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Analyzing organization through disagreements: the concept of managerial controversy Anthony Hussenot Universite´ Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop the concept of managerial controversy. This concept focusses on organizational disagreements in order to understand the emergence of organization, and also postulates that researchers can better understand organizational phenomena through the ruptures that occur in an organization’s everyday activities. Design/methodology/approach – While the concept of controversy was initially developed to understand the emergence of outputs, this paper develops the concept of managerial controversy in order to understand the emergence of ways of working. Findings – The concept of managerial controversy demonstrates that the authors can improve the understanding of organization by focussing on the disagreements, the associations of heterogeneous elements, the mediators, and the traces left by actors, as well as by considering the viewpoints of these actors. Research limitations/implications – The concept of managerial controversy can be used as a framework for describing the development of organization over time. This concept is suitable for management and organization scholars interested by issues related to organization and organizing. Originality/value – This paper offers an analytical framework for analyzing the emergence of organizational features from ruptures. Furthermore, the concept of managerial controversy extends to not only the literature of actor-network theory, but also to the literature related to organizing. Keywords Change, Organization, Organizing, Disagreement, Managerial controversy Paper type Conceptual paper
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373 Received 24 January 2012 Revised 1 June 2012 11 September 2012 Accepted 12 November 2012
Introduction Conflicts, changes, projects, and innovations are all opportunities for analyzing the “becoming” of organization[1]. Scholars such as Garfinkel (1967), Latour (2005), and Venturini (2010a, b) have claimed that any breaking (Garfinkel, 1967) or disagreement (Venturini, 2010a, b) among actors can be opportunities for understanding practices, tools, methods, rules, and meaning. Because implicit practices, tacit rules, informal organization, acrimony between people, and feelings are often difficult to identify and transcribe, disagreements are opportunities for opening the “black box” of organization and for analyzing it as it develops over time. I purpose that the concept of managerial controversy in an effective concept for studying organization through disagreements. The concept of managerial controversy An early version of this paper was presented in PROS workshop in 2009 in Cyprus as well as during a research seminar at the Universite´ Paris-Dauphine in 2011. The author very much thanks the participants of these two events for their helpful comments. The author also sincerely appreciates having had the opportunity to discuss this paper and the ideas presented herein with Lionel Garreau, Marc Kohlbry, Ste´phanie Missonier, Jean-Pierre Se´gal, Catherine Thomas, Hela Yousfi, and Franc¸ois-Xavier de Vaujany. The author would also like to extend a very special thanks to the Senior Editor and the Associate Editor of the Journal of Organizational Change Management, as well as to the anonymous reviewers, for helping to shape this paper.
Journal of Organizational Change Management Vol. 27 No. 3, 2014 pp. 373-390 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0953-4814 DOI 10.1108/JOCM-01-2012-0006
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is inspired by the concept of controversies, which was developed by actor-network theory scholars (Akrich et al., 2002a, b, 2006; Akrich and Latour, 1992; Callon, 1986, 2001; Czarniawska and Hernes, 2005; Latour, 1988, 2005, 2008; Law, 1992; Law and Hassard, 1999; Venturini, 2010a, b). This concept is a powerful analytical tool that enables one to describe everyday organizational experiences, analyze organizations’ heterogeneous elements, and understand the emergence of organization features that had previously been taken for granted. For many years, actor-network theory has often been mobilized in organization studies (Whittle and Spicer, 2008)[2]. In an article about actor-network theory and organization studies, Mac Lean and Hassard (2004) have highlighted the potential for this theory to create new meaning and representation about associated processes and practices. Despite the concept of controversy being a core concept for authors of actor-network theory (Latour, 2005; Venturini, 2010a, b), it is weakly conceptualized in organization studies, as its relevance has been mainly discussed in project management (Markowski and Cso¨sz, 2008). Generally speaking, the concept of controversy can be seen as the pragmatic side of the actor-network theory. Developed from ethnographical studies (Latour, 2002; Latour and Woolgar, 1979) and case studies (Callon, 1980, 1986; Latour, 1996), this concept aims to understand activities such as scientific research, as well as the innovations and politics that result from controversies among actors. More precisely, Callon (1986) defines controversy as any dissident action that calls into question the relations between the heterogeneous elements (humans, materiality, etc.) in the networks. Controversies emerge when actors question and discuss things that had previously been taken for granted, such as habits, practices, etc. (Venturini, 2010a). Inspired by this concept, actor-networktheory researchers have argued that by analyzing controversies, we can better understand the everyday practices, the associations between heterogeneous elements, and the production of facts and discourses (Latour, 2005). Based on this literature, the concept of managerial controversy is proposed here as a framework that can be used to access, describe, and chart organization. Managerial controversy is a controversy involving a disagreement about the structuring and managing of organizational activities. Furthermore, it is a way to follow the processes of organization as it evolves over time, as well as an opportunity for understanding how entities and discourses emerge from disagreements. More precisely, the concept of managerial controversy could be helpful for three central reasons. First, the concept permits one to view the organization process. In fact, most organizational experiences that lived by actors remain invisible to researchers because they are inaccessible through observation. When actors deal with disagreements, many factors become explicit: actors’ feelings, the main events which serve to make sense of organization, the main rules and behaviors, important practices, actors’ relationships with others, as well as actors’ aims and what they expect from organization. Also, if one observes controversies, the main elements of the organizational experiences lived by actors become explicit, accountable, and visible. Second, the study of managerial controversy effectively observes the heterogeneous elements in organization. Without making assumptions about the organizational elements, all of the relevant human and non-human elements can be taken into consideration in the organizational analyses. More precisely, the concept of managerial controversy claims that the researcher must allow actors express what is important to them in regards to organization (events, actors, technologies, methods, practices, relations, etc.), how they are linked with these elements through their experiences ( practices, feelings, fears, doubts, etc.), and follow the traces left by these ones. Third, the concept of managerial controversy deals with
the emergence of shared events, time, compromises, organizational design, and organizational entities. By focussing on the translation and negotiation process between the heterogeneous elements (human and non-human) that result from a disagreement, the concept of managerial controversy can lead to the understanding of the emergence, objectification, and reification of organizational entities. In the following section, a synopsis of the concept of managerial controversy will be provided. I will define the concept of controversy, its position in the field of organization studies, and the main criteria that can be used to identify a relevant managerial controversy. Then, I will outline a framework based on four key concepts, which are the main elements that the researcher should focus on in order to effectively observe and analyze the managerial controversy in question, as well as many tools to describe and analyze the temporal development of managerial controversies. Following this, I will discuss how the concept of managerial controversy contributes to the understanding of organization before discussing the theoretical and methodological implications of the concept of managerial controversy in the study of organization. Observing and following organization from managerial controversies The concept of controversy was developed chiefly by the authors of actor-network theory (Akrich et al., 2002a, b, 2006; Akrich and Latour, 1992; Callon, 1986, 2001; Latour, 1988, 2005, 2008; Law, 1992; Pinch and Leuenberger, 2006; Venturini, 2010a, b) in order to examine the translation and associations between heterogeneous elements and the production and reproduction of events, entities, and meanings[3]. Among the most famous fieldwork to influence the development of the controversy concept is the work done at the Salk Institute (Latour and Woolgar, 1979), the development of the electric car (Callon, 1980), the domestication of scallops at St-Brieuc Bay (Callon, 1986), the Aramis metro failure (Latour, 1996), and the creation of laws in France’s State Council (Latour, 2002). associations
Controversy: a disagreement that calls organization into question Since the aim of actor-network theory is to describe translation and association over time, the concept of controversy is a fundamental concept for its researchers. More precisely, the researcher’s main role is to describe the birth, the development and the conclusion of controversies in order to understand how social orders emerge: “ANT claims to be able to find order much better after having let the actors deploy the full range of controversies in which they are immersed” (Latour, 2005, p. 23). Venturini (2010a) defines controversy as the opposition of agreement and the disagreement between actors. A controversy is a situation where actors disagree, but also one in which actors agree about their disagreement: “The notion of disagreement is to be taken in the widest sense: controversies begin when actors discover that they cannot ignore each other and controversies end when actors manage to work out a solid compromise to live together” (Venturini, 2010a, p. 4). Actually, controversies are reduction-resistant: “disputes are, by definition, situations where old simplifications are rejected and new simplifications are still to be accepted or imposed” (Venturini, 2010a, p. 5). Also, a controversy can be triggered by anything (events, changes, projects, ideological debates, etc.) that affects or changes the dynamic between heterogeneous elements. On the one hand, controversy carries out a visible translation, in that it (re)configures and (re)builds associations within networks. By visible, I mean that controversy highlights these dynamics in spite of the fact that translations between heterogeneous elements evolve over time and are difficult for researchers to observe
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during periods that are free of controversy. On the other hand, due to the dynamics of this act of translation, controversy forces heterogeneous elements to evolve: these elements can appear, be modified, or be deleted. Thus, any organizational matter can be analyzed as a succession of controversies that have led to a defined or non-defined organization by/of actors. By charting controversies, researchers can understand the birth of the elements’ associations, which are inherent in the organizing process. Nevertheless, each controversy has its own trajectory, and the end of a controversy is never pre-defined: “they may go from apathy to alliance without passing through conflict; they can light up briefly and soon fall back into unawareness; they can burst into full conflict and never cool down” (Venturini, 2010a, p. 13). Additionally, the researcher never knows when the controversy will end, even if a compromise seems to emerge from the negotiation; in fact, a controversy can lead a compromise or even another controversy. Consequently, controversy always leads to unintended consequences for organization. Managerial controversy: a disagreement that calls organization into question I have previously defined managerial controversy as a controversy related to organization. Managerial controversy also appears when actors call into question their way of working together and/or their objective (methods, tools, management styles, rules, finality, aims, scheduling, hierarchy, incentives, etc.). For example, conflicts among employees, changes, resistances, or tensions in a new project team could all be analyzed using the managerial controversy framework. The concept of managerial controversy focusses on organizational phenomena, while the original development of the concept of controversy was mainly aimed at understanding the emergence of outputs (scientific knowledge, innovation, etc.). In my mind, organization and production are obviously linked; however, some managerial controversies may be disconnected from the features of the outputs that are produced. By focussing on the organizational phenomena rather than on the outputs, the aim is not to constrain the analysis, but rather to open it to any controversy that may allow for the further understanding of organization. As a consequence, even if the framework of managerial controversy is largely inspired by the one developed by actor-network-theory scholars, its aim is indeed different. By following organization rather than output, the managerial controversy framework is geared at toward understand how people collectively create working conditions and perform activities. The assumptions of managerial controversy In spite of the importance of both the results obtained by the controversy method in science and technology studies and the regular usage of the actor-network theory in management and organization studies, we must pay attention to the implications of the concept of controversy in organization studies. At the very least, three issues related to actor-network theory must be addressed: the definition of the organization, the rupture-based approach in understanding organization, and the accountability of the resulting research. First, we must address the definition of the actor and of organization. Actor-network theory only recognizes the notion of the actor-network (Latour, 2005). This means there is no actor can exist without a network, and no network without an actor. In connection with this assumption, Czarniawska (2008) has argued that actors acquire their identities only through their actions and their participation in networks. Following actor-network theory, organization is never pre-defined; researchers must understand organization’s
development over time, i.e. through the translations between heterogeneous elements and through the constant renewal of temporary associations. According to Law (1992), organizations can be understood as networks of heterogeneous elements that include both human and non-human components (Law, 1992): the stakeholders of a controversy can be human beings as well as non-human, physical, or abstract elements. In order to understand organizational life, it is necessary to detail all the forces that are present (Latour, 2005), and how these forces are entangled. Also, understanding organization necessitates understanding the process of emergence of the human and non-human elements, as well as the process of entification (Hernes, 2008). By entification, Hernes (2008) deals with the formation of entity: “by entities is not meant just physical entities; the term ‘entity’ applies to anything that can be delimited and recognized in order to talked about” ( p. 30). More precisely, actor-network-theory scholars have mobilized about the notions of actors and actants in order to highlight anything that plays a role[4]. The actor is also the key entity that enables or constrains a network’s translation process, which is why researchers cannot ignore any actor on the pretext that the actor is non-human (Venturini, 2010a). Furthermore, an actor can be an organization, such as a social actor (King et al., 2010), as well a member, stakeholder or even event, method, tool, belief, or rule within organization. Indeed, an “actor” is any organizational element that has acquired an independent status and that can influence, constrain and enable organization. The second concern with the concept of controversy is based on the assumption that the researcher has a privileged comprehension of organization through their observation of the ruptures in the flow of activities. Inspired by the notion of breaking (Garfinkel, 1967), Latour (2005) has argued that researchers can only understand social matters by focussing on the controversies that lead to ruptures in associations. Since his first ethnographical study in 1975, Latour has attempted to concretely describe these ruptures (Latour, 2008). More precisely, his goal has been to transcribe disputable facts into undisputable ones in order to not only understand how human and non-human entities build a shared environment, but also, to illustrate how human and non-human are built and mobilized. By using of the concept of managerial controversy, scholars in organization studies would be able to understand how people create organizational entities and features such as design, compromises, time, as well as how they create tools, methods, and actors (etc.) from their disagreements. One of the main questions is also about the making of actors and actants in organization, i.e. the making of entities seeming independent, and enabling and constraining the other ones. Latour (2009) has also presented the notion of faitiche in order to illustrate how we create non-human actors that intrude into our social lives. Faitiche is defined as the passage between the creation and the ultimate independence of a particular entity. At the end of the process, the link between the creator and the entity disappears; it would seem that the resulting rules, languages, tools (etc.) have been created not by the “creators,” but by another source. Also, by drawing on everyday organizational experiences, researchers can follow associations, and thus, observe the human/non-human production and reproduction of each dimension of organizational life: power, resources, hierarchy, myths, slang, standards, behaviors, etc. Feldman and Orlikowski (2011), Gherardi (2000, 2006), Orlikowski (2000), Schatzki (2005) and have recommended a similar approach. From the notion of practice-based study, these authors have argued that researchers must focus on every day practices and discourses if they wish to understand organization. The third and final concern with the concept of controversy is related to the nature of the research results that it produces. Neither a constructivist nor a positivist, Latour (2005) has argued that the aim of the actor-network theory is to produce unique
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analyses that chart human and non-human networks by respecting the actors’ points of view. In this way, actor-network theory is related to the notion of accountability as outlined by Garfinkel (1967), which is employed to represent the social using the ways that members describe or explain it. Indeed, in order to produce relevant and useful research, it is first important to produce a respectful description of all of the actors.
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Mapping a managerial controversy: between an agnosticism and ethical engagement with management Observing and understanding the emergence of a shared organizational activity requires that one not make assumptions about the intent of the activity’s actors or their implicit social, institutional, or technical affiliations. Moreover, it is important to avoid presupposing a controversy’s results. More precisely, the concept of controversy requires an agnostic approach (Callon, 1986). According to this view, researchers must refrain from making postulations about actors, events, organizations, or outcomes (whether positive or negative), and must instead simply describe the managerial controversy at hand. According to Latour (2005), the most important action is to produce a relevant description about the matter in question: “I’d say that if your description needs an explanation, it’s not a good description, that’s all. Only bad descriptions need an explanation” ( p. 147). Thus, the concept of controversy rejects any a priori factors that explain or interpret a given situation. Using the concept of managerial controversy also helps to renew the way that we perceive changes within organizations. From this perspective, the actors in controversies provide researchers with the keys for understanding the process; however, the opposite is not true: “actors (not scholars) are responsible for deciding controversies. Once again, it is a matter of respect. Controversies belong to actors: it was actors who sowed their seeds, who raised their sprouts, who nurtured their development. Scholars have no right to jump in and impose their solutions” (Venturini, 2010a, p. 11). In this sense, the concept of controversy helps to elucidate organizational matters, but it does not necessitate social explanations: the consequence of the agnostic approach is that nothing is taken for granted by researchers. We must understand that such an approach requires the researcher to scrupulously observe and collect the elements, discourses, feelings, disputes, and associations that make actors’ conclusions possible. Nevertheless, the researcher may also express an opinion about the controversy so as to partake in the debate (Venturini, 2010a). However, this political engagement must respect certain conditions. First, researchers need to account for the different points of view expressed by the actors, including their own viewpoints. Second, researchers have to deliver a relevant description of the everyday experiences that occur in the context being observed. In doing this, researchers must not take the actors’ discourses for granted – they must transcribe all organizational experiences. The three criteria of the managerial controversy How can we define managerial controversy? If we consider Venturini’s work on scientific controversy (Venturini, 2010a, b), it is clear that the definition of the managerial controversy must remain imprecise so as not to limit researchers in their investigations. Nevertheless, three main criteria in carefully defining what constitutes a managerial controversy can be given: (1) (2) (3)
a managerial controversy’s unfolding within the process of organization; its traces throughout organization; and the actors and mediators that constitute it.
First, a controversy has to unfold as the result of actors’ actions and discourses in order to be analyzed by researchers. As controversy leads debate between more and more actors, more and more issues are simultaneously debated (Venturini, 2010a). For the researcher, the birth of a controversy is an opportunity to understand organizational life, as it is there that social and technical networks begin to appear (Callon, 2001). Associations, too, become visible when there is a controversy. Through managerial controversies, researchers are therefore able to observe and describe the heterogeneous entities and how they are entangled. Second, managerial controversies always force actors to make decisions: in this, the researcher is able to identify the controversy’s traces. More precisely, controversy starts when actors disagree about a given issue, especially when the disagreement involves the definition of the issue itself. Moreover, during the course of a controversy, actors will appear and actors’ roles will evolve due to the translation process described: this process ultimately leads to a new, shared understanding to the issue at hand. During a controversy, new associations and new meanings appear, and the negotiation of these elements tend to give way to periods of tension for actors: “the construction of a shared universe is often accompanied by the clash of conflicting worlds” (Venturini, 2010a, p. 5). Thus, disputes, negotiations, and conflicts leave traces in organizations, which in turn can be studied by researchers (Latour, 2005). Traces can be defined as any action taken by any actor during a controversy. Examples of traces include verbatim, new events, new practices, new categories and typologies, e-mails, documents, drafts, contracts, etc. Additionally, in describing controversies, researchers are not limited by the formal boundaries of an organization (departments, projects, team, etc.). Accordingly, researchers have proposed four criteria for defining a suitable controversy in science and technology studies (Venturini, 2010a, p. 7). Furthermore, these criteria can be easily adapted by the managerial controversy method: .
Avoid cold/unemotional controversy – emotional debates allows for one to point out many of the dimensions that play a role in the controversy. Researchers are thereby able to pay attention to the people’s feelings, their bodies, their meanings, their categories, etc. Also, the analysis is not limited to the technical aspects.
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Avoid past controversies. By focussing on past controversies, researchers are merely picking up the traces left by previous controversies. Because the meaning of former controversies evolves over time as actors make sense about they have lived, researchers lose the significance of the controversy as it once existed. Furthermore, researchers should focus on unresolved controversies in order to understand the production of relevant resolutions (compromises, new methods, and tools, etc.).
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Avoid boundless controversies. The concept of managerial controversy is concerned with organization. More specifically, however, researchers must focus on a particular controversial organizational experience (an activity, subject, project, or innovation, for example) in order to produce a precise analysis about what has taken place. Following organizational experience and understanding the production and reproduction of events, practices, meanings, methods, tools (etc.) requires detailed descriptions.
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Avoid underground controversies. Researchers must have an access to the controversy they wish to study. Because organizations must enhance their image or maintaining their reputations, most difficult encounters are hidden or minimized. Researchers should focus on controversies that are not classified as confidential by actors in order to more easily collect data and to study people throughout their everyday organizational experiences.
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Third, a controversy must contain mediators that allow for the process of translation to occur. These mediators can be human or non-human. According to Latour (2005), every interaction is mediated; face-to-face interaction does not exist. Instead, it exists only a chain of mediators, and neither the actor nor the network would exist without the other: “observing controversies is observing the unceasing work of tying and untying connections” (Venturini, 2010a, p. 10). Despite Latour’s postulation that we cannot count these mediators, literatures in sociology and organization studies have highlighted many types of mediators. On the one hand, mediators can be human beings, e.g. spokespersons (Akrich et al., 2002b; Orlikowski et al., 1995). These mediators may have different points of view regarding a controversy, and are thus able to mediate relations between actors. On the other hand, mediators can be non-human (e.g. boundary objects (Carlile, 2002; Star and Griesemer, 1989; Yakura, 2002)), abstract-non-human (e.g. catchall-objects; Flichy, 2007), or static or evolving objects (Hussenot and Missonier, 2010). Such non-human mediators may be but are not limited to drafts, contracts, plans, schedules, prototypes, etc. Non-human and human mediators carry the same role: they set the controversy in a specific territory (or negotiated space), which facilitates the activities of negotiation and coordination. Human and non-human mediators are also actors because they have an active role in the controversy: “mediators transform, translate, distort, and modify the meaning or the elements they are supposed to carry” (Latour, 2005, p. 39). Furthermore, mediators help people to circumscribe the controversy, and also enable the sharing of meaning, facts, discourses (etc.) as they in many ways define these elements. An alternative methodological framework for observing managerial controversies Latour (2005) and Venturini (2010a, b) have explicated the issue of defining controversy, more precisely the process of transcribing a specific controversy. From these first theoretical elements related to defining controversy, a methodological framework can be developed to describe and analyze managerial controversies. Of course, there are no universally accepted methodologies or tools for defining and describing controversy. This section also aims at providing an ideal-typical conceptual framework in order to focus on the essential elements of controversies, which can be observed at the beginning of a controversy as well as during its development. This conceptual framework will be divided into four parts: (1)
the identification of the managerial disagreement;
(2)
the identification of the controversy’s mediators;
(3)
the description of the controversy’s traces; and
(4)
the identification of the controversy’s resolution.
Identifying the managerial disagreement. Identifying the managerial disagreement entails identifying the rupture in the relations between heterogeneous elements, as well as the calling into question of the rules, practices, meanings, and tools (etc.) that are mobilized to perform activities. The identification of managerial disagreement also allows for the identification of the actors that are mobilized/created during the ongoing process of translation and for the observation of the associations between heterogeneous elements. Of course, in daily organizational experiences, associations evolve over time. Therefore, how can one identify a rupture and not confuse it with an evolution? Once again, here the researcher must respect the actor’s point of view: the relevant question is the way that actors themselves qualify the situation through their arguments. Venturini (2010b) recommends that one create a hierarchical tree to
represent the various view points: “controversies always involve a plurality of different questions and only a few of these questions can be answered with a simple yes or no. The positions of actors in a controversy are always complicated and nuanced” ( p. 10). With a hierarchical tree, controversies can be represented using a branching structure in order to reveal the linkages between different controversies, such as the relationships between organizational and social controversies. Also, one of the main difficulties is to isolate the managerial controversy from the other ones. “No controversy is an island,” said Venturini (2010b, p. 11) – every controversy is indeed connected to many others (transcending the scope of the organizational experience). Researchers can also use the scale of controversy tool, which aims to define the granularity of the investigation by using a wide representation of the controversies that are interlinked with the managerial controversy. By using the scale of controversy tool, researchers can highlight the differences between general controversies ( political, societal, moral, etc.) and more specific ones (managerial, organizational, etc.). Thus, they are able to represent how the controversy is organized, and further, they are able to then define the relevant focus of the investigation. Identifying the mediators. When a disagreement is highlighted, a researcher can begin to describe the connection between the heterogeneous elements, issues, and the construction of meaning and discourses. Transcribing networks entails identifying the mediators that exist within specific controversies. Callon (2001) has addressed the issue of describing socio-technical networks. By using the example of a car that is in the process of breaking down in a highway, Callon (2001) has demonstrated the difficulty involved in circumscribing an analysis based on its non-countable, interlinked elements. Venturini (2010b) has suggested that one to make a diagram in order to explicate the creation and evolution of the social and technical network. More precisely, any given controversy will carry with it the evolution of associations, i.e. all entities and their associations become visible when they are called into question. Conversely, any resulting compromise will lead to the stabilization of the network: all the entities and the associations become, in part, invisible. Thus, this diagram aims to identify the movement of liquefaction (as associations evolve) and solidification (as associations stabilize) using the inventory of the entities and their associations (Venturini, 2010b). In order to facilitate such an analysis, it is first necessary to identify the controversy’s key human and non-human mediators. Principle human mediators can be defined as the spokespersons of the stakeholders (groups, actors, and objects). They represent actors that support the main discourses about the managerial controversy. By identifying the human mediators, researchers can highlight the main aspects of the dispute, as well as the actors involved in the controversy. Similarly, I also suggest focussing primarily on the mediation objects (Hussenot and Missonier, 2010). For example, drafts, contracts, and GANTT diagrams allow human actors to negotiate and derive representations from certain activities. Also, mediation objects create an area of negotiation. By analyzing mediation objects, researchers are able to pinpoint the translation dynamic as well as the making of shared meanings. Describing the traces of translation over time. Every controversy leaves behind traces. For researchers, the traces of a managerial controversy are the traces of translation: they are the proofs that permit one to be sure of the plausibility of a particular description. The traces of translation can be negotiations, the way by which actors cope with the controversy, the evolutions of outputs (successive versions of a plan, of software, etc.), actors’ discourses, or the evolution of relationships. The researcher can transcribe discourses and assemble a collection of e-mails, documents,
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web pages, articles, observations, speeches (etc.) in order to create a complete description of the controversy at hand. More precisely, these traces of translation can be collectively defined by the actors’ activities that are related to the resolution. Also, researchers must transcribe every actor’s point of view, as well as the conflicting discourses and other complexities of the controversy. In fact, the process of transcribing the controversy is as important as the study’s final result. More precisely, there is no separation between the observation and description (Latour, 2005). Furthermore, researchers should record all steps of the investigation and thoroughly document their results, as only the presence of complete documentation can ensure the plausibility and the relevance of the results. From the empirical material, researchers have the ability to modify uncertain accounts, justify the descriptions associated with the actors within a controversy, and turn these elements over to the scientific community in hopes that investigative research will continue. Identifying the resolution of the managerial controversy. Identifying the beginning and the end of a managerial controversy allows one to understand how particular organizational features become taken for granted. While the structuring of organization is marked by a succession of creations, adjustments, and negotiations, in the end, certain features become undisputable. Organizational features, entities, events, and experiences are also reproduced over time without any disagreement, until a new controversy. The researcher should also identify the emergence of the features of organization that have been taken for granted or the ruptures/break-offs in order to structure his/her analysis. To a certain extent, the emergence of undisputable facts helps to stabilize organization, and is a necessary condition for cementing new associations and creating new organizational entities. Conversely, break-offs call into question the relationship between the heterogeneous entities involved in controversies: they lead to the temporary or permanent cessation of an activity. Nevertheless, managerial controversies can take on many forms and also tend to resurface; a compromise or resolution does not mean that a controversy has ended (Latour, 2005). From an organization study standpoint, only the end of an activity can ensure the end of the managerial controversy. In spite of the fact that the aim of managerial controversy is to identify organizational disagreements, researchers should also identify all of the elements that are shared among the stakeholders. The analysis of the process of organization (as it stems from a rupture) requires one to identify the organizational features that have not been previously called into question, for it is these entities and their shared backgrounds that make negotiation and compromise possible. In this respect, Venturini (2010b) has proposed that researchers create a glossary of shared notions as an integrative part of the study of controversy. Table I summarizes the ideal-typical methodological framework for observing managerial controversies. Contributions and implications Thus far, I have presented managerial controversy as a concept that is useful for analyzing organization that stems from disagreements. Actually, many scholars have urged researchers to analyze organization as a process rather than as an entity (Hoskin and Fineman, 1990; Weick, 1969). Moreover, scholars have defined organization as a process of becoming (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002) or as an act of connecting (Hernes, 2008). The aim in these studies has been to understand how actors construct organizations, rather than how they formulate the principles surrounding them (Czarniawska, 2008). Organization has also been studied as a social and material construction, and is seen as an unstable and emergent phenomenon. Many scholars have also insisted on the importance of analyzing the texture of organizing (Cooper and Fox, 1990),
Everything that is called into question is an opportunity to identify disagreement. The actors must agree about their disagreement (Venturini, 2010a, b). Nevertheless, the concept of managerial controversy only focuses on disagreements related to organizing and management Inspired by Venturini (2010b), 2 tools can be useful in identifying managerial controversy: hierarchical trees can be used in order to represent the various viewpoints; the scale of controversy tool can be used in order to identify controversies, their links, and to isolate the ones related to management
Main methods
Main tools
Following the making of organization by observing ruptures and following controversies
Identifying the disagreement
Objectives
Main steps
By identifying the mediator, the researcher is able to make a diagram in order to chart the evolution of the entities and their associations
Identifying the human and non-human mediators Focusing mainly on mediators, which allows for the identification and circumscription of the analysis of the controversy (Hussenot and Missonier, 2010; Latour, 2005) Identify the mediation objects (e.g. drafts, plans, contracts, procedures, etc.) and spokespersons (trade unionists, managers, etc.)
Focusing on the organizational events and entities that have appeared during the controversy and that are now becoming taken for granted
The writing of a dictionary of shared notions (Venturini, 2010b) allows for the identification of new and shared notions among actors Depository of all the documentation made and collected during the study in order to ensure the plausibility of the conclusion made by the researchers and actors (Venturini, 2010b)
Identifying the resolution of the managerial controversy Understanding how undisputable organizational features appear, and thus, close the controversy
The researcher has to be an opportunist: e-mails, speeches, documents, web pages, observations, interviews (etc.) can all be traces of controversy
Following the evolution of the controversy over time in order to understand how actors build new organizational entities and features
Traces of the controversy
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Table I. Methodological framework for observing managerial controversies
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improvisation and bricolage (Ciborra, 1996; Kamoche et al., 2003), practices (Feldman and Orlikowski, 2011; Gherardi, 2000, 2006; Schatzki, 2005), emerging organizational forms (Child and McGrath, 2001), inherent entanglements between the social and the material (Leonardi and Barley, 2008; Nyberg, 2009; Orlikowski, 2006, 2007, 2010; Orlikowski and Scott, 2008), or strategizing and organizing relations (Floyd et al., 2011) in order to understand how organization emerges. The first theoretical contribution of the concept of managerial controversy is also to provide deep insight into the becoming of organization. By focussing on ruptures in the flow of everyday organizational experiences, one can understand how shared organizational order emerges among individuals. A rupture is also an opportunity to observe organizational dynamics; disagreement can give way to an understanding of how people (re)create organizational order. Furthermore, any beliefs, tools, methods, moral values (etc.) that may play a role are also visible in ruptures. In these ways controversy is an effective starting point for organization studies. Garfinkel (1967), which was indeed a more radical approach, proposed that researchers should purposefully trigger this breaching in order to analyze social order. He has named this approach “experimental breaching.” Obviously, despite this method’s potential, it carries with it a number of ethical questions. By focussing on not only the ongoing emergence of organization, but also on its enduring aspects (notably any shared notions and the emergence of entities that have been taken for granted), the concept of managerial controversy would be also an interesting concept in dealing with the major issue of management and organization studies. The second main theoretical contribution of the concept of the managerial controversy is that it negates the restriction organization to being solely a process or solely an entity. Seeing as to how the concept’s mainly insists on the respect for the actors themselves and for their definition(s) of organization, the ontology of organization also depends on the actors themselves. The ontology of the organization has to respect actors’ viewpoints. “Reality” is the actors’ lived organizational experiences, even if this “reality” appears as a social construction, a process or an abstraction (categories, typologies, meanings, beliefs, etc.) for the researcher. This is why it is of the upmost important to understand how heterogeneous elements and entities emerge, and how they can become the reality for actors. The concept of managerial controversy has also been developed in hopes of understand organization through the analysis of everyday experiences. Analyzing managerial controversy allows one to understand how people produce, reproduce, and break the features that have been taken for granted in organizational life. As mentioned above, the aim of this concept is to use disagreements in order to understand the associations of heterogeneous elements, the stable events, and the actors that come as the result of the translation of different viewpoints. The concept of managerial controversy could also be useful in following the process of organizing and in understanding how actors produce organizational entities. Clearly, the concept of managerial controversy does not provide us with a complete theory, but it is nevertheless a strong starting point for studying organization. Methodological implications of the concept of managerial controversy The main practical implication of the concept of managerial controversy relates to both the way that researchers conduct fieldwork, and to their fieldworks’ methodologies. Because of its insistence on the following and on the description of the actors over time, the concept of managerial controversy seems closely related to, at the very least, two qualitative research methods that are largely employed in management and organizational
studies: organizational ethnography (Cunliffe, 2011; Eberle and Maeder, 2012; Neyland, 2008; Van Maanen, 1988; Zickar and Carter, 2010), and case studies (Langley and Royer, 2006; Piekkari et al., 2009; Stake, 1998). On the one hand, organizational ethnography aims at understanding the organization and its organization of activity (Eberle and Maeder, 2012). On the other hand, case studies are bounded systems that require an acute attention to both detail and context, although it is not always easy to determine where the case study ends and the context begins (Langley and Royer, 2006; Stake, 1998). Because of the importance of detailed descriptions and the idiosyncratic logic of both organizational ethnography and case studies, the managerial controversy concept can be effectively mobilized in both of these two research approaches. Nevertheless, the using of the concept of managerial controversy has some implications about the way to conduct the study. The managerial controversy concept enables and constrains both ethnographers and researchers who use case studies to structure their data. The limits of live data often present significant difficulties for ethnographers, and often influence which features they choose to focus on. As a result, ethnographers often encounter significant levels of stress while conducting their fieldwork as a series of different contexts, actions, and actors confront them simultaneously. Organizing this live the data can also be difficult. Managerial controversy can thus help ethnographers to first determine a relevant scope for their study and to then structure the organization of that study. By focussing on a precise controversy, ethnographers can immerge themselves into a service, practice, project, or department (etc.) of an organization. Whatever the scope of the study, it must be defined by the actors themselves and not by an a priori categorization about the structure of the organization. Analyzing managerial controversy can help to circumscribe these observations, reveals relevant actors, and sheds light on many heterogeneous elements. In this, the managerial controversy can begin to answer questions about the scope and the length of the ethnographical study. As for case study research, the starting points of a study can be rooted in either the past or present; researchers must simply follow the traces left by a controversy’s actors from the very beginning. Also, a managerial controversy can be an opportunity to identify a case study because any disagreement leads the beginning of something new, unexpected, and carries on many change for actors. Disagreements carry actors into specific contexts in which they must reach a resolution. The managerial controversy concept can also be used to structure case studies: it helps researchers to first circumscribe the study, i.e. the beginning and end of a controversy could coincide with the beginning and end of the case study. The use of the managerial controversy concept can also lead to important changes in the method with which a case study is developed. By using the managerial controversy tool, it is the actors who define the relevant starting point and scope of organizational ethnography or case study. Conclusion In this paper, I have proposed the concept of managerial controversy as a starting point to study organization. This concept promotes an approach to studying organization that is primarily concerned with disagreements in the flow of everyday organizational experience. This concept implies a renewed approach to the study of organization: on the one hand, the concept of managerial controversy argues that organization is an ongoing process of becoming that is in part the result of controversies. On the other hand, this concept also argues that entities emerge from controversies when facts become indisputable (Callon, 1986). Furthermore, the concept of managerial controversy can give way to studies that unify these two aspects of organization in the same framework. I can
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only hope that this proposed concept is a step toward richer and more detailed accounts of organizational phenomena. Correspondingly, it is my view that further research is necessary to improve the scope of the managerial controversy concept. After defining the concept, empirical studies can then be conducted in various organizations and about various managerial controversies. Notes 1. Following Czarniawska (2008), Hernes (2008) and Weick (1995), by organization I mean to convey both its ongoing emergence as well as its enduring qualities. Also, I will use the notion of organization as both noun and verb. 2. Actor-network theory has also been used in management and organization studies to deal with different research questions related to technologies and organization (Bloomfield, 1995; Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1994; Doorewaard and Bijsterveld, 2001; Gao, 2005; Hanseth and Aanestad, 2004; Heeks and Stanforth, 2007; Hussenot, 2008; Joerges and Czarniawska, 1998; Munir and Jones, 2004; Sarker et al., 2006; Standforth, 2006; Tatnall and Burgess, 2005; Walsham, 1997;), management (Bloomfield and Best, 1992; Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1999; Dent, 2003; Fox, 2000; Gherardi and Nicolini, 2000; Harrisson and Laberge, 2002; Hull, 1999; Legge, 2002; Newton, 2002), organizing (Czarniawska, 2008; Czarniawska and Hernes, 2005; Hardy et al., 2001, Hernes, 2008; Hussenot and Missonier, 2010), and critical and political issues (Alcadipani and Hassard, 2010; Whittle and Spicer, 2008). 3. Actor-network scholars have mainly focused on the notion of sociotechnical network in dealing with human and non-human associations. Furthermore, they consider this notion of fact rather than the notion of event. 4. In my mind, the notions of actor, entity and even actant are fairly similar in definition. Entities often refer to human and non-human; actors are usually human entities; actants typically refer to non-human entities. Nevertheless, authors such as Venturini (2010a, b) have used the notion of “actor” to refer to both human and non-human entities. Following Venturini (2010a, b), I only use in this paper the notions of entities and actors to refer to elements that play a role in managerial controversy. References Akrich, M. and Latour, B. (1992), “A summary of a convenient vocabulary for the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies”, in Bijker, E. and Law, L. (Eds), Shaping Technology, Building Society Studies in Socio Technical Change, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 259-264. Akrich, M., Callon, M. and Latour, B. (2002a), “The key to success in innovation Part1: the art of interessement”, International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 187-206. Akrich, M., Callon, M. and Latour, B. (2002b), “The key to success in innovation Part2: the art of choosing good spokespersons”, International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 207-225. Akrich, M., Callon, M. and Latour, B. (2006), Sociologie de la Traduction: Textes Fondateurs, Presses de l’Ecole des Mines, Paris. Alcadipani, R. and Hassard, J. (2010), “Actor-network theory”, Organization and Critique: Towards A Politics Of Organizing Organization, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 419-435. Bloomfield, B. (1995), “Power, machines and social relations: delegating to information technology in the National Health Service”, Organization, Vol. 2 Nos 3/4, pp. 489-518. Bloomfield, B. and Best, A. (1992), “Management consultants: systems development, power and the translation of problems”, The Sociological Review, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 533-560. Bloomfield, B. and Vurdubakis, T. (1994), “Boundary disputes: negotiating the boundary between the technical and the social in the development of IT systems”, Information Technology and People, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 9-24.
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[email protected]
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