealed that senior executive person–organization fit perceptions were significantly and positively related to new executive in-role and extra-role performance, but only when new executives' own perceptions of person–organization fit were low.
When saying sorry may not help:
Transgressor power moderates the effect of an apology on forgiveness in the workplace
Xue Zheng, Marius van Dijke, Joost M Leunissen, Laura M Giurge, and David De Cremer
Human Relations 0018726715611236, first published on February 2, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715611236
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/22/0018726715611236?papetoc
Abstract
An apology, as an expression of remorse, can be an effective response from a transgressor to obtain forgiveness from a victim. Yet, to be effective, the victim should not construe the transgressor's actions in a cynical way. Because low-power people tend to interpret the actions of high-power people in a cynical way, we argue that an apology (versus no apology) from high-power transgressors should be relatively ineffective in increasing forgiveness from low-power victims. We find support for this moderated mediation model in a critical incidents study (Study 1), a forced recall study (Study 2) among employees from various organizations and a controlled laboratory experiment among business students (Study 3).
These studies reveal the limited value of expressions of remorse by high-power people in promoting forgiveness.
Metaphors, organizations and water:
Generating new images for environmental sustainability
John M Jermier and Linda C Forbes
Human Relations, published online before print February 2, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726715616469
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/22/0018726715616469?papetoc
This article will appear in the April 2016 special issue:
Beyond Morgan's eight metaphors: Adding to and developing organization theory
Guest Edited by Anders Örtenblad, Linda L Putnam and Kiran Trehan
Abstract
Research across the social sciences and related fields has made it clear that metaphors underwrite both scientific and everyday thinking. Gareth Morgan's work in this area, most vividly developed in his classic book Images of Organization, illustrates how metaphors underwrite thinking about organizations and the important role they can play in generating new thinking. In this study, we use and extend Morgan's (2006) thesis of 'organizations as instruments of domination' (IoD) to reflect on critical issues in organizational studies related to water and the broader natural environment. We find extending the IoD image to be helpful: (i) in deriving and elaborating a metaphor that reflects a risky trend ('organizations as water exploiters'); and (ii) in generating and developing a new metaphor that is explicitly normative and nature-centered ('organizations as water keepers'). The water keeper image brings needed attention to water problems and invites further research on activist organizations (businesses and others) seeking to change thinking and practice related to environmental sustainability. We illustrate the water keeper metaphor (and the significant move away from the paradigmatic assumptions of hard anthropocentrism) with examples from environmental champion Patagonia, Inc. We then take up Morgan's challenge to move beyond the IoD metaphor to envision non-dominating forms of organization. We revisit classic nature-inclusive metaphors and the under-explored paradigm of ecocentrism to evoke and reflect on broader notions of agency, interdependence, connectedness and social relations in transformed organizations.
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CALLS FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: Global supply chains and social relations at work – submit by 30 April 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Global%20supply%20chains.html
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http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Politics%20and%20MNCs.html
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Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
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