[Xmca-l] Re: An article on the evolution of organizational paradigms you might find interesting

[Andy Blunden]

These are fascinating questions, Zlatko. There are lot of 
theories, too, about how the changing technology of 
communication affects psychology, from speech-only, to 
laborious writing techniques like clay tablets and vellum, 
to pen-and-paper, to the printing press, the telephone, the 
email, etc. The impact at the mezo-level, i.e., 
organisations - half way between Psychology and Social 
Theory, is also evident. Artefacts are the material bearers 
of culture after all. Also, I have noticed that the 
evolution of management forms mirrors or more likely, is 
mirrored by, forms of social and political organisation. 
This is a very rich field for cultural psychological research!

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research
On 20/08/2017 8:07 PM, Zlatko Bodrozic wrote:
> Many thanks for your comments, Mike.
>
> Since I was a PhD student I was fascinated by Scribner's 
> (1985) analysis of "Vygotsky's Uses of History,".
> One could say that our paper (and my PhD) was inspired by 
> her article. We study the connection between
> (1) the long-term evolution of technologies
> (2) the long-term evolution of organizational paradigms
> (3) the long-term evolution of  management models
> (4) micro processes of organizational and managerial 
> innovation
> (see the attached figure for a visualization)
>
> For the long-term technological processes, relying on a 
> neo-Schumpeterian framework (Carlota Perez), we study 
> subsequent technological revolutions (railway, steel 
> &electricity, automobile, ICT). We argue that the 
> emergence of a technological revolution in leading 
> industries generates radically new organizational and 
> management problems. The solution to these problems takes 
> the form of a new organizational paradigm 
> (professionally-managed firm, factory, corporation, 
> network). This new paradigm emerges in two cycles. In a 
> first cycle, we see the emergence of a new management 
> model that represents a revolutionary break with the 
> prevailing organizational paradigm (Line-and-staff, 
> Scientific management, Strategy-and-structure, Business 
> process). The appearance of this model typically generates 
> unintended consequences (often related to human problems), 
> which in turn prompt a second cycle that generates another 
> management model that rectifies those dysfunctions and 
> thereby rebalances and stabilizes the new organizational 
> paradigm (Industrial betterment, Human relations, Quality 
> management/organizational culture and learning, Knowledge 
> management).
>
> (The connection to individual human development would be: 
> An organizational expert working in the early 19th 
> century, time-traveling into the present, would first need 
> to master many of the lessons accumulated by the 
> successive paradigms and models of the last century and a 
> half. Each of the models that has left its mark on the 
> overall evolution of management and organization offers a 
> lesson for the individual.)
>
> We clearly see connections between this four processes, 
> and—coming now to your question—we would also argue that 
> there should be connections to the the longer-term 
> evolution of social institutions. Actually, Paul Adler and 
> I currently study the evolution of workplace 
> communities—the fabric of workplace social relations—, and 
> we are confident that we can make a connection to the 4 
> processes mentioned above.
>
> Regarding the question of an "orthogenetic principle": I 
> need to think about this more. What we say in our paper is 
> that the we see indicators of growing complexity of the 
> division of labor, growing interdependence among actors, 
> and increasing scope of the corresponding integration and 
> control efforts. These indicators might be read as related 
> to what Paul Adler (2012) calls the “socialization of 
> production”, but we have to explore this more.
>
> Kind regards, Zlatko
>
>
>> Thank you for this paper, Zlato. We have not heard from 
>> Paul on this list
>> for years, but
>> his work has remained on the horizon. Now you have 
>> brought it back to us in
>> an interesting formulation.
>>
>> I was struck by the parallels between the way you framed 
>> your question and
>> the question that developmental psychologists (perhaps 
>> pedologists,
>> David?):
>>
>>   we argue that technology is a powerful factor shaping 
>> the evolution of
>> management models’ contents
>>
>> a couple of months ago Roy Pea gave a talk at the Piaget 
>> society meetings
>> in which we made a very similar point with respect to the 
>> role of culture
>> in human development. Simplifying brutally, we argued 
>> that new technologies
>> entail changes in social relations that subsequently 
>> change the environment
>> of development for the en-culturating organism. This 
>> formulation, we
>> suggested provided piagetians  to reconcile 
>> contradictions between the
>> biological and the social sides of Piaget.
>>
>> The similarity of the arguments raises a question for me 
>> about principles
>> of development that appear non-accidently related at 
>> different levels of
>> analysis:
>> 'individual organism, individual organism as 
>> constituitive of a social
>> group, the institutional structure of the organism's 
>> environment, the
>> structure of that proximal society and its relation to 
>> the organization of
>> the species of which it is a part. Does some sort of 
>> "orthogenetic
>> principle" apply across different scales of social 
>> processes?
>>
>> Short of that, what are we to make of the "limited" 
>> differences we see in
>> the dynamics of different levels of the system in 
>> relative sychrony,
>> perhaps a crisis, perhaps an opportunity?
>>
>> David has been point toward a sociology and linguistics 
>> to bring together
>> various apparently combinable mode of theorizing a CHAT 
>> account of
>> development that generalizes across scales (themselves 
>> differentially
>> mutable from the perspective of a single human organism). 
>> This work, and
>> that part of Yrjo's work focused on organisms seems to be 
>> pointing in
>> similarly directions. If that it correct, it extends the 
>> links to the study
>> of social institutions, a topic currently of general 
>> interest in the CHAT
>> community.
>>
>> In any events, thanks.
>>
>> mike
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 6:52 AM, Zlatko Bodrozic 
>> <bodrozic@web.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear colleagues,
>>>
>>> some of you might find our paper (co-authored with Paul 
>>> Adler) on the
>>> historical evolution of management models and 
>>> organizational paradigms
>>> interesting. We published it this year in Administrative 
>>> Science Quarterly.
>>> While it is based on a Neo-Schumpeterian framework 
>>> (Schumpeter, Freeman,
>>> Perez),  it was equally informed by cultural-historical 
>>> activity theory.
>>> You can download a copy by using the link below, and we 
>>> would be delighted
>>> to get any reactions to it that you might share with us.
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Zlatko Bodrožić and Paul Adler
>>>
>>> Bodrozic, Z., and P.S. Adler (forthcoming) The Evolution 
>>> of Management
>>> Models: A Neo-Schumpeterian Theory. /Administrative 
>>> Science Quarterly/
>>> Download 
>>> <http://www-bcf.usc.edu/%7Epadler/research/models.pdf>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>