Desperately seeking legitimacy: Organizational identity and emerging industries

In this article we examine the process of organizational identity formation in emerging industries. We argue that organizational identity is best understood in terms of the relationship between temporal difference (i.e. the performance of a stable identity over time) and spatial difference (i.e. by locating organizational identity in relation to other firms, both similar and different). It is the relationship between these two forms of difference that enables the construction of a legitimate sense of organizational identity. Our discussion is illustrated using empirical material from a study of the emerging industry of business coaching in Australia. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications

Bringing space back in: organizing the generative building

In this article, we reflect on architecture and management and organization theory, in terms of their mutual implications. We focus especially on a tacit implication in mainstream organization theory, which has an architectural genesis. In the past, management has been largely undergirded by a Cartesian rationality, one seen most clearly in the argument that structure follows strategy. Architecturally, this Cartesianism is present in the injunction that form follows function. Criticizing this point of view, we argue that organizations should be thought of as material, spatial ensembles - not just cognitive abstractions writ large. Linking space and organization in this way, we reflect on the power that every spatial organization necessarily implies, both in negative and positive terms. After examining existing approaches to this issue, we discuss some positive power implications for management. We introduce the concept of the generative building that, instead of being a merely passive container for actions happening in it, contributes positively towards an organization's capacities. We conclude with a reflection on the impact of the generative building on management and processes of organizing

Noise, parasites and translation

Conventional representations of consulting stress the need to predict possible organizational realities associated with improved economic performance. It is conceptualized as a useful tool from which practice might profit if applied properly. In this article we explore theory as a means by which practice may not so much be honed by well-crafted advice as interrupted and transformed. Further, we propose a parasitical role for the management consultant as a source of 'noise' that disrupts established ways of doing and being by introducing interruptive action into the space between organizational order and chaos. What consulting can do is open up these spaces and create concepts that encourage new possible realities and real possibilities. The relation posited between organization theory and practice has the potential to create new forms of situated organization/organizing through disrupting established practice rather than by creating order. Consultants willing to take the risk of working in the productive space between organization and disorganization have a potential that questions the usual auspices of the enterprise

Математическая модель потоков покупателей двухпродуктовой торговой компании в виде системы массового обслуживания с повторными обращениями к блокам

Построена математическая модель формирования потока покупателей торговой компании в виде системы параллельного обслуживания кратных заявок с повторным обращением и неограниченным числом обслуживающих приборов, получено выражение для математического ожидания капитала торговой компании, а также найдено условие для существования максимума этой функции. Для конкретного примера определено оптимальное отношение стоимости подарка к средней стоимости покупки, обеспечивающее максимальную прибыль компании

So What Do You Do? Experimenting with Space for Social Creativity

This chapter investigates the relationship between physical space and processes of creative thinking and action. The authors build on organizational and sociological literature about social space and aesthetics, then illustrate how the latter two aspects influenced each other in five action experiments. Small mixed groups explored how they would use a studio to facilitate social innovation and to strengthen the link between the Max Stern Jezreel Valley College in Israel and the surrounding communities. Analysis of the video recordings identified seven configurations of social space that changed over time as the participants engaged in the task. The authors suggest that the undifferentiated and unencrusted nature of the space was both a source of uncertainty and potential for the participants. Some groups generated more innovative processes and products than others. The study also offers insights into the importance of embodied action and verbal discourse in innovative processes

The logic of tact:How decisions happen in situations of crisis

The mass-migration of refugees in the fall 2015 posed an immense humanitarian and logistical challenge: exhausted from their week-long journeys, refugees arrived in Vienna in need of care, shelter, food, medical aid, and onward transport. The refugee crisis was managed by an emerging polycentric and inter-sectoral collective of organizations. In this paper, we investigate how, during such a situation, leaders of these organizations made decisions in concert with each other and hence sustained the collective's capacity to act collectively. We ask: what was the logic of decision-making that orchestrated collective action during the crisis? In answering this question, we make the following contribution: departing from March's logics of consequences and appropriateness as well as Weick's work on sensemaking during crisis, we introduce an alternative logic that informed decision-making: the logic of tact. With this concept we (a) offer a better understanding of how managers make decisions under the condition of bounded rationality and the simultaneous transgression of their institutional identity in situations of crisis; and we (b) show that in decision-making under duress cognition is neither ahead of action, nor is action ahead of cognition; rather, tact explicates the rapid switching between cognition and action, orchestrating decision-making through this interplay

The ‘Biophilic Organization’: An Integrative Metaphor for Corporate Sustainability

This paper proposes a new organizational metaphor, the ‘Biophilic Organization’, which aims to counter the bio-cultural disconnection of many organizations despite their espoused commitment to sustainability. This conceptual research draws on multiple disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and architecture to not only develop a diverse bio-cultural connection but to show how this connection tackles sustainability, in a holistic and systemic sense. Moreover, the paper takes an integrative view of sustainability, which effectively means that it embraces the different emergent tensions. Three specific tensions are explored: efficiency versus resilience, organizational versus personal agendas and isomorphism versus institutional change. In order to illustrate how the Biophilic Organization could potentially provide a synthesis strategy for such tensions, healthcare examples are drawn from the emerging fields of Biophilic Design in Singapore and Generative Design in the U.S.A. Finally, an example is provided which highlights how a Taoist cultural context has impacted on a business leader in China, to illustrative the significance of a transcendent belief system to such a bio-cultural narrative