Browsing Department of Organization (IOA) by Title
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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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Managing the tension between reality and employee surveysLarsson, Magnus (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper aims lhghgat an exploration of leadership in the context of pervasive organizational control, in the form of standardized measurement systems. Measurement practices are proliferating in contemporary organizations, with ever more aspects of both organizational and private life being monitored and measured (Clegg & Courpasson, 2006). These systems are generally seen as an important part of organizational control regulating and shaping both actions of organizational members, and their own self-understanding or identity (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002). The image of the iron cage of bureaucracy, where action is tightly regulated, has in part been exchanged for the image of soft controls, regulating values and identities rather than behaviors and actions. Kärreman and Alvesson (2004), however, point out how these two types of control might work in tandem, constituting a strong regulating force. In contrast to this literature that emphasize the constraints on individual agency, the leadership literature emphasize the powers of leaders to influence and shape organizations and organizational processes (Yukl,2002). Leadership is commonly associated with driving and facilitating change and development. Theories of leadership emphasize (among other things) vision, personal engagement, interpersonal relationships, and ability to empower subordinates. How, then, can leaders exercise their agency and enable change when faced with systems generally seen as regulating rather than facilitating agency? It is this paradox that we wish to explore in this paper. We take the case of employee surveys, being a common practice in western organizations, that paradoxically constitute a standardized system aiming at change and development, and explore how these are experienced and managed by leaders in various organizations. We wish to analyze in terms of leadership how these standardized systems migh on the one hand constrain leadership action, and on the other hand be utilized in change related initiatives, thereby preserving leadership agency. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8709 Files in this item: 1
Magnus_Larsson.pdf (186.2Kb) -
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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) -
Obling, Anne Roelsgaard (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis is the result of an ethnographic fieldwork at a major university hospital in Denmark that I undertook between June 2009 and January 2011. I was an ‘embedded’ observer in a cancer clinic and entirely dependent on the staff – administrative and clinical – for access to facilities, people and diseases. That said, I was never asked to modify my writings in any way or to show the content of my field notes or tape recordings. Neither does the hospital have any formal share in the overall thesis. The responsibility for the final outcome is on my shoulders alone. As an embedded observer I was to handle personally sensitive data, such as specific details in patient records, with confidentiality. There is no information in my writings which can be traced – directly or indirectly – back to individual patients or relatives at the hospital and hence disclose their identity. My observations lasted anywhere from 20 minutes (the length of a typical staff meeting) to five working days in a row. During a day of observation, I followed doctors from they arrived in the early mornings; when they attended the morning conferences, until they left the hospital in the late afternoon after hours of clinical work in the outpatient clinic. I also followed them in their offices and in the operation theatres. Many tableaux from the thesis you are reading now were recorded in my notebook and then reconstructed in the later writing. Wherever possible, I have used my free access to the hospital to check the accuracy of my writing, for example by procuring typical situations more than once or by going through precarious details with involved staff members. Statements that appear in quotation marks (‘…’) were recorded directly on my tape recorder or in my notebook while the person was speaking, or immediately hereafter. Through the process I have shared my ideas with the staff members involved to make sure that they understood the purpose of my work and also in order for them to have a chance to feel comfortable with my presence. Throughout the thesis, I have shortened quotes from documents and interviews in order to make the text more readable. In addition to my fieldwork at the hospital, I have worked with the sociologist Nanna Mik-Meyer. In her work, Mik-Meyer has focused on general practitioners and their preoccupation with patients who attend the consultancy with medically unexplained symptoms. Parts of the raw data material from some of her previous studies became the basis of a co-authored article, which is included in this thesis. Utterances from individuals described in this article are directly quoted from a larger quantity of interviews with general practitioners in primary care medicine. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8419 Files in this item: 1
Anne_Obling.pdf (1.338Mb) -
The History of the Internal Market as a Technicalization of Politics and a Politicization of the TechnicalFrankel, Christian (, 2010)[More information][Less information]
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8196 Files in this item: 1
Market_making_Christian_Frankel.pdf (45.74Kb) -
Constructing and Organizing Biogas Markets Amid Fragility and ControversyBuchhorn, Adam (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This research project examines markets for biogas plants in Denmark, referred to simply as biogas markets, as a fragile and controversial process of framing and organizing by analyzing how unexpected events, called ‘overflows’, and controversies influence how markets frame biogas plants as a valuable economic good and ensure biogas plants are implemented through market transactions. Without well-constructed and well-organized markets these fundamental economic functions cannot take place. The overarching argument of the project is that to realize changing technical, political, and socio-economic intentions of biogas the market must be framed and organized to reframe and solve overflows and controversies that characterize biogas markets in Denmark. Otherwise, what we end up with are ‘markets of good intentions’. Although they are rarely predicted and constitute the robustness as well as the source of the inevitable fragility and controversy of the market, it is essential to the framing of biogas plants as a valuable commodity and the completion of transactions, that overflows and controversies are addressed and internalized into the market assemblage. This involves identifying and rendering them debatable based on the calculations and other elements that underpin the alleged value of biogas and the actions of market actors... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8048 Files in this item: 1
Adam_Buchhorn.pdf (5.390Mb) -
how institutional contexts matterHouman Andersen, Poul; Jesper, Norus (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The paper has a dual purpose. First, we suggest that entrepreneurs in their establishment of new businesses draw on a range of pre-existing socially embedded routines for creating acceptance by their environment. Also they draw upon external resources that are used in patterning specific practices. This ability is treated as entrepreneurial assets. Secondly, we argue that the existence and patterning of these socially embedded routines used in new business development are contingent on the institutional context. We see the institutional context as complex and fragmented, composed and shaped by different institutional domains: the normative, the cognitive and the regulatory domain. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6724 Files in this item: 1
working paper 2003 no.11.pdf (369.8Kb) -
Becker, Lise (København, 2006)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This article contributes to the emerging body of work in organisational theory that seeks to include materiality in conceptualising processes of organizing (e.g. Law, 1994; Doolin, 2003; Czarniawska and Gustavsson, 2004; Dale, 2005). Using the four largest multinational oil companies’ green transition towards renewable energies as a case the article integrates material aspects into the theory on the narration of organisational identities. Following Czarniawska (1997) the concept of organisational identity is viewed as an evolving organisational narrative. Following Law (1994) this organisational narrative is then conceptualised as a socio-technical narrative. The article describes how oil related technologies and their accompanying symbolic meaning and technical oil related standards can be conceptualised as part of the enduring aspects in oil companies’ organisational identities. The article concludes to that end that both social and material aspects add to the endurance of organisational identities. Key words. Identity narration; materiality; greening of oil companies; climate change. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6701 Files in this item: 1
wp2007-001.pdf (121.3Kb)