Conceptualising Organizations

Conceptualising Organizations - some introductory reflections

Organizations, organizing and managing have been conceptualized in many conflicting ways. Each way defines reality according to value-laden assumptions and invites its consumers to think and act in accordance with its prejudices/insights. When understood like this, it is difficult to divorce knowledge from politics as competing knowledge/truth claims are seen to be both partial and contested.

Positively, the diversity of conceptualizations can be viewed as a means of enriching our limited understandings of organizations and organizing. They provide different `lenses' with which to make sense of the world. Some commentators have claimed that they can be combined to create a more comprehensive or exhaustive picture or understanding. But this claim is suspect as it assumes that we can occupy an impartial position from which to evaluate their accuracy.

Negatively, the diversity is chaotic and bewildering - a Babel of conflicting voices that simply relativise each competing claim. Less nihilistically, this Babel may be heard to offer a plurality of views that is an invaluable resource for articulating and clarifying our own partial and multiple ways of making sense of the realities of work organizations.

The diversity of ways of conceptualizing organizations provides ways of questioning as well as confirming our prejudices about work and organizing. The challenge, perhaps, is to explore how different conceptualizations resonate and amplify our own preconceptions and proclivities. That way, it becomes possible to know and transform ourselves through our study of the organizations and organizing practices that are sustained and changed through our participation in them.

There are numerous theories of organization and numerous ways of grouping and contrasting these theories within different `schools', `traditions', `perspectives', `paradigms', etc. Jaffee provides one way of characterising key differences by drawing a contrast between `modern' and `postmodern' models of organization :

Contrasting Modern and Postmodern Models of Organization
Modern (logic of standardization)	Postmodern (logic of time-space compression)
Bounded, definable entity	Fuzzy, shifting boundaries.
Division of departments, functions tasks,etc into clearly distinguishable categories	Hybridisation, Flexibilisation
Organizations as instruments designed to accomplish well defined goals	Extended rationalities. Form as important as function
Bureaucracy/Machine as Trope*	Network/Web as Trope*

*Trope : a way of seeing (and therefore also a way of not seeing)

Consider the following extract from Jaffee (p. 290, the final page of the book) where he comments on the relevance and limitations of the postmodern trope :

`There is also the rise of alliances, partnerships, and networks among firms that are not only legally independent but market competitors. As a consequence, vertical forms of integration based on command and control are being replaced by horizontal forms of integration based on collaboration and co-operation. It is important to note that the concept of dedifferentiation is not universally applicable here. Vertical integration, now viewed as a modernist relic, involved its own mode of dedifferentiation by assuming control over a variety of differentiated functions within a single organizational entity. More recently, the shedding of units and the return to core competencies signal a return to specialised differentiation as well as a need to manage expanding interorganizational interdependencies. In this context, it is not so much that dedifferentiation takes place among firms but that the forms of differentiation are being managed through relatively unique horizontal or network integration strategies. These strategies tend to blur the boundaries and support notions of boundary dedifferentiation.'

Jaffee makes a number of points :

1. Alliances, partnerships, networks, etc can be interpreted as confirming the relevance of a postmodern conceptualisation of organisations where established divisions are becoming de-differentiated.

2. Alliances, etc. may signify a replacement of vertically structured forms of competition by horizontally structured forms of collaboration

3. Dedifferentiation is not universally applicable. In other words, the postmodern conceptualization has its limits.

a. Dedifferentiation, of a somewhat different kinds, accompanied modernist forms of organization as `control over a variety of differentiated functions [was harnessed] within a single organizational entity'.

b. Outsourcing and an associated focus upon core competencies suggests specialised differentiation, in part to better manage and control complex interorganizational interdependencies

c. It is the perhaps quest for greater focus, control and specialisation that produces the sense of boundary blurring and dedifferentiation

Commentary

These are valuable observations, not least because :

The modern/postmodern distinction is shown to be heuristically useful but limited. Better to understand how elements of `postmodernism' are contained within, and perhaps promoted by `modernism'. Instead of postmodernism, we might be better to think of hypermodernism. See H. Willmott (1992)`Postmodernism and Excellence : The De-differentiation of Economy and Culture', Journal of Organizational Change Management, 5, 1 : 58-68

The relationship between reality and language is touched upon but unexplored. At least a couple of questions are begged:

Do concepts like `modern' and `postmodern' capture reality or do they operate to constitute and legitimise it? Is language politically neutral?

Can we coherently address what Jaffee terms `postmodern periodization' without paying attention to postmodern epistemology?

By postmodern periodization is meant the claim that we can develop reliable, objective knowledge of the contemporary era that tells us unequivocally that there is a shift from the modern to the postmodern era - a shift that is distinguished inter alia by de-differentiation. See Jaffee p. 282. As he puts it, `postmodern periodization' is a product of a way of seeing that `employs an epistemology of modernism [see below] as a means to evaluate and critique modernist assumptions about organizational structure' (p. 282)

By postmodern epistemology is meant an understanding of knowledge production that doubts the view that reality can be captured or made transparent by language. Instead, the reality of `organization' (which is itself recalled to be a construct) - or what reality is ascribed to it - is understood to be the product of a particular perspective that, when deemed to be persuasive, has consequences in terms of actions.

If postmodern epistemology is taken seriously then it significance for the status of `postmodern periodization' cannot be bracketed, as Jaffee is inclined to do. He simply asserts that `The post-modern periodization strand will be the most useful for the purposes of this chapter. It will allow us to make statements based on empirical observations about the changing organizational world' (p. 282).

	What kind of notion of utility is Jaffee appealing to here?
	To what extent does this notion operate to stop thought rather than promote it?

Is Jaffee actually consistent in privileging `postmodern periodization'? Could it be argued that his argument on p. 290 (see bolded extract above) move beyond this view through a critique of its claims, albeit one that appeals to a more adequate (critically realist?) formulation of post-modernism as a new period of organizational formation*?

* Thompson and McHugh appeal to a critical realist epistemology in support of their critique of the kind of postmodern periodization that Jaffee subjects to sceptical scrutiny.

This page was constructed by Hugh Willmott (h.willmott@jims.cam.ac.uk) and last updated on 23/12/03