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Developmental Processes of an Organisational Merger

Chapter 4, Research Methodology 77

• 4 • Research Methodology

and Processes

Our knowledge is limited by the fact that reality cannot be observed directly, but only through the concepts and theories we choose to use; change the concepts and theoriesand what appears as reality will also change (Blaikie, 1993 p. 6)

In this chapter I discuss the methodology employed for the research, underlying

theoretical assumptions, the conduct of the research itself (including data creation and analysis

techniques) and processual issues encountered in the course of the research. I begin with an

overview of the nature of the research.

Nature of the research

The research investigates work experiences of staff members in one organisation. I

endeavoured to understand the experiences of members and to draw hypotheses about group

and systems psychodynamics. This categorises the research as interpretive organisational

research within the field of social sciences, using qualitative data and inductive methods of

analysis (Blaikie, 1993; Burrell & Morgan, 1979; Denzin & Lincoln, 1998; Morgan, 1983;

Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

Since the aim of the research was to understand aspects of an organisation’s psychic

reality through the lived experiences of individuals and groups, the study was subjective and

non-experimental in nature. Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) exposition of sociological paradigms

in organisational research classifies this kind of study as fitting within functionalist and interpretive

sociological paradigms. Interestingly, Burrell and Morgan classify the majority of





organisational theories within a functionalist paradigm, placing few within the interpretive

paradigm.

Current literature in the field of organisational research includes a significant body of

work emanating from researchers working in the fields of systems psychodynamics and

critical theory, both of which take an interpretive approach to studying organisations.

(for systems psychodynamics see for eg. Amitzi & Biran, 1999; de Board, 1978; Eisold, 1995;

Gabriel, 1998a, 1999; Gould, Stapley, & Stein, 2001; Hutton, Bazalgette, & Armstrong, 1994;

L. Klein, 1996; Long, 1996, 2001b; Menzies Lyth, 1988; Stacey, 1997; Western, 1999)

(for critical theory see for eg. Boje, Gephart, & Thatchenkery, 1996; Casey, 1995; Clegg &

Hardy, 1999; Clegg, Hardy, & Nord, 1996; Hatch, 1997; Reed & Hughes, 1992)

Burrell and Morgan’s classifications predate this literature. The distinctions they make

between functionalist and interpretive paradigms remain useful however. By functionalist they

mean that organisational theories predominantly focus on functional coordination, integration

and cohesion, need satisfaction and social order rather than aspects such as emancipation,

structural conflict or radical social change. Additionally, these same theories are likely to

present organisations as socially constructed realities. Burrell and Morgan identify four

principal theoretical perspectives within this paradigm: social system theory and objectivism,

action frame of reference, theories of bureaucratic dysfunctions and pluralist theory (Burrell &

Morgan op. cit., pp. 121-122).

In contrast, an interpretive sociology of organisations, according to Burrell and Morgan, is

primarily concerned with understanding the subjective experience of individuals and is anti-

positivist in approach. As a concept, ‘interpretation’ refers to the ideas that provide

connections, meanings or a way of comprehending previously unrelated experiential data (E.

R. Shapiro & A. W. Carr, 1991). Shapiro and Carr argue that one cannot understand social and

organisational behaviour per se . The irrational dimension of human behaviour and universal

uncertainty preclude such understanding, but the behaviour can be interpreted and a collective

interpretation agreed upon. Any shared interpretation arises from a negotiation of each

person’s way of making sense of reality. Shapiro and Carr assert this involves: a) the use of

individuals’ internal experiences; b) a collaborative testing of reality and of testing

interpretations against available data or reality; and, c) the discovery of a larger context to

which our linked experiences relate and discerning the relevant context for interpretation.





When both researcher and researched are seen as anxious, defended subjects whose

mental boundaries are porous where unconscious material is concerned, and whose feelings

and fantasies directly influence research data, then data analysis depends on interpretation

(Hollway & Jefferson, 2000). The principle of interpreting the experiences of both researcher

and researched derives from clinical psychoanalytic practice. The analyst observes and

interprets the experiences of both analyst and patient, having in mind the aim of therapeutic

effect upon the patient. In contrast with functionalist theories of organisation, the interpretive

paradigm has emancipation and change as its core focus.

Burrell and Morgan’s classification of the sociology of organisations is useful for

exploring underlying assumptions to these theoretical positions. These assumptions help to

situate the research and to reveal its limits. Along with the conceptual framework outlined in

Chapter 2, they inform the methodological choices made.

Underlying theoretical assumptions

The object of a research enquiry is a theoretical question, but how it can be enquired

into is a question of methodology (Hollway & Jefferson loc. cit.). A set of theoretical

assumptions underpins chosen methodology, research techniques and the conceptual

framework in which the research was conducted. These underlying assumptions are

ontological in nature and directly influence the methodology employed. The primary concern

of the research was to understand the subjective experiences of individuals working in a

particular firm. This led to the adoption of certain methods for studying lived experience in

organisations.

No single frame of reference, or sociological paradigm, can fully explain or reveal the

meaning of organisations and organisational life. Since the research included exploration of

unconscious processes of organisations, the methodology was strongly influenced by clinical

psychoanalytic practices within an interpretive sociological paradigm, i.e. systems

psychodynamics , while also drawing on a functionalist view of organisations. The value of a

systems psychodynamics approach is that it is able to bring together several theoretical

assumptions about organisations into a unifying interpretive frame of reference.

In the following discussion I first explore the theoretical assumptions in studying

subjective experiences, and then the assumptions underlying the study of organisations. The

latter can be broken down into three themes of: organisations as systems of meaning, as





instruments of social functioning, and as networks of relatedness. This discussion on

theoretical assumptions is followed by a discussion of the personal assumptions I held on

starting the research since these also influenced its design.

SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE

From the standpoint of subjective experience, social reality is seen to emerge from the

action of individuals. Intersubjectively shared meanings, and the importance of language for

creating shared meaning, are of considerable interest within this framework. The assumption

is that social (and psychic) reality can only be understood through lived experience (Burrell &

Morgan, 1979). Burrell and Morgan assert that interpretive and functionalist theories reflect a

common concern for the sociology of regulation; both concentrate on the ways social reality is

meaningfully constructed and ordered from the point of view of the individuals directly

involved.

The underlying premise to studying my own subjective experience as researcher,

alongside that of the research participants, is that we were all participants in a shared, lived

experience, involved in creating meaning about interactional experiences within the

organisation, including the interactions between researcher and employees.

However, studying subjective experience is problematic, because one cannot assumepeople know themselves accurately or fully enough for a researcher to take what is self-

reported at face-value, or that people are willing to reveal themselves to a ‘stranger

interviewer’ (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000). There is a corresponding assumption that ‘who’ is

being researched is able to be clearly defined. Hollway and Jefferson argue that research

subjects are embedded within a socially constructed discourse, in which they have a

psychological investment for the purposes of protecting themselves from anxiety and

supporting individual identity. Any individual research subject is a ‘biographically unique

defended subject’ and best studied as a psychosocial subject (p. 11). Psychosocial research, as

Hollway and Jefferson posit, assumes that:

• the inner world of research subjects can only be understood through the knowledgeof their experiences of the world;

• these experiences of the world can only be understood through knowledge of the way in which subjects’ inner worlds allow them to experience the outer world;

• these two realms of ‘the known’ can only be known through another subject – theresearcher (p. 4).

Thus the researcher is a subject of the research as much as the research informants.





ORGANISATIONS AS SYSTEMS OF MEANING

When speaking of organisations as systems of meaning the assumption is that an

organisation is a symbolic entity created in the minds of its members and manifest through

action. Organisational members create meaning from their experiences of working together,

and act in response to the meanings created. According to Burrell and Morgan’s (1979)

classification, this would fit within an action frame of reference. This view of organisations is

based on several propositions, the most important to the research being that,

Sociology is concerned with understanding action rather than observing behaviour. Action arises out of meanings which define social reality. … Through their interactionmen also modify, change and transform social meanings (ibid, p. 196).

Harré (1979) develops this idea further, asserting that social institutions are a double

relational network of social practices and people. This suggests that social reality is embedded

with networks of internal and external relations. Harré claims that to define the individual

wholly in terms of the social collective is unsupportable as it effectively denies individual

autonomy and creativity. The converse, of extreme individualism, where wholly autonomous

individuals relate only externally to the collective, is not a sustainable proposition either. These

propositions are shared by a systems psychodynamics perspective in which the meaning

created by individuals of their relatedness to organisations both reflects their experience of its

social reality and also helps to create it (Jaques, 1955; Menzies Lyth, 1970).

There is a strong tradition within the field of systems psychodynamics for revealing

individuals’ ‘organisation-in-the-mind’ as a means to discern unconscious processes in

organisations (Armstrong, 1991; Gould, Ebers, & Clinchy, 1999; Hutton, 2000). In line with

an action frame of reference, which assumes a pluralist view of organisations, the concept of

‘organisation-in-the-mind’ implies that many different mental models of the organisation co-

exist amongst organisational members. This links to Skogstad’s (2004) view that collectively

shared unconscious fantasies are part of an organisation’s system and that an essential element

of institutional culture is the ‘unconscious assumptions, attitudes and beliefs about the work and how

to perform it’ (p. 74). Since institutions do not ‘self-understand’ or have ‘imaginative action’, it

is individual members who use their experiences to reflect on the whole (E. R. Shapiro & A.

W. Carr, 1991 p. 67).

The risk in considering organisations as symbolic entities existing only in the minds of

individuals is the possibility of falling into a solipsistic view of organisations, where only the

individual’s mental creation of the organisation prevails. Burrell and Morgan characterise





solipsism ‘as occupying the most subjectivist region of the subjective-objective dimension of

our analytical scheme’ (op. cit., p. 239). However, solipsism also opens a perspective for

understanding relative subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and the position that social reality is based

on shared meanings.

ORGANISATIONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL FUNCTIONING

There are two aspects to this theme to consider, that: a) organisations serve a social

function, and b) the functioning of organisations themselves. The second aspect follows from

the first.

The research takes as a given that the firm being studied serves a necessary purpose of

providing professional services to industry, and that these services meet broader social andeconomic needs. The assumptions which underpin this are that an organisation can be seen as

a unitary system organised under an umbrella of ‘primary task’ (E. J. Miller & Rice, 1967), and

that it is part of a system domain which functions (in part) as a social defence or to contain

societal anxieties (Bain, 1998; Jaques, 1955; Menzies Lyth, 1970).

As mentioned in the previous discussions in Chapters 2 and 3, Miller and Rice postulate

that ‘at any given time an enterprise has a primary task – the task that it must perform if it is to

survive’. Erlich (2004) notes that this definition contemplates the organisational system and itsprimary task strictly from within itself. As a heuristic device, the concept of primary task

provides a framework of purpose, social order and structure to the organisational system.

Jaques (1996) develops the idea of the ‘requisite organisation’ to ameliorate the potential for

social defences to negatively influence the enterprise. The implication of Miller and Rice’s

focus on survival is that non-performance of the primary task or maladministration of the

internal social system threatens both the social order of the enterprise and its very existence.

This suggests a functionalist view of organisations. Similarly, the idea of a system domain and

social defences assumes a social order exists in which organisations satisfy certain social needs

(e.g. to contain societal anxiety) and are part of an integrated cohesive structure.

With regard to the second thematic aspect of organisations as instruments of social

functioning, the research explored the effects of psychodynamic processes upon the internal

functioning of the firm. This implies that when dysfunctional dynamics are observed (if such

is the case), a pre-existing equilibrium is being disturbed (Burrell & Morgan, loc. cit.). The role

of a consultant or action researcher might then be to bring these dynamics back into a healthy





functional state, or equilibrium. A systems psychodynamics approach to research and

consultancy is consistent with this premise, for the approach assumes that through the search

for meaning and awareness of unconscious processes the functioning of the organisation can

be improved (Czander, 1993; Gould, Stapley, & Stein, 2001; Hirschhorn & Barnett, 1993;

Obholzer & Roberts, 1994). Burrell and Morgan liken this to the stance of a social engineer.

The research therefore does not consider ‘organisations’ as a contestable idea.

ORGANISATIONS AS NETWORKS OF RELATEDNESS

At the risk of reifying organisations, this study of emotional connectedness is based on

an assumption that an organisation is made up of a series of relationships in a network of

relatedness. Shapiro and Carr (1991) define relatedness as ‘that quality of connectedness that

we have with notions that are only in the mind’, and contrast this to relationship, ‘which

indicates at least some actual personal contact’ (p. 83). While Shapiro and Carr are specifically

referring to the social aspects of relatedness between people, to this can be added relatedness

of the technical aspects of an organisation – roles, tasks, structured organisational functions,

processes and technical systems within an organisation. A network of relatedness and

relationships contains all the elements of a socio-technical system (Trist & Bamforth, 1951;

Zobrist & Enggist, 1984).

This network exists in an environment of uncertainty and change, and responds

dynamically to changes in the environment. It has been described as an open system of

interdependent functions and parts (E. J. Miller & Rice, 1967; Mink, Schultz, & Mink, 1991;

Rice, 1963). Burrell and Morgan (loc. cit.) argue that the idea of organisations as open systems

and networks of relatedness is based on the view of organisations as being akin to biological

systems. The underlying assumption is of an organism existing within a host environment.

Furthermore, and this harks back to the theme of social functioning, the ‘key

relationship between organisation and environment can be understood in terms of the

organisation’s “need” to survive’ (ibid, p. 168). Burrell and Morgan argue that an organismic

systems model assumes a unity of purpose amongst the interdependent parts, and that this –

along with functional imperatives – tends to dominate organisational analysis. It can be argued

that a unity of purpose exists in the minds of organisational members from their shared

interpretation of the meanings about working together.





Wilden (1980, pp. x1i-x1iv) presents a counterview to this open systems view of

organisations, claiming it continues a Cartesian split of ‘subject and object’ and ‘internal and

external’ boundaries of the system or its parts. His reason for saying this is that the distinction

of a boundary between two individuals may be actually distinct from the two ‘apart’ and the

two ‘both together’. This shared boundary is the locus of relations or communications and

exchange between two individuals. Additionally, Wilden argues that the ‘communicational

space’ in human open space is also inhabited by the rest of the (social) system’s inhabitants.

Wilden’s ideas lead to thinking about an organisation as a system of networked relational

boundaries in which the relations form meaningful links, and out of which actions emerge.

Researcher’s assumptions

With the above perspectives in mind, it can be seen that the theoretical assumptions

carried into the research indicate ontological assumptions of a subjective reality which is

constructed by individuals into systems of meaning and meaningful action. Consistent with

these were personal assumptions about lived experience and unconscious processes. These

were that:

1. Individuals experience both conscious and unconscious states of mind.

2. Individuals have an inner world of subjective experience distinct from an external world of action. This inner world is affected by, and is the product of, conscious

and unconscious states of mind.

3. Individuals in a group both generate and are affected by conscious and unconscious

processes of relating amongst members of the group.

4. The psychic reality of a group is discernible in the interactions between members

and individuals’ felt experiences.

5. Humans are social animals. Individuals derive a sense of self and their own ‘being-

in-the-world’ from relationships with others.

6. Unconscious processes of relating (between self and others, or amongst group

members) are not discernible as objective facts. The sources of data for discerning

unconscious processes are feelings and emotions, i.e. subjective facts.





7. Unconscious processes of relating can be hypothesised and tested in the social

reality of individuals concerned. Hypotheses cannot be viewed as absolute

statements of this reality since human interaction is a dynamic process.

8. Reality can be distinguished from fantasy. Reality may be concrete, as in physical

experiences of the world or social, derived from agreement about human actions,

or symbolic, as in the representations of reality through images, language, symbols

and artefacts.

9. Unconscious processes of relating amongst members of a group, or between

groups and within an enterprise, strongly influence organisational actions. Yet, it is

difficult to link such processes and actions in simple cause-effect relationships.

When the possible meaning of action/s is reflected upon, links may be discerned

between unconscious processes and human action.

10. Environmental context is a key influence upon the psychodynamic processes

experienced by organisational members. Context includes primary task of the

enterprise, the external environment in which it operates (e.g. social, political,

geographic, industry, economic), and internal operating structure.

These assumptions, collectively with the ontological assumptions, support the view thatorganisations are an intelligible field of study, and there exists reliable methods for studying

psychodynamic processes within organisations.

Issues in studying organisations

The terms organisation, firm, enterprise and endeavour are used at various times in the

discussion in order to convey particular distinctions:

The organisation : refers to the agreed structures for tasks, roles, relationships, resources and

conditions for collective work noted in regulations, legal proceedings and

documents of the formally constituted entity. The organisation also exists

symbolically in the minds of organisational members.

The firm : is the specific entity studied.

Enterprise : is a broader term for describing the organising of people and materials

around an endeavour.





Endeavour : refers to the enactment of a firm’s mission and purpose, which Armstrong

(2002a, p. 92) considers to be a ‘carrier of organisational identity’.

The most important of these to the research and its thesis are: the organisation,

the firm, and enterprise.

Context

All research occurs in a context of time, place and history. This becomes especially

cogent for studying lived experience, since what is experienced is located absolutely within a

context. Rousseau and Fried (2001) assert that research on human behaviour in organisations

is strengthened when it is contextualised. It is through contextualising the research that results

can be validated for accuracy or robustness. Rousseau and Fried suggest that contextualisationpays attention to those factors which contribute to observed variations, or the effects of

variants upon the situation being studied, and can be conducted at three levels: rich

description (apropos Geertz, 1993) of the setting and meanings made of observed behaviour;

direct observation and analysis of contextual effects; and, comparative studies.

A systems psychodynamic study of organisations relies on direct observation and rich

description of what is both observed and experienced. The research conforms to these

parameters while at the same time noting contextual factors of the firm being studied. Thesefactors included changes in ownership and structure, nature of the business and industrial

endeavour, its geographical location, employment conditions, and relatedness to other firms in

its industry sector. No comparisons have been made with other firms except for the purpose

of illustrating something about the firm itself.

The risk in strongly contextualising the research to one case study is that development

of broad theory is more limited. It is left up to the reader of the research to apply the results

more widely and outside of the single case study context. What is lost in this respect is gained,however, in depth and accuracy of results and a reduced risk of generalisation error.

Studying organisations as a psychoanalytic object

OBJECT OF STUDY

Psychoanalytic practice uses feelings, thoughts, fantasies, dreams and observable actions

as data for revealing and interpreting unconscious processes. Subjective experience, as already

discussed, has elusive qualities; as an object for study it presents some methodological





difficulties (Armstrong, 1993, 1995; Erlich, 2001; Long, 2001b). Erlich describes the

psychoanalytic object as an elusive subject in contrast to concrete reality (or conscious

phenomena), which might be thought of as a phenomenal subject. It is an elusive subject

because is difficult to directly observe, and yet at the same time one is always an observer even

of one’s own experiences. Self-reflexivity assumes a capacity to observe and think about

subjective experience. This is by no means easy to do.

The objects of study in an organisational setting encompass both group and individual

experiences, social and symbolic realities. Social reality in the study refers to the firm’s

organisational structures, its enterprise and endeavour and the observable human interactions

amongst staff members. Symbolic reality refers to images of the organisation held in the

minds of its members, the design of workplaces, and the variety of artefacts (documents,

signs, any representations of thoughts and ideas, organisational identity or the firm’s

endeavour).

From this basis, the objects of study were defined as: groups in reality based on

experiences and perceptions of individual staff members and researcher’s workplace

observations; groups in the mind revealed through pictures drawn by individuals of their

workplace experiences, the stated structure of the organisation, the claimed purpose for this

structure, and the perceptions of members as to what groups existed in the organisation;

individuals’ experiences of being a member of the organisation, including the researcher’s own

experiences as ‘research member’; and, organisational discourse as evident in communications,

documents and the researcher’s interactions with organisational processes during the conduct

of the research.

THE ‘PROBLEM’ OF DATA AND TECHNIQUES FOR ITS CREATION

Data describing both conscious and unconscious processes were needed from these

objects of study. But what were these data? In this research setting, data were the product of

research observations, interviews and iterative analysis, co-created by the researcher and

research participants.

Creating data is never clearcut. Hollway and Jefferson (2000) note, ‘defended subjects’

may not know why they experience or feel things in the way they do, they are motivated to

disguise the meaning or some of their feelings in an effort to protect certain vulnerabilities,

and the researcher herself is a defended subject.





Harré (1979, p. 113 & ff) notes the following problems in traditional methods (surveys,

structured interviews, experiments) of social psychology:

1. The data creation instruments used cannot confidently be said to be transparent,

e.g. do the data produced by the instrument show an indeterminate world or is the

instrument opaque to hidden aspects?

2. Data are socially constructed for expressive purposes. The categorisation of data is

an interpretive event.

3. Respondents’ answers to interview questions cannot be reliably taken as true

representations of individual viewpoints, nor can these answers be unambiguously

assembled into an aggregation of data. An interview is a social event where eachparty will construe the interaction within her or his own conceptual framework.

4. There is an existential problem for considering the result of an interview as data.

There is no surety that anything relevant was present before the investigation took

place; what is produced on a particular occasion may be created to satisfy the

questioner.

5. Summative construction of results eliminates individual data to create mass

properties. Such mass properties are dubious since individual data require the

generation of an attribute ascribed as a property of the group.

Erlich (2001) emphasises the elusive nature of psychoanalytic knowledge, and the

equally elusive nature of the psychoanalytic organisational ‘subject’. This elusiveness is

expressed in the uncertainty of organisational reality, its diffuseness and emergent properties.

the subject is constantly in the process of being, doing and becoming what we expect it to be… and at the same time is capable of regarding itself as the object of its own creations.’(p. 209)

According to Erlich, organisations as a ‘phenomenal subject’ are equated to the

conscious individual who is the author of purposeful action and has a sense of his or her own

agency. The ‘elusive subject’ on the other hand is the result of experiential processes; in the

case of an individual these would be psychic processes. For an organisation, these are systemic

unconscious processes revealed through the enactment of primary task. Erlich suggests that

the method for studying the elusive organisational subject is to make room for an ‘emergent,

intersubjective entity’ (p. 208).





This ‘third’ is created through the psychoanalytic consultant’s capacity to create the spacein which his own subjectivity can meet and intermingle with the organisational-subject, in

whatever way it presents and speaks – through tasks, persons, or systems (ibid).

In response to the problems of data and the nature of the subject noted above, research

techniques were employed to allow for unconscious processes to be revealed while capturing

data on phenomenal aspects of organisational life. Table 1 lists the techniques used for

creating these data. It indicates whether the technique obtained data about conscious or

unconscious processes, and whether the subject studied was of an elusive or phenomenal

nature.

Table 1. Techniques for studying organisations as a psychoanalytic object

TECHNIQUE CONSCIOUS/UNCONSCIOUS

DATA

NATURE OF SUBJECT

Spontaneous drawings unconscious elusive

Workplace observation unconscious elusive

Interactions, including researcher’s feedback

conscious and unconscious both phenomenal and elusive

Interviews & the inter-subjective experience

conscious and unconscious both phenomenal and elusive

Organisational ‘discourse’ onemail

conscious phenomenal

Artefacts, such as documents,signs

conscious phenomenal

Employing techniques to surface data on both conscious and unconscious processes

ensures that the elusive subject, which can only be hypothesised about, is checked with

evidence from observable phenomena. Conversely, the phenomenal subject is studied for

potential meanings, including those which are hidden and unconscious. In this way, both the

elusive and phenomenal subjects are constantly tested for relatedness.

In the next section I explore the methodology applied to the research.

Choosing a multi-method approach

I have argued that the research fits within interpretive and functionalist frameworks for

studying human behaviour in organisations. Two methodologies are available for a study of

this kind: interpretive, and empirical. An empirical methodology is not suitable generally for

the research of lived experience as it occur s, and therefore an interpretive methodology has





been employed. I comment on empirical methodology before discussing interpretive methods

in detail.

Empirical methodologyGenerally, empirical methods can be regarded as non-psychoanalytic in approach since

the basic orientation of the researcher is external, non-participative and seen to hold an

objective view on the situation. Although, strictly ‘empirical’ means testable in reality and

hence may include psychoanalytic methods if internal reality is included – it has through usage

come to mean research into ‘objective’ phenomena (S. Long, personal communication, 2004).

Subjectivity of research participants tends to be engaged with indirectly, and certainly not

through engaging with spontaneous experience in which the researcher takes part.

Harré (loc. cit.) argues that social life is lived as a continuous process, and for this

reason traditional methods of experimental or survey research can not be pursued without

either destroying the very structures which realise continuous social life, or penetrating the

surface meanings of survey responses.

However, there are techniques used by empirical methods that are common to methods

within an interpretive methodology. Symon and Cassell (1998) describe some of these:

interviewing for life histories, analytic induction of interview and survey data using groundedtheory techniques, critical incident analysis, participant research diaries, pictorial

representation, and observation. The point of departure between empirical methods and

interpretive methods for studying subjective experience is in studying the interaction between

researcher and the situation as an integral part of the research. From that point on, techniques

such as interviewing, observation and participant drawings are employed for quite different

purposes. This research is consistent with using these techniques in support of studying

researcher-researched interactions.

Interpretive methodology

Interpretative research aims to make sense of what has been learned during the research

process. Denzin (1998) claims that in the social sciences nothing speaks for itself, there is only

interpretation. Interpretive methods have a long tradition within the study of cultural practices

and symbols (Geertz, 1993; Smircich, 1983a, b) and the act of writing is often considered to

be an act of interpretation itself (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998; Richardson, 1998). Thus, the

writing up of fieldwork is often the most crucial step of interpretation and raises significant





issues about representation of research participants and claims of authority (E. R. Shapiro &

A. W. Carr, 1991).

The process for creating interpretations is clearly important for resolving these issues.

For example, the research techniques used included ‘working hypotheses’ as feedback to

participants on emergent themes (Gould, Ebers, & Clinchy, 1999; E. J. Miller, 1995). The use

of working hypotheses, that are in effect tentative interpretations, is one way by which

interpretations about experiences are validated.

Another technique used in the research was to employ Bion’s (1984a) idea of

‘suspending memory and desire’ in order to allow for a ‘selected fact’ to emerge to

prominence within my thoughts and to let this inform a working hypothesis.

Additionally, participants’ voices are clearly distinguished from my own when I speak

from the first person, or present their narratives directly. This does not entirely overcome

potential problems of representation since, as the researcher, I was always selecting material

according to the significances I perceived.

Whatever claims can be made for the authority and legitimacy of interpretations these

rest in the data: interpretations were grounded in evidence and validated by participants. This

was not as clearcut as it might seem since interpretive work continued after fieldwork finished,complicated further by the departure of many staff from the organisation during a turbulent

period of downsizing in the latter stages of fieldwork. One potential consequence of this,

according to Denzin (1998), is that the researcher’s theory is overemphasised at the expense of

participants’ own interpretive theories.

INTERPRETIVE METHODS OF STUDYING ORGANISATIONS

In this sub-section, I discuss the various methods considered and applied in the

research. A discussion of techniques used in the research concludes this section on methods.

Two streams of research methods fall within an interpretive methodology. The first

stream is concerned with studying lived, subjective experience and includes clinical methods,

ethnography and phenomenology. In the main, methods from this stream were employed in a

multi-method approach to the research ‘problem’. The second stream does not focus directly

on subjective experience and includes critical theory, hermeneutics and narrative method,

although the latter could be argued to straddle both streams. For reasons I outline later,

narrative method has been placed in this second stream.





Various investigative techniques can be employed for interpretive methods, these being

observation, reflexivity, drawings, interviews, critical review of organisational documents,

narratives, surveys and experiments.

1. Clinical methods

A researcher gains access to subjective knowledge through experience-based methods,

grounded in how things are now, not as she or he would like them to be (Berg & Smith,

1988). Lowman (1988) refers to experienced-based understanding of social relations as clinical

methods of research, and goes on to say that clinical methods are used best when they

‘illuminate and clarify what cannot be accomplished by other, better-established

methodologies’ (p. 176).

Clinical methods of research refer to methods based on psychoanalytic or therapeutic

practice. In the clinical therapeutic setting, the analyst or therapist uses a specific skill of

‘participant-observer’ to engage with the patient and the dynamics of the encounter between

them (Hinshelwood & Skogstad, 2000a). Psychoanalytic participant-observation involves the

analyst observing with ‘evenly hovering attention’ and without premature judgement, careful

employment of the observer’s subjective experience, a capacity to reflect and think about the

experience as a whole, a recognition of the unconscious dimension, and involves the analyst

formulating interpretations as a means of verifying (or falsifying) the conclusions she or he has

arrived at through this process (ibid, p. 17). Hinshelwood and Skogstad claim that this

process, with the exception of interpretations inside the encounter, can all be transferred to

research outside the clinical setting. Researchers interpret experience outside of the encounter

with the research subject, and by doing so produce more or new data about the individual and

her or his social world (Skogstad, 2004).

Potential situations for when a clinical method of research would be used include: as an

exploratory device for those aspects of a field of inquiry that are uncharted; for studying

complex social systems as a whole that cannot be examined easily, if at all, by the

traditionalist’s scientific scrutiny; and, for interpersonally-based change strategies (Lowman,

1988).

Various methods can be said to employ a clinical approach. These include:

a) Action science, which analyses observed behaviour through various cognitive

models of meaning (Argyris, Putnam, & Smith, 1985; Coghlan, 1994).





b) Action research, which focuses on a collaborative relationship between researcher

and researched in effecting organisational change, while at the same time studying

the processes of change itself in order to better understand the dynamics of taking

action within the organisation. Action research is based on a philosophy of social

emancipation and industrial democracy (Altrichter, Kemmis, McTaggart, & Zuber-

Skerritt, 2002; Chisholm & Eden, 1993; Dick, 2002; Elden & Chisholm, 1993;

Foster, 1972; Greenwood & Levin, 1998; Greenwood, Whyte, & Harkavy, 1993;

Long, 1999a; Long & Newton, 1997; McNiff & Whitehead, 2000).

c) Systems psychodynamics, also referred to as psychoanalytic study of

organisations, which looks to apply concepts of transference and projective

identification, parallel processes, social defence theory and group relations theory to

organisational consulting and research processes with the aim of understanding (in

the main) destructive psychic processes in organisations (Diamond & Allcorn,

2003; Erlich, 2001; Gabriel, 1999; Hunt, 1989; L. Klein, 199?, 1996; Long, 1999b,

2001b, 2002; Palmer, 1997, 2000; Sullivan, 2002).

d) Socio-analytic approach, which takes as its main premise the understanding of

group relations for the betterment of organisations and society, and draws on

psychoanalysis and action research for its techniques (Bain, 1999b; Lipgar, 1998).

The research that informs this thesis was designed as a collaborative activity with the

participating firm, identifying issues needing to be understood and desirably changed. This

drew on action research principles. The investigative study itself employed methods derived

from systems psychodynamics to focus on the psychic processes of groups and the

organisation. These aspects clearly categorise the research methodology as clinical. However, it

also drew on ethnographic methods.

2. Ethnographic methods

Schein (1987) argues that a clinical perspective in research resembles ethnography most

in that it regards groups, communities, organisations and people in general as ‘living human

systems’ (p. 11). According to Schein, ethnographic methods are distinguished from clinical

approaches in the types of insight and knowledge each generates, the underlying assumptions

and what is required of the researcher. An ethnographer explicitly aims not to change the







CHARACTERISTIC CLINICAL METHODS ETHNOGRAPHIC

METHODS

METHOD EMPLOYED IN THE

RESEARCH

RESEARCH

VALIDITY

based on criteria of predictability of

results for a givenintervention; relatesto validity of model

or theory about what is going on;can’t be replicated

based on criteriaof replicability,

internalconsistency,

credibility, and‘member test’ (i.e.

wouldethnographer pass

as a member)

Research employed criteria of ‘member credibility’ by generating and testing

working hypotheses in ‘real time’. This follows an action research approach and

therefore fits neither method exactly.

RELEVANCE OF

DATA

a source of bettertheory aboutorganisationalsystems; offers

insight for action by members in system

a source of bettertheory aboutorganisationalsystems; offers

insight for actionby members in

system only indirectly

Research reports delivered to the firm offered

‘insights for action’ by organisational members. Theory generation was a major

aim of the research. Fits a clinical approach

more strongly.

Source: (Schein, 1987)

As can be seen in the above commentary, the research methodology drew on both

ethnographic and clinical methods, thereby employing a ‘mixed-method’ model that adopted

the qualities of each to the situation being studied. This was a response to two key aspects in

the research: the aim to explore psychic reality, and the condition of the enterprise itself. This

links with Hollway and Jefferson’s (2000) concept of the research subject who is

psychologically invested in a socially constructed identity. They suggest that psychosocial

methods are more appropriate for studying individuals in their own social contexts.

Shapiro and Carr (1991) add support to this when they state that,

An individual’s experience provides the primary data source for any interpretive effort,yet by itself it is incomplete; in order to be interpreted adequately, the individual’sexperience needs to be placed in context (p. 75).

The methods share an ethical dilemma that however explicit the contract for change

might be, data creation is always an intervention in the system. For example, participants

interviewed during the course of the research expected to receive feedback on the research

results, but circumstances often prevented this. Staff left the organisation, the interim report

prepared for management was not communicated outside the Research Reference Group, and

the writing up of the thesis itself was the work of years, not weeks or a few months.





3. Phenomenology

Phenomenology has a strong philosophical structure, in that it is concerned about the

essential nature of experience, and is therefore concerned with certain metaphysical questions

in which intentionality (or analysis of intentionality), suspension of existing beliefs,

assumptions, pre-conceptions and reflection are employed for investigation of phenomena in

organisations (Sanders, 1982). Organisational phenomena, as defined by Sanders, are

considered to be the ways in which things or experiences show themselves, and ‘attempts to

probe the lived experiences of the individuals who are being investigated’ (p. 357). Participant

observation, interviews, documentary study of participants’ writings and reflection are some of

the common data creation methods in such studies.

While phenomenology typically is concerned with conscious phenomena, unconscious

phenomena would seem to be a legitimate topic within the parameters described by Sanders.

These parameters are applicable to the research under discussion, in that a particular

phenomenon, termed ‘emotional connectedness’, was studied.

I now discuss the three remaining methods of interpretive research. The distinguishing

feature for all three is that each in its own way investigates social power and discourse in

organisations through studying structures of power, organisational ‘texts’, or the ‘voices’ of

research subjects. However, these aspects were not the main focus of the research.

4. Critical theory

While perhaps not strictly a research method critical theory has influenced recent

organisational studies, especially in the critique of management as a discourse of control

(Alvesson & Deetz, 1996). Critical theory derives from the Frankfurt School of social theory

and takes as its goal emancipation of social order. The aim of critical organisational studies is

to create workplaces which are free of domination (Alvesson & Deetz, 1996; Beilharz, 1991;Rhoads, 1991). The object of such studies is to reveal discourses of power and that the focus

of contemporary management on quality systems, leadership, performance management

systems, corporate culture and the like are new forms of controlling workers. It is therefore a

response to specific social conditions.

The extent to which a systems psychodynamics approach seeks also to free workplaces

from the domination of destructive psychic processes may place it in alignment to the

philosophical perspectives of critical theory.





However, in comparison, systems psychodynamics has unconscious processes as its

principle focus, and respects the autonomy of individuals for choice of action. Second, it does

not assume domination to be the central feature of organisations. A researcher’s task is

exploratory, and if domination is present then it is but one of many processes likely to be

operating.

5. Hermeneutics

Contemporary application of hermeneutics to studying organisations is based on a

premise that ‘text’ now encompasses more than written documents and includes

organisational practices and institutions, economic and social structures, culture and cultural

artefacts. The latter are considered to be ‘metaphorical text’ because they can be read,

interpreted and understood in a similar way to written documents (Prasad, 2002). A

hermeneutic study of organisations sits firmly within an interpretive approach in that its aim is

to reveal the meanings beneath the surface of the ‘text’. Prasad terms this an ‘act of critical

unveiling’ (p. 26) that is informed by one or more theoretical perspectives. It is possible to

think of emotional connectedness in terms of an ‘organisational text’ that is to be read and

understood, and that the application of a systems psychodynamics approach to research can

serve to critically unveil hidden meanings. This would be consistent with Prasad’s assertion

that a hermeneutic study of organisations has considerable flexibility as to the particular

research methods employed.

6. Narrative method

Narrative method, or organisational storytelling, is focused on presenting data in such a

way that participants’ experiences can be learnt from or given a direct voice (Gabriel, 1998b,

2000; Rhodes, 1996) or may be used to conceptualise, reflect upon and understand psycho-

social dynamics (Sievers, 1998). The reason for its inclusion with critical theory and

hermeneutics is because narrative method deliberately does not study the object-subject

relatedness between researcher and researched. The researcher’s subjective experiences are not

employed in the interpretation of research data and are usually seen as an impediment. Sievers

(ibid) use of narrative fiction straddles both narrative and clinical methods.

It is a problematic method in that stories are always constructions (or reconstructions)

of people’s experiences, whether told by the researcher or the participant, and saturated with

conscious and unconscious filters. How these can be made transparent while allowing for all







study of organisations as a discourse based on a unity of practice, but asserts that it has a

‘particular capacity to reach truth within its own frame’ (p. 183). Banet and Hayden (1977)

alert us to the essential belief about groups which is inherent in the Tavistock approach, that

‘when an aggregate becomes a group, the group behaves as a system … and that the primary

task of the group is survival’ (p. 156). Sher (1999) states that by utilising counter-transference a

psychoanalytically-oriented consultant is able to gather data that would otherwise be

inaccessible.

A view from sociology can be added to these perspectives.

Sturdy (2003) presents a case for paying more attention to the methodological issues in

researching emotion within organisational studies. He writes from a sociological perspective

but argues that several disciplines study emotion – e.g. biology, psychology, sociology – but

none fully colonise it. Furthermore, it has been relatively neglected in organisational research

until recently and what academic accounts there are tend to privilege a particular rational

discourse. Emotional intelligence, he asserts, objectifies subjectivity and views employees as

objects to be controlled through exploitation and/or emancipation of their emotions. The

emotional character of working experience itself is therefore denied. He offers four possible

approaches for overcoming the limitations of current research. These are:

1. A pluralist approach that looks at the research problem from multiple perspectives.

2. To develop specific theories of emotions in organisations.

3. Incorporate emotion into existing theoretical frames.

4. Treat emotion as a vehicle for broader social or organisational theory development.(ibid, p. 97)

The research presented here falls somewhat within the third category.

Various methods have been employed within sociology for studying emotions, ranging

from interviewing to studying social structures. Sturdy argues that each privileges a certain

aspect while silencing another. A summary table of these approaches is given below (Table 3).

Interestingly, Sturdy makes no mention of the application of psychoanalysis within

organisational studies; perhaps because this might be classed as ‘non-traditional data’!





Table 3. Selected approaches to emotion research: a summary

APPROACH POSSIBLE INSIGHT PRIVILEGES SILENCES

OBSERVATION short-term emotiondynamics

emotion (as comparedto feeling)

history

INTERVIEW construction of authenticity

individualism real-time emotion

AUTOBIOGRAPHY/

PARTICIPATION

DISCOURSE

rational-emotionalinterplay

diversity of meaningsor emotions

subjectivity

dominant texts

objectivity

non-discursive

SOCIAL STRUCTURES power and emotionaltension

history and cultures interaction andtransience

NON-TRADITIONAL

DATA

non-rational knowing humanism/romanticism

objectivity/closure

Source: (Sturdy, 2003 p. 99)

The research for this thesis employed observation, interviews, ethnographic

participation and non-traditional data such as drawings and researcher’s feelings. According to

Sturdy’s schema, this suggests that it provided a plurality of ‘privilege’.

The reasons for choosing these techniques will now be presented.

TECHNIQUES FOR DATA CREATION AND ANALYSIS EMPLOYED IN THE RESEARCH

The approaches and techniques used for creating data were: a single case study,

reflexivity, workplace observation, interview, participant drawing, a review of organisational

documents and artefacts, and the use of grounded theory for data analysis. Discussions with

the Research Reference Group during the research process created additional data. Data

analysis was an ongoing process during fieldwork and continued after fieldwork ended. Data

creation and analysis followed a relatively structured process, as explained in the following

discussion and in the explanation of the research process later in this chapter.

1. Case study

A case study offers an opportunity to investigate a situation in-depth, and to employ a

multi-method approach for data creation and analysis. According to Gillham (2000) a case

study is a unit of human activity embedded in the real world which can only be studied or

understood in context, in the here and now, and where the boundary between context and





organisation cannot be precisely drawn. This is a helpful distinction for supporting the choice

of a single case study, rather than creating several to compare. The importance of context is a

recurring theme in most research methods. No organisation is exactly like another –

contextual factors determine the differences. A single case can be studied with multiple levels

of analysis and enables theory-building.

The strengths of case study research are in the likelihood of generating novel theory, the

ability to deal with juxtaposition of conflicting realities, the capacity to test emergent theories

from within the case, and the strong link to evidence which provides empirical validity

(Eisenhardt, 1989). Weaknesses exist too – the theory may be overly complex and results may

be too narrow or idiosyncratic. Eisenhardt suggests that the use of the literature during

fieldwork helps resolve some of these weaknesses.

Case study research generates huge volumes of data. For the case discussed in Chapters

5-9, this included:

a) field notes comprising recorded observations, reflections, working hypotheses,

records of meetings, decisions about the research process, and interview notes;

b) transcripts of taped interviews; and,

c) organisational documents and records of electronic communications.

Aside from the administrative aspect of managing these data, the process of analysis was

ongoing and iterative. Eisenhardt (1989) suggests that ongoing analysis is crucial for managing

case study data and that the process needs to be transparent.

2. Reflexivity

A reflexive approach to studying organisations connects the ‘content of knowledge with

the process of coming-to-know’ (Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000, p. 553). Reflexivity is an

essential element of studying relationships and relatedness at individual and group levels,

especially when unconscious processes such as transference are to be discerned. Bradbury and

Lichtenstein suggest that studying relatedness in organisations (or what they term the ‘space in

between’ relationships) has epistemological, political and action implications. Respectively,

these are: a) that the act of knowing includes all sides of the research relationship; b) that

knowledge and power are in a constant relationship; and c) that collaborative research has an

impact on the lived reality of both researcher and participants.





The respect to which this is so can only be discovered through self-reflection and

investigation of oneself as a research instrument, consistent with clinical methods. My

experiences of conducting the research and reflection on these experiences, including shared

reflection with participants, were essential data for understanding emotional connectedness in

the firm. A reflexive approach links directly with using workplace observation and feeding

back working hypotheses into interviews, and is linked to grounded theory data analysis and

the formal feedback of emerging research results.

3. Workplace observation

The observation method used is derived from infant observation techniques within

psychoanalytic training methods. Workplace observation aims to connect the observer-

researcher with the feelings and experiences of those working in an organisation

(Hinshelwood & Skogstad, 2000a, 2000b; Long, 2001a, 2001c; Skogstad, 2004; Vinten, 1994;

Willshire, 2001). The method requires a researcher to quietly observe a situation for an hour

or so at a regular time each week over several weeks. It essentially aims to engage counter-

transference processes within the researcher. How a researcher (or organisational consultant)

feels she or he is being made to feel is important data about unconscious feelings which may be

present in the group (Bain, 1999b). These feelings are projections from organisational

members and can be regarded as a form of communication (Joseph, 1987). Thus, it is

important for the observer to note the feelings so as to connect with what maybe being

communicated. Feelings aroused within the researcher help form questions or working

hypotheses to be used in later discussions or interviews with organisational members. This

ensures that what was experienced during the observation is tested with research participants’

own experiences.

As Skogstad (2004) notes, observation has three stages: the actual observation,

recording the observation, and then interpretation of observed material. All three stages were

completed for every observation of this research. Interpretations were discussed with research

supervisors and provided input to later interviews. Skogstad suggests that this manner of

workplace observation is particularly suitable for single case study research where ‘subjective

experiences and meanings, unconscious anxieties and assumptions and institutionally applied

defensive techniques are to be explored and understood’ (p. 82). Since it is not possible to

‘reproduce’ observations, their validity and reliability are enhanced by collaborative





interpretation, separating observations from interpretations and combining with other

methods (such as interviews).

Workplace observation was the first technique used with each participant group. The

group’s sanctioning of my presence was negotiated before any observation began. Members

were provided with written information about the research and invited to clarify concerns.

This was not without its problems. I encountered situations where a group’s manager would

sanction my presence without further recourse to the group, or I discovered that one group

member might be ‘present’ only in voice on the phone at a meeting of the group. I treated

such circumstances as data about the organisational system.

Observations were directed at the group level of interaction and not of individuals

personally. I was interested in the experience of groups at work, their internal relations and

relatedness to other groups. During observations I took no notes, but immediately afterwards

recorded what I had felt during the observation, and what I could remember of conversations,

interactions, office furnishings and the like.

This technique of observing serves two important functions, it enables the researcher to

engage with the unknown, allows oneself to be surprised, and it begins the process of

identifying potential themes for further exploration in interviews and feedback discussions

(Gillham, 2000; Willshire, 2001).

4. Interviews

Observations of groups at work were followed up by interviewing individual members

of each group. The aim was to provide in-depth perspectives on experiences of being a

member in the group observed and other organisational groups. In theory, every work group

is a ‘part’ of an organisation and potentially relates to the organisational system as a ‘part-

object’ (M. Klein, 1975c). Group members in turn may project their part- or partial-connectedness into the organisation as a whole. Through interviewing individuals, I hoped to

create data that might reveal some of these potential dynamics, or objects of projective

identification.

Individual members were personally invited to be interviewed and given written

documentation about the research prior to interview. I offered an off-site facility, or arranged

for a private meeting room at their workplace. All interviews were conducted face-to-face for

two reasons: 1) to create data on intersubjective dynamics (including what was experienced in







The interviewing stance adopted was psychoanalytically-oriented with suspended

judgement, allowing the speaker to respond to comments freely throughout the process. This

enabled me to ‘freely associate’ to the material presented by respondents, and to provide space

for ‘selected facts’ to emerge (Bion, 1984a; Freud, 1953-1973c). As they came to mind,

working hypotheses were tested with respondents during interview. Hypotheses formed after

an interview would be taken up in subsequent interviews. In this way data analysis was a

constant ongoing process. Analysis of interview data focused on feelings expressed during

interview, feelings aroused in the researcher, key themes of the discussion and connections

made with other respondents’ interview data. A record of emerging hypotheses was kept in

fieldnotes.

Selection of interviewees was firstly determined by those groups chosen to participate in

the research. Group membership was thus the primary criterion for selection. However, this

needed qualification for larger groups. When a group was small, numbering ten or less

members, I invited each person to participate in being interviewed. Not all did participate.

With larger groups, selection of those to be invited was negotiated with the Research

Reference Group. Criteria used to identify these people aimed at representing a diversity of

organisational roles, gender, length of employment in the firm, perceived variations in

opinions, and a person’s general availability for participating.

Whatever the process for choosing the interview sample, some voices would not get

heard. Some individuals were unavailable even though they agreed to be interviewed, some did

not show up at appointed times, some were not chosen by the Research Reference Group

because of perceived disinterest or overlap with others, and there were several people who did

not respond to my invitations. Hence I possibly lost access to those who felt indifferent

towards, unavailable to, or withdrawn from the organisation. Their experiences can only be

obliquely discerned through their absence, be it in the narratives I did capture, or themeanings construed from these stories.

5. Drawings

In the final stages of each interview, respondents were invited to draw a picture of their

experiences of working in the organisation. All were willing to do so. I had prepared them for

this at the beginning of each interview so that it would not come as a surprise, and also

because of needing their agreement to reproduce drawings in any publications arising from the

research. The purpose of using drawings was to surface less conscious thoughts and feelings





about working in the firm. The interview then concluded with the person explaining her or his

drawing. I offered my own associations about the drawing in order to elicit interpretations

from the respondent. As interviews proceeded, a pattern in the drawings emerged amongst

the different roles. The observation of this pattern was fed back to participants in subsequent

interviews, but only after each individual had drawn his or her own picture. A rich

interpretation of the drawings came to be built from discussions about an individual’s drawing

and its relatedness to themes in other drawings.

Drawings provide data on mental models people hold about the organisation – the

‘institution-in-the-mind’ – which influences their actions (Armstrong, 1991; Gould, Ebers, &

Clinchy, 1999; Vince & Broussine, 1996). Drawings also help to encapsulate key emotional

experiences that are more difficult to express in words, or are otherwise rationalised. The

drawings reveal remarkable data about roles and role relatedness and connections between the

individual and the organisation. Many are reproduced and discussed in Chapters 6-9.

6. Organisational documents and artefacts

Publications issued by the firm, such as annual reports, a ‘history’ of the firm’s creation,

reports presented by management to staff at monthly staff meetings, descriptions of services,

reports from management working retreats, staff employment manuals, and many emails

issued by management to communicate with staff about internal matters, were collected

during the course of the research. In addition to these, communications by staff to

management and between staff members were particularly noted. These included email

messages, notices placed on office walls and desktop information, such as personal

nameplates.

Office facilities and layout were important aspects of the staff members’ work

experiences; these too were noted in my fieldwork diary. Physical workspaces can be regarded

as symbolic artefacts of the organisation’s culture and indicative of certain systems

psychodynamics (Casey, 1999; Pondy, 1983; Smircich, 1983; Stapley, 1996).

The method of interpreting these documents and artefacts was to analyse

communications and artefacts for explicit meanings (i.e. what was overtly stated) and for

implied meanings (what was not said). As working hypotheses from this review were formed,

they were tested with interviewees. This ensured that emerging themes were validated and

built upon by organisational members.





7. Use of grounded theory for data analysis

Data analysis is aided by using all available evidence created in the research, the

application of theory and reflexivity of the researcher. Contradictory material can be better

explained when multiple sources are used. A holistic interpretation can be built from

systematic coding of all sources rather than fragmenting data; this also preserves the integrity

of the context and helps to link freely associated thoughts. Analysis is further assisted by the

construction of ‘pen portraits’ and structured summaries of biographical interviews (Hollway

& Jefferson, 2000).

The method of analysis that underpins this, and the data creation methods described

above, is based on application of grounded theory methods (Eisenhardt, 1989; Glaser &

Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Grounded theory is an inductive method for building

theory from interpretation of the ‘empirical reality’ captured in research data. Theory built

directly from empirical evidence is able to demonstrate four qualities:

• Fit , i.e. theory is faithful to the reality studied

• Understanding , by the informants and practitioners in the area of study

• Generality , i.e. applicable to a variety of contexts related to the phenomenon studied

• Control , in that theory can guide action in the specific context of study area

(Strauss & Corbin, 1990)

Strauss and Corbin assert that a researcher’s sensitivity to the situation being studied is

an important influence on the quality of the theory being built. Such sensitivity comes from

reading and review of the literature, professional experience, personal experience and the

analytic process used for interacting with the data. I have described already the analytic

process used with each data creation technique. In response to the other points Strauss and

Corbin make, my sensitivity to the case study is characterised by operating my own

professional services business, having academic qualifications in social sciences, business

administration and organisational change, plus professional training as a socio-analyst. To

temper these sensitivities and remain open to the firm’s situation, I constantly engaged in a

reality check of my interpretations with research participants, with my research supervisors,

and by consciously stepping back at times to reflect on my experiences.





The practice of grounded theory involves conceptualising the data and creating a

classification scheme of concepts which are then analysed for significance according to factors

such as frequency of occurrence, the strength of linkages between concepts, consequences,

context and the like . This is a highly cognitive and rational process, akin to content analysis

(Symon & Cassell, 1998), and not particularly suited to studying unconscious processes in

organisations.

Use of grounded theory was applied to analysing interview transcripts for additional

themes and concepts unnoticed during the experience of the interview itself. The purpose of

doing so was to ensure that my own unconscious blindness or memory failure could be

checked out. Ultimately, data analysis is a process of selecting facts in support of a story line,

as Strauss and Corbin also assert when they describe the final product of a grounded theory

analysis – the descriptive narrative – as being a selective coding.

I conclude this chapter by describing the research process and organisational

circumstances that influenced the research.

The research process and processual issues

Choosing the case study firm

I began with the idea of follow-up research to my Masters degree on virtual work

groups and their emotional dynamics (de Gooijer, 1999). I contacted a number of senior

managers I knew in large organisations, one of whom connected enthusiastically with the ideas

put forward and offered to present my case to the firm’s executive management. After this

conversation, I revised the emphasis of my proposed topic (to looking at how technology

might have disrupted emotional attachments in organisations) and sent an outline to my

contact in the hope of furthering a discussion. I received a positive response from the firm

and feedback that a bigger issue for this firm was not ‘technology as a primary driver to

creation of virtual teams’, but how their business model and organisational structure negatively

impacted staff affiliation and the firm’s ability to build and sustain a strong community in a

virtual environment (personal communication, 23 Dec. 1999). I felt there was an interesting

problem here to which my application of systems psychodynamics might help their

understanding of these issues.







The scope of the research enquiry was to understand emotional connectedness in a

networked organisation. The research sought to surface social and psychological factors,

giving consideration to factors such as: boundaries and unifying forces of an organisation;

emotions in organisations, group relatedness, individuals’ motivation for task, the role of

information technology and computer-mediated communication, and the ‘organisation-in-the-

mind’ held by staff.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Several questions were formulated at the outset, including questions about issues of

‘staff affiliation’ on which the firm wanted particular information.

The questions were:

• What is it like for staff who work in a networked organisation? What attracts them

to work here? What maintains their interest and keeps them here? What makes

them leave?

• What is the experience of a networked organisation? What holds it together? What

is the unifying force? What is the container and what is contained? Who or what do

people relate to when they work in a networked organisation?

• Is the networked organisation a reality or a mental model? How is it made real?

What is the ‘organisation-in-the-mind’ held by staff of a networked organisation?

What creates this and how is it created?

• What role does information technology play in containing the networked

organisation’s task and in connecting staff to their tasks and to others?

• What role do teams and groups have in unifying the experience of a networked

organisation? How does a group effectively manage the boundaries of internal and

external relationships? What role does emotional connectedness have for the

effective capacity of groups to perform the organisation’s business task?

These questions formed a broad framework for data creation and analysis. An interim

report to the firm, completed in 2001, provided specific answers to the first set of questions

listed above.





RESEARCH SETTING

The research focused on the organisation as a whole (i.e. the Australian-New Zealand

operations) and was not intended to support the agenda of any one group, or individual, over

another. It was proposed initially that six groups participate in the study: three project teams

and one group each from the counselling families, industry sector and service line teams. One

project team was to be of a long-term duration with a relatively constant membership during

the course of the research; the other two would start and stop during the same period. About

50 people were expected to be involved during the period of study. At the time of defining the

scope of the research setting, the relatedness of the six groups was depicted in the following

way (Figure 2). The diagram shows that an individual employee could expect to be a member

of five groups simultaneously.

Figure 2. Individuals’ membership of groups and their relatedness

Counselling

Family

(~20 groups)

Industry

Sector Team

(4 streams)

Individual

Employees

(~320 in total)

Service Line

Team

(13 streams)

Project

Teams

temporary membership

& of varying duration





Choosing the groups to study

The proposal for choosing the groups identified above had been based on an

assumption that these were the workgroups of the firm, in which the primary task of the

organisation was enacted. The members of the Research Reference Group chose the

particular teams to study based on their personal judgements of availability of staff and

willingness of the respective team managers to participate in the study. The Group also

suggested I observe other groups at work, such as the Senior Vice-President’s annual

roundtable on staff performance, staff meetings, social club ‘get-togethers’, staff working at

their ‘home-base office’ and any special events for staff. I noted these additions without

making any commitment.

The process for choosing the groups left me wondering how decisions were made for

assigning staff to projects. I followed this up with project staff whom I later observed and

interviewed.

Ethical considerations

Agreement to participate in the research was obtained at three levels:

1. Organisational – this was formalised by the research contract and establishment of

the research project management structure. The re-imbursement of my out-of-

pocket expenses, provision of essential tools and access to staff members

represents the direct cost of the research to the firm (albeit a small cost overall). It

symbolises the commitment of the firm to the research, but without the firm

holding absolute power over the research, or compromising the researcher’s

autonomy.

2. Group – members of the Research Reference Group invited group leaders to

participate and agree to members of their respective groups being observed at

work, and for individuals to be interviewed. I also checked with group members

prior to conducting workplace observations that they understood the nature of the

observation and its purpose. This was not possible in every case.

3. Individuals – were volunteers who responded to a personal invitation and signed an

agreement to be interviewed. Hollway and Jefferson (2000) note that the issue of

informed consent, in principle, may not adequately cover unanticipated emotional

responses by individuals to the researcher-observer, or to material raised in





interview. At best, I aimed to ‘guard against harm’ ( p. 88) through creating a safe

context for discussions, such as providing information to participants and arranging

for off-site interviews. No individual was identified to anyone outside of the

Research Reference Group. The basic information known to the Research

Reference Group was the names of those interviewed in order to check that a

reasonable degree of ‘group representation’ had been achieved. Confidentiality

about individuals’ identities and the name of the firm was (and continues to be)

preserved. Generalities about the business, its primary task and operations have

been disclosed when this does not breach the anonymity of participants.

A series of observations was conducted also on a client site. This required agreement by

the client, and was negotiated by the leader of the Research Reference Group.

I agreed also to report on the findings of my research to executive management and

staff. This ensured accountability for the research and provided an opportunity for gaining

formal feedback on findings. This proved difficult to enact, as explained below.

Research plan

In response to a request by the Research Reference Group, I prepared a research plan

outlining a schedule of activities for each proposed participant group. Clearly, at this stage of the research I had adopted the Research Reference Group’s suggestions for studying 11

groups! Needless to say, the plan was ambitious.

PHASE 1

Phase 1 of the fieldwork was conducted over a twelve month period from September

2000 – August 2001, at which time an Interim Report was delivered to, and discussed by, the

Research Reference Group. During this stage of the research I had completed 14 hours of

observations covering three groups – a local counselling family, the senior executive’s

performance roundtable held interstate, and a project team working on a client site locally –

plus I had interviewed 16 people.

However, I was experiencing difficulties in engaging people to commit to schedules or

keep appointments. My research plan was fast becoming a complete fantasy. In April 2001, I

drew a picture of my experiences of connecting with the firm. I reproduce it in Figure 3.





The Interim Report was positively received by the Research Reference Group and

generated two significant actions. The first was that I was given privileges accorded to a senior

manager in the firm to access the internal electronic information systems, and I was provided

with a security key to the local office. The second action was that it was to be arranged for me

to present the interim findings to the executive team, a group I had not yet met except when I

had interviewed several of its individual members. This in fact never occurred due to a series

of drastic changes to the firm in the latter stages of the study.

Figure 3. Researcher’s experiences of connecting to case study firm

Source: Fieldnotes (Book 1, Section B, p. 96), 10 April 2001





ADAPTING THE RESEARCH PLAN

During this first phase I became aware of limitations in connecting with the full gamut

of group interactions within the firm. Many groups rarely met completely in person, in fact

some only interacted in teleconferences or using email. In order to gain a full picture of group

interactions, I needed to be connected electronically with the organisation. This was made

possible during the next phase of my fieldwork when I observed one group, on a weekly basis

and for several months, who held a teleconference each week. My ‘observation’ consisted of

listening to their discussions.

Another change I needed to make was to the method for observing groups at work. The

original plan was to observe for one hour each week at a regular time over a four week period.

For some groups this was not possible. The Executive’s Performance Roundtable only met

once a year, for example. I therefore attended the Roundtable for the whole day and

alternated one hour of observation with one hour of documenting these observations over a

ten-hour period. The Melbourne-based counselling family only met occasionally and then only

in a social setting. Hence, I observed this group while partaking in dinner with them. In this

situation I was very much the participant-observer.

The difficulty in ‘sticking to my plan’ was further confounded by contextual factors.

Examples of these were: the firm’s business was project-based and employees were frequently

shifted between projects, the 30% annual turnover of staff meant team membership was rarely

stable for more than a few months, the beginning stages of my research coincided with the

firm’s parent merger in Europe and North America coupled with several smaller mergers at

the local level; the firm became a corporation, a period of dramatic growth in staff numbers

began as a consequence of these mergers (despite the continuing high staff turnover), there

were changes to the executive management team membership, the Melbourne-based

operations relocated to new offices in the central business district, and many staff frequently

travelled interstate or internationally to work on projects.

While all this was ‘data’ for my fieldwork, it did mean that the scope of the research

needed to be scaled down. I discovered during phase two that ambitious plans were the norm

for this firm, reflected in new sales contracts which were often much scaled-down projects

than had been planned or hoped for.





With the agreement of the Research Reference Group, participant groups were limited

to four, and an ethnographic study of the two main state offices. The latter would enable

participation of support staff who were based in each office. In effect, this became a more

realistic ‘picture’ of an organisation whose workforce was largely divided into: a) off-site

project teams; b) management teams who met at regular intervals; and c) support staff

permanently based in one of several trans-national offices.

PHASE 2

During this phase which lasted from October 2001 till January 2003 workplace

observations were more ethnographic in character. To gain access to the electronic

interactions of the firm’s staff, I was registered as a ‘dummy employee’ on the system. I was

provided with the laptop computer and security key, as agreed to earlier. Curiously, once this

had been put into effect, the quality of my relatedness with the firm altered significantly.

During this period I would set up at a ‘hot desk’ in the firm’s offices and experience the

situation as if I was a staff member. Several staff came to recognise me and would enquire

about my research. Others who had never met me would approach me to ask who I was, and

what was I doing. The consequence of this change in my approach to observation was that I

felt more accepted (no longer having to always request appointments to enter the offices) and

clearly had achieved ‘member credibility’ (Schein, 1987).

I visited the Melbourne office every week or so for a period of three months, and then

monthly for six months. The experience mirrored more realistically what project staff would

do and I came to experience the office environment similarly, having to negotiate for a desk to

sit at and the connections to computer and telephone networks. There were disadvantages. I

felt more difficulty in keeping the boundaries of my role as researcher, and vulnerable to

projective empathy with employees. Meetings with my research supervisor were crucial for

helping me debrief my emotional reactions and to keep me focused on understanding why

things were as they were.

Again, progress in completing interviews was slow, especially as this time the firm was

experiencing an extreme downturn in its business and groups of staff were being made

redundant with increasing regularity. Along with my observations of the two state offices, I

also observed a sales team and the meetings of a counselling family during Phase 2. The final

interview of individual representatives from these groups occurred at the end of July 2002.












Chapter 5, Introduction to the Case Study 121

firm. As an additional complication, the Australia-New Zealand operations also merged six

locally-autonomous business units in order to participate in the larger merger. The overall

result created a firm with 57,000 employees, located in 30 countries, of whom the greatest

proportion was based in Europe. Staff members who were previously employed by the North

American firm comprised 30% of staff in the merged company. The Australia-New Zealand

(A-NZ) operations employed 350 staff at the time, barely 1% of the total.

The most significant change for A-NZ staff members was the loss of autonomy and

control from no longer being in charge of local operations. They were now a marginal and

remote outpost of a corporation (whose headquarters were in France) and accountable to the

company’s shareholders. The next most significant change related to service provision. Under

the umbrella of the North American parent, A-NZ had developed a diverse range of business

consulting services covering strategy, management consulting, IT systems implementation,

change management and business process reengineering. The two European firms specialised

in technology development, systems implementation and IT outsourcing, and being the larger

component of the merger, these interests soon took priority.

During the period of research fieldwork from November 1999 to January 2003, a

dynamic period of transition for the A-NZ operations was observed. By 2002, Top Twins no

longer referred to the events of 2000 as a merger, but rather, as an acquisition of a North

American business. I later learnt the assimilation was complete when the firm announced it

would drop ‘& Associates’ from its name, in April 2004.

Business operations during period of fieldwork

The primary task of the organisation was to provide professional business advice and

technology services to other businesses. It did this by employing consultants to work with

clients on solving business issues. Profitability depended on high utilisation rates of Top

Twins’ consultants and a steady stream of new projects. Negative events in a client’s business

environment had a direct impact upon the firm. It was in fact highly dependent on its clients

having successful businesses, with cash to spare for investing in professional services. This

was brought home pointedly to the firm in 2001 when many events during the year generated

a two-thirds cut in profitability and a halving of stock market capitalisation. In the 2001

Annual Report, the Chairman declared that the kind of services provided by Top Twins

‘temporarily lost status as a strategic investment to become an expense’ ( bold in the original

text ). The company sacked 5% of its workforce that year.




Chapter 5, Introduction to the Case Study 122

For A-NZ, the effects were felt even more strongly. A-NZ operations were accounted

for within the Asia-Pacific region (employing 2,500 staff), and this region had posted a loss for

the year, the only region within Top Twins to do so. Recruitment since the merger had

doubled staff numbers to nearly 700, but in July 2001 about 50 staff were sacked, and later in

December two of the five Australian offices were closed, with another 50 or so staff laid off.

The effect upon staff morale was profound as it was the first time such an action had ever

been taken locally. Interviewees expressed shock and disbelief. Later in 2001, the A-NZ Area

Director resigned, ‘to pursue personal interests’. His replacement came from within the

existing executive management team and was regarded as a ‘salesman’ by many who were

interviewed. By mid-2002, he too had resigned, as had several others of the executive team.

In December 2002, Top Twins Chief Operating Officer was sent to Australia to ‘sort

things out’. The result was a huge contraction in operations: staff numbers were reduced to

120, the New Zealand operations were spun off as an ‘affiliated operation’, and offices were

stripped of their glamour. Staffing facilities were reduced to bare necessities of work desks and

computer equipment; reception areas were no longer staffed. Those employees who remained

commented positively, however – ‘it was about time; you can’t sustain a business that doesn’t

make a profit’ ( support staff member ).

The response of A-NZ executive management to the business downturn in 2001 and

2002 was to focus on winning new business and reducing costs, especially labour costs. When

the second Area Director resigned after only eight months in the role, and without having

made a tangible mark on business performance, staff members participating in research

interviews began to express pessimism about the business and its leadership. At the same time,

management’s communications to staff were noticeably more upbeat about sales prospects

and devoid of any mention of unsuccessful project bids.

Over the period October 2001–March 2002, I observed a regular teleconference of one

of the sales teams. The main focus of the group’s hour long discussion was to review business

prospects and contracts. Notably, prospects were often claimed to be $1 million+

opportunities, but were realised usually as contracts of $100,000 in value or less. No-one ever

remarked on the difference between what was hoped for and what was actually gained. The

gap was stark and revealed fanciful expectations about the business.






Chapter 6, Connecting Structures 124

• 6 • Connecting Structures

We are a very hierarchical organisation; people say we’re not. Until I was promoted tosenior manager I couldn’t be a counsellor. Yet I have taught counselling training, and as apsychologist it’s part of what I do – I help other organisations with their performancemanagement but am unable to do it in my organisation. ( Senior manager consultant )

In this chapter, I describe the firm’s connecting structures. I begin with describing the

structure as stated in the official texts of the firm. This is termed the ‘normative’ structure.

People’s actual experiences of the structure are then described, which is coined the

‘phenomenal’ structure. The ‘existential’ structure, or what was believed to be the real

structure, is the third structure described as forming the organisational structure. I argue these

structures co-existed in the organisation to support political relatedness. A sentient structure

known as ‘counselling families’, split off from the task multi-structure, is identified and

discussed in the concluding parts of the chapter.

Connecting structures

Top Twins’ management were aware of the difficulties for consultants who spent long

periods of time away from their home office (and homes!) and believed that an appropriate

structure would assist staff members connect with each other and the firm. They created an

organisational structure and a sentient group system (E. J. Miller & Rice, 1990), called

‘counselling families’, to facilitate connections. I refer to these as connecting structures and

discuss each separately.







• Service lines

Four main services were provided to clients and these defined the ‘service line

structure’. This was later reduced to three. A service line leader was identified for each product

or service. In the A-NZ area operations, the leader’s primary responsibility was to gain new

sales and achieve sales targets.

Consultants were identified as resources to a service line according to their knowledge of

and expertise with a product. No formal meetings were held by any service line to bring

consultants together as a group. However, many consultants belonging to a common service

line might meet each other at national product sales meetings, convened by a product

manufacturer. Most consultants identified themselves as belonging to a service line. A service

line usually matched their professional qualifications and expertise. In this sense it was a

container for their professional identity. It was also a container for identifying the work of the

enterprise. Selling and service delivery was channelled through service lines.

The ERP2 Service Line was studied during the research. This service was a major line

of business for Top Twins. Its leader (an A-NZ vice-president) held a weekly telephone

conference call with the directors and senior managers currently engaged on ERP service line

projects. About 22 people were listed on the weekly agenda, though usually less than half rang

in, phoning in from across Australia and New Zealand. The calls lasted one hour and focused

on the status of proposals and sales. While not explicitly stated as such, the group took on a

sales management role. A day prior to the scheduled call, updated sales and project status

bulletins were emailed to the group. The teleconference was frequently cancelled due to the

leader’s unavailability, often at the last minute. Sometimes several weeks would elapse between

calls. However, the weekly email containing the standard agenda and bulletins continued to be

sent.

Given the characteristics of service lines, it is difficult to consider them as substantive

workgroups or teams having a defined task, membership, and a set of roles for performing

assigned tasks.

2 ‘ERP’ is not an acronym as such. The letters have been used in a way to preserve anonymity.







enterprise? The organisation’s ‘matrix structure’ brings these elements together in a visible

way, but goes no further to suggest for what purpose, aside from presenting a public view.

• The matrix structure The matrix structure put together the above elements and added in operational aspects

to create a unified picture of the stated organisational structure. Figure 4 shows the published

structure of the A-NZ operations. Personal names have been altered and identifying images

removed, but all else is the same.

Figure 4. Top Twins Australia-New Zealand area organisation chart

Source: Top Twins A-NZ area organisation, May 2001

The chart shows the top level of the structure occupied by the firm’s clients. At the very

bottom of the chart, and what might be thought of as the lowest level , are the ‘enabling

professions: HR, Finance, Risk Management’. Between the two are a collection of boxes

naming the industry sector and service line operations of the firm. To the far right are the

export markets of the firm. These arrays of boxes embrace a central image of people’s faces,

representing the firm’s employees. It is striking that there are no connecting lines between any

of the boxes, project teams are not visible in the diagram, and only one role title is explicitly

our clients

Area Director John Smith

Consumer Products

John Smith

GovernmentProducts

John Smith

FinanceProducts

John Smith

ResourcesProducts

John Smith

Strategy

Solutions

Operations

Technology

John Smith

John Smith

John Smith

John Smith

HR John Smith Risk Mgt John Smith Finance John Smith

Exports• UK• USA• Global

AsiaPacific







business across the region and internationally; many consultants worked interstate or overseas

on this project, away from home for regular periods.

A project team, however, was a time-limited group, created for the duration of

contracted work. Its membership was temporary and fluid. No team enjoyed a stable

membership. Perhaps because of these qualities, and the fact that team members worked

off-site, the organisational chart could not accurately capture their existence. Perhaps this was

one reason why they appeared to be ‘off-the-map’, so to speak.

b) Administrative support teams

Administrative support was structured according to functions of human resources

management (HR), finance, and risk management. These administrative functions were coined

‘enabling professions’. It conjures the thought, ‘Who was disabled that “enabling professions”

needed to exist?’ As I explore in later chapters, many consulting staff felt ‘disabled’ at times by

organisational structures and processes, especially when unassigned to a work project. Yet, it

was not the role of ‘enabling professions’ to deal with such.

Each support team was headed up by a corporate management director. Within each

function, staff were structured into small self-contained workgroups under the responsibility

of a team leader.

For example, HR included teams responsible for employment processes, performance

management and project resourcing. Finance included IT support, sales data systems and

office facilities. The office manager in each state had responsibility for local facilities and

services, including management of personal assistants. Each office in the A-NZ area had a

bevy of support staff dedicated to servicing the needs of consultants and executives working

in that office.

As a consequence the members of many administrative support groups were scattered

across two or three state offices. There was one important difference between support staff

and consultants however, support staff belonged permanently to a work group.

The support staff in the Melbourne and Sydney offices who were participants in the

study were clear about where they fitted in the structure and to whom they reported. Their

roles and tasks were consistent across both offices, and experienced in similar ways.





c) Executive management team

The function of management in A-NZ was dispersed across the leaders of service lines,

individuals appointed at the executive levels of director and vice-president, the role of Area

Director, and an executive management team of about ten people. Management activities

focused on setting performance targets, managing relationships with important clients,

monitoring sales results, ensuring adequate levels of staffing resources, and ratifying

performance assessments of individual employees. There was a strong view that ‘small

management’ was best for operations in order to minimise overheads, and to enable a culture

of ‘self-reliant individuals’. Managerial activities were conducted by the executive management

team in the main. Where specific activities required agreement by all executives, for example,

to ratify and review employee performance assessments, then all vice-presidents and directors would be involved. Commonly, this was conducted as a large group meeting held over a day.

CASE VIGNETTE 1 – MANAGEMENT ROUNDTABLE

The meeting began at 8 am and concluded late that night. This was the first time thisgroup of people, in its current membership, had ever met. It comprised the vice-presidents and directors from the different businesses that had recently merged. Nametags were provided; not everyone wore them. Aside from the day’s facilitator, nobody introduced themselves to the group. People were expected to introduce themselves toothers whenever they could. However, no breaks of any kind were scheduled for the day.People were expected to come and go as they needed for breaks, refreshments or private

meetings. There was a fairly constant flow of people in and out of the room.

This group was the senior level of the organisation engaged in ratifying and reviewing theperformance assessments of more than 400 staff. At the very beginning of the meeting,the facilitator (more a Master of Ceremonies) stated that all decisions would be by groupconsensus. By this he meant that ‘majority rules’. Presumably, the ‘majority’ was everyonein the room, and didn’t include those outside in the lobby, making ‘connections’.

The room was set-up in a U-shape, two or three rows deep. It felt like a parliamentary sitting. As the day progressed, more heated discussion ensued. At one time, an objection

was made about the inconsistencies of some decisions. The rejoinder came back, ‘Justbecause people are rated at the same level, doesn’t mean we do a socialist process of promoting everyone of them.’ The moderator asked for propositions to be put forward

regarding an individual’s performance rating; he reiterated that ‘majority rules’ applied,asked for agreement to a proposal to which a few ‘yeses’ were heard. Huddles of very small groups formed outside the room. Some of the women debriefed with each other inthe ladies powder room, venting their frustrations with the process. Consultants knownto people in the room were given more attention during discussion than lesser knownones. Some of the latter were derided for not making themselves known to seniormanagement.

To succeed in Top Twins, consultants needed high-ranking personal connections and ahigh utilisation rate. They could only get the latter if they had the right personalconnections. Their survival in the firm depended upon it. At this day’s meeting, there

were a few people whose ‘alignment’ was being questioned. Their counselling family head was asked to comment on them. Few could say more than what was recorded in theperformance database.







• Hierarchy

Where the above groups provided a structure for the work itself, the hierarchy provided

a structure for individuals and their relatedness to others, especially with regard to status. Staff

members felt the effects of the hierarchy in many ways. It was observable in everyday

organisational processes and artefacts, such as internal office telephone lists and counselling

family information. These indicated the status of all individuals in relation to each other.

Positive work performance results offered promotion to higher levels in the hierarchy, and

increased privileges such as dedicated workspace, re-imbursement of home phone expenses,

lower utilisation rates, or increased support from personal assistant staff. Figure 5 depicts this

hierarchy.

Figure 5. The hierarchy of status

The diagram depicts a hierarchy of status in which status, influence and power, authority

and decision-making, and remuneration increased as one progresses to the top of the

hierarchy.

Area Director

Vice-President

(VP)

Director(D)

Senior Manager(D)

Manager

(M)

Senior

Consultant

(SC)

Consultant

(C)

Support staff

Management-level, and

prior to the merger

titled ‘Partners andPrincipals’

}





At the very bottom of the hierarchy were administrative support staff, that is, anyone

who did not perform any direct services to clients. Evidence for their position as being on the

lowest rung can be seen in the work and status of personal assistants. On a day-to-day basis

each personal assistant provided dedicated support to one vice-president in addition to

supporting an allocated group of consulting staff (up to 25 individuals). While their work was

often menial and routine – typing and communications – it did bring them into contact with

the highest ranking staff. The strong connections generated between vice-presidents and their

respective personal assistants, resulted in personal assistants having a great deal of covert

power. For example, a vice-president’s needs were given highest priority, while support to

consultants was given strictly in accordance to seniority of the person requesting assistance.

This was reinforced by the format of local telephone lists drawn up by these support staff. The lists were arranged according to the group each personal assistant supported. Each group

member was listed in order of seniority, vice-president at the top (in bold type), followed by

the next most senior person, and so on. The rank of each person was clearly indicated after his

or her name, i.e. (D) or (SC) etc.

Above the level of support staff were seven levels of seniority for consultants. The top

three levels were executive levels. Each level had different performance targets, salary levels,

and authority. At the most junior level, a consultant who wanted to be promoted wasexpected to work at 110% utilisation or more, be prepared to travel whenever and wherever

the firm required, and to exceed all performance targets. Most were young, recent university

graduates and often without any personal attachments. By way of comparison, a vice-president

was expected to work at 60% utilisation but achieve million dollar sales targets. To put this

further in perspective, a vice-president’s salary might be 5-8 times that of the most junior

consultant. The latter would have to work hard to cover the lower utilisation ratio of a vice-

president. Not surprisingly, the incentive to rise up the consultant ranks was high.

Promotion to director-level required a person to demonstrate exceptional performance,

and needed consensus agreement from the group of directors and vice-presidents at a

management roundtable. The experience of accepting a new member to the group was

emotionally-charged, as illustrated in Case Vignette 1 (p. 131) when group members were told

to ‘Imagine this person sitting here with us next year!’ This was the one time during the day

when everyone was in the room. It was clearly too important a decision to be absent from

making. The call ‘to imagine’ invoked the group-in-the mind but without explicitly saying what





this was. For a short time, the group became vividly real; members identified emotionally with

the possible catastrophic change arising from the entry of new members. The fact very few

were accepted suggests that change was felt to be destructive.

The Area Director was held accountable for A-NZ’s business performance. He reported

to corporate management in the European headquarters. Decisions on overall business

strategies were made by the Board of Top Twins. The A-NZ executive management team

implemented these strategies within local area operations.

Staff members referred to the hierarchy as ‘the real structure of power and influence’,

while executive management denied that any such hierarchy existed. Connections created in

this hierarchical structure were political ones of power and influence. Success in securing large

business deals bred power. Power was manifested in having the ‘pick of the plum clients’, the

ability to demand the best and brightest consultants to a project team, and personal

relationships within the top levels of industry. Ambitious junior consultants aligned

themselves with those directors and vice-presidents perceived to be more powerful.

To a large degree the phenomenal and normative structures complemented each other,

in that they helped an individual consultant locate profitable service lines and industries,

helped identify the individuals assigned to these, and then the hierarchy helped identify the

senior, powerful vice-presidents or directors. Canny consultants quickly figured out that high

performance ratings depended on high utilisation and ensured they were committed to viable

projects. They learnt which service lines were more successful than others and therefore

which vice-presidents and directors to approach for ‘mentoring’. I suggest the connecting

structure of the firm was based predominantly on political connections. Strong political

connections enabled an individual to exert power and influence over available consulting

resources, even to the extent of pulling staff out of one project to go work on another. A

lower ranking consultant with good political connections could ensure he or she was assigned

to profitable projects, or where performance rewards were assured.

But not all consultants were driven to exceed performance expectations. Most of these

were women, often with dependent children. However, it was still in their interests to align

themselves to powerful mentors who would support their special needs. Ultimately, it was a

matter of survival. A consultant without a powerful mentor was more likely to be ‘on the

bench’, unemployed, and at risk of not meeting performance targets.











Counsellors received no training for their role. The structure or space for learning and

sharing experiences was determined by each family head, but none was observed in the

research. It seemed that the primary focus of counselling families was on individual

performance management. For all staff members, individual work performance was assessed

by someone outside their direct work group. Typically, this might be a consultant or senior

consultant being groomed to take on greater responsibilities. Executives reasoned that this

separation was to avoid the risk of having ‘a passionate advocate’ whose views were not

tempered by an objective perspective. A vice-president explained it thus:

…one of the risks that, one of the things that go wrong when you have counsellees all onthe same team is that you tend to find certain people will say, … “you are only getting one view”, whereas if there is a service line leader who is disconnected from its ( sic )

people you get 2 independent views, and sometimes this causes counselling behaviours which are driven by sponsorship or the reverse and I hope that we don’t go too muchback to that because there were problems with that.

[Can you give me an example?]

Yeah, I mean there would be a particular individual who is the leader of a service lineteam who would either be extremely protective of his people or may take it against one of his people. Mostly being protective and so at the roundtables if the service line leader wasalso the counsellor you would only get one voice speaking and that may be overprotective or over sponsoring or something like that.

[So it sounds like the tie might become too close and people may view that with somesuspicion, that it may not be able to keep some distance?]

Yes

[So, perhaps there is a bit more, because quite a few thoughts are going around in my mind on how close a connection is seen as appropriate or not, and what theconsequences of that is. So you’re suggesting that if that is all a bit too close perhapsperformance couldn’t be judged objectively, that’s not your word]

If it’s too close with only one data point it doesn’t matter to me, if this service line leaderhas a really close relationship with one of the people, but also their counsellor has a closerelationship that is fine but it is when there is a single point that the only person is tooclose and then you get these kind of teams within teams trying to say we are elitist or weare different something like that can cause issues.

You can see at the roundtable there are some really passionate advocates. Some peopleare very good at speaking for their people and others aren’t and it is dangerous if you getto the situation where a passionate advocate is the only data point of a person and thenyou get people whose performance rating is influenced too much by that passionateadvocate. So it is better to have multiple relationships.

A fear of a return of the old-style partnership, where partners clearly sponsored their own

group of consultants before all others, seems also to be present in the above remarks.

However, the cutting-off of a project manager from assessing their team members’ work

performance seems odd, as does the idea that an ‘independent counsellor’ could adequately





engage with experiences of the work. Jaques (1996) views such a disconnection as not in the best

interests of the firm.

Failure to establish clear accountability and authority in working relationships in MAHs is

a major source of suspicion and mistrust, and of stressful interpersonal relationships. Vertical relationships have accountability for the outputs of others, and includes theactivities of coaching subordinates and their appraisal. (p. 76)

I suggest there is an unconscious aspect to the disconnection as well, in that it points to

a resistance to engage with direct experiences of working together.

Performance assessment occurred at six monthly intervals and involved a process

known as ‘performance roundtables’. First, each counselling family held its own ‘roundtable’

attended by the family head and her or his immediate reports, and then all vice-presidents and

directors met, in a roundtable, to review and ratify each of the counselling families’

recommendations. At these meetings junior-level staff members were reviewed before more

senior-level staff, further emphasising the hierarchical nature of the connections between staff

members. As Case Vignette 1 illustrated (p. 131), the process was fraught and highly political.

There and in the following case, group processes appear loosely bounded in time and space,

group members merely asked to report on each counsellee.

In the story which follows, members are not certain about their roles – are they

lieutenants of a secret society or children in a family? Their roles as counsellors seem reduced

to reporting on the competencies of other ‘family members’.

CASE VIGNETTE 3 – COUNSELLING FAMILY REVIEW

Doug Baker’s counselling family performance roundtable is being held at 5 pm in the‘fishbowl meeting room’. There’ll be five people in the room and two others calling in by phone, Robert from South Africa and Chris from Sydney. This is the first time the grouphas met under the ‘new rules for performance roundtables’. Someone in the room refersto the group as ‘consigliore’. Doug refers to the absent family members (those who willbe discussed!) as the ‘siblings’. Already three people have opened their laptops on the

small round table. There are crackers, dips and drinks in the middle of the table andconcern expressed about when the pizzas will arrive. Then the phone rings and everyonelooks at it as Robert begins to speak.

Doug then runs through the list of 28 consultants and asks the relevant counsellor tosummarise the competency ratings for each person and whether the individual is a ‘green,yellow or red’. A ‘green’ means that person is ‘aligned with the company’. ‘Yellow’ meansa person needs special attention to improve his or her alignment. ‘Red’ means ‘exit’, andthe person needs to be ‘counselled out’. Ratings have to be supported by factual evidence,but the alignment indicators only need to be stated without further justification.





At one stage, one of the laptops goes into a sound-loop of fish noises – the owner is toldto turn off his screen-saver. Someone asks if they can give some feedback on the process,but Doug says not to bother, ‘it will be different next year, when it goes global’. By 8 pmthe formal part is over, the phone calls are disconnected and the group now begins tochat. They have till tomorrow morning to finalise the documentation. Not much time!

Doug Baker’s counselling family was closely studied in the research. His leadership

and support of the group’s task and role was seen by several others as exemplary. He

interpreted his task as ‘providing opportunities for group members to meet and get to know

each other’. The group only met socially – e.g. for dinner, participating in team events such as

marathon-runs or ‘Walk against Want’, or activities which involved everyone’s personal

families such as Christmas celebrations. Doug himself was a senior and influential member of

the A-NZ operations. He interpreted his role as a counselling family head to mean facilitating

personal and social connections amongst members of his family. Even when engaged in the

task of performance review, he provided a social atmosphere for the work.

Counselling families became the site of a clash between the cultures of the old

partnership structure and the new corporate structure of individual accountabilities. Into the

counselling family structure was projected:

• the wish for group affiliation (which the old culture valued);

• management of individual accountability (a value of the new culture);

• a surrogate structure of power for vice-presidents and directors (who had been

‘partners and principals’ in the old culture) by appointing them Heads of

Counselling Families. As partners they previously led a ‘group of consultants’ on an

autonomous basis, but now they were accountable to ‘Paris’, not to their peers. Nor

were they in the same positions of power, if at all.

To all appearances, counselling families continued a structure that gave ex-partners and

principals a group to lead, manage and support. However, the counselling families had no

formal direct role in performing the primary task of the organisation and were therefore

empty of power and purpose. Their authority was limited to approving staff performance

recommendations. In the main, counselling family leaders needed to draw on their personal

authority to create a meaningful role for themselves (Gould, 1993). It is little wonder that

many ‘family heads’ could make no sense of their role, or did nothing to bring their groups

together, or turned it into something else altogether, such as a social group.






Chapter 7, Connecting to the Enterprise 143

• 7 • Connecting

to the Enterprise

Drawing made by an administrative support staff member

In this chapter, I discuss case material on employees’ experiences of connecting and

disconnecting to the enterprise. It includes information provided to the firm in the interim

research report on results of investigating the three questions executive management wanted

to have answered, ‘What attracts staff to work here? What makes them stay?, and What makes

them leave?’ The discussion on these and other issues of connecting to the enterprise is

structured in three sections, joining the organisation, task performance, and leaving the firm.

I argue that in all these areas, personal connections are the most important for connecting

individuals to the enterprise.





Connecting, remaining connected, and disconnecting

The research enquiry contributed to A-NZ management’s understanding of what

attracted staff to the firm, what induced them to stay, and what made them leave. Theseaspects can be understood to relate to three key experiences for individual employees: entry to

the organisation, performing in role, and disconnecting from the organisation. They form the

framework for the following discussion on connections and disconnections to the enterprise.

Joining the organisation

Many interviewees talked about the personal connections they had within the firm

before they started work there. This was particularly so for ‘experienced hires’. They felt

personally invited to join the organisation. For these employees and those who began their

careers in consulting immediately on graduation, the reasons for choosing Top Twins above

other firms was based on a feeling that people working at Top Twins were friendlier and more

welcoming. Some interviewees talked about their anticipation of feeling connected to people,

and that the work itself appeared to offer participation and belonging.

Once individuals had started on the job, actual experiences varied a great deal from

what had been anticipated.

A young and ambitious consultant spoke of having been in the firm for only two days

before being sent on an interstate assignment for twelve months. From Monday to Friday

every week he worked away from home. On Saturdays he went in to his ‘home office’ to

collect organisational mail and catch up on emails. Presumably Sunday was his one day off. He

was married and his wife did not travel with him. He stated, ‘I belong to the project charter’.

Another consultant was hired for her considerable project management experience. She

began her employment by ‘being on the bench for a few weeks; it was quite difficult … not

having something productive to do.’ Then, ‘My first assignment left me on a client site for 14

months. I felt more connected to the client, where I formed relationships and friendships.’

New employees participated in a ‘new starters’ program within the first three months of

their joining the firm. This three-day program introduced them to other new staff members

and workplace practices. But not all participated. Once on assignment with a client, there was

no opportunity to take time out from project work. For those who did participate however,

they reported positive experiences of forming bonds with other ‘new starters’.





Those staff members who had been employed for several years reported quite different

experiences about their induction to the organisation. They talked of being assigned to work

in a stable project team, or of a home office group who worked together on many different

projects. They had experienced forming strong bonds with group members, and remained in

contact with them over the years. They often remarked on how these friendships provided

them with an emotional connection that helped contain current insecurities, organisational

changes and associated mayhem.

For everyone, the early weeks in the firm were a formative connecting experience.

Those who had a positive initial connection felt more robust and resilient to deal with

negative experiences of the firm. This is akin to the quality of a child’s formative primary

relationships – if these are ‘good enough’, the child develops capacity to manage difficult

emotions and experiences (Winnicott, 1965).

A difference in the experiences between long-time employees and those who had joined

in recent times reflects the changes in the organisation and its enterprise. When business had

been more stable and growing, workgroups and task structures were equally so. As the

business environment became more volatile, so did internal structures and operations. Those

employees with only the latter experience of the enterprise, felt little containment of their

needs for, and anxieties about, connecting with colleagues and work.

A support staff member spoke of her initial impressions as ‘feeling overwhelmed’.

You are sitting there and you don’t know what is going on. There are all these peoplearound you, and they are buzzing around doing their own thing. All these procedures inplace; everything was on a database … I didn’t have a buddy like consultants do. It was

very, very hard – it probably took me a good year to feel comfortable in my job and my role, where to look for things and where to seek out information.

Management claimed to be concerned about ‘connecting people’. Structures and

processes were believed to have been designed to enable ‘affiliation to the firm’. In thefollowing Case Vignette, the experience of a new staff member on her first day of

employment reveals that the organisational induction processes were not focused on

‘connecting people’, but rather, on ensuring that new employees connected with information

systems and administrative processes. They were expected to connect with colleagues and

work group members in their own time, as the Case Vignette illustrates also.





CASE VIGNETTE 4 – CATHERINE’S FIRST DAY

Catherine arrived in Australia four months ago from the UK, having worked for threeyears with Top Twins prior to the merger. She has been recruited by A-NZ areaoperations, at the level of senior manager. Her previous work with Top Twins categorises

her as an ‘experienced hire’. On her first day with A-NZ she will be inducted to localoperations; she happens to be the only ‘new starter’ that day. Rochelle, one of the localHR support staff, is responsible for the day’s program.

The day begins at 9 am, but Catherine does not arrive until 9:15 am; she gives no reasonsfor her delay to Rochelle. Later she tells of having met her project team leader at 8 am fora coffee and chat. The significance of this becomes apparent later in the day.

Rochelle begins by welcoming Catherine, giving an outline of the day and a folder of company information – a ‘New Starter’s Pack’. She then leaves Catherine by herself to fillout various administrative forms. Soon after 10 am Rochelle returns to give Catherine atour of the office layout and facilities. The office is set-up as an open-plan, the only rooms capable of being closed off are marked as meeting rooms. Even management must

sit out in the open-space, albeit with taller partitioning around them.During the tour, Catherine was introduced to her ‘buddy’, Nicholas, whose role it was tosupport Catherine during her first three months. They were scheduled to have lunchtogether later. The tour was soon over. Rochelle left Catherine ‘to read through thematerial’ before her luncheon appointment. With ‘time to kill’, Catherine decides to havea coffee in the staff tea-room. It overlooks the roof-top tennis courts, but she had notbeen told where the entrance to the courts were, or where the racquets were stored. Shecould see a couple of people playing tennis. The tea-room had all the latest gadgets – automatic coffee machine, environmental waste bins, sensor-controlled water faucets – but no signs as to how to operate anything or where to find cups and utensils. After somefishing about, Catherine had pretty much worked out what was where and how it worked.

As she sat sipping her coffee, a woman (Anne) came in and introduced herself toCatherine. Anne is interested in Catherine’s reactions so far and explains that there hasbeen lots of changes in the past couple of years, and that people aren’t as emotionally connected as they used to be. Rochelle joins them. She informs Catherine that Monday is‘cake day’; when cakes are brought in as a celebration for all those staff who have abirthday in that week. ‘Too bad if it’s your own birthday and you’re working off-site’, saysCatherine. Rochelle tells about all the staff changes and the difficulty of keeping up withthem all; she wants to create a photoboard, but doesn’t know where to put it, perhaps thefridge door? She then talks about ‘toilet training’ and how all the important notices areput on the inside of toilet doors, ‘because nobody misses those!’

Catherine is concerned about what desk she will get. She has noticed that there are twosizes; she wants a larger size – ‘a big lily-pad, with a taller screen around it’. There is adesk she has her eye on but doesn’t know if it is taken already, or is part of the ‘hot-desking pool’. Rochelle is unable to help with this. Earlier, during the tour, Catherine hadremarked on a desk-space surrounded by two solid screens, ‘the office you have whenyou haven’t got one’. Rochelle responds with, ‘Some people can’t let go.’ However,Catherine decides the office is funky and that she will have to ensure that her clothing doesn’t clash with the interior décor! By now it is time for lunch with her ‘buddy’.

Nicholas takes her to a nearby café. They talk of their experiences of working for Top Twins in the UK and Australia. Catherine feels some misgivings about what she hears,but it is good to be connecting with a colleague.

After lunch, at 2:30 pm Catherine is issued with her laptop. The local Office Manager,Kerry, accompanies her to the IT support team where Catherine is given a quick tenminute run-through of what’s on the machine and how to connect. She then returns to





the induction meeting room to await Heather, the Project Resources Manager, butHeather is not available as scheduled, so Catherine has more time to kill. She is feeling frustrated with the slowness of the day and about how much of it is devoted to‘administrative stuff’. She would have liked to have met with her project team first and‘done all this admin. stuff more quickly, later in the day’. She is pleased she took theinitiative to meet with the project leader early this morning.

Her frustrations build; she was told of the one week-long training program ‘Onboarding’that begins next week but has been told she cannot attend ‘because she needs to havebeen in the organisation at least four weeks’. When she negotiated her employmentcontract she was told that her needs for a week’s unpaid leave and payment of fees for aprofessional development course could not be supported. She feels ‘palmed off, no-one ismaking decisions, HR is rigid, and authority is fuzzy’.

Her day ends with another tour of the office. This time she meets the sales team, but by now she feels enervated by the waiting around and lack of interaction with her colleagueson the project team. The connections have all been administrative, and then mostly topaperwork and systems. It has not been a good start.

Induction is an important connecting process between the individual and the firm. It is

a primary connection to the organisation, and a container for the meeting between

organisation and the individual. If it fails to contain, or to provide the positive connection that

is desired and needed, it is likely to set up an ongoing failed connection, as for example that

experienced by the project manager who had formed a strong connection with a client

organisation. Without a positive connection to the organisation and little opportunity to form

personal connections with colleagues, consultants in particular reported higher levels of

isolation and reliance on personal relationships outside of work. This may explain some of the

reason for the firm’s 30% staff turnover. As one consultant put it,

We used to have induction, now we are on-boarding. The ‘enable’ thing is coming in, what used to be called support services. It’s like a travel ticket – find your home and off you go, enjoy the ride. But, I’m not connected to you, so once you are in your cabin youcan zoom off.

Employees could not expect much emotional and personal support from the

organisation to help them in their transition to a new job, work role and colleagues. A negative

entry to the organisation seemed difficult to overcome and left individuals feeling isolated andbereft of having formed relationships which could support them. Yet, many stayed to endure

the vicissitudes of the organisation. What kept them there? The experience of doing the work

suggests there was much anxiety present, alongside personal satisfaction.

Task performance

Why did people choose to stay employed at Top Twins? Many interviewees said they

stayed for the career opportunities – rapid advancement, travel, interesting assignments – and

for feeling valued . This was also coined as, ‘feeling I fit in’. Feeling valued meant having positive





performance ratings, being on the job rather than on the bench, and feeling that one’s

personal assessment of value to the organisation was aligned with the organisation’s

assessment.

Next to feeling valued, interviewees mentioned universally ‘the people ’ as a significant

factor for keeping them at Top Twins. Personal relationships were viewed as very important,

confirmed by other statements of feeling personally connected to others in the firm, or being

a part of a group of relationships. Such a group was typically informal, formed from shared

experiences of working together interstate, or a long-term project which had a stable team.

The frontline of the enterprise was its consultants. They were the visible performers of

the organisational primary task. Project teams provided the container for their work. Since the

work was performed on-site at clients’ workplaces, it was also a public performance –

consultants sat amongst client staff, occupied office space, were members of client project

teams, and, to an outsider, indistinguishable from other employees or contractors.

Despite the positive comments as to why individuals chose to stay at Top Twins,

interviews, drawings and workplace observations revealed client-consultant interactions filled

with projected anxieties, hopes and desires. Top Twins’ management wanted to develop

mutually dependent relationships with clients, for this would generate stability. Meanwhile,

consultants had to deal with clients’ hostility directed at that dependency.

We have certainly been on the receiving end of a lot of negative things outside the[project] group … one of the strongest reasons for that are that people within the [client]company say, ‘We don’t need these outsiders, why can’t we do it?’ ( senior manager )

Consultants experienced the envy of client staff who resented the cost to the firm of

well-paid consultants who were brought in to ‘fill the skill set gaps’. This possibly engendered

feelings among client staff members of not feeling ‘good enough’. Some Top Twins’ staff, on

the other hand, expressed contempt for clients.

Clients aren’t sophisticated enough to understand how to implement, or they think they can do it themselves ( vice-president ).

Many junior consultants were recent university graduates. They had to deal with

perceptions about their skills and expertise.

We are hired on the basis that our skills and expertise is what is needed in a project, … itis not easy getting through it … realising I don’t have that knowledge and fumbling my

way through every now and then. If I want help, I have to ask for it ... from my teamleader or a more experienced colleague ( consultant ).







All consultants were given a personal laptop computer which they used on client sites,

at home and in Top Twins’ offices. Connecting to the organisation could only be effected at

home or at Top Twins. This meant consultants used personal time to catch up with

organisational news.

Individual consultants were expected to manage multiple expectations of clients, project

managers and the organisation. When these felt impossible, unworkable or even unethical,

consultants often felt stuck. They felt a lack of support, and would resort to dramatic

measures. One individual threatened to resign. Instead of trying to understand or resolve the

problem, their service line leader moved the individual to another team and a new person

replaced them. Another consultant had performed well in a difficult assignment and was

‘rewarded’ by being sent in alone to ‘fix up some-one else’s mess’.

People were expecting me to resolve issues and make decisions but no-one ever gave methe authority to do that. I found it a very stressful and difficult time. I will quite openly say that I didn’t have any authority to make decisions, but was expected to have controlover the situation, which is outrageous. ( senior consultant )

The pattern of these experiences changed between phase one and two of the research.

In phase one and the first round of interviews, consultants often talked about the experience

of travelling a lot, being away from home, and the pressure this placed on their personal

relationships. When they worked as part of a team whose members were also travelling and working far from home, they formed a connection around this shared experience. This was

often spoken about positively. As the following story illustrates, the experience of being part

of a project team was filled also with ambiguities, uncertainty and anxieties.

CASE VIGNETTE 5 – THE PROJECT TEAM LEADERS’ MEETING

Judy has been recently assigned to the BD Project, so she’s still catching up with who’s who and what stage the project is at. BD is the client, and it’s a big project; over 10project teams are working on it. It will take at least three years and it’s been going sixmonths already. Perhaps because she still is new on the team, she looks forward to going to this week’s project team leaders’ meeting. She has been asked to represent her team.It’s one of the smaller teams, known as the FUN team (its proper name is FunctionalUnit Costing, presumably FUC for short thinks Judy, but no-one wants to say that).

The meeting is scheduled for every Monday morning at 11 am. Judy arrives on time; shemeets Mark on the way up in the lift and says hello, but he doesn’t seem to recognise her.Funny, they only met last week. Mark is on Caroline’s team. It’s been hard to rememberall the faces and names, especially when there seem to be new ones each week.

She’s the first to arrive. Not long after she sat down, Mark comes into the room and says,‘Caroline is in another meeting. She says to tell you that the meeting won’t start foranother half hour.’ ‘Oh,’ Judy feels flummoxed, and annoyed at not having been toldearlier. She could have kept on working at her desk if she’d known that. Now she’ll have

to fill in time. She decides to get a coffee. By 11:30 am she returns to the meeting room.













The reference to Andersen’s suggests that organisational anxieties are becoming

projected externally and that a projective identification has occurred with a ‘failed business’,

one in fact that has been destroyed by management decisions related to professional auditing

practices. The anxiety expressed about management not caring about people and this being

linked to judgement of a person’s competence, is given further expression in the firm’s policy

that an individual is responsible for ‘poor performance’, and does not involve the project

team.

Thus, work performance was a matter for the individual to manage, and poor

performance was a matter between the firm and the individual (not between a team leader and

the individual as might be expected). Staff members sacked for poor performance were quietly

‘exited’ without any farewell. However, ‘everyone knows they are sacked’, said one senior

manager, as was the case of the second Area Director, known to have been sacked after eight

months for ‘failing to perform’ ( ibid ).

Redundancies were another matter. Redundancies could be said to reflect on the firm’s

own performance, that it may ‘need improvement’ or had demonstrated poor performance.

The executive in charge of the Melbourne office reflected as much when recalling

management decisions during this period.

I look at redundancies as essentially failure on our part, the leaders. We have not beensmart enough, clever enough to anticipate the market, to train them, or counsel them out,or do whatever to respond more quickly. … I think it is a failure on the part of theorganisation. Redundancies are a failure of the leadership of the organisation because thatmeans you weren’t managing properly. If we’d been smart and listened to the marketplaceand not our own propaganda, though that’s a bit harsh. We came to a cliff face and that

was bad. ( vice-president )

The first round of redundancies announced at the end of Phase 1 (June 2001) was

experienced as a shock, ‘…people had been sacked before for incompetence, but not as a

cost-cutting exercise’ ( senior consultant ). It was announced by email at the time that 55 people

would be retrenched; no-one knew if they would be one of the 55, and a mad scramble for

project assignments ensued. For the first time that anyone could recall, people felt insecure. In

May 2002, recruitment had ceased, and more staff were leaving the firm. Their departures

were observed to be devoid of any public ceremony for the individuals concerned.

Nobody organised farewells for those who left, unless they organised something for

themselves. Kerry, a local office manager commented that she ‘felt indifferent about the

turnover of staff – oh, another one gone; I barely have time to get to know some and then




they are gone’. The inability to mourn is a critical dynamic of a psychotic kind of organisation

(Sievers, 1999).

Later that month, in the weekly staff email to ‘the A-NZ team’ from ‘the business’, it

was noted that ‘not everyone was helping to reduce the “unnecessary noise” on the email

channels … emails were being sent to everyone on topics such as births, invites, resignations

and … you name it, someone always thinks it needs to be said in an email!’

( b2e newsletter , 24 May 2002). This is the corporate voice of the firm, appearing to say that

personal experiences were unnecessary noise and wanting to eliminate these from public

communication channels. It seems also a wish for feelings to just go away, to avoid and

dismiss the reality of what it meant to the firm that staff members were leaving. The

significance was that high numbers of staff departures pointed to a downturn in business, and

to anxieties about surviving the downturn.

Notwithstanding this direct plea, individuals continued to send broadcast emails about

their last day at work, and to invite all who could to come along to ‘farewell drinks, this

Friday, at …’ As if there was a desire to recognise the disconnection and its importance at an

individual level.

Concluding remarksI present evidence that indicates personal connections were the most important feature for

individuals joining the firm and wanting to remain employed there. Once employed, staff

members experienced their connection to the firm as chaotic and fluid. They felt unsupported

generally in dealing with the chaos. Under such circumstances, strong personal connections

sustained them through the turbulence of the work environment.

Staff departures invoked anxieties which were actively deflected or denied by the

organisation and individuals. I suggest that ‘disconnecting’ from the firm reveals a

management not openly engaging with the emotional aspects of staff members’ experiences,

and the implications for the enterprise

Documents

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