Management and Marketing - Research Publications
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ItemReflections on Reflexive Theorizing: The Need for A Little More Conversation(Sage Publications Ltd., 2020)We investigate the nature and impact of recent ‘reflexive theorizing’ in the field of Organization Studies by examining articles that critically reflect on research, practice and the profession more generally with a view to defining, refining or changing future trajectories for the field. We identify a range of discursive practices used in these articles to establish authority, describe the field, and make claims about the nature of theorizing. We then present three ‘ideal types’ that represent particular constellations of these discursive practices. We interrogate each of these ideal types in order to demonstrate how particular combinations of discursive practices can limit the potential of reflexive theorizing by shutting down conversations. Finally, we make a number of suggestions for weaving together discursive practices in ways that help to ensure that reflexive theorizing generates new forms of knowledge through conversations which are open to a wider range of voices, and where respect and generosity are evident.
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ItemOrganizations, Risk Translations and the Ecology of Risks: The Discursive Construction of a Novel Risk(Academy of Management, 2020)The contemporary ‘risk society’ is associated with the emergence of a wide range of risks characterised by uncertainty and unfamiliarity. These ‘novel’ risks pose a major challenge for organizations: their negative effects may be significant, but prevailing risk assessment techniques are limited in their ability to identify them. Building on our prior work on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), this study examines how organizations deal with novel risks. It finds that organizations engage in ‘risk translation’ by translating equivocality associated with the novel risk into more familiar risks, which provide them with a clearer basis and guide for action. As organizations take actions to manage these translated risks, an ‘ecology of risks’ evolves which, over time, allows for the construction of a novel risk. The study contributes to research on organizing and risk by theorizing how organizations respond to novel risks, as well as by highlighting the role of translated organizational risks in constructing novel risks and shaping societal responses to grand challenges.
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ItemOrganizing Risk: Organization and Management Theory for the Risk Society(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2020)Risk has become a crucial part of organizing, affecting a wide range of organizations in all sectors. We identify, review and integrate diverse literatures relevant to organizing risk, building on an existing framework that describes how risk is organized in three ‘modes’ – prospectively, in real-time, and retrospectively. We then identify three critical issues in the existing literature: its fragmented nature; its neglect of the tensions associated with each of the modes; and its tendency to assume that the meaning of an object in relation to risk is singular and stable. We provide a series of new insights with regard to each of these issues. First, we develop the concept of a risk cycle that shows how organizations engage with all three modes and transition between them over time. Second, we explain why the tensions have been largely ignored and show how studies using a risk work perspective can provide further insights into them. Third, we develop the concept of risk translation to highlight the ways in the meanings of risks can be transformed and to identify the political consequences of such translations. We conclude the paper with a research agenda to elaborate these insights and ideas further.
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ItemA New Methodology for Supply Chain Management: Discourse Analysis and its Potential for Theoretical Advancement(John Wiley & Sons, 2020-04-01)This paper responds to recent calls for methodological diversification and ‘in‐house’ theory development within the discipline of SCM, by introducing discourse analysis to readers of the Journal of Supply Chain Management. One of the merits of discourse analysis is the way in which it ‘problematizes’ taken‐for‐granted aspects of organizational life, including supply chains, to show that what we assume to be natural, inevitable and beneficial is rarely quite so straightforward as it may seem. In addition, through the way in which it emphasizes the interrogation of meaning, discourse analysis can broaden conceptualizations of the supply chain to include actors that have previously been overlooked, such as employees, workers, not‐for‐profit organizations, regulators, consumers and the media. Using examples that are familiar to SCM researchers – the discourses of lean, sustainability, modern slavery and big data – we illustrate how discourse analysis can help to theorize SCM phenomena by problematizing established meanings and revealing how they reproduce power relations among actors. We then show how insights from discourse analysis can complement existing theories of the supply chain and, in so doing, potentially rejuvenate the field of SCM by inspiring novel theory development, opening up different empirical settings, and promoting new ways of analyzing qualitative data.
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ItemPost-Inquiry Sensemaking: The Case of the 'Black Saturday' Bushfires(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2020-01-21)We examine post-inquiry sensemaking by emergency management practitioners following an inquiry into the most damaging bushfire disaster in Australia’s history. We theorize a model of post-inquiry sensemaking with four distinct but overlapping phases during which sensemaking becomes more prospective over time. In addition to providing important insights into what has, hitherto, been a neglected arena for sensemaking studies, i.e. post-inquiry sensemaking, we contribute to the understanding of sensemaking more generally. Specifically, we show the complex nature of the relationship between sensemaking and equivocality, explain how multiple frames enhance sensemaking, and explore temporality in sensemaking over time.
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ItemNew Approaches to Organizing Risk: Part Two( 2018-11-15)In this subsequent article, Maguire and Hardy offer a critique of how the dominant discourse of risk stands in the way of thinking critically about risk. They also show how some organizations have successfully resisted this discourse and adopted more innovative ways of organizing risk.
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ItemNew Approaches to Organizing Risk: Part One(The Conference Board of Canada, 2018-04-23)Organizations produce risks—financial, health, and environmental—when they engage in dangerous activities or deploy hazardous technologies. And these risks are borne by others, such as employees, external stakeholders, or even society at large. At the same time, organizations themselves are exposed to regulatory, legal, reputational, and operational risks. Consequently, identifying risks and deciding how to deal with them is of critical importance to any organization. But is risk management, as it is currently conceived and applied, up to the task? We think not and we explain why in this two-part series, which also highlights how organizations can develop new, more effective ways to organize risks. Part One introduces the organizational risk cycle and points out weaknesses in how organizations typically address risk—the default approach, as we call it. This first part of the series also shows how organizations can overcome the tendency to favour the default approach over alternative ways of organizing risk.
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ItemBridging Practice and Process Research to Study Transient Manifestations of Strategy(Wiley, 2018-03-01)Research Summary: At the intersection of Strategy Process (SP) and Strategy-as-Practice (SAP) research lies the focal phenomenon they share – strategy, which manifests itself in a variety of ways: intended, realized, deliberate, emergent, unrealized, and ephemeral strategy. We present a methodology comprised of three stages that, when integrated in the manner we suggest, permit a rich operationalization and tracking of strategy content for all manifestations. We illustrate the utility of our methodology for bridging SP and SAP research by theorizing practices that are more likely to give rise to unrealized and ephemeral strategy, identifying their likely consequences, and presenting a research agenda for studying these transient manifestations. MANAGERIAL SUMMARY Managerial Summary: Managers know well that, sometimes for good reasons and other times with negative consequences for organizations, not all aspects of strategic plans are implemented with fidelity, resulting in unrealized strategy; and not all bottom-up projects receive the middle-management support they need to become realized, resulting in ephemeral strategy making. Surprisingly, however, these transient manifestations of strategy receive little attention in the scholarly literature. Our paper addresses this gap by presenting a methodology for tracking all six manifestations of strategy (intended, realized, deliberate, emergent, unrealized, and ephemeral strategy), highlighting the interdependent relations among them. It also describes strategy making practices that are likely to give rise to the two transient manifestations, i.e. unrealized and ephemeral strategy, as well as their consequences for subsequent strategy making.
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ItemInstitutional Entrepreneurship and Change in Fields(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017)The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism brings together extensive coverage of aspects of Institutional Theory and an array of top academic contributors.
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ItemThe Janus Faces of Risk(Routledge - Taylor & Francis, 2019)This volume provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the latest management and organizational research related to risk, crisis, and emergency management. It is the first volume to present these separate, but related disciplines together. Combined with a distinctly social and organizational science approach to the topics (as opposed to engineering or financial economics), the research presented here strengthens the intellectual foundations of the discipline while contributing to the development of the field.