Ever since this area of scholarship has been developed in the West, what has generally been taught, researched and written about in the organisation/management field have been…
Abstract
Ever since this area of scholarship has been developed in the West, what has generally been taught, researched and written about in the organisation/management field have been primarily English and North American theories about and practices in organisations. This focus has also been adopted by scholars and teachers all over the world, so that mainstream organisation/management scholarship is generally synonymous with western systems. However organisation and management, though not necessarily described in those terms, have existed in all societies through their economic, social and political arrangements, regardless of period, types of activity and stages of technological development.
It is here proposed to examine some African traditional societies in terms of their economic, social and political systems and compare them with mainstream Anglo-Saxon theories and practices. The main focus of this study will be on questions of accountability. Areas to be investigated are the assumptions underlying theories and practices in both types of societies; the systems in practice; their advantages and disadvantages and crucially whether western approaches have anything to learn from these traditional systems, now diminished in power and scope but still very much present in many parts of Africa. The converse question might also be put – can those traditional systems still extant benefit from Anglo-Saxon models of organisation and management?
There are difficulties with such a project. Differences in time, space, culture, size, economic activity and technology must make for problems for researchers. There are then the problems faced by any researcher in terms of their ‘habitus’ or ‘situatedness’ and the need for awareness of their own potential influences on their research. How much more problematic might this prove when examining very different cultures and attempting to make comparisons between their social systems in different time spans, different locations and in entirely different global political and economic contexts?
British social anthropologists, studying traditional societies during the colonial period, had the additional difficulties of being part of (or seen as part of) an occupying colonial administration. Normal difficulties concerning problems with information given to researchers by informants were compounded by this political context in which a great deal of scholarship about traditional societies was produced. This has been discussed over the decades by social anthropologists and sociologists, and will be addressed in this chapter, as at least some of the information used is from that period.
However, despite the difficulties, there is value in such comparisons and in heightening awareness of issues such as accountability in non-western systems as compared with questions of accountability in western institutions. This is relevant for those teaching organisation and management studies – not least to students from other parts of the world, and for practitioners who might gain some advantage from considering different systems and practices, and possibly also gain more insight into their own situations.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine why there were different representations and research applications of Burns and Stalker's The Management of Innovation.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine why there were different representations and research applications of Burns and Stalker's The Management of Innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach primarily takes the form of an examination of academic journals, in particular The Administrative Science Quarterly between 1960 and 1980. Theoretical works, in particular by Bourdieu, were also used.
Findings
Contrary to accepted knowledge, the journals were eclectic in their approaches and did not require authors to adopt positivist approaches.
Research limitations/implications
A fuller answer to the question posed would require interviews with journal editors and university policy makers from the 1960s‐1980s. This has not been possible so far. Although some answers have been provided, questions still remain as to why certain representations of this book were dominant.
Practical implications
There are implications as to what counts as knowledge in academe, and how this knowledge should be treated, given that it may only partially represent the theory above and also other theories. This has implications for what is taught in universities and what is adopted by consultants as bona fide knowledge.
Originality/value
To the author's knowledge such questions using this type of research have not been examined in the detail pursued here.
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The social, economic and political context of African societies in the wake of various European intrusions has set the scene for post‐independent western‐African relationships…
Abstract
The social, economic and political context of African societies in the wake of various European intrusions has set the scene for post‐independent western‐African relationships. The purpose of this paper is to examine the intentions and policies of developed countries and international agencies to the third world, using as an example a report evaluating aid to Mozambique. A textual analysis of the report will further explore the relationship between aid policies and western‐Mozambican relationships. It will be argued that however destructive pre‐independence relationships with colonial powers were for African societies, post‐colonial demands by western powers in return for aid were far more intrusive, requiring more total subversion of traditional economies to western neo‐liberal economic models.
The purpose of this paper is to examine what counts as knowledge in the organization/management field.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine what counts as knowledge in the organization/management field.
Design/methodology/approach
Conventional, legitimated knowledge is analyzed through research into representations of an influential management text. Management and management accounting textbooks and research papers are investigated to establish the types of knowledge produced.
Findings
Mainstream representations of this book are partial, focusing on a “model” of what is likely to ensure successful organizational change – structural and systemic adaptations. What has been ignored is the problematization of structural change and the role of human agency. The foci and omissions of these representations cohere with divisions in the social sciences more generally – between “objectivist” and “subjectivist” ontologies and epistemologies.
Research limitations/implications
There is a need for further research into representations of texts about organizational change, the way the objectivist/subjectivist divide is played out, and its significance for organization/management studies and more widely for the social sciences.
Practical implications
Questions arise as to the validity and sustainability of such knowledge. Omissions about the difficulties in implementing structural change raise epistemological and practical difficulties for students, managers and consultants.
Social implications
Omissions of human subjectivities and agency from mainstream knowledge is problematic regarding successful organizational change and social issues more widely.
Originality/value
The paper's value lies in the in‐depth analysis of representations of a text in the organization/management area and the linking of the type of knowledge produced with broader epistemological and methodological issues in the social sciences.
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The issues raised in this chapter are primarily those of obfuscation regarding social and economic inequality in the UK. The chapter is about the way discourse in various forms…
Abstract
The issues raised in this chapter are primarily those of obfuscation regarding social and economic inequality in the UK. The chapter is about the way discourse in various forms serves to disguise and justify the huge inequalities in this society; legitimising and ‘naturalising’ them, or in Arendt's words ‘lying’ about them so that they are seen as ‘natural and self-evident’ (Alvesson & Deetz, 2006, p. 261). Issues looked at are the institutional arrangements by which government ministers give or withhold resources to and from certain categories of its citizens. This includes the UK Treasury in relation to which economic groups the Chancellor of the Exchequer decides how much to tax or not to tax. In particular what are examined are the discourses justifying these measures and establishing certain ‘truths’ about how things are economically and socially; which categories are entitled to or deserving of certain kinds of resources and which are not – argued here as constituting obfuscations of the ‘actual’ situation. Obfuscation has been defined as the action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible. This, arguably, is not far removed, from the action of being deliberately untruthful or lying. The question then arises as to how close these discourses come to lying and how serious the inequalities are.
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Miriam Green, Wim Vandekerckhove and Dominique Bessire
This paper aims to argue that the concept of “accountability” has changed and become perverted. Originally the concept meant answerability or the act of rendering an account…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to argue that the concept of “accountability” has changed and become perverted. Originally the concept meant answerability or the act of rendering an account. Those who were traditionally accountable were the powerful in organisations, public institutions and international bodies. The paper seeks point out that the notion of “accountability” has largely been emptied of its substance, as over the past few decades the concept of accountability has become perverted in discourse and in practice. The powerful are often no longer held accountable and are able to make those to whom they have hitherto been accountable, accountable to them instead.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is developed at the micro, meso and macro levels, through an analysis of the academic literature, in particular journals dealing with the interface between accounting and organisation studies.
Findings
It was found that what happens at the micro and meso levels becomes comprehensible when put into the context of the macro level. Instances of partial or reversed accountability in practice are pointed out and linked with insights from commentators in the fields of sociology and philosophy.
Originality/value
Concepts of accountability have become increasingly important in organisational discourse and practice over recent decades. This is particularly so given the importance now accorded to corporate governance and new public management. This paper is intended to formulate resistance to a particular discursive domination of corporate social responsibility. The paper is also new in the linking of this analysis with the argument that the weakening and reversal of accountability might be all‐pervasive in the current era of advanced capitalism and free market ideologies, and that the subversion of accountability is an instance of politically motivated hegemony.