The social construction of organization / edited by Dian Marie Hosking and Sheila McNamee.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Hosking, Dian Marie, editor.

McNamee, Sheila, editor.

Series:

Advances in organization studies.

Advances in Organization Studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Organizational behavior.

Corporate culture.

Social psychology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (295 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Frederiksberg, Denmark : Copenhagen Business School Press, 2006.

Summary:

Textbooks in the areas of Organizational Behaviour, Human Resource Management, Communication Studies, and Organizational Development and Change typically treat person and organization as separate entities, in a subject-object relation. However there is another story of persons and organizations, one in which Person is seen to participate in social processes, and, in so doing, to both shape and be shaped by them. This volume brings together voices of social construction that connect most strongly with post-modern and post-structuralist themes, reflect 'new psychology' and centre processes as they make people and worlds. Our intention is not to pronounce some orthodoxy but rather to assist those who are relatively new to what is a huge, ever growing, multi-disciplinary field where 'social construction' means many different things.

Contents:

Intro

The Social Construction of Organization

Copyright

Table of contents

The editors

Preface

Why this book

How we have composed this book

References

Why do I write about organizations in poetry?

Introduction

Writing in relation to Other Poetic form as Other

The reader as other

Poetry and the avoidance of conclusion

Moving around and about a topic

A contribution of the incomplete?

Space for Many Voices

Avoiding the irony of a conclusion?

Chapter 1: Making your way: please start here

Relating as persuasion

An illustration from Sheila

Relating as appreciation

Relating as co-construction

Making local realities

Relating as performance

Some implications for practice

Recommended further readings

Managing a sestina managing me?

Chapter 2: Organizational Science and the Promises of Postmodernism

Organizational Science: A Modernist Adventure

The Rational Agent

Empirical Evaluation

Language as Picture

The Narrative of Progress

The Postmodern Turn

From Individual to Communal Rationality

From Empirical Method to Social Construction

Language as Social Action

The Multi-Culturation of Meaning

Toward Postmodern Organizational Science

The Place of Research Technologies

Toward Critical Reflection

The Construction of New Worlds

Toward Catalytic Conversation

The Agent out there

Chapter 3: Organizations, organizing, and related concepts of change

Persons act in or on organizations

Entities

Subject-Object relations

The entitative narrative of organizations

Organizational change

Introducing other narratives

Relational-construction processes as processes of 'organizing'

A tool kit for reflecting on relational processes

Summary - relational construction processes.

Re-constructions of organizational change

Relational constructionism and change work

Notes

Who am I?

Chapter 4: Patterns of engagement

Overview

Mutual expectations and patterns in conversation

Revisiting conversational rules

Expectations of performance become embedded - even in objects

Using 'word objects' - how language is in-scribed with expected performance

Con-forming, reproducing and breaching patterns

'Attributes' of patterns and how power is made

The 'characteristics' of people arise in the expectations in-scribed in the pattern - the 'context'

Patterns turn up for work - like other members of the workforce

Patterns make things work

Patterns 'speak' before we do

The behaviour of interactions (rather than people) - 'patternality' not personality

The pattern inscribes behaviour and qualities back into the participants

How do patterns keep their shape - and are they weak or strong?

Subject-Object Relations, knowledge and power

Knowledge in the RVS

Language in the RVS

Power in the RVS

Related narratives

Another view - starting with social construction

Language

Power

Chapter 5: Auditive leadership culture: lessons from symphony orchestras

Visual leadership narrative

Visual aspects in leadership literature

Endurance

Distance and differentiation

Inaffectuality

Individuality

Auditive leadership narrative

Qualities of auditive culture

Natural, effortless listening

Openness and tolerance

Auditive aspects in leadership literature

Temporality

Incorporation

Exposure

Collectivity

The skill of listening

Some conclusions

Reflections on Power in Organizations

The options

Notes.

Chapter 6: Abilities, competencies, and selection decision-making

Social constructionism as an alternative to possessive-instrumentalism

The importance of abilities in the new economy

A contemporary case: what abilities should graduates have?

Problems with the language of ability

Using the language of abilities

But what about tests of ability?

Good news or bad news?

Chapter 7: The group-in-the-making: from 'Group Dynamics' to 'relational practices'

From 'Group Dynamics' to the 'group-in-the-making'

The essence of group process learning: from 'here and now' feedback to 'relational practice'

The linguistic and relational turn: group relational practice

The 'Conversation for learning and development' construction of a group

The group-in-the-making: balancing group conversations

Facilitating learning-from-within about relational practices in groups

Narrative approaches to inquiry

Chapter 8: Voicing Differences and Becoming Other. Life-stories of Immigrants in an Organizational Context.

Opening: Diversity management meets social construction

Life-stories: Narrating one's self

Reading the life-stories: Applying some principles of narrating

Re-reading the life stories in an organizational context: Diversity and multiplicity in the organizing process

Becoming other and conceptions of the self

For social constructionist approaches to narrative and identity see:

Me-they-we?

Chapter 9: The social side of Innovation: a process perspective

Vignette 1: Purification

Genesis and development of scientific facts

The social construction of technology

Vignette 2: The development of the bicycle: a socio-technological tale.

Organizing Collaboration within New Product Development processes

The paradoxical nature of innovative trajectories and 'a way out'

The dual nature of social interaction

Towards a way out: handling paradoxical requirements

Implications for organizing practices: Introducing time and space as 'design' parameters

Chapter 10: Learning Organizations: the emergence of a relational-interpretive view of organization

What is a relational-interpretive view of organization?

Against the grain of post-war positivism

Relational ways of knowing

Individuals and groups

The emergence of a relational view

Organizing as learning in community

Learning

Chapter 11: Appreciative evaluation in an educational context: Inviting conversations of assessment and development

Appreciative evaluation: assessing and constructing a program

Background

Appreciative Evaluation

The retreat

Setting the context

Who are we and who can we become?

Describe the features that would help you create an ideal curriculum

The curriculum: Where do we want to be? What is the ideal curriculum for this School?

Integration of ideal curriculum - creating a plan of action

Committing to the next steps

Actions agreed upon at the close of the retreat

Reflections on the Process of Appreciative Evaluation

Appreciative Evaluation: Pros and Cons

Appendix A

The Band Played on

Chapter 12: Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, Management and the Dialogical

'The Background': the joint, dialogical nature of human activity

Joint Action, A sui generis Third Realm

Two examples of knowledge in motion, or of 'knowing from within'

Conclusions

The Experts

Chapter 13: Consulting: New Language, New Possibilities?

'Super Experts' and Language Philosophy?.

Multiple Ethics

Conjoint Learning

Deconstructing

Discourses

Coordination of Discourses: Conversations in Dialog

Conclusion

Metaphors

Chapter 14: Lev Vygotsky and the New Performative Psychology: Implications for Business and Organizations

The journey

The landscape

Vygostky and new psychology

Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development - The Human Activity Zone

Discovering the therapeutic in Vygotsky and the performative in therapy

Back to business

Performing the organization's play

The Value of Improvisation

Case study: fostering a healthy company culture

The Client

The Process

Daring to perform

Chapter 15: Living in Organizations: Lessons from Jazz Improvisation

Out of the Comfort Zone: Embracing Risk

Cultivating surrender by exploring the edges of competence

Cultivating surrender by developing provocative learning relationships

Cultivating surrender by creating incremental disruptions that demand openness to what unfolds

Coordination

Synergy

Dialogue, talk, and debate

Dialogue

Debate

How to avoid destructive debate?

Question

The MIT Dialogue Project: initial guidelines

Bohm's metaphor of dialogue - based on his work in quantum physics

Chapter 16: Disturbing Patterns of Engagement

Co-missioning Change

"We need to improve communications between staff and managers…."

Re-forming talk - the site of practical disturbance

An example to illustrate the point

"We are all equal today."

"What is she up to now? What does she want?"

"We are doing trust now, so what's wrong with you?"

Some disturbing principles

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed January 5, 2016).

ISBN:

87-630-0310-4

OCLC:

935248789