In this paper, we examine community collectives—place-based, community-led initiatives for sustainable livelihood, as an alternative to the top-down, efficiency-driven economic model. Drawing on the theoretical framework of prefigurative organizing, we examined the strategies employed by community members in confronting entrenched inequalities and overcoming marginalization as they envision and engage in inclusive futures. We conducted a comparative case study of two exemplary community collectives in India that exhibited differences in the degree of internal and external marginalization. We identify two key cross-cutting themes of prefigurative organizing: projective cultural adjustment - whether a community leverages their traditional culture or breaks away from it, and tempered autonomy – negotiating autonomy without overtly challenging dominant groups, and exercising self-imposed restraints to make independent decisions. We show how these two themes manifested across three key processes of prefigurative organizing: prefiguring self-governance; commoning; and cultivating discursive spaces. These findings help us theorize that in communities where the degree of internal marginalization is high due to persisting social hierarchies, breaking away from past discriminatory practices, incorporating suspension of consent in the decision-making process, and introducing multiple constructive works are essential components of prefigurative organizing. In communities where the degree of external marginalization is high, building on the past, incorporating refusal in decision-making, and introducing unified constructive work are important components of prefigurative organizing. We suggest that prefigurative organizing against the dominant power structure, whether within community social hierarchies or external exploitative political-economic structures, is based on selective and strategic engagement without seeking an exit, as exit might not be an option for place-based communities. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this research for alternative organizing and grand challenges.
{"title":"Prefiguring alternative organizing: Confronting marginalization through projective cultural adjustment and tempered autonomy","authors":"Babita Bhatt, Israr Qureshi, Dhirendra Mani Shukla, Pradeep Kumar Hota","doi":"10.1177/01708406231203295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231203295","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we examine community collectives—place-based, community-led initiatives for sustainable livelihood, as an alternative to the top-down, efficiency-driven economic model. Drawing on the theoretical framework of prefigurative organizing, we examined the strategies employed by community members in confronting entrenched inequalities and overcoming marginalization as they envision and engage in inclusive futures. We conducted a comparative case study of two exemplary community collectives in India that exhibited differences in the degree of internal and external marginalization. We identify two key cross-cutting themes of prefigurative organizing: projective cultural adjustment - whether a community leverages their traditional culture or breaks away from it, and tempered autonomy – negotiating autonomy without overtly challenging dominant groups, and exercising self-imposed restraints to make independent decisions. We show how these two themes manifested across three key processes of prefigurative organizing: prefiguring self-governance; commoning; and cultivating discursive spaces. These findings help us theorize that in communities where the degree of internal marginalization is high due to persisting social hierarchies, breaking away from past discriminatory practices, incorporating suspension of consent in the decision-making process, and introducing multiple constructive works are essential components of prefigurative organizing. In communities where the degree of external marginalization is high, building on the past, incorporating refusal in decision-making, and introducing unified constructive work are important components of prefigurative organizing. We suggest that prefigurative organizing against the dominant power structure, whether within community social hierarchies or external exploitative political-economic structures, is based on selective and strategic engagement without seeking an exit, as exit might not be an option for place-based communities. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this research for alternative organizing and grand challenges.","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":"81 50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134912561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-04DOI: 10.1177/01708406231200727
Christof Brandtner, Walter W. Powell, Aaron Horvath
Although many contemporary organizations face institutional pressures to embrace open organizing principles, some defer or decline the call. We examine how existing bureaucratic practices shape organizations’ initial steps towards openness to explain variation in substantive openness in the practice of management. Scrutinizing the assumption that bureaucratic organizations operate behind closed doors, we study the turn to openness in a single metropolitan area with heterogeneous management practices and shared calls for greater transparency and inclusion. Econometric analyses paired with in-depth interviews reveal that more bureaucratic organizations first encountered such ideals of openness because they were quicker to use digital communication tools. How openly organizations are managed results from the repurposing of existing practices in pursuit of openness. The turn to openness can be understood as a transformation of existing bureaucratic management instead of de-novo adoption of new practices. Our study illuminates how bureaucratic management counterintuitively enables some organizations to become more open and offers support for repurposing as a mechanism of change in the transformation of an organizational field.
{"title":"From iron cage to glass house: Repurposing of bureaucratic management and the turn to openness","authors":"Christof Brandtner, Walter W. Powell, Aaron Horvath","doi":"10.1177/01708406231200727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231200727","url":null,"abstract":"Although many contemporary organizations face institutional pressures to embrace open organizing principles, some defer or decline the call. We examine how existing bureaucratic practices shape organizations’ initial steps towards openness to explain variation in substantive openness in the practice of management. Scrutinizing the assumption that bureaucratic organizations operate behind closed doors, we study the turn to openness in a single metropolitan area with heterogeneous management practices and shared calls for greater transparency and inclusion. Econometric analyses paired with in-depth interviews reveal that more bureaucratic organizations first encountered such ideals of openness because they were quicker to use digital communication tools. How openly organizations are managed results from the repurposing of existing practices in pursuit of openness. The turn to openness can be understood as a transformation of existing bureaucratic management instead of de-novo adoption of new practices. Our study illuminates how bureaucratic management counterintuitively enables some organizations to become more open and offers support for repurposing as a mechanism of change in the transformation of an organizational field.","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45748239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-04DOI: 10.1177/01708406231200726
Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Jacob A. Hasselbalch, Johannes Stripple
The concept of prefiguration is drawing increasing interest as a lens to study the collective dynamic and transformative potential of alternative organizing. We introduce an analytical distinction between two modes of prefiguration. Situated prefiguration emphasizes affective bonds and direct struggle taking place in bounded organizational spaces, while distributed prefiguration manifests in wider socio-spatial formations. While situated prefiguration has been studied substantially, distributed prefiguration has so far not been adequately theorized. To conceptualize more spatially dispersed forms of prefiguration, we approach prefiguration from a relational perspective, drawing especially on assemblage thinking, which reveals a different way of thinking about how prefigurative practices are spatially organized. We demonstrate different socio-spatial forms of prefiguration in action through an empirical investigation of the zero-waste phenomenon. Our empirical material is built on site visits, interviews, and online material related to zero-waste stores. We find that zero-waste stores transcend situated prefiguration by being part of a zero-waste assemblage that aims to radically transform the food and retail system through distributed prefiguration.
{"title":"Assembling a zero-waste world: From situated to distributed prefiguration","authors":"Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Jacob A. Hasselbalch, Johannes Stripple","doi":"10.1177/01708406231200726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231200726","url":null,"abstract":"The concept of prefiguration is drawing increasing interest as a lens to study the collective dynamic and transformative potential of alternative organizing. We introduce an analytical distinction between two modes of prefiguration. Situated prefiguration emphasizes affective bonds and direct struggle taking place in bounded organizational spaces, while distributed prefiguration manifests in wider socio-spatial formations. While situated prefiguration has been studied substantially, distributed prefiguration has so far not been adequately theorized. To conceptualize more spatially dispersed forms of prefiguration, we approach prefiguration from a relational perspective, drawing especially on assemblage thinking, which reveals a different way of thinking about how prefigurative practices are spatially organized. We demonstrate different socio-spatial forms of prefiguration in action through an empirical investigation of the zero-waste phenomenon. Our empirical material is built on site visits, interviews, and online material related to zero-waste stores. We find that zero-waste stores transcend situated prefiguration by being part of a zero-waste assemblage that aims to radically transform the food and retail system through distributed prefiguration.","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46117085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-04DOI: 10.1177/01708406231200725
Massimo Maoret, Solon Moreira, Halil Sabanci
The gender pay gap among firms’ upper echelons is a prominent issue not only because it concerns equality in the workplace, but also because it may impact firms’ culture and performance. Responding to calls to better understand how stakeholder expectations and pressures might influence the gender pay gap, this study examines the role of a key stakeholder group, i.e., financial analysts, in curbing executive gender pay gap. Drawing on the stakeholder and attention-based views of the firm, we contend that analyst coverage may counter the pay gap by a) raising other stakeholders’ attention on discriminatory pay setting practices; and b) reducing information asymmetries in the executive labor market. Both firm- and individual-level econometric analyses on a sample of 38,211 executives working in 3,473 firms support our hypothesis: an increase in analyst firm coverage helps to reduce the gender pay gap among the top executives of S&P 1500 firms between 1992 and 2016. Post-hoc analyses - that use the closure of brokerage houses as an exogeneous shock - lend further causal support to our claims. Our results advance the literature at the nexus of the stakeholder theory and attention-based view of the firm by unveiling the role of intermediaries in channeling the limited stakeholder attention to certain firms, contributing to the development of a stakeholder-based theory of executive pay.
{"title":"Closing the Gender Pay Gap: Analyst Coverage, Stakeholder Attention, and Gender Differences in Executive Compensation","authors":"Massimo Maoret, Solon Moreira, Halil Sabanci","doi":"10.1177/01708406231200725","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231200725","url":null,"abstract":"The gender pay gap among firms’ upper echelons is a prominent issue not only because it concerns equality in the workplace, but also because it may impact firms’ culture and performance. Responding to calls to better understand how stakeholder expectations and pressures might influence the gender pay gap, this study examines the role of a key stakeholder group, i.e., financial analysts, in curbing executive gender pay gap. Drawing on the stakeholder and attention-based views of the firm, we contend that analyst coverage may counter the pay gap by a) raising other stakeholders’ attention on discriminatory pay setting practices; and b) reducing information asymmetries in the executive labor market. Both firm- and individual-level econometric analyses on a sample of 38,211 executives working in 3,473 firms support our hypothesis: an increase in analyst firm coverage helps to reduce the gender pay gap among the top executives of S&P 1500 firms between 1992 and 2016. Post-hoc analyses - that use the closure of brokerage houses as an exogeneous shock - lend further causal support to our claims. Our results advance the literature at the nexus of the stakeholder theory and attention-based view of the firm by unveiling the role of intermediaries in channeling the limited stakeholder attention to certain firms, contributing to the development of a stakeholder-based theory of executive pay.","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41483799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/01708406231181693
Arthur Gautier, Anne-Claire Pache, Filipe Santos
Hybrid practices combine core elements of different institutional logics. As such, they elicit contrasting responses from individuals, including ignoring, rejecting and adopting them. Yet, extant research in institutional theory does not explain how individuals come to form these responses. To address this gap, we adopt a sensemaking perspective and conduct an inductive, comparative case study of 14 wealthy individuals based on life story interviews, examining their responses to impact investing, an emergent hybrid practice combining elements of the philanthropy and finance logics. Our study uncovers key contextual mechanisms by which institutions influence how individuals respond to hybrid practices, a neglected dimension in sensemaking studies. In particular, we show how individuals’ degree of adherence to the logics involved shapes how they notice, interpret and finally respond to impact investing. Contrary to what previous research suggests, our study shows that individuals who are merely familiar with the logics at play are better positioned than both novices and individuals who identify with the logics to evaluate hybrid practices positively and adopt them.
{"title":"Making Sense of Hybrid Practices: The role of individual adherence to institutional logics in impact investing","authors":"Arthur Gautier, Anne-Claire Pache, Filipe Santos","doi":"10.1177/01708406231181693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231181693","url":null,"abstract":"Hybrid practices combine core elements of different institutional logics. As such, they elicit contrasting responses from individuals, including ignoring, rejecting and adopting them. Yet, extant research in institutional theory does not explain how individuals come to form these responses. To address this gap, we adopt a sensemaking perspective and conduct an inductive, comparative case study of 14 wealthy individuals based on life story interviews, examining their responses to impact investing, an emergent hybrid practice combining elements of the philanthropy and finance logics. Our study uncovers key contextual mechanisms by which institutions influence how individuals respond to hybrid practices, a neglected dimension in sensemaking studies. In particular, we show how individuals’ degree of adherence to the logics involved shapes how they notice, interpret and finally respond to impact investing. Contrary to what previous research suggests, our study shows that individuals who are merely familiar with the logics at play are better positioned than both novices and individuals who identify with the logics to evaluate hybrid practices positively and adopt them.","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":"44 1","pages":"1385 - 1412"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48681849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/01708406221137840
Ferdinand Kunzl, Martin Messner
We examine how actors engage in temporal self-discipline so as to achieve entrainment of a practice to temporal norms. Temporal self-discipline is about imposing self-created temporal structures on one's future behaviour and goes along with the (re-)production of a time-conscious self. Based on our fieldwork, we show how such self-discipline materializes both in the form of a very detailed temporal plan and in spaces for coordination to ensure sticking to this plan. We demonstrate that practising temporal self-discipline provides accountants with a sense of control over the budgeting process - a way to achieve 'controlled' entrainment to the temporal norm. We also show how temporal disruptions may challenge controlled entrainment, forcing actors into a passive mode of reaction and potential deviation from their intended plan.
{"title":"Temporal Structuring as Self-Discipline: Managing time in the budgeting process.","authors":"Ferdinand Kunzl, Martin Messner","doi":"10.1177/01708406221137840","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406221137840","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We examine how actors engage in <i>temporal self-discipline</i> so as to achieve entrainment of a practice to temporal norms. Temporal self-discipline is about imposing self-created temporal structures on one's future behaviour and goes along with the (re-)production of a time-conscious self. Based on our fieldwork, we show how such self-discipline materializes both in the form of a very detailed temporal plan and in spaces for coordination to ensure sticking to this plan. We demonstrate that practising temporal self-discipline provides accountants with a sense of control over the budgeting process - a way to achieve 'controlled' entrainment to the temporal norm. We also show how temporal disruptions may challenge controlled entrainment, forcing actors into a passive mode of reaction and potential deviation from their intended plan.</p>","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":"44 9","pages":"1439-1464"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10475349/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10297405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-31DOI: 10.1177/01708406231200723
Mark van der Giessen
{"title":"Academic Voluntourism","authors":"Mark van der Giessen","doi":"10.1177/01708406231200723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231200723","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44142411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-27DOI: 10.1177/01708406231193255
Frank Siedlok, L. Callagher, Ziad Elsahn, Stefan Korber
Due to tensions between social, cooperative and competitive goals, producer cooperatives (PCs) often degenerate by abandoning their cooperative and social goals or fail economically. We show how these pressures to degenerate into business-as-usual can be resisted and even reversed through a longitudinal study of Zespri, a cooperative responsible for 30% of global kiwifruit exports. We employ a performativity lens to theorise the organising involved in regenerating cooperative principles while introducing new competitive strategies. We explicate three types of performativity: performative dualism, instrumental performativity and performative multiplicity, and offer nuanced insights into how different performative struggles unravel and temporarily resolve through different modes of ordering (distribution, coordination and mutual inclusion). Our insights further contribute to organisation studies about cooperatives’ tendencies to degenerate/regenerate by showing the importance of organising the multiple, and sometimes conflicted, views of actors in a generative and productive way. Those findings can be extended to other democratically managed and hybrid organisations.
{"title":"Special Issue: Strategy performation to avoid degeneration: How producer cooperatives can achieve social and economic goals","authors":"Frank Siedlok, L. Callagher, Ziad Elsahn, Stefan Korber","doi":"10.1177/01708406231193255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231193255","url":null,"abstract":"Due to tensions between social, cooperative and competitive goals, producer cooperatives (PCs) often degenerate by abandoning their cooperative and social goals or fail economically. We show how these pressures to degenerate into business-as-usual can be resisted and even reversed through a longitudinal study of Zespri, a cooperative responsible for 30% of global kiwifruit exports. We employ a performativity lens to theorise the organising involved in regenerating cooperative principles while introducing new competitive strategies. We explicate three types of performativity: performative dualism, instrumental performativity and performative multiplicity, and offer nuanced insights into how different performative struggles unravel and temporarily resolve through different modes of ordering (distribution, coordination and mutual inclusion). Our insights further contribute to organisation studies about cooperatives’ tendencies to degenerate/regenerate by showing the importance of organising the multiple, and sometimes conflicted, views of actors in a generative and productive way. Those findings can be extended to other democratically managed and hybrid organisations.","PeriodicalId":48423,"journal":{"name":"Organization Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41550832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}