Browsing Department of Organization (IOA) by Title
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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) -
Fredslund, Hanne; Strandgaard Pedersen, Jesper (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In recent years, intervention studies have become increasingly popular within occupational health psychology. The vast majority of such studies have focused on interventions themselves and their effects on the working environment and employee health and well-being. Few studies have focused on how the context and processes surrounding the intervention may have influenced the outcomes (Hurrell and Murphy, 1996). Thus, there is still relatively little published research that provides us with information on how to evaluate such strategies and processes (Saksvik, Nytrø, Dahl-Jørgensen, and Mikkelsen, 2002). This paper describes how organisation theory can be used to develop a method for identifying and analysing processes in relation to the implementation of work environment interventions. The reason for using organisation theory is twofold: 1) interventions are never implemented in a vacuum but in a specific organisational context (workplace) with certain characteristics, that the organisation theory can capture, 2) within the organisational sociological field there is a long tradition for studying organisational changes such as workplace interventions. In this paper process is defined as "individual, collective or management perceptions and actions in implementing any intervention and their influence on the overall result of the intervention" (Nytrø, Saksvik, Mikkelsen, Bohle, and Quinlan, 2000). Process evaluation can be used to a) provide feedback for improving interventions, b) interpret the outcomes of effect evaluation and c) replicate interventions in other settings minimising the number of pitfalls associated with a given intervention (Goldenhar et al., 2001). URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6663 Files in this item: 1
11 process evaluation - method.pdf (72.32Kb) -
Cognitive limitations and possibilities in managerial views on promoting gender equality in the IT sectorMathieu, Christopher John (København, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper examines how basic cognitive processes lead to the non-recognition of processes that lead to or sustain gender inequality in the Information technology sector. The paper is based on empirical research carried out in Sweden and Ireland from 2001-2004. The central thesis is that "delusions" about gender equality in the IT sector are sustained by positional factors (governing what one can see from a vantage point and what type of data one can, and one is encouraged to, gather and process); ideological factors (how information is "fit" into pre-existing frameworks to which one has political or organizational commitments) and more rudimentary processes of "optical socialization" (Zerubavel) and "good reasons for holding false beliefs" (Boudon). A series of "delusions" found in empirical research are described and analysed. The paper concludes by sketching out how such cognitive hindrances and barriers can be overcome within organizations, and how this could lead to a greater recognition of the processes facilitating or causing gender inequality in a branch that frequently sees itself as "gender neutral" as well as measures to actively promote gender equality. Keywords: gender inequality, Information Technology, management, delusions, cognition URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6692 Files in this item: 1
2005-03_cjm.pdf (132.9Kb) -
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the introduction of a monitoring technology for asthma treatment in primary careLangstrup Nielsen, Henriette (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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Jakobsen, Gitte P. (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: With the increasing globalization, new organizational structures, and rapid change the leader has been increasingly individualized and personalized. The leader has been put under pressure to reveal a leadership, in which the personality of the individual leader is increasingly important. Moreover, the individual leader has become central for creating and communicating organizational meaning, and the leaders’ personal conduct, ethics and identity are taken to be symbolic of the organizational brand. Leaders are increasingly publicly evaluated based on how he “tells the story” of him-self and the organization e.g. the extent to which the leader exemplifies and lives the organizational brand. This is reflected in a growing demand for leader development programs with a personal orientation, and psychological oriented development focused on the individual leaders’ personal challenges. Recent theoretical developments in the intersection of critical management studies and narrative identity studies have challenged prior assumptions and approaches, with a departure in social constructivist perspectives leadership is conceived as narrative identity construction embedded in social practice and context. Hence, leader studies turn to investigate the emergence of leaders as processes of identity work in particular contexts, privileging the use of language, social interaction and critical reflexive approaches. This dissertation explores the narrative construction of leader identity in the context of a leader development program, examining the processes and the content of identity work of leaders. Empirically five Danish executives from five different industries have been studied in a three year period, starting with a one-year long leader development program and in two following interviews. The material is analyzed within a theoretical and methodological framework inspired by a combination of social constructivist, discursive, narrative and critical management approaches to identity and leadership research. The narrative analytical framework is based on narrative theory, narrative therapy theorization, and positioning theory, analyzing the thematic, temporal and relational aspects of the five leaders’ narrative accounts. Hence, the analytical strategy analyzes the narrative recourses of: problem stories, preferred stories, storylines, and the negotiation of subject positions used by the five leaders in constructing certain situated leader identities URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7807 Files in this item: 1
Gitte_P_Jakobsen.pdf (1.488Mb) -
organizing the transfer of technology and knowledgeTryggestad, Kjell (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The aim of this work is to conduct a theoretical and empirical investigation of how the market institution performs in the context of technology and knowledge transfer. The notion of political markets, first introduced by Adam Smith, is extended to the artifacts of technology and their associated factor markets. The paper develops the notion of political markets by drawing upon an empirical case that reconstructs the chain of events related to the transfer of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). The case account for the various actors and institutions involved in the technology transfer, including the firms on both sides of the market, the government, the engineering-scientists, the economists, the union representatives and the machinists. It is argued that Natural markets is a special case of political markets in which technologies and hybrid entities and identities produce both the Natural market as well as its master – the pure technological relations. Neither the Natural market, nor Homo economicus can be brought into existence without pure technological relations. The existence of the latter is a necessary condition for the existence of the two former, as has already been recognized by neoclassical economics. The present work makes a constructive contribution to neoclassical economics in this respect, by describing and analyzing all the work of purification that enters into the task of bringing the necessary conditions into existence. Indeed, the process of purification that brings purified 3 technologies, natural markets and rational identities like homo economicus into existence, require huge investments, as do their maintenance. Technical knowledge turned out to be no exception. As the case suggests, technical knowledge was not just a given condition, but became a produced outcome. Yet, the process of knowledge production continued, transforming given technical knowledge in unexpected ways. Technical knowledge also became a negotiated outcome during the transfer of FMS. Hence, when market transaction takes place, knowledge it self can be transformed, and with it, the conditions for conducting the market transaction. So, the notion of political markets proposed here, suggests that knowledge can be both premises as well as an outcome of market transaction – as knowledge, its status and distribution - can be negotiated in the process. Instead of criticizing Homo economicus and (neo) classical economics, the notion of political markets thus proposed imply a constructive contribution to economics, notably to the core of neo classical economics: Through out this paper, it is argued with reference to both theory and own empirical fieldwork, that neoclassical economics participate in the successful purification of technological relations. Yet, in order to provide for an explanation of such a successful outcome, it is not enough to account for economists among themselves. As has already been suggested by Callon (1998) and the associated work on the anthropology of markets, also such material associations as computer based calculations and simulations of the macro-economy must be brought into the explanation. In more specific terms, the puzzling ‘residual’ in the neoclassical production function can be explained by now also taking into account the many subtle ways economics itself interfere in making up the residual. Neoclassical economics only have to refine their production function by adding to it the significance of material associations such as computer based calculations and simulations of the macro-economy. Done properly, a revised macro-economic model would emerge, capable of handling ‘market failures’ in new ways. Instead of attributing all failures to the market and no failures to technology, a more symmetric distribution of failures between the two entities would be allowed for. Further more, each time a ‘residual’ emerges from applying the revised model, it is no longer simply due to ‘technical change’ but also due to ‘market failures’. Hence, such a revised macro-economic model not only allow neoclassical economics to maintain the distinction between technology and the market but also allows for the flexibility of including those entities previously excluded, that is, the material associations and inscriptions that participates in making up the distinctions between the two. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6676 Files in this item: 1
wp 24.pdf (294.7Kb) -
A study of journalist-source interactionKjær, Peter; Langer, Roy (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]