Webinar
Research In Progress
Thursday, March 25th, 2021 at 9:00 am Eastern Time
This ODC webinar brings research work of two scholars in organization design.
"From Organization Design to Organizational Design Inquiry: Towards a pragmatic perspective”
A number of scholars are claiming paradigmatic shifts in organisation design (e.g. Magalhães, 2020; Snow & Fjeldstad, forthcoming). Similarly, I realised that organisation design is predominantly looking at organisation design through the paradigm of design science (Simon, 1969) with an emphasis on contingency theory. While in design studies, next to Simon’s Design Science, an important alternative paradigm emerged: Schön’s Reflective Practice (1983) and Design Inquiry, which drew heavily on the pragmatist inquiry of Dewey (1938). Schön critiqued technical rationality, arguing the designer “does not keep means and ends separate, but defines them interactively as he frames the problematic situation. He does not separate thinking from doing, ratiocinating his way to the decision which he must later convert to action.” (1983, p. 68). Therefore, in this webinar I want to explore with the audience the paradigmatic assumptions of organization design, problematize these building on the work of Alvesson & Sandberg (2011) and Dewey (1938) and substantiate a paradigmatic shift in organization design.
Speaker Intro:
Frithjof Wegener is a PhD-Candidate at the Department of Design, Organization and Strategy of the Delft University of Technology. His PhD research explores an interdisciplinary perspective on organisational design as a design process, combining insights from pragmatism, organisation studies and design studies. He is especially interested in ontological practice and process research, building on a pragmatist paradigm, to bring theory and practice closer together.
Designing for Voice: Developing and Testing a Voice Solicitation Intervention in a Military Organization
Speaking up is essential to employee empowerment and organizational performance. Extant research on voice solicitation in organizations focuses primarily on the antecedents and occurrence of either the voicer or the one receiving input. Few studies in this area have conceived of voice solicitation as a process unfolding over time, including the mechanisms that precede, enable or inhibit voice. Therefore, this study explores how voice solicitation processes and their outcomes evolve over time. For this purpose, we designed a voice solicitation intervention that combines the three activities of guiding, inviting and challenging both the powerful and less powerful participants in their team meetings. Subsequently, we implemented and tested the intervention in ten military teams. Our findings demonstrate how a voice solicitation intervention can trigger a virtuous process leading to enhanced psychological safety, voice capability development, and increasing voice. Yet, it can also result in a vicious process when expectations of team members increasingly diverge, psychological safety is compromised, and tensions build up in ways that ultimately demotivate voice.
Speaker Intro:
Steven van Baarle is a junior researcher and an experienced consultant in the field of management and organization. He is currently an (external) PhD candidate at Eindhoven University of Technology. His main research interests are in the dynamics of stability and change in organizations. Steven’s research aims to enhance our understanding of these dynamics as well as their key (practical) challenges, by drawing on insights from the power and empowerment literature.
Webinar is only for ODC, EODF and ODF members only.
