The Question of Technology, or How Organizations Inscribe the World

The paper relates technology studies to organization research and examines the technology-as-text metaphor. The study of organization is incomplete as long as tangible technology remains in its blind spot. Linguistic metaphors and analogues, while capturing and indeed amplifying much of received understandings of technology, succeed only partially in repairing the situation. The image of the palimpsest is used to highlight this critique and to visualize ways out. Thus, while the paper‚s main concern is to bring back technology to the study of organization, a specific approach to the study of technology is also argued for

Rationality as an Organizational Product

RATIONALITY AS AN ORGANIZATIONALPRODUCTAdministrative Studies, vol 11(1992): 3, 152-162A perspective which conceptualizes organizingas a process of reality construction reveals a possibility of considering rationality not as an organizational attribute but as an organizationalproduct. The focus of organizational studiesshould then shift from examination of rationalityto interpretation of its production. It is arguedthat such a shift would be followed by a changein researchers' main roles: from simplifying andlegitimizing to problematizing and unmasking

Creativity out of chaos

Creativity is said to be highly desired in post-modern and post-industrial organizations Creativity and anarchy on the one hand, and managerialism, on the other, can be seen as different forms of knowledge, two opposed ideals. In many organizational as well as societal reforms we currently observe it is the managerialist ideal that wins over the anarchic. In this paper, we wonder if people fear anarchy? We reflect on the possible reasons for the fear, and we also try to explain why we believe that anarchic organizing should not be avoided or feared

Robotization - Then and Now

Karel Čapek, the Czech author, coined the term “robot” (from “robota”, labor in Slavic languages; “robotnik” means “worker”) in 1920. In his play, R.U.R. - Rossum Universal Robots, artificial humans made of synthetic organic materials were produced and worked in factories and developed lives not very different from those of the people. R.U.R. became a science fiction classic between the wars, and its topics were taken up with great enthusiasm in the 1950s and 1960s. The Cold War found its expression in space competition, among others. Cybernetics and cyborgs seemed to be an inescapable future, initially in space travel, but then in other kinds of industrial production. Already in 1942 Isaac Asimov had formulated his Three Laws of Robotics, meant to constrain humanoid machines to their subordinate place with relation to humans. It was fiction, but has been taken very seriously by AI researchers and others ever since. When the Iron Curtain fell, space travel lost its attractions, but robots entered production processes in many industries. The end of the 1970s had seen the latest of recurring debates about automation, technological unemployment and deskilling, triggered by Braverman’s book (1974), but it had faded out in the 1980s. Now the debate is back. “Robots could take half of the jobs in Germany” is a typical newspaper’s title nowadays. Serious authors write either enthusiastic or dystopic books about robotization (John Searle has recently critically reviewed two from 2014, Floridi’s enthusiastic The Fourth Revolution and Bostrom’s dystopic Superintelligence, protesting that computers will never develop a consciousness). Apparently, we are witnessing a “robot revolution” – or so such serious sources as BofA Merill Lynch investigators claim. In what follows, we first analyze the fears and hopes automation has occasioned, as reflected in popular culture from the coining of the term “robot” to the present media hype. Have such hopes and fears changed, and did the changes reflect actual changes in robotics, or do they remain the same

How to Control Things with Words : Organizational Talk and Control

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Labels, metaphors, and platitudes are linguistic artifacts that organizational leaders produce, steal, borrow, or buy from consultants for a high price. Studies on organizational change indicate that such linguistic artifacts are used as control tools and instruments of change. They enable leaders to manage meaning by explaining, coloring, and familiarizing, as opposed to traditional change and control methods—commanding, rewarding, and punishing. The article analyzes organizational use of linguistic artifacts through theoretical discussion and empirical examples

Power as an experiential concept

Power is not a single social phenomenon. It is a socially constructed concept of certain social phenomena. This article presents some different concepts of power derived from empirical studies of organizational behaviour in various political, organizational and cultural contexts. Reference is made to a study of top managers in Poland and the United States, research on women in organizations, and a study of a reform in Swedish local governments. A comparison of these cases leads to an analytical model which can help us to understand the process of social construction of power in a variety of contexts.Power social construction of shortage economy horizontal power vertical power normative concept of power descriptive concept of power

The question of technology how organizations inscribe the world

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