Talking About Organizations Podcast

In this episode, we are joined by Prof. Stephen Cummings (New History of Management) to address one of the foundational works in social psychology and organizational development - “Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change”. This was the first of two articles that Kurt Lewin published in the newly established journal Human Relations with the Tavistock Institute.

In the article, Lewin makes a strong case for treating the social sciences on the same level with the natural sciences–previously, social science was considered neither rigorous nor valid. Using metaphors from physics, Lewin explains social phenomena in tangible, physical terms through constructs such as “force fields.” In doing so, he explained how individuals within a social space interact in ways that could be measured similarly to physical or chemical phenomenon. And he did so using the results of studies on rather ordinary, mundane phenonena such as training on stitching machines and the crossed interactions between a husband and wife.

In Part 2 of the episode we look at how much has changed in organizations from 1980s to the present day. To what extent do Hofstede’s six factors still hold up? How salient is his model of socializing cultures between societies (“nations”) and organizations? To what extent is the construct of organizational culture being misused, such as suggested in our Episode 49 where we explored Gideon Kunda’s study of “tech culture?” Are there dangers to conflating organizational culture with climate?

Fresh off a study that identified key factors for comparing national cultures, organizational psychologist Geert Hofstede and his team set off to determine whether similar constructs could be deduced for organizational cultures. The success of this research is detailed in Hofstede's classic 1990 paper, "Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study Across Twenty Cases," published in Administrative Science Quarterly. Through surveys and interviews among members of twenty units within ten large organizations, Hofstede's team proposed six distinct determinants of organizational culture that could be compared and contrasted across all organizations.

Please also join us in welcoming 2 new podcast hosts - Jarryd and Frithjof!

Tune in for Part 2 of our discussion of Charlie Chaplin's classic film - Modern Times. What does the film have to say about such contemporary topics as gig economy, gender in the workplace and emotional labour? Join us to find out!

Routinely ranked as one of the greatest movies of all time, Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film “Modern Times” balances great physical comedy with powerful social commentary. Playing his famed “Tramp” role for the final time, Chaplin portrayed a hapless Worker on an assembly line who is tormented both by supervisors and the work itself. After being subjected to a humiliating experiment intended to improve the line’s efficiency, the Worker runs through a series of rotating jobs, stints in jail, and other misadventures as he tries to find his purpose in life.

He eventually finds his purpose through a growing relationship with the Gamine (Paulette Goddard), a tragic young woman orphaned after a worker’s strike turns violent and kills her father. She escapes becoming a ward of the state but resorts to stealing to survive until caught by the police. After the Worker sacrifices himself to save them, the two would become inseparable. Seeing a happy couple in a well-to-do, they imagine themselves being happy and carefree living together in a rundown falling-apart shack. But in the end, she cannot hide from her past as an escaped orphan. Destitute and alone, the two find themselves on a barren road — she appears to have given up on life, but the Worker convinces her to continue on and try again. They leave, walking down the road to who knows where?

As we viewed the film, our initial thoughts were about how Taylorism is portrayed and critiqued through the scenes at the factory and the social turmoil going on outside. But the film actually touches on many of the themes of this podcast. Referenced throughout the episode were Taylor (Episode 1), Maslow (Episode 3), Max Weber’s Bureaucracy (Episode 6), The Hawthorne Studies (Episode 9), Banana Time (Episode 13), Suchman’s Human-Computer Interactions (Episode 22), the Gig Economy (Episodes 36 & 40), Socialization a la Van Maanen (Episode 38), the Garbage Can Model of Decisionmaking (Episode 39), and Kunda’s Study of Tech Culture (Episode 49).

Listen as we discuss this fantastic and powerful film whose insights on work and society are still relevant today!

Please join us as we conclude discussing Rosemary Stewart's classic work on management in practice. What is the significance of this book? How does it relate to what managers do? Why are we talking about magic wands? Tune in to find out!

Continuing with our discussion of Rosemary Stewart's classic work on management in practice with the wonderful Dr. Maja Korica of Warwick Business School

So what do managers do in practice? How do they spend their time (or put another way, how does their time spend them)? Are there differences in the demands of managers in different positions, or within different organizations? These were the questions that famed management theorist Rosemary Stewart set out to uncover in her research back in the 1960s, resulting in the first edition of this episode’s subject–her book "Managers and Their Jobs: A Study of the Similarities and Differences in the Ways Managers Spend Their Time".

Join us, and our special guest Dr. Maja Korica from Warwick Business School, as we discuss this work and bring it into present-day focus.

What are the implications of The Tyranny of Light and what can it teach us about management in an increasingly digitised workplace? Join us as we conclude Episode 51 and reflect on the lasting impact of this work.

The podcast is back for 2019 with Part 2 of Episode 51 on The Tyranny of Light by Hari Tsoukas! If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, please go and do so before playing this episode as this is a direct continuation of that discussion.