{"title":"‘Open Purpose’: Embracing Organizations as Expressive Systems","authors":"S. Clegg, M. Cunha, A. Rego, Filipe Santos","doi":"10.1177/26317877211054860","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The concept of purpose gained prominence in organization theory in recent years but there are discrepant views of its meaning, which we review as evolving and different perspectives: economic theories of the firm; stakeholder approaches; integrative social contracts; and social mission. We elaborate these perspectives in terms of the ebb and flow of ideas and eras. Against these instrumental views, we revisit the work of Robert Cooper, namely the ever-open purpose of expressive organizations, and contrast this with fixist views of purpose in instrumental organizations. We engage with the logic of open purpose and sketch a way of rethinking purpose as a general orientation that constantly evolves and changes over time in interaction with its ecosystem.","PeriodicalId":50648,"journal":{"name":"Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877211054860","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
The concept of purpose gained prominence in organization theory in recent years but there are discrepant views of its meaning, which we review as evolving and different perspectives: economic theories of the firm; stakeholder approaches; integrative social contracts; and social mission. We elaborate these perspectives in terms of the ebb and flow of ideas and eras. Against these instrumental views, we revisit the work of Robert Cooper, namely the ever-open purpose of expressive organizations, and contrast this with fixist views of purpose in instrumental organizations. We engage with the logic of open purpose and sketch a way of rethinking purpose as a general orientation that constantly evolves and changes over time in interaction with its ecosystem.
期刊介绍:
Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory provides an international forum for interdisciplinary research that combines computation, organizations and society. The goal is to advance the state of science in formal reasoning, analysis, and system building drawing on and encouraging advances in areas at the confluence of social networks, artificial intelligence, complexity, machine learning, sociology, business, political science, economics, and operations research. The papers in this journal will lead to the development of newtheories that explain and predict the behaviour of complex adaptive systems, new computational models and technologies that are responsible to society, business, policy, and law, new methods for integrating data, computational models, analysis and visualization techniques.
Various types of papers and underlying research are welcome. Papers presenting, validating, or applying models and/or computational techniques, new algorithms, dynamic metrics for networks and complex systems and papers comparing, contrasting and docking computational models are strongly encouraged. Both applied and theoretical work is strongly encouraged. The editors encourage theoretical research on fundamental principles of social behaviour such as coordination, cooperation, evolution, and destabilization. The editors encourage applied research representing actual organizational or policy problems that can be addressed using computational tools. Work related to fundamental concepts, corporate, military or intelligence issues are welcome.