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Rack DA (Individual Scholar): Skill Development | Resilience | The Journey
As a student of organization studies, where do you begin? Each of us in the cast and many of our listeners probably wrestled with that question at the beginnings of our scholarly journeys. Those embarking immediately after their undergraduate education may answer the question differently from those who did not enter the field (or even contemplate doing so) until middle age or after significant work experiences. To misuse Taylorism for a moment, there is no one best way to begin one’s journey — but there are some pretty good ideas out there to help one start. So this rack provides some resources that might be helpful for someone who is stuck at square zero and is unsure of the first steps (and perhaps unclear as to whether they want to undertake this journey at all).
Jump to: Path to Success | Foundational Readings | TAOP Episodes | References
What Does it Take to be a Successful Scholar of Organization Studies?
We will answer first from the standpoint of the self and gradually work outwards.
Motivation and Persistence
Let’s start with motivation. First and foremost, you have to want it. What is “it”, you ask? That kinda depends. It could be the desire to attain the degree to better prepare yourself for the job market, a love of all things organizational, or a passion for solving a particularly challenging problem. Whatever it is, you have to want it because this is a journey that you must undertake of your own free will. You will have a lot of help (more on that below), but if you are not sure you can push yourself forward toward your goal, others’ help will not always overcome it.
There are several individual skills and attitudes that will be helpful and that you should develop through the journey, such as self-efficacy, intellectual curiosity, and critical thinking. High self-efficacy beliefs contribute to better academic performance and resilience in the face of challenges (Tılfarlıoğlu & Ciftci, 2011), but more importantly patience and determination are important in navigating the challenges of graduate-level coursework, doing thesis or dissertation research, and then ultimately defending and publishing the results. The research should be novel and important as well, which means that choosing an appropriate problem is going to be difficult. Thus, you would require the necessary intellectual curiosity to understand complex systems, behaviors, and structures within organizations and connect them to works already accomplished to find the all-important knowledge gaps. Critical thinking is the ability to analyze organizational processes, structures, and cultures objectively and communicate your analyses with both accuracy and clarity.
Although you must push yourself forward, you definitely do not embark on this journey alone. The best scholars are collaborators, whether inside one’s own fields of study or other fields (including far outside organization studies). Interdisciplinary thinking is important as many research topics integrate ideas from multiple fields such as sociology, psychology, economics, anthropology, and political science. Many of the classic texts we discuss in the Talking About Organizations Podcast are either interdisciplinary on their own or they cover broad problems that pre-date some contemporary fields of study.
You will rely heavily on your communication skills, both oral and written. Writing is especially important as you must develop the skills to present your ideas and research findings clearly and persuasively for potentially both academic and practitioner audiences. Also, you have to develop the patience and persistence to revisit and rewrite your papers as you gather more information or wrestle with inconsistent or inexplicable results in your study. And, you can expect to present your research at conferences or other venues and must be artful to tailor your presentations to time and audience, while being prepared to answer difficult questions.
Finally, you are joining a global community of scholars from all walks of life and whose interests are many and varied. Every engagement with other scholars is a learning opportunity. Openness and humility are virtues. You will be among those who will strongly and forcefully disagree with your views (and vice versa), but academia encourages dialogue. Disagreement is itself a learning opportunity. Embrace it!
What is more important is that as a member of the community, you assume the responsibility to uphold the standards of proper academic conduct. You must be committed to ethical research practices and consideration of the broader societal implications of your research. You must be competent in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. You must also be willing to adapt to evolving organizational landscapes and address issues that may not fall within your primary interests. Finally, in a global community, you should be sensitive to cultural differences and be prepared to study organizations in various geographical and cultural contexts in a responsible and respectful manner.
This is hardly a comprehensive look at the question — but it is a start. Let the journey begin!
Important Skills
In addition to the skills mentioned above, there are others that you will likely develop as you embark along the journey (and the sooner you start, the better). One is project management. A dissertation study is a project that includes stakeholder management (namely the committee members but also the clients whose organizations you may be studying), funding applications (which if not part of your thesis or dissertation will likely be a part of your post-graduate professional life), and leadership (if you are supervising a research team, for example).
You also need to develop a good working memory to keep track of the dozens or hundreds of seminal works in the general field of organization studies plus whichever subfields or literature streams will be your foci for your research projects. You need to build the capacity to connect the dots — which paper led to which follow-on study, which gaps are explored and closed versus which are left open, and what is considering interesting and impactful. Although this Resource Library aims to provide a semi-organized look at the state of organization studies, it merely represents a sliver of the total domain of knowledge accumulated over the course of more than a century. And scholars absolutely do not agree on the structure of that knowledge (nor is it ever likely to appear).
One other additional skill is teaching. You might think of yourself as a student, but graduate students often find themselves assigned as teachers or teacher assistants for undergraduates or as part of a team conducting a professional development session for a client organization. The best way to know how confident and comfortable you are as a scholar is how well you can explain your knowledge to others in ways they find useful. In turn, you are doubling as a student, learning from others how effective you are at communicating that knowledge. Seek and embrace those opportunities.
“Trust the Process”
This was the motto of Ralph and Tom’s doctoral cohort back in 2012-2014 at The George Washington University.
The scholarly journey is a bumpy one and there will be setbacks — a critically important concept that you just can’t get, severe cases of writer’s block as deadlines approach, unfortunate cases of “life happens” where your education is disrupted, or something else. Just remember that everyone in the program wants you to succeed, even when it does not always feel that way. The journey is long and winding, but if you “trust the process” — recognize that every part of the program serves a purpose for moving you closer to the goal — you can get there and finish!
Useful Foundational Readings for New Scholars
This was a difficult section to build. No matter what list is given, it will be declared wrong by some and rightfully so because any such list will reflect the programs that its authors attended and may not make sense in how other programs are run. So, this list should be taken with a grain of salt. Some of these are covered in TAOP Episodes while others may be in the future.
Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions, 50th anniversary edition. University of Chicago Press.
First published in 1962, this book introduces the history and philosophy of science and how science evolves over time. Among the concepts are about how one paradigm may be adopted as predominant but that as anomalies (phenomena that the paradigm does not explain well, for example) appear the paradigm may evolve. Once too many anomalies accumulate or a crisis of confidence in the paradigm arises, then scientists may produce new paradigms. The book details how this process could occur and uses a wealth of historical examples from numerous scientific fields to explain it. Very applicable to organization studies.
Weisbord, M. R. (2004). Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, meaning, and community in the 21st Century. Jossey-Bass.
This book summarizes the subfield of Organizational Development, or OD, from its roots in Taylorism (covered in our Episode 1) through Weisbord’s own six-box model of organizational diagnosis (Episode 72) and beyond. Includes some of the key episodes in the history such as the sociotechnical systems revolution (Episode 34) and McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y (Episode 59). An easy read and very helpful for understanding the history of organization studies.
Barnard, C. (1938). The functions of the executive. Harvard University Press.
Barnard’s book offers one way of understanding the meaning of organization; the roles, opportunities, and limitations of individuals included in organizations; and the roles, responsibilities, and processes of the executives / leaders who ensure the organization performs its desired functions effectively and efficiently. Although his primary background was in private enterprise, Barnard incorporated a wide variety of organizational constructs into his thesis, including examples from religious, public service, and familial organizations. The book was so important and rich that we needed two episodes to cover it (Episodes 7 & 8).
Burrell, G. & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis: Elements of the Sociology of Corporate Life. Taylor & Francis.
This is one of the more difficult reads but necessary. Mastering ontology and epistemology, how we understand and articulate what something is and what we know and justify, are important and the authors show how different ways of understanding organizations emerged from different intellectual traditions. The four paradigms of Functionalist, Interpretive, Radical Humanist and Radical Structuralist produced wholly different theories of organizations — what they are, why they are, and how to shape them. The first part of the book that covers the conceptual framework that derived these paradigms is probably sufficient for most. We covered Morgan’s Images of Organization in Episode 41.
Weick, K. (1982). Sensemaking in organizations. Sage.
Although mostly read as a treatise on how organizations and their members make sense of the environments around them, the concept of sensemaking is very important to being a scholar and Weick wrote the book with that in mind. As one commentator put it, “Weick tells us to learn about sensemaking by thinking about how we are learning about sensemaking” (McNamara, n.d.). He then describes the key ideas — that sensemaking is a matter of one’s identity, a retrospective action, an ongoing continuous flow, among others. A terrific way to bridge theory and practice. Among Weick’s many contributions to organization studies were his examinations of disasters (which we covered in Episode 64) and high-reliability organizations (Episode 20).
Related TAOP Episodes, Events, and Notes
106: The Study of Organizations Across Disciplines
80: Management Theory & Practice — Sumantra Ghoshal
21: Small Research, Big Issues with Brian Pentland and Katharina Dittrich LIVE
Available Resource Pages
Aisle D – Professional Community
Rack DA – Reflections on the Podcast
Rack DB – Business Schools and Management Education
Rack DC – Communities of Practice and Associations
Rack DK – Knowledge and Expertise
Rack DT – Bridging Theory and Practice
References
Barnard, C. (1938). The functions of the executive. Harvard University Press.
Burrell, G. & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis: Elements of the Sociology of Corporate Life. Taylor & Francis.
Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions, 50th anniversary edition. University of Chicago Press.
OpenAI. (2024). What are the qualities of a successful scholar in organization studies; What are the skills needed of a successful scholar in organization studies and what are the best ways to develop them; What are the greatest challenges that doctoral or masters students face when entering the field of organization studies. ChatGPT (November 2022 version) [Large Language Model].
Scite. (2024). What are the qualities of a successful scholar in organization studies. Scite (April 2024 version) [Large Language Model].
Tılfarlıoğlu, F. and Ciftci, F. (2011). Supporting self-efficacy and learner autonomy in relation to academic success in efl classrooms (a case study). Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1(10). https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.1.10.1284-1294
Weisbord, M. R. (2004). Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, meaning, and community in the 21st Century. Jossey-Bass.
Weick, K. (1982). Sensemaking in organizations. Sage.
Jump to: Path to Success | Foundational Readings | TAOP Episodes | References
Rack DA (Individual Scholar): Skill Development | Resilience | The Journey
Aisle D (Professional Education): Main Page | The Individual Scholar (DA) | Business Schools & Education (DB) I Communities of Practice & Associations (DC) | Knowledge Management (DK) | Outreach & Bridging Theory and Practice (DO)
Resources: Main Page | Research Methods (A) | Major Theories (B) | Issues and Contemporary Topics (C) | Professional Education (D)