Future Organizing: Connecting Self and Systems Transformation (original) (raw)
Reinventing the future: A study of the organizational mind
IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2006
This paper describes the concept of the self-and metarepresentation capabilities of the organization, a constituent of what we call the organizational mind. Our claim is that these capabilities are responsible for the emergence of a collective self that is of central importance in the formation of the organizational identity. These capabilities are relevant to the information systems field, as Information Technology applications play a central role in the support of those representational capabilities. The paper presents a summary of a theoretical perspective that supports a research project aimed at developing a fi'amework to guide managers diagnosing identity dysfunctions resulting from impaired representational capabilities of the organization.
Dissertation: Organizational Futurity
2021
What does it mean for organizations to be strategic? This question of the relation between organization and strategy is central in the field of strategy theory and is a matter of high practical significance for organizations. Yet, this relation has not been treated thematically in ontological terms. In theory, strategy is universally understood as an accidental property of organizations and is thus not accorded ontological significance. On the other hand, in practice, strategy is ubiquitous among organizations and is generally understood as normatively and existentially necessary, albeit in an unthematized way. It is in understanding organizations as temporal that brings out most clearly that they incorporate an inherent engagement with the future. Approaching strategy as inherent to organizational being entails a shift from only thinking about organizations being strategic in behavioural terms, to admitting the possibility that organizations are strategic beings in ontological terms. Thinking along this line of questioning leads to the focal question of this study: what is the nature of organizational strategic being as an ontological unity? This question is addressed in a hermeneutic phenomenology of organizational strategic being. Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein is aimed at interpreting the full-fledged temporality of human being and is thus an ontological analogue for interpreting organizational strategic being in terms of its distinctive and equally full-fledged temporality. It is also an alternative to the prominent Whiteheadian-inspired and Weickian process perspectives, which also espouse the temporality of organizing as a central tenet. However, whereas these retrospective process perspectives lead to the relegation of strategy to epiphenomenal status, hermeneutic phenomenology is eminently suited to giving a futural processual account which takes strategy seriously in ontological terms. In this study I develop, defend and explore the implications of the theses that organizational being (sein Gefragtes), as temporal, is an inherently strategic kind of being, and therefore, that organizational strategic being (ein Befragtes) is an ontological unity that is constituted in its distinctive temporality: organizational futurity (das Erfragte). The interpretation of organizational futurity discloses a productive new perspective at the intersection of organizational ontology and organizational strategy theory. Organizational futurity is a conception that helps us to better understand the gap between strategy theory and practice, and avails a new basis for theorizing that might help to ameliorate this persistent gap. The descriptions of organizational futurity, and especially of its modes, will be practically relevant to organizations that exist as strategic beings under the contemporary condition of higher-order contingency. However, it also avails more incisive potentials for the critique of both strategy practice and theory in an age of organizational strategy.
The multiplicity of organizing visions
Industrial Marketing Management, 2017
Research has shown that information systems adoption decisions are often influenced by organizing visions. Organizing visions provide a legitimation for technology related decision-making and involve a range of influences and perceptions from consultants, industry bodies, policy makers and other firms. This paper is concerned with identifying the mechanisms that underlie the structure of an organizing vision. A range of case studies and a morphogenetic approach, underpinned by critical realist philosophy, are used to demonstrate how organizations respond to organizing visions and how different response communities emerge. We identify and explain the characteristics of the shaper, resistor, coerced, follower and ambivalent communities, their relationship with an organizing vision and the importance of pre-existing conditions.
The quest for the self-actualizing organization
2005
This is a book about trying to live as fully as possible as oneself and participating in processes of organizing in everyday life. I have since a long time wondered whether it was possible to feel as a whole unique individual and yet engage in mundane organized activities with other people, notably–work. The free is often pictured as the lonely in legend, literature and film. The collective is often seen an antonym of individualism be definition. However, I do no longer believe in such definitions. They are among the most ...
Eliminating future shock: the changing world of work and the organization
foresight, 2006
Purpose-To explore the alternative futures of work and the changing nature of the organization. Design/methodology/approach-Along with a long-term macrohistorical approach, two futures methods are used: emerging issues analysis and scenarios. Findings-Four scenarios are developed: business as usual (pendulum of labour versus capital); social and innovative transformation (moving toward the triple bottom line and flatter organizations); gut-wrenching globalization (outsourcing of everything and the end of the nation-state); and the unknown world (dramatic changes in the nature of work and organization, particularly because of AI technologies). Originality/value-Novel approach in linking macrohistory to emerging issues to scenarios. Challenges litany approaches to work and the organization and links with deeper worldviews.
What do we really want? A manifesto for the organizations of the 21st century
Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century”, Malone, Thomas et al.(eds), MIT Press, Cambridge, 2003
In many ways, today's organizations are working very well. But few institutions anywhere—be they educational, governmental, community, or business institutions—are serving societies' and individuals' needs as well as they could. In particular, business institutions, while arguably the healthiest of society's institutions, are operating far short of their potential to contribute broadly to societal well-being. Today's firms are more technically capable and more economically efficient than ever before, and free market efficiencies are being ...
2014
Within dynamic 21st century knowledge economies, future-building knowledge, that bears capacities to transcend existing boundaries and create something new, is of particular importance. Within the first decade of the new century, new concepts such as "learning from the future" or "self-transcending knowledge" developed within knowledge management. So far, they lacked a theoretical grounding in relevant learning theory as well as a sound acknowledgement and consideration of such knowledge structures' emergence and social embeddedness. Thus, key principles and leverage factors for designing respective knowledge processes were difficult to derive. This dissertation investigates theoretical ground that can provide a basis to explain the creation of future-building knowledge in collective structures. It is guided by the following research question: "How can the emergence of self-transcending knowledge in collective organizational settings be rooted in theorie...