Search results

Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization compels attention and invites reflection. Morgan himself describes the work as a treatise on metaphorical thinking which contributes to the theory and practice of organisational analysis (p. 16). Hence it stands directly in the tradition of writers such as Pepper and Kuhn, whose works have included a study of the impact of root metaphors and cognitive paradigms on our understanding of the world.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how trustees of small English registered charities understand and own the reporting and accounting requirements with which their charities must comply.

The research described is a multi-pronged qualitative and inductive study of three small Yorkshire charities as they approve their annual accounts. The case studies are based on observations of trustee meetings and interviews with a range of trustees and their independent examiner or auditor. The use of a practice lens focuses on the behaviours of individuals to understand the sense that they make of their charity’s accounts.

Trustees' understanding of their financial statements is limited; they tend to rely on key individuals who have knowledge. Group responsibility creates a shared way of understanding the financial statements. Treasurers and independent examiners simplify information for the trustees even resorting to corner cutting and rule bending. Narrative reporting is given very little attention. Trustees read their financial statements as a report to them not by them; accountability notwithstanding, thus ownership of their financial statements is conferred not intrinsic.

The findings are drawn from three specific case studies and therefore cannot be generalised, but they offer rich qualitative insights into small charities’ accounting and reporting.

This research provides a unique multi-viewpoint analysis of charity practices, and through its use of a practice lens dives deeper into examining trustees’ understanding and behaviour.

For the past decade, sub-post offices (POs) in the UK have been subject to intensive pressures to marketise their business. Actual or threatened closures have led charities to become involved in projects to preserve community post offices. This paper aims to investigate the attitudes of the trustees and staff involved in six charity-backed POs to answer the research question “Do those involved with charity-backed POs prioritise profit generation or community resourcing?”

This research adopted a neo-empiricist stance on the collection and interpretation of data. The authors treated “attitudes” as real phenomena that are subjectively experienced and concretely expressed through activities in an objectively real world. Data were gathered from four or more people in each of six POs by sampling their services and conducting face-to-face interviews. The emphasis was on achieving verstehen – a rich understanding of a specific approach to social enterprise grounded in interpretations of human activity under conditions of naturalistic inquiry.

The authors found that charity-backed POs were focussed on preserving POs as a community resource but articulated this by framing profitability in three distinct ways: as a PO generating a surplus that can be gifted or reallocated to a (parent) charity’s other activities; as an activity that offsets a charity’s fixed costs; or enables or promotes its public benefit aims.

There are few peer-reviewed studies of the potential of sub-POs as sites for social enterprise, and none (that could be located) on the role of charities. In this study, the authors contest Liu and Ko’s view (2014, p. 402) that the key task is “to install market-oriented managerial beliefs and values into the charity retailer’s decision-making”. A counter view is offered that trading can represent a further diversification of the innovations used to support charitable endeavours.

This is the first academic study to confront the complexities of differentiating “profitability” from “profit generation” in charity-backed POs. The subtleties in the articulation of this difference by study participants helped to account for the findings of the study and to make sense of the strong consensus that POs should be seen primarily as a community resource while responding to marketisation pressures.

Contends that effective e‐learning requires that the education content be written and delivered very differently than in the past. Proposes to cut through the complexity associated with adopting an e‐learning approach by highlighting 13 key questions that need to be asked in assessing the strengths, weaknesses, and applicability of different e‐learning offerings. Asserts that when properly answered, the 13 questions provide a solid basis for evaluating on‐line learning and education products, and for positioning a company’s approach to e‐learning with an eye on the future instead of the past. Includes definitions that illustrate how e‐learning products are evolving.

Document Management and Workflow are technologies designed to support, either the productivity of an organisational process or, alternatively, the productivity of the people who comprise an organisation. This paper describes the motivations and anticipated benefits that could encourage an organisation to seek a technology solution to their existing paperlogged processes. In many areas these technologies are being used to good effect. There is increasing evidence that current systems designs which owe much to Taylor and Deining notions of scientific management and quality systems may not always be appropriate. A new generation of technology is emerging sometimes called ‘Workware’. This technology tries to be ‘Idea’ or ‘Work Object’ centric rather than process centric. Workware aims to establish boundaries within which empowered workers are free to achieve their objectives by any appropriate and valid means. These new technologies promise to support ‘real world’ work more effectively. They also present challenges to those who seek to find excellence through the detailed design and measurement of precise processes repetitively enacted. No conclusions are yet available. The best way to support and value ‘Knowledge Work’ within a business process without snuffing the creative spark on which a business depends for its future seems a worthy area for further exploration.

Although the particular policies that groups establish may serve to differentiate those groups from others in the broader community, policies are better envisioned as aspects of group life in the making than as structures or rules that define the character or operations of the groups under consideration. Addressing instances of policy as humanly engaged ventures, this statement attempts to demystify policy by (a) examining organizational directives in process terms, (b) explicitly incorporating people into the study of the policy‐making process. This paper also addresses policy in ways that (c) are more amenable to ethnographic research on actual instances of policy and (d) contribute to a sustained, comparative analysis of “policy in the making”.

The intellectual trajectory of a central figure in contemporary organisation theory – Gareth Morgan – is identified and assessed through a detailed analysis of his published work over the last decade.

Reports on the views of three keynote speakers at the Institute of Personnel and Development’s recent conference at Harrogate, UK, and presents their opinions on how to develop innovation and creativity in organisations; presents Gareth Morgan’s approach to change management, and discusses the structure of organizations as envisaged by Gifford Pinchot, who coined the term “intrapreneur”. Reviews the experiences of Brazil’s Ricardo Semler in running his family business, and focuses on his experimentations with satellites spun off from the main business and run by supported former employees on a freelance basis.

This paper aims to suggest that the language typically used about leadership in healthcare tells us something important about how we see it.

Three main metaphors currently adopted for healthcare leadership purposes are explored – military, sporting and finance.

The language used about leadership sustains the way the world is seen. A more life-affirming use of language is possible, which more accurately reflects what healthcare is about.

The paper builds on the work of Gareth Morgan in applying the use of metaphors to healthcare leadership.