Duality Of Structure Research Articles

The use of domination and legitimation in information systems implementation

AbstractIn this paper, we present the results of a longitudinal case study on information systems (IS) implementation conducted in a community healthcare organization. Using structuration theory as a sensitizing framework, we highlight how the information technology (IT) Management improved their influence through gaining legitimation from other organizational stakeholders, and how the nature of this evolved over time. Our results highlight how an appropriate, sophisticated use of what Giddens refers to as the duality of structure contributed to the consolidation of the IT Manager's credibility and authority. We also report on how the IT Management had most of their actions legitimated as an integral element of their actions. The results also highlight the distributed nature of power, such that even those at the lower end of organizational hierarchy were able to influence the success or failure of IS implementation.

Giddens’ structuration theory and its implications for management accounting research

The purpose of this essay is to briefly review the pillars and the rationale of Giddens’ theory of structuration, and offer a snapshot of the impact of these ideas on research in management accounting. Conceptualised as a way of making sense of social life, structuration theory represents a sensitizing device for researchers, which has be drawn upon “in a selective way in thinking about research questions or interpreting findings” (Giddens, Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age, 1991). In the following pages the duality of structure, the modalities of structuration, the concept of double positioning, the theory of the subject as well as concepts such as ontological security, routines or trust will be reviewed as essential elements of a vocabulary originally framed within Giddens’ The constitution of society (1984). The essay ends sketching the work of Macintosh and Scapens (Management accounting and control systems—an organisational and behavioural approach, 1990), who broke new ground to interpret management accounting systems in light of structuration theory terms and concepts, as well as some of the more recent works in accounting that have built on Giddens’ latest ideas on the The Consequences of Modernity (1990).

Tensões entre econômico e social: uma proposta de análise à luz da teoria da estruturação

Uma das questões relevantes no campo dos estudos sobre organizações sem fins lucrativos é entender as particularidades desse fenômeno organizacional. Neste trabalho, recorremos à Teoria da Estruturação como quadro teórico-conceitual para analisá-lo. Propomos como contribuição ao avanço do conhecimento no campo o uso do conceito de processos de estruturação, elaborado a partir do trabalho originalmente desenvolvido pelo sociólogo britânico Anthony Giddens. O quadro conceitual identifica e analisa as idéias contidas nas principais perspectivas teóricas na produção acadêmica sobre Economia Social e not-for-profi t organizations (NPO). O trabalho apresenta dupla contribuição: oferece - por meio de um estudo de caso - experiência empírica com um quadro de análise estruturacionista, e avança a discussão sobre particularidades das organizações sem fins lucrativos como fenômeno organizacional que aumentou em quantidade e em complexidade a partir das duas últimas décadas do século XX. O conceito de processos de estruturação permite a análise de paradoxos e conflitos organizacionais, tomando-se a estrutura não como um ente estático que defi ne restrições à ação ou limita escopos de autoridade, mas como abstração que revela como as regras e os recursos de um sistema social se relacionam, num processo definido por Giddens como dualidade da estrutura.

School choice and racial segregation in US schools: The role of parents’ education

We draw on recent developments in the sociology of race and ethnicity and theories of the duality of social structure to explain how the formation of ‘educational identities’ interacts with racial stratification to shape the school choices of highly educated whites in the United States. Analysis of the 1996 National Household Education Survey shows that the racial composition of schools plays an important role in the schooling choices of highly educated whites. As the per cent black in a residential area increases, whites are more likely to select alternative, higher-percentage-white schooling for their children. Importantly, this effect is amplified for highly educated whites (but not highly educated blacks). Ironically, then, despite many positive effects of formal education on racial attitudes, increased education for whites leads to greater negative sensitivity to blacks in public schools, which may in turn have the unintended effect of increasing school segregation and racial inequality.

The Structuration of Public Participation: Organizing Environmental Control

A growing body of participation literature muses over why current mechanisms of public participation persist when they so often fail; calls for expanding the conceptual boundaries of participation beyond institutional mechanisms, and highlights the role communication, and allied concepts such as discourse and rhetoric, play in participatory processes. Given these diverse calls, environmental public participation can benefit from building a mid-level theoretical terrain. In this essay, I draw upon the sociological tradition of Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory and parallel systems thinking which foreground a structure-action mode of analysis. Through this lens I articulate the basic premises of a structuration model for environmental public participation, pointing especially to issues of agency, which involves ontological security and ontological competence, social systems, and various elements within duality of structure, with an eye toward communication-centered research. This theoretical space further indicates the possibilities of connecting the material realm of action/practice with the symbolic domain of environmental self.

Structuration theory and mediating concepts: Pitfalls and implications for management accounting research

Abstract Giddens’ way of conceptualizing how structures work as both the medium for and outcome of human action – duality of structure – has been emphasized as a valuable point of departure when studying management accounting in its social context. However, we argue that in the literature there are different ways of using mediating concepts between social structure and action, whereby management accounting systems are conceptualized as both the medium for action, and human action as such. Using the often-cited article by Burns and Scapens [Burns J, Scapens RW. Conceptualizing management accounting change: an institutional framework. Management Accounting Research 2000;11(1):3–25] as an illustrative example, we discuss theoretical and methodological consequences of these different ways of conceptualizing management accounting. A main conclusion is that when management accounting is defined through concurrently referring to both ‘virtual’ structures that generate action and the situated doings of individuals, structure and action risk becoming conflated and there is a risk of drawing erroneous conclusions about structural change or stability. The paper closes with some methodological suggestions as to how these problems can be avoided.

Beyond white ethnicity: developing a sociological understanding of Native American identity reclamation

Chapter 1 Reclaimer Narratives: Exposing the Duality of Structure in Identity Formation Chapter 2 Challenging White Hegemony: Reclaimers and the Culture Wars Chapter 3 Reclaimer Practices: Religion, Spirituality, Language, Family, and Food Chapter 4 If It Looks Like a Duck: Physical Appearance and Reclaimer Identity Chapter 5 Wanna-bes and Indian Police: The Battle Over Authenticity

Local quark–hadron duality of nucleon spin structure functions with target mass corrections

Target mass corrections to nucleon spin structure functions are analyzed. Our results show that the corrections are important to the structure functions in a large x region. Moreover, they play a remarkable role to the local quark–hadron duality of the nucleon spin structure functions in three individual inelastic resonance production regions.

Physical education teacher educators' professional identities, continuing professional development and the issue of gender equality

Background: Despite the evidence that many girls and some boys are regularly subjected to inequalities within school physical education (PE) in Norway today, and international research showing how physical education teacher education (PETE) courses often construct unequal learning opportunities for their students on the basis of gender, few teacher educators' ‘instructional discourses’ seem to reflect these findings about gender relations. In fact, there is very little empirical research available about PE teacher educators in general and how they develop their professional identities. Purpose: This study has aimed to illuminate the duality of structure of PE teacher educators' professional identities and of the social construction of gender in PETE. By gaining a better understanding of the way in which we are both structured by PETE culture, and yet at the same time structure the culture, PE teacher educators may be better positioned to combat discriminatory practices. Participants and setting: Four PE teacher educators (aged between 31 and 42 years, with 5–13 years of teaching experience in PETE) from three universities offering PETE in Norway comprise the ‘purposeful sample’. Research design: The qualitative study is based upon social constructivist theories of professionalism and gender. It asks: ‘Are PE teacher educators’ professional identities constructed as technical or moral projects?' and ‘How are gender, gender equality and equity constructed in PETE?’ Data collection: Data were collected via in-depth interviews (two per informant), researcher log books and policy documents. Policy documents were downloaded from university websites or provided by the informants (for example, course plans and literature). Data analysis: Data were coded and analysed using a ‘content analysis’ approach, in which emerging themes were identified in relation to what being a professional PE teacher educator means and how gender equality and/or equity are constructed within PETE. Findings: The PE teacher educators' identities in this study are closely linked to a performance identity and a desire to pursue a love of sport. Their professional knowledge is based on knowing ‘what and how’, rather than asking why PE students should learn certain things. Their identity projects can be classified as technical rather than moral: the teacher educators are not concerned with developing students as democratic citizens with an interest in social justice; rather, they are interested in the successful transmission of the ‘truths’ of PETE to tomorrow's teachers. They are mostly interested in PE didactics and show little, if any, interest in pedagogical theory. Gender is not perceived as an important factor in the learning arena; it is perceived as a biological given. The teacher educators seem to exercise autonomy in PETE and their practice can be characterised as private, rather than collective. Conclusion: The PE teacher educators' lack of a theoretical understanding of gender unwittingly leads them to perpetuate a discourse which discriminates against many young female and some male students in PETE. Today's neo-liberal, outcome-driven teacher education tends to strengthen the PE teacher educators' technical view of professionalism and provides little room for alternative professional identities. PE teacher educators may benefit from the sharing of self-narratives about our gendered, professional identities with the view to engaging in fruitful continual professional learning.

Wertorientierte Personalarbeit zwischen Mythos und Mikropolitik

Aufgrund eines verstärkten ökonomischen Legitimationsdrucks und des zunehmenden Einflusses des Shareholder-Value-Denkens wuchs in größeren Unternehmen das Interesse der Personalpraxis an Konzepten wertorientierter Personalarbeit. Obwohl die zugrunde liegenden indikatorengestützten Messkonzepte mit erheblichen methodischen Einwänden konfrontiert sind, sollen sie den Nachweis personalwirtschaftlicher Beiträge zur Steigerung des Eigentümerwerts ermöglichen. Der Aufsatz analysiert die Gründe für die – ungeachtet der methodischen Einwände – zunehmende Verbreitung der Konzepte wertorientierter Personalarbeit aus einer organisationstheoretischen Perspektive. Letztere verbindet unter Rückgriff auf die Idee der Strukturdualität die Analyse organisationaler Rationalitätsmythen mit der Betrachtung zentraler Akteursinteressen. Vor diesem Hintergrund erweist sich der Erfolg wertorientierter Personalarbeit nicht zuletzt als das Resultat einer umfassenden sozial-organisationalen Integrationsleistung, die kollektive Mythen mit individuellen Akteursinteressen organisationsstrukturell koppelt.

Towards E-Government Facilitation in UK Local Authorities

This paper illuminates the recent stages of e-Government facilitation in the UK local authorities and shows how British local authorities are improving their public service delivery and governing in the digital environment on the other side of the Atlantic. It explores congruence between user and provider perspectives on e-Government. Giddens's (1984) dimensions of the “duality of structure” are used as a “sensitising device” to analyse findings from an extensive literature survey, document analysis and semi-structured interviews with e-Government managers, Heads of IS and IS Project Managers. A rich picture is presented of differences between user and provider views. This paper argues for a greater understanding between the views of the providers and the users of technology in e-Government facilitation in local authorities.

Organizing Socially Constructed Internal and External Resources

The analysis of economic institutions stands to gain from a consideration of the interactionist theory of institutions, a resource-based view of organizations to develop business and economic perspectives, and a linkage between the two and any theory of economic institutions. A resource-based view of the organization integrates different approaches to organization and management; this is tied to interactionist theorizing, and the interactionist and resource-based theory is amplified into a societal perspective. Institutions, whilst being actor-centred, are also subject to societal influences. However, societal factors are linked with social action under the concept of the duality of structure.

Challenges in Conducting Empirical Work Using Structuration Theory: Learning from IT Research

Giddens’s structuration theory is increasingly used as an alternative approach to studying numerous organizational phenomena. However, the applicability of Giddens’s concepts is not without difficulties because of two main challenges. First, structuration theory is complex, involving concepts and general propositions that operate at a high level of abstraction. Second, structuration theory is not easily coupled to any specific research method or methodological approach, and it is difficult to apply empirically. Arguing that structuration theory is a valuable framework for a rich understanding of management, organization and related subjects of inquiry, this paper aims to improve the application of structuration theory in empirical work by drawing on the experience in information technology (IT) research. It identifies patterns of use of Giddens’s theory in publications in the domain of IT, and then describes how IT researchers have attempted to address its major empirical challenges. The paper presents a repertoire of research strategies that might guide students of organization in dealing with three elements that are central to structuration theory: duality of structure, time/space and actors’ knowledgeability.

CHRIS BARKER & DARIUSZ GALASINSKI, Cultural studies and discourse analysis: A dialogue on language and identity. London: Sage, 2001. Pp. viii, 192. Pb.

agency, bricolage, deconstructionism, demystification, demythologization, difference, discursively constructed subject positions, duality of structure, essentialism, anti-essentialism, hybridity, ideology, intertextualityWhat do these terms from the discipline of cultural studies mean? Do they have any relevance to the study of language and identity? If these are questions you have found yourself pondering, then Cultural studies and discourse analysis (CSDA) is a book you should read. This work is a productive collaboration between a cultural studies scholar (Barker) and a critical discourse analyst (Galasinski) who hope to “forge a useful interdisciplinary dialogue” (1). Although their book is written with the specific aim of showing cultural studies (CS) scholars how critical discourse analysis (CDA) can be used as an analytical tool in investigating identities, for sociolinguists it is also a good introduction to the way identity is theorized in CS. The identities analyzed in the data-based chapters are masculinity (chap. 4), ethnicity and nationality (chap. 5), and masculinity together with ethnicity (chap. 6).

Confessions of an IS Consultant or the Limitations of Structuration Theory

This paper argues that the 'structurational tradition' within interpretive information systems has revealed some useful aspects of the organizational implementation and use of ICT, but that usually this has been achieved at the expense of an intuitively convincing account of human motivation. Although Giddens' 'dimensions of the duality of structure' is an important aspect of his thought, many IS studies have tended to focus almost exclusively on this model, in isolation from the broader canvas of his ideas. It is argued that such an approach offers an unbalanced and incomplete view of social interaction, which reflects neither organizational realities, nor Giddens' wider theoretical position. In response, the paper resituates the structurational model within the broader context of Giddens' work, offering researchers a practical framework with which to further sensitise their analyses to actors' more biographical motivations. The explanatory power of this framework is illustrated with reference to the author's own biographical experience as an IS consultant working for a major systems integrator in the early 1990s.

The Style of the Present: Karel Teige on Constructivism and Poetism

ABSTRACT In this essay, the Czech avant-gardist Karel Teige's dual program of Constructivism/Poetism is interrogated in the context of his own claim that architectural historicism was degraded by the rupture into a duality of structure and ornament. This inability to escape the terms of his own critique is shown to be the result of Teige's articulation of avant-garde culture as the embodiment of the historical identity or style of the present.

Structuration Revisited: A Test Case for an Industrial Archaeology Methodology for Far North Queensland

By applying a modified theory of structuration, industrial archaeological sites can be considered in terms of allocative and authoritative resources as a key to past agency. The combination of these resources identified in the surrounding industrial landscape and the storage capacity of the human mind make up a framework of 'duality of structure', the impetus to so-called 'free will'. It is through structuration that the combination of these identified environmental resources provide an insight into industrial society's past agency. Irvinebank, an historical tin mining town in Far North Queensland, has been used as a case study. After simplifying Giddens' theory of structuration as a means of analysis and incorporating elements of the World Systems the devised methodology helped form the hypothesis that Irvinebank contradicted the Australian prevailing economic climate and was perhaps a paradox of its time.

Disembedding the supply chain: institutionalized reflexivity and inter-firm accounting

Pro-active supply chain practices in manufacturing have been affected by general features of institutionalized reflexivity whereby production activities are disembedded by firms whose actions have been enabled by abstract systems such as accounting and quality management. A new consciousness of the centrality of the supply chain creates increased tensions between the trust constructed through abstract systems and the risk associated with the increased reflexivity of supply chain actors. Eschewing traditional distinctions in accounting between the inside and outside of the organization, a structuration approach shows how inter-firm transactions and accounting may be analysed through the duality of structure. The theory is explored through a case of a supply chain initiative in UK electronics manufacturing. The case company set up the cost management group (CMG) which evolved into a semi-autonomous team dominated by accountants. Drawing on the wider institutionalization of supply chain practices involving outsourcing and partnering projects, the CMG became a locus of institutionalized reflexivity. As an important source of financial and cost information in supply chains, the accounting practices espoused by the CMG contributed to both dis- and re-embedding processes.

Reflexivity Contra Structuration

Abstract This paper argues that Giddens recent writings on reflexivity and modernity fundamentally contradict the underlying paradigm of agency and structure -- the duality of structure -- that he has developed since the 1970s. Whilst many critics of Giddens' writings on reflexivity have focused on his relative neglect of power, they have overlooked the emerging contradictions with his overall analysis of agency and structuration that I argue lie at the root of these problems in his recent writings. The arguments of dualist critics of Giddens' structuration theory such as Archer and Mouzelis are developed and applied to his recent writings on modernization. The analysis of late modernity and self-reflexivity requires recognition of the temporal non-correspondence of structure and agency that is not possible under the assumptions of structuration theory. Resume Cet article fait valoir le fait que les rdcents ecrits de Giddens sur la reflexivite et Ia modernite contredisent fondamentalement le paradigme sous-jacent d'agencement et de structure, soit la dualitd de la structure. qu'iI a developpee depuis les annees 1970. Alors que bon nombre de critiques de ses ecrits sur Ia reflexivite se sont penches sur la negligence relative du pouvoir, ils n'ont cependant pas tenu compte des contradictions emergentes de cette analyse globale d'agencement et de structure qui -- a mon avis -- se trouve a la base meme de ces problemes dans ses derniers ecrits. Les arguments des critiques dualistes de la theorie de structuration de Giddens tels que Archer et Mouzelis sont developpes et appliques a ses derniers ecrits sur la reflexive. Il est necessaire de reconnaitre la non correspondance temporelle de l'agencement et de la structure pour analyser la recente modernite et l'autoreflexivite, ce qui n'est pas possible dans le cas des hypotheses de la theorie de la s tructuration. The Freitsetzung of Agency and Structure? It is my contention in this paper that what Lash (1994) has described as the freisetzung of agency and structure is the key assumption of Giddens' modernization thesis, and that this assumption generates some significant and irresolvable conceptual problems for his broader social theory. These detraditionalizing processes of late modernity captured by the term reflexive modernisation are apparently freeing individuals, enabling them to create reflexive projects of the Instead of self-identity being by social structural locations, or traditional value systems, we are now able to construct it for ourselves from a range of range of available discursive resources (Beck et. al., 1994; Giddens, 1991). Giddens' work since 1990 has given us a distinctive and substantial contribution to these debates. One that signifies a new departure in his writings, although he sees it continuing the project that he has developed since the 1970s. In Giddens' work up to the 1990s there was a sense of a continuous intellectual project, that has often been compared to that of Parsons (Kilminster, 1991: 75; Mouzelis, 1995: 118). Firstly, Giddens' settled his accounts with the classical inheritance, then he dealt with various contemporary debates in class theory, followed by varieties of contemporary social theory (Giddens, 1971; Giddens, 1974; Giddens, 1975; Giddens, 1979). Subsequently he examined the institutional parameters and developmental tendencies of modernity and the nation-state (Giddens, 1981; Giddens, 1985). His most recent discussions have focussed more on the modern self (Beck, Lash and Giddens, 1994; Giddens, 1990; Giddens, 1991). His work in the 1970s outlined a workable social ontology and a unifying perspective for post-classical sociology (1975; 1979), followed in the 1980s by an application of this unifying perspective (1981; 1985). It is also possible to see his recent work as an attempt to apply the structuration approach to the dile mmas of the modern self. …

Condutas gerenciais e suas raízes: uma proposta de análise à luz da teoria da estruturação

O objetivo deste artigo é identificar condutas gerenciais oriundas da ação humana nas organizações. Tomando-se como pressuposto que aquela mesma ação não é determinada por estruturas sociais, mas por elas condicionada, mostra-se aqui como os gerentes reproduzem, em seus cotidianos, traços da sociedade brasileira. A pesquisa de campo foi realizada nas Secretarias de Estado do Governo do Espírito Santo, tomando-se como unidade de análise os servidores estaduais ocupantes de cargo de chefia, por no mínimo dois anos, em nível dos órgãos centrais, no período de janeiro de 1995 a dezembro de 1998. O método utilizado foi o estudo de caso, levantando-se dados a partir de entrevistas. A estratégia metodológica envolveu a indissociabilidade das condutas estratégicas dos sujeitos organizacionais de elementos da estrutura social - a dualidade da estrutura. Os dados revelam que os gerentes contribuem, com sua ação, para a reprodução de propriedades estruturais brasileiras. O conhecimento dessa situação, ou seja, a cognoscitividade que possuem a respeito desse contexto, permite-lhes seguir em frente, definindo condutas apropriadas a cada momento, em processo de monitoramento constante da realidade que os cerca.