https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/S_OAPThis course aims at three objectives. We aim to establish:Understanding of academic texts and scholarly engagement with theoretical debatesApplication of different theoretical perspectives to the analysis of organizations and power in empirical case studiesCritical reflection on contemporary organizational practices and their power dynamics, including the implications for individuals, organizations and society more broadly These objectives will be met through a variety of lectures, including several guest-lectures. The lectures will be grouped in several themes, such as agency/structure, identity/discourse, networks/ institutions, crisis/change, etc.Introduction Organization and Power (OP) is an important course. As one of the first courses in two different master’s programs – Beleid, Communicatie en Organisatie (BCO) and Culture, Organization and Management (COM) – it deepens your knowledge about the central object of study in your program: organizations. OP sets the stage, both theoretically and methodologically, for researching, analyzing and theorizing processes of organizing and related power dynamics in a variety of contexts. Through an analysis of classic, contemporary and critical texts, as well as exemplary case studies, students develop knowledge of and insight in themes such as institutions and networks, structure and culture, control and resistance, collaboration and conflict, identity and identification. There are at least two challenges involved in going through this varied material. First, we will focus on examining the texts as such. What exactly did authors want to make clear? What was special to their contribution? How did they conceive of power dynamics? And, second, how could we apply these insights to research and current day organizational practice? What’s the use of all this theorizing for our practical understanding of organizations and power? The Department of Organization Sciences (ORG) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) takes a distinctly social scientific approach to studying organizational phenomena. Following this approach, we explore various theoretical and methodological debates in the field of organization sciences in order to develop a better understanding of different perspectives on organizations and their underlying power dynamics. Overview While the study of organizations has a long pedigree, it remains a topic of acute relevance as we spend most of our lives in them: for work, for education, for consumption, for leisure, for health care, for re-creation. In other words, we live in a ‘society of organizations’ (Perrow, 1991). Therefore, organizations are key to our understanding of societal dynamics just as insights into ‘society’ are crucial for our understanding of processes of organizing (Friedland & Alford, 1991). Following the mission statement of Europe’s most prominent journal in this academic field, Organization Studies, the field needs to focus on how “organizations... are interpenetrated with society and generate specific patterns of how we live in societies, as well as how those societies are actually governed and shaped” (Courpasson, Arellano-Gault, Braun & Lounsbury, 2008: 1386). Another reason why the study of organizations has not run out of fashion to this day is the constant imperative for change which organizations are subject to. Organizations are ought to go global, become agile, reduce their emissions, flatten their hierarchies or re-invent themselves more fundamentally, as we have seen in the recent response to the outbreak of Covid-19. Therefore, the focus of this course is less on organizations as static entities, but rather on processes of organizing (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002) and the dynamics underlying these processes. More concretely, we try to combine a focus on organizing – organizational actors’ sensemaking practices and their day-to-day (inter)actions – with developing sensitivity to recurrently reproduced patterns and routines – organizations. The view we adopt in this course comes close to Joel Baum and Tim Rowley’s (2002: 2): Most words ending in “-tion” are ambiguous between process and product – between the way one gets there, and the result. Our word, organization, shares this ambivalence, itself referring to the process of “organizing,” or, to the result of organizing. For understanding ‘organization’ in the double sense of the word, as process and product, we thus need to zoom in on individuals who act, feel, talk, smell, and embody organization, and we need to zoom out again to be able to see the situational and institutional contexts in which these individuals are embedded. This way we place processes of organizing within the wider social environment in which they take place. This also brings us to the second focus of this course: power. Since power is inseparable from social interaction, all processes of organizing are potentially imbued with power (Clegg, Courpasson & Phillips, 2006). Following Maguire and Hardy (2006), we contend that “[o]rganizations are arenas of power where discursive struggles take place“. This, however is only one possible view on the link between organizations and power. In fact, the study of power is as broad, diverse and complex as the literature on organizations itself (Clegg et al., 2006). As we (re-)visit a wide range of classic, contemporary and critical organizational theories, ranging from the original works of Max Weber, Frederick Taylor, and Michel Foucault to more recent critical management studies on identity, diversity, leadership and hyper-surveillance, we take note each time how these theories entail a particular view on power, some more overtly, others more implicitly. We will explore different framings of power as processes of coercion, manipulation, domination or subjectification (Fleming & Spicer, 2004), or as processes of normative, neo-normative or affective control (Resch, Hoyer & Steyaert, forthcoming). More generally, we share the view that power – like organization – is not a ‘thing’ with essential qualities. Instead, it marks a relation between people (and objects) as they struggle to secure ‘thruthfully’ embedded meanings (Foucault, 1980). By looking at different ways of how power is reflected in theory and inscribed in organizational practice, we cut across divides between micro and macro perspectives in the field of Organizations Studies (OS), namely by combining an orientation toward everyday practices in organizational life with sensitivity to wider societal power dynamics. Organizational scientists – as social scientists – seek answers to questions such as how organizational actors act and talk organizations (and reality more broadly) into being, how they seek and negotiate legitimacy for their organizing activities, how inter-organizational networks function or fail to function, how organizational changes are instigated, supported and/or resisted, how cross-boundary collaboration and conflicts evolve over time, how and why institutionalised organizational forms emerge, grow or dissolve, etc. Organizational scholars research these processes as mediated by, and embedded in wider social, cultural, ideological and historical contexts. The course Organization and Power offers a rich reservoir of ideas and interesting subjects, which we will discuss in some detail, yet without discussing them at length. We will first address a fundamental question which precedes any analysis of ‘organization’: “what are organizations after all?” Without presenting a complete overview, we mention a few definitions of ‘organization’ to illustrate the variety of understandings of this phenomenon. Along those lines, Baum and Rowley (2002: 2) note: Although most of us “know an organization when we see one,” the diversity and complexity of organizations and their activities is difficult to capture in a single formal definition. As a result, multiple, sometimes contrary, conceptions of organizations exist, each one highlighting particular features of organizations, but necessarily providing only partial and incomplete views. In this course we will pay attention to such (partial) definitions and, more importantly, to the implications of these definitions in terms of informing different lines of thinking, interpretation and methodological positioning, but also practical enactments in everyday organizational life. Each definition offers a different perspective on organizations, and thus enables an alternative ‘reading’ or ‘analysis’ of organizational settings. During the course, we will invite you to ‘experiment’ with a range of different definitions and perspectives and to apply them to various case studies. For, as Baum and Rowley’s (2002: 2) contend: “Although the range of definitions can create confusion, together, they also provide a means of capturing the full breadth of organizational life.” Speaking of the breadth of organizational life, in this course we will address a number of central issues studied within the field of organization studies, such as institutions, networks, identity and culture, and we will highlight how these issues provide insights into processes of organizing and dynamics of power. By doing so, we aim to familiarize you with the specific and often complicated language of OS and some of the methodological issues involved in studying organizations. We moreover invite you to examine the practical potential of applying the various theories covered in the course to real life examples. This broad – yet not exhaustive – engagement with the field will be the groundwork for the further courses in your master program, where you will delve deeper into the field of ‘organizational behavior’ and engage with master-specific subjects such as consultancy, health care-sector organizations or cultural change. Besides informing your further studies in the master program, including the composition of your thesis, the course Organization and Power also aspires to develop your practical skills of critically and reflectively applying organizational theory to the analysis of organizational life.These objectives will be met through a variety of lectures, including several guest-lectures. The lectures will be grouped in several themes, such as agency/structure, identity/discourse, networks/ institutions, crisis/change, etc. Additionally, there will be case study session, dedicated for applying the theoretical content of the lectures and the course readings to the analysis of real life cases/ organizational problems, which at the same time will help you prepare in group work for the final exam of the course. Sample exam questions will be discussed during these sessions. Next to attending the lectures and case study sessions, your main activity during this course will be reading: we ask you to read quite a bit. We urge you to start reading early on in the course to avoid that you become inundated with different ideas. Reading the literature does not only provide you with the in-depth knowledge required to compare the different theoretical approaches but also should it enable you to apply these theoretical insights to empirical situations that we address during the case study sessions. In order to support you on your reading journey, we will provide you with some guiding questions on the weekly readings, allowing for a focused and in-depth engagement with the different texts. We highly recommend that you engage thoroughly with the course readings, the assigned questions and the lectures of the week prior to attending the case study sessions, which will also help you prepare for the final exam throughout the course.At the end of the course, there will be a closed-book exam in Testvision with open-ended questions which accounts for 100% of the course grade. The result of the exam should be 5.5 or up. In addition to the final exam, students will get the opportunity to receive a ‘bonus point’ (which would increase their final course grade by 0.5 points) by successfully completing a voluntary group assignment during the course. Details on the exam and the voluntary group assignment will be provided during the lectures.Required reading (minor changes are possible) The publications below are part of the required reading materials. Students are expected to download these articles themselves through ub.vu.nl. Additional articles will be announced through Canvas. We expect all students to check Canvas regularly as we will use this as our main communication facility. Required reading: articles (changes/additional articles are possible) The schedule: (when to read what) will be announced in late August) Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 619-644 Ball, K. (2010). Workplace surveillance: an overview, Labor History, 51(1), 87–106. Bartunek, J., Rynes, S., & Ireland, D. (2006). What makes management research interesting and why does it matter? Academy of Management Journal, 49(1), 9-15. Battilana, J., Yen, J., Ferreras, I., & Ramarajan, L. (2022). Democratizing work: Redistributing power in organizations for a democratic and sustainable future. Organization Theory, 3(1), 1-21. Bechky, B. A. (2006). Gaffers, gofers, and grips: Role-based coordination in temporary organizations. Organization Science, 17(1), 3-21. Collinson, D. L. (2003). Identities and insecurities: Selves at work. Organization, 10(3), 527-547. Cornelissen, J., Höllerer, M. A., & Seidl, D. (2021). What theory is and can be: Forms of theorizing in organizational scholarship. Organization Theory, 2(3), 1-19. Davis, G. F. (2015). Celebrating Organization Theory: The After‐Party. Journal of Management Studies, 52(2), 309-319. Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2014). Power in Management and Organization Science. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 237-298. Hoyer, P. (2022). To be, or not to be elite, that is the question: The unresolved identity struggles of ex-consultants. Culture and Organization, 28(1), 1-24. Iedema, R., & Rhodes, C. (2010). The undecided space of ethics in organizational surveillance. Organization Studies, 31(2), 199-217. Kärreman, D., & Alvesson, M. (2009). Resisting resistance: Counter-resistance, consent and compliance in a consultancy firm. Human Relations, 62(8), 1115-1144. Kyratsis, Y., Atun, R., Phillips, N., Tracey, P., & George, G. (2017). Healthcare in transition: Professional identity work in the context of shifting institutional logics. Academy of Management Journal, 60(2), 610–641. Lumby, J. (2013). Distributed leadership: The uses and abuses of power. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 581-597. Marshev, V.I. (2021). Western Schools of Management of the Twentieth Century. In: History of Management Thought – Contributions to Management Science. Cham: Springer (pp. 411-450). Monteiro, P., & Adler, P. S. (2022). Bureaucracy for the 21st Century: Clarifying and expanding our view of bureaucratic organization. Academy of Management Annals, 16(2), 427–475. Mumby, D. K., & Plotnikof, M. (2019). Organizing power and resistance. In McDonald, J., & Mitra, R. (eds.), Movements in Organizational Communication Research. London: Routledge (pp. 35-55). Ortner, S. B. (1984). Theory in Anthropology since the sixties. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26(1), 126-166. Patala, S., Albareda, L., & Halme, M. (2022). Polycentric governance of privately owned resources in circular economy systems. Journal of Management Studies, 59(6), 1563–1596. Poole, M. S., & Van de Ven, A. H. (1989). Using paradox to build management and organization theories. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 562-578. Resch, B., Hoyer, P., & Steyaert, C. (2021). Affective control in new collaborative work: Communal fantasies of purpose, growth and belonging. Organization Studies, 42(5), 787-809. Suddaby, R. (2010). Challenges for institutional theory. Journal of Management Inquiry, 19(1), 14-20. Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(4), 298-318. Wright, C., & Nyberg, D. (2017). An inconvenient truth: How organizations translate climate change into business as usual. Academy of Management Journal, 60(5), 1633-1661. van Douwen, N., van den Brink, M., & Benschop, Y. (2022). Badass marines: Resistance practices against the introduction of women in the Dutch military. Gender, Work & Organization, 29(5), 1443-1462. Vaughan, D. (1999). The role of the organization in the production of techno-scientific knowledge. Social Studies of Science, 29(6), 913-943.Master students COM and BCO