‘Where to ski?’: an ethnography of how guides make sense while planning

A ski guide’s job is to take recreational skiers into avalanche terrain. In this paper, we explore how ski guides make sense of complex social and ecological contexts while planning. Our data arises out of a one-year participant ethnography of ski guiding in Norway, and shows that guides work towards becoming socio-ecologically embedded by making sense of who the clients and what the mountain conditions are, in their determination of where to ski. Our work, through challenging and complementing the decision-making literature, shows how guides notice and act on cues, and through this embed themselves and their clients in the ecological context. We highlight the implications of these findings both for guides working in the outdoors and leisure recreationists

Theorizing as mode of engagement in and through extreme contexts research

We explore how management and organization scholars theorize when undertaking research on extreme contexts, which are organizational settings where potential adverse events arise from risks, emergencies and disruptions. We propose that different ‘modes of engagement’ arise as researchers connect different aspects of the self to the extreme context; namely, personal self, professional self, moral self and vulnerable self. Each self-context connection plays out in different modes of engagement in the conduct of empirical research and enables different theorizing practices. We present these self-context connections as four ideal-typical modes of engagement. Adventuresome inquiry connects a personal self to the extreme context and theorizes by phenomenon-driven problematization. Instrumental scholarship expresses a professional self in the extreme context and theorizes by theory elaboration. Ideological improvement galvanizes a moral self in the extreme context and theorizes by change-driven abstraction. Reflexive labor exposes a vulnerable self and theorizes by dialectical interrogation. Our comprehensive framework of theorizing as mode of engagement contributes to extreme context research by elucidating how theorizing in and through such contexts is accomplished by researchers with multiple selves and by offering some guidance on how the four modes can be used dynamically to ensure generative theorizing. We also contribute to the broader literature on theorizing in management and organization studies by highlighting the need to consider the interplay between the researcher and the academic contributions they produce and by proposing a reflexive and dynamic framework of theorizing as modes of engagement

Mechanisms of deviations : Observations of projects in practice

Bakgrund I det närmaste alla organisationer strävar efter att använda sina resurser så effektivt som möjligt. Vad som dock inte diskuterats i någon större utsträckning är att den starkt kopplade komplexa organisationen inte klarar av att bemöta ens den minsta avvikelsen utan att ägna den direkt uppmärksamhet. Den övergripande frågan är därför Hur hanteras avvikelser i starkt kopplade projekt? Det teoretiska ramverket är först och främst projektlitteratur men ramverket vidgas sedermera till att omfatta praktikansatslitteratur samt Weicks (1976) ”Loosely coupled systems”. Metod Givet ansatsen faller det sig naturligt att göra en fallstudie med observationer som huvudsaklig metod. Utöver tolv veckors observationer förlitar jag mig på 57 intervjuer och mängder av dokument. En organisation, två projektgrupper och 118 avvikelser observerades totalt under perioden. De data som samlades in analyserades med hjälp av dataprogrammet Nvivo. Resultat Analysen är uppdelad i tre integrerade kapitel. Det första kapitlet diskuterar avvikelser som företeelse och definierar begreppet närmare. En avvikelse definieras som en händelse som kräver såväl identitet som handlingskraft. Det andra analyskapitlet analyserar praktiken närmare. Allt som allt observerades 29 praktiker vilka kunde grupperas i åtta praktikmönster. Praktikmönstren kunde sedermera inordnas i två distinkta löskopplingsmönster i en teoretiskt underbyggd och empiriskt styrkt figur. Figuren och följaktligen praktikmönstren beskriver hur avvikelsen görs löst kopplad. Det tredje analyskapitlet diskuterar fem mekanismer som följer av med de löst kopplade avvikelserna. Dessa fem mekanismer kan sedermera betonas och utnyttjas av projektledaren. Slutsatser Slutsatserna följer två spår. Det ena spåret fokuserar på projekt i allmänhet och projektledning i synnerhet. Slutsatsen som kan dras där är att det finns en inneboende osäkerhet i projekt som kan utnyttjas för att hantera avvikelser. Alla avvikelser har inte stora konsekvenser men de besitter vissa gemensamma egenskaper. Det andra spåret är ett bidrag till teorin om löst kopplade system. Länge har en processuell och praktikbaserad studie saknats. Genom att undersöka löskopplingsprocesser i ljuset av en praktikansats har jag visat hur löskopplingsprocesser ser ut

'Where to ski?' : an ethnography of how guides make sense while planning

A ski guide’s job is to take recreational skiers into avalanche terrain. In this paper, we explore how ski guides make sense of complex social and ecological contexts while planning. Our data arises out of a one-year participant ethnography of ski guiding in Norway, and shows that guides work towards becoming socio-ecologically embedded by making sense of who the clients and what the mountain conditions are, in their determination of where to ski. Our work, through challenging and complementing the decision-making literature, shows how guides notice and act on cues, and through this embed themselves and their clients in the ecological context. We highlight the implications of these findings both for guides working in the outdoors and leisure recreationists

AI management beyond the hype : exploring the co-constitution of AI and organizational context

AI technologies hold great promise for addressing existing problems in organizational contexts, but the potential benefits must not obscure the potential perils associated with AI. In this article, we conceptually explore these promises and perils by examining AI use in organizational contexts. The exploration complements and extends extant literature on AI management by providing a typology describing four types of AI use, based on the idea of co-constitution of AI technologies and organizational context. Building on this typology, we propose three recommendations for informed use of AI in contemporary organizations. First, explicitly define the purpose of organizational AI use. Second, define the appropriate level of transparency and algorithmic management for organizational AI use. Third, be aware of AI's context-dependent nature

Orchestrating deviations in global projects: Projects-as-practice observations

Summary Contemporary projects in a global environment are challenging to manage on a daily basis because of the need for situation-specific attention, on one hand, and the desire for efficiency and standardisation on the other. On the basis of Weick's (1976) loosely coupled systems theory, this paper investigates how a project team responds to departures from the project plan, de-couples these deviations from other activities in the project, treats the deviations and re-couples them. Through participant observations, interviews, as well as vocabulary used by project managers, the paper identifies two general sequences of de-coupling and re-coupling in responding to deviations. In "good enough" practice flexibility initially dominates the sequence, postponing stabilization of the situation until later when the appropriateness of the previous actions is considered. "Carefully assessed" practice on the other hand is initially dominated by creating a stable situation, and secondly flexibility is required in the search for the solution.Loosely coupled systems Managing deviations Practice approach Projects-as-Practice