Perspectives on Process Organization Studies – serie

Extreme weather events wreak havoc on food security, wildlife, and livelihoods, while pandemics, wars, migration, demagoguery, religious extremism, and systemic inequalities threaten, seriously disrupt or polarize life as we know it. So, what can today's organizations learn from those that, often unexpectedly, find themselves in such extreme contexts? Extreme contexts may help us understand how organizations adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, or find themselves unable to because of bureaucracy, power imbalance, and politicking. It is often not until things break—or until the processes that constitute everyday organizing are disrupted—that we come to see the implicit, taken-for-granted assumptions or routines on which organizational coherence and stability so heavily rely. This volume brings together thirteen chapters that address organizing in extreme contexts, characterized by risk, danger, and insecurity from a process perspective. The chapters illustrate four distinct modes of engagement with extreme contexts ranging from adventuresome inquiry to instrumental scholarship. Collectively, they show how a focus on extreme contexts can help us understand organizational processes that may be too subtle to be studied in any other way.

With the growing influence of discursive and narrative perspectives on organizing, organizational scholars are focusing increasing attention on the constitutive role that language and communication play in organizational processes. This view conceptualizes language and communication as bringing organization into being in every instant and is therefore inherently sympathetic to a process perspective. However, our understanding of the role of language in unfolding organizational processes and as a part of organizational action is still limited. This volume brings together empirical and/or conceptual contributions from leading scholars in organization and communication to develop understanding of language and communication as constitutive of work, and also analyze how language and communication actually work to achieve influence in the context of organizations.It aims to elucidate the role language, communication, and narrativity play as part of strategic and institutional work in and around organizational phenomena. In keeping with the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, this collection demonstrates why we need to start thinking processually and offers a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to studying these 'works in process' that we call organizations, companies, businesses, institutions, communities, associations, or NGOs.

Although human lives towards the second half of the twentieth century became increasingly mediated by objects and artifacts and have depended heavily on the functioning of technical systems, materiality in a broad sense became relatively marginalized as a topic of research interest. This volume contributes to redressing the balance by drawing together the work of scholars involved in exploring the sociomaterial dimensions of organizational life. It will look at the way material objects and artifacts are conceived in organizations, and how they function in interaction with human agents. The book offers a new conceptual repertoire and vocabulary that allows deeper thought and discussion about the inherent entanglement of the social and material. Like the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, the book displays the richness that characterizes process thinking, and combines philosophical reflections with novel conceptual perspectives and insightful empirical analyses.

Creativity, innovation and change are vital to the development and sustainability of all organizations. Yet, questions remain about exactly how novelty comes about, and what dynamic processes are involved in its emergence?Ideas of emergence and process, drawn from a variety of different philosophic traditions, have been the focus of increasing attention in management and organization studies. These issues are brought to bear on novelty and innovation in this volume by examining new organizational and product development processes, whether planned or unplanned. The contributions in this volume offer both theoretical insights and empirical studies on, inter alia, innovation, music technology, haute cuisine, pharmaceuticals and theatre improvisation. In doing so, they throw light on the importance of emergence, improvisation and learning in organizations, and how both practitioners and scholars alike can best understand their own assumptions about process. In addition, the volume includes general essays on process perspectives in organization studies.

With the growing influence of discursive and narrative perspectives on organizing, organizational scholars are focusing increasing attention on the constitutive role that language and communication play in organizational processes. This view conceptualizes language and communication as bringing organization into being in every instant and is therefore inherently sympathetic to a process perspective. However, our understanding of the role of language in unfolding organizational processes and as a part of organizational action is still limited. This volume brings together empirical and/or conceptual contributions from leading scholars in organization and communication to develop understanding of language and communication as constitutive of work, and also analyze how language and communication actually work to achieve influence in the context of organizations. It aims to elucidate the role language, communication, and narrativity play as part of strategic and institutional work in and around organizational phenomena. In keeping with the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, this collection demonstrates why we need to start thinking processually and offers a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to studying these 'works in process' that we call organizations, companies, businesses, institutions, communities, associations, or NGOs

Over the past 15 years, organizational routines have been increasingly investigated from a process perspective to challenge the idea that routines are stable entities that are mindlessly enacted.A process perspective explores how routines are performed by specific people in specific settings. It shows how action, improvisation, and novelty are part of routine performances. It also departs from a view of routines as "black boxes" that transform inputs into organizational outputs and places attention on the actual actions and patterns that comprise routines. Routines are both effortful accomplishments, in that it takes effort to perform, sustain, or change them, and emergent accomplishments, because sometimes the effort to perform routines leads to unforeseen change.While a process perspective has enabled scholars to open up the "black box" of routines and explore their actions and patterns in fine-grained, dynamic ways, there is much more work to be done. Chapters in this volume make considerable progress, through the three main themes expressed across these chapters. These are: Zooming out to understand routines in larger contexts; Zooming in to reveal actor dispositions and skill; and Innovation, creativity and routines in ambiguous contexts.

Creativity, innovation and change are vital to the development and sustainability of all organizations. Yet, questions remain about exactly how novelty comes about, and what dynamic processes are involved in its emergence? Ideas of emergence and process, drawn from a variety of different philosophic traditions, have been the focus of increasing attention in management and organization studies. These issues are brought to bear on novelty and innovation in this volume by examining new organizational and product development processes, whether planned or unplanned. The contributions in this volume offer both theoretical insights and empirical studies on, inter alia, innovation, music technology, haute cuisine, pharmaceuticals and theatre improvisation. In doing so, they throw light on the importance of emergence, improvisation and learning in organizations, and how both practitioners and scholars alike can best understand their own assumptions about process. In addition, the volume includes general essays on process perspectives in organization studies. Creativity, innovation and change are vital to the development and sustainability of all organizations. Yet, questions remain about exactly how novelty comes about, and what dynamic processes are involved in its emergence?Ideas of emergence and process, drawn from a variety of different philosophic traditions, have been the focus of increasing attention in management and organization studies. These issues are brought to bear on novelty and innovation in this volume by examining

Over the past 15 years, organizational routines have been increasingly investigated from a process perspective to challenge the idea that routines are stable entities that are mindlessly enacted.A process perspective explores how routines are performed by specific people in specific settings. It shows how action, improvisation, and novelty are part of routine performances. It also departs from a view of routines as "black boxes" that transform inputs into organizational outputs and places attention on the actual actions and patterns that comprise routines. Routines are both effortful accomplishments, in that it takes effort to perform, sustain, or change them, and emergent accomplishments, because sometimes the effort to perform routines leads to unforeseen change.While a process perspective has enabled scholars to open up the 'black box' of routines and explore their actions and patterns in fine-grained, dynamic ways, there is much more work to be done. Chapters in this volume make considerable progress, through the three main themes expressed across these chapters. These are: Zooming out to understand routines in larger contexts; Zooming in to reveal actor dispositions and skill; and Innovation, creativity and routines in ambiguous contexts.

One of the most intriguing questions since the time of Plato concerns what defines skillful performance in terms of specific capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise. As Frederick Taylor famously noted, an answer to that question would enable us to know what to focus on and what to do to improve the performance of individuals, groups, and organizations. Although we have come to know a great deal about the 'properties' of capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise at large, we know significantly less about how they are enacted in skillful performance. Thus, how skillful performance draws on knowledge, how skills develop, and how competencies and capabilities are put to action are still eluding us. Process thinking has not sufficiently explored skillful performance. This book aims to address this gap. It brings together scholars from different backgrounds, traditions, and disciplines whose common perspective is distinctly process-oriented. They seek to rethink capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise, not as if these phenomena were already accomplished but, on the contrary, as processes in the making - as performative accomplishments. Such rethinking opens up several new conversations and extends the range of inquiry about how capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise are accomplished in practice, and, consequently, how they may be improved.

Contradictions permeate and propel organizational life - including tensions between reaching globally while focusing locally; competing while also cooperating; performing reliably while experimenting, taking risks, and learning; or granting autonomy while constraining freedom. These tensions give organizational members pause, but also spur them to take action; they may be necessary for preserving the social order, but are also required to transform it.Drawing on the Eighth International Symposium on Process Organization Studies, Dualities, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizational Life examines how contradictions fuel emergent, dynamic systems and stimulate novelty, adaption, and transformations. It uses conceptual and empirical studies to offer insight into how process theorizing advances understanding of organizational contradictions; to shed light on how dialectics, paradoxes, and dualities fuel persistence and transformation; and to explore the convergence and divergence of dialectics, paradox, and dualities. Taken together, it offers key insights to inform persistent, contradictory dynamics in organizations and organizational studies.

Institutions - the structures, practices, and meanings that define what people and organizations think, do, and aspire to - are created through process. They are 'work in progress' that involves continual efforts to maintain, modify, or disturb them. Institutional logics are also in motion, holding varying degrees of dominance that change over time. This volume brings together two streams of thought within organization theory - institutional theory and process perspective - to advocate for stronger process ontology that highlights institutions as emergent, generative, political, and social.A stronger process view allows us to challenge our understanding of central concepts within institutional theory, such as 'loose coupling', 'institutional work', the work of institutional logics on the ground, and institutionalization between diffusion and translation. Enriched with an emphasis on practice and widened by taking a broad view of institutions, this volume draws on the Ninth International Symposium on Process Organization Studies to offer key insights that will inform our thinking of institutions as processes.

Time, timing, and temporality are inherently important to organizational process studies, yet time remains an under-theorized construct that has struggled to move much beyond chronological conceptions of "clock" time. Missing from this linear view are ongoing debates about objectivity versus subjectivity in the experience of time, linear versus alternative structures of time, or an appreciation of collective or culturally determined inferences of temporality. This is critical as our understanding of time and temporality can shape how we view and relate to organizational phenomena, either as unfolding processes or stable objects.History is equally important. While we have an intuitive sense of history as a process, organizational theorists have struggled to move beyond two limited conceptualizations: history as a constraint on organization's capacity for change, or history as a unique source of competitive advantage. Both approaches suffer from the restrictive view of history as an objective set of "brute facts" that are exterior to the individuals, organizations, and collectives that experience them. Yet management theory is acquiring an awareness of time, history, and memory as critical elements in processes of organizing. This volume draws together emerging strands of interest in adopting a more nuanced orientation toward time, temporality, and history to better understand the temporal aspects of organizational processes.

Organizing in the Digital Age draws on a process-oriented perspective to understand the pervasiveness of digitalization in organizations, and contemporary society. Ongoing and multiple crises, whether it be the pandemic, the economy, or climate change, have magnified the importance of digital technologies in processes of organizing and accelerated the role of digital transformation in work-life. The central themes underpinning the chapters in this book concern the becoming of digital work, the conceptualization of agency in digital work, and the role of temporality in contemporary organizing. The increasing entanglement of digital technologies and work (accelerated through the Covid-19 pandemic) have fuelled interest in the need for understanding digital work happening at scale, while also examining and exposing inequalities. The concern with the role of agency in digital work reaches new heights when we consider the rapid and pervasive development and implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and algorithmic control, and raises concerns about the ethical and moral dimension of agency. Methodologically, the book explores the use of digital trace data as a resource in the study of organizing processes. While digital traces offer unprecedented access to temporally evolving activity, they are nevertheless limited in their ability to represent phenomena. In essence, 'processual shadows' visible from digital data traces may be difficult to interpret without in-person observational data such as ethnography. Theoretical approaches around performativity are discussed in terms of the impact (or not) of innovative digital technologies, such as blockchain in organizations, while routine dynamics and pragmatism are drawn on in providing a processual understanding of the why and how of IT computer workarounds within organizational work practices.

Understanding the societal consequences of organizations is a perennial, if sometimes neglected, concern within the field of organization studies. Recently, such concerns have been given renewed emphasis, with one vibrant stream of research focusing on 'grand challenges', particularly those with a strong societal component, directed at a common good beyond that of business organizations themselves. This might include issues such as sustainable development, natural disasters and pandemics, poverty, community regeneration, and climate change. This volume builds on the current interest in grand challenges by taking seriously the problem of 'organizing beyond organizations', and by engaging with the unique methodological and theoretical toolkits afforded by a process studies perspective to address these issues. Societal challenges are inherently inter-organizational, necessitating theoretical approaches that not only examine organizational action but also frame that action in terms of its wider relational dynamics with other stakeholders. Although some of these considerations are not new, their implications for addressing societal issues such as grand challenges and sustainable development goals has scarcely been considered, let alone how traditional and non-traditional modes of organizing might jointly work towards achieving such outcomes. The chapters embrace the power of a process worldview in order to understand the dynamic nature of any particular grand challenge or societal issue as it evolves within the relationality of actions and practices within and between organizational actors.

Constructing Identity in and around Organizations is the second volume in Perspectives on Process Organization Studies, a series which explores an emerging approach to the study of organizations that focuses on (understanding) activities, interactions, and change as essential properties of organizations rather than structures and state - an approach which prioritizes activity over product, change over persistence, novelty over continuity, and expression over determination.The constructing of identities - those processes through which actors in and around organizations claim, accept, negotiate, affirm, stabilize, maintain, reproduce, challenge, disrupt, destabilize, repair or otherwise relate to their sense of selves and others - has become a critically important topic in the study of organizations. This volume attempts to amplify - and possibly refract - contemporary debates amongst identity scholars that question established notions of identity as "essence", "entity," or "thing". It calls for alternative approaches to understanding identity and its significance in contexts in and around organizations by conceptualizing it as "process" - that is, being continually under construction. Based in diverse theoretical and philosophical traditions and contexts, contributions by leading scholars to this volume offer new perspectives on how individual and organizational identities evolve and come to be constructed through ongoing activities and interactions.

Process, Sensemaking, and Organizing is the first in a series of volumes which explore perspectives on process theories, an emerging approach to the study of organizations that focuses on (understanding) activities, interactions, and change as essential properties of organizations rather than structures and state - an approach which prioritizes activity over product, change over persistence, novelty over continuity, and expression over determination. Process and sensemaking may be seen as mutually interlocking phenomena and, as such, are cornerstones in process thinking, This volume brings together contributions from an international group of scholars energized by process organization studies. The collection offers perspectives from different disciplines, insights from diverse theoretical traditions and contexts, and parallels made with a range of cultural forms, including art, poetry, and cookery. At the same time, the chapters exhibit a clear emphasis on a process ontology, process theorizing, and narrative thinking. Across this rich and varied collection recurrent themes emerge that distinguish process theorizing from the more logico-scientific, variance-oriented research that dominates organization studies today. This book will appeal to academics, researchers, and graduate students in management, organization studies, and sociology who wish to better understand the emergent, changing, and flow-like character of organizational life and expand their understanding of the nature of sensemaking as a basis for organizing.

Although human lives towards the second half of the twentieth century became increasingly mediated by objects and artifacts and have depended heavily on the functioning of technical systems, materiality in a broad sense became relatively marginalized as a topic of research interest. This volume contributes to redressing the balance by drawing together the work of scholars involved in exploring the sociomaterial dimensions of organizational life. It will look at the way material objects and artifacts are conceived in organizations, and how they function in interaction with human agents.The book offers a new conceptual repertoire and vocabulary that allows deeper thought and discussion about the inherent entanglement of the social and material. Like the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, the book displays the richness that characterizes process thinking, and combines philosophical reflections with novel conceptual perspectives and insightful empirical analyses.