Editorial

Citation

Magala, S. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 20 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm.2007.02320aaa.001

Editorial

The re-enchantment of the world of organizational realities and re-invention of theoretical landscape of managerial sciences face us with a rather troubling dilemma. On the one hand, we are bound by the scoring tracks of peer comparisons (which often result in rat races at the expense of relevance). Evaluations, rankings and de-tenuring result in an increased output. “Nulla dies sine linea” and this “linea” should be in a top periodical with proper ranking and impact. To be in a researchers' “groove” to enjoy the chemistry, the magic of free creative pursuit – becomes a distant, slightly utopian dream. Perhaps it is worth reminding that dreams, however distant they may seem, do come true. A Swedish study by Marianne Ekman Philips and Tony Huzzard is a case in point. The title – “Developmental magic” although followed by a question mark, seems vaguely symbolic, as does their institutional affiliation, National Institute of Working Life. The latter name is actually highly symbolic, as opposed to names like the National Productivity Board (which I saw in Singapore in late 1980s, at the entrance to the high-rise in which we taught MBA courses), because it means that criteria of wellness and welfare are gradually shifting from GDP growth towards values and beliefs linked to a way of life perceived as decent and worthwhile. Hence, Sally Riad's intriguing question: what happens to the managerial talk about shared values and joint assumptions once a merger is completed and cultural due diligence rituals performed. Back to normal, i.e. to the “managerialist” celebration of diversity in order to sustain inequalities? Not necessarily. As the next author, Hsueh-Liang Wu, points out, we do not have to be the victims of our own discourse – and even the harshest transformation (privatization is his case, though it could be) will be softened and humanized if supportive policy measures are taken on time, corporate reforms manage to flex and stretch the organizational muscle and ultimately the bottom-line indicators of success, linked to performance, improve.

How do we know if they improve? Dorota Dobosz-Bourne and Monika Kostera suggest that not only those who dream of developmental magic wander around in a mythological world, in which the quality of working life improves and amiable networks replace gloomy hierarchies. They think that the quest for quality had also become a contemporary equivalent of a mythological quest for Holy Grail, which sometimes can lead to frustration and failure of a change program legitimized by it. “Despite a strong quality culture in a plant and a belief in “Gemini” as a caring company, people felt that they were let down and their beliefs were betrayed by the corporation in the end”. Dobosz-Bourne and Kostera conduct ethnographic research and lean on ideas of Yiannis Gabriel, who himself is one of the leading members of our profession active in the area of the re-enchantment of the world of formal professional organizations (usually professional bureaucracies). Let us hasten to add that this re-enchantment of the disenchanted world of formal professional hierarchies does not have to happen on a psychonalyst's couch, with postmodernist music in the background. According to Maurice Yolles, whose research roots are in the systems theory, the fact that our research communities follow both modernist and postmodernist paradigms can best be traced by tracing parallel organizational narratives and antenarratives and the results of this tracing should help develop “third cybernetics”. As the concept of antenarrative indicates, Yolles is recalling David Boje, who studies organizational antenarratives as possible symptoms of resistance to the mainstream, dominant organizational discourse controlled by top management. “For Boje antenarrative is a speculation that is fragmented, non-linear, collective, non-deterministic, and pre-narrative.” Re-enchantment of organizational world grows out of the barrel of a gun carried by an operative, by rank and file, by grassroots organizer rather than somebody who views organizations from the top and commissions consultants to do likewise. Bjarne Espedal goes a step further in this direction and openly advocates taming the top managers, especially if they are on a leadership trip and ask for discretion shoving the rules aside. To the contrary, says he and his paper is an attempt to explain “Why rules rather than discretion” are required “when the leadership intends to transform a desired policy into reality”.

Apart from Gabriel and Boje, an entire crew of critical management studies is mobilized to provide theoretical and methodological support for the next researchers tackling the mythological quest for quality. Per Skalen and Martin Fougere write on “Be(com)ing normal – not excellent: service management, the gap model and disciplinary power”. Their patron saints include the couple Mats Alvesson and Hugh Wilmott, although they refer also to the others, for instance Gareth Morgan and B. Townley. They go even further back, quoting Michel Foucault (and his ideas on “normalization” from “discipline and punish”). The authors claim that in service management, closing the gap between a desired level of excellence and the one actually achieved ultimately results in “normalization it favors – instead of the excellence it promises”. Last not least, Thomas Diefenbach writes on “The managerialist ideology of organizational change management” and adds to the list of representatives of critical and postmodern management studies (Clegg), while at the same time bringing critical analysis closer to our academic homes (he has been studying a large western European university undergoing managerialist transformations). The most interesting insight, hidden in the last footnote, makes us aware that managerial discourse, as a classical theatre or political propaganda under state socialism, is carefully purged of individual and group passions and interests. It draws our attention to the fact that managerial discourse, so purged, is then enriched and flavored with socially acceptable views and politically correct values, brought in as a New Public Management package. The latter includes, for instance, “increasing efficiency, customer orientation, “better management” sustainable development, environment and health concerns, and so on”. This raises an interesting question about the dialectics of disenchantment and re-enchantment of organized worlds dominated by social systems of professional bureaucracies. Are we more critical and relevant when we disenchant by revealing individual and group interests and passions underlying apparently rational, organized and managed interactions? Are we more critical when we re-enchant in order to implement and stabilize new, changed patterns of interactions (say, networks instead of hierarchies) thus structuring more desirable interactions in future? Disenchanting without a prospect of re-enchanting appears uninspiring. Re-enchanting without the background of critical disenchantment seems cynical. Is there a way out? Are there symptoms of resistance?

The issue closes with the review of a recent study by Barley and Kunda. They had analyzed ICT specialists, who work on a project basis, that is, outside of the warm and tenured fold of stable professional bureaucracies – as Gurus, Hired Guns and Warm Bodies. Hoedemaekers mobilizes Sennett and Zizek for his analysis of “itinerant experts in a knowledge economy” and concludes that “the system works regardless of the cynical responses of its actors”. It does, doesn't it?

Slawomir Magala