Does Planning Belong to the Politics of the Past?

According to many authors, so-called “central planning” had disappeared from European countries by 1989. However, this is by no means certain. Many former centrally planned economies still engage in central planning, in both the private and public sectors. Moreover, there is a striking similarity between so-called “strategic planning” in large private and public units and central planning in a small-sized economy. These similarities and differences are examined in this article using several examples, concluding with city planning. The analysis suggests that city politicians may find useful lessons in organization studies, revealing that while planning has a powerful comforting and tranquilizing function, plans, like tools, need to be abandoned when they are obsolete or cumbersome. Additionally, planners and managers may find it useful to admit that the differences between the private and public sectors are not as large as conventionally assumed and that their activities are always connected to politics

Cultural Clash in the Midst of Pandemic: Essay on protests in Poland

In the following, I discuss the current protests in Poland as a response to the public's growing dissatisfaction with the right-wing Polish government’s attempts to fundamentally reshape the country. I develop a condensed overview of Women’s Strikes as a social movement in Poland. In addition, I present some differences between protests in 2016 to 2018, and the current ones

After Practice: A Personal Reflection

My text contains more questions than answers, and the answers are only speculative. My first question is: ‘Whose turn to practice took place in 2001?’ The text contains a short review of various meanings of the term in different disciplines. From there I move to the second question, which I find especially relevant for my discipline: management and organization studies. ‘Is ‘reflective practitioner’ an oxymoron?’ I set Niklas Luhmann against Donald Schön in my search for an answer. The third question is: ‘How can bridges between practitioners and theoreticians of management be (re)built?

Distrust: not only in secret service organizations

In this article, we discuss the issue of distrust in the most extreme example of distrustful organizations: secret service organizations. Distrust may be a basic organizing principle in such organizations, but how is it produced and maintained? Inspired by actor–network theory, we analyzed the devices, codes, rules, and procedures used in secret service organizations, and then asked whether these devices, codes, rules, and procedures differ from those used in ordinary organizations. Based on our analysis, we make two contributions. First, we draw researchers’ attention to distrust that is intentionally built and maintained rather than distrust that is accidental and indicative of faulty management. Second, we identify the material manifestations of distrust. We argue that in future studies of trust and distrust in organizations, it will be necessary to focus on the technologies, physical objects, and quasi-objects. These, together with discourses, guarantee the stability of connections among organizational actions

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

The structure of the cusps of valves in the human foetal great saphenous vein

The study was performed on 110 great saphenous veins in human foetuses of both sexes aged 9 to 37 weeks. The earliest well-shaped valves were observed in foetuses aged 13 weeks. In these foetuses the number of valves varies from 2 to 7. Consecutive microscopic sections revealed that the developing valves at their origin present thickening of the endothelium which is continuous into the cusps of the valves. The bicuspid cusps are crescent-shaped and both surfaces are lined by endothelium

Development of valves in the small saphenous vein in human fetuses

The study was performed on 82 small saphenous veins in human fetuses of both sexes aged 9 to 37 weeks. The earliest valves were observed in 13 week-old fetuses. In fetuses between 13 and 18 weeks old the number of valves increased from 1 to 8. In the older fetuses between 19 and 37 weeks the number of valves varied from 5 to 9 and does not seem to be related to age. During development more valves were found in the upper part of the small saphenous vein. The height of valves increases with age and differs between particular valves of the same vein

Organization Theory Meets Anthropology: A Story of an Encounter

This text briefly depicts the history of an encounter between anthropology and organization theory in the Anglo-Saxon literature in the period 1990-2010 as seen by an organization scholar. In focus are some stable characteristics and some changes in this relationship, against the background of wider developments in societies and in social sciences. The article ends with suggestions concerning future possibilities of combining the insights of the two fields in a fruitful and interesting way

Od zrównoważonego rozwoju do wytrzymałości: zmiana nazewnictwa, czy zmiana w myśleniu?

During the past ten years or so, any application for a research grant had to contain the word “sustainability”. Recently, however, sustainability has given way to “resilience”. Why this change? It could be a change in research fashion, or the recently produced atmosphere of threat, especially in relation to cities.W ciągu ostatnich około dziesięciu lat wszystkie wnioski o granty badawcze musiały zawierać wyrażenie „zrównoważony rozwój”. W ostatnim jednak czasie „zrównoważony rozwój” ustąpił miejsca „wytrzymałości”. Skąd ta zmiana? Może być ona związana ze zmianą mody w badaniach naukowych lub powstałą ostatnio atmosferą zagrożenia, szczególnie w odniesieniu do miast

The translation of management knowledge : challenges, contributions and new directions

Across many sectors, new developments and discourses that emphasize change, collaboration, shifting professional boundaries and increased sharing of knowledge are taking place. One is thus challenged to question and/or develop further understanding of how and to what extent new ideas, scientific developments and technologies are translated within such contexts and thereby extend management and organization studies. To advance understanding about this significant field in the scholarly community, this special issue has assembled a diverse set of papers, which review developments in translation theory and seek to encourage new thinking and frameworks and open up new directions in management and organization studies more generally. By reflecting on these papers, the authors summarize key challenges in translational research and new framings, and point to exciting new research opportunities that can be found in fruitfully comparing, elaborating, expanding, contrasting and blending extant perspectives