Organisational Theory Assignment

Baruch Spinoza once said, “The highest activity a human can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free”. Spinoza quoting that understanding leads to freedom – emancipation – can be interpreted as a statement from the perspective of a critical theorist (Green 2004) and if left unchallenged this statement would prove absolute. However, using a modernist perspective it can be argued that understanding would lead to quantification (Hatch, 2006) that could in turn, lead to greater efficiency. Solely from referencing the two theories above and the 2 ways of looking at a single statement we can ascertain that a combination of perspectives gives us a greater understanding than a single perspective.

This essay explores how using a multi perspective approach would provide the individual with a more comprehensive and well ronded understanding to organisations, an increased capacity to understand how to better embrace structure and its implications and the holistic simplification and explaination of cultural effects. It also brings to light the conflicting nature of these theories and its inherant biasness.

The first advantage of using a multi-perspective approach to understanding an organisation would be that it provides us with a more comprehensive and well-rounded understanding to organisations.

This greater understanding begins with the internalisation of the different perspective’s ontology and epistemology, which are the assumptions about the nature of reality and the method in which knowledge is attained respectively (Marianne, 2002). The modernist epistemology is positivism, which states that “truth is discovered through valid conceptualisation and reliable measurement that allows us to test knowledge against an objective world” (Hatch 2006). This translates into categorisation and quantification, which embrace the values of progress and reason. A symbolic-interpretative on the other hand harbours an epistemology of interpretivism, which lends itself to the statement “knowledge can only be created and understood from the point of view of the individuals who live and work in a particular organisation” (Hatch 2006).

Interpretivism includes intangible aspects such as emotions, intuition, and non-verbal communication and as such is highly contested by modernists as being unreliable. From these epistemologies alone, we can derive that using one perspective in particular is incomplete, a human will experience things quantifiable by his 5 senses and also feel and perceive things subconsciously. Integrating just 2 paradigms above already provides us with a more holistic approach. Synthesising a critical theorist’s purpose of revealing the truth, it further strengthens the comprehension of an organisation by providing a self-critical approach to the analysis providing a reflection point of view prompting an unbiased and untainted analysis based on their epistemology of subjectivism.

The combination of these 3 perspectives provides a well-rounded comprehensive view on understanding organisations as it incorporates quantification, qualification and self-reflection.

Due to the increasing complexity and expansion in organisations, the second advantage of using a multi perspective approach is in the increased capacity to understand how to better embrace structure and its implications.

Organisations of recent are getting increasingly more complex due to a multitude of factors that can include globalisation, geopolitical force and expansion. It has been acknowledged by many higher-level management executives that managing this complexity has become a high priority (Nelson, 2006). One way in which a multiple perspective approach can help is in the understanding. One of the factors that would vary with change and complexity is the structure of an organisation. Referencing the purposes of the multiple perspectives to structure, we can make a statement proclaiming that the modernist analyses structure to be better able to control it the symbolic-interpretivists seek to understand it and the post-modernist seeks to prove that structure is non-existent but merely a construct of the mind (Hornett 1998; Hatch 2007). Simplifying this further would lead us to 3 questions; how can we increase efficiency and effectiveness? Why do certain types of organisations respond better? Is structure even necessary or is it a just a way for management to legitimize power? The modernist perspective in structure quantifies and categorises structure. Henry Mintzberg (1981) classified structure into 5 categories: Machine Bureaucracy, Professional Bureaucracy, Simple Structure, Divisional Form and Adhocracy. He claimed that the 3 latter structures are best suited for unstable and turbulent environments and would perform well. These 3 structures when referenced to the Burns and Stalker (1971) ideal organisation types inhabit strong similarities to the organic structure, which is best suited for change (Waldersee 2003). Incorporating the symbolic perspective to structure is highly dependent on the relations of the people within it. Structures are seen as “human creations that are dynamic works-in-progress, which emerge from social interaction and collective meaning making” (Hatch, 2007) and based on their epistemology of interpretivism it is highly contextualised and relative as it can be said that for a structure to be complete, people need to populate it. This population would bring about routines and improvisations, which result in the progression of an organisation. Quoting a personal example, I currently lead the XXXX (an organisation which spans back to XXXX) holding the position of President. This organisation is a subset of the parent organisation, the “Parent XXXX”, with strongly contrasting structures and cultures. The parent club operates in a Mechanistic and Professional bureaucracy with many of the employees being highly specialised at their jobs. The alumni on the other hand is based on network and operates in a organic like adhocracy due to it being network based and its residence in a constantly changing environment that embraces a multitude of new initiatives. The implications of the modernist methods on categorising these structures are that values and characteristics can be pegged to an organisation after analysis. For example, we can peg the values of hierarchy, formalisation, and standardisation to the club and values of creativity, low formalisation and decentralisation to the alumni (Hatch 2007). Synthesising the symbolic-interpretivists view, we can understand the construct of the structure of the club is very highly steeped in routines. The relations of employees are very hierarchical due to the military backgrounds of the employees and these routines can be said to eventually stifle creativity and self-expression that might put them into an iron cage as noted by the post-modernists (Sievers 1986). The alumni on the other hand is vastly different, it embraces more of the post modernist values of de-differentiation, giving more autonomy to the individual enabling him to self manage and work in his chosen teams. Combining the perspectives we can embrace these structures as being different to achieve different purposes. The alumni would not be able to perform the role of the club in the efficiency it is running today with its current structure and vice versa. The understanding of structure in this context gives us greater awareness of the implications of structure. The third advantage of how a multi perspective approach would help in understanding organisations is that it helps simplify and explain cultural effects and its components in a holistic approach.

The diversity of approaches in culture has been explained by the statement “Culture lies at the intersection of several social sciences and reflects some of the biases of each-specifically, those of anthropology, sociology, social psychology, and organisational behavior” –Edgar Schein (1990).

Edgar Schein – a notable cultural anthropologist – classified culture to exist in 3 categories: Artifacts, Values and Basic Assumption (Schein 1990). He noted that the effects of these 3 categories permeated the entire organisation and the study of it was necessary to consult and to “help design organisations” – a modernist point of view. Geert Hofstede another cultural anthropologist quantified culture into 5 dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism/Collectivism, Masculinity/Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance and Long/Short Term Orientation (Hoftese, 1980). His study “has been instrumental in the implementation of many business systems” (Michael 1997), which is another evidence of a modernist perspective. The modernist perspective analyses culture as a tool of management, which can be manipulated to achieve organisational performance (Hatch 2007).

To make an analysis more holistic the other perspectives have to be used. Symbolic-interpretivists strive to elucidate and create meaning in culture; this is directly in line with their epistemology of interpretivism. Symbolic interpretivists adapt a narrative epistemology in the study of culture they denote that knowledge is learned by telling and listening to stories. Similarly, Bakhtin’s theory of Culture as a polyphony states that organisational culture is but a construct of the multitude of voices that work in a polyphony (Gratchev 2011).

Combining these perspectives into a singular approach would broaden our views in seeing that these categories and psychological constructs not only define culture. The effects of narratives within an organisation play a major role in shaping this culture. It allows us to see how organisation culture is not just defined by the management but is also a construct of every participant in this “play”. It essentially anwsers the questions of who these people are, what they believe in, what they say and how they react.

The disadvantages if using a multi-perspective approach is the inherent conflicting views that these perspectives harbour could potentially obscure a clear and concise understanding of an individual.

Beginning with the ontologies, epistemologies and assumptions of each individual perspective conflict is clearly seen from the cornerstones that these theories are built on. Ontologically, reality is said to be present regardless of us knowing in the Modernist and Critical theorist perspectives, constructible on consensus from the Symbolic-interpretivist perspective and an illusion from the post-modernist perspectives (Uba 2002).

Epistemologically, Modernist’s state that knowledge is discovered through measurement and quantification, Symbolic-Interpretivists state that knowledge is discovered through interpretation of meaning, Post-modernist state that discourses create the illusion of knowledge and Critical theorists state that knowledge is tainted by the dominant ideology.

As these perspectives are almost based on the conflict of each other the disadvantage here is that in knowing these bases how does one strive for the best possible outcome? If a solution is picked, is this solution tainted by the dominant ideology of modernism and does it compromise the individuals’ personal ethics and unbiasedness?

The apt use of a multiple perspective approach would require a “distinction of values and limits of divergent perspectives” (Marianne 2002). This distinction is a hard difference to quantify as the multi perspective approach is speckled with the pluralisms and paradoxes of social theory (Poole 1989).

The more in-depth the analysis is conducted into each of these perspectives, the more questions and critiques an individual would conceptualise. These critiques would eventually bring to question the ethical implication of an individual’s actions and thoughts that would in turn give rise to the question “Is this understanding really the correct understanding ?”

To conclude, the multitude of advantages of using a multiple-perspective approach are plenty and profound. Providing a more comprehensive and well-rounded understanding, an increased capacity to understand how to better embrace structure and its implications and the holistic simplification and explaination of cultural effects. This spans the various facets of organisations from structure to culture to the environment an organisation operates in. It helps the individual stretch his perspective and enables him to analyse situations from views he would have not considered before. This being said, the conflict and the parodox between these theories might prove confusing to the individual and would force him to adopt a bias in his understanding. This bias is inevitable and thus must be managed and adopted in accordance to the individuals purpose of understanding.

Word Count: 1890

Bibliography
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