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

[mike cole]

Hi Zlatko--

Thanks for the additional information about the line of work on evolution
of management models you are engaged in with Paul Adler. Notions like
neo-Schumperterian models of organizational and management change are a
novelty for me but the apparent analogies between processes evoked in the
developmental progression your diagrams depict are strongly reminiscent of
similar diagrams in the literature I know about various stage theories of
ontogeny and process of change.

I am not sure you checked out the earlier discussion of socio-technical
systems in the work of Naoki Ueno and his colleagues caught your attention,
but that line of inquiry might provide a bridge between the
organizational/management evolution literature and the lines of reseach
more familiar to xmca readers.

I hope there is followup to the connections your work points to.

mike

On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 3:07 AM, Zlatko Bodrozic <bodrozic@web.de> 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>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Zlatko Bodrožić
>
> Email: bodrozic@web.de
> Tel.:  +381-62-1769594
> Tel.:  +49-172-4712341
>
>