Markus A. Höllerer

The Visual Dimension in Organizing, Organization, and Organization Research: Core Ideas, Current Developments, and Promising Avenues

With the unprecedented rise in the use of visuals, and its undeniable omnipresence in organizational contexts, as well as in the individuals everyday life, organization and management science has recently started to pay closer attention to the to date under-theorized “visual mode” of discourse and meaning construction. Building primarily on insights from the phenomenological tradition in organization theory and from social semiotics, this article sets out to consolidate previous scholarly efforts and to sketch a fertile future research agenda. After briefly exploring the workings of visuals, we introduce the methodological and theoretical “roots” of visual studies in a number of disciplines that have a long-standing tradition of incorporating the visual. We then continue by extensively reviewing work in the field of organization and management studies: More specifically, we present five distinct approaches to feature visuals in research designs and to include the visual dimension in scholarly inquiry. Su...

Unpacking the glocalization of organization: from term, to theory, to analysis

Over the past two decades, the notion of ‘glocalization’ came to stand for more than what the term literally encompasses. Not only does it refer to the mutually constitutive character of the global and the local; rather, it spearheads the challenge to the numerous dichotomies that have dominated previous discussions of globalization, and points to the dualities of similarity and variation as well as universalism and particularism. In this short essay, we make an attempt to specify the dimensions of complexity and multidimensionality inherent in the notion of glocalization of organization and management. We propose three sets of analytic conceptualizations. First, we identify three axes of glocalization: vertical, horizontal, and temporal. Second, we extract three core themes of glocalization: the ‘what’, ‘who’, and ‘how’. Last, we name several sequenced components of glocalization: abstraction, construction of equivalency, and adoption and adaptation. Laced together, these conceptualizations are the basis...

Laying a smoke screen: Ambiguity and neutralization as strategic responses to intra-institutional complexity

Our research contributes to knowledge on strategic organizational responses by addressing a specific type of institutional complexity that has, to date, been rather neglected in scholarly inquiry: conflicting institutional demands that arise within the same institutional order. We suggest referring to such type of complexity as “intra-institutional”—as opposed to “inter-institutional.” Empirically, we examine the consecutive spread of two management concepts—shareholder value and corporate social responsibility—among Austrian listed corporations around the turn of the millennium. Our work presents evidence that in institutionally complex situations, the concepts used by organizations to respond to competing demands and belief systems are interlinked and coupled through multiwave diffusion. We point to the open, chameleon-like character of some concepts that makes them particularly attractive for discursive adoption in such situations and conclude that organizations regularly respond to institutional complexity by resorting to discursive neutralization techniques and strategically producing ambiguity.

When Bureaucracy Meets the Crowd: Studying “Open Government” in the Vienna City Administration

Open Government is en vogue, yet vague: while practitioners, policy-makers, and others praise its virtues, little is known about how Open Government relates to bureaucratic organization. This paper presents insights from a qualitative investigation into the City of Vienna, Austria. It demonstrates how the encounter between the city administration and “the open” juxtaposes the decentralizing principles of the crowd, such as transparency, participation, and distributed cognition, with the centralizing principles of bureaucracy, such as secrecy, expert knowledge, written files, and rules. The paper explores how this theoretical conundrum is played out and how senior city managers perceive Open Government in relation to the bureaucratic nature of their administration. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to empirically trace the complexities of the encounter between bureaucracy and Open Government; and second, to critically theorize the ongoing rationalization of public administration in spite of constant challenges to its bureaucratic principles. In so doing, the paper advances our understanding of modern bureaucratic organizations under the condition of increased openness, transparency, and interaction with their environments.

Institutions As Multimodal Accomplishments: Towards the Analysis of Visual Registers

In this article, we develop and advance an understanding of institutions as multimodal accomplishments. We draw on social semiotics and the linguistic concept of metafunctions to establish the visual as a specific mode of meaning construction. In addition, we make semiotic modes conducive to institutional inquiry by introducing the notion of distinct “modal registers” – specialized configurations of linguistic signs within a particular mode that are adapted and applied in the reproduction of institutions or institutional domains. At the core of our article, we operationalize metafunctions to develop methodology for the analysis of visual registers. We illustrate our approach with data from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting in Austria.

Enacting Governance through Strategy: A Comparative Study of Governance Configurations in Sydney and Vienna

Over the past two decades, research has emphasised a shift from city government to urban governance. Such a shift brings about its very own challenges, namely governance gaps, uncertain configurations in governance and a limited capacity to act. In this paper, we argue that the concurrent rise of strategy documents in city administration addresses these challenges. Our central claim is that strategy documents can be understood as a distinct discursive device through which local governments enact aspired governance configurations. We illustrate our argument empirically using two prominent examples that, while showing similar features and characteristics, are anchored in different administrative traditions and institutional frameworks: the city administrations of Sydney, Australia, and Vienna, Austria. The contribution of the paper is to show how strategy documents enact governance configurations along four core dimensions: the setting in space and time, the definition of the public, the framing of the res publica and legitimacy issues. Moreover, our comparative analysis of Sydney and Vienna gives evidence of differences in governance configurations enacted through strategy documents.

Between Local Mooring and Global Orientation: A Neo-Institutional Theory Perspective on the Contemporary Multinational Corporation ☆

Abstract We argue for major re-orientation when applying a neo-institutional perspective within the domain of international business (IB), and in research on the multinational corporation (MNC), in particular. On the one hand, we suggest re-conceptualizing MNCs as globally oriented organizations that nonetheless remain firmly anchored in local cultural settings. On the other hand, it seems crucial for institutionalist IB literature to engage more thoroughly with the core underlying assumptions, theoretical constructs, and recent extensions of neo-institutional theory. We present an overview and systematic evaluation of the current state of institutional approaches toward the MNC, and contrast it with research foci that will emerge from a phenomenological-institutional analysis.

Imageries of corporate social responsibility: Visual recontextualization and field-level meaning

In this paper, we explore how corporations use visual artifacts to translate and recontextualize a globally theorized managerial concept (CSR) into a local setting (Austria). In our analysis of the field-level visual discourse, we analyze over 1,600 images in stand-alone CSR reports of publicly traded corporations. We borrow from framing analysis and structural linguistics to show how the meaning structure underlying a multifaceted construct like CSR is constituted by no more than a relatively small number of fundamental dimensions and rhetorical standpoints (topoi). We introduce the concept of imageries-of-practice to embrace the critical role that shared visual language plays in the construction of meaning and the emergence of field-level logics. In particular, we argue that imageries-of-practice, compared to verbal vocabularies, are just as well equipped to link locally resonating symbolic representations and globally diffusing practices, thus expressing both the material and ideational dimension of institutional logics in processes of translation. We find that visual rhetoric used in the Austrian discourse emphasizes the qualities of CSR as a bridging concept, and facilitates the mediation of inconsistencies in several ways: By translating abstract global ideas into concrete local knowledge, imageries-of-practice aid in mediating spatial oppositions; by linking the past, present, and future, they bridge time; by mediating between different institutional spheres and their divergent logics, they appease ideational oppositions and reduce institutional complexity; and, finally, by connecting questionable claims with representations of authenticity, they aid in overcoming credibility gaps.

A Question of Value(s): Political Connectedness and Executive Compensation in Public Sector Organizations

ABSTRACT While the de-politicization of public sector management was a core objective of past reform initiatives, more recent debates urge the state to act as a strong principal when it comes to public sector unity and policy coherence, and consequently make a case for reinvigorating links between the political and managerial sphere. Using data from Austrian public sector organizations, we test and confirm the causal relationship of political connectedness of board members and executive compensation. Differentiating between value-based and interest-based in-groups, we suggest that only value-based political connectedness has the potential to restore patronage as a control instrument and governance tool. Self-interested and reward-driven patronage, on the other hand, indicated by a strong association of political connectedness and executive pay, refers to the type of politicization that previous public sector reforms promised to abolish.

Toward a Structural Model of Organizational-Level Institutional Pluralism and Logic Interconnectedness

In this article, we develop a structural model for studying how constellations of multiple institutional logics are instantiated at the organizational level. Conceptually, we complement an institutional logics perspective with structural interactionism and network theory and model a constellation as a nexus of organizational role identities and counterroles. The structure of such a nexus reveals degrees of differentiation and interconnectedness between logics as well as distinct interfaces. We validate and further develop our model through qualitative content analysis and semantic network analytical methods applied to the website of a large organization. Our study contributes to recent literature on institutional pluralism by further specifying the structural aspects of constellations of logics and different types of institutional pluralism (monolithic, fragmented, and modular). Specifically, we show how systems of role categories enable the identification of logics, and how multivocal roles create interf...