Chapter 14

New Millennium Thought: Perspectives and Trends

New Millennium Thought: Perspectives and Trends

• Traditional Perspectives and the New Millennium

• Interpretive Perspectives and the New Millennium

• Critical Perspectives and the New Millennium• Trends Influencing Organizations Today

Traditional Perspectives and the New Millennium

• The Concept of Peak Oil• End of the Cheap Energy Era• Collapse of Large Scale Production and

Distribution• Return to Pre-Industrial Age• Producing Goods on a Cottage Industry Basis

Interpretive Perspectives on the New Millennium

• Darwinian “Survival of the Fittest” Frame– Oil Wars

• Technological Solution Frame• Challenging the Constant Growth Model

– Population and Economic Growth

• The Steady State Model– Shift away from competitive forces of capitalism– Move toward a model of cooperation and

community

Critical Perspectives and the New Millennium

• Overview of the Critical Perspective• The Concept of Emancipation in Organizational

Studies• Self-Managed Work Teams and Concertive Control• Workplace Democracy• Feminist Theories and Organizational

Communication• Praxis and Consciousness-Raising• Case Study: Casa de Esperanza

Critical Perspectives and the New Millennium

• A Struggle for Oil between the Most Powerful Countries will Produce Winners and Losers

• Emancipation and Empowerment through a return to a Pre-Industrial Age– Living in communities with close relationships to

neighbors– Deriving satisfaction from growing your own food,

being more closely connected to family and friends, and leading more of a local existence

Critical Perspectives and the New Millennium

• Technological Solutions Found to the Energy Crisis

• Large Scale Production Continues in Hierarchical Organizations

• Alternative Paths to Emancipation Emerge

The Concept of Emancipation in

Organizational Studies• What is emancipation?• Self-Reflection and Self-Transformation• Micro-emancipation• Questioning, Utopian, and Incremental

Emancipation

What is Emancipation?

• Raising the consciousness of oppressed workers so they may gain a clear understanding of the oppression they face

• Workers consider alternative means of organizing and communicating that offer opportunities for empowerment and emancipation

• Use communication to achieve emancipation and empowerment

Self-Reflection and Self-Transformation

• Human reason possesses emancipatory potential

• Step One: Critical self-reflection to understand how the self and the social world are socially produced

• Step Two: Self-Transformation by resisting and challenging dominant meaning systems and creating empowering systems

Micro-emancipation

• Focusing attention on concrete activities, forms, and techniques that offer themselves not only as means of control, but also as objects and facilitators of resistance and as vehicles for liberation [Alvesson & Wilmot, 1992]

• Example: workers redefining a controlling family metaphor into one that is empowering

Questioning, Utopian, and Incremental Emancipation

• Questioning – Challenging and critiquing dominant meaning

systems

• Utopian– Employees present management with a new form of

ideal that aims to open up consciousness for engagement with a broader repertoire of alternatives

• Incremental– Liberation from certain specific forms of oppression

Self-Managed Work Teams and Concertive Control

• Definition of Self-Managed Work Teams

• Concertive Control Systems– Identification– Disciplinary Techniques– Discursive Formations

Definition of Self-Managed Work Teams

• Instead of being told what to do by a supervisor, self-managing workers must gather and synthesize information, act on it, and take collective responsibility for those actions

• Self-managing workers generally are organized into teams of 10 to 15 people who take on the responsibilities of their former supervisors [Barker, 1993]

Definition of Self-Managed Work Teams

• Top management often provides a value-based corporate vision that team members use to infer parameters and premises (norms and rules) that guide their day-to-day actions.

• Guided by the company's vision, the self-managing team members direct their own work and coordinate with other areas of the company [Barker, 1993]

Concertive ControlIdentification• For concertive control systems to be effective,

workers must identify with a set of value and factual premises that guide their decision making and work activities

• Top management produces a value-based corporate vision that is intended to serve as a guide for member behavior and decision-making

• Workers then exhibit their identification with this vision when, in making a decision, they perceive the organization's values or interests as relevant in evaluating the alternatives of choice

Concertive Control

Disciplinary Techniques• Worker designed systems of control include

micro-techniques of discipline to regulate and normalize individual and collective action in organizations

• When members internalize these disciplinary techniques (because of their identification with the organizational value system) they become part of standard operating procedure

Concertive ControlDisciplinary Techniques• Disciplines are enabling because they allow

us to create reality in concert with others and, simultaneously constraining because the disciplines shape our behavior in directions that are functional for the organization

Concertive ControlDiscursive Formations• Discipline functions as a social force in the

organization, demarcating good behavior from bad, providing a context for organizational interaction, and shaping day-to-day organizational activity

• Disciplinary discourse leads to the construction of apparatuses of knowledge and a multiplicity of new domains of understanding

• Eventually, social production of the apparatuses of knowledge and domains of understanding lead organizational actors to the conclusion: that's the way we do things around here

Concertive Control

Grameen Bank of Bangladesh• Atiquar Rahman is a bank field worker who

regularly works twelve-hour days and often works for months at a time without a single day off.

• When asked why he works so diligently, he responded: How can I let down the other field workers and the poor people we serve? We work together as a team, and in working together we help the poor to improve their lives

Workplace Democracy

A system of governance which truly values individual goals and feelings (e.g., equitable pay, the pursuit of enriching work and the right to express oneself) as well as typically organizational problems (e.g., effectiveness and efficiency, reflectively conceived), which actively fosters the connection between those two sets of concerns by encouraging individual contributions to important organizational choices, and which allows for the ongoing modification of the organization's activities and policies by the group [Cheney, 1995]

Workplace Democracy

• Worker-Owned Cooperatives

• Employee Stock Ownership Plans

• Participatory Versus Representative Democracy

Workplace Democracy

Principles and Practices • Interaction with External Systems• Size, Structure, and Patterns of Interaction• Maintaining Integrity• Self-Reflection and Self-Regeneration• Consistency between Goals and Process

Feminist Theory

• Real social change comes about when people think and live differently

• Feminist discourse and feminist practice offer the linguistic and structural space in which it is possible to think, live, work, and love differently, in opposition to the discursive and institutional practices of bureaucratic capitalism [Ferguson, 1984]

Feminist Theory

• Liberal • Marxist• Radical • Psychoanalytic• Contemporary Socialist • Existential • Postmodern • Revisionist

Traditional vs. Feminist Views of Organizations

• Competitive Individualism vs. Cooperative Enactment

• Cause-Effect Linear Thinking vs. Integrative Thinking

• Separation and Autonomy vs. Connectedness

Competitive Individualism vs. Cooperative Enactment

• Competitive Individualism– Separate people and organizations into

winners and losers

• Cooperative Enactment– Emphasizing cooperation in talk and

behavior– Success is linked to how much workers

help one another

Cause-Effect Linear Thinking vs. Integrative Thinking

• Cause-Effect Linear Thinking– Rationale, direct, solution-oriented thinking– There is one best way to accomplish an

activity• Integrative Thinking

– Contextual Thinking– How will any given action impact workers’

lives, contribute to power imbalances, or impact the environment?

Separation and Autonomy vs. Connectedness

• Separation and Autonomy– Distinguish yourself as an individual through

action, work, and status

– Separate truth and fairness from emotionality

• Connectedness– Integrate mind, body, and emotions in making

sense of the world around us

Praxis and Consciousness-Raising

• Praxis– The link between theory and action– How can theory inform and spark action

• Consciousness-Raising– Members of an oppressed group coming to

understand fully the nature of their oppression

– Accomplished through communication

Feminist Organizing: Casa de Esperanza

• Founded in 1982 to provide shelter to Latinas who were victims of domestic violence

• Based on the experiences of the founders in conscious-raising groups, they decided to creative a new type of organization called a collective.

• Different from competitive and male-dominated organizations and bureaucracies, a collective is egalitarian, supportive of differences, and nurturing

• Founding members created a participatory, non-hierarchical structure that included staff and ex-shelter residents on the Board of Directors

Casa de Esperanza

• Provides a safe house where women and children can flee when violence erupts in their home

• Offers support through a variety of activities and programs that help women and children exit violent relationships

• In the Women's program offered support groups, advocacy in existing human and health services, supportive listening, and goal setting

• Operated a 24-hour crisis hotline that responded to calls from the community for support and shelter

Casa de Esperanza• Developed a Children's Program that provided sessions

for children to explore their feelings about violence in their homes

• Offered structured daily activities, such as therapeutic dance and Spanish classes

• Developed a Women’s Empowerment program that provided resources to foster independent living, including securing and maintaining housing, employment, education, and social support

• Initiated a "culture circle" where oral histories were shared and materials for education were created that focused on community values of family and religion

Casa de Esperanza• In a typical year shelter is provided to 145 women and

an additional 175 children • Volunteers at the Information and Resource Center

assisted over 5,700 visitors in 2005 and 89% of these people said they found solutions to daily problems at the Center

• Over 4,000 calls were made to the crisis hotline in 2005 and 549 Latinas and their children were supported by the organization's Family Advocates program

• Provided training or consultation to over 1,400 people representing 179 social service organizations at local and national levels [Casa de Esperanza, 2006]

Trends Influencing Organizations Today

• Globalization of the Marketplace and Global Competitive Pressures

• Gender and Diversity• Quality and Customer Satisfaction• Political and Legal Pressures on Organizations• Stress at Work• Inadequately Educated Work Force• Critical Questioning of Corporate Values• Stakeholder Perspectives

Globalization of the Marketplace and Global Competitive

Pressures• Globalization of the Marketplace

– Improvements in transportation and marketing capability permit businesses to access sources of supplies and to sell goods and services to more distant customers

• Global Competitive Pressures– Organizations in developed countries must

increase productivity, restructure, and downsize to be competitive with companies in countries that pay workers much lower wages

Gender and Diversity

• When groups of diverse people are brought together an organization increases its creative potential by employing workers who approach problem solving in ways uniquely attributable to their experiences and ways of viewing the world

• For the benefits of diversity to be fully realized diversity must exist amongst a company's workforce as a whole, amongst the highest salaried workers, and at the Officer, Board of Director, and Senior Management positions

Quality and Customer Satisfaction

• Companies need to be proactive in the way they manage quality and continuously seek to improve levels of customer satisfaction

• One Approach: Total Quality Management (TQM) – Take a developmental approach to transforming

the organization to focus on quality and customer satisfaction in all aspects of work, production, service, and management

– Seeking out information from consumers about what their needs are now and how those needs may change in the future

Political and Legal Pressures on Organizations

• Enron used every accounting trick and unethical public relations tactic to pump up its share price well in excess of its true value

• When Enron finally admitted it was insolvent in December 2001, 20,000 employees lost their jobs, their health insurance, and their pensions. Shareholders were told that their investments were worthless

Political and Legal Pressures on Organizations

• As a result of the Enron collapse, U.S. politicians were forced to act.

• Corporate financial statements may no longer be taken on trust. Now, corporate directors must sign off personally on their accuracy. There are also now tough new rules on how accounts are to be checked.

• This adds millions of dollars to the costs of running a public company in the U.S.

Stress at Work• Because the nature of work is changing so rapidly,

and global competitive pressures often require fewer workers to do the work of many, stress at work poses a threat to workers more than ever before

• In the U.S., one-fourth of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives, and three-fourths of employees believe the worker has more on-the-job stress than a generation ago [Sauter, 2006]

• Problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other life stressor

Stress at Work

• Stressful workplace conditions are associated with increased absenteeism, tardiness, and intentions by workers to quit their jobs - all of which have a negative effect on the bottom line

• Corporate leaders and human resource professionals need to figure out ways of designing work tasks in ways that maximize productivity while keeping job stress under control

• Simply focusing on productivity to the exclusion of job stressors will inevitably backfire and cost the company more than it gains

Inadequately Educated Workforce

• The Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006 conducted an international survey of business and political leaders in 104 countries asking them to identify the most problematic factors in doing business in their own country

• The problem ranked sixth was an inadequately educated workforce

• Because of sub-standard school systems and high levels of poverty in many areas, the U.S. now ranks 14th in high school graduation rates behind countries such as France, Germany, and Japan

Critical Questioning of Corporate Values

• In recent years, companies around the world have adopted formal statements of corporate values.

• Senior executives now routinely identify ethical behavior, honesty, integrity, and social concerns as top issues on their companies' objectives.

• Are values being espoused because companies are truly committed to them, or are values being marketed to different publics to manipulate how companies are perceived?

• This requires us to engage in a critical questioning of corporate values.

Critical Questioning of Corporate Values

• For a company to live up to its values they must focus on how employees, managers, and corporate leaders act

• Actions will say much more to employees and the public about values than words ever can

• If our actions are wise, no one will ever care if the words on the wall are not perfect

• If our actions are foolish, the wonderful words on the wall will only make us look more ridiculous [Goldsmith, 2005]

Stakeholder Perspectives

• Who are an organization’s stakeholders?

• Categories of Stakeholders– Separation Perspective– Ethical Perspective– Integrative Perspective

Who are an Organization’s Stakeholders?

• Organizational stakeholders: the individuals, groups, or other organizations that are affected by and also affect the firm's decisions and actions

• Depending on the organization, there may be many different stakeholders.

• Employees, shareholders, suppliers, distributors, and the community in which the organization is located comprise one important collection of stakeholders.

Who are an Organization’s Stakeholders?

• The Media • Government Agencies

– Security and Exchange Commission, Internal Revenue Service, Environmental Protection Agency

• Social Activist Groups– National Organization for Women, Greenpeace

• Self- Regulatory Agencies – Better Business Bureau, National Advertising

Review Board

Categories of Stakeholders

• Separation Perspective

• Ethical Perspective

• Integrative Perspective

Separation Perspective

• Managers are the agents of the organization's owners.

• As agents, managers should always strive to act in the best interests of the owners.

• The only reason managers would act in a way to benefit non-owner stakeholders is if that action ultimately rewarded the owners in some way.

• Even if a managerial action would serve the greater good of society, the action would only be taken if the owners received a tangible benefit.

Ethical Perspective

• Businesses have an obligation to treat each stakeholder group fairly.

• This view does not disregard the preferences and claims of shareholders, but takes shareholder interests in consideration only to the extent that their interests coincide with the greater good.

• Given the nature of capitalistic competition, doing the "right thing" may bankrupt a business denying opportunities for employment, and returns on investment by shareholders.

Integration Perspective• Organizations operate in a complicated

stakeholder environment where the interests of various stakeholder groups are interconnected.

• Separating shareholders apart from non-owner stakeholders is not always possible.

• If managers focus on one group to the exclusion of others they may risk organizational survival or miss opportunities for innovative action that serves the interests of multiple groups.

Integration Perspective• By integrating the components of the separation

and ethical perspectives, organizational leaders may serve the self-interests of owners, and display corporate responsibility to non-owner stakeholders.

• So economic growth may co-exist with social responsibility.