Pluralistic Organizations Research Articles

Competing logics and institutionalization of cost calculation in pluralistic organizations. The role of affordances

PurposeFor many years, universities have been confronted with the rise of a managerial logic, in line with the new public management movement. They have been encouraged to implement new accounting tools such as cost calculations. Literature shows mixed results regarding the institutionalization of such tools, and the logic they try to support. In most studies, the agency of actors is examined to explain the institutionalization of accounting tools and only few studies consider the specific characteristics of these accounting tools to understand this process. To enrich the literature on institutionalization, this article examines how the affordances of costing tools affect the institutionalization of these tools and the institutionalization of new logics in pluralistic organizations such as universities.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected at a French university which is considered as an example of successful institutionalization of the tool and is cited as a model to follow. The data include a four-month participant observation and 18 interviews. Access to internal and external documents was also available. The analysis of the data is based on a framework proposed by Jarzabkowski and Kaplan (2015), which draws on the concept of affordance of tools, to investigate how the possibilities and constraints of costing tools shape the selection, application and outcomes of cost calculations.FindingsThe results show that the affordances of cost calculations facilitate the institutionalization of a new logic and its coexistence with previous logics. Technical affordances are mobilized by actors aiming to bring in a new logic without directly confronting the old ones. Role affordances also play a major role in the institutionalization by facilitating the adhesion of the actors through multiple applications of the tool. Finally, value-based affordances reinforce the institutionalization of a managerial logic by emphasizing the values shared with the other logics and thus facilitating the coexistence of the three logics at stake in the university.Originality/valueThis research provides three main contributions. First, it contributes to the literature on the institutionalization of accounting tools. It shows the relevance of the concept of affordance (Leonardi and Vaast, 2017) to unpack the characteristics of accounting tools (including the constraints and the possibilities they offer) and to achieve a better understanding of the institutionalization of accounting tools. Second, this paper contributes to the literature dealing with the role of accounting tools in the institutionalization of logics. The results suggest that the institutionalization of tools and the institutionalization of logics are two different phenomena that move at different speeds. However, these phenomena interact: the institutionalization of accounting tools can facilitate the coexistence of different logics in pluralistic organizations. Third, this paper contributes to the literature on affordances. The data reveal several types of affordances for accounting tools: technical affordances that refer to the technical possibilities to shape and tweak the tool; role affordances that refer to the various roles and purposes that the tool can fulfill and value-based affordances that refer to the plasticity of the values and beliefs that the tool can convey. The study shows that each type of affordance is prevalent at a different time of the process of institutionalization and that the combination of these affordances contributes to the institutionalization of the tool and of new logics.

Strategic Change in a Pluralistic Context: Change leader sensegiving

Research points to the challenge of delivering strategic change in pluralistic contexts. We explore this challenge through a real-time, qualitative case study of the implementation of strategic change in a post-1992 United Kingdom university. Our findings enable us to account for how a change leader can create sensegiving and sensemaking opportunities that influence others to engage in activities that facilitate change implementation through an orchestrated meetings-based process and which also leads to change action consistent with intended goals. In doing so we contribute to research on strategic change in pluralistic organizations, research on strategy meetings and research on change leader sensegiving.

Strategizing in pluralistic organizations: extending theoretical frames to include disrupted contexts

Strategy work in pluralistic organizations has been investigated from different perspectives, including Actor-Network Theory, Conventionalist Theory, and the social practice perspective. However, these perspectives have been used to understand and influence strategy work in “business-as-usual,” rather than disrupted contexts. There is a challenge in understanding practices and processes that underpin the strategy work of pluralistic organizations facing disrupted contexts. This paper uses a narrative literature review to suggest the “improvised order” perspective for studying such strategy work by synthesizing and connecting three theoretical concepts: (dis)order, space, and bricolage. The improvised order perspective offers a complementary lens to the literature on strategy work in pluralistic organizations by showing the complexity of navigating between disorder and order, transforming space, and bringing to the fore practices required for strategy work in disrupted contexts. This paper also offers a set of propositions, which can stimulate future research on strategy work in pluralistic organizations facing disrupted contexts.

Dealing with pluralism: the managerial work of CEOs in Italian public healthcare organizations

BackgroundHealthcare organizations are extremely complex. The work of their CEOs is particularly demanding, especially in the public sector, though little is known about how the managerial work of a healthcare organization CEO unfolds. Drawing from scholarship on managerial work and management in pluralistic organizations, we sought to answer the questions: What is the content of managerial work of CEOs in public healthcare in Italy? How do healthcare CEOs perform their managerial work in complex interactions with multiple stakeholders?MethodsFor this study we adopted a multi-method approach in which we conducted a survey to investigate CEO behaviors, tracked CEO working time for 4 weeks, and conducted semi-structured interviews with senior CEOs.ResultsCEOs in public healthcare devote most of their time to interaction, which half of which is perceived as being occupied with apparently mundane problems. Nonetheless, devoting time to such activities is functional to a CEO’s goals because change in pluralistic contexts can be achieved only if the CEO can handle the organization’s complexity. CEOs do this by engaging in routines and conversations with professionals, creating consensus, and establishing networks with external stakeholders.ConclusionsCEOs are called to reduce fragmentation and foster cooperation across disciplines and professional groups, with the overarching aim to achieve integrated care. Using an analytical approach we were able to take into account the context and the relational dimension of the managerial work of healthcare CEOs and the specificities of this role.Trial registrationThis article does not report the results of a healthcare intervention on human participants, and the material used in the research did not require ethical approval according to Italian law.

Organizational arrangements as a key to enhancing innovativeness and efficiency – analysis of a restructuring hospital in Finland

BackgroundChallenged to innovate and improve efficiency both at the policy level and in everyday work, many health care organizations are undergoing radical change. However, in many earlier studies, the significance of individuals’ perceptions of their organization and its innovativeness and efficiency during restructuring is not well acknowledged. Our study examines how various organizational arrangements; performance-, hierarchy-, tradition-, and leader-focused types, as well as collaborative and fragmented ones, connect to reaching innovativeness and efficiency in health care during restructuring.MethodWe built on previous organization and management research, innovation studies, and on research focusing in health care restructuring, and conducted an exploratory quantitative case study in a public sector hospital in Finland. Data comprising 447 responses from 19 professional groups across the hospital was analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis.ResultsOur results demonstrate that multiple, co-existing organizational arrangements can promote innovation and efficiency. The perceptions of the organizational members of the nature of their organization need to be generally positive and reflect future-orientation to show positive connections with efficiency and innovativeness; fragmentation in the members’ perceptions of the character of their organization and their inability to go beyond established organizational traditions pose risks of inefficiency and stagnation rather than fruitful exploration. Our study further shows, somewhat surprisingly, that while collaborative organizational arrangements are positively related to increases in perceived efficiency, the same does not apply to innovativeness.ConclusionsOur study addresses understudied, yet inherently important aspects in providing high-quality health care: the relationships between different organizational arrangements and exploitation and exploration-related outcomes. In particular, examination of individuals’ perceptions (that may have even more weight for the subsequent developments than the actual situation) adds insight to the existing knowledge that has addressed more objective factors. Implications on how to support high levels of performance are drawn for management of professional and pluralistic organizations undergoing restructuring. Our findings also generate information that is useful for policy making concerned with public sector health care.

Adopting management philosophies: management gurus, public organizations, and the Economies of Worth

ABSTRACT Management gurus are increasingly prominent in public organizations. However, research generally evaluates guru ideas as primarily pragmatic suggestions, neglecting gurus’ value-laden ‘philosophies’. Particularly in pluralistic public organizations, we suggest that this normative content may significantly shape whether, why, and how such ideas are used. To interrogate this, we investigate a guru idea’s adoption by an English hospital using the Economies of Worth framework, which highlights values and pluralism. We find that guru ideas may be adopted because their normative content can help otherwise divided organizations forge compromises. However, these compromises bring normative constraints and promote risk-aversion in turbulent times.

Navigating paradoxical tensions through the interplay of temporal structures

Organizations at the boundary of two institutional fields are often required to meet contradictory but interrelated demands. While transcendence – accepting both sets of demands as necessary and complementary – has been shown to be an important response to such paradoxes, achieving it places significant cognitive and behavioural strain on managers. Despite the importance of ‘and/both’ approaches for the survival of institutionally pluralistic organizations, we still know little about the practices that managers resort to when initial efforts to achieve transcendence break down. Through a longitudinal study of a joint-venture spanning two institutional fields, we demonstrate that managers can address otherwise insurmountable paradoxical tensions through an emphasis on the interplay of their temporal structures. By deconstructing conflicting demands into their respective temporal qualities of temporal depth – defined as the span into the past and future that they typically consider – and temporal horizons – measured by the frequency of milestones within this span – managers can process paradoxical demands in novel ways. Through a process of temporal work, managers on both sides of the institutional divide were able to negotiate a new, shared temporal depth that accommodated the temporal horizons of both sides. We show that this process enabled managers to achieve a form of transcendence, providing a structure within which to consider the demands on both sides as necessary and complementary, which was not previously possible. We suggest that ‘zooming in’ to focus on the complexity of temporal structures can unveil novel and surprising sensemaking processes amongst managers navigating paradoxes.

ALINHAMENTO ESTRATÉGICO EM CONTEXTO PLURALISTA: IMPACTOS DA CAPACITAÇÃO DE LIDERANÇAS DA FIOCRUZ

O contexto pluralista concerne as organizações onde há acentuada pressão de stakeholders e reguladores, cujadistribuição de poder internamente é difusa e onde o processo de trabalho éfortemente baseado no conhecimentoespecializado. Pesquisadores tem buscado entender melhor os desafios estratégicos nessas organizações, pois nelas hágrande dificuldade de coordenação e de engajamento para a busca de resultados coletivos. Alguns estudos apontam parao impacto positivo de práticas capitaneadas pela área de gestão de RH e para o papel das lideranças, agenciadoras deestruturas de coesão, para superar as dificuldades. A pesquisa descrita neste artigo investigou o efeito da capacitação emgestão para as lideranças de uma organização pluralista, a Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), promovida pela área deGestão de RH com vistas a melhorar seu alinhamento estratégico. A análise dos achados, ancorada na perspectiva que foca práticas, identificou pelo menos quatro aspectos onde a capacitação contribuiu para incremento das práticas dos egressos que levam ao alinhamento: na ampliação da visão sistêmica, na adoção de práticas de planejamento e controle, na melhoria do exercício da liderança e na promoção da gestão de significados (sensemaking).

How Constituents Evaluate Configurations of Status and Conformity

Recent management research on institutional pluralism has surfaced that today’s organizations typically face multiple – oftentimes competing - institutional expectations. Despite this recognition, research on institutional pluralism remains circumscribed in two important ways: First, the existing literature typically assumes that pluralistic organizations straddle two sets of competing expectations, rarely more. Second, competing expectations are represented and evaluated by discrete sets of constituents with unidimensional expectations, for example when investors only evaluate financial aspects, and environmentalists only environmental aspects of firms. Examples that challenge these two assumptions abound, for instance when impact investors evaluate firms holistically based on their financial, environmental, and social performance. Where individual constituents have those multidimensional expectations, we argue, they holistically evaluate how organizations conform with multiple, interdependent expectations. Yet, such configurational approaches to evaluating pluralist organizations are currently absent from the literature. To address this gap, we conducted a fuzzy-set configurational analysis of 117 international business schools to uncover the configurations through which prospective students evaluate how MBA programmes conform with their expectations. Based on our analysis, we make three contributions to the literature on institutional pluralism. First, we explain how organizations are evaluated holistically as configurations of multiple interdependent, rather than independent expectations represented by individual constituents. Second, by doing so we add to current accounts of institutional outcomes. We extend current, binary accounts of the existence or demise of pluralist organizations to consider social evaluations as a more nuanced outcome of pluralism. Third, we provide new insights about how configurations of conformity and status interact in producing holistic evaluations in the context of institutional pluralism.

How Can Pluralistic Organizations Proceed with Strategic Change? A Processual Account of Rhetorical Contestation, Convergence, and Partial Agreement in a Nordic City Organization

This study examines how pluralistic organizations confronting fundamental differences in values can proceed with strategic change. By drawing on a longitudinal case analysis of strategic change in a Nordic city organization, we show how the proponents and challengers play a “rhetorical game” in which they simultaneously promote their own value-based interests and ideas and seek ways to enable change. In particular, we identify a pattern in which the discussion moved from initial contestation through gradual convergence to increasing agreement. In addition, we elaborate on four rhetorical practices used in this rhetorical game: voicing own arguments, appropriation of others’ arguments, consensus argumentation, and collective we argumentation. By so doing, our study contributes to research on strategic change in pluralistic organizations by offering a nuanced account of the use of rhetoric when moving from contestation to convergence and partial agreement. Furthermore, by detailing specific types of rhetorical practices that play a crucial role in strategy making, our study advances research on the role of rhetoric in strategy process and practice research more generally.

Managing Change in Pluralistic Organizations: The Role of Normative Accountability Assumptions

ABSTRACTPluralistic organizations face the challenge of managing the co-existence of multiple sets of assumptions associated with each institutional logic. This multiplicity of assumptions problematizes the findings from the change management literature that for successful change management, the normative assumptions of the change initiative should be congruent with the organizational normative assumptions. One of the organizational mechanisms in which the normative assumptions are encoded and enacted is the system of accountability, hence in pluralistic organizations, there is a need to understand the role of the interplay of the normative accountability assumptions of the change initiative with the multiple sets of accountability assumptions representing individual logics within the organization. This study examines the case of a project to renew a strategic framework of a Canadian public university. The project diverged from the existing governance practices and their associated accountability assumptions that represented the institutional logic of managerialism. We found that this project was widely accepted, despite deviating from the institutional logic that supported existing practices, because its accountability assumptions were congruent with co-existing and deeply-rooted, democratic logic within the organization. Our findings contribute to the change management literature by highlighting the role of normative accountability assumptions in change management within pluralistic organizations.

The swinging role of visualization in strategic planning

Embracing a practice-based approach to strategy and building on existing research on visual artefacts, this paper addresses the role of visualization in the processes of collective strategizing, which characterizes pluralistic settings. Specifically, it explores what happens when strategy mapping (a form of visual technique, sometimes employed in strategy making) is introduced in the strategic planning process of a public university. Building on the results of an inductive case study about the construction of a strategic plan in an Italian university, the paper shows that strategy mapping is a process able to take up different roles in different moments and performing three actions on knowledge in the accomplishment of strategy formation: formalizing, generating and bridging distributed knowledge. The paper thus unveils the swinging role that strategy mapping can have if it is conceived as a process which moves from closure to openness moments. In other words, our empirical insights contribute to shed some new light on the multiple (swinging) roles that visualization plays in ensuing moments of the strategizing process in pluralistic organizations, especially when the forging of collective knowledge about strategic direction is needed.

Silence in the Islands; An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence in the Maldives

Organizational silence is interpreted as a collective phenomenon that acts as a barrier to the development of the pluralistic organization. Communication and the flow of information between employees and different departments are strategic factors to achieve organizational goals. Free flow of communication without any obstruction between managers and employees contribute to a more open and vibrant workplace. However, many employees often decide to remain silent rather than expressing their opinions and concerns. Employee silence results in negative impacts for both the employees and the organization. As employee silence hinder organizational progress, proper mechanisms have to be implemented to ensure that employees can voice out and be open about their concerns, without fear of penalization. In line with this view, the starting point for this would be to find out the reasons for silent behavior. The Maldives being among the developing countries, it is important to identify the factors which may hinder organizational development. Hence the main aim of this study is to identify whether employee silence exists among the group of employees in the Maldives and identify the reasons why employees remain silent. This study is a qualitative study where data was collected by conducting face to face interviews with 10 employees who work in various public organizations in the Maldives. The results of this study point to the existence of employee silence among the sample group in the Maldives.

PROFILES OF INNOVATIVE MIDDLE MANAGERS IN PLURALISTIC ENVIRONMENT

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to present a taxonomy of profiles of innovative middle managers working in a pluralistic environment experiencing an organizational change. This research is based on interviews conducted with middle managers all working within the same administrative unit of a healthcare establishment going through a huge governmental reform. The content of these interviews was analyzed in an inductive and iterative process, including a number of stages of codification consistent with the grounded theory approach. Based on the rational perspective on innovation, five profiles of innovative managers emerged: supporting, inspired, curious, perplexed and foresighted. These profiles are not mutually exclusive, as each manager may shift between profiles in the course of the organizational change. The contribution of this research is twofold; first, in introducing the notion of managerial innovation into the research on middle managers who are generally depicted as rather reactive performers caught between “the tree and the bark” in the face of change; and, then, in demonstrating that profiles of innovative managers can exist within pluralistic organizations operating in a highly regulated and bureaucratic environment, which are often presented as not very innovative. Keywords Middle manager, Change, Managerial Innovation

Intra-Organizational Political Process and Organizational Responses to Institutional Pressure in Pluralistic Organizations: Dilemmas and Choices of Two Public Broadcasters in Korea

Intra-Organizational Political Process and Organizational Responses to Institutional Pressure in Pluralistic Organizations: Dilemmas and Choices of Two Public Broadcasters in Korea

Integrating Effort in Emerging Pluralistic Organizations

This study investigates how organizations that emerge in pluralistic settings can integrate effort to achieve a collective end. In this form of organizing, independent actors with discordant preferences share decision-making power over interdependent choices. Our insights are grounded in the planning of a new railway network in the UK, the High-Speed 2 project. Using an organization design lens, we encounter two mechanisms to integrate effort after a designated leader manipulates the structure of direct participation in decision-making. Resolving the coordination problem is up to technical working groups through voluntary information provision and processing. Their work uses rationalistic criteria to whittle the solution space down to a short list of options. As trade-offs emerge, organizational leaders must cooperate to build a negotiated consensus within the coordinated solution space. We reveal variance in the interplay between coordination and cooperation contingent on goal congruence and urgency to build consensus. We conclude by discussing logic linking pluralistic organizing structure to organizational performance.

Multiple Modes of Participation in Cooperatives: A Typology of Pluralistic Settlements

This article proposes a theory of multiple modes of participation in pluralistic cooperative organizations and what that means for the survival and growth of cooperatives. We construct a typology o...

Pluralism in Organizations: Learning from Unconventional Forms of Organizations

AbstractThe bureaucratic organization is still regarded as the conventional organizational form, but is ill‐suited to an increasingly pluralistic world. Research on the variety of organizational forms has increased dramatically over the past three decades and offers the potential to understand better how pluralism is manifested and managed within organizations. However, this research remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize research on unconventional organizations to explore how organizations resolve or attenuate the tensions related to pluralism. Drawing from research in leading management journals, it covers seven distinct literatures: ‘referent organization’, ‘temporary organization’, ‘pluralistic organization’, ‘meta‐organization’, ‘bridging organization’, ‘hybrid organization’ and ‘field‐configuring event’. For each literature, the authors trace the genealogy of the key concepts and review their distinct insights regarding organizational pluralism. They then synthesize and discuss their collective contributions and conclude with avenues of research for pluralism in organizations.

Striving for excellence: the role of top management team diversity in universities

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of top management team diversity on academic excellence in universities. Academic excellence is conceptualized as successfully gaining funds for inter-organizational research collaborations, interdisciplinary graduate schools and high-ranked scientific reputation.Design/methodology/approach– The study applies upper echelon theory to universities. Three hypotheses are developed: (overall) top management team heterogeneity is positively associated with successful funding of excellence clusters, (overall) top management team heterogeneity is positively associated with successful funding of graduate schools and (overall) top management team heterogeneity is positively associated with academic reputation. The empirical study is based on a cross-sectional dataset with a time lag, covering characteristics of 75 German public universities from 2008 to 2013. Multiple-regression analysis is applied to test the hypotheses.Findings– Our results indicate that disciplinary and educational diversity of upper echelons has a positive effect on the outcomes. Other top management team characteristics (age, gender, etc.) show no significant effects. Besides top management team composition, we find that a high number of faculties and a broad inclusion of internal status groups (students, tenured faculty, academic and administrative staff) and external stakeholders in decision making processes may enhance academic excellence of universities.Research limitations/implications– First, the study contributes to the body of literature concerned with higher education. It is situated at the crossroads of management studies and higher education research, unlocking strategic management theorizing for the public context. Furthermore, the study contributes to the body of literature on strategic leadership in pluralistic organizations. It highlights the importance of heterogeneous governance structures and modular organization designs for achieving academic excellence.Practical implications– The paper may inform practitioners in administrative or leading positions and policy-makers concerned with higher education. The more diverse a top management team is in terms of multiple disciplinary backgrounds, the more likely they succeed in driving the university toward academic excellence.Originality/value– The study is among the first to evaluate the influence of top management teams in universities with a quantitative research design.

Coping With Fragility: The Practice of Leading Strategic Change in Pluralistic Organizations

Drawing on a longitudinal, qualitative single-case study conducted in the Swiss healthcare sector, this paper contributes to the development of process theory on leadership and strategic change in ...