The Institutionalization of Genocidal Leadership: Pol Pot and a Cambodian Dystopia

© 2015 University of Phoenix. Misleadership is defined as leadership process involving a complex interplay of leader, follower, and situational elements, inscribing a vicious circle of intensifying dysfunctional action. It is tempting to see misleadership as the result of the madness of one leader. It is also misleading. Leadership research has been insufficiently attentive to misleadership and, in particular, to the misleadership factors intervening in genocidal processes. Discussed in the current article are the antecedents and the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s as an extreme case of misleadership. Lessons from the Polpotist dystopia are derived and reflections on possible contra-strategies are presented. In particular, it is suggested that it is necessary to distinguish measures for social change that are admissible and positive, from negative utopian visions that are negative, inadmissible, and facilitative of evil leadership

Organizational zemblanity

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. We introduce the concept of zemblanity to organization studies to refer to the enactment of disaster when, in systems designed to impede risk, key actors nonetheless construct their own misfortune. The case of the Costa Concordia provides an opportunity to discuss organizational zemblanity. Active as well as passive behaviours by the Costa Concordia's Captain created a vicious circle of inappropriate decision-making with traumatic effects. These were complemented by structural elements to be found both in the individual behaviours of others (mainly, the vessel's first line of command) and the lack of other effective organizational controls, both in terms of structures and routines. As our discussion illuminates, there are two overarching elements in play: an excess of individual discretion and a lack of proper organizational controls. We go on to consider the significant implications for both theory and practice that flow from our analysis

An institutional palimpsest? The case of Cambodia’s political order, 1970 and beyond

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. How do continuity and change coexist and coevolve? How does continuity enable change and change reinforce continuity? These are central questions in organizational and political research, as organizational and institutional systems benefit from the presence of both reproduction and transformation. However, the relation between the processes of change and continuity still raises significant questions. To contribute to this discussion, we analyse the coexistence of deep institutional continuity and radical political change in the second half of twentieth-century Cambodia. Over a two-decade period, Cambodia was ruled by radically different political systems of organization: a traditional monarchy with feudal characteristics, a failing republic, a totalitarian communist regime, and a Vietnamese protectorate, before being governed by the UN and finally becoming a constitutional monarchy. We use an historical approach to study how a succession of radical changes may in reality signal deep lines of continuity

Speak! Paradoxical Effects of a Managerial Culture of ‘Speaking Up’

© 2018 British Academy of Management We explore the intrinsic ambiguity of speaking up in a multinational healthcare subsidiary. A culture change initiative, emphasizing learning and agility through encouraging employees to speak up, gave rise to paradoxical effects. Some employees interpreted a managerial tool for improving effectiveness as an invitation to raise challenging points of difference rather than as something ‘beneficial for the organization’. We show that the process of introducing a culture that aims to encourage employees to speak up can produce tensions and contradictions that make various types of organizational paradoxes salient. Telling people to ‘speak up!’ may render paradoxical tensions salient and even foster a sense of low PsySafe

RESEARCH MOVEMENTS AND THEORIZING DYNAMICS IN MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION STUDIES

In this article we propose a conceptual model of the processes that regulate theory selection and retention in Management and Organization Studies. Considering the many sources of theoretical variety that characterize our field, what requires explanation is both the proliferation of theories as well as the decline of some schools of thought. We argue that research programs (ordered sequences of theories) lose momentum when the research movements that develop and maintain them fail to attend to some organizing priorities. By conceptualizing theorizing as form of organizing, we describe how research movements dynamically arrange sociomaterial elements (grammars, thought styles, material artefacts and empirical craft), arguing that their sustainability depends on their capacity effectively to navigate the paradoxical tensions that derive from these organizing efforts.authorsversioninpres

Explaining Suicide in Organizations: Durkheim Revisited

© 2016 W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Drawing on Durkheim's concept of anomie, we address the under-explored phenomenon of anomic suicide in contemporary organizations and discuss the consequences of solidarity for organizations and society. The relations of social solidarity to issues of identity and insecurity are explored through the cases of France Telecom Orange and Foxconn. Remedial implications for organizing, considered as community building, are discussed. Durkheim wrote not only about anomic but also altruistic suicide. We will also analyze examples of this type of suicide. Some tentative suggestions are made for how to organize to minimize the incidence of suicidal violence in organizations

Perceptions of organizational virtuousness and happiness and predictors of organizational citizenship behaviors

Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 93 Issue 2, p214-235Moral and financial scandals emerging in recent years around the world have created the momentum for reconsidering the role of virtuousness in organizational settings. This empirical study seeks to contribute toward maintaining this momentum. We answer to researchers’ suggestions that the exploratory study carried out by Cameron et al. (Am Behav Sci 47(6):766–790, 2004), which related organizational virtuousness (OV) and performance, must be pursued employing their measure of OV in other contexts and in relation to other outcomes (Wright and Goodstein, J Manage 33(6):928–958, 2007). Two hundred and sixteen employees reported their perceptions of OV and their affective well- being (AWB) at work (one of the main indicators of employees’ happiness), their supervisors reporting their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). The main finding is that the perceptions of OV predict some OCB both directly and through the mediating role of AWB. The evidence suggests that OV is worthy of a higher status in the business and organizational psychology lit

The Paradox of the Peasantry in Management and Organization Studies

Purpose – Burrell (2020) challenged management and organization studies (MOS) scholars to pay attention to a topic they have mostly ignored: the peasantry, those 2 billion people that work in the rural primary sector. We address the topic to expand Burrell’s challenge by indicating that the peasantry offers a unique context to study a paradoxical condition: the coexistence of persistent poverty and vanguardist innovation. Approach – We advance conceptual arguments that complement the reasons why researchers should pay more attention to the peasantry. We argue that continuation of past research into field laborers, transitioning from feudalism to industrial capitalism, still has currency, not just because of the good reasons listed by Burrell (enduring relevance of the phenomenon in developing countries; sustainability concerns; acknowledgment of common heritage) but also because some seemingly archaic practices are evident in the economically developed countries where most management and organizations scholars live. Findings – We show that in advanced economies the peasantry has not disappeared, and it is manifest in contradictory forms, as positive force contributing to sustainable productivity (in the case of digitized agriculture) and as a negative legacy of social inequality and exploitation (as form of modern slavery) Originality – We discuss contrasting themes confronting management of the peasantry, namely modern slavery and digital farming, and propose that a paradox view may help overcome unnecessary dualisms which may promote social exclusion rather than integrated development. Keywords: Peasantry, Modern slavery, Digitized agriculture, Management and farming, New space industry.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Understanding pragmatic paradoxes: When contradictions become paralyzing and what to do about it

Copyright © 2022 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University and The Authors. Integration of paradoxes, comprising interdependent yet contradictory tensions such as those of stability and change, learning and performing, or the individual and the collective, have been recently recognized as sources of synergy and competitive advantage. When adequately navigated, paradoxes may promote innovation, favoring generative complementarities. Not all paradoxes, however, have such generative effects. Pragmatic paradoxes, or managerially imposed contradictory demands that must be disobeyed to be obeyed, tend create paralyzing catch-22 situations. Like weeds, pragmatic paradoxes may also grow alongside the generative type. We explore the conditions in which pragmatic paradoxes become invasive in organizations, identify their main characteristics and symptoms, discuss their roots, and recommend potential approaches for their eradication.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UID/ECO/00124/2019, UIDB/00124/2020, Social Sciences DataLab, PINFRA/22209/2016, and UID/GES/00731/2020; UID/GES/00315/2020), POR Lisboa and POR Norte (Social Sciences DataLab, PINFRA/22209/2016)