Understanding Organization as Process

Theory for a Tangled World

Tor Hernes

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781134081370
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Organization takes place in a tangled world, intermeshed by changing markets, products, standards, technologies, institutions and social groups. Coming to grips with the complexity and fluidity of organization and management is a persistent problem for scholars and practitioners alike, which is why process issues have received renewed interest in r

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Organization in a tangled world

Looking for the organization

In the wake of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11, President George W Bush decided to invade Afghanistan to eliminate the al-Qaeda organization and root out Osama Bin Laden, the presumed leader of the al-Qaeda organization. There was much talk of eliminating what they called the ‘terrorist organization’ led by Bin Laden. When the forces moved into Afghanistan they found no organizations. It seems that they were looking for something that resembled a formal organization with infrastructure, staff and technology. Had that been the case, whatever was the al-Qaeda organization could probably have been eliminated. Foran (2004) suggests that their error in judgement was rooted in what he calls ‘state-centric assumptions’ that view al-Qaeda as an organization (a solid target, like a state), rather than the transnational social movement it is. Shortly after the forces arrived, however, spokespersons were quick to point out that al-Qaeda could not be understood as an organization, that it resembled more a network. Worse, it resembled a loosely coupled network, with cells in many countries. Worse still, it seemed that many of its cells could not be traced through their activities because they had the capacity to lie dormant for years until springing into action again. A network of local cells is evidently much more difficult to eliminate than an army organization because no domino effect exists, owing to the fact that interdependence between the cells is weak and changing.

It remains to be seen if the term ‘network’ is even adequate, although Foran (2004) suggests that al-Qaeda most resembles a network. Typically, networks are seen as phenomena consisting of nodes and links. Classical thinking gives attention to nodes that are seen as central and links that are seen as stronger. A central node may be a social actor who has frequent connections with other actors. For example, more social power is attributed to a person whose advice is often solicited by others, such as found by Blau (1954) in his study of social interaction among government officials. Others have pointed out that ties that appear strong may not be so, and that ties that appear weak in a network may prove to be strong (Granovetter, 1973). But whatever criteria are used to assess strength and centrality, the notion of networks is based on there being actors who can be seen as existing entities. Moreover, links are seen as functional, in the sense that members adhere to the network because being part of it is more productive than not being part of it. Seen from this perspective, the way to eliminate networks such as al-Qaeda would be to cut off all functional supply lines that channel money, technology, information and training.

But what if we assume that whatever supply links and existing actors we see through functional eyes comprise nothing but a state at a given point in time? A snapshot of a much more complex reality that is emergent rather than static? What if we work from the assumption that it is something that may lie dormant for many years, even decades or centuries, and then spring into action in unexpected places and for no obvious reasons? If we are to understand the fluent and emergent nature of a movement such as al-Qaeda, we probably need to look beyond the snapshot view of the world and assume that it is an elusive phenomenon that has no substance other than certain actors and links at a given point in time. And what if we assume that whatever it is that is called al-Qaeda (if it can indeed be said to exist at all), is part of a fluid complex set of processes that form, nest and reform? What happens is that the notion of a network is fed into the complex fluid world of Islamist movements (whose activities are mostly unrelated to terrorism). What is taking place is movement between the intangible and the fluid, on the one hand, and the adopted models of organization on the other. The intangible and fluid may be represented in what Danner (2005) calls ‘Al Qaedaism’, which is what may happen when a conspiratorial organization mutates into a worldwide political movement driven by a set of perverted ideas. Danner suggests that we might be talking about ‘viral Al Qaeda’, which he suggests may be carried by next-generation followers who download from the Internet’s virtual training camp their tradecraft in terror. What this illustrates is that a movement may have central elements of rational organization, but connecting organizational processes and ideological processes in various forms may lead to outcomes that go well beyond the power of organization. Danner’s point also underscores how there may be a range of mechanisms which, when connected, represent a latency for something that is not readily expected. The BBC documentary series, The Power of Nightmares, for example, advances the hypothesis that al-Qaeda is more like a fictitious monster myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media, created by Western politicians to restore their power and authority in an age of political disillusionment.

The ‘in-here’ and the ‘out-there’

Al-Qaeda may be a good example of a tangled phenomenon, being an organization that reproduces itself through actions involving many actors. Once ‘tangledness’ is accepted as a term, it becomes possible to circumvent the long standing distinction in the social sciences between the ‘in-here’ and the ‘out-there’. Such a distinction rests on the assumption that only the in-here can be experienced whereas the out-there can only be there, awaiting discovery. Both sides of the divide appear immutable, unable to engage with each other. The entire imagery is rooted in the idea of science being about disconnected, even disinterested, passive entities. In-here lies the subjective, out-there the objective, in-here the soft, out-there the hard and wired.

‘Tangledness’ helps avoid an a priori division between in-here and out-there. ‘A tangled perspective’, as the term is used in this book, assumes that the world out-there may be activated, related to, in some form or other. Rather than representing an actuality, it represents a reservoir of potentialities for how we think and act. These potentialities exist in the form of people, technologies and institutions. Most of them are beyond our immediate reach, in the sense that we cannot do much about them. In fact, most of them cannot be seen or sensed by us; they exist elsewhere in timespace, beyond our field of vision and beyond our experience. Some potentialities, however, can be perceived, although we may not be able to influence them. They may, however, be accessible to us through association and thus brought into the world that we can influence. Having been activated by association, they are thus brought into the realm where we can influence the way that we go about organizing our lives.

For example, while this part of the manuscript was being drafted (September 2005), Hurricane Katrina had just struck the southern US states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Its devastating effects are enormous in social, political, economic, material and human terms. Few of us could have done anything about Katrina and its effects in the USA. However, as we observe its aftermath, we translate the situation as we see it into the world where we exercise influence. For example, there are numerous organizational actors, such as political parties, NGOs, commercial companies, financial institutions, disaster relief organizations and many others, who observe the Katrina aftermath with a view to participation. To be sure what these organizational actors observe out there are a number of realities (such as the rising water levels, the inadequacy of relief resources, etc.) because they represent a range of potential courses of action for those actors. In other words, they are real insofar as they represent potentialities that these actors can relate to and possibly translate into their own spheres of operation. What they observe as rising water levels and material damage is about as real and ‘objective’ as it gets. What may differ greatly between actors are those speculations, inferences and conclusions that they draw about the consequences of Katrina, as well as the hypotheses they develop about the effects of choosing particular courses of action. Such activity may be called ‘educated guesswork’, shaped partly by calculation, partly by past experiences, partly by hope. Nevertheless, it is armed with these calculations, experiences and hopes that the actors may act (or choose not to act) in the Katrina aftermath.

Individuals and organizations have at any time a number of possibilities for engaging with a world of different factors, in which connections may be made in different ways. Over time, what the organization becomes is a result of how it brings external realities into its realm. It ‘is’ in many ways all the various connections it makes, internal as well as external. Thus, organizations are a result of how events have evolved over time, and therefore they ‘are’ the processes that have shaped them. Maybe for this reason, Inspector Clouseau (cited in the Introduction) realized that, without intuition, murder cases cannot be solved. Moving between the models of reality and the complex world in which the models are applied is a journey of incessant interactions between the accessible and the inaccessible.

We commonly use metaphors to understand organizations (Morgan, 1986). To say that metaphors are widespread in organization theory would be an understatement; to say that they form the staple diet of organization theory might be more to the point. Metaphors are terms that cast light on a phenomenon by virtue of association with something familiar to us. Organization theory has accumulated numerous metaphors over the past few decades, such as ‘garbage cans’, ‘networks’, ‘learning’, ‘loose coupling’, ‘organized anarchies’ etc. Morgan (1986) says about metaphors that, although they may be regarded as devices of embellishment, their significance is in fact much greater. The use of metaphors, in Morgan’s view, implies ways of thinking and seeing that pervade how we understand our world generally. Morgan (1986:13) argues further that ‘many of our taken-for-granted ideas about organizations are metaphorical, even though we may not recognize them as such’.

Metaphors are useful because they are manageable ways of coming to grips with the complex and paradoxical phenomena that organizations are. When actors observe a situation they see tangled processes that at the outset have no definite form, but that offer a range of possible interpretations. We may observe the rising water levels in the wake of Katrina, the arrival of rescue teams, the social mechanisms at work, and many other things. And there are the more hard-core facts, such as technical data, money and climate. These may seem individual factors, but they may all be connected to one another by the observer to form a composite picture.

So we are faced with a dual situation which is of our own making. On the one hand, there is a complexity out there, with which we may connect in a range of different ways, and which exists as possible interpretations to us. On the other hand, there is a language (of metaphors) that is largely based on our imagination and habits, which is at our disposal for interpretation. Assuming that this duality is a divide, how do we relate to it? Is it a divide where one side behaves as if the other does not exist? Or is it a divide where the two sides engage with one another? If so, how is that mutual engagement to be depicted?

In organization studies it sometimes seems that only one side or the other is speaking. On the ‘realist’ side, for example, the organizational world is seen to speak through what are referred to as ‘real happenings’. Real happenings are seen as decisive and involve sufficient attention or emotion to have a bearing on what happens in the organization. Accidents, successes, inventions, mergers or failures become occasions for making sense of what happened and, moreover, for constructing a shared understanding of what happened, why it happened and the implications it has for those affected by it. This is how, through narratives for example, organizational identities are constructed (Humphreys and Brown, 2002).

Particularly at early stages of an organization’s life, when there may be less shared and embedded understanding, events may speak directly to participants; they surface from a complex and fluid world that is not yet readily moulded by ready-made metaphors. Carlsen (2006:28) provides a good example in his study of the professional service firm Calculus:

[…] it is important to note that the life enriching drama found in Calculus is a continuous telling rooted in practice. There is no emotionally charged understanding of a ‘we’ here that does not have practice as its referent, and the qualities of unity, purpose and engagement actualize themselves not as much in that which is authored as they do in the process of authoring.

Let us move to ‘the other side’, where socially constructed – and legitimized – models of organizing are assumed to take on increased importance. As organizations grow and become more complex, they take on importance in society and come to depend on the acceptance, support and approval of financial stakeholders; hence, striving for legitimacy increases. It is no accident, for example, that large companies tend to have departments of communication, whereas small companies do not. Legitimacy relates to size and visibility, both of which are results of formalization. At this stage, models of organizing may be adopted and become more influential. This is the stage where recognized metaphors to a greater extent take over as models of organization.

Organizations may be seen to evolve from the small, intimate and localized mode of operating to becoming larger formalized systems with different modes of operating. But when we take a closer look at them, we see both modes taking place continuously; there is always an emergent, nascent, ‘here-and-now’ world alongside a more formalized world governed by metaphors and models of organization. In practice, organizations oscillate between these two modes, between on the one hand the realms of action, experimentation and intuition, and on the other hand the realms of modelling. Latour (1999a:71) argues that we should investigate how the two sides engage in mutual transformation:

Our philosophical tradition has been mistaken in wanting to make phenomena the meeting point between things-in-themselves and categories of human understanding. Realists, empiricists, idealists, and assorted rationalists have fought ceaselessly among themselves around this bipolar model. Phenomena, however, are not found at the meeting point between things and the forms of the human mind; phenomena are what circulates all along the reversible chain of transformations, at each step losing some properties to gain others that render them compatible with already-established centres of calculation.

As a basis for his philosophy, Whitehead assumed that the divide is one between what he called ‘concrete experience’ and ‘abstraction’. Concrete experience, he argued, is of the essence; there is nothing beyond it. However, progress does not come about with concrete experience alone; we need abstractions for experiences to make sense. Hence, much of his efforts were directed at explaining how concrete experience evolves into abstractions. The movement between concrete experience and abstraction is, as Latour points out, a reversible transformation, in the sense that abstractions influence concrete experience as well. Whitehead’s point, however, was that abstractions have a nasty way of taking over from concrete experience, in the sense that they may be mistaken for concrete experience.

For a number of reasons, these two spheres have largely operated separately from one another. Yet, as argued above, organization cannot but be a process of multiple movements between the two – numerous movements between concrete experience and abstraction. This is one reason why Whitehead is central to understanding organization as process.

But the process is not just about the difference between the two worlds. The two worlds do not stay apart; they are brought into contact with one another as the models of organization, or the words and vocabularies, enter and re-enter a world of tangled processes. Therefore the process is not just a matter of translation between two worlds in a linguistic sense. It is about movement and journeying between the two worlds, where the vocabularies or models are entered and re-entered into a fluid...

Table of contents

• Understanding Organization as Process
• Routledge Studies in Management, Organisation and Society
• Contents
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Organization in a tangled world
• 2 Process views of organization
• 3 Alfred North Whitehead on process
• 4 Bruno Latour
• 5 Niklas Luhmann on autopoiesis and recursiveness in social systems
• 6 James March on decision processes and organization
• 7 Karl Weick on organizing and sensemaking
• 8 A scheme for process-based organizational analysis
• 9 Some implications for organizational analysis
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Author index
• Subject index