Jonathan Pinto

The Dark Side of Groups: A “Gang at Work” in Enron

The purpose of this article is to develop our understanding of the gang aspects of work organizations. By applying a psychoanalytic lens, we formulate the ideas of the “gang at work” and “intraorganizational ganging dynamics,” thereby initiating a research stream on the “dark side of groups.” We illustrate our conceptual development by drawing on the Enron case thereby contributing unique group-level insights that complement other analyses of the phenomenon. We conclude by identifying areas for further research and arguing that gang phenomena may also have been present among many of the key organizations at the centre of the credit crisis, such as Lehman Brothers.

‘Wow! That’s so cool!’ The Icehotel as organizational trope

This article introduces the Icehotel, the world’s first and largest hotel to be constructed entirely of ice and snow, as a unique and generative organizational trope. As a trope (and metaphor, in particular), it both supplements and complements Morgan’s seminal book, The Images of Organization, and generates unique insights with regard to surprise, unifinality, purity, eco-coreness and rebirth. The Icehotel also serves as a lens for examining organizations through each master trope, that is, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony. Evidence of metonymy in language describing the Icehotel is presented. The case for synecdoche is made by arguing that the Icehotel is a species of two genera, that is, temporary organizations and paradoxical organizations. Also, the Icehotel is not only paradoxical (i.e. a form of irony), but also generates four other paradoxes, namely, the ways that organizations are evolutionary yet revolutionary, negative as well as positive, different yet similar and unsustainably sustainable. The Icehotel also exemplifies serious play – a particular approach for managing paradoxes. Finally, the article discusses implications for research and practice.

Expanding the Content Domain of Workplace Aggression: A Three‐level Aggressor–target Taxonomy

Workplace aggression (WPA) has been largely considered to be a phenomenon involving individuals. However, higher‐level entities, such as groups and organizations, can also be aggressors (and targets). This aspect of WPA has not been given much scholarly attention and, even in cases where it has been studied, it has not been considered to be part of the WPA stream. By considering aggressors and targets at all three levels of analysis, the author attempts simultaneously to expand and integrate the WPA stream, draw attention to WPA involving higher‐level entities, and provide a more organization‐oriented (rather than individual‐oriented) perspective on WPA. This novel comprehensive perspective is provided through a taxonomy of nine aggressor–target combinations of WPA which can be grouped into three multilevel categories of WPA, i.e. lateral level WPA, upward level WPA, and downward level WPA. Implications for theory, research and practice of these conceptualizations are discussed.

Viewing team selection through a temporal lens

This paper builds synthesized coherence (Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997) across disciplines such as organizational behavior, personnel psychology, entrepreneurship, project management, and strategic management by developing a temporal team selection framework that delineates three temporal team selection processes (i.e., simultaneous selection, sequential selection, and substitution selection). Of these three processes, sequential selection, which could either be constraint-driven or coevolution-driven, is a new conceptualization. This framework speaks to the broader research stream on membership dynamics, and therefore its key constructs such as arithmetic of membership change (Arrow & McGrath, 1993) and temporal patterning of membership change (Arrow & McGrath, 1993) have been systematically applied to the temporal team selection processes. Finally, the implications of this theorizing for both research and practice are discussed.