Power, control and organisational learning

A review of managerial literature highlights the crucial importance of shared culture and common schemes of interpretation in organisational learning. The interpretative and sensemaking approaches of organisational learning insert themselves deeply in the process of the construction of social uniformity and cognitive homogeneity. Individual learning, culture, beliefs and rationality - the shared mental models - are the targets of confirmation processes. Thus, this specific kind of organisational learning cannot be considered as normatively neutral, but as a political process. A case study of a bank illustrates that organisational learning can be based on a structured social construction of cognitive homogeneity which generates an increase of control and enhances power of the management by reinforcing the legitimacy of decisions. However, this case study also shows that learning and non-learning are the two faces of the same process or, in other words, that organisational learning can produce unawareness and unintentional nonlearning by too much cultural uniformity. -- Eine Durchsicht der Managementliteratur verdeutlicht die zentrale Bedeutung gemeinsamer Kultur und geteilter Deutungsmuster für das Organisationslernen. Die interpretativen und deutungsbezogenen Ansätze des Organisationslernens basieren auf tiefgreifenden Prozessen zur Konstruktion sozialer Einheitlichkeit und kognitiver Homogenität. Die Absicherungsprozesse beziehen sich auf das individuelle Lernen, Kultur, Werthaltungen und Rationalität - die gemeinsamen mentalen Modelle. Insofern kann diese Form des Organisationslernens nicht als wertneutral angesehen werden; es handelt sich vielmehr um einen politischen Prozeß. An einer Fallstudie in einer Bank wird illustriert, daß Organisationslernen auf einer sozial konstruierten kognitiven Homogenität aufgebaut werden kann. Dabei wird Management-Kontrolle erweitert und ihre Macht verstärkt, indem die Legitimität ihrer Entscheidungen abgesichert wird. Allerdings dokumentiert die Fallstudie auch, daß Lernen und Nicht-Lernen zwei Seiten des gleichen Prozesses sind, anders gewendet: Organisationslernen kann zur Ausblendung von Wahrnehmung beitragen und - unbeabsichtigt - Nicht-Lernen generieren, wenn zuvor ein zu hohes Maß an kultureller Homogenität etabliert worden ist.

Common and Fundamental Factors in Stock Returns of Canadian Oil and Gas Companies

In this paper, we assess the determinants of Canadian oil and gas stocks returns. We find that the stock return of Canadian energy stock is positively associated with returns on the Canadian stock market, appreciations of crude oil and natural gas prices, growth in internal cash flows and proven reserves, and negatively with interest rates. Surprisingly, however, production volume and a weakening of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar have a negative impact. This latter impact is more pronounced for oil producers than for integrated energy companies. Finally, we find that the influence of the exchange rate, the market return and prices of natural gas on Canadian oil and gas stocks changes significantly over the years 1995-1998 and 2000-2002. Le but de cet article est de mesurer ce qui influence le rendement des actions d'entreprises pétrolières et gazières canadiennes. Nous trouvons que le rendement des actions de ces entreprises énergétiques est influencé positivement par le rendement du marché canadien dans son ensemble, par une appréciation du prix du pétrole et du gaz naturel, par une croissance dans les flux monétaires discrétionnaires de l'entreprise, par la quantité de réserves prouvées de l'entreprise. Nous trouvons également que le volume de production et une dépréciation du dollar canadien par rapport à la devise américaine réduit sensiblement le rendement des titres énergétiques, ce qui va à l'encontre de notre hypothèse initiale. L'impact du taux de change est encore plus marqué pour les producteurs indépendants que pour les entreprises intégrées. En dernier lieu, nous montrons que le marché a subi une cassure significative entre les années 1995-1998 et 2000-2002, spécialement pour ce qui est de l'impact du taux de change, du rendement de marché et du pris du gaz naturel.stock return valuation, panel data analysis, oil and gas industry, rendement des actions, analyse de données transversales, industrie pétrolière et gazière

Vapour-Liquid Coexistence of an Active Lennard-Jones fluid

We study a three-dimensional system of self-propelled Lennard-Jones particles using Brownian Dynamics simulations. Using recent theoretical results for active matter, we calculate the pressure and report equations of state for the system. Additionally, we chart the vapour-liquid coexistence and show that the coexistence densities can be well described using simple power laws. Lastly, we demonstrate that our out-of-equilibrium system shows deviations from both the law of rectilinear diameters and the law of corresponding states.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Removing grain boundaries from three-dimensional colloidal crystals using active dopants

Using computer simulations we explore how grain boundaries can be removed from three-dimensional colloidal crystals by doping with a small fraction of active colloids. We show that for sufficient self-propulsion, the system is driven into a crystal-fluid coexistence. In this phase separated regime, the active dopants become mobile and spontaneously gather at the grain boundaries. The resulting surface melting and recrystallization of domains result in the motion of the grain boundaries over time and lead to the formation of a large single crystal. However, when the self-propulsion is too low to cause a phase separation, we observe no significant enhancement of grain growth.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure