Researching organization ?
JC SpenderLund, ESADE, Queen’s, OUBS, etc.
what’s the question ?
• organization & management• does it matter ?• Morgan’s Images (1986)• machine bureaucracy vs psychic prison• uncertainty & bounded rationality• fetishizing rationality
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what I am doing• taking Herbert Simon - and Frank Knight and
Chester Barnard - seriously• US ?? - European traditions
– Ancients– Arabic– mediaeval– Enlightenment– post-modernism
• managing under conditions of uncertainty• strong indicators
– Nelson & Winter (1982: note, p4)– entrepreneurial research - Cantillon, J-B Say– leadership research - Cicero, Machiavelli– strategy research - von Clausewitz
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my basics
• uncertainty (e.g. bounded rationality)• human response (agency & humanism vs
systems theory)• shaping (leadership)• language and example• contextuality and contingency• management education
• our agenda 10:15 - 15:00– now - 11:30– 11:45 - 12:30 discussion– lunch– 13:45 - 14:30 KBV– 14:30 - 15:00 discussion
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a glance at ‘innovation’
• individual or collective ?• managed or accidental ?• emic vs etic planning
– internal opportunity space vs external space– invention vs demand driven– Kirzner vs Schumpeter
• creativity (humanism) vs analysis (objectivism) • encourage vs manage ?
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talking about uncertainty
• distinguish from certainty, imperfection• alternative epistemologies
– justifications (warrants), JTB– heterogeneity
• objectivism vs interpretivism• ignorance & indeterminacy• Simon’s ‘bounded rationality’• Knight’s ‘risk, uncertainty & profit’• categories of human agency• models of the individual (MoI)• so what about systems theory ?• communication & persuasion
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rhetoric• trivium & quadrivium• contextuality vs universality• persuasion vs proof• action vs theorizing• compartments
– logos– ethos– pathos
• fashioning to context• implicit MoI
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overall project - replace RM with ?
• Simon’s MoI• other MoIs - political, social, talking, playing, etc.• agency - direction vs constraint• docility• constraints
– physical– social– psychological– ?
• language & example
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OK - where are we ?
• uncertainty agency• language and persuasion• leading by example• docility and indoctrination• political, ethical and moral issues• other dimensions of constraint• organization as channeled agency
– rational choice– constrained creative choice
• leadership as constraint management
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some questions
• why would anyone contribute to a firm ?• do markets generate value - or distribute it ?• are leadership and management different ?• what problem does ‘strategy’ solve ?• can there be an economics of knowledge ?• can innovation be managed ?
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KBV as radical theorizing ?
• interplay of microeconomics and OT/OB• dynamic vs equilibrium• attention to uncertainty and K-absences• critique of rationality - ‘bounded rationality’ -
ignorance and ‘indeterminacy’• attention to human agency• leadership, strategy, entrepreneurship• contextual, situated, embedded, contingent
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an ‘economics history’ of the KBV
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BainBain PorterPorter
PenrosePenrose
SimonSimon
RBVRBV
KBVKBV
neoc
lass
ical
KnightKnight
mon
opol
yU
& c
reati
vity
a history of KM• Sci Mgt, bureaucracy, planning, OR & mgt. sci.• EDP IT - appropriation of KM language• post-industrial society (Bell, Reich)
• KM as the mgt of ‘intangible assets’ or ‘intellectual capital’• Solow, Schultz, Becker & human capital theory • Polanyi (1958) - ‘tacit knowledge’ dimension of HC• Penrose (1959) - impact of managerial knowledge (OC)• Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) - SECI generation of OC• Prusak (2001)
– IT cost/benefit– globalization– economics of ‘knowledge’
• white collar deskilling, surveillance society, ownership of capital
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KBV ≢ KM
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Theory of the Firm
Knowledge Management
certaintyrationality
capital
certaintyrationality
capital
uncertaintya-rationality
services
uncertaintya-rationality
services
so what has KM become ?
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IT HRM IPR ToF
KBV ?
how to make sense of KM ?• no possible definition of K, epistemological paradox, no
distinction between K and ~K, • types of knowledge, Greek & mediaeval traditions,
emotions, types of knowing• Ackoff (1989) – D I K W• Polanyi, Tsoukas, Gourlay etc.• Spender (1993)
• Spender (2007) - Data, Meaning & Practice
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individual social
explicit conscious objectified
implicit automatic collective
data, meaning & practice• 3 contrasting epistemologies: realism, interpretivism,
constructivism• distinction (a) -
– objectivism vs. subjectivism, – representationalism vs. idealism
• distinction (b) - – thinking vs. acting
• human agency ?• K-as-data, K-as-meaning, K-as-skilled practice• KM project differences
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subjectivism realism
thinking interpretivism objectivism
acting constructivism
non-agentic ?
capital as economic certainty
• Fisher’s definition• Smith - land, labor & capital• separation and re-attachment• valuing capital• Penrose (1959 p.25)
• knowledge as ‘capital’• human capital - collectively
produced, individually held • social capital - individually
produced, collectively held
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social domain
psychological domain
economic abstractions
organizational capital
• both intangible and tangible valuations are problematic• Penrose effect, transformation of value• economic performance - imputation of ‘capital’• core may be what cannot be measured, the essence of
human agency• ‘Penrose profit’ - created not stolen• organization as evidence of collective agency• ownership ?
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some more questions
• rewarding team production• can transactions costs be compared ?• motivation vs commitment• social institutions, de Soto (2000)• is managing economic processes different from
administration?
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