Critical Essay: Wicked problems in the Age of Uncertainty

We are, apparently, living in unprecedented times, an Age of Uncertainty, when wicked problems whirl all around as we struggle to cope with Covid-19, environmental catastrophe and the right-wing populism that threatens to unravel all kinds of international agreements. In this personal reflection, 15 years after I wrote an article on wicked problems and the social construction of leadership, I take a look back, and forward, to see whether there ever was an Age of Certainty when only tame problems temporarily troubled us, or whether our understanding of the world is itself a social construction, open to dispute and thus we have always lived in uncertain times. In the process of this evaluation, I consider whether collaborative leadership, often associated with wicked problems, is as ubiquitous and effective as some proponents make out, and if it isn’t, what this says about our ability to address such problems.

EXPRESS: Algorithmic governmentality and the space of ethics: Examples from 'People Analytics'

Does human reflexivity disappear as datafication and automation expand and machines take over decision-making? In trying to find answers to this question, we take our lead from recent debates about People Analytics and analyze how the use of algorithmically driven digital technologies like facial recognition and drones in work-organizations and societies at large shape the conditions of ethical conduct. Linking the concepts of algorithmic governmentality and space of ethics, we analyze how such technologies come to form part of governing practices in specific contexts. We conclude that datafication and automation have huge implications for human reflexivity and the capacity to enact responsibility in decision-making. But that itself does not mean that the space for ethical conduct disappears, which is the impression left in some literatures, but rather that is modified and (re) constituted in the interplay of mechanisms of closure (like automating decision-making, black-boxing and circumventing reflexivity), and opening (such as dis-closing contingent values and interests in processes of problematization, contestation and resistance). We suggest that future research investigates in more detail the dynamics of closure and opening in empirical studies of the use and effects of algorithmically driven digital technologies in organizations and societies.

EXPRESS: Dynamic relationships between LMX and employee role-making behaviours: The moderating role of employee emotional ambivalence

We set out to understand how role-making works and what roles employees and leaders play in this process. Employees often make changes to their work roles, such as by negotiating their job responsibilities and seeking challenging tasks. In this study, we suggest that role-making behaviours influence and are influenced by the dyadic relationship between leaders and employees, otherwise known as leader–member exchange (LMX). We collected three waves of survey data from a sample of Chinese employees who were recent college graduates (n = 203). The results from cross-lagged panel analyses showed that 1) LMX and job-change negotiation were reciprocally related to each other and 2) initial LMX was associated with increased challenge-seeking behaviours, although these behaviours did not lead to greater LMX later on. In addition, we found evidence that when employees experienced a high level of emotional ambivalence (a conflicting, mixed, and complex emotional state), the direct and reciprocal relationships between LMX and role-making behaviours were weakened. Our findings advance the understanding of the development of leader–employee relationships in the workplace and have implications for strengthening employee perceptions of high-quality relationships with their leaders by making changes to their workplace roles.

EXPRESS: Theorising work-life balance endeavours as a gendered project of the self: The case of senior executives in Denmark

Recent work-life balance (WLB) studies offer considerable insight into the challenges and strategies of achieving WLB for senior managers. This study shifts the focus from asking how to asking why individuals are so invested in pursuing a particular kind of WLB. Through analysing 62 life history interviews with male and female senior executives in Denmark, we develop the concept of the gendered project of the self to theorise WLB. We show how for the executives, WLB was not simply an instrumental process of time or role management; instead, pursuing WLB in a certain way was a key part of acquiring and maintaining a particular desired subjectivity or a sense of self as a better person, better worker, and better parent. We argue that theorising WLB as the gendered project of the self allows us to explicate the mechanisms through which gendered social and cultural expectations translate into how male and female executives can and want to pursue their WLB goals—firstly by driving one’s desire for WLB and, secondly, by shaping and restricting what is desired. In doing so we highlight the importance of scrutinising the role of broader WLB discourses in shaping the experience and uptake of organisational WLB policies.

EXPRESS: Playful Work Design: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Validity

Drawing on the play and work design literatures, we conceptualize and validate an instrument to measure playful work design (PWD) – the proactive cognitive-behavioral orientation that employees engage in to incorporate play into their work activities to promote fun and challenge. Across three studies (N=1006), we developed a reliable scale with a two-dimensional factor structure. In Study 1, we utilized expert-ratings and iterative exploratory factor analyses to develop an instrument that measures (1) designing fun and (2) designing competition. Additionally, Study 1 evidences the divergent and convergent validity of the subscales as well as their distinctiveness. Specifically, PWD was indicative of proactivity as well as play, and designing fun especially correlated with ludic traits (i.e., traits focused on deriving fun; e.g., humor), whereas designing competition particularly correlated with agonistic traits (i.e., traits focused on deriving challenge; e.g., competitiveness). Study 2 cross-validated the two-factor structure, further investigated the nomological net of PWD, and revealed that PWD is distinct from job crafting. Finally, Study 3 examined the predictive and incremental validity of the PWD instrument with self- and colleague-ratings two weeks apart. Taken together, the results suggest that the instrument may advance our understanding of play initiated by employees during work.

EXPRESS: Objectal Resistance: The Political role of personal objects in workers’ resistance to spatial change

Flexwork, i.e. the combination of shared offices and telework, is one of the major changes affecting the workplace these days. But how do employees react to these transformations of their work environment? In this paper, we investigate employees’ resistance to the introduction of flexwork in a large Belgian organization. We show employees resisting this workspace transformation through the use of personal objects as means to physically reconnect to the place, using objects to convey their claims and objectively occupy places. Though space has become a key analytic concept in the study of organizations, research still largely neglects the concrete role played by personal objects in the capacity of workers to resist change in the occupation of workspaces. We highlight the mutual constitution of objects and space in practices of resistance to workspace change. We show specifically how the politicality of these materials—referred to here as objectal resistance—comes from the meaning that people assign to objects when they place them in order to reestablish workers’ bodily presence at work—i.e., from acts of objects embodiment and emplacement. We contribute to studies of resistance in the workplace by showing that objectal resistance is a complex combination of overt and covert activities, which leads to see the classic opposition between recognition and post-recognition politics in a new light.

EXPRESS: Revisiting conflict: Neoliberalism at work in the gig economy

What is the role of conflict in bringing about radical change? Taking the case of the gig economy, we study the conditions of possibility for fairer alternative ways of organising to emerge, and the relative impeding forces. Currently, some commentators underscore the sense of freedom of working as a self-employed contractor; others focus on its negative and exploitative dimensions. Less attention has been given to the potential for the emergence of (radical) conflicts around the nature of gig work contracts that might be expected. We analyse this puzzle by appreciating how, on the one hand, neoliberal gig work mobilises positive fantasies of self-entrepreneurship, leading to reformist responses to contractual disputes; and, on the other hand, how the dark side of gig work can trigger radical conflict, which rejects the assumptions underpinning the “self-employed contractor” business model. The prospect of imaginative labour revolts is, we argue, buffered by neoliberal individualisation and hegemonic ideology – articulated in the phenomenon that we term “econormativity”. Yet, since its elements offer no resolution to structural grievances, conflict continues to simmer in the background. Thus, this work aims to improve from an organisation studies perspective our understanding of conflict and its role in unleashing radical alternatives.

EXPRESS: The Ties that Bind us: Networks, Projects and Careers in British TV

The dominant view of careers is that they have been transformed by the emergence of ‘post-bureaucratic’ organizations. ‘Neo-bureaucratic’ structures have emerged, retaining centralized control over strategy and finance while outsourcing production, creating employment precarity. British television epitomises a sector that has experienced long-run deregulation. Producing television content is risky highly competitive. How do broadcasters minimise the risks of television production? Broadcasting neo-bureaucracies avoid relying on fragmented labour markets to hire technically self-disciplining crews. Control regimes are enacted through activating social networks by broadcast commissioners, green-lit to trusted creative teams who recruit key crew, through social networks which complement diffuse forms of normative control. Social networks and the self-discipline of crews are mutually constitutive, (re)producing patterns of labour market advantage/disadvantage. Younger freelancers prove vulnerable, exposed to precariousness inherent in freelance employment; to build a career they must access and sustain their social network membership. We locate individual decisions around career narratives in the context of specific social networks and industry structures. Careers are not boundaryless, individual constructs. We introduce the concept of ‘mosaic-career’, capturing the complexity of individual work histories, composed of fragmented employment in organisations/projects. How do neo-bureaucracies, then, intervene in labour markets? What are the consequences of those interventions?