Lana Sabelfeld, John Dumay, Sten Jönsson, Hervé Corvellec, Bino Catasús, Rolf Solli, Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist, Elena Raviola, Paolo Quattrone and James Guthrie
This paper presents a reflection in memory and tribute to the work and life of Professor Barbara Czarniawska (1948–2024).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents a reflection in memory and tribute to the work and life of Professor Barbara Czarniawska (1948–2024).
Design/methodology/approach
We invited those colleagues whom we knew to be close to Barbara to submit reflections about her contributions to academia alongside their memories of her as a person. We present these reflections in the order we received them, and they have only been edited for minor grammatical and punctuation issues to preserve the voice of the contributing authors.
Findings
The reflections in this paper represent different translations of Barbara’s academic and theoretical contributions. However, she also contributed to people. While we can count the number of papers, books and book chapters she published, we must also count the number of co-authors, Ph.D. supervisions, visiting professorships and conference plenaries she touched. This (ac)counting tells the story of Barbara reaching out to work and interact with people, especially students and early career researchers. She touched their lives, and the publications are an artefact of a human being, not an academic stuck in an ivory tower.
Originality/value
A paper in Barbara Czarniawska’s honour where some of her closest colleagues can leave translations of her work through a narrative reflection, seems to be a fitting tribute.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to suggest a frame of reference about the relations between the responsibility and the commitment of employees on the one side and type of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to suggest a frame of reference about the relations between the responsibility and the commitment of employees on the one side and type of organization on the other. The basis is a discussion of the tension between docility and freedom.
Design/methodology/approach
Results from earlier empirical studies of disciplinary practices among teachers and warders form the starting point. In this paper the phenomenon of hedonism is added. Hedonism is investigated from a psychological perspective and applied to work organizations with the help of attribution theories, theories on coping and motivation and theories on the conflict between the individual and the organization, i.e. of power, culture and coherence.
Findings
The paper has developed a typology on coping strategies in work contexts, which describes four possible “ideal” roles an individual can take, referring to three dimensions, the dichotomy between freedom and docility, the individual's locus of control as external or internal, and the coherence between individual and organizational values.
Practical implications
The model can be used for empirical studies and contribute to the development of work organizations where people feel committed enough to take responsibility both for monotonous and dull everyday tasks and for exceptional and acute unique problem solving situations.
Originality/value
Most studies on disciplining and docility focus on the painful side of coping. Few studies focus on what people do in order to cope with commitment and responsibility. This paper considers the different power struggles embedded in the work context, and give varying interpretations of them.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this study is to put forward examples of disciplinary practices, i.e. to interpret Foucault's ideas with data collected from today's working‐life in schools and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to put forward examples of disciplinary practices, i.e. to interpret Foucault's ideas with data collected from today's working‐life in schools and prisons. Besides describing disciplinary practices the intention is to describe how individuals cope with the dilemmas that follow. On the grounds of the analysis a discussion about the tension between freedom and docility and different individuals’ strategies for coping with this tension is also promoted.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from teachers in schools and warders in prisons. The empirical question relates to how disciplinary practises are expressed and the dilemmas that follow. In the analysis the concepts of Foucault, time, space and visibility, as relations of power, are used.
Findings
The article shows examples of disciplining and the dilemmas following from disciplining, both at individual and organisational level. Encountering new demands in their work, teachers tend to stick harder to their profession while warders tend to freely use their life experiences to develop their work. One conclusion is that freedom may be easier when individual values and organisational values are in coherence with one another, and docility is more often used when they differ.
Originality/value
That there are tensions between individuals’ striving for freedom and organisations’ striving for their disciplining is no news but on the grounds of the empirical data dilemmas and how teachers and warders cope with them in their work are described. The data also encourage further discussion while it brings findings of different ways of coping, for example when it comes to professionals and non‐professionals.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss aspects of responsibility in relation to organizational contexts, the main focus being responsibility for consequences we cannot reach…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss aspects of responsibility in relation to organizational contexts, the main focus being responsibility for consequences we cannot reach. Responsibility is a major underpinning of business administration and management and also an aspect of everyday life. Responsibility is about responding, to act as an answer to previous action/s, but we never know all consequences of our actions.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature from management, HRM studies and from philosophy scholars is used to discover different perspectives of responsibility and a typology of responsibility handling is developed.
Findings
In total, three types of responsibility are suggested and discussed in relation to managerial and organizational practices. The main contribution is the typology of responsibility combined with the relational focus of managerial and organisational processes. Imagining, fantasy and care are shown as important for the developing of responsibility.
Research limitations/implications
The suggested typology is theoretically developed without empirical studies behind.
Practical implications
A conclusion is that valuing of long‐term survival of humanity and nature must be built into our judgments and our assessments processes in everyday organizational life, if we should be able to act responsibly.
Originality/value
The concept of responsibility is currently intensively discussed, because of successes and disappointments of the CSR movements, because of global economy, and because of climate changes, etc. The suggestion of three types of responsibility in this paper can contribute to sorting out theoretical and practical possibilities in different contexts.