Tensions in local government employment relationships

Abstract

A wide variety of initiatives characterized under the umbrella term of new public management have been introduced over the past two decades to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the public sector. The implications of these initiatives for public sector employment relationships have been the subject of on-going debate. This article contributes to this debate through examining how employees within local authorities are managed in a time of personal crisis with a particular focus on long-term sickness absence in the context of increased management drives for efficiency under the NPM agenda. The findings reveal that for managers in two local authorities that form the focus of this study there is a tension in struggling to achieve a workable balance between the needs of employees and wider operational requirements, resulting in role ambiguity for line managers and detrimental effects for vulnerable public service workers.     

Managing Cultural Diversity in Collaborations: A focus on management tensions

Abstract

This article explores the management of cultural diversity in public and not-for-profit collaborations spanning organizational, professional and national boundaries. Through the framing of a culture paradox, it identifies three interrelated tensions pertaining to the management of cultural diversity towards collaborative advantage. These tensions address: interactions between organizations within a collaboration; interactions between individual actors and their orientation towards the collaboration and their host organization; and the quantity and extent of cultural diversity within a collaboration. The culture paradox and its inherent management tensions provide theoretical and practical conceptualizations that are relevant to management and governance of collaboration.     

Subcultural tensions in managing organisational culture: a study of an English Premier League football organisation

In this article, we explore subcultural interaction in the context of attempts by executives to control culture in the unusual organisational setting of football. We present evidence of five tension points in subcultural relations (togetherness or isolation, internal labour market, multiple identification and allegiances, individual and organisational requirements, and competition and cooperation). We examine how these tensions were induced and or exacerbated by the culture management efforts, as well as the ways in which the dynamics of change impacted on the objectives of executives. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for theory and practice.     

Coopetition for sustainability: Between organizational benefit and societal good

Sustainable development requires coopetition, that is, the cooperation of organizations that compete at the same time. Research on coopetition for sustainability is sparse. From a sustainability perspective, coopetition contributes to sustainability when it makes a positive contribution on the societal level. Existing research on coopetition however focuses on organizational outcomes. In this paper, we link organizational and societal outcomes of coopetition. We show that for the simple case of two coopting firms and an economic and an environmental dimension, there are 51 different combinations that make a positive contribution to sustainability. All but one of these combinations consist of a mix of positive and negative outcomes. We identify four types of trade‐offs that can occur in coopetition for sustainability and that point to different pathways of achieving sustainability.     

Untangling Goal Tensions in Family Firms: A Sensemaking Approach

While economic and non-economic goals may converge in the long term, they often lead to tensions for organizational decision-makers in the short term, especially in family firms that place much emphasis on family-related goals. We draw on a sensemaking approach to investigate such potential tensions in the decision-making of family firms. Based on a qualitative analysis of 59 interviews, 501 items of archival data and 39 observations from eight private Irish firms, we explore the perceived goal tensions of family firm decision-makers as they seek to balance economic and non-economic goals. We identify three sensemaking mechanisms – ensuring continuity in the family firm, preserving family cohesion, and delegating responsibilities to trusted advisors – that assist family firm decision-makers in managing these goal tensions. Moreover, we identify that sensegiving based on three different values – sense of commitment, community embeddedness, and family firm identity – helps family firm decision-makers to justify and communicate their decisions. Our model contributes to a more granular understanding of the management of goal tensions and of decision-making in family firms by going beyond the question of whether family firms prioritize economic or non-economic; instead, it reveals concrete processes showing how firms balance and aim to incorporate both goals. Furthermore, we advance knowledge on sensemaking in family firms by revealing how sensemaking can explain idiosyncratic family firm behaviour and by showing how family firm decision-makers use specific values when ‘giving sense’ to justify their decisions.     

Pointing fingers across the tracks: an examination of strategic messages in the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

The oil industry transports crude oil via rail due to increasing demand. Though convenient, this can be dangerous, as many railways travel through populated regions, placing individuals in close range at risk of danger and death during a train derailment. In 2013, the deadliest rail disaster to happen in Canada in 140 years occurred when a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic (MMA) train carrying 7.7 ml of petroleum crude oil broke loose in Nantes, Quebec, and traveled towards Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The train derailed and exploded in the city’s center, instantly killed 47 people, destroyed downtown, and forced the evacuation of over 2000 residents. The disaster prompted safety and criminal investigations, and litigation for personal, economic, and ecological reparations. This study uses dialectical tensions of strategic communication decision-making to examine the crisis and post-crisis stages of the event to determine how the tensions of organizational responsibility and emotional connection intersected during the crisis. Further, the impact of the crisis at an industry level and the resulting industry-wide lessons learned are revealed. Results were twofold: The tensions intersected with one another; and in socially stigmatized industries, organizational learning can occur on an industry-wide level. Tensions intersected when insensitive communication and messages disowning responsibility for the event initially occurred, and also later, when sensitive communication and taking ownership of the event were communicated. Learning occurred via observation, and actions were implemented in similar organizations in direct response of the event. In addition, regulations were created in direct response and implemented in both Canada and the United States. The study offers implications, discusses the complexity of transnational crises, and calls for future study of interacting tensions of strategic communication decision-making in order to understand how inherent tensions in a crisis situation prompt certain organizational responses to crises.     

管理理论在中国的创新现状、辩证价值与未来发展

文章基于对理论价值的辩证性思考,主要从开发式与探索式创新的视角回顾改革开放以来管理学在中国的理论创新现状,并进一步提出未来演进的相关理论命题从而构建“中国管理学理论知识创造与传播的发展模型”。基于对相关理论文献的推演以及对中国管理学纵向的实际考察,文章认为管理学在中国的理论创新存在多元化的开发与探索象限;虽然数十年以来管理理论的贡献水平逐渐提高,这也在很大程度上符合主流学术共同体的制度逻辑,但是中国管理学理论知识的有效创造与传播还应该兼顾其他理论创新程度较低或者非理论化研究的可能空间,甚至需要保持上述不同象限之间的平衡,从而为全球管理知识的更新做出来自中国的独特价值贡献。     

The Sociomaterial Negotiation of Social Entrepreneurs’ Meaningful Work

This research examines the role of digital technology in the constitution of meaningful work. Adopting a sociomaterial perspective, we argue that meaningful work emerges as an outcome of a complex negotiation between individuals and their digital devices. This process was explored through video diaries and interviews with social entrepreneurs, capturing moments of their everyday meaning‐making and encouraging reflexivity. Accounting for their sociomaterial practice led participants to reaffirm their work as uniquely meaningful, produce more nuanced accounts of meaningfulness and/or make pragmatic adjustments to their meaning making. Whilst authenticity was a key meta‐narrative in these accounts, it also produced tensional knots which, in their unravelling, required the adoption of more practicable meanings of work. The paper concludes by urging scholars to de‐centre the human from their analysis to provide a more complete account of meaningful work.     

Unpacking the Dialectic: Alternative Views on the Discourse–Materiality Relationship

This paper extends the issues raised in this forum by highlighting assumptions and characteristics of the discourse–materiality relationship that appears in five explanatory frameworks, including the Foucauldian approach and the materiality–performativity perspective presented in the previous two papers. It argues for preserving the dialectical relationship between the two by holding the tensions between them in continual interplay. Using a dialectic lens, it overviews how each of the frameworks treats the point of entry, nature of the relationship, and management of these tensions.