Pedro Monteiro is an organizational ethnographer and post-doctoral fellow at EMLYON Business School at the Ethnography Atelier. He is interested in examining how formal organizational structures shape business processes and work practices in organizations. In particular, Pedro has a long-term commitment to understanding bureaucracy beyond the negative bias surrounding it and bringing insights from classic organizational theory to light. He is also interested in ethnographic methods and using the arts to inspire research.
Pedro started his academic career in Italy with a bachelor’s degree in sociology at the University of Urbino in 2009. He then moved to the UK and graduated from Warwick Business School with an M.A. in Management and Organisational Analysis in 2011, and a Ph.D. in Management in 2017. He was an Early-Career Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study at Warwick University from 2017 to 2018.
Selected publications
Monteiro, P. (2018). The Enabling Roles of Bureaucracy in Cross-Expertise Collaboration. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, p. 12988).
Monteiro, P. (2016). The Staff Within the Line: The Enabling-Yet-Unsung Work of Staff Employees in Product Development. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2016, No. 1, p. 14817).
Nicolini, D., & Monteiro, P. (2016). The practice approach: for a praxeology of organisational and management studies. The Sage handbook of process organization studies. London: SAGE, 110-126.
How I got involved with the podcast
In the middle of my PhD at Warwick Business School, Dmitrijs mentioned in the corridor that he was a fan of podcasts and noticed that unfortunately there was nothing in the area of organization and management theory. I barely knew what podcasts were back then … but I was/am fascinated by organizational research, and I felt/feel that it should be known by more people inside and outside academia. Hence, I embarked on the TAOP journey and became one of the co-founding members of it.
Some of my favourite episodes
- Episode 1: Principles of Scientific Management. In this inaugural episode, we discovered that many assumptions related to Taylor are somewhat misguided. I am also attached to that one because it was the moment we found that (despite some bloopers) doing a podcast that spanned the globe was doable and fun.
- Episode 11: Culture and High Reliability. Beyond an overall discussion on culture, there are also fascinating insights from the world of nuclear submarines and how the culture of the Navy is much more complex and multifaceted than one might imagine.
- Episode 25: Competitive Groups as Cognitive Communities. This one features the super insightful Sarah Kaplan as a guest discussing a classic paper published in JMS. I especially like the way Sarah invite us to think about the article in its original context and appreciate its repercussions in the literature.
- Episode 34: Sociotechnical Systems. The research paper we explore here is perhaps one of the most important (and timely!) in organization theory. It is especially insightful for anyone interested in understanding how work might be changing today. It is almost chilling to notice that some dynamics related to Uber and the digital economy echo findings from a study of the industrialization of the coal mining in the 60s! So, a great example of the relevance of the classics.
Other podcasts I recommend
- New Books Network. Great network with interviews to writers of recently published books. It is a great way to keep up to date about new ideas and publications in the social sciences.
- Give Methods a Chance. This podcast features conversations with social scientists about the methods they use in their work. I like how it gives us a view of the challenges involved in social research.
- Everything is Alive. A new podcast that is already a favorite. The show features interviews to inanimate objects (e.g., a pillow, a bar of soap, etc.). I like how it showcases the world from a different perspective. Personally, it also seems like a great exercise around making the familiar, strange, and emphasizing with different world views — both challenges for ethnographers and social researchers.
- The history chicks. A very important podcast, on all levels, that aims to introduce female characters in history, factual or fictional. I find it a accessible and creative way to re-write the role of women in history and also illustrates how much thinking about the past and the classics can be done in ways to expand the canon, not just reproduce status quo.
- Conversations with People Who Hate me. The idea of this podcast is beautifully simple and revolutionary at the same time. Dylan Marron, a writer and video maker focusing on social justice, calls up the people behind negative comments on the internet. It is a ‘timely’ project which aims to build bridges and common ground in this time of great intolerance in the world.