Contributions published at Organization and Management (David Seidl)

In den letzten Jahren ist wieder der Ruf nach mehr Praxisrelevanz der Betriebswirtschafts- bzw. Managementlehre laut geworden. Unter relevanter Forschung wird dabei in der Regel eine Forschung verstanden, die letztlich zu instrumentellem Wissen führt, das in der Unternehmenspraxis einsetzbar ist. Eine solche, auf Entwicklung instrumentellen Wissens ausgerichtete Forschung wird auch als technologische Forschung bezeichnet – im Gegensatz zur theoretischen Forschung. Während es in der theoretischen Forschung um „Aufklärung“ geht, d.h. um Erklärung von Zusammenhängen, geht es bei der technologischen Forschung um „Steuerung“ bzw. „Gestaltung“. Theoretische Aussagen sind Aussagen über Ursache-Wirkungs-Beziehungen, technologische Aussagen betreffen dagegen Mittel-Zweck-Beziehungen. In diesem Beitrag wollen wir darlegen, dass theoretische und technologische Aussagenzusammenhänge zwei eigenständige Forschungszweige darstellen und damit die Notwendigkeit erwächst, eine eigene Methodologie technologischer Aussagenzusammenhänge zu entwerfen. Es sollen Ansatzpunkte aufgezeigt werden, wie eine solche Methodologie technologischer Aussagenzusammenhänge aussehen kann. Dabei wird auch der Frage nach der Wissenschaftlichkeit technologischer Forschung nachzugehen sein.

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Die Unternehmenspraxis ist nicht nur durch Vertragsgestaltungen, monetäre Anreizsysteme und erst recht nicht durch optimale Entscheidungen im Sinne der Entscheidungslogik geprägt. Wenn man einen realistischen Eindruck von der Praxis der Unternehmen und der Unternehmensführung vermitteln will, rückt die Politik in und von Unternehmen, die begrenzten Informationskapazitäten der Entscheider, die vielfältigen Wirkungszusammenhänge zwischen Strategien, Zielen, Strukturen und Personen in den Vordergrund. Davon handelt dieses Buch. Die Autoren beschreiben eine Führungslehre, welche systematisch die Offenheit der Zukunft in den Mittelpunkt rückt und zugleich auf eine Vielzahl wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen zurückgreift. Der dadurch ermöglichte differenzierte Blick hilft den Akteuren, sich in der Unternehmenspraxis besser zurechtzufinden.

In this paper we have argued for a new conceptualisation of strategic foresight. The existing approaches are largely based on too simple a concept of future. It is usually assumed that one is able to conceptualise already in the present all possible future developments. We contrast this with the concept of a 'radically open' future, which might develop in ways which go beyond of what our cognitive categories allow us to conceptualise. Drawing on linguistic philosophy it is shown how our thinking and communicating is limited by our linguistic categories. Strategic foresight from this perspective is largely concerned with the adjustment of the linguistic system to novel developments of the world. This requires openness towards new linguistic categories. Drawing on the philosophical concepts of 'anticipating critique' by Paul Feyerabend and 'occasional reason' by Helmut Spinner we try to show how such openness can be accomplished.

Using comparative case studies, this paper shows how institutional contexts influence the process of diffusion of a complex technology by determining the pattern of material resources and authority available to actors in their struggles to control the technology, and by constituting the discursive resources that may be mobilized in their struggles to shape its meaning in preferred ways. The paper also reveals how governance structures may be contested and realigned when they conflict with interests legitimized by dominant institutional logics. This form of contestation and adjustment constitutes one mechanism by which institutional frameworks are tested, stretched and reproduced or redefined.

Over the last two decades a new approach to consulting has been established that is referred to as “systemic consulting”. This approach to consulting seems to exist almost exclusively within the German-speaking consulting. Systemic consulting is a clearly differentiated approach that has long occupied a rather insignificant niche in the consulting market. In contrast to traditional approaches, systemic consultants emphasize the self-referential logic of the client, acknowledging the limits of any attempts at direct intervention. In line with this position, consultants believe that their role is not to support clients to find solutions to their problems, but rather to cause perturbations in the clients’ internal processes in order to break up their pathological structures. While this approach has received a lot of attention in the German-speaking countries, particularly among academics, it is almost unknown elsewhere. The chapter examines this systemic approach, drawing out its strengths and limitations. For this purpose, its two central theoretical roots are highlighted: the family therapy of the so-called “Milan school” and the theory of social systems developed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. The chapter is structured in four sections. The first two sections present the two central pillars of the systemic approach. The third section examines the systemic consulting approach and the last section of the chapter discusses its strengths and limitations.

Many recent studies have voiced the growing concern that the body of knowledge that springs from organisation science is hardly taken notice of in management practice. In most of the existing literature one can identify three main reasons for the observable lack of connection between organisation research and practice: research is not sufficiently focused on the ‘real’ problems of practitioners, research results are not properly disseminated to practitioners and the language of science is not properly translated into the language practitioners use. The underlying assumption is that if scientists redressed these shortcomings their findings would be utilised by practitioners and thus the gap between theory and practice would be bridged. The aim of this chapter is to contrast this recent debate on the relation between science and practice with an analysis from the perspective of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems. According to this perspective, the lack of any transfer of scientific knowledge to practice needs to be understood as the inevitable result of the differentiation between organisation science and the so-called ‘management practice’, which function according to different logics. This impedes the transfer of knowledge from the field of science to that of practice. Hence, from this perspective the practical irrelevance of management science is not a problem that can be resolved. On the contrary, only because of this differentiation, and thus, the impossibility of any direct transfer of meaning, can science be as productive as it is. The idea of organisation studies as an ‘applied science’ is a mere illusion.

Der vorliegende Beitrag kommentiert Luhmanns Vorschlag zur Reformulierung der entscheidungstheoretischen Grundlagen vor dem Hintergrund der neueren Entwicklungen im Bereich der betriebswirtschaftlichen Entscheidungsforschung. Zunächst werden die Umstellung auf Komplexität als Leitbegriff der Entscheidungstheorie sowie die Aufhebung der Unterscheidung zwischen Entscheidung und Entscheidungssituation als zentrale Beiträge der Luhmannschen Ausführungen herausgestellt, die auch für die heutige Forschung noch von besonderem Interesse sind. Im Anschluss daran befasst sich der Beitrag mit den Besonderheiten kollektiver Entscheidungen, die in den Luhmannschen Ausführungen nicht klar genug gegenüber Individualentscheidungen abgegrenzt werden. Desweiteren wird die besondere Rolle sozialer Komplexität als zentraler Aspekt der Entscheidungstheorie herausgestellt, der in den Luhmannschen Ausführungen lediglich angesprochen aber nicht ausreichend thematisiert wird. Abschließend würdigen wir nochmals die spezifische Bedeutung der Luhmannschen Theorievorschläge für die heutige Entscheidungsforschung.

Spätestens seit der Subprime-Finanzkrise mit den sie begleitenden Unternehmesskandalen, Korruptionsaffären und Fehlverhalten durch Manager ist der Ruf nach verantwortungsvoller Führung eine der zentralen Herausforderungen von Unternehmenslenkern. Dabei ist unklar was unter einer verantwortungsvollen Führung zu verstehen ist. Wie ist sie unter den Bedingungen der Globalisierung zu fassen, wie kann sie entwickelt und umgesetzt werden? Die Diskrepanz zwischen gewinnzielorientierten Lösungsvorschlägen und traditionellen Ethikkonzepten trägt darüber hinaus massgeblich zur Verunsicherung bei. Der vorliegende Beitrag verknüpft die ökonomische Analyse mit einer ethisch-politischen Perspektive und liefert so ein ganzheitliches Verständnis für die neuartige Problemkonstellation moderner Führung. Anhand zweier Fallstudien werden die Entstehungsbedingungen der neuen Führungsherausforderungen im globalen Wirtschaftsprozess illustriert. Diese finden Eingang in die Entwicklung eines Konzeptes politischer Führungsverantwortung, welches die Anforderungen an ein erfolgreiches wirtschaftliches Handeln nicht aus den Augen verliert.

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This paper addresses the recent turn in strategy research to practice-based theorizing. Based on a data set of 51 meeting observations, the paper examines how strategy meetings are involved in either stabilizing existing strategic orientations or proposing variations that cumulatively generate change in strategic orientations. Eleven significant structuring characteristics of strategy meetings are identified and examined with regard to their potential for stabilizing or destabilizing existing strategic orientations. Based on a taxonomy of meeting structures, we explain three typical evolutionary paths through which variations emerge, are maintained and developed, and are selected or de-selected. The findings make four main contributions. First, they contribute to the literature on strategy-as-practice by explaining how the practice of meetings is related to consequential strategic outcomes. Second, they contribute to the literature on organizational becoming by demonstrating the role of meetings in shaping stability and change. Third, they extend and elaborate the concept of meetings as strategic episodes. Fourth, they contribute to the literature on garbage can models of strategy-making.

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The aim of this article is to provide a new theoretical perspective on the possibilities for clients to manage their consultants. The existing perspectives on managing consultants share the voluntaristic assumption that in principle it is possible to manage the consultant–client relationship. In this article we introduce a new and opposed systemic perspective. From a systems-theoretical point of view, 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”, which itself constitutes a separate system. Due to the different logics of the three systems there is a barrier to the transfer of meaning between them. Consequently, the possibilities of any kind of direct and intentional intervention by clients in the consultant system appear limited. Hence, a different, more moderate concept of intervention is needed. For that we draw on Helmut Willke’s concept of “contextual guidance”: instead of any direct interventions in the consultant system, the systemic perspective (1) points to the necessity for self-guidance on behalf of the client and (2) directs interventions to the context of the contact system.

Recently there has been a growing concern amongst organisation and management scholars about the practical relevance of their research. Yet, although many researchers talk about ‘relevance’ they hardly ever define what they mean by that. The term itself has different meanings, which often even contradict each other. This ambiguity is problematic as it implies different and even conflicting relationships between science and practice. Consequently, the various contributions to the debate on ‘relevance’ cannot meaningfully be related to each other before the underlying notions of relevance are clarified. This is particularly critical when it comes to questions about research policy: different notions of relevance lead to different policy recommendations. In this paper we try to elucidate the concept of relevance by developing a taxonomy of different forms of relevance. In addition to that, we assess the extent to which the different forms of relevance fit with the logic of science, and consequently what forms of relevance can justifiably be expected from organisation and management studies.

Despite the attention that strategic change as a topic of research has received, there remain considerable difficulties in conceptualizing the actual sources of strategic change. Using the concept of strategic episodes, this paper develops an endogenous theory of change, where the sources of change are located in the organization itself. We argue that processes of organizational reproduction lead to inconsistencies which manifest themselves as conflicting demands on those working in the organization. Such inconsistencies have the potential to place considerable strain upon the actors experiencing them but we argue that organizations possess suppression mechanisms which prevent the organization from openly dealing with the tensions that these inconsistencies would introduce. Hence, these suppression mechanisms are not a deficiency of the organization but are in fact, crucial for its very functioning. The paper examines strategy workshops as episodes which suspend these organizational suppression mechanisms so that previously experienced inconsistencies can be voiced. We therefore build an explanation of strategic change where inconsistencies are not so much solved by bringing in new principles, rules or schemas from outside, but by the novel rearrangement or recombination of existing or previous aspects of the organization. We examine three case studies of strategy workshops and observe that the process of strategic change typically involves several consecutive workshops before significant changes are carried beyond the workshop environment and into ongoing organizational process.

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