Critical standpoint: Leaders of color advancing racial equality in predominantly white organizations

Organizations are often core sites for the production and perpetuation of social inequality. Although the United States is becoming more racially diverse, organizational elites remain disproportionately white, and this mismatch contributes to increasing racial inequality. This article examines whether and how leaders of color within predominantly white organizations can help their organizations address racial inequality. Our analysis uses data from a national study of politically oriented civic organizations and ethnographic fieldwork within one predominantly white organization. We draw on institutional work research, the outsider‐within concept, and insights from critical whiteness theory to explain how leaders of color can use their position and “critical standpoint” to help guide their organization toward advancing racial equality. The qualitative analysis shows how such leaders, when empowered, help their organization address race internally by (a) providing alternatives to white‐dominated perspectives, (b) developing tools to educate white members about racial inequality, and (c) identifying and addressing barriers to becoming a more racially diverse organization. The qualitative analysis also shows how leaders of color help their organization address race externally by (a) sharing personal narratives about living in a white‐dominated society and (b) brokering collaborations with organizations led by people of color. This research has implications for organizations seeking to promote social equality: Organizational leaders from marginalized status groups can help their organizations address social inequality, if those leaders possess a critical standpoint and sufficient organizational authority.     

The Influence of Organizational Culture in Women Participation and Inclusion in Voluntary Organizations in Italy

The aim of this study is to analyze the rules whereby women are selected for leadership and management roles and to describe the cultural values that can foster their inclusion and participation in Italian Voluntary Organizations. Two hypotheses: the organizational culture that governs these organizations is necessarily oriented toward acceptance, involvement and participation, and the rules and setting must be flexible and inclusive of all members in order to enable each organization to survive. Methodology was based on 91 semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate that Italian Voluntary Organizations must necessarily embrace an organizational culture whose rules and norms are oriented toward attracting men and women to join and encouraging them to participate. Implications for for-profit organizations are also discussed.     

Leadership in faith‐based nonprofits

This case study illustrates the unique challenges of leading a faith‐based nonprofit organization within a multifaith constituency in Asia. The core themes of the case are based on research conducted with the staff, executive team, and board members of an international faith‐based nonprofit organization in Asia. Specifically, the case focuses on three identity‐based leadership dilemmas in relation to (1) creating a shared sense of organizational identity, (2) talent management, and (3) board governance. By describing the challenges faced by the CEO, the case shows how a strong faith‐based identification can positively bind an organization together, but also result in organizational blind spots with unintended consequences.     

“The Rule Was the Rule”: new member socialization in rigidly structured totalistic organizations

This study examined member encounter in two organizations with rigid rule structures and great reach into members’ lives: the U.S. military and the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church. Interviews conducted with members allowed emergence of the lived experience of organizational entry in the words of participants in thematic categories. Findings challenge current views of encounter as a negotiation between currently held beliefs and organizational role and suggest a more nuanced view of organizational encounter that is tied to the reach of the organization into the member’s life. Findings also suggest that in totalistic organizations, encounter is designed to quickly manufacture enacted organizational identities that maintain and reproduce organizational rule systems.     

How flat organizations filter: organizational gatekeeping in a networked environment

The development of affordable Internet-based tools and platforms has led to major transformations in organizational dynamics. One key change is the shift of agency from center to ends and the consequent emergence of decentralized (networked) organizations. Focusing on the realm of collective action, we suggest that organizational configurations constructed around participants with greater agency induce organizations to promote new filtering tactics to sort out members who are valuable to the group. Drawing on Signaling Theory, we analyze the filtering behavior that organizations develop in their attempt to cope effectively with a type of tension characteristic of the digital era: The impetus to uphold egalitarian ideals on the one hand and the need to sort out desired participants on the other. Previous studies have explained how boundary work actually works in bureaucratic settings with fairly clear boundaries. This study focused instead on how new patterns of collective participation emerge, and how novel practices related to filtering are distributed in decentralized organizations. The study makes two points with theoretical implications. First, it explains an organization's decision to conduct filtering measures – a decision that on the face of it is counterintuitive since organizations operating in a digital environment can tolerate the enclosure of ‘free riders’. The second point relates to filtering practices. It shows that the emergence of new forms of participation, practices and norm, due to the development of networked media, encourages creativity in the development of specific filtering tactics, with activists considering new tactics for achieving their goals.     

‘In the Company of Men’: A Reflexive Tale of Cultural Organizing in a Small Organization

A tale of fieldwork in a small organization is discussed in this article with a view to highlighting how social processes, cultural understandings and expressions of gender are produced during fieldwork interaction. The tale is told reflexively and retrospectively, recording an ongoing conversation about fieldwork experience. Central to the tale is discussion of how the researcher is drawn into ‘culture–making’ within the organization and the ways in which fieldwork interaction creates a ‘space’ through which organizational members engage with, work through and realize work–place values. In this article there are multiple levels of reflection. At one level it is examined how the organizational–researcher role of ‘emotional nurturer’ was constructed during fieldwork. At the same time some cultural insights drawn from ethnographic inquiry and intensive interviewing within the small organization are presented. The analysis is also shaped by a further layer of post–fieldwork reflection and interpretation which draws in emotional issues and expressions of gender. It is argued that a close scrutiny of fieldwork roles is important to organizational research in that it makes explicit how the researcher–‘native’ interaction is central to the theorizing process and how the researcher can become a participant in organizational culture–making.     

Common Agency in Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations

Most theories of nonprofit organizations and nonprofit leadership recognize the multitude of stakeholders—including board members, donors and volunteers, funders, the media, and policy makers—that organizational leaders must contend with in doing their work. For nonprofits engaged in advocacy, demands from stakeholders may be even more challenging to meet. Although stakeholder theory recognizes the effect of various groups on an organization, it does not explain how leaders manage the preferences of their often‐competing stakeholders while they make choices for the organization. This study develops a common agency framework, evaluating the roles of three groups crucial to nonprofit advocacy organizations: the organization's board of directors, elected officials, and donors/members. The common agency framework is then illustrated with interviews with leaders of nonprofit advocacy organizations in California. Findings suggest that the leaders of these groups have a significant amount of discretion in guiding their organizations’ activities and operations.     

Youth and the environmental movement-symbolic inclusions and exclusions

The present study set out to use qualitative interviews in an effort to understand why young people from highly educated groups, especially from ‘non‐productive’ sectors of the economy (public services, teaching, ete.), are found to have a rela‐tively strong affmity to the environmental movement. Young people aged 15–20, who were members of organizations associated with the protection of or use of nature, were interviewed. In conclusion, we suggest that to some extent the class differences can be interpreted in the light of forms of symbolic inclusions and exclu sions. There are a number of ‘symbolic fences’ that working‐class youngsters have to cross in order to become members of an environmental organization. These fences are related to: the style and cultural identity of the members, expectations of a sort of self‐enclosure as part of participation in the organization, the somewhat androgynous gender‐identity of the members, the perceptions of nature that are dominant among the members and the organization's intellectual image.     

Kafka on gender,organization and technology: The role of ‘bureaucratic eros’ in administering change

In this article, it is argued that Kafka's novels are satirical portraits of the workings of ‘bureaucratic eros’ in gendered organizations. In Kafka's tragi‐comical fiction, a sexually perverse and uncreative ‘bureaucratic eros’ — the opposite of the ‘poetic eros’ — administers highly sexualized gender relationships in hierarchical organizations: law, bureaucratic regulation, administration and execution are expressions of the male officials' sexual desires. Given the lustful manifestations of ‘bureaucratic eros’, Kafka reveals that organizational and technological change is not some process of rationalization (as Max Weber suggests), but, instead, must be poetically understood as metamorphosis. In Kafka's comical portraits of metamorphoses, the remnants of old myths, old desires, tribe‐like organizational forms and primitive uses of technology continue to operate in distorting, disorienting, sexually perverse ways. Thereby, ‘bureaucratic eros’ brings about an incomprehensible world of lawlessness and anxiety — a deplorable condition that, Kafka suggests, can only be overcome by fleeing administrative dictates, into the aesthetic sphere.     

Beneficiaries’ participation in development organizations through local partners: A case study in Southern Africa

In a case study of one European non‐governmental organization (NGO) (data obtained from 10 staff members in Europe and Southern Africa, and 19 representatives of local partner organizations) we investigate whether the involvement of the partners in local and ‘northern’ policy‐making affects their perception of the governance quality of their organizations and that of the European donor organization, as well as the perception of the NGO's staff members. The answer is positive as to the local organizations, but local partners (as representatives of the eventual beneficiaries) are hardly involved in decision‐making at donor level. Finally, the presence of specific participation mechanisms seems to be more affected by beneficiary country factors than by activity‐related influences.     

‘A Blinding Lack of Progress’: Management Rhetoric and Affirmative Action

In this study we explore how versions of organizational reality and gender are constructed in management discourse and whether such patterns change over time. Specifically, we examine management explanations and accounts of the gendered nature of their organizations through their commentaries on their affirmative action programmes. In Australia private sector organizations with 100 or more employees are required to report to government on their affirmative action programmes for women. In these documents, management representatives outline objectives for the coming year and report on their progress in reducing employment‐related barriers for women. In doing so they account for the ‘problem’ of gender‐based discrimination that affirmative action is designed to address, justify their actions (or lack of action) and reproduce versions of gendered identity. Thus we use affirmative action reporting as cases of management rhetoric to explore how aspects of gender and organization are constructed, taken for granted, challenged or problematized. Comparing reports from the hospitality sector over a 14‐year period, we explore whether there is any evidence of discursive change in management accounts of the gendered nature of their organizations.     

Deconstructing divisions: Cultural schismogeneses as sources of creativity in organizations

Drawing on Gregory Bateson's theory of cultural schismogenesis, the authors analyse such processes within two organizations: the Birdwatching and Bird Study Association of Slovenia and VU University Amsterdam. Both cases illustrate internal cultural divisions typical for non-profit organizations whose goals go beyond optimizing financial profits and can thus be interpreted in various, sometimes conflicting, ways. The article demonstrates how organizational members, through continuous processes of creative deconstruction, transform organizations by simultaneously creating both schisms and coalitions. This shows that, although cultural divisions may at first glance seem destructive, they are at the same time sources of creativity that permit organizational renewal and growth.     

Discourses of Work–Life Balance: Negotiating ‘Genderblind’ Terms in Organizations

This article examines current debates about gender equality, work‐life balance and flexible working. We contrast policymakers’ and organizational discourses of flexible working and work–life balance with managers’ and employees’ talk about these issues within their organizations. We show how, despite the increasingly gender‐neutral language of the official discourses, in the data studied participants consistently reformulate the debates around gendered explanations and assumptions. For example, a ‘generic female parent’ is constructed in relation to work–life balance and flexible working yet participants routinely maintain that gender makes no difference within their organization. We consider the effects of these accounts; specifically the effect on those who take up flexible working, and the perceived backlash against policies viewed as favouring women or parents. We argue that the location of work–life balance and flexibility debates within a gender‐neutral context can in practice result in maintaining or encouraging gendered practices within organizations. Implications of this for organizations, for policymakers and for feminist researchers are discussed.     

Organizing the Unexpected: How Civil Society Organizations Dealt with the Refugee Crisis

The capability of organizations to respond to unexpected events has been investigated from different theoretical angles: organizational learning, improvisation, ambidexterity, resilience, to name but a few. These concepts, however, hardly ever refer to structural characteristics. Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, based on systems and organizational learning theory, it will theoretically link the characteristics of organizational structure with organizational responses to unexpected external jolts, thus contributing to better understand the reactions of organizations to the unexpected. Second, it will empirically illustrate the relation of organizational structure with organizational responses by investigating how Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Austria reacted to the unexpected inflow of refugees from Central Europe. In 2015, CSOs accepted a wide range of responsibilities and worked together with government entities to provide shelter, catering, and transport for almost one million refugees. Based on participant observations during operation, in-depth interviews (2015 and 2016) and focus groups with decision-makers (2017), we will sketch three longitudinal case studies of organizations with very different structures, concentrating on the processes and operations they developed during the crisis. Our findings show that their responses are closely related to their structure, specifically to the flexibility and the stability of structural elements. Remarkable changes took place in all organizations investigated. Initial responses and first structural changes occurred mainly where the structure already allowed for flexibility. Yet in the long run, the adaptations also impacted the stable structural elements.     

Tracking ‘the transnational’: studying transnational organizations and managements,and the management of cohesion

This article argues for greater clarity in researching transnational organizations and management, and the need for gendered multi‐level theory and gendered multi‐actor analysis. It examines different understandings and conceptualizations of ‘the transnational’ in studying transnational organizations and management, and their implications for understanding and conceptualizing the ‘management of cohesion’. In so doing, three conceptual and theoretical questions are considered: what are the major meanings of ‘the transnational’ in studying transnational organizations and management? What are the major different disciplinary frameworks in studying transnational organizations and management? What are the major epistemological debates in studying transnational organizations and management? Particular emphasis is placed on: the field of studies on transnational organizations and management; transnational research projects on transnational organizations and management; and the lives of transnational researchers. Two ongoing research projects – on gender relations in transnational organizations and managements, and men's changing organizational practices in Europe – are focused on to illustrate these issues. The theme of gender critique is developed throughout.     

"Keeping our mission, changing our system": translation and organizational change in natural foods co-ops

Institutional theory has played a central role in the study of organizations for over half a century, but it often overlooks the actions of the people who bring organizations to life. This article advances an inhabited approach to institutional analysis that foregrounds the creativity of organizational members. It argues that people use local cultures to translate and respond to institutional pressures. The article analyzes qualitative data from countercultural co-op stores that have been pushed to conform to mainstream forms of business organization by a competitive market and demonstrates that translation explains why outcomes that institutional theory would not predict have come to pass.     

The Contextual Impact of Nonprofit Board Composition and Structure on Organizational Performance: Agency and Resource Dependence Perspectives

We study the relation between stability of the nonprofit organization’s environment and its board structure and the impact of this relation on organizational performance from the perspectives of both Agency Theory and Resource Dependence (Boundary Spanning) Theory. The impact of board characteristics on organizational performance is contextual. Specifically, we predict and show for a sample of U.S. nonprofits that board mechanisms related to monitoring are more likely to be effective for stable organizations, whereas board mechanisms related to boundary spanning are more effective for less stable organizations. We find that the two theories are complementary and address different aspects of nonprofit performance, but the results are statistically stronger and more often consistent with resource dependence than with agency theory. Overall, this study supports Miller-Millesen’s (Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32: 521–547 2003) contention that, because the nonprofit environment is often more complex and heterogeneous than the for-profit world, no one theory describes all tasks of nonprofit boards.     

The strategic role of gainsharing

Gainsharing is reported to greatly enhance organizational performance, but there is little empirical research that explains how gainsharing works and why companies adopt it. We employ a human resource control framework to examine the role gainsharing plays within the organization. Our analysis of 802 organizations suggests that gainsharing plans are used to enhance employee participation in organizations that employ marketbased control methods. Organizations that use bureaucratic or clan controls are not likely to adopt gainsharing; they are more likely to use participation initiatives that do not involve a group bonus. The authors thank Peter Cappelli, David Crawford, John Deckop, Peter Sherer, and Harbir Singh for comments on earlier drafts, Towers Perrin for access to these data, and Temple University for funding support.     

Does Religiosity Influence Retention Strategies in Nonprofit Organizations?

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Despite the rise of interest in nonprofit organizations’ (NPOs) retention strategies and organizational behaviour...     

The body without organs: nonorganizational desire in organizational life

In an attempt to challenge the status of the organizational, this paper proposes a ‘nonorganizational’ turn towards embodiment and desire. Introducing and critically discussing Deleuze and Guattari's () notion of the ‘body without organs’ (BwO), it argues that this may improve organization theory's opportunities to think about the forces of embodied desire that disrupt, undermine and escape organization, upset the homogeneity of organizational life, and overpower organizations to such an extent that they cease to be organizations. Rather than adding more ‘organization’ to ‘organizational life’, this may be a way to put more ‘life’ into it. And rather than deeming organization more powerful, this may be a way to recognize its limitations and fragility.