Paul Spee

INSTITUTIONAL AMBIDEXTERITY: LEVERAGING INSTITUTIONAL COMPLEXITY IN PRACTICE

This paper develops a practice approach to institutional ambidexterity. In doing so, it first explores the ‘promise’ of institutional ambidexterity as a concept to address shortcomings with the treatment of complexity in institutional theory. However, we argue that this is an empty promise because ambidexterity remains an organizational level construct that neither connects to the institutional level, or to the practical actions and interactions within which individuals enact institutions. We therefore suggest a practice approach that we develop into a conceptual framework for fulfilling the promise of institutional ambidexterity. The second part of the paper outlines what a practice approach is and the variation in practice-based insights into institutional ambidexterity that we might expect in contexts of novel or routine institutional complexity. Finally, the paper concludes with a research agenda that highlights the potential of practice to extend institutional theory through new research approaches to well-established institutional theory questions, interests and established-understandings.

Constructing Spaces for Strategic Work: A Multimodal Perspective

In this paper we take seriously the call for strategy-as-practice research to address the material, spatial and bodily aspects of strategic work. Drawing on a video-ethnographic study of strategic episodes in a financial trading context, we develop a conceptual framework that elaborates on strategic work as socially accomplished within particular spaces that are constructed through different orchestrations of material, bodily and discursive resources. Building on the findings, our study identifies three types of strategic work - private work, collaborative work and negotiating work - that are accomplished within three distinct spaces that are constructed through multimodal constellations of semiotic resources. We show that these spaces, and the activities performed within them, are continuously shifting in ways that enable and constrain the particular outcomes of a strategic episode. Our framework contributes to the strategy-as-practice literature by identifying the importance of spaces in conducting strategic work and providing insight into the way that these spaces are constructed.

Charting new territory for organizational ethnography : Insights from a team-based video ethnography

Purpose – Increasing complexity, fragmentation, mobility, pace, and technological intermediation of organizational life make “being there” increasingly difficult. Where do ethnographers have to be, when, for how long, and with whom to “be there” and grasp the practices, norms, and values that make the situation meaningful to natives? These novel complexities call for new forms of organizational ethnography. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above issues. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors respond to these calls for innovative ethnographic methods in two ways. First, the paper reports on the practices and ethnographic experiences of conducting a year-long team-based video ethnography of reinsurance trading in London. Findings – Second, drawing on these experiences, the paper proposes a framework for systematizing new approaches to organizational ethnography and visualizing the ways in which they are “expanding” ethnography as it was traditionally practiced. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the ethnographic literature in three ways: first, the paper develops a framework for charting new approaches to ethnography and highlight its different dimensions – site, instrument, and fieldworker. Second, the paper outlines the opportunities and challenges associated with these expansions, specifically with regard to research design, analytical rigour, and communication of results. Third, drawing on the previous two contributions, the paper highlights configurations of methodological expansions on the aforementioned dimensions that are more promising than others in leveraging new technologies and approaches to claim new territory for organizational ethnography and enhance its relevance for understanding today’s multifarious organizational realities.

The Influence of Routine Interdependence and Skillful Accomplishment on the Coordination of Standardizing and Customizing

This paper advances understanding of the coordination of interdependence between multiple intersecting routines and its influence on the balancing of coexisting ostensive patterns. Building on a professional service routine—the deal appraisal routine—and its intersections with four related routines, we develop a dynamic framework that explains the coordination of standardization and flexibility in four ways. First, intersecting routines have shifting salience in the performance of a focal routine, and this shifting salience is enacted through professional skill and judgment. Second, each intersection amplifies pressure toward one or the other ostensive pattern thus introducing dynamism into the balancing of competing ostensive patterns. Third, professionals skillfully acknowledge these pressures from intersecting routines to orient toward one ostensive pattern and then reorient the performance of the routine toward the opposite ostensive pattern. Fourth, this balancing act, which we theorize as reciprocal task interdependence, occurs within the moment of performing each task, so providing a highly dynamic understanding of the association between routine interdependence and the coordination of coexisting ostensive patterns.

Agreeing on What? Creating Joint Accounts of Strategic Change

This paper addresses a fundamental conundrum at the heart of meaning making: How is agreement to change achieved amid multiple, coexisting meanings? This challenge is particularly salient when proposing a new strategic initiative as it introduces new meanings that must coexist with multiple prevailing meanings. Yet, prior literature on meaning-making processes places different emphases on the extent to which agreement to a new initiative requires shared meaning across diverse organizational members. We propose the concept of a joint account as the means through which an agreement to change may be achieved that accommodates multiple, coexisting meanings that satisfy diverse constituents’ vested interests. Based on the findings from an ethnographic study of a university’s strategic planning process, we develop a framework that demonstrates two different patterns in the microprocesses of meaning making. These patterns extend our understanding about the way vested interests enable or constrain the construction of a joint account. In doing so, we contribute to knowledge about resistance, ambiguity, and lack of agreement to a proposed change.

Leveraging Relationships to Get Ready for Change

At its most fundamental, businesses are built by establishing relationships with customers. Such relationships enable you to capture more of their patronage by better evaluating and servicing their needs. High-volume industries with fragmented customers, such as supermarkets and other retailers of fast-moving consumer goods can use rich purchasing data points and information technology to develop customer relationship management systems based on mass customization. They need little actual contact with consumers to understand their needs and buying patterns, to better understand how to secure more of what they spend. Much has been written about these industries, and about how they can capture value through advanced customer relationship management systems.