Management and Marketing - Research Publications
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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, 2021-04)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.