Forms of Knowledge and Forms of Life in Organized Contexts
M
ainstreamorganization and management studies (OMS) has historically been antagonistic towards the lay knowledge organizational members possess. One of OMS’s foundational assumptions has been that the manage- ment of people in organizations will be more effective the more lay knowledge is displaced by social scientific precepts. It has also been assumed that the body of formal knowledge necessary to enable this is increasingly becoming available from OMS, as the discipline of the social sciences dealing with the human aspects of organizing and managing (see Donaldson 1985; Lupton 1983; Pinder and Bourgeois 1982; Simon 1957 [1976]; Thompson 1956–7). A unified science of man in organizations, Pugh, Mansfield, and Warner have characteristically argued, would generate the sort of knowledge that would bring ‘increasing benefits if man is to control the social institutions he has established, and hence the nature of the society in which he lives’ (1975: 1).Such an unqualified optimism has been a distinguishing feature of several OMS textbooks as well as of more esoteric mainstream OMS research. For example, addressing the readers of his organizational behaviour textbook, Robbins remarked in unequivocal terms: ‘[O]ne of the objectives of this text is to encourage you tomove away from your intuitive views of behaviortowards a systematic analysis, in the belief that the latter will enhance your effectiveness in accuratelyexplainingandpredictingbehavior’ (Robbins, 1989: 4, emphasis added). Similarly, the efforts to formalize organization theory through the
An earlier version of this chapter was first published in R. Chia (ed.),In the Realm of Organization: Essays for Robert Cooper(London: Routledge, 1998), 43–66. Reprinted by permission of Routledge, Copyright (1998).
I have benefited greatly from several discussions with Alan B. Thomas, whose ideas, criticism, and suggestions were invaluable in improving an earlier draft. I would also like to thank Gibson Burrell, Robert Cooper, Kenneth Gergen, Jannis Kallinikos, Steen Sor- ensen, Richard Whitley, and Arndt Sorge for their very useful comments on earlier drafts.
The responsibility for any mistakes or omissions is obviously mine.
design of expert systems have been explicitly motivated by the view that intuitive reasoning is inherently ‘flawed’ and ‘prejudiced’ (Baligh, Burton, and Obel 1990: 35; Glorie, Mvlasuch, and Marx 1990: 80) and, thus, it ought to be replaced by scientifically derived knowledge.
It is partly my aim here to explore the presuppositions and limitations of such a view of organizational knowledge.1More generally, the purpose of this chapter is twofold: first, to delineate the different types of organizational knowledge and the way they relate to one another; and second, and more importantly, to ground the different types of organizational knowledge in particular dimensions of organized contexts. My thesis is that the propos- itional structure of knowledge produced by mainstream (or classical) OMS stems from, and is fully realized within, highly institutionalized social con- texts (that is to say, in formal organizations or organized contexts—the two terms will be used interchangeably here). However, as will be shown later, even in such contexts propositional knowledge on its own is of limited utility. It will be further argued that as well as being institutions, organized contexts are practices(or communal traditions—these two terms will be used interchange- ably) in which organizational members live their working lives. Practices are intrinsically related to narrative knowledge; namely, to knowledge organized in the form of stories, anecdotes, and examples.
Thus, in the argument put forward here, propositional organizational know- ledge is intrinsically related to the institutional dimension of organized con- texts, while narrative organizational knowledge is intrinsically related to the latter’s practice dimension. The two pairs, however, are in conflict: for prac- tices to endure they need to be sustained by institutions to whose corrosive influence they are inescapably exposed. At the same time, institutions cannot function unless they are supported by communal traditions. The implications of this conflict are explored later in this chapter.
The chapter is organized as follows. In the next section the scope of prop- ositional knowledge will be outlined, underlining its necessary relationship with highly institutionalized forms of social action. Subsequently, the limits of propositional knowledge will be discussed, followed by an outline of the narrative form of organizational knowledge, which will be shown to be grounded on communities of tradition.
Organized Contexts as Institutions:
The Case for Propositional Knowledge
The basic characteristic of propositional knowledge is the formulation of conditional ‘if, then’ statements relating a set of empirical conditions (‘If X
. . .’—the factual predicate) to a set of consequences that follow when
the conditions specified in the factual predicate obtain (‘. . . then Y’—the
consequent) (Johannessen 1988; Johnson 1992; Payne 1982; Reeves and Clarke 1990; Schauer 1991; Stillings et al. 1987; Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991). Examples of propositional statements generated by mainstream OMS referring to organizations are the following: ‘If size is large then formal- ization is high’; ‘if technology is routine then complexity is low’; ‘if strategy is that of a prospector then centralization is low’; ‘if the environment is stable then centralization is high’, and so on (see Baligh, Burton, and Obel 1990: 41–
4; Glorie, Masuch, and Marx 1990: 87; see also Mintzberg, 1979, 1989; Webster and Starbuck 1988: 128). The preceding conditional statements serve as ex- planations of certain recurring organizational phenomena and purport to be the basis for formulating rules for guiding managerial action in the future.
Propositional statements are predicated on the assumption that the phenom- enon they refer to is patterned, composed of objectively available elements that can be re-presented via an abbreviated formula (Barrow 1991; Cooper 1992;
Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991). Anything that is assumed to be ordered and non-random is thought to be susceptible to propositional formalization and, thus, to abbreviation or, to use a technical term, to ‘algorithmic compress- ibility’ (Barrow 1991: 10–11). For example, the sequence of numbers 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 can easily be seen to be ordered: there is a pattern in it that allows us to replace the sequence with a rule and, thus, be relieved of the burden of having to carry the whole sequence and list all its contents (Barrow 1995: 46–7). However, in cases where there is no pattern in a sequence to numbers (generated, say, by tossing a coin) there is no abbreviated formula to capture its information content and the whole sequence needs to be listed in full.
Algorithmic compressibility is clearly important in so far as it allows the compression of masses of observational statements into a few clearly stated propositional statements, possessing the same informational content but, more importantly, enabling economy of effort, transferability, and remote control (Cooper 1992; Latour 1986). A revealing defence of the benefits of algorithmic compressibility that come about as a result of the accumulation of scientific knowledge was given, some time ago, by Medawar (cited in Feyer- abend 1987: 122, emphasis added):
As science progresses, particular facts are comprehended within, and therefore in a sense annihilated by general statements of steadily increasing explanatory power and compass—whereupon the facts need no longer be known explicitly, i.e. spelled out and kept in mind. In all sciences we are progressively relieved of the burden of singular instances, the tyranny of the particular.
Thus, for Medawar, an object of scientific study is, in a very crucial sense, thought to be absorbed (‘annihilated’) by the discipline that studies it, so that its conceptual re-presentation, derived from a selective attention to certain features deemed crucial by the enquiring discipline, is taken to be more important than the object itself. Any other features of an object of study can, therefore, be disregarded (ibid. 122–3).
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As stated earlier, the utility of abbreviated representations stems from their mobility(hence their transferability across contexts), theirmanipulability, and from their providingefficientways of achieving results (Cooper 1992; Latour 1986).2Consider, for example, what one can do with digital representations of material objects. A two-dimensional square can be represented by four pairs of numbers corresponding to each one of its angles. Having this information on a computer one can play with the digital square: it can be made bigger or smaller by respectively increasing or decreasing its coordinate numbers; or it can be
‘moved’ around by adding to or subtracting from its coordinate numbers (Wooley 1992: 54). A symbolic world, namely a world consisting of abbrevi- ated representations, is a mobile world (a digitized square can be sent through the network to other computers); it is also a manipulable world (you can experiment with a digitized object and even simulate some of its behaviour);
and it is, of course, a world in which you can obtain results more efficiently than by dealing with the objects themselves (a bigger square can be created instantly on the computer without the need physically to design another one).
What is it that makes abbreviated representations mobile and manipulable, and renders their application efficient? A formal representation is independ- ent of the medium in which it is embedded, and, therefore, as Haugeland (1985: 58) remarks, ‘essentially the same formal system can be materialized in any number of different media, with no formally significant differences whatsoever’. One may play chess, for example, with chessboard and pawns of all sorts of different materials and sizes without affecting the rules and the syntax of the game. Abbreviated representations are abstract, and are defined exclusively in terms of their syntax (or structure), so that they do not mean anything particular. They are, thus, applicable across a variety of contexts after a particular interpretation (i.e. semantics) has been attached to them in each particular case (Casti 1989: ch. 5). Expert systems are a good example of abbreviated representations whose formal syntax needs to be supplemented with the details of a particular case each time they are used.
In extreme cases once an object of study has been formalized it can be manipulated without its users having to understand what they are doing, thus increasing economy of effort. Reasoning about the object of study can be carried out by purely manipulating symbols, divorced from meaning or interpretative understanding (Casti 1989; Reeves and Clarke 1990). Any time, for example, you use an automatic teller machine you do not need to under- stand the physics and the engineering principles implicated in its design, as long as you can see the results you expect. Abbreviated representations (and the propositional statements they are associated with) save actors from the burden of interpretative understanding for the sake of efficiently obtaining the desired output.
What must the social world be like for propositional knowledge to be possible? Clearly, it must be, at least to some extent, regularized, patterned, and non-random (Castoriadis 1991) so that it can be described via abbreviated
representations in the form of propositional statements. Berger and Luckmann (1966) provided, some time ago, what still remains the best exposition of how the ordered character of reality is socially constructed:
All human activity is subject to habitualization. Any action that is repeated fre- quently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be reproduced with an economy of effort and which,ipso facto, is apprehended by its performer as that pattern. Habitualization further implies that the action in question may be per- formed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort. (ibid. 70)
Berger and Luckmann note that habitualization is the precursor to institution- alization. The latter occurs, they argue, ‘whenever there is a reciprocal typifi- cation of habitualized action by types of actors’ (ibid. 72). Notice the link they make between recurring patterns (i.e. habitualization) and quasi-formal cog- nition (i.e. typification) in the context of institutionalization. Actors attribute motives to each other and, seeing actions recur, they typify the motives as recurrent (hence reciprocal typifications). Individuals begin to cease to be—if they ever were—unpredictable, randomly acting atoms, and they gradually develop routines (i.e. roles) for dealing with one another. As Berger and Luck- mann put it: ‘The institution posits that actions oftypex will be performed by actors oftypex’ (ibid., emphasis added). The individual and his/her actions are subsumed under broader categories which may formally be related and de- scribed.
Institutionalization renders the social world patterned and routinized so that it is possible to ‘freeze’ patterns and routines, and formally represent them in an abbreviated explanatory-cum-predictive formula (Tsoukas 1992).
Or, to put it more generally, the more institutionalized human interaction is, the more likely it is that the patterns and regularities it gives rise to will be describable in an algorithmically compressed formula. For example, Poole and Van de Ven (1989) have highlighted the possibility of explaining the develop- ment of innovations in highly institutionalized contexts in terms of relatively deterministic historical-cum-functional models. By contrast, in the absence of highly institutionalized contexts, innovation patterns are better explained, they argue, in terms of emergent processes. In other words, to use the termin- ology adopted here, algorithmically compressible explanations are less likely to be useful in situations in which there are not well-developed institutional rules for the regulation of social life.
If the above is adopted, it should, I hope, be clear by now that processes of institutionalization imply that actors have delimited modes of interaction and that, therefore, they relate to one another in terms of their roles (see Lee, 1984;
Zucker 1977). Roles consist of sets of rules delineating the scope and direction of individual action. This is most clearly manifested in organized contexts, since the latter consist, by design, of sets of processes for reducing equivocality among actors (Weick 1979), thus generating recurring events by means of rules Forms of Knowledge and Forms of Life 73
that are usually explicitly defined and their execution monitored. Rules are prescriptive statements mandating or guiding behaviour in a given type of situation (Haugeland 1985; Schauer 1991; Twining and Miers 1991). As Twin- ing and Miers remark, a rule ‘prescribes that in circumstances X, behavior of type Y ought, or ought not to be, or may be, indulged in by persons of class Z’
(ibid. 131) (see also Argyris and Schon 1974: 6).
Notice the similarities between such a definition of rules and the preceding description of the process of institutionalization by Berger and Luckmann (1966). Rules are necessarily generalizations connecting types of behaviour carried out by types of actors totypesof situations (see Schauer 1991: ch. 2).
To assert the existence of a rule is necessarily to generalize, and to institution- alize human interaction implies, of necessity, the existence of rules. As Weber (1948) insightfully remarked, it is the centrality of impersonal rules that marks out formal organization (bureaucracy) from other forms of administration.
‘The ‘‘objective’’ discharge of business’, observed Weber, ‘means a discharge of business according to calculable rules and ‘‘without regard for persons’’ ’ (Weber 1948: 215). Why are calculable rules so important for bureaucracy?
For Weber it is in the very logic of bureaucracy to demand calculability of results. In his words: ‘(Bureaucracy) develops the more perfectly the more the bureaucracy is ‘‘dehumanized’’, the more completely it succeeds in eliminat- ing from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation. This is the specific nature of bureaucracy and it is appraised as its special virtue’ (ibid. 216).
The similarities of formal organization to expert systems are evident. Both rely on explicit rules for their functioning, and it is precisely this property of organized contexts that enables some researchers to pursue enthusiastically the formalization of organization theory (Lee 1984; Masuch 1990). However, as we will see below, such formalization is necessarily limited, and in so far as it is considered to be the raison d’eˆtre of OMS, it is problematic. Organized contexts cannot rely on calculable rules alone. Weber’s linear logic, implicit in the preceding extract, can be seen at best as aceteris paribusargument for the development of formal organization. We know enough now about the func- tioning of formal organizations to be able to question whether they can really function effectively as programmable machines.
Imperfect Rules, Unstable Semantics:
The Limits of Propositional Knowledge
It has been argued so far that in organized contexts there is an intrinsic relationship between rules and propositional statements. In fact, as we have seen, they are mirror images of one another. For propositional statements to be possible, rules guiding human action must necessarily be in place. Conversely,
the existence of rules can be captured via formal methods of investigation relating factual predicates to consequents. Rules, however, are far from perfect:
the links between general categories and the particular instances they seek to relate to is always precarious. In this section it will be explained why this is the case and the implications will be explored.
Particular objects, actions, and events can be subsumed under a number of overlapping categories. A person, for example, can be described using a potentially infinite number of categories (e.g. nationality, race, occupation, state of health, marital status, hobbies, food preferences, and so on—the list is endless), but, in practice, a very limited set will normally do. Category choices are determined not by any of a person’s properties—as Schauer (1991: 19) remarks, ‘no one of the simultaneously applicable categories of which any particular is a member has a logical priority over another’—
but by the discursive context in which a person is described (Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch 1974: ch. 8). For example, out of a multiplicity of classificatory candidates, all of which are empirically and logically correct generalizations, we normally choose the category ‘patient’ to describe some- one who enters a hospital for treatment. Within this category even more discriminating choices can be made, depending on the kind of treatment a patient is seeking.
Through generalizing in one direction and, by default, not in another, discursive contexts make organizational action possible (Schauer 1991: ch.
2). Saying, for example, that ‘Joanna is a thirty-year-old woman’ or that
‘Joanna is a teacher’ is quite different from saying that ‘Joanna is a single mother’, because the same Joanna is in the company of different particulars, depending on the category chosen for attention. Thus, in the discursive con- text of the Child Support Agency (CSA), launched in 1993 by the British government to track down absent fathers who refuse to contribute towards their children’s upbringing, women like Joanna are of interest only by virtue of being ‘single mothers’. In every other respect these women are bound to be different (each of them is a particular whose properties extend in different directions and can, therefore, be subsumed under different categories) except for the one single category which constitutes the raison d’eˆtre of the CSA:
‘single motherhood’.
By being generalizations, categories are necessarily selective: as selective inclusions they are also selective exclusions; they suppress as much as they reveal (ibid. 21). Furthermore, when categories are joined to make an organiza- tional rule—for example, ‘if a single mother is in danger of being harmed by her ex-partner, then the CSA may not force him to pay maintenance to her’—the rule’s factual predicate ‘consists of a generalization perceived to be causally relevant to some goal sought or evil to be avoided. Prescription of that goal, or proscription of that evil, constitutes the justification which then determines which generalization will constitute the rule’s factual predicate’ (ibid. 27). Here the evil to be avoided is the ex-partner doing harm to the single mother.
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