Modern working life and organizations— change, dynamism, and post-bureaucracy?

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson
Keyword(s):  
Working Life ◽  
Work Organizations ◽  
Strategy Change ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Life Phenomena ◽  
The Right ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Intensive Work ◽  
Time And Energy ◽  
Fourth Theme

Today’s working life can be understood in terms of grandiose ideas, illusion tricks, and zero-sum games. These three concepts provide a rather different perspective than conventional understandings of working life phenomena suggested by signifiers such as leadership, visions, strategy, change, entrepreneurship, innovations, and human resource management. Chapters 6–9 deal with four key themes in current organizations and working conditions. The first theme, addressed in this chapter, is ideas about major, drastic changes. People refer to the demise of bureaucracy and mass production, a transition to new forms of production and work organizations characterized by flexibility, dynamism, networks, knowledge intensive work, flat organizations, and so on. This is worth investigating, which is what this chapter aims to do. The second theme, which is tackled in Chapter 7, is concerned with the way in which organizations try to create legitimacy in relation to the predominant norms and ideas through formal structures signalling ‘the right practice’, without necessarily affecting the latter to any appreciable degree—in other words, an illusion trick. The idea is that organizations are increasingly devoting their time and energy to developing shop-window arrangements—designed to satisfy various groups interested in what is going on in a given organization, but without deeper insights into its workings. The third theme, covered in Chapter 8, discusses how various occupational groups are trying to advance their positions and gain status as professionals (experts) in line with ideas about the increased importance of knowledge and expertise. They try to get a hearing for their claims for a unique and superior ‘competence’ that entitles them a higher status and monopoly of a given sector of the labour market. People who are not formally qualified are kept at bay. Advancing positions through professionalization is not always so simple, however, since other groups have the same ambition. This involves, for example, personnel specialists, marketers, and nurses. The fourth theme is leadership, or rather ‘leadership’, which is discussed in Chapter 9.

Software development: Knowledge-intensive work organizations

1996 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 237-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris W. Clegg ◽  
Patrick E. Waterson ◽  
Carolyn M. Axtell
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Work Organizations ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Intensive Work

Introduction : Zero-sum games, grandiosity, and illusion tricks

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson
Keyword(s):  
Working Life ◽  
Grade Inflation ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
High Status ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
Common People ◽  
Zero Sum Games ◽  
Corporate Executives ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Zero Sum

Modern society is characterized by grandiose self-personifications and claims on a large scale. There is a strong desire to be labelled in the most attractive and pretentious terms. This applies to individuals, occupations, organizations, and political elites. One problem is that the struggle for the most coveted sugar plums—high professional status, conspicuous consumption, ‘world-class education’, ‘excellence’, and so on—involves a zero-sum contest. This means that a benefit for one specific individual or group is gained at the expense of another. Not everybody can be excellent or afford high-status goods or get a degree from a high-status university. Grandiose projects occupy an ever-increasing proportion of the time, commitments, and resources of various elite groups, such as politicians, media people, corporate executives, union leaders, and other representatives of organizations and professional groups. But also the lives of common people increasingly circle around grandiosity. There is a strong emphasis on illusion tricks to back this up: CV improvement, title and grade inflation, organizations exhibiting impressive window-dressing through policy formulation and executive development programmes, and occupations re-launched as professions. This book focuses on the hollowness of such grandiosity and illusory projects, and emphasizes the zero-sum games involved, and also the destructive social and psychological consequences of such phenomena. Based on these concepts, I will develop a framework for understanding the contemporary age and its institutions. I will examine critically some predominant ideas about management, organizational structure, working life, consumption, and education, which are often taken for granted : • Economic growth and higher consumption are key sources of increased satisfaction. • Education is something positive that leads to higher qualifications, and is needed to a greater and greater extent by both individuals and society. • Current and future working life is permeated by views of a knowledge economy and a knowledge-intensive society, a greater degree of professionalization, and an emphasis on leadership in the creation of effective organizations. I will show that many conditions and developments in these three areas, which may appear to be positive and socially functional, can be better understood in terms of grandiosity, illusion tricks, and zero-sum games.

The German Elections of 1928

1928 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 698-705
Author(s):  
James K. Pollock
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
City Councils ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Methods ◽  
Political Consolidation ◽  
National Socialists ◽  
The Right ◽  
Intensive Work

The elections which were held throughout Germany on May 20, 1928, are of considerable interest and importance not only to Germany but also to the rest of the world. These elections, to be sure, did not have the dramatic interest which attended the Reichstag elections of December, 1924. But they deserve attention for a number of reasons: first, because they are the first elections to be held in the Reich under what may be called normal conditions; second, because elections for five Landtags and several city councils were held at the same time; and third, because the elections gave a further test, and supplied additional evidence of the operation, of the German system of proportional representation.Despite the intensive work of the political parties, the people were not aroused to much enthusiasm during the campaign. The old Reichstag was dissolved before Easter, but not until the last week of the campaign could one detect any excitement. Never before had the electors been bombarded with so much printed matter, posters, and, last but not least, loud-speakers and films. All the modern methods of appealing to the voters were tried by the numerous political parties. There were lacking, however, the overpowering issues and the battlecries which were so effective in 1924. Parades, demonstrations, meetings, and all the rest were carried through successfully on the whole, but they were quite dull and uninteresting. Only the two extreme parties, the National Socialists or Hitlerites on the right, and the Communists on the left, could appear enthusiastic. Nevertheless, the lack of what the Germans call a “grosse Parole” and the lack of excitement are not to be deplored; their absence probably indicates progress toward social and political consolidation.

The triumph of imagology—a paradise for tricksters?

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crises ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Job Tasks ◽  
The Road ◽  
Job Title ◽  
Broad Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
Material Standard Of Living

Having addressed the three broad subject matters in Chapters 2–9—consumption, higher education, and working life/organizations—it is now time to connect these themes, to formulate additional ideas, insights, and results based on synthesis as well as summaries and conclusions. This will be done here and in the final chapter. Below I address further the significance of expectations and desire. The title of Kovel’s (1981) by now somewhat dated book, The Age of Desire, is probably much more appropriate today than 30 years ago. Recession and financial crises in some countries can temporarily attenuate the rampage of desire for some groups—with reduction in the material standard of living, concerns other than desire may require attention—but this does not disturb the overall picture of the dominant inclinations in post-affluent society. I start the chapter by addressing post-affluence and, in particular, how expectations of the good consumption and working life are gradually raised so that reality, when salient, may be a source of frustration and disappointment more often than delivering what it should. People in ads are always happier and more beautiful than the consumers trying to imitate them. The institution recruiting students seldom undersells the quality of its teaching, or the employment that may follow for graduates. The job title increasingly promises something better than the actual job tasks. Having pointed at the misfortunes of reality—or ‘shit happens’—I then make some specific links between education, work, and consumption, before moving quickly over to how statistics often support competitions in showing the right numbers to make things appear to be good, sometimes at the expense of the quality of the phenomena the numbers are supposed to say something about. I also address how the understanding of grandiosity and illusion tricks can be further developed through the use of Kundera’s concept imagology. Here, in particular, I draw upon Kundera’s claim that people occupied by imagology constitute a broad, diverse, but rapidly expanding set of occupations leading the road to grandiosity.

Introduction

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Cross ◽  
Andrew Parker
Keyword(s):  
New Product Development ◽  
Flexible Structures ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Management Advice ◽  
Intensive Work ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Second Wave

Spend some time in most any organization today and you are sure to hear of the importance of networks, in one form or another, for getting work done. In this age of increasingly organic, flat, and flexible structures, many managers and scholars are using networks as a central organizing metaphor for twenty-first-century firms (e.g., Dimagio, 2001; Nohria & Ghoshal, 1997). In large part, this focus seems a product of two trends. First, over the past decade or so initiatives such as de-layering, TQM, reengineering, team-based structures, and outsourcing, to name a few, have been undertaken to promote organizational flexibility and efficiency (Hirschhorn & Gilmore, 1992; Hammer & Champy, 1993; Mohrman, Cohen, & Mohrman, 1995; Kerr & Ulrich, 1995). One outcome of these restructuring efforts is that information flow and work increasingly occur through informal networks of relationships rather than through channels tightly prescribed by formal reporting structures or detailed work processes. Along with the drive to more organic structures in organizations we have also seen a rise in the prevalence and value of knowledge-intensive work (Quinn, 1992; Drucker, 1993). Early initiatives to support knowledge workers focused heavily on databases and organizational processes to ensure the capture and sharing of lessons and reusable work products (e.g., Stewart, 1997; O’Dell & Grayson, 1998; Ruggles, 1998; Davenport, Delong, & Beers, 1998). However, these investments rarely, if ever, had the intended impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge work. As a result, a “second wave” of knowledge-management advice is coming forth that pays a great deal more attention to knowledge embedded within employees and relationships in organizations (e.g., Brown & Duguid, 2000; Cross & Baird, 2000; Dixon, 2000; Von Krogh et al., 2000; Cohen & Prusak, 2001). Among other things, this work has illustrated the importance of trust and informal networks for knowledge creation and sharing within organizations. We suggest that in today’s de-layered, knowledge-intensive settings, most work of importance is heavily reliant on informal networks of employees within organizations. For example, networks sitting across core work processes, weaving together new product development initiatives or integrating strategic initiatives such as alliances or mergers can be critical to organizational effectiveness.

Junior Doctor (Core Medical Training), 3 years’ experience, UK

2020 ◽  
pp. 91-93
Author(s):  
Markus Reuber ◽  
Gregg H. Rawlings ◽  
Steven C. Schachter
Keyword(s):  
Junior Doctor ◽  
Medical Training ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Blood Samples ◽  
Intravenous Access ◽  
Epileptic Attack ◽  
The Right

This chapter suggests that the best way to learn that someone in the hospital is having or has had a non-epileptic attack is to have a visitor or patient point it out, someone who does not know enough about the condition to hold biases against it, who does not have expectations of what the “right” response should look like. If the author hears about an attack in this way, the author gets that rarest thing in a junior doctor’s working life: freedom. Freedom not to shout for help or pull the emergency buzzer. Freedom not to pin the person down, to fight for blood samples or intravenous access. Most importantly, freedom to do what is necessary to be reassured that the author is watching a non-epileptic attack and to reassure the patient that he or she is safe.

Knowledge Management

2009 ◽  
pp. 552-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dariusz Jemielniak ◽  
Jerzy Kociatkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Identity Creation ◽  
Management Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Intensive Work ◽  
Current Business

Knowledge management and knowledge-intensive work are two of today’s hot buzzwords, though both already have a history of managerial usage. While some authors claim that knowledge is the most important organizational asset in contemporary society, others retort that much of knowledge management literature and practical solutions are just perfunctory and propagandist and many, if not most, managerial polices rely on manipulation of emotions and identity creation. This chapter aims to capitalize on this fascinating and timely research area. We want to present the current business fad of knowledge-management in terms of excess and forgetful repetition of ideas. We look at knowledge management as an idea of highly suspect utility, and search for explanations for and possible counterbalances to its ubiquity.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document