Inside Management

Studying Organizational Practices

David Vickers

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030619350
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

This pivot includes a series of inside ethnographic accounts and stories about managerial practices and processes, providing a critical account of managerial and HR practices. It seeks to advance thinking in the theoretical areas of strategy-as-practice (SasP), Actor-Network Theory, human resource management practices and safety as practice. Offering a unique insider insight to decision-making and strategy within an organization, the chapters demonstrate how practices are constructed and implemented for a range of systems and policies. Employing an ethnographic approach also gives an opportunity to assess the interpretation and deployment of procedures, policies and practices in order to control and achieve conformity to organizational goals. It satisfies a demand for richer descriptions of managerial practices in situ that can be used to challenge and critique traditional approaches, and guide researchers to apply an SasP and ANT perspective in other organizational settings.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

D. VickersInside Managementhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61935-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

David Vickers¹

(1)

Institute for Research into Organisation, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Kirkcudbrightshire, UK

Abstract

This chapter will set the scene for the remaining chapters by outlining the organisational context and the practices to be explored in subsequent chapters and why these practices and accounts are of particular relevance. Finally, the chapter considers the overarching conclusions of each chapter.

Keywords

EthnographyBurnslandActor-Network TheoryStrategy-as-practice

End Abstract

Introduction

The book draws upon events from an 18-month period of ethnographic study where the author was a Human Resource Manager inside management. As Czarniawska (2012, p. 132) points out, ethnographic accounts, where the researcher is a full management participant like Dalton (1959) and Watson (1994) , are an “undoubtedly superior” form of organisational research.

This chapter gives an overview of organisational context and the book layout, and highlights its conclusions.

Overview of the Burnsland Account

The accounts draw upon an 18-month period of events in ‘Chemco’, an America multinational chemical company. Chemco acquired three production sites (Burnsland, Norzeburg, Squaretown) and a research centre (Bilton) from Halcyon Chemicals International (‘HCI’), a UK multinational in the same sector, for $1 billion. Events largely centre around one site, ‘Burnsland’, based in a small rural UK town. At the point of takeover, Burnsland employed 650 employees and all automatically transferred from HCI to Chemco along with their terms and conditions of employment. The Author/HR Manager was an HCI employee with ten years’ service who chose to transfer. He was a newcomer to both Burnsland and Chemco but an old-timer as far as HCI was concerned.

Pseudonyms are used for people, places and organisations to allow a fuller telling of the events without compromising anonymity—except for the Author. It needs to be recognised such an approach leaves the Author vulnerable as he is no longer anonymised ( Czarniawska 2000). This use of pseudonyms is typical of the tradition of organisational ethnographies (e.g., Dalton 1959; Watson 1994) . A list of characters in the accounts is included in Appendix A.

The overarching account is of managerial power relations and contestations. This includes events surrounding production line closures, product transfers between sites, redundancies, safety and Human Resource Management (HRM) practices.

In summary, at the end of the research period the outcomes of proposed closures, redundancies and product transfers were (1) Only two out of three production lines announced for closure as part of the plan were closed on time; (2). The third production line was kept open; (3) The proposed 200 compulsory redundancies did not happen, instead 100 volunteers signed up for redundancy but these redundancies happened over 18 months not immediately; (4) delays which kept the third production line open allowed Burnsland managers to demonstrate the site in Holland had difficulties masked by its projected production figures and, consequentially, Burnsland secured £9 m investment into its remaining lines; (5). Two ‘unannounced’ production lines privately earmarked for closure were reprieved indefinitely; (6). The Site Manager returned to America to take early retirement just after the research period. The focus now moves on to an overview of the theoretical contributions of the book.

Theoretical Contributions

The book employs an at-home ethnography (AHE) (e.g., Vickers 2019) methodology with the application of two analytical lenses—Strategy as Practice (SasP) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Cordella and Shaikh (2006, p. 3) criticised the use of ANT as an analytical lens as doing so takes ANT away from its ontological root “that reality is constructed by the interplay of more than one actant and this reality emerges outside the mind of any individual”. To use it as a lens they argue is adopting an interpretivist ontology which is constructivist in nature with reality being constructed in the mind of the interpreter. Whilst ethnography is largely seen as a form of interpretivism, it was used here as a mechanism to gather information for a ‘study of managers in situ’ with no a priori judgements made and certainly with no idea of what would unfold over the 18-month period. The Author’s relays accounts using only the data gathered without initial interpretation and to let the reader be interpretivist if they so wish. By using AHE the Author is not neutral as he had an HR and managerial role to play, but the data is based purely on notes and documents from the specific moment. Many of the interpretations and pictures emerged after the events had occurred. Prime examples are Chaps. 5 and 6 on safety and HR respectively. This means the ANT lens is used not in an interpretivist fashion but instead takes ANT’s intended approach to symmetrically following flows of intermediaries (Nicolini 2017) and mediators between actors (both nonhuman and human).

Employing this approach, the book makes contributions to four theoretical areas. These are Strategy as Practice; Actor-Network Theory; Communities of Practice Theory ; and Critical Human Resource Management. In addition, the AHE methodology approach used provides both an example of how to conduct such insider research and explores some of the issues and benefits of the approach. All these contributions are discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters.

In particular, the book explores:

• Adding nonhumans to the mix of considerations of power relations and networks in everyday managerial practice of strategy to develop an ANT inform SasP approach .
• Employing the ANT idea of “netted-networks” ( Hansen and Mouritsen 1999) to show how one network “nets” another for strategic purposes in a series of multi-connections and multi-locations. Thus developing Hansen and Mouritsen’s thinking and demonstrating suggestions for future ANT deployment in SasP studies.
• Considering how the “practice turn” might be applied to HR instead of the tired binary thinking of normative-critical. Like Whittington’s (1996) strategic practice turn to highlight micro practices of doing strategy, the book demonstrates this approach to HR practice studies, focusing on everyday issues faced by HR practitioners.
• Offering a constructive critique of Communities of Practice (COP) theory, by studying newcomers learning safety culture and exploring how COP might better engage with power relations issues.

Structure of the Book

Chapter 2 explores the ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives taken before considering methodology and two analytical lenses (ANT and SasP) in more depth. The remainder of the book focuses on the AHE accounts and theoretical contributions.

Chapter 3 considers rationalisation of production and the contestation surrounding production line closures and redundancies. Through the application of SasP and ANT analytical lenses the chapter explores power relations issues and network configurations in everyday managerial practice of strategy. By adding nonhuman actors to our considerations and applying ANT to “zooming in”, in Nicolini’s (2012) framework, a fuller exploration of the account is developed.

Chapter 4 is focuses on the ‘Engine Room’—the name given to a group of Burnsland managers with the task of managing redundancies. This chapter draws upon the ANT idea of “netted-networks” ( Hansen and Mouritsen 1999) to consider how the Engine Room network is able to “net” the Asset Optimisation network from the account in Chap. 3. It identifies multi-connections and multi-locations and develops Hansen and Mouritsen’s original thinking. The chapter then offers suggestions for future ANT deployment in SasP studies.

Chapter 5 is focused on safety practices giving an account of the integration of newcomers into Chemco’s safety culture. Safety had strategic importance to Chemco as it was recognised by other organisations as the leader in the field and made a considerable return from selling consultancy services. The account explores how newcomers, with extensive experience, learn to become old-timers in a new organisation that has acquired them. Through the application of ANT and SasP lenses the chapter offers a constructive critique of Communities of Practice (COP) theory and how COP might better engage with pow...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Research Overview and Theoretical Contributions
• 3. Strategy as Practice— Asset Optimisation Process
• 4. ‘Delivering’ the Strategy: The Engine Room
• 5. Safety Practices: Espoused Theory and Practice
• 6. Nonhuman Resource Practices: Control, Conformity and Contestation
• 7. Conclusion
• Back Matter