Philippe Lorino

Research Methods for Non-Representational Approaches of Organizational Complexity. The Dialogical and Mediated Inquiry

This paper explores the methodological implications of non-representational approaches to organizational complexity. Representational theories focus on the syntactic complexity of systems, whereas organizing processes are predominantly characterized by semantic and pragmatic forms of complexity. After underlining the contribution of non-representational approaches to the study of organizations, the paper warns against the risk of confining the critique of representational frameworks to paradoxical dichotomies such as intuition versus reflexive thought, or theorizing versus experimenting. To counter this difficulty, we suggest the use of a triadic theory of interpretation, and more particularly the concepts of semiotic mediation, inquiry and dialogism. Semiotic mediation dynamically links situated experience and generic classes of meanings. Inquiry articulates logical thinking, narrative thinking and experimenting. Dialogism conceptualizes the production of meaning through the situated interactions of actors. A methodological approach based on these concepts, the ‘dialogical mediated inquiry’ (DMI), is proposed and tested with a case study about work safety in the construction industry. This interpretive view requires the researcher to complicate the inquiry process rather than the mirroring models of reality. In DMI, the inquiry process is complicated by establishing pluralist communities of inquiry in which different perspectives challenge each other. The paper ends with a discussion of the specific contribution of this approach compared with other qualitative methods, and its present limitations.

A pragmatic and interpretive approach to competence-based management: The case of a telecommunications company

In this research we explore the issue of “competence management,” as usually defined in the corporate vocabulary, mostly in the human resource (HR) function, and more particularly of “strategic competence management” (long-run management of competences which are critical to achieve strategic goals). We try to show that competence management is a dynamic organizational competence. We analyze it in the case of a large European telecommunications company, France Telecom, in the years 2001–2003. The telecommunications sector is characterized by quick changes in technology, markets, and industrial structures, and therefore a high level of uncertainty. It is also a high-tech activity, based upon continuously evolving personal skills which require long education and training times. There is an apparent contradiction between uncertainty, which makes planning difficult, and the necessity to plan new competence development with long response times. This contradiction cannot be solved if competences are defined in a static way, as structural attributes of actual or potential employees or groups of employees. The strategic competence management issue must be considered rather in the frame of a dynamic, process-based view, which involves an on-going collective and reflexive activity of actors themselves to define and manage their competences. We tested process-based competence management in the case of two telecommunication domains: high bit-rate ADSL telecommunications and Internet services to small and medium businesses. The reflexive and collective competence management process had to be instrumented with instruments which did not aim at an accurate representation of competences as objects, but rather tried to offer a meaningful support for actors’ continuous (re)interpretation of present and future work situations in terms of critical competences. As a conclusion we extend the example of competence management instruments to the general issue of management instruments, in the context of uncertain and dynamic environments. Information-based theories of instruments view instruments as specular representations of situations, which allow optimal or satisficing problem-solving procedures. But when business environments continuously evolve and resist prediction, we must move toward an interpretive view of management instruments as meaningful signs, which help actors to make sense of the situations in which they are involved. Their relevance is not an absolute ontological truth but the practical effectiveness of their context-situated utilization and interpretation. A semiotic and pragmatist theory of activity and instruments can then be proposed.

From the Analysis of Verbal Data to the Analysis of Organizations: Organizing as a Dialogical Process

The analysis of conversational turn-taking and its implications on time (the speaker cannot completely anticipate the future effects of her/his speech) and sociality (the speech is co-produced by the various speakers rather than by the speaking individual) can provide a useful basis to analyze complex organizing processes and collective action: the actor cannot completely anticipate the future effects of her/his acts and the act is co-produced by multiple actors. This translation from verbal to broader classes of interaction stresses the performativity of speeches, the importance of the situation, the role of semiotic mediations to make temporally and spatially distant “ghosts” present in the dialog, and the dissymmetrical relationship between successive conversational turns, due to temporal irreversibility.

Management Systems as Organizational ‘Architextures’

It is widely accepted that the architecture of buildings, and more generally the spatial structures of organizational life, powerfully influence work relationships, management practices and organization capacities (Kornberger & Clegg, 2004). This chapter suggests that the case of building architecture can be extended to other types of complex instrumental systems engaged in organizational activities, such as integrated management information systems, which not only influence, constrain and enable the local activity of individuals or small teams, but also establish a constraining and enabling architectural framework for entire organizational processes, communication links, social relationships and collective action, across professions and functions.

Keys to successful implementation of a French national quality indicator in health care organizations: a qualitative study.

BackgroundSeveral countries have launched public reporting systems based on quality indicators (QIs) to increase transparency and improve quality in health care organizations (HCOs). However, a prerequisite to quality improvement is successful local QI implementation. The aim of this study was to explore the pathway through which a mandatory QI of the French national public reporting system, namely the quality of the anesthesia file (QAF), was put into practice.MethodSeven ethnographic case studies in French HCOs combining in situ observations and 37 semi-structured interviews.ResultsA significant proportion of potential QAF users, such as anesthetists or other health professionals were often unaware of quality data. They were, however, involved in improvement actions to meet the QAF criteria. In fact, three intertwined factors influenced QAF appropriation by anesthesia teams and impacted practice. The first factor was the action of clinical managers (chief anesthetists and head of department) who helped translate public policy into local practice largely by providing legitimacy by highlighting the scientific evidence underlying QAF, achieving consensus among team members, and pointing out the value of QAF as a means of work recognition. The two other factors related to the socio-material context, namely the coherence of information systems and the quality of interpersonal ties within the department.ConclusionsPublic policy tends to focus on the metrological validity of QIs and on ranking methods and overlooks QI implementation. However, effective QI implementation depends on local managerial activity that is often invisible, in interaction with socio-material factors. When developing national quality improvement programs, health authorities might do well to specifically target these clinical managers who act as invaluable mediators. Their key role should be acknowledged and they ought to be provided with adequate resources.

Learning as Transforming Collective Activity Through Dialogical Inquiries

This chapter suggests that learning is an intrinsic aspect of every conscious, purposeful activity. That activity is viewed here as dialogical (i.e., activity is addressed through and acquires its meaning from the interacting situation) and mediated by different types of semiotic mediations, e.g., language, tooling, information systems, and procedures. All mediations are ultimately referenced to one final mediation: socially recognizable and meaning-making habits. When unpredicted situations disrupt habits, multiple and partly invisible inquiries lead to their transformation for supporting allow activity continuation. Activity, habits, and inquiries are all dialogical and weave the threads of a collective sensemaking narrative. Learning is, thus, defined here as the continuous transformation of habits and of their combination into sensemaking cross-functional narratives through dialogical inquiries. Inquiries can be felicitous, meaning that they succeed in reweaving the threads of collective activity, or infelicitous. One key issue thus is identifying the conditions of felicity. This conception is illustrated using the case of an electricity company. The implementation of an integrated management information system (ERP) disrupted existing professional habits without providing the conditions for felicitous inquiries, leading to an organizational crisis. From this case, it appears that it is a key condition of organizational learning to view collective activity, not only in its “directly performing” dyadic dimension (A transforms B) but also in its mediated triadic dimension (A means C by transforming B). This grants due consideration not only to “what people actually do” but also to “what people actually mean by doing what they do” with three mediating dimensions: firstly, the links of day-to-day ordinary operations with “professional genres”; secondly, the links of day-to-day ordinary operations with inquiries which continuously and often invisibly transform habits and keep collective activity feasible; and thirdly, the links of day-to-day ordinary operations with the procedural and narrative thread that gives activity its global social sense. This approach requires establishing the adequate communities of practice, to transform professional habits and identities, and communities of process, to redesign cross-functional inquiries and the cross-functional narrative coherence of processes.

Managerial Techniques in Management and Organization Studies: Theoretical Perspectives on Managerial Artefacts

This introduction opens with a short overview of the Organization, Artefacts and Practices workshop series and previous volumes in the series. It then provides a brief evaluation of the current scholarly treatment of managerial techniques within four major themes: managerial techniques for managers, techniques in practice, managerial work, and innovation and technology. Next, it addresses materiality in management and extends its discussion into managerial techniques to show how material treatment of managerial techniques has contributed to their conceptualization and critical assessment. Having outlined the main strands of academic work within materiality of managerial techniques, the chapter closes with an overview of all contributions in this volume.

Conclusion: What Next, What For?

This book demonstrates a high diversity of situations: the types of managerial techniques involved; their practical effects; the theoretical and methodological frameworks adopted; and the concerned activities. The role of managerial techniques and the analysis of their material dimension are complex issues that, too often, theoretical models tend to over-simplify. Situatedness is a key characteristic. The performativity of managerial techniques and models, far from imposing straightforward social practices, appears as an ambiguous issue. The meanings and practical effects of managerial techniques vary over time and across social space. They are continually involved in pluralist controversies and exploratory inquiries. The material and processual perspective on managerial techniques questions two dualisms strongly established in organization and management studies: the fact-value dualism, and the means-ends dualism.

Organizing, Management Tools and Practices

Research about management techniques has been exploring the relationship between management tools and organizational practices for decades, with different theoretical frameworks, for example rationalism, cognitivism, practice-based analysis, actor network theory, institutionalism and critical studies. We argue that all those streams adopt one of two main theoretical and epistemological characterizations of management tools in their relationship with organizational practices: they assign to them either a status of representation, in the cognitivist sense of the word, or a status of social mediation, in a semiotic perspective. We start with a case study concerning the management of experience feedback in the nuclear industry. Then we characterize the two paradigms: representation and mediation. The status of materiality in that debate is examined, before concluding on the theoretical and practical stakes.