Contributions published at Organization and Management (David Seidl)

During the last three decades, scholars from communication studies, political science, sociology, cultural anthropology and management science have studied the characteristics and dynamics of meetings from different perspectives. This has resulted in a large, though very fragmented, body of knowledge about meetings and their different functions in the organization. So far, however, this knowledge has not been systematically related to the strategy process. The purpose of this review is to organize the different literatures by identifying the meeting functions (coordination, cognitive, political, symbolic and social) as well as the meeting practices (initiation, conduct and termination practices) and by outlining the impact of meetings on the strategy process. This results in an integrative framework which synthesizes the literature and which serves as a guide for future research.

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Over the last few years research on management consulting has established itself as an important area in management studies. While, traditionally, consulting research has been predominantly a-theoretical, lately researchers have been calling for an exploration of different theoretical approaches. This article has been written in response to these calls. It explores a new perspective for theorizing the client–consultant relationship based on the theory of social systems by Niklas Luhmann. According to this approach, clients and consultants can be conceptualized as two autopoietic communication systems that operate according to idiosyncratic logics. They are structurally coupled through a third system, the so-called ‘contact system’. Due to the different logics of these systems, the transfer of meaning between them is not possible. This theoretical position has interesting implications for the way we conceptualize consulting, challenging many traditional assumptions. Instead of supporting the client in finding solutions to their problems, this perspective emphasizes that consulting firms can only cause ‘perturbations’ in the client’s communication processes, inducing the client system to construct its own meaning from it.

It has often been argued by scholars adopting a practice approach that by focusing on “what people do in relation to strategy” their research would be particularly relevant to practitioners. In response to this assumption, this article draws on a Bourdieusian perspective to argue that most practice-based strategy scholars are unaware of their inevitably “scholastic view” which is the cause for the gap between strategy research and praxis. This unawareness leads to two related fallacies: epistemic doxa and scholastic ethnocentrism. In order to avoid these fallacies, strategy researchers need to develop a particular kind of reflexivity by engaging in what is known as “participant objectivation.” This enables the researcher to generate rigorous research that is conceptually relevant to practitioners—without dissolving the necessary differentiation between strategy research and praxis.

Nicht erst seit der Finanzkrise ist die Verantwortung von Managern und Führungskräften in Unternehmen ein intensiv diskutiertes Thema in öffentlichen Debatten. Gerade im Zuge einer fortschreitenden Globalisierung sehen sich Führungskräfte mit neuen Herausforderungen konfrontiert. Sie müssen versuchen, dem steigenden ökonomischen Druck des weltweiten Wettbewerbs zu begegnen, dabei aber gleichzeitig Mitarbeiter aus verschiedensten kulturellen Hintergründen motivieren und anleiten. Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass sie in ihren Entscheidungen zunehmend weitreichende gesellschaftliche Auswirkungen berücksichtigen müssen, wollen sie den wachsenden Anforderungen ihrer Anspruchsgruppen gerecht werden. Der vorliegende Beitrag beleuchtet die neuen Herausforderungen für Führungskräfte in einer global vernetzten Wirtschaft. Dabei wird der grundsätzlichen Frage nachgegangen: Wer ist verantwortlich für was gegenüber wem? Unter dem Begriff verantwortungsvolle Führung wird dabei ein Führungsverständis eingeführt, das über das dyadische Führer-Geführten-Verhältnis hinausgeht. Verantwortungsvolle Führung bedeutet den Austausch mit den relevanten Anspruchsgruppen zu suchen und konsensfähige Lösungen zu erarbeiten. Ein solches Führungsverhalten kann unter anderem dazu beitragen, die Legitimität des Unternehmens zu sichern und vertrauensvolle Stakeholder-Beziehungen aufzubauen. Dieses Verständnis wird in den Unternehmenskontext gestellt. Dabei werden Einflüsse auf und Auswirkungen von verantwortungsvoller Führung diskutiert sowie ein empirisches Messinstrument entwickelt. Insgesamt bietet der Beitrag Ansatzpunkte für weitere Forschung und Impulse für die Führungspraxis in multinationalen Unternehmen.

This book examines the diffusion process for a complex medical technology, the PET scanner, in two different health care systems, one of which is more market-oriented (Switzerland) and the other more centrally managed by a public agency (the province of Quebec in Canada). More specifically, this research draws on institutional and socio-political theories of the diffusion of innovations to examine how institutional contexts affect processes of diffusion. The study finds that diffusion proceeds more rapidly in Switzerland than in Quebec, but that processes in both jurisdictions are characterized by intense struggles among providers and between providers and public agencies. This study shows that the institutional environment influences these processes by determining the patterns of material resources and authority available to actors in their struggles to strategically control the technology, and by constituting the discursive resources or institutional logics on which actors may legitimately draw in their struggles to give meaning to the technology in line with their interests and values. This book also illustrates how institutional structures and meanings manifest themselves in the context of specific decisions within an organizational field, and reveals the ways in which governance structures may be contested and realigned when they conflict with interests that are legitimized by dominant institutional logics. It is argued that this form of contestation and readjustment at the margins constitutes one mechanism by which institutional frameworks are tested, stretched and reproduced or redefined.

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Over the last few years research on management consulting has established itself as an important area in management studies. While, traditionally, consulting research has been predominantly a-theoretical, lately researchers have been calling for an exploration of different theoretical approaches. This article has been written in response to these calls. It explores a new perspective for theorizing the client–consultant relationship based on the theory of social systems by Niklas Luhmann. According to this approach, clients and consultants can be conceptualized as two autopoietic communication systems that operate according to idiosyncratic logics. They are structurally coupled through a third system, the so-called ‘contact system’. Due to the different logics of these systems, the transfer of meaning between them is not possible. This theoretical position has interesting implications for the way we conceptualize consulting, challenging many traditional assumptions. Instead of supporting the client in finding solutions to their problems, this perspective emphasizes that consulting firms can only cause ‘perturbations’ in the client’s communication processes, inducing the client system to construct its own meaning from it. * © 2009 SAGE Publications. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC

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The current financial crisis has given rise to calls to toughen considerably the codes of corporate governance put in place in many countries to regulate corporate behaviour (e.g. the UK Combined Code). These codes vary slightly in form but tend to contain a mix of non-discretionary regulations and discretionary guidance and information. Almost all such codes embody some variation or other of the comply-or-explain principle. Companies should comply with the rules or explain why they do not. In this way the code framers avoid, or perhaps enable, a one-size-fits-all approach. It is this discretion that governments are under pressure to limit, but little is known about how it is used, in what circumstances, and to what effect? In this paper we report the findings of research carried out in the UK and Germany to investigate the extent to which large public companies comply with the rules, and the attitudes of company directors and legal counsel to using comply-or-explain. We find that positive conformance with codes depends on factors such as the extent to which regulatees are engaged in the formation and revision of the code, and thus feel a sense of ownership; the existence of interested and relevant monitors; and the extent to which soft regulation is a traditional means of control in a domain. We also found that pressure, both internal and external, both real and imagined, can lead to the establishment of a norm of full compliance, with perhaps perverse outcomes, and that in any event the majority of the contents of codes become akin to hard law, where deviation is not considered acceptable. There are however a very small number of rules where temporary deviation may be unavoidable from time to time and where non-compliance accompanied by a valid explanation is accepted.

It has variously been argued that by focussing on ‘what people do in relation to strategy’ strategy research would become relevant to practitioners. This paper puts forth the argument that the gap between strategy research and management practice cannot be resolved just by paying more attention to what strategists really do. Drawing on a Bourdieusian perspective we argue that practice-based scholars who put forward such a view might lack an awareness for their necessarily ‘scholastic view’. This leads to two related fallacies: the fallacy of epistemic doxa (i.e. the unawareness of the scholastic logic) and the fallacy of scholastic ethnocentrism (i.e. the projection of the scholastic logic into the object of research). As a consequence, such research is in danger of producing knowledge that might neither be practically relevant nor even contribute to the advancement of management science. In order to avoid these fallacies researchers need to develop a particular kind of reflexivity by engaging in so-called ‘participant objectivation’. Research based on this reflexivity also has greater chances of having an impact on management praxis as it is likely to resonate with the practical logic of the practitioners. Yet, the actual transformation of academic knowledge into practical knowledge has to be treated as the accomplishment of the practitioner, which is beyond the reach and control of the academic field.

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