Browsing Department of Organization (IOA) by Title
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Bramming, Pia (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: What has power to do with Human Resource Management (HRM)? Perusing HRMtextbooks one will find, that power as a concept, only seldom is approached explicitly. When the subject of power is addressed directly, it is primarily as a question of bargaining power between organisation and labour market institutions, the power of a leader or person in terms of the right to execute punishment and the duty to obedience or empowerment, as a countermove to the effects of bureaucratic workplace routines "... where initiative is stifled and workers become alienated"1. Indirectly one can identify power as interesting in the HRM-literature, as a question of influence or status of HRM as a function in business. Does or does HRM not play a central role in business? Is HR part of top management? That is questions concerned with how power is distributed as a commodity in reality. This paper is taking up the concept of power as a distributing force of reality, as opposed to a distribution of commodities in reality. In this way the position on power adopted is similar to the in Deleuzes words very simple definition of power by Foucault: "Power is a relation between forces, or rather every relation between forces is a ‘power relation." (Deleuze 1999: 70). This way of conceptualising power has as a consequence, that power always has several sides: Power is not essentially repressive Power is not unilateral, but requires both "masters and mastered" Power is practiced more than it is possessed. The first point is serving as both the way in and the way out of this paper. The paper will pry at the workings of power in order to unfold power as a positive as well as repressing force using HRM as the practice where power is working. "The exercise of power is a "conduct of conducts" and a management of possibilities" (Foucault, 2000: 341) Consequently, the way to study power is not to try to "find it", but to see, how it is practiced. (Deleuze, 1999: 71) Studying power in HRM therefore becomes a question on grasping the power relations and force fields emerging from HRM-practice. One could therefore ask the question: "What is HR about – and what is HR practice?" Barbara Townley (1994, 1998, 1999) has done this extensively and demonstrates how a foucauldian analysis focuses on practices, which structure social relations. (Townley, 1998: 194) Townley conceptualizes HRM as the medium through which the employment relationship may be organized or disciplined through technologies of the self. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6677 Files in this item: 1
dokument 15.pdf (269.4Kb) -
A case study of a commercial and open source software communityWestenholz, Ann (Boston, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper builds on a long tradition in the Scandinavian countries for using empirical case studies to analyse the way in which organizations respond to different widespread institutional logics. The paper proposes five organizational responses: resistance to new logics; replacement of an old logic for a new one; co-existence of old and new logics; competition between old and new logics; and finally, hybridization of old and new logics. Following a historical account of how a commercial and open source community has developed, the paper goes on to analyse why this organization responds in a hybridizing way to two widespread institutional logics within software development (i.e. the institutional logic of technology and the institutional logic of capitalism). In the case, the analysis identifies the combination of four elements as influential on the hybridizing process: 1) external inspiration – no external pressures or shocks; 2) organizational members as institutional audience; 3) frames following the logic of appropriateness – not only the logic of consequentiality; and 4) organizational institutional leadership defining hybrid frames. By way of conclusion, the paper discusses the need to transgress macro/structure and micro/actor dimensions, and suggests insights to be gained by combining institutional theory with the Chicago School‟s interactionist‟s approach and performance theory. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8417 Files in this item: 1
Ann_Westenholz.pdf (294.5Kb) -
A study of the Open Source – business settingCiesielska, Malgorzata (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This research project examines how the conflicting institutional logics are dealt with in a hybrid organisational form. The empirical setting of the study is an Open Source – business collaboration in software development projects. The idea of making a case study of the Open Source – business collaboration is interesting from both theoretical and business perspectives. Since companies realised that the world’s most talented people are distributed throughout various organisations, rather than members of a single team or corporation, the open innovation model could be neither underestimated nor ignored by the business. However, that solution brings new challenges, especially for business-oriented organisations. The challenges come from the significant differences between new open models and the classic closed-innovation model, which grew on the concept of the institution of the intellectual property rights. Open Source, on the contrary, is intrinsically an anti-corporational, pro-knowledge-sharing and creativity motivated movement. As a result, in the era of open collaboration in knowledge-integrating platforms the everyday problems are constituted of dealing with mixture of institutional backgrounds, business models and professional identities...... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8200 Files in this item: 1
Malgorzata_Ciesielska.pdf (5.849Mb) -
Westenholz, Ann (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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Duguid, Paul (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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A Reconstruction of Corporate Social ResponsibilityBoxenbaum, Eva; Battilana, Julie (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The notion of institutional entrepreneur (DiMaggio, 1988) has given rise to a controversy in neo-institutional theory around the ability of actors to distance themselves from institutional pressures, envision alternative institutional patterns, and act strategically to change institutions in which they are embedded. This paper empirically examines the ability of embedded actors to envision alternative institutional patterns, that is, their innovative capacity. We analyze the role that an individual played in the development of a new institutional logic of corporate social responsibility in Denmark between 2001 and 2002. Based on our empirical findings on the innovative capacity of this individual, we propose a new definition of institutional entrepreneurs that is more compatible with the premises of neo-institutional theory than the one proposed by DiMaggio (1988). We propose that institutional entrepreneurs are institutionally bounded agents who a) transpose an institutional logic across fields and introduce it as a deliberate alternative to the institutional logic in the focal field, or b) deliberately seek to diffuse an alternative logic within a field. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6719 Files in this item: 1
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A sociomaterial study of development processes in the Danish film industryStrandvad, Sara Malou (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The empirical question, which the thesis addresses in the different papers, is how the process of development is organized in Danish film production. Development in film production characterizes the initial phase where an idea is constructed and transformed into a realizable film project. In practice, this creation consists in writing a synopsis and, later on, a manuscript for the film, because such drafts of the product are institutionalized as necessary devices for achieving funding to make the actual film. Hence, the focus area of the thesis is the process of manuscript writing in film production; an organizing process of developing projects. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7793 Files in this item: 1
Sara_Malou_Strandvad.pdf (1.916Mb) -
The Emergence of Environmental Management AccountingGeorg, Susse (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Based on a study of the emergence of EMA as a new managerial domain and of how EMA costs the environment, the paper examines the institutionalisation of EMA. This is accomplished by linking EMA to the broader discourse of economic efficiency. Moreover, the paper contends that the institutionalisation of EMA is supported through the legitimacy it produces for individuals (notably environmental managers) and organizations. Through the use of different metrics, EMA frames the environment in terms of the well known – money – and establishes equivalence between the actions to protect the environment and changes in the bottom line. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6688 Files in this item: 1
wp200415.pdf (54.37Kb) -
Patientfigurer i hospitalets strategiske kommunikationPors, Anja Svejgaard (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Denne ph.d. afhandling handler om hospitalsvæsnets arbejde med strategisk kommunikation. Gennem det seneste årti er kommunikation blevet et strategisk indsatsområde på danske hospitaler. Her er kommunikation omdrejningspunkt i visioner, politikker, planer og daglige arbejdspraksisser. Hospitalerne laver kommunikationsstrategier og opbygger kommunikationsafdelinger, som skal bidrage til en bedre kommunikation med patienter – ikke bare i mødet mellem læge og patient i klinikken – men i den organisatoriske helhed. I afhandlingen beskriver jeg indledningsvist denne udvikling som en kommunikationsliggørelse af hospitalet. Den strategiske kobling mellem kommunikation og patient gør kommunikation til en organisatorisk opgave. Jeg undersøger, hvordan denne udvikling forandrer forståelser af patienten og griber ind i hospitalets organisatoriske orden. Afhandlingens hovedspørgsmål er, hvordan hospitalet iværksætter og håndterer kommunikation med patienter som organisatorisk opgave. Interessen for organisering af kommunikation og patientrelationer placerer sig i et interdisciplinært spændingsfelt mellem forskellige forskningsområder: I sundhedskommunikationsforskningen ses kommunikation som et effektivt middel til at opnå sundhedsfaglige mål. Andre tilgrænsende forskningsområder beskæftiger sig med kommunikation i konkrete møder mellem sundhedsprofessionelle og patienten. Desuden findes der en række institutionelle studier af strategisk kommunikation som hospitalers omdømmearbejde. Fokus i denne afhandling placerer sig mellem disse forskningsområder. Min analytiske interesse retter sig mod hidtil uudforskede aspekter af, hvordan patienten placeres i den strategiske kommunikation. Studiet undersøger ikke, hvordan den strategiske kommunikation modtages af patienter eller fungerer som omdømmehåndtering. Denne 281 afhandling er derimod en undersøgelse af, hvordan strategisk kommunikation med patienter sættes i værk og håndteres i hospitalsorganisationen. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8447 Files in this item: 1
Anja_Svejgaard_Pors_phd.pdf (3.122Mb) -
Kreiner, Kristian (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This article explores the case of product development for insights into the potential role of knowledge management. Current literature on knowledge management entertains the notion that knowledge management is a specific set of practices – separate enough to allow specialization of responsibility. By common standard, the proclaimed responsibility of knowledge management is shared knowledge, saved learning costs and coordinated action in an organization. The significance of the practices of knowledge management is the intention of shared knowledge, saved learning costs and coordinated action. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6682 Files in this item: 1
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Abstract: This dissertation contributes to the existing body of knowledge on how we design computer systems, particularly multiuser software for knowledge sharing and creation in globally diffused companies. This is achieved by conducting a work place study of a global industrial engineering conglomerate which has the strategy of working with knowledge in the form of “best practices” meant to boost performance. The thesis explores the situation that workers are in, since they are meant to share and develop “best practices” knowledge in a portal based Knowledge Management System (KMS). The study indentifies a set of problems that prevents knowledge sharing from taking place to the degree to which management was specifically aiming. It was explored whether these problems could, to some degree, be mitigated by employing persuasive design, which is a new stance towards design where the aim is to directly seek to change the user’s behavior, i.e., persuading more knowledge sharing. The main contribution is an indication of an anomaly with regards to the strategic approach towards knowledge management, where knowledge sharing is seen as an effort by which companies can gain a competitive advantage by working with knowledge in a structured fashion. The issue is that the descriptions found in literature on strategic knowledge management do not address the many issues uncovered when conducting prolonged fieldwork among workers who engage in the activities that the literature seemingly takes for granted. Thus, many practical problems were uncovered that would need some level of mitigation before a company could hope to gain a strategic advantage from working with knowledge. This challenges the “stock" approach towards knowledge management, which seems to address only the management level of the organization. A contribution is also made in exploring the state-of-the-art of the emerging field of persuasive design. Persuasive design aims at enabling designers to create designs that deliberately change the user’s attitude or behavior. According to this new design tradition, the designer specifically designs with the aim of behavior transformation. The goal is a deliberate behavioral change, rather than supporting a set of existing tasks or a set of existing behaviors. The work presented shows how persuasive design is a very conceptual area of research, and that it is not a fitting approach for attaining a higher degree of participation in computer systems for knowledge sharing and creation. Persuasive design is thus not the remedy for the many problems found that prevent knowledge sharing from taking place URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8168 Files in this item: 1
Kristian_Toerning.pdf (62.64Mb) -
Westenholz, Ann (København, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Rapporten beskæftiger sig med udviklingen af kommercialisering af open source i Dan-mark ud fra den antagelse, at når open source software i dag i stigende grad bliver taget alvorligt af forretningsverdenen, er det ikke kun fordi IT virksomheder gennem open source udviklingsmodeller har udviklet konkurrencedygtige softwareprodukter, men også fordi der er lavet et stykke samfundsmæssigt institutionelt arbejde, som har normaliseret (om end ikke gjort det problemfrit), at IT virksomheder indgår i udviklingsmodeller, hvor alle har ret-ten til at kopiere, distribuere og modificere kildekoder i et stykke software. Fokus i rappor-ten er på sådanne ’institutionelle entreprenører’, som på trods af den hidtidige copyright institution i forretningsverdenen har fået sat en anden dagsorden, hvor det i stigende grad er blevet naturligt at tænke i open source software, som et produkt, man kan skabe en for-retning omkring. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6695 Files in this item: 1
wp2007-003.pdf (345.9Kb) -
En beretning om forvaltningsrevisionens beretningerJustesen, Lise (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This dissertation is about state performance auditing in Denmark – a practice that the National Audit Office of Denmark (NAOD) is mandated to undertake. My analysis of performance auditing takes as a starting point the fact that performance auditing is a kind of writing and that one immediate and obvious output of performance auditing consists of written reports. In a sense it could be argued that performance auditing is a particular kind of writing. However, not much research has paid attention to the question of how the writing of audit report is performed in concrete settings. What characterizes such processes? Does it follow certain rules? How are different actors involved? What kinds of effects follow from the writing and how, and to what extent, are the possible effects constrained by the particular kind of writing? The dividing line between the auditors as the writers, the auditee as the object of writing and the public as readers of the message conveyed by the report also seems to be questionable. In the dissertation, I show that in processes where it is difficult to determine in what sense a report is an output or an input and where these processes begin and end, the roles between writing and reading, active and passive may get blurred too. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7046 Files in this item: 1
lise_justesen.pdf (1.671Mb) -
A literature review and a suggestion of how to study the issueWestenholz, Ann (, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Very little research – if any – has been done to find out what happens to leadership and working live when Chinese companies settle in Denmark. This paper argues that it is worth investigating this topic, as I assume that the numbers of Chinese companies locating themselves in Denmark will increase in the coming years. The aim of the paper is firstly to give an overview of the literature that deals with the development of Chinese companies going abroad, and it is shown that the direct outward investments of China is experiencing a rapid growth. Secondly I like to look at leadership and working lives in China, and the lesson learned from the literature is that leadership and working life in China is diverse and continuously evolving. But some trends may be identified like different institutional regimes and different types of companies. Thirdly I look at leadership and working life in Denmark, and I compare leadership and working life in the two countries showing that there are many differences. These differences may have an impact on the way Chinese companies handle their encounters with ‘strangers’ when they establish themselves abroad, but we do not know if this is happening. I conclude by outlining a way of how to empirically study the interaction between Chinese and Danish managers and employees working together in a Chinese company in Denmark. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8645 Files in this item: 1
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brudstykker af 27 lederes livRy Nielsen, Jens Carl; Ry, Morten (København, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Denne artikel er et uddrag af endnu ikke publiceret bog om lederes hverdagsliv. Bogen bygger i meget høj grad på interviews. Vi har således interviewet 27 ledere to gange i perioden maj 2005 oktober 2006. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6684 Files in this item: 1
ledere i aktion og udvikling.pdf (189.6Kb) -
An ethnographic study of accountants who become managersBévort, Frans (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Management in a professional service firm such as Deloitte is suspended between a range of different fundamental concerns and ways of thinking. There is a market in which client needs are to be met, competitors matched and outperformed. There is the general public in which accounting firms such as Deloitte increasingly have become the object of critical scrutiny in their role as guardians of the common rules of accountability and legislation on accounting. There is a very strong professional culture and ethics, stemming from being a part of the professional community of a profession which creates unique ways of organizing and managing. And there is a growing concern about how to run the continually growing accounting-based advisory organizations (or professional service firms) in a way that efficiently utilizes the aggregated resources, which again creates a focus on management as a distinct issue. It is primarily the contradiction and dynamics of the latter two ‘internal’ concerns that the study of the dissertation is about - seen as institutional logics of professionalism and, or versus, bureaucracy. While the focus of most research into professional service firms has been on how general structural changes affect this unique species of organization, this study investigates how these contradictions affect the way accountants live and work performing roles as managers; how do accountants who become managers make sense of these contradictory logics? The dissertation treats this question theoretically by applying extant literature dealing with institutional change and logics with a special emphasis on recent research that focuses on the micro-processes which are the foundations of institutions and concretizes how institutional logics affect the action and sensemaking of actors. The dissertation contributes to this research by applying sensemaking theory and symbolic interactionism. The study is based on a 3-year ethnographic study in which managers at all levels have been interviewed and observed. Actual management processes and management training have been observed, via shadowing and participant observation. Relevant archival material has been included in the analysis. All these sources have been recorded and systematized in order to create a point of departure for the analyses of the dissertation. The main findings of the study point to: The institutional changes described by the Professional Service Firms research can be identified at the micro- or actor level in terms of ideals, systems, way organizing and structures which use a logic of bureaucracy and among which the development of a new middle-management role is a critical feature. These changes seem to have important consequences for the basic psychological contract between the professional and the organization in professional service firms. The changes, as they are found in the case, are more complex and laden with conflicts than otherwise described in the literature about professional service firms. This is based on the way the actors ‘draw on the existing logics’ and the conditions they have for doing this locally. This points to the importance of investigating the interaction of actors in order to understand how the new management practices are institutionalized/structurated. The changes towards a new model of management, found in the study, are based on the ability (and will) of the managers to navigate the contradictory logics in such a way that they can establish a meaningful identity as managers, and that they can mobilize other actors who support a new way of understanding management and that they are able to create space for the conversational reflection upon their behavior as managers and management. The ability (and will) of the managers is in its turn dependent on local conditions and interaction enabling these steps of sensemaking. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8448 Files in this item: 1
Frans_ Bévort.pdf (2.294Mb) -
An empirical study of enacted sensemaking in everyday conflict at workNaima Mikkelsen, Elisabeth (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This study is about everyday conflicts that occur at work; how meaning and action interact in processes of conflict handling in organisational conflicts that arise naturally in every arena of daily life when people meet in social interactions. I approach the phenomenon of conflict by exploring those social processes of organisational sensemaking that arise when conflict occurs in a nonprofit organisation, my own processes of sensemaking of the research process about conflict, and conflict research literature’s sensemaking of the concept of conflict. Weick argues that “[t]he basic idea of sensemaking is that reality is an ongoing accomplishment that emerges from efforts to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs” (1993, p. 653). Accordingly, sensemaking is conceptualised as a process of social construction where individuals attempt to interpret and explain sets of cues, or signals from their environments. The term can also be applied to the craft of research as sensemaking, in which researchers as sensemakers actively analyse the empirical material and generate representations of how reality is (Weick, 1989). Accordingly, in this study, I basically aim to understand conflict at work and understand research about conflict at work; that is, how conflict, as a social phenomenon, plays out in organisational cultures and group dynamics, and how conflict is conceptualised in conflict research literature. The study examines the following research questions from a sensemaking perspective: 1) How is conflict conceptualized in conflict research literature? 2) How do staff and management experience and act out conflicts in the nonprofit organisation of NGO Plus and how does changing conflict sensemaking affect conflicts at work? 3) What is my process of theorizing in conflict research? URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8609 Files in this item: 1
Elisabeth_Naima_Mikkelsen.pdf (1.476Mb) -
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Abstract: This PhD thesis is an ethnographic exploration of strategy work in practice. The academic contribution of the thesis is positioned in the overlap between Critical Approaches to Strategy and Strategy as Practice. This implies a critical position that does not take strategy for granted and which emphasizes a philosophical understanding of the practice concept. Other studies have adopted a similar Critical Strategy as Practice position, but very few ethnographic studies of strategy work have been conducted from this point of departure. Thus, the thesis aims to contribute two-fold to the existing Critical Strategy as Practice literature: One, to strengthen the tradition theoretically through the development and mobilization of a conceptual braid of practice, narrative, and performativity; and two, to provide an extensive empirical analysis of strategy work from this perspective. The case for the thesis is strategy work in the Stakeholder Department of a multinational biotech corporation, which is here called Bioforte. The thesis explores the dual aspects of the title as “making strategy-work”—the specific doings of crafting strategy; and “making Strategy work”—finding ways for strategy, as a concept, to function in the context of an organization. Building on the double entendre of the title, the guiding research question for this exploration is quite simply: What does strategy work do? The answer to this question is, however, not simple, because as the ethnographic exploration demonstrates, strategy work in the Stakeholder Engagement Department at Bioforte has a range of performative effects. Through narratives of everyday practice, the thesis demonstrates how strategy work contributes to organizing the organization by shaping The Strategy Working Group, the department, the work, and the selves of the people working with strategy. The organizing force of strategy work is partly achieved through the continual collective creation and maintenance of distinctions such as strategic/operational and left brain/right brain. In this sense, the thesis argues that the organizing forces of strategy is to be found in the performative nature of strategy work. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8663 Files in this item: 1
Marie_Mathiesen.pdf (5.342Mb) -
policy and practice viewed from the perspective of managersLeth, Camilla; Hjalager, Anne-Mette; Holt Larsten, Henrik (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This report contains the major results from a study of management development in Danish organizations. The study is part of a European research project with participation of Denmark, the U.K, France, Norway, Rumania, Spain, and Germany. The project is part of the so-called Leonardo program the purpose of which is to further cross-country competence development and collaboration within the European educational sector. The first phase of the project is a quantitative interview study of one hundred organizations in each of the participating countries. The second phase consists in qualitative case studies in selected organizations in each of the countries. In Denmark one hundred and one organizations have participated in the study. Identical questionnaires and interviews are conducted in all of the mentioned countries and the huge amount of data is analyzed in each country and across countries. The findings will be published in books, journals and newspaper articles. Hopefully the findings of the large European project will thus affect the way in which educational institutions and organizations manage the "Europeanization" of management development. The present report solely describes significant findings from the questionnaire study conducted in Denmark. Two hundred and two managers have participated, that is two from each organization. We thank the contributing organizations without which it would not have been possible to generate this picture of management development in Danish organizations. The Department of Organization and Industrial Sociology at the Copenhagen Business School is the Danish partner in the project. The project has been conducted by Camilla Leth in collaboration with Ilse Kristensen, Mette Gundersen and Lea Green under the supervision of Henrik Holt Larsen. Anne-Mette Hjalager has contributed to the preparation of the report. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6722 Files in this item: 1
dokument 30.pdf (215.2Kb)