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A Transformational Theory of Organizations
Abstract
This paper describes the key concepts of a transformational theory of organizations and discusses its validity as a practical conceptual framework. The authors argue that transformational theory, based largely on the theories of the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, provides a way of conceptualizing organizational process by clarifying and grounding a number of critical innovations of organizational practice. The authors characterize transformational theory's basic assumptions—the ontological commitment, the epistemological commitment, praxis, the theory of social relationships-and highlight the distinctive nature of these assumptions compared to more traditional organization theories.
... El historicismo particularista (Stocking, 2004),lo define como la unidad holística e histórica propia del grupo. El neoevolucionismo (White, 1983) lo orienta en términos leyes y principios que rigen a las personas. De este neoevolucionismo derivan la ecología cultural (Steward, 1992) y el materialismo cultural (Harris, 1979) que explican este concepto en términos de rasgos ambientales y los idealistas lo definen como sistemas de símbolos que actúan en el orden de la existencia. ...
En toda organización, la cultura organizacional es importante ya que establece las formas y alcances para el logro de escenarios futuros. En el presente estudio se describen diferentes posturas sobre cultura, cultura organizacional y modelos para diagnosticar la cultura organizacional con el objetivo de identificar los factores culturales que favorecen o limitan el modelo de gestión de mejora del desempeño institucional con enfoque en el desarrollo individual docente en la Facultad de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica (FIME) de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL), dichos factores permitirán apoyar el desarrollo del personal docente y los programas educativos.
... Consequently, there is a risk, but that risk precisely is what the community has to live through during its processual reconfirmation of being that community. In another article from 1993 (McSwain and White 1993), this view also is found; they discuss the needs for organization theory to understand the changes that are taking place under postmodern conditions. They see transformational organization theory -which does not build on the rational world view but on mutual personal development and hence cooperation rather than competition -as a temporary bridge into this new world and new consciousness. ...
... This is not to say, of course, that no action is possible, but it is an action of a tentative, reflexive nature that aims only to maintain the process or movement of unconscious energy. Process in this sense halts when this movement is blocked (White & McSwain, 1983). Thayer's own understanding of process, functionally, looks a lot like procedure . ...
A year after his death, this article provides the first critical analysis and overview of the work of Frederick Thayer. It argues that in the contemporary context of governance, Thayer's work is more relevant than ever, but that a set of problems—including the apparent simplicity of Thayer's assault on hierarchy, his frequently bombastic prose, and the foundational nature of his critique—impede the field's engagement with his work. The article contends that Thayer's work is more nuanced and methodical than it may appear and offers important avenues for confronting some of the field's most persistent theoretical and practical problems. Perhaps most important, Thayer's work lucidly illustrates the field's misunderstanding of process theory as an account of change. As such, Thayer turns us unwittingly into a theoretical cul-de-sac that undercuts any real possibility for action and movement toward the very world for which he hoped. This has important implications for critical approaches in public administration.
... White and McSwain [44], in advocating transformational theory in organizational analysis, state "the research agenda is, simply, everything". Clearly there is scope for developing one's own style, one's own research agenda. ...
Consultancy provides the academic with experience which can provide a rich source of research material. In practice attempts to combine consultancy and research can be frustrating. In general consultants and academics differ in their motivations, outlook and behaviour. For a consulting assignment to act as a research vehicle, many different approaches can be adopted and a wide variety of subject matter can be the focus of attention. In the paper these issues are explored in relation to the author's experience in conducting an information systems project at an Australian iron ore mine. Consultants lack an explicit philosophy to provide coherence to their practice: pragmatism may be sufficient but the possibilities of a post-modernist stance are intriguing. For academics who wish to engage in consultancy the challenge is to understand and perform the role of the consultant beyond the constraints of their academic beliefs and behaviours.
Purpose
This paper aims to bring to the fore the importance of feminist epistemologies in the history of the organization of management studies since the 1980s by following various intellectual moves in the development of feminist theorizing as they cross over to organization studies, including their analytical possibilities for reclaiming historically the voices of major women scholars, especially in doctoral seminars. The paper narrates these epistemological activities by mobilizing and reconsidering from the past to the present, the notions of “unmuting,” “mutating” and “mutiny.” It ends in a reflection addressing the state of business schools at present and why the field of organization and management studies needs “mutiny” now.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a narrative approach in which the voices of its authors appear to be central as they consider and reconsider over time their understanding of “unmuting,” “mutation” and “mutiny” as notions with analytical potential. This approach is influenced by Foucault’s “history of the present” but with contingencies brought about by feminist interpretations. The application of these notions is demonstrated by reclaiming and clarifying the epistemological underpinning in the works of three major women scholars as included in a doctoral seminar: Mary Parker Follett, Edith Penrose and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. These notions are further redeployed for their potential in institutional applications.
Findings
At present, the findings are discursive – if they can be called so, but the main motivation behind this writing is to go beyond discourse in the written sense, and to mobilize other activities, still in the realm of epistemological and scholarly work. These activities would legitimize actual interventions for changing business schools from their current situation as neoliberal entities, which mute understanding of major problems in the world, as well as the voices of most humans and non-humans paying for the foibles of neoliberalism.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates the necessity of developing approaches for interventions in knowledge producing institutions increasingly limited by neoliberal premises in what can be said and done as legitimate knowledge. In doing this, the paper articulates the importance of keeping history alive to avoid the increasing “forgetfulness” neoliberalization brings about. The paper, in its present form, represents an active act of “remembering”.
The article demonstrates that public administration is presently constituted by an underlying discourse or social bond organizing knowledge, affect, and social relations in a specific way. This organization reinforces relations of domination and the sentiment of dissatisfaction, and ultimately frustrates the transformation of self-government and evacuates human subjectivity and desire. The demand for "relevance" is part of this discourse. This article then presents a framework for developing a new realism for public administration that hinges on a fundamental reformulation of the social bond or discourse. Drawing from the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, this realism abandons the search for establishing public administration on a positive normative or scientific foundation and, instead, rearticulates the field from an ontology of the void or lack, what Lacan "the Real." The article concludes with a sketch of how administration can shift from a concern with relevance to a different orientation towards the Real across its academic, pedagogical, and self-governmental relationships. A "struggle for the Real" is central to the future of governing.
Drawing from sociological and psychoanalytic theories and personal experience, this essay reflects on the way in which the word "practical" is used in public administration. It suggests that the field has a narrow understanding of the term, one that obscures the complex ways in which ideas, theories, and techniques are perceived as practical. The word "interesting" better describes the reception of such theories and also hints at a different, perhaps more productive way of relating to one another.
For the past half-century, those defining the field of Public Administration in their role as its leading “theorists” have been preoccupied with defending the enterprise against the evils of value-neutral logical positivism. This polemical review of that period focuses on the Simon-Waldo debate that ultimately leads the field to adopt a “professional” identity rather than seek disciplinary status among the social sciences. A survey of recent works by the field’s intellectual leaders and “gatekeepers” demonstrates that the anti-positivist obsession continues, oblivious to significant developments in the social sciences. The paper ends with a call for Public Administrationists to engage in the political and paradigmatic upheavals required to shift the field toward a disciplinary stance.
Neste estudo descritivo baseado em pesquisa documental reavalia-se o primeiro estudo desenvolvido na Abordagem Clínica da Informação a partir do Paradigma Indiciário sugerindo-a como uma alternativa para mediar o diálogo com as investigações na perspectiva das práticas informacionais. Apresentam-se os aspectos centrais que definem a abordagem analisando-os segundo uma teorização do paradigma que o descreve como uma extensão da prática semiológica médica buscando-se uma aproximação da atuação do pesquisador na abordagem com os estudos de práticas informacionais. Na sequência é apresentado, de forma sintética, o estudo original publicado em 2005, e em seguida, a partir da exposição de evidências e achados coletados nesse estudo, avaliam-se a contribuição dessa abordagem para o campo Ciência da Informação, a ideia que estudos baseados na apreensão do imaginário podem conferir uma nova profundidade aos estudos nesse campo e as possíveis exigências que a adoção dessa mudança de postura acarretariam sobre formação dos pesquisadores.
I propose a critical postmodern application of Debord’s Spectacle and the carnivaJesque of Bakhtin to the theatrics I see happening in city streets, on college campuses, and Internet resisting the new globalized economy. In the past decade public administration has experienced the postmodernturn, becoming caught in the conflicting theatrics of corporate-mediatized spectacle and the carnival of resistance to globalization discourse. My contribution is to theorize the interplay of spectacle and carnival on the global stage as theatrical constructions of corporate and state power and resistance. I analyze growth of the spectacle of the monitoring industry that attests corporate codes of conducts in narratives of progress, while the anti-sweatshop and antiglobalization carnivals perform a devolution script in street theater, antisweat fashion shows, and cyber-activism.
Este artigo apresenta uma proposta de aplicação crítica pós-moderna do "espetáculo" de Debord e do "carnaval" de Bakhtin às encenações que têm acontecido nas ruas das cidades, nos campi de universidades e na Internet resistindo à nova economia globalizada. Na última década, a Administração Pública passou por uma virada pós-moderna, ficando presa às encenações conflitantes de um espetáculo corporativo orquestrado pela mídia e ao carnaval de resistência do discurso de globalização. Pretende-se neste artigo teorizar a interação do espetáculo e do carnaval como construções teatrais de poder e resistência empresarial e estatal. São analisados o crescimento do espetáculo da indústria de monitoramento, que atesta códigos corporativos de conduta em narrativas de progresso, e os carnavais anti-sweatshop1 e anti-globalização, que desempenham um roteiro de entrega no teatro de rua, nos shows de moda anti-sweatshop e no ativismo cibernético.
For the past half-century, those defining the field of Public Administration in their role as its leading "theorists" have been preoccupied with defending the enterprise against the evils of value-neutral logical positivism. This polemical review of that period focuses on the Simon-Waldo debate that ultimately leads the field to adopt a "professional" identity rather than seek disciplinary status among the social sciences. A survey of recent works by the field's intellectual leaders and "gatekeepers" demonstrates that the anti-positivist obsession continues, oblivious to significant developments in the social sciences. The paper ends with a call for Public Administrationists to engage in the political and paradigmatic upheavals required to shift the field toward a disciplinary stance. A warning to the reader: what follows is polemical in tone, rhetorical in purpose, and historicist in method. For such a presentation, the author is rightly subject to criticism for arrogance, over-statement, and hypocrisy. Nevertheless, I offer up an essay that began as a reasonable reflection on the current state of Public Administration theory, but soon turned argumentative as the paper's thesis created an irresistible logic for presentation. I remain uncomfortable with both the rhetorical objective and historicist assumptions, but I would regard this effort as a success if the polemics resulted in a renewed debate over the disciplinary status of our field. 1
This article examines the influence of Weberian rationality on the human unconscious. Using the work of the depth psychologist C. G. Jung, I conclude that Weber's ideal construct is too one-sided. This entirely masculine and conscious approach to organizing posits too much psychic energy with the conscious ego, and, accordingly, the feminine, and the entire unconscious, all that we are not consciously aware of, is repressed. Thus this article finds that modern-day careerists who identify their whole being with their work suffer from emotionally stunted lives. Moreover, this repressed state of being transcends the boundary of the individual's organizational and private life. Concluding that repression of feeling in our culture, and the integral part that modern organization plays within this societal context, is serious, this study calls for a tempering of rationality within organization. Following the Jungian perspective that anything repressed for too long turns violent and that psychic wholeness can be obtained only by integrating the masculine and feminine opposites, the article suggests that individuals, as well as society, must open an avenue to the unconscious that will permit the feminine its rightful existence along with the masculine.
Of many managerialist panaceas, the most prevalent one today is the assertion that private sector practices will solve the public sector’s “self-evident” inadequate performance. This managerialist view assumes hegemonic proportions in Anglo-Saxon public sectors and largely goes unchallenged, notwithstanding serious reservations about the superiority of private managerial prerogatives one would draw from organization theory or, even, mainstream liberal economics, which is largely silent about the role of management and control in economic behaviour. It is a particular brand of economics that underscores the linking of public agency efficiency to managerial ability and performance. In neo-institutional economics, “rent-seeking” behaviour is attributed to civil servants, rather than corporate entrepreneurs, and from that ideological perspective of bureaucratic pathology flows a whole series of untested propositions culminating in the commercializing, corporatizing and privatizing rationales, now uncritically accepted by most bureaucrats themselves to be axiomatically true. The economistic underpinning of managerialism and its “New Functionalism” in organizational design hardly addresses the significant structural, cultural and behavioural changes necessary to bring about the rhetorical benefits said to flow from the application of managerialist solutions. Managerialism expects public managers to improve efficiency, reduce burdensome costs and enhance organizational performance in a competitive stakeholding situation. Managerialism largely ignores the administrative-political environment which rewards risk-averse behaviour which, in turn, militates against the very behavioural and organizational reforms managerialists putatively seek for the public sector.
Since the 1960s, hostility and mistrust toward the U.S. government has risen precipitously. At the same time, the field of public administration has wrestled with its own crisis of legitimacy. What is at the root of current antigovernment sentiment? Conventionally, two explanations for this problem persist. Some see it primarily in moral terms, a deficit of Constitutional or democratic values in government. Others emphasize governmentâs performance failures and managerial inefficiency. Thomas J. Catlaw departs from both explanations in this groundbreaking study and demonstrates that the current crisis of government originates in the uncritical manner in which we have accepted the idea of âthe People.â He contends that this unifying, foundational concept—and the notion of political representation it entails—have failed. While illuminating some of our most pressing social and political problems, Catlaw shows how the idea of the People, far from serving to unify, relies in fact on a distinctive logic of exclusion. True political power is the power to determine what constitutes the normal, natural life of the electorate. Today, the exclusionary practices that once made up or fabricated the People are increasingly contested. In turn, government and political power now appear more invasive, less legitimate, and our shared reality appears more fragmented and disconnected. In order to address this crisis and reinvigorate democracy, Catlaw argues, we must accept as bankrupt the premise of the People and the idea of representation itself. Fabricating the People boldly proposes post-representational governance that reframes the practice of modern democracy and reinvents the role of public administration.
The often-used goal model for measuring effectiveness is criticized. A system model is suggested and its advantages over the goal model specified. Mainly, the system model is theoretically more powerful and avoids certain value judgments. Two system models are compared: an often-used survival model and a rarely applied effectiveness model. The impact of either one on social action is briefly outlined.
The neglect of moral discourse in mainstream organization theory during the past four decades may be attributed to the dominance of the "decision," popularized by Herbert Simon, as the field's primary unit of analysis. Underwritten by an epistemology derived from the logical positivists' analytical distinction between value and fact, the idea of decision has come to be uncritically accepted as a morally neutral and empirically self-evident beginning point for organizational analysis. The ethnomethodological writings of Harold Garfinkel, coupled with insights from contemporary philosophy of language, radically challenge the value-fact distinction, pointing to an epistemology of everyday life in which value and fact are initially fused. The inherent fusion of value and fact provides the basis for an alternative epistemology for organization theory--termed the "action" or "process" perspective--which fundamentally alters the empirical understanding of organizational life and, consistent with the writings of Mary Parker Follett, enables the recovery of organization theory's moral center.
Recent discoveries in developmental psychology have greatly increased understanding of the adult life cycle. It is now known, for example, that various stages of adult development proceed in a relatively consistent sequence and that certain tasks and issues present themselves for resolution at particular times during psychological maturation. This article analyzes the major theories of adult lifespan development, reviews some related research into the influence of various stages of development on job and organizational satisfaction, and identifies some important issues which the adult life cycle raises for public administrators and managers.
The interpretivist perspective is rapidly growing in acceptance and influence in the feld of organization and management. This perspective has important implications for the field of administrative ethics that have not yet been sufficiently acknowledged. Traditionally, administrative ethics appears to have assumed an objectivist epistemological and legalistic ethical perspective, and interpretivism seems to imply epistemological subjectivism and ethical relativism as alternatives. Using Jung's theory of the unconscious as a foundation, an ethical perspective is developed indicating that through the vehicle of human relationship one can find stable points of reference for moral action in the requisities of the personal development of the actors involved in the situation, and hence, this perspective avoids the trap of ethical relativism to which interpretivism is vulnerable. Lying, cheating, and stealing are used as examples and the case of the Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke is presented as an illustration of how the approach applies in organizational situations.
The paper introduces the current debate in the human sciences between the opposing conceptual positions of 'modernism' and 'postmodernism' and discusses its implications for organizational analysis. The debate focusses on the nature of 'discourse' (information, knowledge, communication) and its role in social systems. The discourse of modernism rests on transcendent yet anthropocentric criteria such as 'progress' and 'reason' which are varyingly exemplified in the work of Bell, Luhmann and Habermas. In contrast, postmodern discourse (represented here mainly by the work of Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari) analyzes social life in terms of paradox and indeterminacy, thus rejecting the human agent as the centre of rational control and understanding. The paper then considers two contrasting views of the organizing process which follow from these opposing approaches to discourse. In the modernist model, organization is viewed as a social tool and an extension of human rationality. In the postmodern view, organization is less the expression of planned thought and calculative action and a more defensive reaction to forces intrinsic to the social body which constantly threaten the stability of organized life. The implications of the latter view for orthodox organizational analysis are discussed in some detail.
This paper examines the significance of the concept of culture for organizational analysis. The intersection of culture theory and organization theory is evident in five current research themes: comparative management, corporate culture, organizational cognition, organizational symbolism, and unconscious processes and organization. Researchers pursue these themes for different purposes and their work is based on different assumptions about the nature of culture and organization. The task of evaluating the power and limitations of the concept of culture must be conducted within this assumptive context. This review demonstrates that the concept of culture takes organization analysis in several different and promising directions.
This paper, the second in a series on the relevance of the modernist-postmodernist debate to organizational analysis, looks at the work of the late Michel Foucault. Whilst his work is seen as producing a whole series of problems for those brought up in an Anglo-American tradition of intellectual endeavour, it is maintained that his work is suggestive of alternative ways of approaching problems and ordering material. A three fold periodization of his work is suggested beginning with the 'archeaological' period, then attention is paid to the 'genealogical' period and finally, though less fixed and discernible, his concern for ethics is noted. Ideas and concepts drawn from all but the very last of his writings are then utilized in ways which might allow for a significant reordering in the theory of organizations, particularly in the debate concerning organizational heterogeneity versus homogeneity, the importance of 'total institutions', organizational control of sexuality and the role of new technologies in organizational control systems.