Contributions published at Organization and Management (David Seidl)

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In this chapter, we compare Routine Dynamics and Strategy as Practice based on an extended literature review. Routine Dynamics and Strategy as Practice are distinctive communities of thought in organization studies that exhibit a number of striking parallels: both subscribe to the overall “practice turn” in the social sciences, seek to bring the human being back in, and focus predominantly on the level of action involved in organizational routines and strategy, respectively. In our comparison of similarities and differences of Routine Dynamics and Strategy as Practice, we focus on their empirical domains, underlying theoretical perspectives, research frameworks, levels of analysis, and empirical methods employed. Based on that, we discuss what Routine Dynamics can learn from Strategy as Practice and vice versa. We conclude with some general reflections on the future relation between the two research communities and develop an agenda for future research that facilitates cross-fertilizations between the two research communities.

This chapter offers an introduction to Routine Dynamics as a particular approach to studying organizational phenomena. We provide a brief description of the genealogy of research on routines; starting with the work of the management scholar Fredrick Taylor (1911) and the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey (1922) at the beginning of the last century, to the works of the Carnegie School on standard operating procedures around the middle of the last century, to the economics-based Capabilities approach and finally the practice-based approach of Routine Dynamics around the turn of the century. We also discuss the advantages of conceptualizing patterns of action as “routines”, as compared to “practices”, “processes”, “activities” or “institutions”. In particular, we highlight that the concept of routines directs the researcher’s attention to certain specificities of particular action patterns, such as task orientation, sequentiality of actions, recurrence and familiarity as well as attempts at reflexive regulation. We also introduce and explain the key concepts of the Routine Dynamics perspective and how they have developed over time.

The epistemological question of how management research can impact management practice is of central concern to management scholars. This question has been the subject of a long-standing discussion about the status of management studies as an applied science, the so-called relevance debate. In this chapter, we discuss the relation between management research and practice from the perspective of the “descriptive” stream of the practical relevance literature, analyzing the forms and conditions of practical relevance in epistemological terms. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s sociology of science, we start with a characterization of research as self-referential communication and discuss its most fundamental implication for the question of practical relevance: the impossibility of a linear transfer of research results to practice. Based on this, we discuss the ways in which management research can impact management practice and indicate a number of implications for the relation between research and practice.

In this short paper we address two central questions prompted by the developments of the current Covid-19 crisis: (1) Why do some practice in crisis situations change quickly and radically while others remain apparently stable? (2) How does the fact that some practice changes are meant to be only temporary affect their performance and to what extent is it possible to go back to the earlier practices in a meaningful sense after the crisis? We answer these questions with recourse to the structures of practices. On the one hand, there are the internal organizing principles of the focal practice and on the other hand there are the external relations of the focal practice to other practices around it. Based on our argument we develop an agenda for future research on the structures of practices.

This chapter develops the practice-driven institutionalist perspective by introducing the concept of “restless practices.” Drawing on the practice theory of Theodore Schatzki, the authors distinguish practices by their “teloi”: some practices are devoted to replication, others are restlessly aimed at change. These restless practices are themselves composed of constitutive practices orientated toward “collecting,” “selecting” and “directing.” The authors illustrate restless practices and their constitutive practices by drawing on examples from consulting and standard-setting, both repeatedly generators of purposive, field-level change. The authors conclude that practice-driven institutionalism can accommodate change originating both from local improvisatory activities on the ground and from the designs of restless practices oriented toward fields at large.

This chapter introduces two core notions from Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory to paradox studies. Specifically, it offers the notions of decision paradox and deparadoxization as potential generative theoretical devices for paradox scholars. Drawing on these devices, the paper shifts focus to the everyday and mundane nature of decision paradox and the important role of deparadoxization (i.e. generating latency) in working through paradox. This contribution comes at a critical juncture for paradox scholarship, which has begun to converge around core theories, by opening up additional and possibly alternative theoretical pathways for understanding paradox. These ideas respond to recent calls in the literature to widen our theoretical repertoire and aligns scholarship more closely with the rich, pluralistic traditions of paradox studies.

Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems is based on two revolutionary ideas: firstly, that the social world should be conceptualized as consisting of nothing but communications; and secondly, that communications are produced not by human beings but by the network of communications of which they are part. We discuss the insights that can be gained by applying this theory to the study of strategic management. We show that it leads to a reconceptualization of central issues concerning strategy process, strategy content, and strategy context. On this basis, we offer an outline of a framework for studying strategic management from a Luhmannian perspective. This new framework highlights the paradoxical nature of strategizing and conceptualizes strategic management as meta-communication in organizations.

The focus of this paper is on UK Code compliance and the contests and confusions that have surrounded its principle of ‘comply or explain’. In contrast to many agency theory‐informed studies, the paper suggests that visible compliance with the Code cannot itself be taken as a reliable proxy for board effectiveness. Instead, drawing upon Foucault's account of governance as subjection, we argue that, as a form of board accountability, visible compliance can only support the Code's primary objective of establishing norms which shape the conduct of directors within boards. The contests and confusions as to the meaning of comply or explain are then explored in terms of the challenge regulators have faced, throughout the subsequent life of the Code, in respecting the freedom of action of directors, whilst nevertheless seeking to influence how this is exercised. The paper first explores three key moments in the evolution of the UK Code: the initial Cadbury committee two‐page ‘Code of Best Practice’ in 1992, the more prescriptive 2003 post‐Enron changes to the UK Combined Code following the Higgs review, and the retreat from such prescription in the 2010 changes to the Code. This is complemented by drawing on qualitative empirical research to describe three very different ‘subject positions’—refusal, cynical distance, and willing embrace—which directors have come to adopt in response to the Code. The paper concludes by pointing to the very different consequences for actual board effectiveness implied by these contrasting, but largely invisible, responses to the Code.

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Over the last few years, strategy researchers have witnessed a new trend in the practice of strategy development towards more openness – both in terms of increasing transparency about the strategy process and in terms of including a wider range of actors in the formulation of strategy. While collecting data in various organizations, we have observed how differently organizations approach and implement ‘Open Strategy’ in practice. At this year’s SMS, we therefore took the opportunity to convene a diverse practitioner panel to gain practical insights into the different participation practices of AXA UK, IBM and Wikimedia. The panelists consisted of influential practitioners who openly shared and discussed both best practices and challenges. It was extremely interesting to see how differently ‘Open Strategy’ is put into practice while ultimately leading to similar effects and learnings.

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In this paper, we compare Routine Dynamics (RD) and Strategy as Practice (SAP) based on an extended literature review. RD and SAP are distinctive communities of thought in organization studies that exhibit a number of striking parallels: both subscribe to the overall “practice turn” in the social sciences, want to bring the human being back in, and predominantly focus on the level of action involved in organizational routines and strategy. However, in spite of all the obvious parallels and points of connection between RD and SAP communities, there hasn’t been any systematic comparison of these two research streams. Against this background, we compare similarities and differences of RD and SAP, focusing in turn on their underlying theoretical perspectives, their treatment of the relation between micro and macro and the empirical methods employed. Based on that, we discuss what RD can learn from SAP and vice versa. We conclude with some general reflections on the future relation between the two research communities and develop an agenda for research areas of possible “cross-fertilizations” in future research.

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