‘Some have ideologies,we have values’: the relationship between organizational values and commitment in a political party

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to advance the study of organizational values by analyzing the role of values in a Danish political party called The Alternative, a party claiming to be guided by values rather than ideology. Inspired by recent work in organizational psychology, I group The Alternative’s values into two categories: vision values and humanity values. Through an empirical investigation, I show how the vision values encourage members to take initiative in realizing their own political ideas, while the humanity values encourage them to remain morally inclusive towards people with different views. The combination of vision and humanity values allows The Alternative to maintain commitment from members who might otherwise feel marginalized by the emergence of dominant ideas within the party. The paper’s contribution consists in highlighting the importance of using qualitative methods to study how values influence commitment and to expose the political dimension of this relationship.     

Understanding the Ecological Validity of Relying Practice as a Basis for Risk Identification

Understanding the reliability of hazardous organizations and their protective systems is central to understanding the risk they produce. Work on “high reliability organization” has done much to illuminate the conditions in which social organization becomes reliable in highly demanding conditions. But risk depends just as much on how relying entities do their relying as it does on the reliability of the entities they rely on. Patterns of relying are often opaque in sociotechnical systems, and processes of relying and being relied on are mutually influencing in complex ways, so the relationship between relying and risk may not be at all obvious. This study was an attempt to study relying as a social practice, in particular analyzing how it had ecological validity in a social organization—how practice was responsive to the conditions in which it took place. This involved observational fieldwork and inductive, qualitative analysis on an offshore oil and gas production platform that was nearing the end of its design life and undergoing refurbishment. The analysis produced four main categories of ecological validity: responsiveness to formal organization, responsiveness to situational contingency, responsiveness to information asymmetry, and responsiveness to sociomateriality. This ecological validity of relying practice should be a primary focus of risk identification, assessing how relying can become mismatched to reliability in certain ways, both when relying practice is responsive to circumstances and when it is not.     

Ambidexterity penetration across multiple organizational levels in an aerospace and defense organization

The ambidexterity framework, which comprises two contradictory, yet interrelated processes of exploration and exploitation, has been researched using a variety of perspectives. Few studies, however, provide insight into the question: how is ambidexterity managed across multiple organizational levels? To address this question, we introduce the term ambidexterity penetration that refers to the enactment of ambidexterity across multiple organizational levels and develop a conceptual framework about how it is practiced (horizontally, vertically and organizationally). We empirically showcase this framework using findings from six business units of an aerospace and defense organization and analyzing data from 30 interviews. Overall, our study contributes to ambidexterity research and offers an empirical investigation of ambidexterity penetration across multiple organizational levels in the context of the aerospace and defense sector.     

Professional blinders? The novel as an eye-opener in organizational analysis

ABSTRACT

Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our experiences to the growing literature about using fiction in scholarly work and discuss the potential of such genre-bending work when we bring in flesh and blood into the analyses.     

Beyond bureaucracy and entrepreneurialism: Examining the multiple discursive codes informing the work,careers and subjectivities of management graduates

This paper examines how discursive codes and demands associated with ‘bureaucratic and entrepreneurial regimes’ of work and career organization shape the work, careers and subjectivities of management graduates. The study is based on an analysis of 30 narratives of management professionals who graduated from an Austrian business school in the early 1970s or 2000s. Its insights suggest that variegated discursive codes manifest in the graduates’ articulated professional practices and subjectivities, thereby challenging established assumptions regarding the organization of work and careers. While the practices and subjectivities of the 1970s graduates are often informed by codes and demands ascribed to ‘entrepreneurialism’, those of the 2000s graduates are infused with several codes commonly portrayed as ‘bureaucratic’.     

Measures of accountability and delegated discretion in activation work: lessons from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service

Activation work – the complex task of motivating, compelling and assisting marginalized citizens into labour market participation – pinpoints critical issues of discretion and accountability in the welfare state. Investigating accountability measures aimed at ensuring qualified discretionary judgements is therefore important. In this article, I discuss the reformed Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service and the accountability measures aimed at discretionary judgements of frontline workers. The conclusion is that, because activation tasks in the Norwegian frontline service imply professional discretion more than administrative discretion, structural measures aimed at restricting the discretionary space of frontline workers seem to have only limited impact. This is because the knowledge necessary to perform means – end judgements is insufficient. Rather, there seems to be a need for epistemic measures aimed at improving the knowledge base for professional discretionary reasoning.     

Mapping movement landscapes in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The concept of a movement landscape is used to analyse continuities and changes in popular mobilization since the end of formal apartheid. Focusing on four different episodes of protest since 1997, the article examines their relationship to the ANC movement and traditions, and their organizational forms. It finds a general theme of fluid and ephemeral organization, and a distrust of formal hierarchal organization, that is relatively new in South Africa. The Marikana strikes produced the most far-reaching organizational realignments, while the student struggles generated the most innovative re-imaginings of political forms and discourses. It concludes that although there have been critiques of and challenges to the ANC tradition, and experiments with new forms of organizing, they have not produced alternatives that have lasted or dislodged the dominant approaches defined and popularized by the ANC movement.     

社会主义新农村建设的路径探讨

社会主义新农村建设是解决我国“三农”问题,实现城乡统筹发展的重大历史任务,其成功的关键在于形成符合我国农业、农村和农民发展规律的有效路径。本文主要从科学规划、改善农村发展环境、培育新型农民和创新农民组织体系等四个方面对推进社会主义新农村建设的实践路径进行了理论和操作层面的分析。     

社会组织参与养老服务的逻辑框架：制度环境·主体类型·实践方式

社会组织参与养老服务是推动养老服务多元化发展的必由之路,也是推进国家治理体系和国家治理能力现代化的题中之义。基于参与式治理理念,可从制度环境、主体类型、实践方式三个方面构建社会组织参与养老服务的基本逻辑框架。从制度环境看,社会组织参与养老服务具有宏观制度环境开放鼓励、微观制度环境渐趋宽松、制度执行环境模糊约束的含混性特征,需要进一步优化制度环境才能更好地激发社会组织活力。从主体类型看,参与养老服务的社会组织主体类型可以划分为养老服务供给型社会组织和支持型社会组织,分别强调其专业服务优势和多元资源支持。从实践方式看,社会组织主要通过承办社区居家养老服务、运营机构养老服务、开展志愿养老服务、组织互助养老服务等直接方式,以及政策参与、资源动员、行业自律等间接方式参与养老服务建设。     

农民工城市融入的组织化实践

不同于既有农民工城市融入研究中的宏观制度主义视角,也区别于单一组织微观实践路径的研究取向,文章基于粤南沙镇的实地调研经验,总结提炼出“半正式组织”这一新型实践类型,有助于弥合既有研究中的宏观与微观鸿沟。“半正式组织”是对现代组织“正式与非正式”二元对立框架的尝试性超越,在组织结构、成员关系、资源链接方式等方面均呈现新特征,其形成机制可概括为党建引领、组织挂靠与领袖吸纳。“半正式组织”的实践功效表现为助推农民工在流入地提升经济机会,增强政治参与,链接公共服务,扩展群体社会交往,因而成为现阶段有限制度供给和市民化成本分摊机制不均衡情境下,实现农民工城市融入的新路径。