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1 – 10 of 296Stuart Green and Laurence Ferry
This paper considers the nature and effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices in three secondary schools in England. A close application of a developed…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper considers the nature and effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices in three secondary schools in England. A close application of a developed model of Habermasian colonization provides a framing for both the ways in which accounting is implicated in organizational change and the effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative field studies at three secondary schools were used to gather empirical detail in the form of interview data and documentary evidence. A total of 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers and bursars.
Findings
Accounting disturbances that were constitutive-transactional in nature had the greatest influence on organizational micro-practices. Behavioural responses to accounting disturbances can be organizationally ambiguous, subtle and subject to change over time.
Research limitations/implications
More field studies are needed, and there is scope to develop a longitudinal perspective to better understand the impact of accounting disturbances over time.
Originality/value
By framing the processes of accounting change using a developed model of Habermasian colonization, contributions are provided by illuminating aspects of both the processes of accounting colonization and the impact of accounting on organizational micro-practices. The findings also add to prior appreciations of reciprocal colonization, creative transformation of accounting disturbances and how accounting can be enabling.
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Eloise Grove, Andrew Dainty, Derek Thomson and Tony Thorpe
The intra-organisational relationships of through-life support services providers are complex, especially given the multifaceted nature of the provision required. For example…
Abstract
Purpose
The intra-organisational relationships of through-life support services providers are complex, especially given the multifaceted nature of the provision required. For example, capabilities within the UK highways maintenance arena must support engineering design, routine maintenance and the on-going management of the network. While collaboration in construction projects has formed a major research focus in recent years, there is a paucity of work examining collaboration in-flight.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a micro-practices approach, two contracts delivering highway infrastructure maintenance and renewal services are examined to explore the intra-organisational relationships that determine the quality of service delivered.
Findings
Despite the rhetoric of collaboration and integrated working that pervades the contemporary project discourse, there was a clear focus on addressing immediate technical and commercial concerns, rather than on creating the conditions for integrated working to flourish. On the occasions where the collaborative environment was prioritised, a more integrated service was delivered.
Originality/value
In contrast to other accounts of the ways collaborative working shapes performance, this research reveals an acute need for a sustained collaborative effort; as soon as “collaborative working” was normalised, the level of integration and seamlessness of service was diminished. This questions normative notions of what defines collaborative working in projects and suggests a need for re-framing it as an on-going accomplishment of actors involved. Such a perspective resonates with notions of “organizational becoming”, particularly in that attempts to foster collaboration are themselves constitutive of the unfolding and shifting nature of intra-organisational relationships that emerge in complex contractual arrangements.
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Susanna Alexius and Jenny Cisneros Örnberg
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to theory of hybrid organizations, with particular regard to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their ability to contribute to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to theory of hybrid organizations, with particular regard to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their ability to contribute to sustaining value pluralism in the public sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper offers a qualitative case concerning ongoing performance management reforms in the corporate governance of SOEs in Sweden, which is analyzed using theory on valuation and evaluation.
Findings
It is found that the number of non-financial values is reduced with reference to categorization. Attempts are made to change the perception of the potential value conflict at hand between financial and non-financial missions by adding a number of neutralizing “meta values” such as transparency and efficiency to the performance language in use. There is a risk of mission drift as a clear hierarchization of values, prioritizing financial values, is created and sustained in “investment teams.” Processes, standards and dialogues are all dominated by an economic logic despite formal aspirations to balance the values at stake. The few remaining non-financial values are translated into economic language aiming for a commensuration of the performance of the different missions. In addition, the ambition of the public policy assignment may be further reduced by de-coupling.
Originality/value
The paper suggests a novel approach to hybrid organizations in general and SOEs in particular when exploring how the values underlying complex missions are configured in “value work” performed by government officials in Swedish government offices. Such analyses of value work in the micro-practice of hybrids offer a more fine-grained understanding of organizational dilemmas that are commonly acknowledged, but more seldom explained in empirical detail.
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This paper aims to draw attention to the significance of “acculturation” in organisations and organising and how learning occurs as micro-practices (organisational poetics).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to draw attention to the significance of “acculturation” in organisations and organising and how learning occurs as micro-practices (organisational poetics).
Design/methodology/approach
The recognition of the ontological significance of organisational acculturation invites a more critical view of the effects of organisational practices on individual identity, social norms and the accountability of organisations to society.
Findings
Organising and organisations are cast as nurseries of cultural practices that are so normalised we regard them as “unremarkable,” as “just the way things are,” yet “schooling” of identity and social norms.
Practical implications
If we want a better world, we should, as citizens, expect more from our organisations and their learning.
Social implications
The significance here is, from a post-structural, relational stance, that organising and organisations are significant agents in the performance of what it is to be human and our social conditions. As well as goods and services, organisations produce “humans.”
Originality/value
As distinct from the canon of organisational learning literature which is primarily concerned with learning for the effectiveness and resilience of organisations for their own benefit, this paper asserts that what we learn and normalise in organisations structures society – the world we live.
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Argues that there is a close relationship between theories in organisational learning and the research methodologies utilised to verify such theories. Presents an evaluation of…
Abstract
Argues that there is a close relationship between theories in organisational learning and the research methodologies utilised to verify such theories. Presents an evaluation of two distinct approaches to learning in the light of their methodological differences, strengths and weaknesses. For instance, research based on behavioural learning is generally conducted using the quantitative methodology, while researchers of cognitive learning are more likely to use the qualitative methodology. The former deals largely with the macro aspects of the organisation involving strategic directions, whereas the latter deals with micro practices within organisational or trans‐organisational settings. Most importantly, organisational learning should contribute to perceivable outcomes. Draws the conclusion that case study which embodies quantitative and qualitative methodology is a useful approach to dealing with both the behavioural and cognitive aspects of organisational learning theories.
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Senem Güney and James R. Taylor
The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of reconfiguring epistemic boundaries and the authority relationships that these boundaries represent in corporate R&D. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of reconfiguring epistemic boundaries and the authority relationships that these boundaries represent in corporate R&D. The authors focus the analysis on the mediation of this reconfiguration by project management tools, specifically the development plan and its subsidiary roadmaps and timelines.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze discourse data from an ethnographic study to show in situ the communication about and through project management tools in collaborative project development. The concepts of organizational map and mapping from the perspective of the communicative constitution of organization (CCO) frame the close-up analysis of this communication.
Findings
The analysis reveals how the plan and its subsidiary texts participate in the negotiation and legitimation of epistemic ownership and authority for a collaborative strategy to be implemented. The authors illustrate the material agency of these texts in the objectification and prioritization of strategic choices in this implementation.
Research limitations/implications
To conclude, the authors discuss the significance of exploring the mapping function of supposedly mundane representational tools used in project management.
Originality/value
The originality of this study comes from applying the organizational map concept to demonstrate the politically charged materiality of project management tools in the discursive establishment of authority and accomplishment of corporate strategy.
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Does staffing contribute to organizational effectiveness and sustained competitive advantage, or are many of staffing’s implications merely cross-level fallacies? This article…
Abstract
Does staffing contribute to organizational effectiveness and sustained competitive advantage, or are many of staffing’s implications merely cross-level fallacies? This article provides a critical examination of staffing research and practice, and proposes a multilevel model of staffing that ties together micro (e.g. personnel selection), meso (e.g. team staffing), and macro (e.g. organizational strategy, Human Resources practices) theory, research, and practice. The model is both integrative and prescriptive, providing a basic organizing structure for examining staffing research within and across levels. The article begins with a review of multilevel theory, followed by a review and critique of the dominant staffing paradigms from a multilevel perspective. It is shown these single level paradigms cannot answer many of the primary questions of interest to staffing specialists. In contrast, the multilevel staffing model not only addresses these limitations, but also prompts a variety of new predictions that oftentimes run counter to prevailing wisdom. Staffing specialists are challenged to show how our science and practice contribute to better functioning organizations.
Stephen Linstead, Joanna Brewis and Alison Linstead
To provide a critical review of existing contributions to gender and change management and in doing so highlight how organizational change needs to be read more readily from a…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide a critical review of existing contributions to gender and change management and in doing so highlight how organizational change needs to be read more readily from a gendered perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper argues that gender has received little attention regarding the change management side of managerial practice and reviews recent contributions to gender and change to demonstrate this. The paper then questions how men and women both cope with and drive change and whether the identified differences are more than superficial. The concept of gender is then read into management theory in order to understand how gender affects the way managers think and act, and the gendering of management is discussed. The paper concludes by outlining future research areas – change agents, entrepreneurs, female innovators, psychoanalytic treatments of change and gender experiences.
Findings
The paper finds that traditional and dominant conceptions of masculine and feminine values that rely on static conceptions of gender to argue that more attention to be paid to the dynamic and the genderful approaches.
Research limitations/implications
The paper concludes by outlining future research areas – change agents, entrepreneurs, female innovators, psychoanalytic treatments of change and gender experiences.
Practical implications
Draws much needed attention to the neglect of gender in change theory and practice and suggests some ways forward.
Originality/value
Offers a unique introduction to an important but complex literature that needs to be integrated into change management practice.
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Mahmoud Ezzamel, Noel Hyndman, Åge Johnsen, Irvine Lapsley and June Pallot
This paper aims to examine an early stage of the institutionalization of accounting practices in devolved UK governments, concentrating on: the construction by devolved bodies of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine an early stage of the institutionalization of accounting practices in devolved UK governments, concentrating on: the construction by devolved bodies of a “rational” set of planning and budgeting documents; the extent of homogeneity/heterogeneity in organizational response to seemingly similar institutional pressures; and politicians' cognition of accounting numbers.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses neo‐institutional theory to examine the planning and budgeting documents of the devolved bodies and material gathered from semi‐structured interviews.
Findings
The findings point to a process of nested translations, from mission through aims and objectives to targets, with accounting numbers present only in the last stage whereby time‐bounded targets are formulated and used to assess achievements. Because of the negotiations around the diverging interests of actors, the translation process is neither linear nor stable.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the literature by: examining the emergence and use of new accounting and budgeting systems in political organizations; understanding the experience of institutionalization of accounting practices; and exploring the impact of accounting reform on political deliberation and joined‐up government.
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