Contributions published at Organization and Management (David Seidl)

Strategy-as-practice and neo-institutionalism offer alternative approaches to studying organizations. In this essay, we examine the foundational assumptions and methods of these perspectives, unveiling different ways in which they could complement each other. In particular, we elaborate three areas of overlap: a focus on what actors actually do, their shared cognitions, and the role of language in creating shared meanings. We show how the two perspectives can inform each other and offer significant learning to organization studies more broadly.

This thesis describes two ephemeral groups in the paradigm of relational leader- ship theory. It therefore uses DeRue and Ashord’s Leadership identity process (2010) to describe leadership as a permanent iterative process. This is radically different from many common leadership theories which still see leading as the act of an individual person. Compared to them relational theories have the advantage of being able to describe the observed, simultaneous, instantaneous and dynamic processes. The here presented descriptions shall help to gain a little more insight in the true patterns un- derlying this fascinating social interaction we call leadership.

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Organization studies has recognized the importance of memory and control, but never interrelated these two approaches. Yet most studies on organizational control regard control as a present process in which one party attempts to influence the behavior of another within a given system. With the help of Niklas Luhmann’s notion of social memory this paper questions the possibility of present control within organizations and suggests that control is only possible in the retrospective as organizations are way to complex to control in the present state. Moreover, the paper develops on the basis of a longitudinal in-depth field study how resistance in the context of a communication centered perspective of organizations is conceptualized as refusal of communication and how resistance in such a sense could lead to productive and innovative outcomes.

Scholars have long recognized that organizational routines are sensitive to the context in which they are embedded; yet, little is known about how this embeddedness is generated in the first place and how it is maintained over time. Based on 12-month ethnographic observations, this study examines how routines are embedded in their context and how embeddedness influences the persistence and transformation of routines over time. Our results suggest that the resources that actors draw on to produce, reproduce and change the routine constitute the link between a routine and its context. Embeddedness is thus not a given characteristic of routines, but rather a dynamic process driven by enrolling and dropping out of resources as well as variations induced by change in resources. This perspective emphasizes how context is not only a constraining force, but also a trigger for routine change: We find that strong embeddedness increases variations in individual routine performances, but not in the abstract general pattern of the routine. Furthermore, our results indicate that there is a natural tendency of routines to become increasingly embedded in resources over time.

Taking charge of organizations is a major challenge to new chief executive officers (CEOs). In this paper, we focus on how new newly appointed CEOs manage this challenge and establish their influence in their organizations. Drawing on the longitudinal case studies of eight new CEOs, we identify various managerial practices and processes during the post-succession period. Our findings show that in order to navigate through the dynamic post-succession period, CEOs use various practices in gaining initial acceptance, establishing an inner circle, managing board-relation, adjusting top management team, initiating strategic changes, and shifting management style and attention. We also found that the CEO’s accountability for performance and expectation of strategic change perceived by organizational members characterize the post-succession period a unique context for managerial work and create a space for new CEOs’ actions in their first year in office. The implications of our findings are discussed.

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Scholars have long recognized that organizational routines are sensitive to the context in which they are embedded; yet, little is known about how this embeddedness is generated in the first place and how it is maintained over time. Based on 12-month ethnographic observations, this study examines how routines are embedded in their context and how embeddedness influences the persistence and transformation of routines over time. Our results suggest that the resources that actors draw on to produce, reproduce and change the routine constitute the link between a routine and its context. Embeddedness is thus not a given characteristic of routines, but rather a dynamic process driven by enrolling and dropping out of resources as well as variations induced by change in resources. This perspective emphasizes how context is not only a constraining force, but also a trigger for routine change: We find that strong embeddedness increases variations in individual routine performances, but not in the abstract general pattern of the routine. Furthermore, our results indicate that there is a natural tendency of routines to become increasingly embedded in resources over time.

Being considered legitimate is critical for CEOs to gain support and endorsement in their work. In order to create, maintain or enhance their legitimacy, CEOs rely on various strategies. However, managing legitimacy might be a challenging task for CEOs considering the heterogeneity of audiences who may have competing demands. This paper develops a model that accounts for how CEOs strategically manage their legitimacy when facing a complex network of audiences having distributed interests.

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Based on an in-depth case study investigating the emergence of a normative institution, namely the diesel particulate filter (DPF) as a de facto standard for diesel cars in Germany, this paper develops a dualistic process model of institutional emergence which reflects the fundamental oppositional character of institutional actors involved in a series of framing contests. The proposed model features distinct phases punctuated by turning point mechanisms that shape the process leading to institutional emergence. Three specific turning point mechanisms were identified: local objectification, movement legitimacy and critical actors taking action. This model provides a novel perspective on institutional emergence in that it explains shifts in contestation and the emergence of an institution as a temporal resolution reached through coercion rather than out of a consensus as several institutionalization models assume. The results also suggest that the industry under attack from a social movement tends to deploy buffering strategies in an attempt to protect itself. Finally, we outline future directions for studying processes around contested fields and turning point mechanisms.

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Organizational performance is an important concept in strategy research. In this paper, we interrogate the predominant focus on organizational performance as an aggregate organizational-level dependent variable and review three ways in which its role might be fruitfully reconsidered: (1) broadening consideration of performance to more disaggregated levels of analysis, (2) orienting research around the idea of performance as both input and outcome and finally (3) recasting performance in terms of performativity. We provide examples of research that has adopted each of these alternative approaches. We then examine the contributions and drawbacks of each perspective, before proposing an agenda for future research.

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Strategieworkshops sind im Unternehmensalltag weit verbreitet, ihre Durchführung ist mit hohen Kosten und einem beträchtlichen Zeitaufwand verbunden. Dennoch wurden sie von den Managementwissenschaften als Forschungsgegenstand bisher weitgehend vernachlässigt. Mit der hier vorgestellten Studie liegen zum ersten Mal quantitativ-empirische Ergebnisse dazu vor, wie sich unterschiedliche Ausgestaltungen von Strategieworkshops auswirken. Auf Basis einer branchenübergreifenden Umfrage unter 639 Führungskräften deutscher Unternehmen werden verschiedene Faktoren identifziert, die den Erfolg von Strategieworkshops beeinfussen.