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From the eyes of change:
Writing macro organizational shifts
into theories of organization
Masoud Shadnam
July 2015
Folk Reputation of Theory
Theory• Theory versus Practical• “There is nothing so practical as a good theory”
Kurt Lewin
• Theory versus Empirical• Theory is not free-floating products of imagination;
rather, it is closely intertwined with the empirical
• “organization theory as the queen of the social sciences, uniquely able to explain the dominant social structures of our times”
Davis & Marquis, 2005
Theories of organization
• Contingency theories• Economic theories: Transaction-cost; Agency
theory• Resource-based theories• Institutional theories• Ecological theories
These theories have all been developed during 1960s and 1970s!
Awareness and Response
• “… organizational research can sometimes appear like a living museum of the 1970s”
Gerald F. Davis, 2010
• Academy of Management Review (AMR) published a special topic forum on “Where are the new theories of organization?”
April 2011
• Several articles since then have provided plenty of proposals to break out of the deadlock
This is the conversation to which I aim to contribute
Post-positivism• “all scientific development is a two-tiered
process, propelled as much by theoretical as by empirical argument”
Alexander, 1982: 30
• Theorizing as two performative acts:o Reading the external reality as a text from the eyes of
existing theorieso Writing theories as a text for a specific audience, mostly for
academics in the same field
Two Models for Developing New Theories of
Organization• The current suggestions fall under the following
two models:
Theories New Theorie
s
New Organization
al Reality
Organization
al Reality
Time
Rereading
WritingTheories New
Theories
New Organization
al Reality
Organization
al Reality
Time
Reading Writing
Model 1 Model 2
An Alternative Model• Our proposed model:
Theories New Theorie
s
New Organization
al Reality
Organization
al Reality
Time
Reading Writing
Model 3
Macro Organizational
Shift
Historical Examples• Although the proposed third model is an unusual,
marginal practice in today organization studies, it has historically been used to develop many of the renowned theories in social sciences
Economic and Social Theories
Marxist Theorie
s
New RealityReality
Time
Reading Writing
Marx
Capitalism
Social and Political Theories
Weberian
Theories
New RealityReality
Time
Reading Writing
Weber
Modernity
Examples in Organization Research
Theories New Theorie
s
New Organization
al Reality
Organization
al Reality
Time
Reading Writing
Agency Theory
Separation of ownership and
control
Theories New Theorie
s
New Organization
al Reality
Organization
al Reality
Time
Reading Writing
Institutional Theory
Domination of rationalized
myths
Comparison between Models
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Object of reading
Theories Present organizational reality
Shifts of organizational reality
Object of writing
Non-empirical refinements of past theories
Empirical refinements of past theories
New theories (transformed from past theories)
Connection of new theories with the external reality
Weak Strong Strong
Reception of new theories in the academic community
Easy Hard Easy
Illustration: Textualization
• Organizational members are expected to engage in producing, disseminating, and consuming myriad texts, both spoken and written, in a manner far beyond the traditional boundaries of their jobo Regimes of participative management with several kinds
of talks and meetings to reflect upon the work and suggest adjustments or changes in the work processes
o Empowered employees and self-managing teams that screen and digest large amounts of readily available text on internet and intranets in search of solutions to their problems
o Open communication with others who are not necessarily your coworkers regarding your concerns, issues, opinions, and suggestions
Institutional Theory• Explaining the dynamics of organizational forms through
embedding the organizations in an institutional contexto Rather than explaining through the more customary examinations of the
managers’ objectives, beliefs, styles, motivations, and their conscious decision making process
• It showed how seemingly rational decisions of smart top executives can be predicted by stepping back and looking at the myths and meanings in their institutional environment
• This theory could very well describe the organizational reality of its time, which was observed as organizations operating in the same field over time become structurally similar (isomorphism)
Writing Textualization into Institutional
Theory• All the continuous textualizing that oblige organizational
members to constantly reflect upon processes and structures and courageously try out alternatives has led organizational forms to become highly unstable, fluid, and flexible
• The access of organizational members to the world of meanings is no longer primarily through interactions with actors in the same field; rather, it is through their access to numerous texts of various sorts from diverse geographical and historical sources => Isomorphism is increasingly giving way to variation and heterogeneity
• Access to a way larger pool of texts has heterogenized the sources of rationality and legitimacy
Toward a New Theory• Textualization has changed patterns of
communication, which in turn have changed patterns of the social processes that constitute organizational reality
• The new theory has to highlighto Textualizing and silencing practiceso Distribution channels of textso The ways that texts influence other texts
Conclusion• A red flag about the stagnation of organization
studies with respect to shortage of new theories
• The proposals that have been suggested in response to this red flag are categorized into two models
• I articulated a third model with promising potentials to complement the other two models
• The core idea of the third model: Reading shifts of the organizational reality and writing them into existing theories of organization
