Grand Challenges Organization Society

Abschluss des DFG Netzwerkes

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Unser DFG Netzwek “Grundlegende gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen und Neue Formen des Organisierens” kommt zu seinem natürlichen Ende. Das Netzwerk traf sich fünfmal und pflegte auch zwischen den Treffen einen intensiven Austausch. Die Treffen fanden von 2018 bis 2021 an fünf unterschiedlichen Standorten und Institutionen statt. Jedes Treffen bot ein vielfältiges Angebot bestehend aus inhaltlichen Auseinandersetzungen und sozialen Aktivitäten sowie Planung des Research in the Sociology of Organizations (RSO) Volumen und je zwei Keynotes. Darüber hinaus gab es einen regelmäßigen Austausch auf Konferenzen wie die Academy of Management (AOM) oder der European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) und durch Online-Treffen.

DatumOrt
Treffen I04.-05.10.2018Universität Hamburg
Treffen II14.-15.03.2019Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Treffen III19.-20.09.2019Rotterdam School of Management
Treffen IV05.-06.03.2020 Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Treffen V20.-21.09.2021Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin

Treffen I: 04.-05.10.2018

Ziel des ersten Treffens war ein Verständnis für die Komplexität der Grand Challenges und neuer Formen der Organisation zu entwickeln. Es sprachen Keynote-Speakers Johanna Mair, Professorin an der Hertie School of Governance (über ihre Erkenntnissen zum Verhältnis zwischen Innovation und Skalierung) und Juliane Reinecke, Professorin am King’s College London (über ihre Arbeit zu nachhaltigem kollektiven Engagement). Bernd Ulrich, stellvertretender Chefredakteur der deutschen Tageszeitung Die Zeit, hielt eine Dinner-Rede über zentrale Probleme unserer Zeit: den Klimawandel, die Verschiebung der globalen Machtdynamik und die nationalen Folgen. Jürgen Trittin, ehemaliger deutscher Bundesminister für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit sowie kurzzeitig Bundesminister für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, sprach über ähnliche Probleme wie Ungleichheit, Klimawandel und schlechte globale Governance.

Treffen II: 14.-15.03.2019

Es sprachen an der VU Amsterdam die Keynote-Speakers Jennifer Howard-Grenville, Professorin an der Judge Business School der Universität Cambridge, und Frank de Bakker, Professor an der IESEG School of Management in Lille, Frankreich. Wir erörterten einflussreiche aktuelle Beiträge zur akademischen Literatur über Grand Challenges und neue Formen des Organisierens; und widmeten uns der Frage, wie diesen Herausforderungen in unserer eigenen Forschung, Lehre sowie in der Praxis begegnet werden kann. Wir diskutierten, wie eine Wissenschaft gefördert werden kann, die dazu beiträgt, Grand Challenges durch neue Formen der Organisation anzugehen. Ebenso zentral waren methodische und pädagogische Herausforderungen sowie verschiedene Strategien, um mit unserer Arbeit eine deutliche Wirkung zu erzielen.

Treffen III: 19.-20.09.2019

Es sprachen an der Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) die Keynote-Speakers Tima Bansal von der Ivey Business School (zu Managementtheorien und Nachhaltigkeitsstrategien) und Joep Cornelissen von der RSM (zu Organisationstheorien im Zusammenhang von Grand Challenges). Auch haben wir das weitere Vorgehen des RSO Volume geplant – samt darin erscheinende Kapitel sowie anschließender Mitteilung der Ergebnisse in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. 

Treffen IV: 05.-06.03.2020

Es sprachen an der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg die Keynote-Speakers Professorin Jana Costas von der Europa-Universität Viadrina (mit kritischer Perspektive auf den Begriff der wissenschaftlichen Öffentlichkeitsarbeit) und Professorin Laura Marie Edinger-Schons von der Universität Mannheim (über die beeindruckenden Lehr- und Aufklärungsmaßnahmen, die ihr Team und sie mit einer Vielzahl von Partner*innen durchführen). Vorträge und Diskussionen zu Formen der Lehre, Formen der Gestaltung/Organisation, Formen der Prüfung und “Best Practices” in der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit förderten die Debatte darüber, wie Forschende mit Fachleuten und der Gesellschaft im Allgemeinen in Kontakt treten können. 

Treffen V: 20.-21.09.2021

Das fünfte und letzte Netzwerktreffen der Forschungsgruppe war auch das erste persönliche Treffen seit dem Beginn der Pandemie. Es sprachen am Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft in Berlin die Keynote-Speakers Professorin und Co-Gründerin von Scientists for Future Maja Göpel (zu Wissenschaftlichkeit als bedingte Entstehung oder bewusste Entscheidung) und Professor Gert Wagner (zu Wissenstransfer). In ihrem Workshop verbanden Professor Leonhard Dobusch und Dr. Anna Jobin eine Vielfalt an Herausforderungen mit Medienaufmerksamkeit und Arbeitsbelastung. Abschließend besprachen wir die nächsten Schritte des DFG Netzwerks für die nahe Zukunft inklusive Förderung und Publikationen.

Fazit: Das Netzwerk endet, die Arbeit geht weiter.

Organization

2021 OMT Best Published Paper Award

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I am so happy, honored & humbled to win together with Michael Smets and Tim Morris the 2021 OMT Best Published Paper Award for the article ’God at Work’: Engaging Central and Incompatible Institutional Logics Through Elastic Hybridity published at the Academy of Management Journal.

I think this is the highest achievement for an article in my discipline. It is deemed the best article within organization and management theory among all articles published in all journals in 2020 (in the entire universe, of course, too ;). For me, it feels a bit akin to winning a Nobel Prize, just without the money – which would have been nice.. 😉

So here is my Oscar, I mean OMT Best Published Paper Award “acceptance speech”:

Thank you to so many anonymous heads, hearts and hands: I was told that multiple committees went through a step-by-step screening process for this award. To all those anonymous colleagues: thank you. Much of our work as reviewer and colleague remains formally unrecognized, but it is actually at the centre of our profession. It keeps our profession together. Thank you Michael Lounsbury for chairing this selection process. Thank you Elaine Hollensbe for being a tough but just editor. Thank you Michael and Tim for embarking on this 6-year journey together.

Thank you to my academic homes during this process: Oxford, WU Vienna, Hamburg and HIIG and to colleagues that make academia meaningful and a collective pursuit. This article – like most – is a co-production and effort of the many. It would not have been thought-able without previous work in, for instance, institutional and paradox theories. And it would not have been writ-able without the countless conversations that continuously transform my, our thinking. Every article deserves an “et al” of the many.

Thank you to my family for enduring the oddities of an academic mind, who is ultra-happy if he receives a very high risk revise-and-resubmit. We are odd creatures. At some point my son spoke of “A M J”. So this work leaves its mark on us, families and friends.

Let me also mention a few other thoughts. Academia is painful and more often about rejections (not failures!) then acceptances (conditional, of course…). Just 3 weeks ago I received a 2nd round reject in a so-called A+ journal. This happens to all of us. We are in this together.

Also, academia is about so much more than publishing. Publishing may be the necessary condition for tenure and jobs (and here personally, I believe in diversifying our metrics and cherishing a diversity of excellence), but it is not, in my opinion, a sine-qua-non condition for being a good academic. And this sole metric has made some of us instrumentally outcome (publish: yes/no) rather than process-focused (intellectual pursuit: yes/no). Personally, I cherish the reviewing process to make a paper better. And I cherish equally the kind and intriguing conversations at conferences or in hallways – with a delicious coffee. We all know this feeling when reading a new thought in a book or article or a conversation that makes us re-think and think further. Am simply loving it. So – and here some of you may differ – I would not see my academic life as a success if I have published only A+ publications, but rather written a mix of intriguing articles and complemented them with having impact – intellectually and practically. By having helped to steer this ship that we call OMT and its adjacent “real worlds” slightly forward in a collective effort.

I simply enjoy too much the intellectual conversations with colleagues about something meaningful and the sparkling eyes of practitioners when a concept truly matters. Please see this as an invite to approach me at conferences and elsewhere. Especially after 1,5 years of digital conferences, my heart and mind yearn for meeting people in person and to talk about research, about society, and also the manifold other topics that make our lives colorful (children, coffee, nature, Karate, …).

If you ask yourself what the article we got the award for is actually about: It is about how to achieve unity in diversity despite competing values that are both incompatible and central to the organization and its employees. Through what we call elastic hybridity organizations are capable of institutionally bending without organizationally breaking thereby enabling individuals to practice more of their personal convictions at work while still experiencing a sense of shared organizational purpose. For more:

What’s next for me, i.e. what keeps me awake? I am very intrigued by questions at three intersections: values and organizations; grand challenges and organizations; and digitalization and organizations. A couple of articles here are forthcoming and I am more than happy to share them with you. At the HIIG in my research group, we work on AI, platforms, open innovation and digital (social) entrepreneurship. Happy to share more about our findings here, too.

But for now, I shall celebrate. 🙂

Update. Here is the award interview:

And the award itself:

Entrepreneurship Organization

Hybridity & Liability of Novelty

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In this new piece co-authored with Michael Smets, we explain that ventures may face not only a liability of newness but also a liability of novelty. The legitimacy threshold for ventures that are institutionally novel is higher than for those that are merely organizationally new. This is because they face both additional descriptive and evaluative liabilities. A new organizational form can be both “not understood” & “not accepted”.

Update: The paper has won the Emerald Literati Award 2021.

Digital Transformation Entrepreneurship Grand Challenges Organization

Inclusive digital platform innovation in the face of COVID-19

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Numerous digital platforms have emerged as a go-to response to the Covid-19 crisis – building on conventional platform characteristics, but using alternative, more inclusive organisational models.

Platforms face opportunities of market, motivation & momentum to address spatial, social & scale/speed challenges.

By offering the innovations that people most need right now, more inclusive platform alternatives may now have an opportunity to step up and secure a more significant role in the platform economy of the future.

The article is co-authored with Nicolas Friederici and Philip Meier.

Grand Challenges Organization Society Sustainability

Organization, Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation

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Enjoyed teaching a seminar that conjoins research on organization, social entrepreneurship and innovation (OSEI) with methodologies to study these topics empirically. Sessions were divided into two parts. The first part engaged with research topic specifics such as organizing in and for society, leading social change, social innovation, social entrepreneurship, new forms of organizing and grand challenges, and scaling social change. It commenced with an overview into the theme followed by short student presentations of research articles and in-depth discussions about articles to unpack their implications, interrelationships and conceptual and practical consequences. The second part prepared students for their own work by focusing on research methodologies such as approaching cases, doing field research, and writing up research reports. The course thus bridged high quality global research and local empirical cases.

Some objectives:

  • to familiarize students with some of the core concepts and theoretical underpinnings around organization, social entrepreneurship, and social innovation
  • to help students gain a stronger understanding of, and think critically about, this domain, including its research requirements and methods for publishing scholarly research
  • to use a format through which students can further develop the analytical, discursive and writing skills needed as a scholar
  • to offer a forum for developing, refining, and presenting own research ideas

 

Course schedule:

No

Date

Topic
1 14.10.2019 Introduction
2 28.10.2019 Organizing in & for Society – Case Selection
3 11.11.2019 Leading Social Change – Methodological Considerations
4 25.11.2019 Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship – Field Research
5 09.12.2019 New Forms of Organizing & Grand Challenges – Research Dynamics
6 06.01.2020 Scaling Social Change – Writing up Research Reports
7 20.01.2020 Re-view & out-look
Organization Society

Article nominated for VHB Best Paper Award 2020

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Our article that engages with themes such as elastic hybridity, complexity, paradox, resilience & purpose is nominated for the VHB Best Paper Award 2020. The VHB is the German Academic Association for Business Research.

List of nominated papers: https://vhbonline.org/wissenschaftsfoerderung/vhb-preise/nominierungen-2020/nominierungen-best-paper-award-2020

Press release in German: https://www.wu.ac.at/presse/presseaussendungen/presseaussendung-details/detail/zielkonflikte-im-unternehmen-einigkeit-durch-mehrdeutigkeit

Press release in English: https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/research/research-showcase/when-organisational-purposes-conflict-leading-deliberate-vagueness

About the article: We explain that existing approaches to managing hybridity focus on solutions that are organizational, structural and static. These approaches manage institutional tensions on behalf of employees. Yet, where competing values are incompatible and central to both the organization and the fundamental beliefs of its employees, it is impractical for an organization to prescribe how individuals manage them.

We outline polysemy and polyphony as mechanisms that dynamically engage conflicting logics through an organizational-individual interplay. Borrowing from paradox theory, they explain how hybrids can empower individuals to fluidly separate and integrate logics when neither structural compartmentalizing nor organizational blending are feasible because management cannot prescribe a specific balance of logics. The result is a state of elastic hybridity, constituted through the recursive, multi-level relationship between polysemy and polyphony. Elastic hybrids maintain unity in diversity. Like the bank, they are capable of institutionally bending without organizationally breaking and thus enable individuals to practice more of their personal convictions at work while still experiencing a sense of shared organizational purpose.

Organization Society

Unity in Diversity in Organizations & Society

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A new article co-authored with colleagues Michael Smets and AMJ coverTim Morris has been published at the Academy of Management Journal. It is entitled ‘God at Work’: Engaging central and incompatible institutional logics through elastic hybridity and examines how the first Islamic Bank in Germany maintains unity in diversity by forming what we call an elastic hybrid that remains resilient despite contradictory beliefs and values that persist over time. We show how the bank is capable of institutionally bending without organizationally breaking enabling individuals to practice more of their personal convictions at work while still experiencing a sense of shared organizational purpose.

Implications for politics

Implications for politics can be read in-between the lines: Populist advocate for homogeneity as it reduces complexity. It puts us into boxes and separates us. Populists stand for this approach. Effectively, they compartmentalize societies. In contrast, heterogeneity is much more challenging, but also more rewarding. Heterogeneity is not just blending: we do not become all the same, but we cope with this diversity – with unity in diversity. Our societies become elastic, accommodating, and enriched by plurality. I believe, this is one of the fundamental social and societal challenges of our time: do we embrace the complexity of humankind or do we attempt to reduce it?

Some coverage in English: 1, 2 & German: 3, 4, 5