Organizational Closure Research Articles

Resisting hybridisation between modes of clinical risk management: Contradiction, contest, and the production of intractable conflict

This article explores and explains escalating contradictions between two modes of clinical risk management which resisted hybridisation. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective, these two modes – ethics-orientated and rules-based – are firstly characterised in an original heuristic we develop to analyse clinical risk management systems. Some recent sociologically orientated accounting literature is introduced, exploring interactions between accountability and risk management regimes in corporate and organisational settings; much of this literature suggests these systems are complementary or may easily form hybrids. This theoretical literature is then moved into the related domain of clinical risk management systems, which has been under-explored from this analytic perspective. We note the rise of rules-based clinical risk management in UK mental health services as a distinct logic from ethics-orientated clinical self-regulation. Longitudinal case study data is presented, showing contradiction and escalating contest between ethics-orientated and rules-based systems in a high-commitment mental health setting, triggering a crisis and organisational closure. We explore theoretically why perverse contradictions emerged, rather than complementarity and hybridisation suggested by existing literature. Interactions between local conditions of strong ideological loading, high emotional and personal involvement, and rising rules-based risk management are seen as producing this contest and its dynamics of escalating and intractable conflict. The article contributes to the general literature on interactions between different risk management regimes, and reveals specific aspects arising in clinically based forms of risk management. It concludes by considering some strengths and weaknesses of this Foucauldian framing.

Rewriting Theory: From Autopoiesis to Communication

This paper analyzes the causes and motives for the transition to a communication-based theory of social systems in the late work of Niklas Luhmann. In the first part of this paper, I present a brief sketch of advances in the field of cybernetics and systems research. I give special attention to some basic concepts introduced by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela: autopoiesis, organizational closure and enaction. In the second part, I discuss how these ideas may contribute to a ‘conceptual revolution’ in the social and behavioral sciences. In the late work of Niklas Luhmann, attempts to incorporate the idea of autopoiesis in his own social theory resulted in the preference for a communication-based, instead of an action-based, theory of social systems. Moreover, given the current transition to the information age or the knowledge society, it can also be argued that structural changes in society nowadays favor the rise of a communication-based theory of social systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Learning before, during and after

This article highlights the importance of knowledge management during the current NHS reorganization and describes the approach adopted by one Strategic Health Authority (SHA) to enable business continuity as it heads towards closure. The article explains how this business continuity approach evolved from an existing project to embed knowledge management into informatics projects. The authors use this programme of work to illustrate how the Knowledge Management team of the Department of Health Informatics Directorate (DHID) is supporting the closure of NHS organizations so that corporate knowledge is retained in the system and shared with successor organizations for the continuing benefit of the next generation National Health Service.

Francisco Varela and the Immunological Self

Francisco Varela, a leading neurobiologist and cognitive scientist, made a 10‐year‐long incursion into immunology. His in‐depth contributions aimed to develop a systemic description to replace the standard stimulus/response/regulation scaffold that has governed immunology since its inception in the 19th century. Many of these efforts involved expansions of the notions introduced by Niels Jerne in his idiotypic network theory (Jerne, 1974a, 1974b) with the added notion of organizational closure, derived from the autopoietic theory. However, today, just like yesterday, the immunological community remains inclined to neglect these efforts and instead rests satisfied with half‐a‐century old clonal selection concepts (Burnet, 1959). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity. The Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936–1939 (review)

Reviewed by: Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity. The Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936–1939 John S. Conway Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity. The Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936–1939. Edited and translated by Richard Bonney. [Studies in the History of Religious and Political Pluralism, Vol. 4.] (Bern: Peter Lang. 2009. Pp. x, 578. $86.95 paperback. ISBN 978-3-039-11904-2.) Some of the most incisive and forceful descriptions and analyses of the Nazi campaign against the German churches and indeed against Christianity were contained in 135 Kulturkampf Newsletters written between January 1936 and the end of August 1939, which appeared at almost weekly intervals. Published first in Paris, they also appeared in a German edition, a British edition in 1937, and a U.S. edition in 1939. They have now been republished in an almost complete edition translated by Richard Bonney. As a contemporary source, these newsletters were extremely well informed and provided a valuable chronology of the Nazi persecution of the churches. They served as one of the first decided commentaries outlining the essential opposition and incompatibility between the Nazi Weltanschauung and Christian faith. This repeated theme is supplemented by detailed documentation of the Nazis’ overt harassment of dissident priests and pastors, the suppression of the churches’ publications, and the closure of schools and organizations. In addition, extracts are given from the speeches and writings of prominent Nazis, outlining their deliberate hostility, which were all seen as part of a wider campaign not merely to control but eventually to eradicate Christianity from Germany. Fittingly, the final issue condemned the Nazi ideology, with its “divinization” of Hitler and its appeal to racial consciousness as the basis for a new state religion. These newsletters also provide evidence of the attempts made by the churches to combat this ideological campaign. The sermons of Bishop Clement von Galen of Münster were quoted with approval, as was the Papal Encyclical of March 1937. Increasingly attention was paid in 1937 and 1938 to the campaign against the Protestant churches and to the valiant responses of the Confessing Church. In April 1938 a whole issue was devoted to the show trial of Pastor Martin Niemöller. His sentencing to a concentration camp, despite his legal acquittal, was seen as another example of Nazi plans for repression of all church opposition. Further, another recurrent theme of these newsletters is the folly of those gullible churchmen who believed they could be good Catholics or Protestants and good Nazis at the same time. Here, these illusions were resolutely [End Page 388] attacked. In April 1938, for example, the sad case of Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna and his craven submission to Hitler after the Anschluss was rightly castigated as an unforgivable betrayal of true Catholic interests, which foolishly ignored what had happened in Germany over the previous few years. There are, however, problems with Bonney’s edition. Curiously, he does not provide answers in his introduction to such important questions as the identity of the author or authors, the sources and provenance of the detailed and often local information provided, the intended audience, the size of the imprint, or the origins of the funding needed for this multilingual enterprise. Nor does he try to assess the impact these newsletters had at the time or explain why they ended so abruptly. He makes no attempt to place them in the wider context of exile German resistance efforts or literature. Surprisingly enough, no one came forward during the war or afterward to claim responsibility for these newsletters. Thus there is still an unresolved mystery. A fuller attempt to find answers can be found in Heinz Hürten’s edition of the German version, which appeared in 1988, but even Hürten admits puzzlement as to the authorship question. Nevertheless, the republication in English of these intrepid letters and commentaries adds to our picture of the German church struggle and stands as a warning against connivance with anti-Christian ideologies, which still needs to be heard. John S. Conway University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Emeritus) Copyright © 2011 The Catholic University of America Press

The discursive construction of care when there is no care to be found: Organizational life (re)framed by those on the socio‐economic margins facing job loss

At the same time that low‐wage workers in the changing US health care systems are facing under‐ and unemployment, organizational scholars are engaged in a healthy discussion of the impact of layoffs on various organizational stakeholders. Through a feminist ethics lens and an ethnographic in‐depth interviewing methodology, this case study expands that work by exploring how 55 low‐wage workers in a state mental health hospital facing closure make sense of their experiences of impending job loss. The collected narratives illuminate how the workers interpret the (un)ethical behaviors of the organizational decision makers and how the workers author a (re)framing of their experiences through an attention to care. Explicated from the workers’ descriptions is a perspective about standpoint and open communication that offers organizational scholars and practitioners a foundation from which to expand approaches to communicating with workers in an environment of organizational closure.

Life, Liberty, and 140 Characters: On the Study of Creativity Through Open Networks on Line

In 2010, Slate organized a contest on Twitter for which it invited people to summarize the Declaration of Independence. This paper describes and analyzes the submissions made to this contest in order to illustrate the trade-offs and tensions of organizational closure versus open networks, group versus individual and homogeneity versus diversity that are well known in the literature on organizational creativity.

Autopoeisis and meaning: a biological approach to Bakhtin's superaddressee

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the connections between autopoiesis, as described by Maturana and Varela, and Bakhtin's work on dialogue in understanding successful organizational rhetoric.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reviews two foundational texts in order to see the connection between them.FindingsThe concept of “organizational closure” will govern the domain of communication and therefore also any act in rhetoric.Originality/valueThis is a first attempt to link “organizational closure” as it exists in autopoiesis to Bakhtin's notion of a superaddressee.

Organizational Mechanisms of Inclusive Growth: A Critical Realist Perspective on Scaling

We investigate the challenge how the outcomes of innovation for inclusive growth, the novel organizational recipes, can be scaled to match the dimension of poverty. We conceptualize scaling as sustained event regularities between doing A and expected outcomes B. Building on a critical realist perspective, we develop an analytical framework of organizational closure and apply it to an extreme case, an organization with an inclusive growth model that has sustained event regularities for more than two decades. Our analysis reveals closure as an organizational competence with important implications for achieving scale in the context of poverty. We develop of a number of propositions between the link of organizational closure and scaling with implications for practice and further academic research.

“Listen to the People”: Public Deliberation About Social Distancing Measures in a Pandemic

Public engagement in ethically laden pandemic planning decisions may be important for transparency, creating public trust, improving compliance with public health orders, and ultimately, contributing to just outcomes. We conducted focus groups with members of the public to characterize public perceptions about social distancing measures likely to be implemented during a pandemic. Participants expressed concerns about job security and economic strain on families if businesses or school closures are prolonged. They shared opposition to closure of religious organizations, citing the need for shared support and worship during times of crises. Group discussions elicited evidence of community-mindedness (e.g., recognition of an extant duty not to infect others), while some also acknowledged strong self-interest. Participants conveyed desire for opportunities for public input and education, and articulated distrust of government. Social distancing measures may be challenging to implement and sustain due to strains on family resources and lack of trust in government.

The Reconstructed Professional Firm: Explaining Change in English Legal Practices

The paper provides a structural analysis of change in the English and Welsh legal profession over the last 25 years, using concepts drawn from Weberian sociology of the professions and more recent theory connecting agency and structure. Through a consideration of data returned to the Law Society, and other data, this paper outlines changes in the internal division of labour in English law firms. It is argued that, in response to external threats, especially the growth in the numbers of qualified recruits, the elite of the profession has reworked professional closure. From controlling access to training places (i.e. labour market closure), legal firms have shifted towards controlling conditions of work and promotion (identified as internal organizational closure). This has produced recognizable effects: it has sustained the remuneration and status of the professional elite of partners, but has also allowed the assimilation of large numbers of recruits to the profession, and the expansion in the size of legal firms, as well as supporting their continued profitability. However, the changes have also involved deterioration in the conditions of work and the promotion prospects of employed solicitors, and produced other effects considered in the paper. The argument is concluded with some critical comments on the work of the archetype theorists whose research into the organization of the professions is widely taken as authoritative. These authors suggest that the introduction of management is a defining characteristic of current reorganization of the legal profession among others, as is indicated by their notion of the managed professional business (MPB). It is suggested, instead, that engagement with management by the professional elite of legal firms in this study is at best rhetorical, and contemporary change in English law firms is better understood as the emergence of a reconstructed professional firm (RPF) based on a new professional closure regime.

The role of human resource development in preventing organisational stagnation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that how HRD is undertaken needs careful consideration, since some HRD implementation schemes may actually prevent the acquisition of new knowledge, thereby developing stagnation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses qualitative data derived from learning and non‐learning organisations. The data were collected from four companies via open‐ended questionnaires and structured interviews.FindingsThe paper demonstrates how strongly shared mental models may affect organisational HRD processes in such a way as to trigger closure to new knowledge and learning. The types of learning and knowledge present in the organisations are found to limit the possibility of radical change.Research limitations/implicationsHRD implementation systems themselves may strengthen mental models, thereby allowing the difficulties to emerge because the learning and knowledge being developed will only support incremental change if any. The potential reversion of the direction of organisational learning is mooted, indicating that new ideas may either not enter the system or be rejected once they are perceived. HRD systems need to be designed to develop and maintain organisational openness.Originality/valueThe danger of HRD exacerbating organisational closure is explained. An alternative role for HRD professionals is outlined, with the new focus being on developing ongoing challenge at all times. The paper concludes that, although properly structured and thoughtfully implemented HRD can be a positive driver for organisational learning, HRD developments need to focus on the type of knowledge being developed as well as the level of learning.

Identity: the paradoxical nature of organizational closure

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of organizational closure as developed by Stafford Beer in his viable systems model, defined as System 5.Design/methodology/approachThe author refers to his experiences of multi‐stakeholder platforms and confronts them with the original texts of Stafford Beer. He takes the stance of a reflective practitioner.FindingsThe identity function, defined as organizational closure, only can be embodied at the boundary of a system, defined by an observer. Identities are not essential characteristics but changing attributions by different observers. Multiple identities are the norm.Practical implicationsThe author develops the required characteristics of representatives participating in the organizational closure or System 5 activities.Originality/valueThe author gives an alternative way of thinking about identity different from the mainstream essentialist way of defining identity. He explores the consequences of this way of thinking for governance and governing bodies. He clarifies in this way the fundamental tension between participative and representative democracy.

How not to mount a professional project: the formation of the ICAEW in 1880

This study addresses ‘the inevitable dilemma facing [leaders of] an occupation’ seeking to progress the professionalisation process through organisational formation, namely that ‘if too many are included as eligible, it may downgrade the whole membership, while if the line is drawn too narrowly, those left out may be of sufficient ability to form a rival body’ (Macdonald, 1995: 192). It examines this dilemma in the context of the formation of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) in 1880 through the merger of five accounting societies formed during the previous decade. We show that creation of the ICAEW was engineered by London City-based accountants, primarily those who had directed the affairs of the ICAEW's elite predecessor body, the Institute of Accountants. We will argue that, through organisational fusion, the ICAEW's leaders expected to achieve organisational closure of the public accountancy profession in England and Wales, but this endeavour was flawed because of their failure either to adopt a sufficiently inclusive strategy at the date of formation or to address that deficiency in the years that immediately followed. This created an alienated population of ‘country accountants’ and left available a substantial reservoir of public accountants from which the first competitor organisation formed—the Society of Accountants—was able successfully to recruit.

Speech Timing and Spacing: The Phenomenon of Organizational Closure

This article examines how communication contributes to the achievement of spatio-temporal closures through the interactional enactment of sequences called ‘schemata.’ Human and nonhuman interactants not only bring into being but also contribute to the opening, development and closing of organizational sequences, which constitute and circumscribe what gets done collectively. Timing and spacing thus consist of creating and sometimes interrupting what could be called organizational closures, that is, spatio-temporal limits that indicate when and where specific organizational episodes are initiated, fulfilled and sanctioned. Organizational spaces and times are thus achieved and delineated through interactions, a phenomenon that will be illustrated through the in-depth analysis of a radio transmission that involved police officers trying to locate and rescue one of their colleagues.

How foresight creates unforeseen futures: the role of doubting

This paper defines foresight as being a mental model about the future and considers the role of foresight in shaping actions and events reflected in imperious, heroic, tragic and chaotic futures (defined within the paper). The paper contends that success in foresight is not about acquiring knowledge or using it to build pictures about the future. Rather, it is the expectations that come with such processes that cause organisational closure, and thus chaotic and tragic futures. The argument is made that firms need to doubt much more than they do. Two processes of doubting are described: the first (single loop doubting) shows how differences between expectations and perception cause doubt that (whenever the underlying mental model is sufficiently plastic) is accommodated by social processes without change. The second process, called double loop doubting, is based on genuine attempts to refute, rather than confirm, mental models about the future. The contention is that such processes would lower expectations and certainty, thereby opening the organisation and enabling mental models to be more accurate. Jack in The Importance of Being Ernest, Oscar Wilde

Explaining Demise among Nonprofit Organizations

Explaining Demise Among Nonprofit Organizations reports on a study of closure of nonprofit organizations in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area from 1980 to 1994. The theoretical literature focusing on the behavior of individual and populations of organizations suggests eight reasonably distinct theoretical explanations why nonprofit organizations close. These theories include the liabilities of newness and small size, the inability to reproduce commitment, intraorganizational conflict, inability to mobilize human resources, lack of legitimacy, inability to compete for scarce or depleted financial resources, lack of connections to other organizations, and the completion of the organization’s mission. Longitudinal data collected by Joseph Galaskiewicz on organizational characteristics provide the opportunity to determine which theories have the most fidelity in terms of explaining the closure of nonprofit organizations. Of a random sample of 229 public charities interviewed in 1980, 73 had exited the panel by the end of the study period in 1994. Of these, 37 closed their doors. This study focuses on those 37 organizations that closed. Several kinds of data contribute to a final accounting of which theories are supported in the sample studied. Exit interviews with representatives from 31 of the closed organizations yield factors that interviewees believe were most important in explaining the closure of their organizations. Formal analyses of the organizational narratives provide initial insights into the reasons that organizations closed. In addition, the dissertation presents an analysis of longitudinal survey data. Rather than analyzing cause on a case-by-case basis, this approach yields probabilistic explanations about the relationships between variables hypothesized to vary with organizational closure. Results from the various analyses show consistent support for the liabilities of small size and youth, as well as the liability of competing in a sparse resource niche. Analysis of the open

Financial Vulnerability among Arts Organizations: A Test of the Tuckman-Chang Measures

In the past decade, nonprofits scholars have given increased attention to the topic of vulnerability and organizational demise. An early contribution to this literature was Tuckman and Chang’s elaboration of four financial ratios that they believe could be used to predict financial vulnerability. These measures have largely escaped empirical tests. This research note describes a test of the Tuckman-Chang financial vulnerability measures among a population of nonprofit arts organizations. The article concludes that although the Tuckman-Chang measures do not have utility for all types of arts nonprofits, the measures nonetheless show substantial promise for predicting the closure of some nonprofit organizations.

Source Characteristics in Denying Rumors of Organizational Closure: Honesty Is the Best Policy

Effect of source honesty and appropriateness on effectiveness of rumor denial was tested. When the source was perceived as high on honesty, the denial was more successful in reducing belief and anxiety associated with the rumor. Source appropriateness (operationalized as a combination of source knowledgeability and status) did not have a main effect on belief or anxiety reduction. Honesty and appropriateness had an additive effect, such that the denial was most successful in reducing belief when the source was perceived as high on both honesty and appropriateness.

The senses and memory of a firm – implications of autopoiesis theory for knowledge management

Firms can be regarded as autopoietic systems that continuously reproduce themselves. This paper regards the firm itself as an autopoietic entity. This approach helps identify: the “sensory function” (“interactive openness”) that enables the continual co‐evolution with the environment; and “memory function” (“self‐referentiality”, “organisational closure”) that enables the firm’s effective functioning. The integration of these two functions helps utilise the major knowledge flows and facilitates the firm’s continual learning and renewal in its changing business environment. The analysis of case companies that represent the management consulting industry indicates that very different firms can be described as autopoietic, self‐producing systems. The case firms have built sophisticated, interconnected organisational solutions and information and communication systems to support interactive openness and self‐referentiality. Aligning the two major knowledge functions and flows with other organisational solutions helps build successful and sustainable knowledge management solutions that support the firm’s continuous renewal.