Browsing Department of Organization (IOA) by Year Published
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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) -
A literature review and a suggestion of how to study the issueWestenholz, Ann (, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Purpose: First, the aim is to clarify that it is worth investigating working life in Chinese companies located in Denmark. Second, I outline a way of how to empirically study the issue. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review and a suggestion of how to study the issue. Findings: There is a growing amount of literature dealing with Chinese and Western working life. The term ‘Western’ mostly refers to studies in North America. However the Danish way of organizing working life is not comparable to that of North America. I argue that we need to research the impact on working life in Denmark when Chinese companies settle in an institutional context like the Danish one. It is shown that Chinese institutional orders of organizing working life are very different to those in Denmark. I outline a method of how to empirically study the interaction between Chinese and Danish managers and employees working together in Chinese companies in Denmark. I argue that when these people work together, they also become engaged in institutional work dealing with the inconsistencies between the institutional orders of organizing. To study how institutional work emerges, I propose that we take inspiration from Boltanski and Thévenot’s theory of justification, different worlds, and different worth. Research limitation: The empirical data gathering has just started and the analysis has yet to be conducted. Practical implications: Even though the paper is not based on an empirical study, implications for studying how working life is organized in Chinese companies located in Denmark are suggested. Keywords: Internationalization of Chinese companies. Institutional orders of working life in China and Denmark. Institutional work in Chinese companies settled in Denmark. Boltanski and Thévenot’s theory of justification, different worlds, and different worth. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8644 Files in this item: 1
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Assorted notes on the metaphysical notion of ‘sharing’Schmidt, Kjeld (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In CSCW, phrases such as ‘shared goal’ or ‘shared understanding’ are often used to denote what is taken to be a defining feature of cooperative work or at least what is thought to be an essential precondition of the orderliness without which cooperative work in practice is impossible; that is, these terms are used in an explanatory function [e.g., 1; 6]. To take but one example: In one of her articles on ‘situation awareness’ the muchcited Mica Endsley posits: ‘In a smoothly functioning team, each team member shares a common understanding of what is happening on those [Situation Awareness] elements that are common — that is, they have shared situation awareness, which refers to the overlap among the SA requirements of the team members.’ However, she prudently adds, ‘The concept of shared mental models is not universally heralded’ and ‘The development of shared mental models has not been the subject of much research’ [4, pp. 48, 52 f.]. A ‘shared situation awareness’? A ‘shared mental model’? What does she mean? URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8567 Files in this item: 1
Schmidt_2012.pdf (201.0Kb) -
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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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) -
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) -
A five-act Spestrale on Online Communication, Collaboration & OrganizationTunby Guldbrandsen, Ib (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
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Boll, Karen (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This article investigates a segmentation model used by the Danish Tax and Customs Administration to classify businesses’ motivational postures. The article uses two different conceptualizations of performativity to analyze what the model’s segmentations do; Hacking’s idea of making up people and MacKenzie’s idea of performativity. Based on these two approaches I demonstrate that the segmentation model represents and performs the businesses as it ‘makes up’ certain new ways to be a business and as the businesses can be seen as ‘moving targets’. With inspiration from MacKenzie my following argument is that the segmentation model posits a remarkable cleverness in that it simultaneously alters what it represents and represents this altered reality to confirm the accuracy of its own model of the businesses’ postures. However, despite this cleverness the model bears a blind spot as it assumes a world wherein everything around the model is in motion and can be shaped, whereas it believes itself to be stable. As indicated in the article, this assumption turns out problematic as the tax administration questions the model’s ability to produce valid comparisons. All in all, the article provides a detailed description and analysis of the model’s performativity and provides an example of a performativity study which in its methodology differs from the methodological criteria set up by MacKenzie. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8554 Files in this item: 1
Boll_2012.pdf (545.8Kb) -
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) -
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) -
Bansler, Jørgen; Havn, Erling; Mønsted, Troels; Schmidt, Kjeld (København, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The medical record, the collection of notes and other documents concerning a particular patient, is a time-honored and robust institutional artifact. However, with patients with chronic ailments that typically are treated and monitored by multiple clinical workers, sometimes at different institutions, the medical record is more than ‘beginning to burst’: it is beginning to fragment. This becomes clear from our ongoing study of the coordinative practices of clinical workers dealing with patients with ‘implantable cardioverter-defibrillators’ (ICDs), i.e., pacemakers that dub as defibrillators.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8418 Files in this item: 1
Kjeld_Schmidt_2011.pdf (1.834Mb) -
Or how the natural environment may qualify as a stakeholder in the firm’s business environmentJustesen, Lise; Mouritsen, Jan; Tryggestad, Kjell (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In its general form, stakeholder theory posits an extension of the ecology. It claims that there are other stakes and interests than those posited by shareholder value theory (Freeman et al. 2004; Jensen and Sandström 2011), and some stakeholder theory proponents argue that the natural environment is also to be considered as a stakeholder (Driscoll and Starik 2004; Norton 2007). It is a positive claim – there are more stakes and interests – and a moral one – we should look towards more interests in order to complete the analysis. With this framing, stakeholder theory seeks to identify stakes and interests which may be difficult but in principle achievable; it also seeks to make analysis of organized activity such as (global) business into a concern with the relative power of stakes and interests. These concerns are highly relevant but they face the barrier that if stakes and interests are positively there, the analysis becomes static and will pay less attention to both the formation and to power-effects of stakes and interest. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8482 Files in this item: 1
justensen_mouritsen_tryggestad_2011.pdf (382.5Kb) -
Industry Involvment in the Development of Energy RegulationsGeorg, Susse; Garza de Linde, Gabriela; Schweber, Libby; Sexton, Martin (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The 2002 European Union (EU) directive on the energy performance of buildings (Directive 2002/91/EC) set minimum standards on the energy performance of new buildings and existing buildings. It also indicated that these would be subject to periodic renovation. In some countries the directive supported policymakers in their bid for national commitments to carbon reduction. In others, it affirmed existing commitments. In most countries, it informed the ongoing reformulation of building regulations. This paper explores energy related developments in building regulations for new housing in Denmark (DK) and the United Kingdom (UK). The interest of the comparison lies in similarities in the type of changes introduced into the regulations and differences in industry responses. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8406 Files in this item: 1
Susse_Georg_2.pdf (97.79Kb) -
Institutionalization Through ExperimentationGeorg, Susse; Garza de Linde, Gabriela; Pinheiro-Croisel, Rebecca; Aggeri, Franck (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Judging from the number of communities and cities striving or claiming to be sustainable and how often eco-development is invoked as the means for urban regeneration, it appears that sustainable and eco-development have become “the leading paradigm within urban development” (Whitehead 2003). But what is it that is driving these urban transformations? Clearly, there are many probable answers to this complex question and in what follows we will focus on one particular catalyst of change – urban design competitions. Considered as field changing events (Lampel & Meyer 2008, Anand and Jones 2008), urban design competitions are understudied mechanisms for bringing about field level changes. This paper examines how urban design competitions can bring about changes within two types of fields – professional fields and local geographical fields. The context for our study is urban regeneration in two cities in France and Denmark, both of which have been suffering from industrial decline and have invested in establishing “eco-districts”. Based on these two case studies we explore how the different parties involved in these urban development projects have developed innovative design templates and practices that can instantiate field level changes. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8405 Files in this item: 1
Susse_Georg_1.pdf (529.4Kb) -
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) -
Et eksplorativt studie af bygningers rolle i virksomheders værdiskabelseClausen, Rune Thorbjørn (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Denne afhandling er et eksplorativt studie af relokationen af en større dansk medievirksomhed fra en gammel kontorbygning til et nyt, skræddersyet hoveddomicil. Afhandlingen studerer, hvordan medarbejderne og deres gæster bruger bygningen, og der foreslås på den baggrund en mulig måde, hvorpå bygningers rolle i virksomheders værdiskabelser kan forstås og forklares. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8358 Files in this item: 1
Rune_Thorbjoern_Clausen.pdf (4.128Mb) -
Morten Thanning, Vendelo (San Antonio, 2011)[More information][Less information]
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8410 Files in this item: 1
Morten_Thanning_Vendelo-AoM-2011.pdf (1.746Mb) -
Framing Research Collaboration Through ScreensBjørn Vedel, Jane (København, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In recent years, research collaboration between academic and corporate scientists has become a matter of concern for policy makers as well as research managers in academia and industry. Often, both in public research policies and in university and company strategies, science-industry collaboration has been presented as a catalyst for advancing science for the benefit of society as well as for the involved collaborators. The same policies and strategies, however, often emphasize that science-industry collaboration is difficult and demanding due to inherent and often incommensurable differences between the respective goals and processes of academia and industry. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8561 Files in this item: 1
Jane-Vedel-2011.pdf (257.8Kb) -
End user participation between processes of organizational and architectural designVåland, Marianne Stang (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In the thesis, I explore the construction of mutual links between two design processes that have traditionally been considered separated and sequentially organized: the organizational and the architectural design processes. The general background for the study is the increasing interest in space and architecture as a potential strategic vehicle that has established within contemporary management during recent years. Scholars within organization studies seem to share this interest. However, only few research contributions are based on empirical studies. My aspiration with the thesis is to contribute to fill this gap. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8002 Files in this item: 1
Marianne_Stang_Vaaland.pdf (6.755Mb) -
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URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8004 Files in this item: 1
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