Content uploaded by Gideon Kunda
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Gideon Kunda on May 12, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
Bringing Work Back In
Abstract
In this essay we argue that organization theory's effort to make sense of postbureaucratic organizing is hampered by a dearth of detailed studies of work. We review the history of organization theory to show that, in the past, studies of work provided an empirical foundation for theories of bureaucracy, and explain how such research became marginalized or ignored. We then discuss methodological requirements for reintegrating work studies into organization theory and indicate what the conceptual payoffs of such integration might be. These payoffs include breaking new conceptual ground, resolving theoretical puzzles, envisioning organizing processes, and revitalizing old concepts
... Comparative cultural studies could illuminate how symbolic repetition and affective coherence vary across national, sectoral, or generational contexts, shaping organizational adaptation, resistance, and innovation (Hofstede, 2001;Scott, 2001). Longitudinal case studies, process research, and organizational ethnographies are particularly well suited to investigate how legacy routines are reactivated in times of uncertainty (Pettigrew, 1985;Barley & Kunda, 2001), how cultural alignment evolves post-merger (Sackmann, 2006), or how innovation is shaped by entrenched symbolic infrastructures (March, 1991;Schein, 2010). ...
This paper reimagines organizational culture as a morphic field-a resonant, distributed infrastructure through which patterns of meaning, memory, and coordination emerge, stabilize, and evolve. Drawing metaphorically on Rupert Sheldrake's notion of morphic resonance as a heuristic ontology, the model reframes culture as a dynamic field effect, emphasizing symbolic alignment and affective memory rather than static values or narratives. It explains how routines recur, why legacy practices persist, and how new behaviors take root through resonance, not instruction. A tripartite typology-affective, symbolic, and structural resonance-offers an analytic lens to trace how cultural coherence unfolds or unravels across systems. Integrating insights from complexity theory, phenomenology, and field theory, the framework proposes culture as the medium of organizational learning and inertia. While metaphorically grounded, the model remains open to empirical elaboration through longitudinal, interpretive, and multi-modal research. It contributes a relational ontology of culture, foregrounding distributed memory, symbolic saturation, and the affective atmospheres that shape organizational transformation.
... While job titles were self-reported, we inferred participants' organizational role levels (i.e., senior, mid-level, or junior) during analysis based on how they self-described their responsibilities, autonomy, and influence. Following prior work on organizational roles and professional authority [7], we applied a broad schema: senior-level roles involved strategic influence or supervisory duties; mid-level roles reflected specialized skills with limited decision-making power; ...
As AI systems are increasingly tested and deployed in open-ended and high-stakes domains, crowd workers are often tasked with responsible AI (RAI) content work. These tasks include labeling violent content, moderating disturbing text, or simulating harmful behavior for red teaming exercises to shape AI system behaviors. While prior efforts have highlighted the risks to worker well-being associated with RAI content work, far less attention has been paid to how these risks are communicated to workers. Existing transparency frameworks and guidelines such as model cards, datasheets, and crowdworksheets focus on documenting model information and dataset collection processes, but they overlook an important aspect of disclosing well-being risks to workers. In the absence of standard workflows or clear guidance, the consistent application of content warnings, consent flows, or other forms of well-being risk disclosure remain unclear. This study investigates how task designers approach risk disclosure in crowdsourced RAI tasks. Drawing on interviews with 23 task designers across academic and industry sectors, we examine how well-being risk is recognized, interpreted, and communicated in practice. Our findings surface a need to support task designers in identifying and communicating well-being risk not only to support crowdworker well-being but also to strengthen the ethical integrity and technical efficacy of AI development pipelines.
... Peirce (1877), pour sa part, a indiqué que la vérité d'une idée est déterminée par ses conséquences pratiques et son efficacité dans la résolution des problèmes. L'analyse de l'impact et les résultats concrets des connaissances produites tout en mettant l'accent sur leur applicabilité et leur utilité pratique est l'une des principales préoccupations des chercheurs en gestion adoptant une approche de recherche pragmatique (Barley et Kunda, 2001). ...
The purpose of this article is to explore the theoretical and practical implications of pragmatic philosophy in management science research. It highlights the fact that this philosophy provides multiple explanations and interpretations for management science and emphasizes its use of both objective and subjective criteria. Referring to the fact that there is no one appropriate philosophy and thus researchers can adopt more than one philosophy, pragmatism argues that it is possible to work with variations in epistemology. RESUME: L'objectif de cet article est d'explorer les implications théoriques et pratiques de la philosophie pragmatique dans la recherche en sciences de gestion. Elle met en évidence le fait que cette philosophie apporte de multiples explications et interprétations pour les sciences de gestion et souligne son utilisation des critères à la fois objectifs et subjectifs. En faisant référence au fait qu'il n'existe pas une seule philosophie appropriée et que les chercheurs peuvent ainsi adopter plus d'une philosophie, le pragmatisme soutient qu'il est possible de travailler avec des variations dans l'épistémologie.
... The previously mentioned focus on agency arising from practices resonates with theories and methods in studies of what is actually taking place at work (Barley & Kunda, 2001;Orr, 1996). The police as an organisation, along with the workplaces therein, is embedded in societal contexts, physical places, and social relations. ...
Digitalisation and the use of technology are at the core of knowledge production in policing. This paper presents various ways in which perspectives from the diverse field of science and technology studies (STS) can provide new insights into studies of policing. In detail, we suggest ways in which STS, with its broad and open perspectives, can be employed to investigate how different practices involving human-technology interaction within policing act as authorisation processes that turn uncertain information into facts. Through theoretical and empirical examples, we exemplify how STS perspectives can be used to address knowledge construction in three areas of police: operative practices, online presence, and criminal investigations. These examples demonstrate that perspectives from STS are relevant to many areas of policing as digitalisation and the production of digital information affect and change policing, not only at the micro-level but also as a whole. By doing this, we hope to present the field of STS with an organisation that is less commonly associated with it and police researchers with new perspectives on the interplay between technology and knowledge in policing.
Management ideas, comprising principles and practices for optimising organisational resources, drive organisational change and are increasingly a global phenomena. However, their translation into different geographical contexts remains poorly understood. This study explores how the embeddedness of actors influences the translation of management ideas, using Agile software development as a case. Agile has rapidly become a widely adopted management idea in the IT industry that emphasises flexibility, iterative development, and customer collaboration. This research uses a comparative case study of two geographically distinct R&D sites of a transnational corporation in China and Sweden. It draws on interviews and ethnographic observations to explore how Agile was translated into these local contexts. The findings reveal how the idea of Agile management is shaped by the embeddedness of the actors implementing it. The study contributes to the debate on the geography of the firm by providing insights into how the embeddedness of actors shapes management ideas.
Organizational culture is widely recognized as a critical success factor, with organizations often seeking to change it to enhance performance. However, culture can also shift due to external and internal factors beyond deliberate efforts. As research on organizational culture change remains fragmented, with diverse theoretical perspectives on culture and change, levels of analysis, and methodologies, existing reviews often focus on isolated aspects. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of existing research on organizational culture change integrating recent developments, such as microfoundations. The paper uses a systematic literature review combined with coding according to established models of culture and change as well as a design-oriented research synthesis based on the ‘CIMO-logic’ (Context, Interventions, Mechanisms, Outcomes) to answer the question of how organizational cultures change, considering its cultural elements and the microfoundations of change. Analyzing 77 peer-reviewed journal articles, the study identifies and systematizes theoretical and methodological gaps in the literature, offering a novel framework for understanding cultural change as a dynamic, multi-level process. The results highlight the need for further microfoundations research and new methods to analyze the interactions between individual actions and organizational structures. This paper provides actionable insights for researchers and practitioners, emphasizing the value of micro-macro perspectives and evidence-based approaches in managing organizational culture change.
Consumption has always been part of the workplace, yet it has traditionally been seen as nonwork—an activity that depletes rather than creates value. In the knowledge and digital economy, however, consumption and work are becoming increasingly intertwined, calling for a relational perspective on consumption’s productive role. We develop this perspective through a four-year ethnography of coworking spaces across Paris and London, supplemented by post-pandemic archival data. We introduce consumptive work as the instrumentalization of consumption activities in the workplace to generate productive value. Consumptive work emerges within a postindustrial societal context where workplace culture is shaped by consumer ideology, leading to 1) customer entitlement in the workplace, 2) consumer desire toward the workplace, and 3) consumer lifestyle aspirations toward work. Consumptive work is characterized by inconspicuousness, boundarilessness, and communal and market exchange. While it can be empowering, it also fosters neo-normative alienation, particularly through performative play and leisure, and the pursuit of productive wellness. Ultimately, consumptive work reinforces evolving consumer desires and aspirations about office work and workplaces. This study advances interdisciplinary research on consumption and consumption ideology in the workplace, workplace alienation, new ways of working, and consumer research connecting work, home, and leisure.
Leading economists, sociologists, and psychologists present their highly original research into changes in jobs in Britain in the 1980s. Combining large-scale sample surveys, personal life-histories, and case studies of towns, employers, and worker groups, their findings give clear and sometimes surprising answers to questions debated by social and economic observers in all advanced countries. Does technology destroy skills or rebuild them? How does skill affect the attitudes of employees and their managers towards their jobs? Are women gaining greater skill equality with men, or are they still stuck on the lower rungs of the skill and occupational ladders? The book also takes up neglected issues (what do employees really mean by a skilled job? How does skill-change link with changes in social values?) and challenges and discredits the widely held view that new technology has de-skilled the workforce. Skill and Occupational Change exploits the richest single data-set available and the authors exemplify many new techniques for researching skills at work: as an economic resource, as a motor of occupational change, and as a basis for personal careers and identity. It provides the most comprehensive, authoritative, and carefully researched set of conclusions to date on skill trends and their implications and draws the authoritative new map of skill-change in British society. Contributors: Brendan Burchell, Peter Elias, Jane Elliott, Brian Francis, Duncan Gallie, Ann Gasteen, Sarah Horrell, Roger Penn, Michael Rose, Jill Rubery, Hilda Scattergood, John Sewell, Frank Wilkinson.
Broken Ladders: Managerial Careers in the New Economy provides the first comprehensive view of how the careers of managers in organizations are changing. Broken Ladders reports on the employment security, advancement prospects, skills, and wages of managers in a wide range of firms and industries. These cases show that one myth--that the number of managers is declining--is wrong. But the job tenure of middle managers is more precarious. They can no longer expect steady promotions up the ladder, nor can they expect life-time employment with the same firm. New organizational designs demand new skills from managers and Broken Ladders describes what these are. On another front, managerial pay has not declined at the same rate as other workers. However, the pay gap between senior and middle managers has widened. Given job insecurity and growing pay inequality firms confront a difficult dilemma: how to maintain the commitment of their managers at the same time that the employers are reducing their commitment to their employees. Broken Ladders will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of human resources, labor economics, career development, and organizational behavior. It will also be important reading for managers and strategic planners who have to take account of the changing nature of employment.
Including contributions from leading scholars at Harvard Business School, Yale, and MIT's Sloan School of Management, this book explores the ways that careers have changed for workers as their firms reorganize to meet global competition. As firms re-engineer, downsize, enter into strategic alliances with other firms, and find other ways to reduce costs, they frequently lay off workers. Job security has been replaced by insecurity and workers have been forced to take charge of their own career development in ways they have never done before. The contributors to the book analyse the implications for these workers, who now have "boundary less careers". While many find the challenge rewarding as they find new opportunities for growth, others are finding it difficult to adapt to new jobs in new locations. The book looks at policy issues that can provide safety nets for those who are not able to find a place in the new world of boundary less careers.
The essays in this volume contradict the conventional assumption that automation will not only reduce the number of workers required to produce a given product but also require less skilled workers to produce it.
This book brings together contributions from researchers within various social science disciplines who seek to redefine the methods and topics that constitute the study of work. They investigate work activity in ways that do not reduce it to a 'psychology' of individual cognition nor to a 'sociology' of societal structures and communication. A key theme in the material is the relationship between theory and practice. This is not an abstract problem of interest merely to social scientists. Rather, it is discussed as an issue that working people address when they attempt to understand a task and communicate its demands. Mindful practices and communicative interaction are examined as situated issues at work in the reproduction of communities of practice in a variety of settings including: courts of law, computer software design, the piloting of airliners, the coordination of air traffic control, and traffic management in underground railway systems.
This book brings together contributions from researchers within various social science disciplines who seek to redefine the methods and topics that constitute the study of work. They investigate work activity in ways that do not reduce it to a 'psychology' of individual cognition nor to a 'sociology' of societal structures and communication. A key theme in the material is the relationship between theory and practice. This is not an abstract problem of interest merely to social scientists. Rather, it is discussed as an issue that working people address when they attempt to understand a task and communicate its demands. Mindful practices and communicative interaction are examined as situated issues at work in the reproduction of communities of practice in a variety of settings including: courts of law, computer software design, the piloting of airliners, the coordination of air traffic control, and traffic management in underground railway systems.
This book brings together contributions from researchers within various social science disciplines who seek to redefine the methods and topics that constitute the study of work. They investigate work activity in ways that do not reduce it to a 'psychology' of individual cognition nor to a 'sociology' of societal structures and communication. A key theme in the material is the relationship between theory and practice. This is not an abstract problem of interest merely to social scientists. Rather, it is discussed as an issue that working people address when they attempt to understand a task and communicate its demands. Mindful practices and communicative interaction are examined as situated issues at work in the reproduction of communities of practice in a variety of settings including: courts of law, computer software design, the piloting of airliners, the coordination of air traffic control, and traffic management in underground railway systems.
Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild."
Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system.
Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations.
Bradford Books imprint