La Résistance: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Courpasson’s reflections on resistance raise a number of points that I would like to explore by comparing his contemporary example of resistance through an Internet blog with the “classic” example of French Resistance to the German Occupation during the Second World War. The term resistance comes from the French word résistance, and its use often conjures up images of French résistants fighting their occupiers. Jackson (2001) argues that “creating resistance involved creating the idea of the Resistance” (p. 365). It is this very act of creation—or, to be more precise—the countless acts of co-construction from which the French Resistance emerged, that makes it relevant to contemporary resistance. I will first provide a brief summary of key developments associated with Resistance in France, and then compare them with the experience of the bloggers to highlight the diverse nature of resistant identities, the precarious nature of the resistant organization, and the ambiguous meaning of resistance

Using Content, Context, and Process to Manage University Cutbacks

Funding and enrolment problems have led to recommendations for more strategic planning in universities. The traditional model of strategy making may not be appropriate, however, because it focuses on the content of strategies and ignores other elements in the strategy making process. Universities are very much constrained in terms of their choice of retrenchment strategy - they cannot fire tenured staff or close faculties in the way a business can shut down factories and lay off employees. A second problem is that the traditional model defines success purely in economic terms whereas universities can be effective only if they maintain morale and commitment. Thus, success involves a political component. Two Canadian universities faced with retrenchment are compared to show that, while the same cutback mechanisms were used, the process of implementing them was quite different. The result was similar economic outcomes but great variation in political terms. The article argues that the key to success is matching the content of the strategy with a process of implementation that is consistent with the particular university context. Thus, successful retrenchment strategy making may look different in different institutions.Les problèmes de financement et d'insciption ont mené à une planification plus stratégique dans les universités. Le modèle traditionnel de processus de planification stratégique, qui est centré sur le contenu des stratégies et ne tient pas compte des autres éléments du processus d'élaboration, pose deux problèmes aux universités. Premièrement, les universités ont de sérieuses contraintes en ce qui touche leur choix de stratégie pour la réduction des dépenses. Contrairement au monde des affaires où la fermeture d'usines et la mise à pied du personnel est chose courante, les universités ne peuvent pas renvoyer le personnel permanent ou fermer des facultés. Deuxièmement, selon le modèle traditionnel le succès est basé uniquement sur des questions économiques; pour les universités cependant, il s'agit plutôt de maintenir le moral et de remplir une mission. Pour elles, le succès a donc une composante politique. La comparaison de deux universités canadien-nes confrontées à des restrictions budgétaires a permis de montrer que bien qu'elles utilisent les mêmes mécanismes, leurs procédés respectifs d'implantation de ces mesures étaient fort différents. Il en a résulté des fins économiques semblables mais un grand écart sur le plan politique. Dans cet article, on essaie de prouver que la clé du succès est d'harmoniser le contenu de la stratégie avec un processus d'implantation qui respecte le contexte particulier d'une université. Et que, par conséquent, l'élaboration d'une stratégie de restriction budgétaire réussie peut varier d'une université à l'autre

We have not lived long enough: sensemaking and learning from bushfire in Australia

Organizations increasingly find themselves responding to unprecedented natural disasters that are experienced as complex, unpredictable, and harmful. We examine how organizations make sense and learn from these novel experiences by examining three Australian bushfires. We show how sensemaking and learning occurred during the public inquiries that followed these events, as well as how learning continued afterward with the help of “learning cues.” We propose a model that links public inquiry activities to changes in organizational practices. Given the interesting times in which we live, this model has important implications for future research on how new organizational practices can be enacted after public inquiries have concluded their work

Discourse in a material world

We challenge recent assertions that discourse studies cannot de facto address materiality. We demonstrate how a Foucauldian theorization of discourse provides a way to analyse the co‐constitutive nature of discursive and material processes, as well as explore the power relations implicated in these relationships. To illustrate our argument, we identify exemplary studies that have effectively combined a study of discourse and different aspects of materiality – bodies, objects, spaces, and practices. In doing so, we show how discourse scholars are able to study both materiality and power relations

Organizing risk: discourse, power, and 'riskification'

Drawing on the work of Foucault, we develop an integrated framework for understanding how risk is organized in three different modes: prospectively, in real time, and retrospectively. We show how these modes are situated in a dominant discourse of risk that leads organizations to normalize risk in particular ways by privileging certain forms of knowledge and authorizing certain risk identities over others. In addition to identifying the common way risk is organized in each mode and showing how it is held in place by the dominant discourse, we propose alternative ways to organize risk that resist this dominant discourse, and we explain why they are difficult to enact. We then extend our analysis by theorizing how, even when it occurs, resistance to the dominant discourse of risk can contribute to “riskification,” with more and more organizing undertaken in the name of risk because of intensification, discipline, and governmentality

Organizations, risk translation, and the ecology of risks: the discursive construction of a novel risk

The contemporary ‘risk society’ is associated with the emergence of a wide range of risks characterised by uncertainty and unfamiliarity. These ‘novel’ risks pose a major challenge for organizations: their negative effects may be significant, but prevailing risk assessment techniques are limited in their ability to identify them. Building on our prior work on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), this study examines how organizations deal with novel risks. It finds that organizations engage in ‘risk translation’ by translating equivocality associated with the novel risk into more familiar risks, which provide them with a clearer basis and guide for action. As organizations take actions to manage these translated risks, an ‘ecology of risks’ evolves which, over time, allows for the construction of a novel risk. The study contributes to research on organizing and risk by theorizing how organizations respond to novel risks, as well as by highlighting the role of translated organizational risks in constructing novel risks and shaping societal responses to grand challenges

Post-Inquiry sensemaking: the case of the 'Black Saturday' bushfires

We examine post-inquiry sensemaking by emergency management practitioners following an inquiry into the most damaging bushfire disaster in Australia’s history. We theorize a model of post-inquiry sensemaking with four distinct but overlapping phases during which sensemaking becomes more prospective over time. In addition to providing important insights into what has, hitherto, been a neglected arena for sensemaking studies, i.e. post-inquiry sensemaking, we contribute to the understanding of sensemaking more generally. Specifically, we show the complex nature of the relationship between sensemaking and equivocality, explain how multiple frames enhance sensemaking, and explore temporality in sensemaking over time

Discourse analysis and content analysis: Two solitudes?

In this essay, we outline the key features of discourse analysis, contrast it with content analysis, and then consider the extent to which these two methods can be seen as either complementary to, or in conflict with, each other. Our underlying premise is pluralist in that while we recognize that these two methods are based in very different philosophical camps and play very different roles in social science research, we also believe that they can be seen as complementary and even mutually supportive in the exploration of social reality. Furthermore, given the recent “linguistic turn” in social science and the related increasing interest in the study of texts of various kinds, the contrast between these two methods provides a particularly useful context in which to discuss assumptions about the nature of language and the role of linguistic methods in social research