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Understanding Reality’s Production: On methodology and method

 

It is that methods, their rules, and even more methods’ practices, not only describe but also help to produce the reality that they understand. (Law, 2004, p. 5; emphasis in original)

 

The implication of John Law’s assertion – that methods are generative in addition to being indicative and connotative – suggests that in selecting a methodology and its associated paradigm, a researcher assumes a considerable responsibility. In making his case Law argues for a complexity approach to understanding processes in the real world, noting that imposing an arbitrary order via one theoretical model or other imposes limitations and restrictions that may constrain the world to “behave” in the particular way the model suggests (and therefore enable it to be successfully modeled as conceived by the researcher or theorist). However, a successful characterization of any particular phenomenon does not necessarily mean that the world’s processes are best described by that model, or that another model might not provide an equally accurate, compelling, reasonable, or useful frame through which one can better understand any arbitrary slice of reality. He writes:

 

What is important in the world including its structures is not simply … [that they are] complex in the sense that they are technically difficult to grasp (though this is certainly often the case). Rather, they are also complex because they necessarily exceed our capacity to know them. No doubt local structures can be identified, but, or so I want to argue, the world in general defies any attempt at overall orderly accounting. The world is not to be understood in general by adopting a methodological version of auditing. Regularities and standardisations are incredibly powerful tools but they set limits. Indeed, that is a part of their (double-edged) power. And they set even firmer limits when they try to orchestrate themselves hegemonically into purported coherence. (Law, 2004, p. 6)

 

Law draws on Latour and Woolgar’s seminal, 1986 examination of how scientific facts are produced in the context of “laboratory life” to make the argument that science produces the realities that it describes. This is not an arbitrary, “anything goes” epistemology, but rather the product of a rigorous and difficult process of what I describe as “adding to the cultural compendium of wisdom” (Federman, 2007). Heterogeneous research practices and diverse contexts contributed by both researchers and participants produce heterogeneous perspectives and interpretive realities – both of which are, arguably, imaginary constructs – that nonetheless manifest in multiple real effects and consequences. Law then proceeds to suggest that “perhaps there may be additional political reasons for preferring and enacting one kind of reality rather than another” (p. 13; emphasis in original).

 

   In considering the researcher’s responsibility in his or her knowledge contribution, these “ontological politics,” as Law calls them, loom large, especially in the context of both affecting and effecting human behaviours in social settings. Peter Drucker differentiates between natural laws that operate irrespective of humanity’s often limited ability to understand and describe them, and the basic assumptions held by the particular select group of researchers and practitioners that,

 

…largely determine what the discipline assumes to be reality. … For a social discipline such as management, the assumptions are actually a good deal more important than are the paradigms for a natural science. The paradigm – that is, the prevailing general theory – has no impact on the natural universe. Whether the paradigm states that the sun rotates around the earth or that, on the contrary, the earth rotates around the sun has no effect on sun and earth. A natural science deals with the behavior of objects. But a social discipline such as management deals with the behavior of people and human institutions. Practitioners will therefore tend to act and to behave as the discipline's assumptions tell them to. Even more important, the reality of a natural science, the physical universe and its laws, do not change (or if they do only over eons rather than over centuries, let alone over decades). The social universe has no ‘natural laws’ of this kind. (Drucker, 2001, p. 69-70)

 

The researcher constructs a system of meaning through which sense is made of perceptions and lived experiences. Those who hearken to the researcher’s findings may rationalize behaviours in themselves and others that become reflexively justified according to those interpretations. Karl Weick (2001) argues that normative behaviours in a social setting create interpretations of events that become reified in social relationships, and subsequently crystallize into organizations. Over time, interpretive justifications of events become based on these social expectations of behaviour rather than on individuated reasons. The combination of justification processes and expectations create the effect of self-fulfilling prophesies, as well as self-perpetuating conceptions of reality.

 

In constructing his “Position Paper for Positivism,” Lex Donaldson (2003) recognizes that such sense-making underpins social constructionism which explains “micro-level processes whereby organizational members behave and bring about organizational changes” (p. 124). However, he dismisses the validity of constructionism as an appropriate research paradigm for organizational studies in favour of “a superior, more objective view that the analysts can help actors attain through de-reification … [of] the common sense of people at a specific time about their organization” (p. 125). The value of a positivist approach, Donaldson argues, is that it seeks to explain social interactions in a deterministic manner, based on testable hypotheses that can be deduced from theories, the consequences of which can be observed empirically. Seeming to ignore Drucker (let alone Latour and Woolgar), Donaldson contends that the objective of positivism is,

 

…seeking to build a science of social affairs of a broadly similar type to natural science. The success of the natural sciences provides an inspiration and role model for positivist social science. Positivist social science aims for theoretical generalizations of broad scope that explain social affairs as being determined by causes of an objective kind that lie in the situation rather than in the minds of people. (Donaldson, 2003, p. 117)

 

Donaldson, a major proponent of structural contingency theory (1985, 1995), contends that individuals are effectively constrained by their situations, deterministically responsive to external conditions, and that the collective behaviours of an organization’s members are shaped by material and social-environmental factors. The deterministic conclusion that Donaldson draws leads him to assert that “reliable, scientific knowledge about social affairs will be built most rapidly by following the positivist approach” (2003, p. 117), which is based on “systematic inquiry through rigorous empirical research, [that] can yield knowledge that is superior to common sense” (p. 118).

 

Thus, positivism is grounded in a phenomenological understanding of organizations as “concrete, stable, and identifiable entities with distinctive boundaries that can be described and analyzed, using appropriate research methodologies” (Chia, 1996, p. 143). The positivist approach assumes that:

 

…(a) ‘objective’ reality can be captured; (b) the observer can be separated from the observed; (c) observations and generalizations are free from situational and temporal constraints, that is, they are universally generalizable; (d) causality is linear, and there are no causes without effects, no effects without causes; and (e) inquiry is value free. (Hassard, Kelemen, & Wolfram Cox, 2008, p. 143)

 

Is a positivist approach appropriate for answering the research questions posed in the previous chapter? If one reads the historical argument presented in that chapter as technological determinism[1], a positivist-informed contention logically follows: that the nature of UCaPP organizations should be obtainable through positivist means. However, if one instead chooses to interpret history through the lens of complexity as multifaceted societal and cultural interactions that propagate through a multiplicity of human feedback and feedforward networks, it is difficult to see how positivist assumptions might apply in any but the most simplistic of analyses.

 

More specifically in the context of the current project, contemporary BAH organizations that are predominantly functionalist and instrumental in their foci exist along side UCaPP organizations, and have been explained in various contingency theory terms using positivist methods. Is it reasonable to conclude that positivism is an adequate investigatory framework to simultaneously explain these two, diametrically polar organizational incarnations? The question is especially salient when one realizes that both organizational forms exist in the midst of the same social “causes of an objective kind that lie in the situation,” to use Donaldson’s language (2003, p. 117), apparently denying the foundational premise of contingency theory[2].

 

As useful as positivist approaches may be in certain contingent contexts, understanding the nature and characteristics of UCaPP organizations, and the influences and emergent processes that may effect transformations from BAH to UCaPP and vice versa, necessarily requires other methods derived from a different worldview:

 

Social construction, or constructivist philosophy, is built on the thesis of ontological relativity, which holds that all tenable statements about existence depend on a worldview, and no worldview is uniquely determined by empirical or sense data about the world. (Patton, 2002, p. 97; emphasis in original)

 

This preceding argument highlights the importance of assuming a constructivist^[3] standpoint when attempting to understand individual and collective interpretations of experiences and events. The primary ontological assumptions of constructivism, can be summarized as follows: (a) truth is formed by consensus among “informed and sophisticated constructors, not of correspondence with objective reality” (Patton, 2002, p. 98); (b) facts have meaning only within the context of a framework of values that are imposed on any assessment of apparently objective discriminants; (c) supposed causes relate to effects only by being so ascribed; (d) events have meaning only within a context; changing the context will change the meaning and effect of a given occurrence, rendering the process of generalizing dubious at best; and (e) constructivist inquiry yields results that have no special legitimacy over any other, but contribute to the complex emergence of experienced reality (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, p. 44-45).

 

One must remain cognizant of the problematics and limitations of constructivism when attempting to understand newly emergent phenomena like those of the UCaPP world. On the one hand, “constructivism assumes the relativism of multiple social realities, recognizes the mutual creation of knowledge by the viewer and the viewed, and aims toward interpretive understanding of subjects’ meanings” (Charmaz, 2000, p. 510). Michael Quinn Patton describes it this way:

 

Because human beings have evolved the capacity to interpret and construct reality – indeed, they cannot do otherwise – the world of human perception is not real in an absolute sense, as the sun is real, but is ‘made up’ and shaped by cultural and linguistic constructs. … What is defined or perceived by people as real is real in its consequences. (Patton, 2002, p. 96; emphasis in original)

 

On the other hand, reality that is perceived and constructed according to a well-entrenched contextual ground is, de facto, the interpretive lens through which one interprets all subsequent events and actions, irrespective of any as-yet-unperceived changes in the dynamics of the ground that created the meaning in the first place.  A way to reconcile this apparent paradox of constructivism – that the effects of individually perceived reality may persist long past the time when the circumstances that constructed said reality have substantially changed – may be through the application of a complexity model as suggested earlier by Law. Indeed, constructivism is quite consistent with the principles of complexity theory as outlined by Paul Cilliers’s characterization of complex systems, if the system in question is a system of meaning.

Read on: Complex Systems of Meaning

 

Complex Systems of Meaning

 

Cilliers (2005) provides a concise, but useful, summary of complex systems framed in the context of their applicability to organizations. Complex systems are comprised of a large number of elemental components, any (or all) of which may be simple. These elements exchange information via interactions, the effects of which propagate throughout the system. Because complex systems – and in particular, systems that are interconnected via a network – contain many direct and indirect feedback loops, interactions are nonlinear with non-proportional effects. This means that seemingly small interactions may have quite substantial effects throughout the system, and what appear to be substantial interactions may have quite insignificant system-wide effects. Complex systems are open with respect to their environment, which means that there are continuous information exchange processes among the system, its components, and their mutual environment.

 

Complex systems also possess memory – a history of interactions, exchanges and effects – that is distributed throughout the system, and influences the behaviour of the system. This memory is significant: the behaviour of the system is determined by the nature (effects) of the interactions, not by the content of the components. Hence, the overall system’s behaviour is unpredictable based on an understanding of the components’ individual behaviours alone. The resultant patterns of system behaviour are called emergence, and refute models predicated exclusively on deterministic causality. Finally, complex systems are adaptive, and can reorganize their internal structure based on information exchange, as opposed to the action of an external agent (Cilliers, 2005, p. 8-9).

 

Weick (2001) cites Gergen’s (1982) three principles of constructivism that I recount here, with particular points of comparison with complex systems emphasized: (a) as events occur, they change the emerging current context from which both earlier and subsequent events have meaning; (b) the reference against which the interpretation of any event is contextualized is itself the product of a network of interdependent events and interpretations, often mutually and collectively negotiated among a network of people; (c) as a consequence of the previous two principles, the meaning of any given event is interpreted differently by different people, with collectively agreed meaning being achieved through processes of consensus, or the exercise of power (Weick, 2001, p. 10).

 

Complex systems are often described in mathematical terms using Henri Poincaré’s topological approach. In mathematics, and particularly in topology, solutions to sets of nonlinear equations are often depicted as sets of curves drawn through an n-dimensional phase space, where n represents the number of variables in the equations. A point that “travels” along one of these curves defines the state of the system at any time; its movement over time is called its trajectory[4]. The trajectory of the point is called an attractor, with three topologically distinct forms: point (a system that eventually reaches stable equilibrium, representing the end of change and growth; i.e., death), periodic, meaning a system that has regular oscillations between two states, and strange that applies to chaotic systems such as those characterized by Cilliers as exhibiting properties of complexity.

 

Strange attractors tend to create distinct patterns of trajectories for a given system, although the precise location of a point in phase space at a particular time cannot be accurately determined. This means that the system is non-deterministic – its future state cannot be accurately predicted from its past state(s). Substantial changes in the type, shape, or existence of an attractor, corresponding to substantive changes in the nature of the defining parameters (e.g., contextual ground of the system), is called a bifurcation point, and marks a state of instability from which a new order of greater complexity can emerge (Capra, 1996).

 

Now, consider a system of meaning, such as that typically described as emerging from empirical observations analyzed according to a particular research paradigm. Constructivism holds that people confer meaning onto their lived experiences by virtue of a complex intermingling of individual and collective past experiences that provide context – in other words, the system’s history – to current perceptions of events. A (contingently) stable meaning or interpretation can be considered to be an emergent property of that system of lived experiences. In complexity terms, that stable meaning can be described as one point along a trajectory of meaning that travels through a phase space defined by a set of parameters that might include individual history and memory, group history or collective memory, consensus processes, cultural influences, normative behaviours of one or more social networks, and other similar factors, forces and causes[5].

 

A person’s constructed reality, that is, the trajectory of meaning through the phase space of lived and interpreted experiences, can become disrupted when one or more of the parameters of that phase space significantly change. Although an individual may attempt to hold onto familiar, “privileged” (Weick, 2001) interpretations, the time during which the formerly stable meaning is disrupted is chaotic, and hence, often confusing for the individuals and groups concerned. At the bifurcation point, sufficient interpretive energy must be injected into the meaning system to enable emergence: the creation of a new stable state of higher order than before; in other words, the creation of new meaning and interpretation of events that is significantly different than the person’s prior understanding that, in turn, informs future sense- and meaning-making. This complexity understanding of meaning-making not only informs the current research process; it will also provide a useful framework through which I will later contextualize processes of organizational change.

 

Because the research seeks to discover what is expected to be a radical shift in organizational perception – from BAH to UCaPP – the specific methodology employed must be a sufficiently sensitive instrument to be able to recognize and report on any potential bifurcation that might occur during the time scope of the research, or laterally among the participating individuals and organizations. The methodology most appropriate to this undertaking is constructivist grounded theory, as characterized by Kathy Charmaz (2000).

Read on: Regrounding Grounded Theory

 

Regrounding Grounded Theory

 

Charmaz describes the nature of grounded theory and the reason to augment it with a constructivist standpoint:

 

The grounded theorist’s analysis tells a story about people, social processes, and situations. The researcher composes the story; it does not simply unfold before the eyes of an objective viewer. This story reflects the viewer as well as the viewed. … We can use [the critiques of grounded theory] to make our empirical research more reflexive and our completed studies more contextually situated. We can claim only to have interpreted a reality, as we understood both our own experience and our subjects’ portrayals of theirs. (Charmaz, 2000, p. 522-523; emphasis in original)

 

Grounded theory as originally conceived by Glaser and Strauss (1973) is rooted in the notion that comparing observations among cases enables theory to emerge, rather than beginning with preconceived hypotheses to be verified or refuted[6]. Like positivist methodologies, objectivist grounded theory presumes a reality external to the researcher that can be objectively discovered, characterized, and reported. In addition, it adopts a post-positivist standpoint that recognizes the existence of a subjective social reality, but attempts to explicitly exclude its effects from influencing the objective reality under study. Post-positivism uses human behaviours, responses, and interactions as consequential effects of structural and environmental causes, using the former to deduce the latter.

 

Grounded theory begins by collecting data concurrently with its analysis. Analysis begins with coding data based on actions, events, and concepts provided by participants in the actual words used, a technique called open or line-by-line coding. Constant comparison of coded incidents and events among various participants enables individual accounts to be eventually categorized, as open codes are combined and connected via the more conceptual process of axial coding. As more encompassing theoretical categories are discovered, the researcher returns to collect additional data that augments the emergent theory by filling in gaps in data created by subsequent questions suggested by the initial data analysis. The researcher formally reflects on this recursive process through memo writing that enables him or her to develop nascent ideas, see emergent patterns, and reconcile the developing interpretive analysis with their own lived experiences. The process is repeated until one reaches saturation, that is, when no new information emerges from coding, comparison, and reflection (Charmaz, 2000; Patton, 2002; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

 

In essence, Kathy Charmaz uses the analytical techniques of grounded theory, contextualized in a constructivist standpoint, to enable the emergence of knowledge “that fosters the development of qualitative traditions through the study of experience from the standpoint of those who live it” (2000, p. 522). She describes its purpose, one that is consistent with both the philosophical standpoints offered at the beginning of this chapter, and my own objectives:

 

A constructivist grounded theory distinguishes between the real and the true. The constructivist approach does not seek truth – single, universal, and lasting. Still, it remains realist because it addresses human realities and assumes the existence of real worlds. … We must try to find what research participants define as real and where their definitions of reality take them. … We change our conception of [social life] from a real world to be discovered, tracked, and categorized to a world made real in the minds and through the words and actions of its members. (Charmaz, 2000, p. 523; emphasis in original)

Read on: Research Design

 

Research Design

 

In order to explore the individually-experienced nature of organization in the dual meaning contexts of the BAH and UCaPP discourses, I examined five organizations, selected purposefully with maximum variation (Patton, 2002, p. 234-235) among organization types, sectors, sizes, ages, profit-objectives, participant gender, and scope of responsibility. I recruited the organizations through several means: two of the organizations were aware of my research through prior engagement and volunteered their potential participation (subject to review of the informed consent documents and their internal approval process); I was introduced to one organization through a mutual acquaintance; two of the organizations became aware of my recruiting efforts via people who read about my recruitment endeavours on my weblog (Federman, 2005-2009).

 

Because I was seeking to understand issues surrounding the nature of organization from the contexts of both BAH-conception and a conception grounded in UCaPP effects, I chose to limit the selection of organizations to those that are primarily grounded in Western cultures and sensibilities – the source of BAH effects – with a grounding in a primarily literate, rather than primary oral, society. Thus, for instance, I would not choose an aboriginal or First Nations organization to include in this study, as such organizations emerge from a primary oral culture (Ong, 1982). Nor did I select organizations that are based in non-Western countries.

 

After securing institutional approval (Appendix A) from each participating organization, an email was sent by the organization to its members inviting them to contact me directly if they were interested in potentially participating in the project. I provided all those who responded with an informed consent package (Appendix B) that briefly described the project, the role they might play in it, and the potential risks and benefits of participation. In total, eighteen of the people who responded from among the five organizations that agreed to participate completed the informed consent package.

 

From December, 2007 through June 2008, I conducted relatively unstructured, in-depth interviews (Fontana & Frey, 2000) with each of the eighteen participants, with equal numbers of men and women. Although I acknowledge that racial, cultural and ethnic backgrounds might well influence individuals’ experiences in organizations when considered from the ground of relationships, the overall sample size of this study is, of necessity, sufficiently small so as not to enable specific selections on these, and other, diverse grounds. Based on the information and preliminary analysis from the first research conversations, and in keeping with the principles of theoretical sampling (Charmaz, 2000, p. 519; Strauss & Corbin, 1998, chap. 13) in the context of a grounded theory study, I returned to ten of the participants from three of the five organizations for second interviews between March and September, 2008.

 

Research Participants

 

All organizations were offered the option of having their identities disguised. Of the five, two not only requested confidentiality, but required me to sign a non-disclosure agreement concerning any confidential information that might be disclosed to me during the research conversations. I considered this to be advantageous to the interview process, since I could assure the participants from these organizations that they did not have to be guarded in their comments; that I was bound by the same confidentiality requirements as they. The authorizing individual at another organization said that he would reserve judgment with respect to identity confidentiality, pending the research findings (that organization remains confidential). Finally, two organizations gave permission for their organization’s identities to be revealed, with two of four participants from one, and both participants from the other organization, giving permission to use their real names.

 

According to the admittedly subjective and limited criteria described in the previous chapter, I assessed that two of the organizations were predominantly BAH in nature, two were predominantly UCaPP, and one appeared to be more-UCaPP at the beginning of the study and more-BAH in its behaviours and characteristics by the end. Interestingly, the two organizations identified as more-UCaPP agreed to reveal their identities in the research, while the two, more-BAH organizations requested confidentiality. The organization that appeared to transitioned from more-UCaPP to more-BAH was the one that reserved judgment. It is unclear – and not a part of the scope of this research to conclude – whether a more-UCaPP organization would generally be more willing to be open about its internal processes and organizational behaviour. However, I would suggest that such openness is consistent with UCaPP behavioural findings, and with the explanatory theory that will be discussed later in this thesis.

 

A more detailed summary of the participants and the research conversations can be found in Appendix C. Briefly though, here are the five participating organizations, in alphabetical order:

 

Organization A is a division of a Fortune 50 company in the information, computer and communications industry and is therefore very large, well-established, and global in its for-profit business operations in the private sector. Organization A had recently undergone several years of significant organizational change and disruption to many of its members, and at the time of the research conversations was in a period of relative organizational stability. The five participants from Organization A include “Adam,” “Frank,” “Karen,” “Robert,” and “Roxanne.” One of the participants, Robert, has direct, supervisory responsibility; Roxanne has project management responsibility over a very large project team whose members come from various parts of the organization. The others are relatively senior specialists in their respective areas of expertise. I would consider Organization A to be a more-BAH organization.

 

Organization F is a small, four-year-old company with profit aspirations, considering itself recently out of start-up mode. Throughout the course of the study, Organization F grew from about twelve, to over twenty people. It offers web-based business services, primarily to other small enterprises and home-based businesses, although some groups in larger firms do use its services. Organization F’s three participants include “Aaron,” “Jeff,” and “Matt,” Matt being the founding CEO of the company. Organization F appeared to be more-UCaPP in its nature at the beginning of the study, but by the time of the second set of research conversations, it seemed to have adopted considerably more-BAH behaviours and organizational constructs.

 

Inter Pares is a social-justice non-governmental organization managed explicitly on feminist principles. It is politically active, tending to work with marginalized and oppressed peoples in Canada and in the emerging world. Inter Pares’s thematic foci tend to be related to issues like women’s rights, local control over natural resources, sustainable agriculture, community rebuilding after war, and similar peace and justice endeavours. Its two participants are Samantha (“Sam”) and Jean, both of whom agreed that their organization demonstrated behaviours and an organizational philosophy that are characteristic of what I would call an archetypal UCaPP organization. However, it was not always so: Inter Pares transformed from being a more-BAH organization approximately fifteen years ago, primarily so that its internal dynamics and culture would be consistent with its espoused, externally represented, values.

 

Organization M is a ministry of a provincial government in Canada. Consequently, it is a relatively large, very bureaucratic, administratively controlled, and hierarchical organization – as BAH in its operations as Inter Pares is UCaPP. According to one of the participants, Organization M became increasingly more BAH in its nature beginning approximately twenty-five years ago, resulting in a significant shift in the nature, scope, and breadth of individuals’ jobs, and their attitudes towards their employment in the organization. The four participants vary in tenure from less than one year in the organization, to over thirty years; it was fascinating for me to see the differences in their ascribed relationship to the organization, and their individual outlooks based on the length of their employment. The participants include “Mary,” “Mina,” “Sean,” and “Stan.”

 

The fifth organization is Unit 7, an approximately 100-person advertising and direct marketing agency based in New York City. Unit 7 is part of Omnicom, the largest conglomerate of advertising, marketing, public relations, branding, and event management organizations in the world. It is a for-profit corporation, tending to work with some of the largest organizations in the United States, including those located in the pharmaceutical, financial, health care, industrial, and manufacturing sectors. At the time of the study, Unit 7 was a little over four years into a transformation from being a BAH organization to becoming a more-UCaPP organization; as reported by the participants, the transformation has been, and continues to be, a considerable challenge for many individuals, and for the organization as a whole. The participants include Cindy, “Frances,” Loreen (the CEO), and “Roger.”

 

Research Conversations and Analysis

 

Over a period of nearly eleven months, I engaged in a total of twenty-eight research conversations, totalling 38.3 hours; eighteen initial conversations, averaging about an hour-and-a-half in duration, and ten second conversations, averaging about an hour each. The initial conversations were open and unstructured beyond the initial question – “Let’s begin by me asking you to describe what you do in [your organization]” – founded on an underlying and constant awareness of the necessity to gain trust, and establish and maintain rapport with each participant. I incorporated many of the approaches enumerated by Oakley (1981) to de-masculinize what might otherwise be a more formalized interview – creating reciprocity between me and the participant, encouraging emotional responses from the participant (and allowing them in myself), encouraging the participant to mostly control the flow and sequence of narratives, and by far most important, to allow the participants to create any new, emergent meaning from a contextual ground that may change during the research conversation(s).

 

The first interviews sought to discover a reference base of each participant’s constructed conception of organization. Although I did not directly ask the following questions, these suggest the types of information, knowledge and recounted experiences that seemed to be useful to this endeavour at its outset, and served to guide me through the conversation:

 

• How does the participant situate her/himself in their organization; in particular, what sort of language is used to describe their situation (e.g., functional, hierarchical, relational, etc.)? What is the primary (and other influential) linguistic basis from which meaning is made in their organization?
• How does the participant describe their interactions and relationships among individuals, workgroups, and geo-dispersed or organizationally-dispersed groups/teams, both intra- and inter-organizationally (e.g., functionally, transactionally, exchange of flows, etc.)?
• On what basis are connections primarily formed and maintained within the culture of the organization (e.g., administratively, directly interpersonal, task-oriented, political loyalty, etc.)?
• By what processes are the effects of decision-making and subsequent actions anticipated (e.g., deterministic metrics, explicit analysis of secondary effects, mechanisms primarily designed to keep one’s proverbial derrière from being exposed, etc.)? How common are so-called unintended consequences of decisions and actions (that can be interpreted as a proxy for systemic lack of anticipation)? How are the decision processes situated within the Competing Values Framework (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983) axes of flexibility, structure, and outcome?
• What are the natures of participants’ own attachments to their workgroup, department, and organization (e.g., mercantile/instrumental, identity-forming, social/hedonic, knowledge/experience expanding, etc.)?

 

The second conversations in which I engaged with some[7] participants from Organizations A, Organization F, and Unit 7 were structured around more specific questions that arose from initial data analysis. Many of the issues pertained to gaining a more in-depth understanding of participant-reported behaviours, observations, experiences, and perceptions that seemed similar among different organizations and may have had similar instrumental outcomes, but often had opposite intentions, meanings, and effects, comparing one organization to another. For example, in two organizations, inclusive meeting attendance – especially in the context of relatively high-profile or strategic projects – was reported as an important part of the organization’s culture. However, further probing revealed that for the more-BAH organization, inclusive meeting attendance was perceived as a defensive move, as in the context of someone making a case for their organizational survival; a way to be seen by superiors as demonstrating one’s value (both individual and group) to the undertaking, even if that value might be judged as tenuous; or aggressive, as in the case of someone seeking to expand their domain of influence or control. This was especially true when a person of higher rank or authority was present at the meeting. On the other hand, in the more-UCaPP organization, inclusive meeting attendance is viewed as an important process to “socialize information” (Sam-1-27)[8] that transcends individual, subject-matter-specific responsibility in order “to understand the organization, and to make sure we understand and can represent the collective mind, the collective positions and approaches” (Jean-1-37).

 

The approximately 38.3 hours of research conversations resulted in slightly more than five-hundred, single-spaced pages of transcripts. Research participants each received copies of their respective transcripts and were invited to make any changes they saw fit so as to accurately reflect their opinions and observations. The revised versions were loaded into the Transana qualitative analysis software system (Fassnacht & Woods, 2008), and the data were open coded (Charmaz, 2000, p. 515-516; Strauss & Corbin, 1998, chap. 8), producing codes (“keywords” in Transana terminology) that are described in detail in Appendix D.

 

Throughout this coding process, and the subsequent axial coding process that combines initial codes into larger categories (Strauss & Corbin, 1998, chap. 9), I wrote numerous research memos that I posted on my weblog (Federman, 2005-2009), many of them as part of a series tagged as “EMD” or “Emerging from the Mists of the Data.” I received a number of comments on these analytical reflections from members of the public (including some research participants), and these contributions both influenced my thinking and enabled me to more clearly articulate ideas in their formative stages as I responded to the various comments, critiques, and suggestions. These contributors provided knowledge that was valuable to my process and at times, I had the distinct impression that they felt some sort of personal identification with participating in my research process, and gratification that their contributions were indeed valued.

 

I should note that during the process of axial coding, I made one complete pass through the data with each particular category theme at top of mind, continually asking, “what does this particular excerpt tell me specifically about this theme?” This focus enabled me to better understand the nuances of the participants’ responses, especially since many of the conversation excerpts (“clips”) had multiple initial codes, often spanning several category themes. In all, I made ten complete passes through the data over the course of most of a year during the analytic phase of this project.

 

The themes that emerged from the data and created the framework for understanding the key distinctions between BAH and UCaPP organizations are:

 

Change: including creating and initiating change within the organization; individuals and the organization as a whole responding to changes both among internal and external constituencies, and environments; and assimilating the consequences of change.

 

Coordination: including the processes through which the members of an organization achieve a sense of common purpose; how the organizations understand collaboration and teamwork (and whether they recognize the distinction between the two); and the underlying philosophy of information flow throughout the organization.

 

Evaluation: including the distinctions between the two types of organization relative to how contributions are valued, and how each judges effectiveness.

 

Impetus: including how leadership is regarded and constructed; the decision-making processes with respect to goals, objectives, intentions, and commitments; the nature of extrinsic motivation in each type of organization; and the dominant sensory metaphor.

 

Power dynamics: including how authorization and approval for individual or group action is accomplished; how the nature of individual autonomy and agency is regarded in each organization type; and how issues of control, resistance, power, and empowerment are accommodated.

 

Sense-making: including how the organization deals with ambiguity, contradiction, and uncertainty, as well as inconsistent information in its environment; and how it accommodates diverse ideas and opinions among its members.

 

View of people: including whether the organization’s dealings with its members are primarily instrumental or relational in nature; as well as whether its underlying philosophy that guides its policy-making favours individuality or collectivity.

 

In addition to these seven major themes for which there were clear behavioural, attitudinal, and cultural distinctions between more-BAH and more-UCaPP organizations, there was one additional theme that emerged from the data that appeared to be common in its responses among members of both organizational types. Belonging, membership and boundary speaks to issues of identification among individuals and the larger groups with which they associate, be they workgroups, departments, or the organization as a whole. While analyzing the data, focusing on this particular theme, it became increasingly apparent that there is something special – dare I say powerful – about the process and nature of identity construction between individuals and the specific organization(s) of which they are members, and conversely, organizational identity with respect to the individuals who comprise its membership. As we shall see in the subsequent chapters, the nature of the distinctions between the two organizational types that emerged from parallel 20^th century discourses, and the key similarity, provide intriguing clues to the fundamental nature of contemporary organization itself.

 

 

Appendix A: Organization Authorization Letter

The following is the text of the letter was sent to organizations that expressed a desire to participate in the research to seek permission to contact their members as potential individual participants:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a doctoral candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto in Canada, under the supervision of Dr. Marilyn Laiken. I am currently conducting research into the nature and characteristics of organizational relationships, both within and outside of organizational boundaries, as they are changing through the effects of instantaneous, multi-way communications. Specifically, I am seeking to develop a model and descriptive vocabulary of what one might call, “the organization of the future,” based on information coming from the lived experiences of people in organizations of various kinds and sizes. The ultimate product of this research may assist organizations to adapt to changing conditions throughout society, and better serve its employees, customers, suppliers, and the community at large.

If your organization agrees to participate in the research, I will plan to conduct one or two interviews with each of two to three people. Ideally, the people will come from different hierarchical levels in your organization, from relatively lower to relatively higher.

Of course, you are under no obligation to participate, or even respond to this correspondence. The name of your organization and all individual participants will be kept confidential, unless you (and they) explicitly give permission for identities to be revealed.

If you would like to see the detailed information about the research and the proposed interviews, I can send it to you either in hard-copy by post, or as a PDF file by email. If you would prefer to receive the information in hard-copy, please provide me with your mailing address in your response. Should you decide that your organization is willing to participate in the research, I ask that you complete and sign the attached authorization form. Please keep one copy for your files, and return one copy to me.

Thank you for your consideration.

Appendix B: Individual Informed Consent Letter

The following is the text of the letter sent to potential individual participants as part of the informed consent process. For certain organizations, it was tailored somewhat to conform to specific confidentiality terms to which I agreed as a condition of the organization’s participation.

Thank you for considering participating in and contributing to my research project.  As I noted in our first contact, I am currently undertaking research at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto that will contribute to my doctoral thesis.

The purpose of this letter is to provide you with information that you will need to understand what I am doing, and to decide whether or not you choose to participate.  Participation is complete voluntary and, should you decide to participate, you are free to withdraw at any time.  Should you have any concerns about the research, you may at any time contact my supervisor, Dr. Marilyn Laiken at (416) 978-xxxx or me, at 416-978-xxxx (office) or 416-xxx-xxxx (mobile).                                        

The name of this research project is, “A Valence Theory of Organization.”

The purpose of this research is to investigate participants’ lived experiences within their respective organization, and to encourage them to describe that experience in terms of interpersonal and intra-organizational relationships, rather than in functional, operational, hierarchical, or bureaucratic terms.

 What, essentially, I am doing is conducting either telephone or face-to-face interviews with two or three individuals from each of four to six different organizations. Each selected individual will participate in at least one initial in-depth interview that is expected to last between one and two hours, and optionally, another in-depth interview or group conversation together with others from the same organization shortly thereafter. In certain circumstances, there may be both a second individual interview and a group conversation, depending on the information that emerges from the initial interviews. During these interviews, which will be much like a dialogue or conversation, we will be discussing your own organizational relationships and interactions with other individuals, workgroups, and organizational units. We will explore decision-making processes, anticipations of outcomes, attachments within and among workgroups, teams, departments and other organizations, and the nature of exchanges of value, knowledge, personal and workgroup identification, organizational culture, and ecological values.

I will be recording each interview, and then either fully or partially transcribing and analyzing the conversation. I will then check back with each participant, and you will have an opportunity to review the transcription. At any time during the interview, you may request that audio taping be suspended to discuss any particularly sensitive matters.

Your part in the research, if you agree, is to take part in the initial, informal interview that will last for approximately one to two hours, at a time that is convenient for both of us. A short time after the interview, I will send you a transcript of our conversation, and I will ask you to send me your feedback and comments. I may ask you to participate in a second interview to ask some follow-up questions, or a group conversation with other participants from your organization, or both, approximately four to six weeks after the initial interview.

I am taking specific steps to protect your anonymity, unless you specifically and explicitly give me permission to reveal your identity. For example, you may wish to be explicitly associated with the nature of the organizational relationships in your company or organization. The original or raw data will be stored under lock and key in my locked office, which is located in a University of Toronto building that has 24-hour security. Only I and my research supervisor, Dr. Marilyn Laiken will ever have access to this raw data.  In the transcripts, names and other identifying information about you or your organization will be systematically disguised.  Identifying codes that could connect you or your organization with the disguised names will also be kept under lock and key. Additionally, any transcripts or other identifying information that are stored on my personal computer will be encrypted, and only I will know the decrypting code. The timing for the destruction of the tapes and/or the raw data is five years after completion of the research or sooner.

Should you choose to remain anonymous, potential limitations in my ability to guarantee anonymity are that my supervisor, Dr. Marilyn Laiken, may need to know the source of certain information; and there is a very small chance that someone reading the research findings may be able to recognize you from some detail, even though I will make every attempt to make any identifying specifics mentioned in the interview anonymous. Your organization will remain anonymous in the research.

As an interviewee, you will receive a copy of the transcript of your interview(s).  Any section which you request to have deleted from the transcript(s) of your interview(s) will be deleted.  You are free to withdraw from the study at any time, and you may request that the entire transcript of your interview be destroyed.  Additionally, you may choose not to answer any question.  I will be sharing major aspects of my preliminary analysis with you by providing you with a two to five page summary of the analysis, either by post or email according to your preference, and asking you to provide your comments and feedback.  I may provide you with several specific questions regarding the overall analysis, although you are under no obligation to answer them; you may provide feedback however you wish, or not at all. If you have given permission for your identity to be revealed, you may withdraw that permission up to thirty days after receiving the preliminary analysis for review.

Potential benefits which you might derive from participating include the possibility of gaining a new insight into your own organizational interactions that may assist you in your career, and the knowledge that you have contributed to research that may improve our future understanding of interpersonal workplace dynamics, thereby helping many employees. Additionally, the organization itself may gain a better overall understanding into its organizational behaviour and thereby become more effective.

Potential harm, if any, is that you may be disappointed in the findings, or that you may realize something unpleasant about your own work situation, of which you were previously unaware. Although this represents a very small risk of anxiety or mental stress – and certainly no more than might be experienced in typical forms of relatively minor organizational change – you may gain an insight to remedy what may have been a long-standing and troublesome problem.

Additionally, I should inform you that I plan to use the information discovered in this research as part of my doctoral thesis, and may include it in a future article or book. Regardless of my use of the information, your identity will be protected through the use of pseudonyms, and changing identifying details, unless you specifically and explicitly give me permission to reveal your identity on the enclosed permission form.

Thank you for your consideration.

Appendix C: Participant Organizations and Individuals

	Interview 1 Date	Length (mins)	Interview 2 Date	Length (mins)
Organization A
Adam	03 Jan 2008	78	17 Sep 2008	54
Frank	12 Dec 2007	91	17 Sep 2008	55
Karen	04 Mar 2008	118	18 Aug 2008	92
Robert	11 Jan 2008	88	N/A
Roxanne	22 Jan 2008	90	23 Sep 2008	54
Organization F
Matt	17 Jan 2008	83	N/A
Aaron	01 Nov 2007	118	14 Aug 2008	71
Jeff	01 Nov 2007	121	14 Aug 2008	52
Inter Pares
Jean	30 Jan 2008	66	N/A
Samantha ("Sam")	30 Jan 2008	104	N/A
Organization M
Mary	12 Jun 2008	152	N/A
Mina	09 Jun 2008	77	N/A
Sean	11 Jun 2008	90	N/A
Stan	20 Jun 2008	108	N/A
Unit 7
Cindy	16 Jan 2008	78	08 Apr 2008	50
Frances	20 Dec 2007	85	31 Mar 2008	61
Loreen	20 Dec 2007	78	08 Apr 2008	53
Roger	26 Jan 2008	82	31 Mar 2008	51
Summary
Organizations	5
Male Participants	9
Female Participants	9
Interviews	28
Shortest	50
Longest	152
Average	82
Total (Hours)	38.3

 

Appendix D: Summary of Keywords, Codes, and Themes

Belonging, Membership & Boundary

Ascribed identification

Assuming or inheriting status, class, or other attributes by virtue of one's membership in the organization. Creating the impression, either in one's own mind or in the minds of others, that s/he is endowed with unique or rare attributes because of that membership.

Collective benefit

Seeking benefit for "the greater good," or collectively for a larger group, especially in the circumstance where the individual him/herself may not directly benefit, from an event, circumstance, or change.

Creating social network

Activities, actions and processes that serve to create and strengthen social networks within the organization that are outside of the regular workflow or typical job expectations.

Effects of depersonalized environment

Effects that emerge from a workplace environment that is primarily instrumental, with minimal humanizing elements.

Emotional detachment

Becoming somewhat detached, or not vested in the outcome of one's work, to emotionally protect oneself from the work not being approved or proceeding to be implemented.

Emotional involvement

Becoming emotionally (affectively) attached to one's work, and especially the outcomes and the effects of one's contribution; feeling one's stake in those outcomes and effects.

Geographic location

Pertaining to geographic proximity or dispersion among people who are nominally either members of the same team or workgroup, or otherwise collaborating with each other.

Inner/outer orientation

Individual decision processes that indicate whether the person's standpoint is inside the organization (thinking first of the organization's needs) or outside the organization (thinking first of how the organization is perceived, or the effects the organization will have among those with which it is in relation).

Organizational boundary issues

Relating to feeling restricted or bounded in the scope of work an individual or group is able to assume, or being able to identify such boundaries.

Personal benefit

Seeking personal benefit from an event, circumstance or change

Personal identification

How an individual constructs their sense of identity relative to the organization (workgroup, team, larger organization, or external organization).

Specialization

The degree to which an individual or organization focuses extensively or exclusively on one area of competence or expertise.

Turnover

Issues relating to individual members leaving the organization, either voluntarily or not.

Change

Changing organizational cultures

Description of interactions and effects after a change in corporate culture, as a result of a merger or other major organizational change that results in a significant cultural change.

Comparison among precursor companies

Comparing behaviours, policies and cultures among precursor or predecessor organizations in a merged or transformed organization.

Creating hierarchy

Explicitly creating a new hierarchical structure, or reinforcing an existing structure, in response to a change, event, or circumstance

Disrupting bureaucracy

Actions or decision processes that disrupt the existing or expected bureaucracy.

Eliminating hierarchy, class, status

Actions that tend to diminish the class/status associated with hierarchical position

Eliminating organizational boundaries

Actions that minimize or eliminate traditional boundaries among organizational groups, or constituencies traditionally though of as being outside the organization

Encouraging continuous emergence

Actions, decisions and processes that create conditions for continual emergence of new realizations, changes, through facilitating change in perspectives, contexts and how meaning is made in the organization.

Reaction to change

Individual or group reaction to organizational change

Scaling the organization

Issues relating to how the organization structures scale with significant growth.

Scaling to opposite

An action taken by an individual manager that is reflected as opposite to the official policy taken at a mass level throughout the large organization. e.g. an individual manager allows an employee to telecommute, despite the corporate policy forbidding telecommuting.

Coordination

Bureaucratic/administrative/hierarchical assumption

The assumption that actions will "naturally" occur, or that procedures will be followed, by virtue of the consequences of bureaucratic and administrative theories, or the extant class/status hierarchy, or both.

Communicating within

Communicating within an organization, or among team or group members

Communication with "the outside"

Processes and methods through which the organization communicates with its customers, clients, or other "outside" actors.

Creating engagement

Actions and processes that enable people to become completely engaged with their contribution to the organization and its total environment.

Efficiency and expediency

Actions that are justified through increasing efficiency or being expedient, especially with respect to accomplishing explicitly assigned or agreed-to objectives or achieving predetermined outcomes.

Encouraging collaboration

Circumstances or situations that encourage collaborating among people, irrespective of their individual or collective goals or objectives.

Following-up a decision

The process of verifying whether a given decision had the intended outcome or effect

Functional decomposition

In which an overall task or process is decomposed into its functional component parts, without (much) regard for the human connection or relationships implications.

Involving people

Circumstances under which other people are involved or invited into a process, or not.

Knowing what to do

Based on a common understanding of the organization's intentions, the individual (or small, relatively autonomous group) initiating a task or activity that supports those intentions, with or without the discovery of that task having been delegated from above. (In a comparatively more ba space, there is less formal delegation of this discovery from above.) Also referred to - more casually - as "Give-a-Damn."

Legitimated delegation / workflow

Delegation of a task, usually through a formal procedure, that follows the legitimate hierarchical organizational structure, or a predetermined, legitimate workflow process.

New employee orientation

The activities in which a new member of the organization engages to become familiarized with the role, and acculturated to the environment.

Passing information

As the primary component of an individual's role, the individual shepherd's information from one part of an organization to another.

Structured procedures and processes

Descriptions of a highly structured, pre-defined, specified way of doing things in the organization that are generally immutable, even in cases where change or deviation might be appropriate.

Teamwork

Working together towards a common objective and/or sharing information among a group of individuals

Evaluation

Credentialism

Similar to "ascribed identification," but specific to official degrees or other credentials awarded by a legitimizing organization (e.g., university degree, standards body, etc.) Conferring legitimacy to one's knowledge or skill by such an independent organization. (Note that the term "independent" in this context can be problematized in terms of conflict of (status) interest.)

Customer service, support, understanding and empathy

Approaches and attitudes used with respect to providing service and support to customers, and in some cases, creating an even stronger connection with customers beyond the simple transaction.

Employee evaluation

The process through which individual employees are evaluated

Hiring process

Description of the process used to hire new staff.

Quantifying outcomes

Measuring attainment of objectives through quantitative measures, irrespective of whether the actual intent was accomplished.

General

Ecological issues

Issues related to ecological concerns, including "greening" initiatives, pollution and waste reduction, awareness campaigns, and similar.

Impetus

Conflict between individual and organizational values

Instances in which there is a conflict between one's personals values and beliefs and those of the organiztion.

Consistent values

Explicit recognition of the alignment of personal and organizational values. (cf. alignment of personal and organizational goals/objectives in traditional organizations)

Creating opportunity

Creating a business or career opportunity for an organization, an individual, or both.

Decision process

Descriptions of aspects of the internal decision-making process

Defining one's role

The process through which an individual's, or organization's, role is determined.

Developing goals and objectives

The process of developing goals and objectives for the organization, either in part or as a whole

Engaging outside advisors

The process of consulting with, and seeking advice from, trusted individuals who are not directly involved with managing the organization. This would be akin to role of a board of directors, but not necessarily formally constituted.

Leadership model

Examples of how an organizational leader enacts their leadership role, especially in decision-making.

Objective or instrumental choice

Making a choice among alternatives based on "objectively" determined merit.

Organizational isomorphism

Creating a model of organization that is structurally similar to, or matched with, another organization, irrespective of whether the analogue contextually fits.

Organizational structure

A description of the management structure of the organization

Personal motivation

Expressions of what motivates the individual

Planning for the future

Activities, interactions and processes that anticipate future needs and directions for the organization.

Realigning goals and objectives

Changing an organization's goals and objectives in reaction to circumstances, events, or other influences.

Metadata

Mark's reflections

My on-the-spot reflections based on the conversation in progress

Organization Identification

Organization A, Organization F, Organization I, Organization M, Organization U

Power Dynamics

Autocratic non-collaboration

A decision taken by a person with hierarchical or legitimate power, who appears to consult or collaborate, but is, at best, seeking to convince others of his/her point of view before making the preconceived decision.

Concertive control

Control usually delegated by more senior management to the workers, who exert mutual control via consensus values (which are typically more akin to objectives and outcomes, rather than values), those values usually imposed from above rather from more authentic shared value creation.

Convincing someone

Taking actions that will convince someone of one's point-of-view, without seriously reflecting on one's own. An action usually taken by someone with legitimate or coercive power (eg. relatively higher in a hierarchy) without wanting to appear arbitrary, or explicitly exercising that power.

Creating status and class

Organizational methods and structures that create a social hierarchy of status and class, often (but not necessarily) related to income.

Defensive measure

An action taken by someone who perceives their position to be threatened by another person, or an event or circumstance.

Discouraging collaboration or teamwork

Actions, decisions or policies that discourage collaboration or teamwork by creating rivalrous situations, or other mechanisms that threaten an employee's livelihood.

Elites benefit

Benefits observed to be taken by an elite group within the larger organization, typically located relatively higher in a class/status hierarchy.

Encouraging autonomy and agency

Actions and processes that encourage individuals and organizations to take initiative and act with little direction or intervention by management. This presumes considerable trust, and relinquishing traditional managerial control.

Ignoring hierarchy

In an otherwise hierarchical organization, ignoring the relative hierarchical ranks in favour of other value. In an explicitly non-hierarchical organization, examples of how class and status hierarchy is eliminated or bypassed.

Imposed expectation

Tasks assigned in a somewhat passive-aggressive manner. The specific task is not explicitly assigned, but there is little actual choice about the expectation that more senior management has about what should be done.

Justifying a decision

The process through which a decision to be taken is justified and given approval by the organization.

Power and empowerment

Issues and analysis related to nominal or actual empowerment of individuals, and relations of power within the organization

Seeking authorization

Seeking legitimation from the hierarchical chain of command when an individual or small, relatively autonomous group discovers something that should be undertaken.

Systemic disempowerment

The ways in which a system or set of processes have been designed to disempower individuals, or otherwise discourage taking initiative for reviewing or questioning those processes.

Sense-making

Assimilating diverse thinking

The processes used to encourage, solicit, hear, and incorporate diverse thinking among organization members, especially in circumstances affecting strategic or long-term deciion-making.

Balancing between polarities

Issues and circumstances relating to finding an appropriate balance between polarity tensions, as opposed to giving exclusive preference to one or the other polarity.

Effects of diverse environment

Observations and experiences in an environment that is culturally diverse, referring either to ethnic or racial diversity, or corporate-culture diversity.

Espoused theory

Actions, decisions and processes that are described in response to a hypothetical situation or circumstance, imagining the course that would be taken in the particular situation.

Handling diverse opinions

The mechanisms for resolving diversity of opinions on direction, decisions and actions among organization members.

In-use theory

Actions, decisions and processes that are actually enacted in response to a situation or circumstance, sometimes differing from espoused theory.

Instrumental rationalization

Rationalizing an otherwise unpleasant realization, or objectionable situation based on instrumentality, or the fungible connection to an organization (e.g., "I'm getting paid to do it.")

Interconnected effects

Indication of the complexity of organizations that are interconnected to one another, via indirect, feedback and feedforward effects.

Reaching consensus

Mechanisms used in an attempt to reach a consensus among people with diverse opinions on how to proceed with a particular decision or organizational direction.

Resolving conflict

Issue related to how conflict is resolved in the organization when agreement or consensus cannot reasonably be reached.

Shared or consensus vision

The process through which a "shared vision" or common understanding of direction is jointly created for the organization. This is different than developing specific goals or objectives, and different again from a vision or direction developed at the top of a hierarchy and disseminated throughout the organization.

Things more important than money

Individual or organizational decisions that are made for which economic considerations are either not predominant, or the decision appears to be counter to the direct economic interest of the organization.

Unexpected outcome

A non-deterministic outcome of a circumstance or situation, unpredictable from the situation itself.

Work/life balance

Personal reflection or expression of the relationship between one's life, and what one does for economic compensation.

Valence Forms

ba

The form of a valence relationship that creates shared volition, common identification, tacit shared understanding, and a shared sense of belonging.

Fungible

The form of a valence relationship that involves a commodified or instrumental exchange.

Valences

Ecological

Relationships involving exchanges of energy and engagement in physical space.

Economic

Relationships involving exchange of value

Identity

Relationships involving construction of identity

Knowledge

Relationships involving exchanges of information, experiences, expertise or opportunity.

Socio-psychological

Relationships that create affective connections

View of People

Humanizing the workplace

Interactions among people that create a more personal and caring work environment. "Co-workers" are seen as individuals, with rich lives outside of work, and those lives are germane to the work environment.

I am part of the purpose of my group

The individual identifies him/herself with the purpose or objective of the group, department or program of which they are collectively a part. This is in contrast with self-identification according to their specific function or specific knowledge.

I am what I do

The person identifies him/herself with the organization by what they do.

I am what I know

The person identifies him/herself with the organization by virtue of the knowledge or experience they contribute

Instrumental view of people

Viewing people as functional commodities, or "assets" based almost exclusively on their fungible worth.

Relational view of people

Viewing people as in relation first and foremost, with their instrumental purpose secondary to their humanity and being in connection.