Understanding public organisations:collective intentionality as cooperation
Social ontology – particularly its leading concept, collective intentionality –provides helpful insights into public organisations.
The paper sets out the some of the limitations of cultural theories and takes as its example of these the group-grid theory of Douglas and Hood.
It then draws upon Brentano, Husserl and Searle to show the ontological character of public management. Modern public institutions – such as advisory organisations and service delivery agencies, including schools and universities – are expressions of human collective intentionality.
Public institutions are natural structures that emerge from our evolutionary ancestry as cooperative animals and enduringly display all the features of that ancestry.
The central concept within these institutions, as a phenomenology reveals, is cooperation.
Understanding public organisations
- collective intentionality as cooperation
Rober t ShawThe Open Po l y techn i c o f New Zea land
How to expla in inst i tut ions
Psychological theories
Cultural theories
Grid-group
Socia l ontology
Husserl
Searle
Today
W h a t c a l l s f o r a n e x p l a n a t i o n ?
1 P s y c h o l o g i c a l t h e o r i e s
Fo c u s o n t h o s e w i t h i n – r o l e s , p o w e r, i n p u t s - o u t p u t s
2 C u l t u r a l t h e o r i e s
Fo c u s o n i n s t i t u t i o n s – k i n d s , d y n a m i c s ,
r e l a t i o n s h i p s , s t a k e h o l d e r s ,
e v o l u t i o n o f o r g a n i s a t i o n s
3 S o c i a l o n t o l o g y
P h e n o m e n o l o g y
C r e a t i o n o f m e a n i n g
How to explain institutions
A c u l t u r a l t h e o r y
C h r i s t o p h e r H o o d ( O x f o r d )
“Grid/group cultural theory captures much of the variety in current and historical debates about how to organize in government and
public services, because it offers a broad framework for analysis which is capable of incorporating much of what is already known about
organisational variety.
“Application of a cultural-theory framework can illuminate many of the central analytic questions in public management.
E x p l a i n s f a i l u r e s
N e w P u b l i c M a n a g e m e n t ( n e o - l i b e r a l e c o n o m i c s )
F o u r w a y s t o u n d e r s t a n d p u b l i c m a n a g e m e n t :
H i e r a r c h i c a l
I n d i v i d u a l i s t i c
E g a l i t a r i a n
F a t a l i s t
Grid-group theory – its use
Ruth Benedict Patterns of Culture , 1934
Mary Douglas
Socia l anthropology
“A start for this will be to construct (yes, I mean
construct, fabricate, think up, invent) two dimensions. ... I
use ‘grid’ for a dimension of individuation, and ‘group’ for a
dimension of social incorporation”(Douglas, 1982, p. 190).
Grid-group theory – its foundation
People take on ro les or at t i tudes in accordance with
the ir inc l inat ions on the d imensions o f :
Group (bel ie fs about the bonds between people) &
Gr id (bel ie fs about how people take on ro les in
groups) .
Grid-group theory – its foundation
1 . H e g e l
1 8 0 7
“ W a y i n w h i c h k n o w l e d g e a p p e a r s ”
2 . F r a n z B r e n t a n o
1 8 7 4
P s y c h o l o g y f r o m a n E m p i r i c a l S t a n d p o i n t
“Every mental phenomenon is characterised by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental)
in-existence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction upon an
object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity.
“Every mental phenomenon includes something as an object within itself; although they do not all do so in the same way. In
presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired,
and so on.
3 . H u s s e r l
T h e o r y o f n t e n t i o n a l i t y
‘Intentionality’- origins
I n t e n t i o n a l i t y i s a f e a t u r e o f c o n s c i o u s n e s s : “ d i r e c t e d n e s s o f t h o u g h t ”T h i n kF e e lT o u c hH a t eH o p eK n o wU n d e r s t a n d
O r g a n i c a p p r o a c h : I t i s “ p r i m o r d i a l o r i g i n a r i n e s s ” w h i c h p r o v i d e s u sw i t h i n s i g h t s i n t o t h e o n t o l o g i c a l s i t u a t i o n o f t h e a n i m a t e o r g a n i s m .
E g o a n d a l t e r e g o ( w h i c h m a y b e s h a r e d w i t h a n o t h e r h u m a n b e i n g ) T h i s s h a r e d o v e r l a y c o n s t i t u t e s a s a “ m u t u a l t r a n s f e r o f s e n s e ” .
R e c e n t e n q u i r e s t h a t b u i l d o n H u s s e r l :
1 , M e t h o d o f p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l r e d u c t i o n → S h a w ( l o c a l g o v e r n m e n t , d e m o c r a c y, d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g )
2 . C o n c e p t o f i n t e n t i o n a l i t y → S e a r l e ( c o l l e c t i v e i n t e n t i o n a l i t y, c o o p e r a t i o n , i n s t i t u t i o n s )
Husserl
My pro jectThe essence o f loca l government
Be wi thEl iminate categor iesThat which you cannot e l iminate
Phenomenological reduction
A lead concept is collective intentionality
John Searle
The construct ion of socia l real i ty (1995)
Making the socia l world: the structure of
human c iv i l izat ion (2010)
Social ontology
Sear le ’ s method: Based on exper ience / refl ect ion
Organic foundat ion & cont inu i ty
Unifi ed account : One wor ld : factsSoc ie ty, ins t i tu t ions , ind iv iduals , language
I in tend / we in tend
Co-operat ion
Collective intentionality
Institutional facts / background / capacities
X counts as Y in a Context
Collective prior intentions / intentions in action
Human institutions = structures of constitutive rules (typically not conscious)
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