119: Management & the Worker — Roethlisberger & Dickson
November 12, 2024 1:00 amWe return for another look at the Hawthorne Studies through Fritz Roethlisberger and William Dicksons 1939 book Management and the Worker. The work chronicles five years of experiments that initially sought the optimal conditions for increased worker performance but evolved into an examination of the social controls that worker exercise over themselves for self-preservation against managerial decisions. It also includes an introspective look into the researchers themselves as they had to design–More–
118: Organizational Structures & Digital Technologies – AoM 2024 Symposium
October 15, 2024 1:00 amThis month we present a recording of a symposium titled Design Choices: Examining the Interplay of Organizational Structure and Digital Technologies from the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Digital technologies now underpin the very fabric of the workplace; how tasks are assigned, bundled, and monitored partially hinges on the design of such technologies. Four panelists discuss various perspectives on the matter including design thinking, disparities of structures and norms that–More–
117: Economic Sociology & Valuation – Marion Fourcade
September 17, 2024 1:00 amEconomic sociology bridges economics and sociology, exploring questions such as how social environments explain and influence economic activities. Of interest for this episode is the subfield of economic valuation, in which researchers have been studying how the monetary worth of something is formed or constructed. One influential work is Marion Fourcades Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation and the Nature of Nature, published in the American Journal of Sociology in 2011. The article explores–More–
116: Resource Dependence Perspective — Pfeffer & Salancik
August 27, 2024 1:00 amResource Dependence Theory (RDT) represented a significant departure from extant literature on management and organization studies in the 1970s. Prior to the publication of Jeffrey Pfeffer and Geralds The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective in 1978, the social context and environment surrounding organizations were little studied. In the book, Pfeffer & Salancik argued that the behaviors or organizations and their managers were driven by the context, because–More–
115: Sociology of Science — Robert K. Merton
July 23, 2024 1:00 amRobert K. Merton was a sociologist who founded the study of the sociology of science, how acts of research influence and are influenced by the contexts being studied. Two of his early essays exemplify this body of work whereby he and his research teams reflect on the challenges and difficulties of performing field work. In this episode, we examine two speeches delivered in 1947 – The Machine, the Worker, and the Engineer and Selected Problems of Field Work in the Planned Community – that exemplifies–More–
114: Sociotechnical Systems — Trist & Bamforth (revisited)
June 6, 2024 1:00 amWith over 110 episodes in our catalogue, we decided it was time to take a step back and revisit one of our earlier episodes that continues to come up time and again. Episode 34, covering Trist & Bamforths study on the longwall method of coal-getting, was referenced in sixteen (16) episodes since its release. That is more than any other episode! This re-release includes a new supplement further the conversation to contemporary issues and a sidecast on the use of this study as a cautionary tale–More–
113: Sports & Gender – “A League of Their Own”
May 14, 2024 1:00 amThe rapid growth of womens professional team sports has a history, and many contemporary womens athletes have honored the legacy of past pioneers as their inspiration. Included in this legacy is the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) that existed from 1943 through 1954 in the U.S. and popularized through the 1992 film A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall and starring a large ensemble cast including Geena Davis and Tom Hanks. In addition to describing the lived–More–
112: Hierarchies & Promotion – The “Peter Principle”
April 9, 2024 1:00 amThe diligent administrative assistant moves up to supervisor but fails. The assembly line worker is promoted to foreman but cannot do the job. A teacher earns a deputy principal position in a school but falls flat on their face. Why is that? Why does this seem to happen across organizations? In The Peter Principle, Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull not only provides answers to these questions, they delve into all the possible implications. The Principle goes like this, In a hierarchy, everyone–More–
111: Visible & Invisible Work – Susan Leigh Star
March 12, 2024 1:00 amIn this episode, we focus on the emerging discourse from the 1990s on how automated systems would potentially change the very meaning of work. The discussion is on a seminal work of Susan Leigh Star and co-author Anselm Strauss, Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work, published in CSCWs flagship journal, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, in 1999. The article focuses on the challenges and risks of automating work processes without due consideration of all–More–
110: Organizations and Law – Lauren Edelman
February 13, 2024 1:00 amIn this episode, we explore two articles from Lauren Edelman, Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law from 1992 and The Endogeneity of Legal Regulation: Grievance Procedures as Rational Myth from 1999. These studies showed a wide variety of organizational responses to the enactment of civil rights legislation, but that certain responses were legitimated due to their success in symbolically showing effort in addressing discrimination and thus institutionalized–More–
109: Emergence of Mental Health Professions – Abbott
January 23, 2024 1:00 amIn this episode, we return to Andrew Abbotts The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor from 1989 to study in depth one of his case studies that may illuminate the present-day mental health crises gripping many nations from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Construction of the Personal Problems Jurisdiction chronicles how social changes from the Industrial Revolution led to the maladjustment and isolation felt by many newly industrialized workers who could no longer reach back–More–
108: Presentation of Self in Everyday Life – Goffman
December 12, 2023 5:58 amErving Goffmans 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life was an important attempt at explaining both apparent and hidden human behaviors across social and organizational settings. Through a comprehensive framework employing theater as a metaphor, he describes the roles of people as performers and members of an audience who try to shape the unfolding situation in ways suitable to their aims. Meanwhile, there is a backstage where people return to being themselves and proceed to set conditions–More–
107: Institutionalized Rules and Formal Structures — Meyer & Rowan
November 14, 2023 7:52 amWe discuss John Meyer and Brian Rowans famous 1977 article Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. In it, they argued that institutionalized products, services, techniques, policies, and programs function as powerful myths, and many organizations adopt them ceremonially (p. 340), even if they result in organizations becoming less efficient or effective in their intended missions or purposes. In fact, these myths can become so powerful as to stigmatize organizations–More–
106: The Study of Organizations Across Disciplines
October 10, 2023 4:56 amWe sit down with Woody Powell and Bob Gibbons who, since 2016, have been organizing the summer institute on organizational effectiveness at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) in Stanford, California. We ask them to reflect on the history of CASBS and the summer institute, the value of fostering interdisciplinary conversations on the study of organizations, and the way in which they design and conduct the summer institute to allow young scholars across economics, sociology–More–
105: Manifest & Latent Roles — Alvin Gouldner
September 12, 2023 1:00 amAlvin Gouldner wrote the article, Cosmopolitans and locals: Toward an analysis of latent social roles in 1957 to propose that through the 1950s latent roles had been seriously overlooked by scholars. Manifest roles, described as those roles and role identities that are directly related to ones defined position in the organizational structure, had been the sole focus. Latent roles comprised the complementary roles that members made salient but were not officially recognized. Instead, managers might–More–
104: Social Structure & Organizations — Stinchcombe
August 8, 2023 1:00 amIn a famous chapter in James G. Marchs 1965 book, Handbook of Organizations, Arthur L. Stinchcombe laid out a case for expanding the study of organizations outward to include social structure bringing attention to innovation as well as imprinting and inertia. He posited that societies had significant effects on how organizations emerge and operate and that organizations, in turn, impact relations among groups in society. He presented his arguments in three parts. First, that social structures had–More–
103: Bringing Work Back In — Barley & Kunda
July 11, 2023 1:00 amIn their 2001 Organization Science article Bringing Work Back In, Steven Barley and Gideon Kunda lamented how the study of work, its organization, and its performance shifted after the 1950s. Work was the center of attention among the classic era of organization studies beginning with Frederic Taylor, but afterward, the focus shifted to post-bureaucratic concepts such as boundaryless organizations and networks. Barley and Kunda argues that these new ideas are not grounded in rigorous studies of–More–
102: Executive Leadership — Sloan’s “My Years at General Motors”
June 13, 2023 1:00 amAlfred Sloan was President, Chairman, and CEO of General Motors from 1923 to 1956. His memoir My Years at General Motors tells his story about how he took a corporation consisting of several disparate and competing companies and shaped them into division that manufactured cars tailored to different segments of society. He constantly pursued and integrated new technologies into the automobiles themselves while also shaping the buying experience through the introductions of different styles, improved–More–
101: The Motivation to Work — Frederick Herzberg
May 9, 2023 1:00 amFrederick Herzbergs The Motivation to Work presents the results of over 200 interviews with engineers and accountants working in the Pittsburgh area regarding what satisfied and dissatisfied them on the job. They would find that factors leading to satisfaction, such as achievement and performance, were very different than those leading to dissatisfaction, such as company policies or relationships with co-workers and managers. The result became known as Herzbergs Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction–More–
100: Special Episode — The State of Organization Studies
April 18, 2023 1:00 amFor our 100th episode, we look outward toward the various fields of study that have fed into our podcast – organization studies, organization theory, management science, and others – and ask how strong or healthy those fields are. The disciple has, after all, gotten very big with thousands of scholars around the world doing important field work, research, and consultancy projects. But it has also become more fragmented and is experiencing the stresses and strains of a mature profession. So in this–More–
99: Gendering in Organizations — Joan Acker
March 14, 2023 1:00 amJoan Ackers 1990 article Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations was a significant work in feminist theories of organizations. She charged that prior feminist research had wrongly assumed that organizational structures were gender neutral. Instead, everything about organizations from structures to symbols are inherently gendered, and until that was acknowledged and studied, organizations would continue to reinforce long-standing gender inequalities. The article is significant–More–
98: Managing Innovation — Burns & Stalker
February 14, 2023 1:00 amWhy do firms seemingly have difficulties converting new ideas into goods or services? The answer is in the classic book The Management of Innovation from Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker that explored the difficulties that firms, industries, and even nations had in innovating due to the disruptions that it brings to power structures and social fabric in organizations. They also explored key misunderstandings about innovation (such as that the false narrative that bureaucratic structures inherently cannot–More–
97: Social Change and Organization – Invictus (2009 movie)
January 24, 2023 1:00 amThe 2009 film Invictus tells the story of how the first post-Apartheid President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, used sports as a unifying force to overcome lingering and bitter racial divides in the nation. The movie and the real-life events that inspired it are powerful. We will look at it through an organizational lens and discuss insights related to leadership, team building, change and other management topics.
96: Informating at Work – Shoshana Zuboff
December 6, 2022 1:00 amWe discuss Shoshana Zuboffs “In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power” that examines several cases of organizations introducing information technologies in the workplace hoping to improve organizational performance, transparency, and collaboration but instead dehumanized the workplace and ushered in new ways of managerial surveillance. In Part 1, we discuss the major themes of the book, her telling of the histories of both blue- and white-collar work, and her incredible–More–
95: Labor-Management Relations – Tom Lupton
November 8, 2022 1:00 amThis month, we discuss examine Luptons famous study of worker-management relations, “On the Shop Floor: Two Studies of Workshop Organization and Output” published in 1963. Tom Lupton spent 12 months as a factor worker in two different settings examining why workers intentionally worked at a level below management expectations. He found that social structures formed that protected workers from overuse or abuse by management and ensured a stable pay. These structures discouraged workers–More–
94: Situated Learning – Lave & Wenger
October 11, 2022 1:00 amThis month, we discuss Jean Lave & Etienne Wengers Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, published in 1991. This short but powerful book presents a new way of thinking about adult learning as a social activity in which experienced members of a group or community of practice share their knowledge with new members to perpetuate the group identity. They present five case studies – one by Lave herself with four from other researchers – to help broaden the perspective of how situated–More–
93: Approaches to the Study of Work — Classics AoM PDW LIVE
September 13, 2022 1:00 amThis years professional development workshop (PDW) on Classics of Organization and Management Theory explored key approaches to the study of work and was held at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Seattle, Washington in the U.S. It represents the fourth edition of a standing series showcasing the enduring relevance of early organizational research. Steve Barley, Gina Dokko, Ingrid Erickson, and Davide Nicolini presented central insights on research traditions related to the–More–
92: Organizational Secrecy — Case of the Manhattan Project
August 9, 2022 1:00 amWe are examining organizational secrecy using the Manhattan Project during World War II as a case study. The Manhattan Project came about following the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and the understanding that Nazi Germany was trying to develop a powerful weapon that could change the course of the war. Naturally, the American effort had to be kept secret to hide both the existence of the project and, failing that, any information about progress and potential employment. How did they do it–More–
91: Constructive Conflict – Mary Parker Follett
July 12, 2022 1:00 amWe return to the works of Mary Parker Follett and expand upon The Law of the Situation that we covered in Chapter 5. In this episode, we revisit Dynamic Administration with a look at the first five chapters as a whole – focusing on Chapter 1 (Constuctive Conflict), Chapter 3 (Business as an Integrative Unity), Chapter 4 (Power), and Chapter 5 (How Must Business Management Develop in order to Possess the Essentials of a Profession) that introduced Folletts conception of professionalizing business–More–
90: Organizations in Action – James Thompson
June 14, 2022 1:00 amWe will examine James D. Thompsons “Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory” from 1967 that established a new direction in organization studies. Beginning with a recapitulation of the theoretical work of the time, Thompson expanded the dominant rational model of organizing with the emerging ideas about human behaviour, complexity, and the relation between organizations and their environments. The result was a proposed theory of administration that remains–More–
89: Administrative Behavior in Public Sector — Herbert Kaufman
May 17, 2022 1:00 amThis months episode examines a classic study in public administration, Herbert Kaufmans The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior, published in 1960. The U.S. Forest Service was a widely distributed organization with its many Rangers individually assigned to manage large tracts of public land. It would have been easy for the Forest Service to lose control and fragment, but it did not. Kaufmans study showed how and why the various techniques used by the Forest Service kept the Rangers–More–
88: Social Defenses Against Anxiety — Isabel Menzies
April 12, 2022 1:00 amThis months episode examines one of the classic studies from the Tavistock Institute, Isabel Menzies A Case-Study in the Functioning of Social Systems as a Defence Against Anxiety. This famous study of how a teaching hospital developed odd and somewhat dysfunctional methods for protecting its nurses from anxiety and stress by effectively isolating nurses from the patients to prevent emotional attachment. Nursing students witnessing these methods in practice found them in violation of their expectations–More–
87: The Art of War (and Management?) — Sun Tzu
March 8, 2022 1:00 amThis months episode examines war and how principles derived from it are presently applied to other organizational and management contexts. Sun Tzus The Art of War is an ancient text that emerged from the Warring States period that lasted from the 5th through 3rd centuries B.C. and engulfed most of modern mainland China. It embraced the complexity of the environment of war, which therefore has allowed it to be adapted for navigating other forms of complexity such as business competition. We examine–More–
86: Networks and Network Theory — Mark Granovetter
February 8, 2022 1:00 amGranovetters 1973 article, The Strength of Weak Ties, introduced whole new ways of thinking about seemingly simple and straightforward topics and changed the direction of social research. He showed how weak ties, occasional connections between individuals among different networks, were powerful means for providing opportunities and new ideas not otherwise available. He also charted a way for researchers to connect micro-level interactions with macro-level patterns. Given how social networking has–More–
85: Carnegie-Mellon Series #6 — Organizations
January 11, 2022 1:00 amIn this episode, we discuss the second edition of James March and Herbert Simons classic text ‘Organizations.’ In addition to the well-known concepts such as bounded rationality and satisficing, the book introduces an important critique of the mechanistic view that classic organization theory to that point approached organizations and its members. How do decisions get made? What causes individuals or join, stay in, or leave organizations? What about the causes and effects of conflict–More–
84: Professionalizing Business — Louis Brandeis
December 7, 2021 1:00 amWe discuss the life and works of Louis Brandeis who originated the term scientific management that aimed at conserving effort and making work life more predictable, reducing worker stress and increasing satisfaction. He also advocated for a more altruistic and professionalized form of business leadership that served both the needs of customers or clients and those of the workers under their supervision. A collection of his lectures entitled Business – A Profession expounds on these ideas, and he–More–
83: Organizational Design — Jay Galbraith
November 9, 2021 1:00 amWe discuss several works by Jay Galbraith on the theory and practice of organizational design, which is about creating organizations to provide better outcomes and serve the organizations purpose and strategy. This episode begins with a focus on one of Jay Galbraiths earlier publications, an article titled, Organizational Design: An Information Processing View for designing organizations to make better decisions in times of high uncertainty, and then brings in his more recent works promoting his–More–
82: Women of Organizational Scholarship — Classics AoM PDW LIVE
October 19, 2021 1:00 amPresents a professional development workshop we hosted at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. It sheds light on the foundational texts of female scholars for the field of organization and management theory but whose work is often overlooked. Includes presentations by Emmanuelle Vaast on Jean Lave, Marta Calás on Edith Penrose, Martha Feldman on Susan Leigh Star, Maja Korica on Rosemary Stewart, Maria José Tonelli on Isabel Menzies Lyth, and Lisa Cohen on Rosabeth Moss Kanter.
81: Diversity and Inclusion — EGOS 2021 Special LIVE
October 5, 2021 1:00 amThe COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on societies and the workspace have demonstrated the importance of open conversations on matters of diversity and inclusion. The theme for the 37th Colloquium of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS), hosted virtually in July 2021 by the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, was Organizing for an inclusive society: Meanings, motivations, and mechanisms. In this special episode, we offer the keynote address of that colloquium by Mirjam van Praag–More–
80: Management Theory & Practice — Sumantra Ghoshal
September 14, 2021 1:00 amWe discuss a critique of business education — Sumantra Ghoshals article from the Academy of Management Learning and Education, Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices. He describes a feedback loop between schools and practitioners that has led to theories based on a pretense of knowledge that assumes causality and predictability of the business environment and a gloomy vision that assumes the worst of human nature. In effect, theories are built around ideas that managers–More–
79: Labor Relations – Jane Addams
August 10, 2021 1:00 amWe discuss a famous speech by Jane Addams titled, A Modern Lear, her reflections on the events leading to and during the infamous Pullman Railway Strike of 1894. Using ideas drawn from the emergence of classic pragmatism and Shakespeares King Lear as an analogy, Addams took both the ownership and workers to task for the violence and provides a way to avoid a recurrence of such a tragedy. What insights are applicable to todays contemporary situation? Can pragmatism provide a way forward?
78: Patterns of Bureaucracy — Alvin Gouldner
July 13, 2021 1:00 amWe discuss a classic 1954 book by Alvin Gouldner titled, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy. This describes the results of an ethnographic study conducted at a gypsum processing plant that included both a mine and a production line for construction materials. Gouldner and his team uncovered three distinct patterns of bureaucratic rules based on the acceptance and compliance of bureaucratic rules by workers and management – patterns still relevant today.
77: Job Design – Hackman & Oldham
June 8, 2021 1:00 amWe discuss a 1975 article by J. Richard Hackman and Greg R. Oldham in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey. The purpose of the instrument was to help managers increase the motivational potential of jobs. They developed the JDS through the studies of existing jobs to determine what makes a job motivating and also how to improve the motivating potential of jobs from how they are defined and described. It remains a seminal reading in job design today. With–More–
76: Comparative Analysis of Organizations – Charles Perrow
May 11, 2021 1:00 amWe discuss a 1967 article from Charles Perrow, A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Organizations. Perrow proposed a framework for comparing organizations, largely around technology which in contemporary times would be taken to mean the work to be performed. The framework allows analysis of the character of the work being done, nature of the raw material (e.g., tangible objects or intangible symbols), and associated task and social structures.
75: Institutionalization – Philip Selznick
April 13, 2021 1:00 amPhilip Selznick seeded the origins of institutional theory in organization studies. He brought attention to the symbolic aspects of administration, such as when organizational tools and processes assume an importance beyond their concrete technical value—what he labelled institutionalization. In this episode, we discuss one of his classic works from 1949, TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization that contributed to his theory of organization through an examination–More–
74: Emergence of Middle Management — Alfred Chandler
March 9, 2021 1:00 amAlfred Chandlers award-winning book, “The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business” provides an excellent summary of the history of American commerce from the pre-industrial era to the mid-20th century, and how new technologies and a changing society led to the creation of the modern industrial enterprise. The “visible hand” refers to the transparency and prominence of this new class of manager who coordinated and controlled these growing enterprises,
73: Organizing Innovation — Michael Tushman
February 16, 2021 1:00 amDiscusses an important work from Michael Tushman about how innovation benefits from individuals who communicate across boundaries. With special guest Hila Lifshitz-Assaf who has collaborated with Tushman and did her own dissertation on boundary spanning in the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
72: Organizational Diagnosis — Marvin Weisbord
January 12, 2021 1:00 amBusiness literature is now loaded with models and frameworks designed to help organizations identify, analyze, and fix their problems. But it wasn’t always this way, and in fact a half century ago there were few general-purpose models available that were well-suited for the task. Enter Marvin Weisbord who in the 1970s developed and promoted a simple framework and associated suite of tools designed for anyone to investigate what was going wrong. In this episode, we discuss one of his articles–More–
71: Managerial Behavior — Melville Dalton
December 15, 2020 1:00 am2020 ushered in a full year of major change and renewed a lot of conversations about how we work, live, and cooperate in organizations and societies. In that spirit, we discuss Melville Dalton’s classic 1959 book “Men Who Manage: Fusions of Feeling and Theory in Administration.” The study provided an intimate look at how men (as these were all men at the time) entered into the managerial culture of a firm, how the separations between managers are workers were structured and maintained–More–
70: Epistemic Coloniality in Latin America – Eduardo Ibarra-Colado
November 10, 2020 1:00 amWe now continue the effort to expand the canon of organization theory and management science, this time focusing on Latin America. Worldwide, much of the theorizing and publishing of research has been greatly influenced by a dominant mode of thought originating in western Europe, the U.S., and Canada. Eduardo Ibarra-Colado, whose famous 2006 work “Organization studies and epistemic coloniality in Latin America: thinking otherness from the margins” represents a manifesto and call to action–More–
69: Our 5th Anniversary Special!
October 13, 2020 1:00 amOn October 13, 2015 — The Talking About Organizations Podcast descended upon the unsuspecting world of academia with the release of Episode 1: Scientific Management – F.W. Taylor’s One Best Way, covering the much misunderstood and severely misrepresented work of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Five years later and we are still here! Come celebrate our first five years with retrospective looks at how we plan and put on the show, talks with some of our past guests, and responses to questions–More–
68: Globalization and Culture Clashes — “American Factory” (Documentary)
September 8, 2020 1:00 amFor this episode, we cover a documentary that presents a compelling picture about culture clashes in the workplace. American Factory is an important and powerful documentary, telling the story of cultural clashes and labor-management relations as a Chinese firm re-opened and re-purposed a close automotive plant in Ohio.
67: Professions & Professionalism — Andrew Abbott
August 11, 2020 1:00 amThe text for this episode is Andrew Abbott’s 1989 book The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. This book is a watershed in our understanding of professions and their work. While previous literature had a focus on distinctive occupational groups and their professionalization projects, Abbott invited us to think more systemically about the interdependencies and how professions compete with each other over “jurisdictions,” claims of ownership and responsibility–More–
66: Workplace Isolation – Forester
July 16, 2020 1:00 amIn this episode (which took place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic), we explore the social and emotional impacts to the worker on having to work from home. For some workers, the concept of telework is hardly new. But many other vocations place great value on regular social contact with clients and customers. These include teachers, doctors, lawyers, public servants, and many others. The sudden thrust to teleworking for an unknown period of time has raised questions as to how these workers–More–
65: Organizational Structure — The Aston School
June 9, 2020 1:00 amThe Aston Group was based in the United Kingdom and played a major role in the early development of organization theory and management science. Starting in the 1960s, they carried out a program of research that departed from the comparative study of work organizations in the Birmingham area in the UK and contributed landmark works on organizational structure and the development of contingency approach.
64: Disasters and Crisis Management – Powley and Weick
May 12, 2020 1:00 amCrises and disasters are regular occurrences in organizational life, putting leaders into the spotlight and organizations under tremendous pressure to respond appropriately — whether it is to preserve life or salvage reputations. With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, we wanted to discuss some important texts on organizational crises and their management, and in this episode we present two — from Karl Weick studying the Tenerife air disaster and Edward Powley on activating organizational–More–
63: Remote Operations — The Hudson’s Bay Company
April 14, 2020 1:00 amFor this episode we discuss the history of a classic firm which exercised remote operations as a matter of course and faced multiple pandemics during its early existence. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was chartered in 1670 by King Charles II at a time when the French monopolized fur trading with Native Americans in modern-day Canada. From then, the English would establish its own robust fur trading industry, establishing hundreds of posts from the western shores of Hudson Bay all across modern–More–
62: Consumerism & Meaning at Work — WALL-E
March 17, 2020 1:00 amThis is another episode where we look at organizations through the medium of film. WALL-E, a 2008 animated film from Pixar, is the story of a robot who at one time was part of a massive clean-up effort on Earth while all the humans left to live on cruise ships in space. In this episode, we talk about the setting and the story for clues about organizational behavior and management.
61: Power & Influence in Organizations — Dan Brass
February 11, 2020 1:00 amWhat is power and influence? Although power appears as a multilevel concept, the early organizational literature tended to view it as wielded by people–measured as skills, traits, or competencies. This would change in the 1980s, in large part to a classic empirical study providing evidence that one’s position within an organizational structure was more likely to translate into one’s source of power. Dan Brass’ article, “Being in the Right Place: A Structural Analysis–More–
60: Contingency Theory — Joan Woodward
January 14, 2020 8:00 amJoan Woodward was a pioneer in organization theory, and in this episode we explore her seminal work Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice, originally published in 1965. The book presents the results of an extensive longitudinal study of the technologies, processes, and systems used by over one hundred industrial firms concentrated in southeast England over a ten year period.
59: Theory X and Y – Douglas McGregor
December 2, 2019 1:00 amIn this episode, we examine Douglas McGregor’s most famous work, The Human Side of Enterprise, that proposed two “theories” encapsulating management assumptions about human behavior. His Theory X described the dominant thinking of the 1950s, where managers held a dim view of employees, who were assumed to be disinclined to work and had to be coerced into doing so. McGregor felt that Theory X led to adversarial relationships between managers and workers, resulting in poorer performance–More–
58: Contingency Approach – AOM 2019 Workshop LIVE
November 20, 2019 1:00 amThis professional development workshop focuses on the contingency approach as exemplary of classic scholarship in organization and management theory. We focus on the historical context of the contingency approach, the main ideas of authors and traditions associated with it, and their connections with contemporary research.
57: Reward Systems – Steven Kerr
October 21, 2019 1:00 amWhy do organizations espouse one thing but do another? This is essentially what Steven Kerr asks in his popular 1975 article in the Academy of Management Journal, “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B,” on reward systems. Using examples ranging from politics and war to business and public sector settings, Kerr found a common pattern: that the organization’s goals are too often not supported by the things they actually reward and encourage.
56: Cooperative Advantage – Charles Clinton Spaulding
July 16, 2019 7:15 pmIn this episode, we acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of Charles Clinton Spaulding, an important management thought leader who, like many African-Americans prior to the U.S. civil rights movement, has been sadly overlooked in the management canon. In 1927, with the U.S. in recession, Spaulding wrote a reflection of his experiences as a business leader in the Pittsburgh Courier, a widely-read newspaper, hoping to help fellow African-American business leaders overcome the economic downturn–More–
55: Group Dynamics and Foundations of Organizational Change – Kurt Lewin
May 22, 2019 1:00 amWe discuss Kurt Lewin’s article, “Frontiers in Group Dynamics,” that makes a strong case for treating the social sciences on the same level with the natural sciences–previously, social science was considered neither rigorous nor valid. Using metaphors from physics, Lewin explains social phenomena in tangible, physical terms and explains how individuals within a social space interact in ways that could be measured similarly to physical or chemical phenomenon.
54: Measuring Organizational Cultures – Hofstede
May 2, 2019 1:00 amWe cover Hofstede’s classic 1990 paper, “Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study Across Twenty Cases.” Through surveys and interviews among members of twenty units within ten large organizations, Geert Hofstede’s team proposed six distinct determinants of organizational culture that could be compared and contrasted across all organizations.
53: Taylorism in Motion — Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times
March 14, 2019 2:12 amWe discuss Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film “Modern Times” balances great physical comedy with powerful social commentary. Chaplin portrayed a hapless Worker on an assembly line who is tormented both by supervisors and the work itself. After being subjected to a humiliating experiment intended to improve the line’s efficiency, the Worker runs through a series of rotating jobs, stints in jail, and other misadventures as he tries to find his purpose in life.
52: Management in Practice – Rosemary Stewart
February 5, 2019 1:00 amWhat do managers do in practice? How do they spend their time (or put another way, how does their time spend them)? Are there differences in the demands of managers in different positions, or withiin different organizations? These were the questions that famed management theorist Rosemary Stewart set out to uncover in her research back in the 1960s, resulting in the first edition of this episode’s subject–her book Managers and Their Jobs: A Study of the Similarities and Differences in–More–
51: The Tyranny of Light — Hari Tsoukas
December 6, 2018 1:00 amHaridimos Tsoukas’ 1997 article “The Tyranny of Light” was a bold article that challenged conventional wisdom about the oncoming information society. The Internet, personal computers, and the dot-com boom were still new and exciting. But Tsoukas foresaw many dangers — have they come to pass?
50: Celebrating 50 Episodes! What Have We Learned?
November 27, 2018 1:00 amTalking about organizations has reached 50 episodes! To mark this occasion, we gathered all seven of us hosts to discuss what we like (and perhaps not) about the podcast and podcasting, what our favorite or most remembered episodes were, and what we have learned along the way. Turns out, one of the key things we…
49: Engineered Culture and Normative Control – Gideon Kunda
October 30, 2018 1:00 amOriginally published in 1992, Gideon Kunda’s ethnographic study of a high-tech corporation altered the discourse on organizational culture. “Tech,” the firm being studied, was a firm on the rise and saw itself as a leader and ground breaker in the rapidly growing high-tech industries of the 1980s. But as the firm grew, it began indoctrinating its tried-and-true hard-work formula in aggressive and unhelpful ways.
48: Stratified Systems Theory — Elliott Jaques
October 11, 2018 1:00 amAs bureaucracies became more prevalent as a feature of organizations post-WWII, questions surfaced as to how they could be improved. Was there an optimal way to design them? What was the best role of individual members within a bureaucracy? Could individuals be developed to handle higher level roles? Among those asking such questions was Elliott Jaques, co-founder of the Tavistock Institute and later the author of the renowned book Requisite Organization that combined social theories with theories–More–
47: Organizational Identity — Albert & Whetten
September 18, 2018 1:00 am“Who are WE?” The pursuit of an answer to this tantalizingly simple question began with a book chapter written in 1985 by organization theorists Stuart Albert and David Whetten. “Organizational Identity” established the construct of identity at the organizational level and described it as the sum of three types of claims — claims of an organization’s central character, claims of its distinctiveness from other organizations, and claims of temporal continuity that–More–
46: Classics of Management and Organization Theory – AoM 2018 Workshop LIVE
September 12, 2018 1:00 amA special recording from a workshop on management classics held at the 2018 Academy of Management Conference in Chicago. Hosted by Pedro, this PDW intended to raise interest towards classic authors/ideas in the field of organization and management theory. It offered scholars from all levels the opportunity to reflect on insights of earlier scholarship and their relevance for current research, complementing the strong emphasis (on new ideas and approaches. This is of great importance as the field–More–
45: Fate of Whistleblowers – C. Fred Alford
August 2, 2018 1:00 amWe discuss Fred Alford’s book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power in 2001 to understand and make sense of horrible treatment often suffered by those who witness and report illegal or immoral acts and have the courage and persistence to speak up and stand for what is right. In workplace environments, we have a name for such heroic men and women – whistleblowers. But historically, the experiences of many other whistleblowers are discouraging – being ostracized, ignored, harassed–More–
44: Transaction Costs and Boundaries of the Firm – Williamson and Malone
July 16, 2018 2:39 amWe explore an important reading that bridges organization theory with economics — Oliver E. Williamsons article, The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach, where he asserts that the assumption of firms operating on a profit motive has not helped organization theorists understand and explain the behaviors of firms. He thus argued that transactions, not the products or services the firm provides, is a better unit of analysis.
43: Centralization/Decentralization Debate – The Federalist Papers
May 30, 2018 1:00 amThe Federalist Papers was a series of writings from American history leading up to its current Constitution, completed in 1787. Formed as thirteen separate colonies, this newly independent nation tried to form a central government that granted maximum autonomy to the States to prevent the emergence of an American monarchy. We explore two in this episode and use them to host the first-ever TAOP debate where two of us argued for federalism and two argued for anti-federalism!
42: Carnegie Mellon Series #5 – Organizational Learning
May 3, 2018 1:00 amWe discuss Barbara Levitt and James G. Marchs article Organizational Learning, published in the 1988 edition of the Annual Review of Sociology. Although the authors hailed from Stanford University in California, we have included this episode in our Carnegie-Mellon Series because of James Marchs involvement and perspectives on organization that clearly influenced the article. This work was a literature review across various streams in organizational learning up through the 1980s. Topics include learning–More–
41: Images of Organization – Gareth Morgan
April 3, 2018 1:00 amWe tackle Gareth Morgans classic book Images of Organization, originally published in 1986. This lengthy and detailed volume synthesizes an incredible range of organization theories and concepts over the previous century and presents them under the umbrella of eight distinct metaphors. Each metaphor represents a different way of understanding the existence and dynamics of organizations, their members, and their interactions with the environment.
40: Symposium on the Gig Economy LIVE
February 24, 2018 1:00 amThe TAOP Symposium on the Gig Economy was a unique, one-day interdisciplinary symposium on the forms and effects of management in the contemporary sharing (a.k.a. gig) economy that took place on 15 December 2017 at the University of Sussex. Blending individual and panel presentations from leading scholars and commentators with group conversations, we wanted to examine the continuities – as well as disruptions – in the ways that work is organised through, and in light of, online platforms.
39: Carnegie Mellon Series #4 – Organizational Choice
February 8, 2018 1:00 amThe podcasters discuss a fascinating article, A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, published in Administrative Science Quarterly back in 1972 by Michael Cohen, James March, and Johan Olsen. This is another episode from the Carnegie-Mellon University tradition, alongside Episode 4 on Organizational Routines and Episode 19 on Organizational Learning. This installment addresses organizational decision making and choice and, like the others in this series, it changed the way people think about–More–
38: Socialization and Occupational Communities – Van Maanen
February 4, 2018 1:00 amIn this episode, we examine John Van Maanen’s classic ethnographic study of police recruits from an urban police department in the U.S. “Police socialization: A longitudinal examination of job attitudes in an urban police department,” published in Administrative Science Quarterly in 1975, presents Van Maanen’s study on the socialization process of new police officers from their training and indoctrination at the police academy to their early months on the beat.
37: Socrates on Management – Oeconomicus by Xenophon
December 5, 2017 1:00 amThis episode takes us to ancient Greece and one of the great practical philosophers, Xenophon (pronounced ZEN-uh-phun), whose Oeconomicus may have been one of his “minor” works in the world of philosophy, but it is a fascinating work for those interested in management and organizational studies. The book is written as a dialogue, with Socrates playing a sort of narrator who engages with men and encourages them to become more virtuous, with varying success.
36: The Human Capital Hoax – Employment in the Gig Economy
November 14, 2017 1:00 amWe step back from the classics and examine a contemporary work covering a timely topic – the negative effects of Uberization and the gig economy on the economic and social fabric. The article is Peter Fleming’s “The human capital hoax: Work, debt, and insecurity in the era of uberization,” published in 2017 in the journal Organization Studies. In it, Fleming takes a classic approach towards economics and traces its dark influence on contemporary dynamics.
35: The Managed Heart – Arlie Hochschild
October 24, 2017 1:00 amThe Managed Heart, originally published in 1983 by Dr. Arlie Hochschild, introduced the concept of emotional labour as a counterpart to the physical and mental labour performed in the scope of ones duties. The importance of emotional labour is made clear in Dr. Hochschilds descrption of flight attendants, who regardless of the dispositions of airline passengers, turbulence in the flight, or personal stress is required to act and behave in ways that minimize passenger anxiety and encourage them to–More–
34: Sociotechnical Systems – Trist and Bamforth
October 4, 2017 1:00 amWe discuss important article by Eric Trist and Ken Bamforth, Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-Getting, published in the journal Human Relations in 1951. Eric Trist was a British social scientist best known for his contributions to the field of organization development and one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute. Ken Bamforth was a miner and industrial fellow of the Tavistock Institute. The articles subtitle is an examination of the psychological situation–More–
33: Foreman – Master and Victim of Doubletalk
September 13, 2017 1:00 amThis episode covered Fritz J. Roethlisbergers classic 1945 article from Harvard Business Review (HBR), The FOREMAN: Master and Victim of Double Talk. The article resulted from a study concerning the dissatisfaction of foremen in mass production industries at the time. Foremen suffered under low pay and poor wartime working conditions. Meanwhile, management addressed the foremens concerns through short-sighted symptom-by-symptom corrective actions to little effect. As a result, foremen were leaning–More–
32: Organizational Stupidity with Mats Alvesson and Bjorn Erik Mork LIVE
August 23, 2017 1:00 am“Functional stupidity” is the term used by Alvesson and Spicer to describe a strange phenomenon they observed in practice: smart people in organizations that do seemingly not smart things because people are discouraged to think and reflect. Mats Alvesson and Bjørn Erik Mørk sit down with Ralph to talk about functional stupidity and real world implications for nearly an hour after Mats’ keynote speech at the conference.
31: Process Studies, PROS and Institutional Theory LIVE
August 15, 2017 1:00 amPlease join us for the first of two fascinating special episodes recorded from the International Process Symposium 2017. The aim of the Symposium is to consolidate, integrate, and further develop ongoing efforts to advance a sophisticated process perspective in organization and management studies. PROS is an annual event, organized in conjunction with the annual series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies published by Oxford University Press, and it takes place in a Greek island, in June–More–
30: Corporate Culturalism — Hugh Willmott
August 2, 2017 1:00 amHugh Willmott Strength is Ignorance; Slavery is Freedom: Managing Culture in Modern Organizations was Hugh Willmotts critique of corporate culturalism, a dominant theme in management studies in the 1980s. In 1993, when the paper appeared in the Journal of Management Studies, strengthening corporate culture was seen as a way to improve organizational performance. But instead of an academic response, Willmott used George Orwells classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to explain his objections–More–
29: Carnegie Mellon Series #3 – Designing Business Schools — Herb Simon
June 6, 2017 1:00 amWe discuss Herbert Simons article The Business School: A Problem in Organizational Design, published in 1967. This was written at a time when the business school enterprise was facing difficulties and wrestling over its identity. The paper framed these challenges as a design problem relating to a business school’s purpose, what the business school should teach to its students, and what type of faculty would be needed to fulfill the purpose.
28: Organizations as Rhetoric — Mats Alvesson
May 16, 2017 1:00 amOur next episode in the JMS classics series covers Mats Alvesson’s “, Organizations as Rhetoric: Knowledge-Intensive Firms and the Struggle with Ambiguity” from 1993 that concluded with the idea that organizations are best understood as ‘systems of persuasion’ where actors use their agency to engage in discourse on behalf of the organization.
27: Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm — Andrew Pettigrew
April 25, 2017 1:00 amWe discuss Andrew Pettigrew’s classic JMS article, “Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm, that introduced Pettigrew’s triangle of context, content, and process into the discourse on change management though his study of change in an UK chemical firm.
26: Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations — Karl Weick
March 28, 2017 1:00 amWe discuss another JMS classic, Karl Weick’s “Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations,” that examines how that the central mechanisms behind failure and incidents is given by the interaction between humans and technology (and not by technology in itself). Weick’s study examined the the Bophal Disaster, a gas leak incident that took place in 1984 in India and shows how individuals enacted rather than encountered the events.
25: Competitive Groups as Cognitive Communities — Joseph Porac
March 15, 2017 1:00 amWe discuss another JMS classic, Competitive Groups as Cognitive Communities the case of Scottish Knitwear Manufacturers by Porac, Thomas, and Baden-Fuller from 1989. Employing an approach based on the interpretive side of organizations, the Authors propose that a key mechanism in competition and strategy is given by the mental models used by key decision-makers to interpret the task environment of their organization. These, in turn, emerge out of material and cognitive exchanges among customers–More–
24: Learning by Knowledge-Intensive Firms — Bill Starbuck
February 21, 2017 1:00 amWe discuss another of the classics from the Journal of Management Studies, a paper from 1992 by William Starbuck, entitled Learning by knowledge-intensive firms. This time, we are very happy to be joined by the author of the work, Professor William Starbuck, one of the leading experts in Organization Theory, whose research covers an incredible number of areas of expertise, as shown in his biography. This paper is the first to discuss knowledge intensive firms, concept based on the economists notions–More–
23: Influence of Institutions and Factor Markets — Mike Wright
February 7, 2017 1:00 amThis is an episode in our special series of Classics in the Journal of Management Studies. Mike Wright co-authored “Emerging multinationals from mid-range economies: the influence of institutions and factor markets” in 2013 that looked at the variety in the development of emerging economies and, through institution theory, increased understanding of competition between multinational economies and the respective national ones.
22: Human-Machine Reconfigurations – Lucy Suchman
January 17, 2017 1:00 amWe discuss Lucy Suchmans book Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Action that studied the interaction of humans with a state-of-art photocopier designed to be more user friendly and more helpful in solving user problems. Yet videos showed that people found it complicated and difficult. Suchman shows that these interaction problems are greatly due to the underpinning assumptions about users behavior, more specifically, due to the idea that humans actions are based on the following–More–
21: Small Research, Big Issues with Brian Pentland and Katharina Dittrich LIVE
December 17, 2016 1:00 amWhat a treat! Joining us for this Special Episode from the fascinating ‘Connections in Action’ workshop at the University of Warwick are Katharina Dittrich and Brian Pentland (aka Doctor Decade)! To our great delight, Doctor Decade provided the live intro music for this episode and even performed one of his songs!
20: High Reliability in Practice – USN Rear Admiral Tom Mercer
December 17, 2016 1:00 amBased around a classic work by Weick and Roberts (1993) on Collective Mind in Organizations – where the authors observed and analyzed the way people on the deck of an aircraft carrier function in a collective manner – this episode brings you a discussion of how concepts of High Reliability (see also Episode 11) flesh out in real life!
19: Carnegie Mellon Series #2 – Exploration and Exploitation of Knowledge
November 8, 2016 1:00 amIn this episode, we read James March’s widely cited article, Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning, published in 1991 in the journal Organization Science. In the paper, March considered the relationships between exploration of new ways of doing things and the exploitation of accepted, standard practices for organizational learning.
18: Gig Economy, Labor Relations and Algorithmic Management
October 18, 2016 1:00 amWe discuss an article by Sarah O’Connor exploring the impact of gig economy and algorithmic management on the employees – what their experience is like, how their work is structured, and whether being a gig economy employee is everything it panned out to be. Gig economy, as well as its benefits and limitations, has been subject to much debate in social policy and labour relations.
17: Tokenism – Rosabeth Moss Kanter
September 20, 2016 1:00 amIn this episode, we read Rosabeth Moss Kanters paper Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women (1977) which features as a chapter in her classic book, “Men and Women of the Corporation.” In this article, Kanter explores how interactions within a group or an organization are affected by the different numbers of people from distinct social types. In particular, she focuses on groups with skewed gender ratios: a high proportion of men and–More–
16: Contingency Theory – Lawrence and Lorsch
August 30, 2016 1:00 amWe discuss Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch’s book Organization and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration and a series of papers which advance an open systems perspective on organizations. The contingency school postulates that there is not one best way to structure work or an organization. An optimum course of action depends – is contingent – on the external and local conditions in which an organization is inserted.
15: Doing Interesting Research with Jorgen Sandberg LIVE
August 9, 2016 1:00 amWhat is it about research that makes it interesting? Or, rather, at which point does a study become interesting? We invited Mats Alvesson to discuss his 2013 book – Constructing Research Questions: Doing interesting research (co-authored with Jorgen Sandberg) who proposes that the focal point of what contributes to something being interesting is found way before any results or implications. The focal point of what makes a research interesting has to do with the assumptions that go into the–More–
14: Simply Managing, by Henry Mintzberg
August 2, 2016 1:00 amThe book we analyzed in this episode, Simply Managing (2013), is an updated study of managers conducted by Henry Mintzberg based on observing 29 managers at all levels of organizations across a range of industries and organizational structures: business, government, healthcare, and pluralistic organizations such as museums and non-governmental organizations.
13: Banana Time – Donald Roy
July 5, 2016 1:00 amOne of the most famous ethnographic works, Banana Time: Job Satisfaction and Informal Interaction describes Donald F. Roy’s experience of working as a drill press operator (as in the picture on this page) for two months. Set against the backdrop of Taylor-inspired Scientific Management, the paper provides a thick description of the setting, the tools of work and, most importantly, behaviour and dynamics of the group of workers whom Roy was assigned to work with.
12: On the Value of Conferences — Emma Bell and Paul Duguid LIVE
June 7, 2016 1:00 amDmitrijs and Ralph are joined by Professors Paul Duguid and Emma Bell to talk about the value and form of conferences in promoting, disseminating and facilitating knowledge. The four of us shared some personal conference-attending experiences, considered the current format and emergent alternatives, and pondered on the nature of knowledge as such.
11: Culture and High Reliability – Bierly and Spender
May 31, 2016 1:00 amWe discuss Culture and High Reliability Organizing (HRO). While not universally known within management and organization studies, High Reliability is concerned with formal structure and process, as well as informal commitment, motivation and trust. HRO describes a subset of hazardous organizations that enjoy a high level of safety over long periods of time. What distinguishes types of high-risk systems is the source of risk, whether it is the technical or social factors that the system must control–More–
10: Twelve Angry Men (1957) – Directed by Sidney Lumet
May 10, 2016 1:00 am12 Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet, is one of the major milestones of film history. It dates back to 1957 and tells the story of a jury, the twelve angry men of the title, and how they decide on the innocence or guilt of a young boy accused of murder. The entire film takes place in the jury room, with the exception of a few scenes, namely those in the courthouse and in the bathroom. We use this story as a lens to discuss themes in organizational theory such as decision making and consensus building–More–
9: Hawthorne Studies – Elton Mayo
April 19, 2016 1:00 amThe Hawthorne studies take their name from the Hawthorne works, a factory near Chicago which belonged to Western Electric. Even though these studies are traditionally solely associated with Mayos name, most of the experimental work was carried out by Fritz Roethlisberger (his graduate assistant) and William Dickson (head of the department of employee relations at Western Electric). The experiments took place between 1924 and 1932 and were commissioned because the company wanted to understand which–More–
8: The Ends of Men – Chester Barnard
March 29, 2016 1:00 amContinuing with our discussion of Chester Barnard’s master work – The Functions of The Executive (1938) – we look at parts III & IV of the book. Here he is going into more depth on a number of organizational aspects and on the process of management. Specifically, Barnard talks about the parts that make up an organization in Part III and, finally, the functions of the executive in Part IV.
7: Phases of Cooperation – Chester Barnard
March 1, 2016 1:00 amThis is the first of two episodes devoted to The Functions of the Executive. For this episode we are reading Parts I and II of the book, where Barnard outlines his understanding of the individual, of why individuals would form organizations, and of the basic principles of the formal organization.
6: Bureaucracy – Max Weber
February 16, 2016 1:00 amWe discuss two chapters of Max Weber’s 1922 book Economy and Society. Weber was most interested in bureaucracy. He believed that bureaucratic coordination of activities is a hallmark of the modern and civilized society. This was not least because bureaucracies are organized according to rational principles, and rationality is an ongoing intellectual effort that is subject to education and discipline. In a bureaucratic organization offices are ranked in a hierarchical order and their operations–More–
5: The Law of the Situation – Mary Parker Follett
January 26, 2016 1:00 amThis episode is a review of one of Mary Parker Folletts great lectures, “The Giving of Orders,” contained in a collection of Folletts lectures and writings that was assembled by Lyndall Urwick at the end of her life in an effort to preserve her ideas for others. Follett believed that exploring the science of the situation involved both management and workers studying the situation together.
4: Carnegie Mellon Series #1 – Organizational Routines
December 21, 2015 1:00 amIn our first episode on the Carnegie-Mellon School, we examine selected passages from March & Simon’s book Organizations and Cyert & March’s book A Behavioral Theory of the Firm to address the rise of scholarly thought on matters of organizational routines
3: Theory of Human Motivation – Abraham Maslow
December 1, 2015 1:00 amWe discuss “A Theory of Human Motivation” by Abraham H. Maslow, one of the most famous psychology articles ever written. Originally published in 1943, it was in this landmark paper that Maslow presented his first detailed representation of Self-Actualization – the desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming – at the pinnacle of a hierarchy of human needs. What Maslow is most famous for, however, is the pyramid of human needs.
2: General and Industrial Management – H. Fayol’s Theory of Administration
November 10, 2015 1:00 amFor this episode, we are reading part of Henri Fayol’s central 1916 work, General and Industrial Management (first translated into English in 1929, but not published in the United States until 1949). In this work Fayol clearly outlined the five distinct elements of management and the fourteen principles that he believed should guide managers in administering those elements.
1: Principles of Scientific Management – F.W. Taylor’s One Best Way
October 12, 2015 1:00 amPresents the seminal text that defined Taylorism and scientific management, a scientific approach to managing people and work process design. The Principles of Scientific Management proposed a scientific approach to managing people and work process design. Taylor decried the waste of effort and resources that resulted from inefficient management practices, and thus proposed a science-based way of analyzing and reorganizing both the work and the management of it.