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

[Zlatko Bodrozic]

Hi Mike,

Thanks. Yes, many analogies can be found here. Naoki Ueno's work is an 
important contribution to understanding the connections between social 
and technical processes. MCA's special issue on his work was very 
helpful to get familiar with it. There is also a close connection 
between our paper and  Yrjö Engeström's work & Developmental Work 
Research. I work on a paper to elaborate on that connection.
Kind regards,
Zlatko
> 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
>>
>>

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Zlatko Bodrožić

Email: bodrozic@web.de
Tel.:  +381-62-1769594
Tel.:  +49-172-4712341