scholarly journals Beyond the Visible, the Material and the Performative: Shifting Perspectives on the Visual in Organization Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 017084062110336
Author(s):  
Paolo Quattrone ◽  
Matteo Ronzani ◽  
Dennis Jancsary ◽  
Markus A. Höllerer
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Organizational Outcomes ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Visual Mode ◽  
The Past ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

Visual organizational research has burgeoned over the past decade. Despite an initially hesitant engagement with visuality in organization and management studies, it is now only proper to speak of a ‘visual turn’ in this domain of scholarly inquiry. We wish to take the opportunity provided by the Perspectives format to engage with prominent work published in Organization Studies, in appreciation of the diversity of approaches to the visual in organizational research, and highlight some generative tensions across this body of work. In particular, we have scrutinized six articles based on their treatment of signification (how the visual mode enables meaning-making and meaning-sharing in and around organizations), manifestation (how visual organizational artefacts and their properties relate to affordances) and implication (how visualization practices produce organizational outcomes). Inspired by the frictions and gaps across these articles, we developed three distinct perspective shifts that highlight the importance of the invisible, the immaterial and the performance within visualization. We conclude with a comparative matrix that maps different conceptualizations of visualization, and suggest opportunities for future research based on how we see the field of visual organizational studies evolving.

scholarly journals Oral History and Organizational Research: Challenges of Building Knowledge about the Past

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (99) ◽  
pp. 722-756
Author(s):  
Patricia Ayumi Hodge ◽  
Alessandra de Sá Mello da Costa
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Challenges ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Oral history has been increasingly used in management research in recent years, bringing to the forefront the view of individuals about past organizational phenomena. However, this use has not yet fully explored the construction of knowledge about the past. Instead, it has focused on studying the present and, therefore, hardly distinguishes oral history from qualitative methods such as case studies and in-depth interviews. How then should we use oral history and its historiography that has made it quite distinctive in history? How should we use individuals’ views to construct new knowledge of the past? This paper addresses these two questions, advocating for the use of oral history both as a theoretical-methodological approach and subfield of history, as well as firmly engaged with historical organizational studies. To that end, we review the trajectory of oral history, then we analyze 16 Brazilian papers on oral history, highlighting the distinctive characteristics of the approach, and, finally, we present research possibilities in historical organizational studies.

A review of human resources management research

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 679-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Bruce Tracey
Keyword(s):  
Human Resources ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
Organizational Outcomes ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hr Management ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Substantial Degree

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to present a review of the human resources (HR) research that has been published over the past ten years in discipline-based and hospitality-specific journals and identify key trends and opportunities for advancing future research. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a critical review of the extant literature in the general HR management and hospitality HR management fields. Findings – A comparison of the findings shows a substantial degree of overlap in the themes and results that have been generated to date. However, several hospitality studies have identified a number of variables that appear to be particularly relevant for labor-intensive, service-focused settings. As such, context-specific factors should be considered in efforts to advance our understanding about the ways in which hospitality HR systems may impact a wide array of individual and organizational outcomes. Originality/value – The results offer a foundation for advancing future hospitality HR research.

scholarly journals The transformation of work in digitized public sector organizations

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 1176-1190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Plesner ◽  
Lise Justesen ◽  
Cecilie Glerup
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Public Sector Organizations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine what the authors can learn from organization studies of digital technologies and changes in public organizations, and to develop a research agenda that allows us to produce systematic knowledge about how work practices in the public sector change with digitization.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on an analysis of the organizational studies literature on how digital technologies lead to changes in public sector organization. The literature comprises a wide range of different case studies, and they are analyzed with a specific focus on the insights they offer regarding bureaucracy, accountability and professionals.FindingsThe paper identifies various examples of how digital technologies change important aspects of public sector organizations relating to bureaucracy, accountability and professionals. It is a main finding that no systematic account exists in the organization literature of changes due to digitization specific to the public sector.Practical implicationsThe knowledge produced by current and future research in this area is directly applicable for change management. To react productively on the digitization imperative, public managers need to deepen their knowledge of the organizational dimension of digitization.Originality/valueThe paper proposes an agenda for future research, which has the potential to produce both systematic and useful knowledge of how digitization changes central aspects of public sector organizations.

Institutional Theory in Organization Studies

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. David ◽  
Pamela S. Tolbert ◽  
Johnny Boghossian
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Theory ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Standard Practices

Institutional theory is a prominent perspective in contemporary organizational research. It encompasses a large, diverse body of theoretical and empirical work connected by a common emphasis on cultural understandings and shared expectations. Institutional theory is often used to explain the adoption and spread of formal organizational structures, including written policies, standard practices, and new forms of organization. Tracing its roots to the writings of Max Weber on legitimacy and authority, the perspective originated in the 1950s and 1960s with the work of Talcott Parsons, Philip Selznick, and Alvin Gouldner on organization–environment relations. It subsequently underwent a “cognitive turn” in the 1970s, with an emphasis on taken-for-granted habits and assumptions, and became commonly known as “neo-institutionalism” in organizational studies. Recently, work based on the perspective has shifted from a focus on processes involved in producing isomorphism to a focus on institutional change, exemplified by studies of the emergence of new laws and regulations, products, services, and occupations. The expansion of the theoretical framework has contributed to its long-term vitality, though a number of challenges to its development remain, including resolving inconsistencies in the different models of decision-making and action (homo economicus vs. homo sociologicus) that underpin institutional analysis and improving our understanding of the intersection of socio-cultural forces and entrepreneurial agency.

Mute, mutation, and mutiny: on the work of feminist epistemology

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta B. Calás ◽  
Linda Smircich
Keyword(s):  
Business Schools ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Analytical Potential ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women Scholars ◽  
Feminist Epistemologies ◽  
Edith Penrose

Purpose This paper aims to bring to the fore the importance of feminist epistemologies in the history of the organization of management studies since the 1980s by following various intellectual moves in the development of feminist theorizing as they cross over to organization studies, including their analytical possibilities for reclaiming historically the voices of major women scholars, especially in doctoral seminars. The paper narrates these epistemological activities by mobilizing and reconsidering from the past to the present, the notions of “unmuting,” “mutating” and “mutiny.” It ends in a reflection addressing the state of business schools at present and why the field of organization and management studies needs “mutiny” now. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a narrative approach in which the voices of its authors appear to be central as they consider and reconsider over time their understanding of “unmuting,” “mutation” and “mutiny” as notions with analytical potential. This approach is influenced by Foucault’s “history of the present” but with contingencies brought about by feminist interpretations. The application of these notions is demonstrated by reclaiming and clarifying the epistemological underpinning in the works of three major women scholars as included in a doctoral seminar: Mary Parker Follett, Edith Penrose and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. These notions are further redeployed for their potential in institutional applications. Findings At present, the findings are discursive – if they can be called so, but the main motivation behind this writing is to go beyond discourse in the written sense, and to mobilize other activities, still in the realm of epistemological and scholarly work. These activities would legitimize actual interventions for changing business schools from their current situation as neoliberal entities, which mute understanding of major problems in the world, as well as the voices of most humans and non-humans paying for the foibles of neoliberalism. Originality/value The paper demonstrates the necessity of developing approaches for interventions in knowledge producing institutions increasingly limited by neoliberal premises in what can be said and done as legitimate knowledge. In doing this, the paper articulates the importance of keeping history alive to avoid the increasing “forgetfulness” neoliberalization brings about. The paper, in its present form, represents an active act of “remembering”.

scholarly journals Ladders of Authority, Status, Responsibility and Ideology: Toward a Typology of Hierarchy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Georges L. Romme
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Review Paper ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Social Mechanism ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
And Behavior

The notion of hierarchy is widely used in many academic disciplines but is also rather ambiguous, because there are many ways to define it. In this review paper, I explore which notions of hierarchy are being used in the field of management and organization studies. Four distinct types of hierarchy are identified: a ladder of formal decision-making authority, a ladder of achieved status, a self-organized ladder of responsibility, and an ideology-based ladder. A social mechanism-based perspective serves to define and distinguish these four types. Subsequently, the typology is further developed by comparing the four hierarchy types in terms of their tacit/explicitness, (in)transitivity, and behavior- versus cognition-centeredness. This review paper contributes to the literature by dissecting the general metaphor of hierarchy into four different constructs and their social mechanisms, which serves to create a typology of the various ways in which hierarchy is being used in the domain of organization and management. This typology can inform future research drawing on any type of hierarchy, also in other domains.

scholarly journals Beyond paradigms in Organization Studies: the Circle of Epistemic Matrices

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-46
Author(s):  
Ana Paula Paes de Paula
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Knowledge ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
War In Literature

Abstract In this article, I present a sketch of a new proposition to guide organizational studies: the Cicle of Epistemic Matrices. Inspired by Thomas Kuhn and based on the thesis of paradigms' incommensurability, Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan drew the diagram of sociological paradigms, but its inclusion in the academy has encouraged a paradigms war. The Circle of Epistemic Matrices also provides an outline for the guidance of organizational studies, but it is based on Habermas and defends the thesis of cognitive incompleteness, suggesting that the sociological and organizational knowledge grows according to the thesis of epistemic reconstructions. To accomplish these propositions and elaborations, I present the debate about the paradigms' war in literature and I question the adequacy of sociological paradigms of Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan to organizational studies, with the issue of the influence that it suffered from Kuhnian paradigms and logic. In the following sections, there is an exhibition of alternative proposition - the of Circle of Epistemic Matrices - and, also, I support the thesis of cognitive incompleteness and the thesis of epistemic reconstructions in order to bring a new theory of knowledge development to the area. Finally, I present the findings and thoughts for future research.

Philosophical Organization Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haridimos Tsoukas
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Organizational Behaviour ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Reflection In Action ◽  
Complex Forms

When it comes to the field of organization and management theory, a philosophical perspective enables us to conduct organizational research imbued with the attitude of “wonder”; it helps researchers question dominant images of thought underlying mainstream thinking, and provides fresh distinctions that enable the development of new theory. In bringing together a collection of key essays by Haridimos Tsoukas, this volume explores fundamental concepts, such as organizational routines, that have gained currency in the field, as well as revisiting traditional concepts such as change, strategy, and organization. It discusses organizational knowledge, judgment, and reflection-in-action, and, at the meta-theoretical level, suggests complex forms of theorizing that seek to reflect the complexity of organizations. The conceptual attention throughout is on process and practice, underlain by performative phenomenology and an emphasis on agents’ lived experience. This provides us with the language to appreciate the dynamic character of organizational behaviour, the embeddedness of action, and the complexity of organizational life. The theoretical claims presented in this volume have important implications for scholarly practice, insofar as they help retrain our attention: from seeing structures and individuals, we can now appreciate processes, experiences, and practices. A phenomenological attitude makes organization theory more open, more creative, and more reflexive, and this book will be essential reading for researchers and students in the field of organization studies.

scholarly journals Organizational Memory Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (12) ◽  
pp. 1725-1748
Author(s):  
Hamid Foroughi ◽  
Diego M. Coraiola ◽  
Jukka Rintamäki ◽  
Sébastien Mena ◽  
William M. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Future Development ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Organizational Memory ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

This paper provides an overview and discussion of the rapidly growing literature on organizational memory studies (OMS). We define OMS as an inquiry into the ways that remembering and forgetting shape, and are shaped by, organizations and organizing processes. The contribution of this article is threefold. We briefly review what we understand by organizational memory and explore some key debates and points of contestation in the field. Second, we identify four different perspectives that have been developed in OMS (functional, interpretive, critical and performative) and expand upon each perspective by showcasing articles published over the past decade. In particular, we examine four papers previously published in Organization Studies to show the distinctiveness of each perspective. Finally, we identify a number of areas for future research to facilitate the future development of OMS.

De rol van tijd in organisaties: introductie op het thema

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josette M.P. Gevers ◽  
Wendelien van Eerde ◽  
Robert Roe
Keyword(s):  
Theory Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Subjective Time ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Current State ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Clear Shift

The relevance of time in organizations and organizational studies: Introduction to the special issue The relevance of time in organizations and organizational studies: Introduction to the special issue This special issue addresses the relevance of time in organizations and organizational research. Given that time is inherent to all activity and interaction, it is an important factor for understanding the functioning of people in the workplace. The realization of this fact has recently led to a rediscovery of the theme in contemporary industrial and organizational psychology. In this introductory article, we offer a historical overview of the work devoted to time in I/O psychology, which shows a clear shift from objective time, as given, to subjective time, as experienced. We provide some examples from practice to show that both approaches are relevant for our field of research. Additionally, we describe the history and current state of affairs regarding theory development and research methodology. We go on to provide an introduction to the articles in this special issue. Finally, we briefly outline some directions for future research.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document