Context and the processes of ICT for development

This paper argues for a rethinking of the notion of context in the information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) research domain. We argue that context can be conceived of as a dynamic outcome constructed through processes of development and interpretation rather than as an entity which can be isolated and represented. Instead of focusing on the adequacy of the representation of context—the motivation of contextualism—researchers should consider the processes by which context is represented. Three principles are proposed to assist in this endeavour. Firstly, representation of context is a relational process in which both ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ actors engage. Understanding the context of ICT4D requires multiple accounts drawn from different actors. Secondly, while research needs to describe the concepts used by ‘macro’ actors to represent context, it is crucial to recognize them as outcomes of processes of development and not as self-evident entities. Finally, we suggest that research needs to attend to how these accounts are produced, be they by ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ actors. This can be understood as an emergent activity showing not only unexpected outcomes but also that the concepts describing actors change in development. These principles are applied to the case of M-PESA, now widely known as an innovative mobile banking application from Kenya. One outcome of this approach is that it helps explain why ICT4D projects in general, and M-PESA in particular, are often difficult to replicate successfully.     

On becoming a sociomaterial researcher: Exploring epistemological practices grounded in a relational,performative ontology

What is the role of the researcher in a world that is continuously enacted and reconfigured in sociomaterial practices, a world in which subject and object, structure and agency, body and mind, knower and known, are assumed to be ontologically inseparable? In this article, I explore this question by drawing on my own experiences of reconsidering essentialist and representationalist assumptions, and becoming a sociomaterial researcher. My exploration draws on my experiences of conducting a qualitative longitudinal case study at the Swedish Migration Board. Specifically, I show what it can mean to ‘invite materiality’ into interviews, examine the conditions of possibility to become in certain ways by tracing the genealogy of practices, and engage with data relationally rather than categorically. By accounting for my experience of working through these practices, I aim to develop and articulate an understanding of what the ontological position underlying a sociomaterial approach implies for epistemology, and of how we can act (or, rather, intra-act) more creatively and responsibly as sociomaterial researchers. Moreover, I highlight differences in the kinds of knowledge that a sociomaterial approach grounded in relational and performative onto-epistemologies, as opposed to a socio-material approach, grounded in critical realism, produce about the unfolding of organizational practices—specifically, the practices unfolding in the reception area of the Swedish Migration Board. The paper contributes to the current debate on sociomaterial approaches, and in particular to the development of practices available to draw upon for researchers taking a sociomaterial approach.     

Creating space for play/invention – concepts of space and organizational entrepreneurship

This paper focuses on how one can relate management thinking/practices to entrepreneurial processes in the context of formal organization. In order to do this we develop a number of related ‘spatial concepts’ providing us with the possibility of describing entrepreneurship as a ‘creation and use of space for play/innovation’. Using concepts of space, the managerial and the entrepreneurial dimensions and perspectives on organizing creativity become highly visible in the case studied. This is a field study (within the ethnographic tradition) focusing on an organizational transformation of a former public authority into a competitive limited company. A distinction between managerialism and ‘entrepreneurship as event’ is proposed as conceptually fruitful as well as useful for discussing recommendations to managers for how to handle entrepreneurial processes. A minimal and contextual role for management is suggested when aspiring to support the creations of space for play/invention, for example, for entrepreneurship as forms of organizational creativity.     

Managerial career development in a developing host-country context: a study of American multinationals in Pakistan

This paper analyses the uptake of distinctly Anglo-Saxon protean and boundaryless careers in the specific organizational context of foreign multinationals operating in a culturally and institutionally distant developing economy. A qualitative case study approach is applied to two American subsidiaries operating in Pakistan. Findings reveal that these ‘new’ career concepts often coexist with, rather than replace, features of traditional, organizational careers both reflecting, and responding to, changing and dualistic individual, organizational and institutional values. Therefore, this paper suggests that all these three levels of analysis need to be considered in conjunction when analysing managerial career development in developing host countries.     

The extent of excessive or insufficient fundraising among US arts organizations and the effect of organizational efficiency on donations to US arts organizations

• We estimate, for each nonprofit organization (NPO) in a sample of 606 US arts NPOs, whether the NPO's level of fundraising is ‘excessive,’ ‘insufficient,’ or neither, relative to the level that maximizes net donations. We find that the effect of a 1% increase in fundraising on net donations varies widely across the arts NPOs in our sample—from an increase in net donations of 8.91% of gross donations to a decrease of 3.82% of gross donations. Of the 100 NPOs in our sample with the highest donations, the estimated effect of a 1% increase in fundraising on net donations varies more narrowly—from an increase in net donations of 0.27% of gross donations to a decrease of 0.32% of gross donations. Of these 100 NPOs, we estimate that only 3 engaged in ‘excessive’ fundraising, but 83 engaged in ‘insufficient’ fundraising, and 14 did not engage in ‘excessive’ or ‘insufficient’ fundraising.We also provide evidence that reported organizational efficiency does not affect donations to arts NPOs. This finding may be useful to managers and directors of US arts NPOs who believe that organizational efficiency does impact donations and who, therefore, incorporate the effect on efficiency in their decisions to allocate resources across fundraising, administration, and program objectives.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION IN POLLUTION REDUCTION: A SOCIO-TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE

Is industrial pollution reduction solely a matter of applying technical solutions to technical problems, or do organizational strategies and human factors also play an important part? In 1991 the US Environmental Protection Agency began collecting data on organizational strategies in pollution control as part of its Toxic Release Inventory database. An exploratory analysis of the 1991–1992 Toxic Release Inventory data revealed evidence that internally based, socially driven organizational strategies such as employee participation can have a dramatic impact on pollution reduction. The results are reported here of the second phase of this research: the approach is broadened to define general ‘internal’ versus ‘external’ strategies, and ‘social’ versus ‘technical’ approaches. There is strong evidence that the combination of internal and external strategies is superior to either alone; there is even stronger evidence that a socio-technical approach is better than either alone, and still stronger support for a combination of all of these criteria.     

Consumption and the City,Modern and Postmodern

Whilst consumption has frequently been associated with the postmodern city, insufficient regard has been paid to the systemic logic of consumption. It is argued here that consumption takes on an increasingly significant role in this respect. Specifically, we have been witness to a profound social transformation whereby the active repression once centred on the city as a locus of production has given way to a new mode of social integration, which accords to the logic of seduction. By tracing the development of the modern city in terms of the imposition of the law and its transgression — figured in terms of cognitive space and the ‘spectral presence’ of the stranger — the significance of the postmodern is theorized in terms of the systemic appropriation of an aesthetic space initially traced out by the flâneur. The ludic existence of the flâneur has thus been translated into the general condition of a society oriented around consumption. This condition implies a new form of cybernetic control, governed by the aleatory play of the code, rather than the direct surveillance characteristic of the modern city. As a consequence, urban space has itself undergone a transition, which we might begin to address in terms of a ‘posturban’ hyperspace.     

On the way to Ithaka[1]: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of Karl E. Weick’s The Social Psychology of Organizing

Karl E. Weick’s The Social Psychology of Organizing has been one of the most influential books in organization studies, providing the theoretical underpinnings of several research programs. Importantly, the book is widely credited with initiating the process turn in the field, leading to the ‘gerundizing’ of management and organization studies: the persistent effort to understand organizational phenomena as ongoing accomplishments. The emphasis of the book on organizing (rather than on organizations) and its links with sensemaking have made it the most influential treatise on organizational epistemology. In this introduction, we review Weick’s magnum opus, underline and assess its key themes, and suggest ways in which several of them may be taken forward.     

‘How would you measure something like that?’: Quality in a Retail Bank

In this paper we explore a case study of total quality management (TQM) within the financial services sector. We demonstrate that a ‘conformance to requirements’ approach towards TQM is concerned with increasing management’s physical and financial control over procedures, documentation, systems and people. Such an approach only partially addresses quality because (a) there can never be a precise ‘conformance’ and (b) this approach neglects customers and employees. We illustrate that often management do not understand the flaws/problematics and underlying philosophy behind TQM. Thus they continue to adopt ‘inconsistent’ approaches, such as attempting to control costs and employees while espousing the importance of the customer and the need for a trust-based culture. Yet, whether or not they understand the rationale behind TQM and attempt to widen their focus by considering people and customers more directly, we argue that management cannot easily adopt a ‘consistent’ approach because a preoccupation with controlling costs is bound up with career-based identities and hierarchical power relations. Ultimately we argue that management cannot control ‘quality’ in any simple top down way, essentially because of the ‘indeterminacy’ of labour, the ‘intangibility’ of customer satisfaction, and the complexity of organizational power and identity relations.     

Knowledge Communities and Knowledge Collectivities: A Typology of Knowledge Work in Groups*

abstract The notion of a ‘community‐of‐practice’ (CmP) has become a highly influential way of conceptualizing how decentralized sub‐units or groups within firms or organizations operate. CmPs refer to ‘tightly knit’ groups that have been practising together long enough to develop into a cohesive community with relationships of mutuality and shared understandings. The CmP notion, however, does not fit squarely with how temporary organizations or project organizations operate. Typically these kinds of groups consist of diversely skilled individuals, most of whom have not met before, who have to solve a problem or carry out a pre‐specified task within tightly set limits as to time and costs. As a result they tend to become less well‐developed groups, operating on a minimal basis of shared knowledge and understandings. Such a group, I suggest, constitutes a ‘collectivity‐of‐practice’ (ClP). Mirroring the above distinctions, two ideal‐type notions of epistemology are developed. The one inspired from the CmP literature is discussed in a ‘knowledge community’ terminology, whereas the one associated with ClPs is conceived of as a ‘knowledge collectivity’. Finally, I outline some new options for organizational analysis made possible by recognizing these as two different and complementary notions.     

Exploring the Conceptual Expansion within the Field of Organizational Behaviour: Organizational Climate and Organizational Culture

Developments within social and exact sciences take place because scientists engage in scientific practices that allow them to further expand and refine the scientific concepts within their scientific disciplines. There is disagreement among scientists as to what the essential practices are that allow scientific concepts within a scientific discipline to expand and evolve. One group looks at conceptual expansion as something that is being constrained by rational practices. Another group, however, suggests that conceptual expansion proceeds along the lines of ‘everything goes’. The goal of this paper is to test whether scientific concepts expand in a rational way within the field of organizational behaviour. We will use organizational climate and culture as examples. The essence of this study consists of two core concepts: one within organizational climate and one within organizational culture. It appears that several conceptual variations are added around these core concepts. The variations are constrained by rational scientific practices. In other terms, there is evidence that the field of organizational behaviour develops rationally     

THE INTERPRETATION OF ORGANIZATION: A CONTEMPORARY ANALYSIS AND CRITIQUE*

This article is concerned with examining the development of interest in organizational interpretation (exemplified by a decade of analyses of culture and symbolism in organization) as a rhetorical and philosophical episode in Organization Studies. the presumed ‘productivity’ of this recently developed arena of Organization Studies, for both the theory and practice of organization, is carefully considered through the discussion of a broad range of work from the past decade. This body of work is examined as a ‘genre’ of Organization Studies that both manifests particular issues for interpretation and articulates particular styles of representation. The article argues that the rise of interest in organizational interpretation represents a late-modern phase in Organization Studies, whereby traditional priorities and subordinations in the theory and practice of organization have been rewritten and renewed. In this way, organizational interpretation has come to articulate the most recent form of avant-garde activity in the continuing modernization of Organization Studies. In contrast, the article concludes with the consideration of a theory and practice for such work which would contribute to the articulation of a postmodern Organization Studies.     

The Unsung Heroes of Welfare Collaboration: Complexities around individuals’ contribution to effective inter-agency working in LSCBs

The article addresses an under-explored aspect of public partnerships: individuals’ role in the effectiveness of collaborations such as the Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCBs) in England and Wales. Building upon theoretical concepts around complex emergence, we conceptualize individuals as conveyors of complex negotiated individual, professional and organizational frames. Shifting focus away from inter-organizational and towards inter-personal communication in partnerships is consistent with miscommunication being the widest recognized problem in collaborations. Qualitative data from policy documents, interviews, and participant and non-participant observation are used to show individuals in the LSCB case study advancing or hindering collaborative work as ‘boundary spanners’ or ‘reluctant’ partners.     

Parenthetic Learning in Organizations: Toward the Unlearning of the Unlearning Model

The organizational ‘unlearning’ model is discussed. It is argued that the model fails to capture the individual and organizational processes necessary to achieve the objectives for which it is proposed. To achieve these objectives, an alternative, ‘parenthetic learning’ model of organizational learning and change is proposed.     

Differencing of random walks and near random walks

The traditional rationale for differencing time series data is to attain stationarity. For a nearly non-stationary first-order autoregressive process—AR (1) with positive slope parameter near unity—we were led to a complementary rationale. If one suspects near non-stationarity of the AR (1) process, if the sample size is ‘small’ or ‘moderate’, and if good one-step-ahead prediction performance is the goal, then it is wise to difference the data and treat the differences as observations on a stationary AR (1) process. Estimation by Ordinary Least Squares then appears to be at least as satisfactory as nonlinear least squares. Use of differencing for an already stationary process can be motivated by Bayesian concepts: differencing can be viewed as an easy way to incorporate non-diffuse prior judgement—that the process is nearly non-stationary—into one's analysis. Random walks and near random walks are often encountered in economics. Unless one's sample size is large, the same statistical analyses apply to either.     

The ‘Human’ Touch

Abstract

This article critically discusses the almost mythical conception of voluntary and ‘grass-roots’ organizations as problem solvers in current welfare policy – a myth, which over the last twenty years has become increasingly dominant in social policy programmes in advanced liberal welfare states. In particular, the article examines the assumption that voluntary and local organizations are permeated by a different rationality that enables human beings to act as ‘real humans’ rather than as professionals and clients – a rationality which is, however, permanently at risk of being contaminated by bureaucratic influence. It is demonstrated that among the conditions of possibility for this discourse are explanatory models and concepts in modern organizational theory and in voluntary sector studies. The article argues that the conceptualizations of power, rationality and social change dominant in these studies are unsatisfactory. Instead, it applies a Foucauldian approach to the domain of drug addiction treatment, analysing a social work ‘regime’ that transgresses the traditional boundaries between state and voluntary sector.     

Employee isolation and support for change in the public sector: a study of the internal audit profession

ABSTRACT

We investigate the preferences of public sector internal auditors for changes in their work practices. Informed by the literature, we posit that feelings of trust in the workplace and/or frustrations arising from perceived organizational ‘isolation’—a dimension of work alienation—motivate support and acceptance of change. We also argue that professional bodies directly and indirectly influence these relationships. These conjectures are tested using structural equation modelling and a survey of Canadian public sector internal auditors. The findings provide valuable insights into the process of adaptation and transformation in public sector settings across countries, jurisdictions, and accountability functions.     

Tournaments and piece rates revisited: a theoretical and experimental study of output-dependent prize tournaments

Tournaments represent an increasingly important component of organizational compensation systems. While prior research focused on fixed-prize tournaments where the prize to be awarded is set in advance, we introduce ‘output-dependent prizes’ where the tournament prize is endogenously determined by agents’ output—it is high when the output is high and low when the output is low. We show that tournaments with output-dependent prizes outperform fixed-prize tournaments and piece rates. A multi-agent experiment supports the theoretical result.     

Spaces of Difference: Reflections from Toronto on Multiculturalism,Bourgeois Urbanism and the Possibility of Radical Urban Politics

What explains the lack of what Mike Davis famously called ‘magical urbanism’— referring to the increasingly influential and potentially radical role played by Latino immigrants in US politics — in such diverse Canadian cities as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver? This article points out how the Canadian legacy of multiculturalism constitutes one key cause of the failure of left urban politics in Canada to produce yet anything approaching the promise of ‘magical urbanism’ south of the border, especially by underlining how this bulwark of liberal ideology lends itself so readily to some resilient variations of bourgeois urbanism — including the commodification of difference, most recently under the auspices of Richard Florida's ‘creative class’. Against the pluralism of the food court and the shopping mall, both in its official multicultural and seemingly oppositional ‘hybrid’ forms, are radical approaches to difference in the city still possible — in Canada or elsewhere? The authors argue that the concepts of ‘maximal’ and ‘produced’ (vis‐à‐vis ‘minimal’ and ‘induced’) difference and the politics of ‘the right to the city’ elaborated by Henri Lefebvre — in conjunction with the reflections on subaltern experiences of difference by critics such as Himani Bannerji and Ambalavanar Sivanandan — indeed provide a starting point for radical urban politics. Comment expliquer, dans des villes canadiennes aussi différentes que Toronto, Montréal ou Vancouver, l’absence de ce que Mike Davis a appelé‘l’urbanisme magique’ en parlant du rôle de plus en plus influent, voire radical, des immigrants latinoaméricain dans la politique des États‐unis? L’héritage canadien du multiculturalisme explique d’abord pourquoi la politique urbaine de gauche n’a encore rien pu produire au Canada qui s’approcherait de la promesse d’un ‘urbanisme magique’ comme au sud de la frontière. L’article souligne notamment comment ce rempart d’idéologie libérale se prête si facilement à quelques variantes résistantes d’urbanisme bourgeois, dont la banalisation de la différence, tout récemment sous les auspices de la ‘classe créative’ de Richard Florida. Face au pluralisme de l’aire de restauration et du centre commercial, tous deux sous des formes ‘hybrides’ multiculturelles et aparemment contradictoires, des approches radicales de la différence dans la ville sont‐elles encore possibles, au Canada ou ailleurs? Les concepts de différence ‘maximale’ et ‘produite’ (par opposition à‘minimale’ et ‘induite’) et la politique du ‘droit à la ville’ conçue par Henri Lefebvre — alliés aux réflexions sur des expériences de différence subalternes émanant de critiques tels que Himani Bannerji et Ambalavanar Sivanandan — offrent indubitablement un point de départ pour une politique urbaine radicale.     

STRATEGIES OF EXPANSION AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN FIRMS 1

Summary The pace of change of the last ten years has challenged the traditional management processes to the point that the key organizational question is no longer to fit new strategies into available organizational patterns but instead to fit the organizational structure to the kind of problems to be faced. However, the intricacy of strategic and structural difficulties is often such that the appraisal of organizational inadequacies may prove difficult: symptoms may be wrongly considered as problems which may in turn be over-or understated so that corrective measures may well be inappropriate. This is why the saying‘When in trouble, reoganize!’is of little practicability. The lack of organizational planning in framing responses to structural problems will more and more make adjustments necessary. In our attempts to define the nature of organizational changes which are likely to occur within business firms in the future, we shall isolate the stragetic decisions related to corporate expansion on a transnational, trans-continental and eventually on an intercontinental scale. We shall start by analysing present organizational patterns — as they reflect decisions made in the past regarding current strategies — and we shall try to outline some possible structural developments as they may be required by the implementation of future strategies.