The final chapter: Agro‐Joint workers – victims of the Great Terror in the USSR, 1937–40

This article deals with the final chapter in the history of the Agro‐Joint, an organisation created by the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and operating in the USSR between 1924 and 1938. Among a large number of “counter‐revolutionaries” – a term used in the USSR during the time of the Great Purge of 1937–8 – one of the lesser‐known repressed groups consisted of the workers of the Agro‐Joint. With the opening of ex‐KGB archives in the former Soviet Union additional aspects of the Agro‐Joint venture have emerged in chilling detail. By virtue of their organisational status and their association with foreigners, many Agro‐Joint workers became direct subjects of the “operational orders” of the NKVD and were persecuted in three areas; Moscow, Ukraine and Crimea. There was an extraordinary brutality to the sentences; around 30 Agro‐Joint employees (from directors to members of collective farms) were arrested and a majority of them were sentenced to death. Employees of the three Agro‐Joint offices, refugee doctors whom Agro‐Joint brought into the USSR from Germany, Jewish religious activists and the staff of the Soviet organizations KOMZET and OZET were all caught in the same web, and accused of “collaboration with a counterrevolutionary organization, founded by the director of Agro‐Joint Dr. Rosen.” Accompanied by two sample documents from interrogation files as well as a list of Agro‐Joint workers who fell in the line of duty, the article presents a new outlook on this important era in the history of the JDC and Soviet Jewry.     

Who should do the talking? The proliferation of dialogue as governmental technology

This paper investigates the recent proliferation of appeals to ‘dialogue’ as a solution to problems in a broad spectrum of different organisational settings Instead of top‐down management and expert‐driven public services, we are told we need ‘dialogue‐based’ management, health treatment, elder care, social counselling, and so forth. Dialogue is often presented as a tool that will reverse the stifling dominance of authoritative expertise and leadership, liberating the energy of employees, clients and patients. However, by viewing the dialogue as a ‘governmental technology’, we emphasise that it is not simply a tool that can be used by some to liberate or govern others, or to dominate nature. A technology is rather a structuring of actions that implies that also ‘the governors’ inevitably exercise power over themselves. The paper demonstrates how dialogue technology re‐structures organisational domains of speech and hereby contributes to reconfiguring inter‐relations and self‐relations within key institutions of modern society.     

Coherence,pathology and change in Chinese commercial banks

Abstract

In this article, the traditional organisation development (OD) methodology is adapted into a new form called organisation patterning (OP), which is able to explore coherence, pathology and change in Chinese commercial state-owned banks. This occurs by shifting it into a cybernetic frame of reference that provides a new way of understanding organisational change. OP is better able to deal with resistance, power and control issues than traditional OD is. It is applied to the notions of coherence and pathology in the Chinese commercial banking system through a questionnaire analysis of state-owned banks in different Chinese regions. OP is different from traditional OD, incorporating new knowledge derived from a cybernetic paradigm called knowledge cybernetics. It is better able to understand coherence and pathologies and is applicable to understanding change in Chinese commercial state-owned banks. This study only concerns well-established state-owned commercial banks in China. There might be different conclusions for other types of enterprises. The study also offers guidelines for managing change in Chinese banks, especially with respect to coherence, pathologies and kinematics.     

Memory of the Organisation and Memories within the Organisation

Although the concept of memory is primarilyassociated with individuals, researcherssuggest that memory could also pertain tosupra-individual groups. It is commonlybelieved that organisations retain someknowledge of the past when key organisationalmembers leave. While there have been empiricaland theoretical works on organisational memory(e.g. Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994; Nelson andWinter, 1982) as well as review works (e.g.Walsh and Ungson, 1991), a critical synthesisof the interpretative approaches oforganisational memory that have emerged ismissing. Using the distinction put forward byBartlett (1961) on memory of the groupand memory within the group, this paperprovides a framework within which we discussand contrast the positions of those that arguethat a memory of the organisation can beidentified and indeed stored in the hierarchyof repetitive patterns of organisationalbehaviour (memory of the group) and thosethat maintain that members of any organisationsdo not share rules and therefore memory doesnot and cannot emerge as a feature of anorganisation (memory within the group). The paper argues that the concept of organisational context constitutes a linkbetween these two main approaches. Implications for theoretical interpretation offirm and empirical research are drawn.     

The dimensions of mobilities: The spatial relationships between corporeal and digital mobilities

The aim of this article is to study how the corporeal and digital mobilities are spatially organised in relation to each other in everyday life. The dimensions of mobilities are modelled by using survey data (N = 612) collected from Finland in 2011, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA). The results show that the combined use of corporeal and digital means of mobility affect the spatial organisation of mobilities only little. The results indicate that young people and students are more likely to benefit from their mobility in networking activities as they are equipped with a larger variety of mobility means than older people and pensioners. Lastly, women and people living in essentially urban areas are more likely to augment their physical travelling practices by using small-sized digital mobilities than men and people living in rural locations.     

Alternative uses of temporary work and new forms of work organisation

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the use of temporary workers and the adoption of new forms of work organisation (NFWO) in production. This study aims to understand to what extent these two forms of human resources flexibility are synergic or mutually exclusive. In order to answer this main goal, we discuss different levels of temporary workers adoption in relation to different levels of use of NFWO, the level of integration of temporary workers within the overall production organisation and the joint and synergistic use of NFWO and temporary work. Evidence drawn from seven case studies in manufacturing plants in northern Italy is provided. Results highlight that, according to the characteristics of the production process, temporary workers and NFWO are not mutually exclusive, that temporary workers can be integrated with other workers in the shop floor, and that NFWO can also be adopted for temporary workers. In addition, NFWO has been proven to be a key enabler to integrate temporary workers within the organisation, thus showing an important synergistic effect between the two human resource flexibility practices.     

Corporate eLearning: Human resource development implications for large and small organizations

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts the current attitudes towards, awareness of and take-up of eLearning in large and small organizations and outlines the implications for human resource development (HRD) professionals. An in-depth study was conducted in Ireland with a number of large multinational organizations and a number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the engineering, electronics, aerospace, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. The study focused on awareness, perceptions, technology support infrastructure, current and planned involvement, most frequent and most preferred methods of delivery, benefits, barriers, the motivational factors and overall attitudes to eLearning. The comparison describes a number of similarities and a number of differences both within the large organization sector and within the SME sector and between the two sectors. Finally, the implications for HRD professionals are discussed.     

Risk management and managerial efficiency in Chinese banks: A network DEA framework

Risk management in Chinese banks has traditionally been the Cinderella of its internal functions. Political stricture and developmental imperative have often overridden standard practice of risk management resulting in large non-performing loan (NPL) ratios. The training and practice of risk managers remain second class compared with foreign banks operating in China. This paper surveys Chinese bank risk managers and constructs metrics of risk management practice and risk management organisation. The metrics are used as intermediate inputs in a Network DEA framework to produce a measure of income efficiency. A statistical test is carried out to assess the importance of the risk metrics in evaluating bank income efficiency.     

WORK–FAMILY CULTURE IN FOUR ORGANIZATIONS IN FINLAND

The main objective of this study was to examine work–family culture in four organizations in Finland (n=1,114). Specifically, we attempted to clarify whether perceived work–family culture would vary according to gender, economic sector and type of organization. Furthermore, we investigated whether these perceptions would be related to employee self-reported well-being. The study data were gathered during 2001 by a questionnaire filled in by personnel from four different organizations, i.e. a municipal social and healthcare department (n=496), a municipal education department (n=232), a paper mill (n=183) and an IT organization (n=199). The first two organizations represented the public sector and the latter two the private sector in the Finnish economy. The results showed, first, that work–family culture was assessed more positively within the public sector organizations than in the private sector. Second, the work–family culture was experienced least positively in the paper mill and most positively in the municipal education department. Third, there were also variations between same-sector organizations, i.e. the paper mill and the IT organization. Finally, it emerged that poorer perceptions of work–family culture were related to decreased work–family balance, job satisfaction and positive job-related mood experiences.     

Employee motivation in product-service system providers

This research investigates how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors contribute to employee motivation in providers of product-service systems (PSS). Employee motivation determines the quality of the delivered service and is thus an area of great importance for PSS providers. We present rich case-based data collected through semi-structured interviews, a survey and secondary sources. The analysis showed the particularly high importance of intrinsic and individual motivation factors such as the fulfilling nature of the work and skill development showing the ownership and pride service employees took in their work. Further, the organisation needs to set the context of high employee motivation by enabling flexibility and performance feedback. Our research contributes to the literature by providing a first empirical study of employee motivation in PSS providers and thus providing important insights on the implementation of a servitisation strategy.