Organisations, Organising and Calculative Practices - Oct 2010

Faculty
Professors Jan Mouritsen and Martin Kornberger

Course Coordinator
Professor Jan Mouritsen

Prerequisite
PhD
Aim of the course

The purpose of the PhD course is to investigate relations between organisation studies and accounting. More specifically, the aim of the course is to explore relations between calculative practices and organisational action. Any performance measure is a calculative practise that renders certain aspects of organisational practices visible; at the same time calculations, their representation and mobilization are framed by organization. Hence the course wants to shed light on the organisational construction and consumption of calculation on a variety of issues.

The objective of the course is to

§ Enable the student to critically examine the roles calculative practices in making activities visible and amenable to intervention.

§ Understand accounting as providing an account of something - either through numbers, narratives or other articulations. Requesting and providing accounts are fundamental to organisational systems of accountability.

§ Carry through analysis of the format and consequences of various types of calculation in relation to key organisational processes such as decision making, search, and accountability.

The main idea of the course

The course emphasises attention to relations between calculation and organisational practices. The topic is divided into three questions:

Calculation and search: How do accounting practices that make the value of new ideas tangible and visible impact on organizational search?
Calculation and decision-making: How do calculative practices influence organizational decision making processes?
Calculation and accountability: How do calculations found e.g. in sustainability reporting practices define and inscribe ethics and morality?

Each question will be investigated using literature from accounting, organization theory and related fields. The discussion will start with a reading of an accounting paper that captures the state of the art. We will then consult papers from organization theory and related fields to a.) Question the assumptions of accounting, b.) Complexify issues and assumptions and c.) Discuss implications for organizational action and design. In so doing the seminar establishes connections between accounting as calculative practice and organizational issues.

Course content, structure and teaching

STRUCTURE: WORKSHOPS, REFLECTION AND PERSPECTIVE

The course is organised as a 5 day learning experience. The pedagogy includes teacher and student-presentations, break-out sessions, “PhD trouble shooting” sessions (a short on-demand session focused on a specific problem or challenge one of the participants encounters in their PhD work which might be relevant to others) and intensive reading of texts.

It is an advanced course and it requires thorough reading of key papers from high quality journals such as Accounting, Organisations and Society; Organization; Management Accounting Research; Organisation Studies and others. The papers used in the course may differ from those mentioned below which are used to indicate the character of the PhD course.

The program

Day 1: Monday 11.10.2010, 10-5pm

2-3pm: Welcome and introduction: drawing the map of the epistemological space of calculation and organization

3-5pm: Setting the scene: accounting and organization theory

Group 1 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session accounting as calculative practice. Reading: Peter Miller, 2001, Governing by Numbers: Why Calculative Practices Matter, Social Research, 68, 379

Group 2 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session the epistemological space of organization theory. Reading: Walter Nord, Thomas Lawrence, Cynthia Hardy and Stewart Clegg, 2006, Introduction, in Clegg et al, eds, 2006, The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, 2nd edition, London: Sage, pp 1-15

Michael Reed, 2006, Organizational Theorizing: a Historically Contested Terrain, in Clegg et al, eds, 2006, The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, 2nd edition, London: Sage, pp 17-55

7pm: Dinner

Day 2: Tuesday 12.10.2010, 9-5pm: calculation and search

9-11am: Accounting for the future

Breakout session followed by discussion. Focus: How calculation produces visibility; relation between visibility and action / search. Reading: Ahrens, T. & Chapman, C. "Accounting for flexibility and efficiency: A field study of management control systems in a restaurant chain", Contemporary Accounting Research (2004)

11-1pm: Complication I

Group 1 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session the notion of technology of foolishness; reading: James March,1988, The Technology of Foolishness, in J. March (ed.) Decisions and Organizations, pp. 253–65. Oxford: Blackwell

Group 2 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session the concept of the ambidextrous organization; reading: Tushman, M.L. & O'Reilly, C.A. 1996, Ambidextrous organizations: Managing evolutionary and revolutionary change. California Management Review, 38: 8-30

Group 3 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session the idea of organizing dissonance; reading: David Stark, 2009, The Sense of Dissonance. Accounts of Worth in Economic Life, Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford, Chapter 1

2-4pm: Implications, Explications

What are the potential consequences of the discussion for organization design and organizational action?

4-5pm: PhD Trouble Shooting Session

In this session a PhD candidate will present a problem or challenge she / he is facing (20 minutes max). in small breakout groups the class will brainstorm solutions for the problem (20 minutes) before getting together and discussing them (20 minutes).

Day 3: Wednesday 13.10.2010, 9-5pm: Calculation and decision-making I

9-11am: Accounting, rationality and decision-making I

Breakout session followed by discussion. Reading: RJ Boland, Jr., and LR Pondy, 1983, Accounting in organizations: A union of natural and rational perspectives" Accounting, Organizations and Society 4: 361-74

11-1pm: Accounting, rationality and decision-making II

Breakout session followed by discussion. Reading: Macintosh, Norman B. & Shearer, Teri & Thornton, Daniel B. & Welker, Michael, 2000, Accounting as simulacrum and hyperreality: perspectives on income and capital, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, 25(1): 13-50

Jan Mouritsen, 2010, The operation of representation in accounting: a small addition to Dr Macintosh’s theory of accounting truth, Working Paper

2-4pm: Complication II

Group 1 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session Simon’s concept of bounded rationality; reading: Simon, Herbert (1991). Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning, Organization Science 2(1): 125-134

Group 2 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session the garbage can model of organizing; reading; Cohen, Michael D., March, James G. & Olsen, Johan P., 1972, A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1): 1-25

Group 3 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session on Brunson’s idea of hypocrisy; reading: Nils Brunsson, 1993, Ideas and Actions: Justification and Hypocrisy as Alternative to Control, in Accounting, Organization and Society 18(6): 489-506

4-5pm: PhD Trouble Shooting Session

In this session a PhD candidate will present a problem or challenge she / he is facing (20 minutes max). In small breakout groups the class will brainstorm solutions for the problem (20 minutes) before getting together and discussing them (20 minutes).

5-6pm: Drinks

Day 4: Thursday 14.10.2010, 9-5pm: calculation and decision-making II

9-11am: Complication II (continued)

Group 1 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session the relation between decision-making, power and rationality; reading: Bent Flyvbjerg, 2002, Bringing Power to Planning Research: One Researcher's Praxis Story, Journal of Planning Education and Research , 21(4): 353-366

Group 2 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session sensemaking as organizational supplement to decision-making; reading: Karl Weick, Kathleen M Sutcliffe and David Obstfeld, 2005, Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking, Organization Science, 16(4): 409-421,

Group 3 to reflect and then discuss in plenary session on decision-making and language; reading: Oakes, L.S., Townley, B. Cooper, D.J., 1998, Business planning as pedagogy: language and control in a changing institutional field. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43, 257-292

11-1pm: Implications, Explications

What are the potential consequences of the discussion for organization design and organizational action?

2-4pm: Status for transformation of PhD work from PhD course ubtill now.

4-5pm: PhD Trouble Shooting Session

Day 5: Friday 15.10.2010, 9-5pm: calculation and accountability

9-11am: Accountability and ethics

Breakout session followed by discussion. Focus: Inscriptions of ‘the good’; sustainability, intellectual capital and progressive futures; the ambiguity of ethics Reading: Roberts, J. (2003) The Manufacture of Corporate Social Responsibility: Constructing Corporate Sensibility, Organization 10(2): 249–265

11-1pm: The case of CSR

Groups to reflect and then discuss in plenary session a CSR report from a firm

2-4pm: Final Complication

Breakout session followed by discussion. Reading: Stewart Clegg, Martin Kornberger and Carl Rhodes, 2007, Business Ethics as Practice, British Journal of Management 18: 107-122;

Ray Gordon, Martin Kornberger, Stewart Clegg, 2009, Embedded Ethics: Discourse and Power in the New South Wales Police Service, Organization Studies 30(1):73-99

4-5pm: Implications, Explications

What are the potential consequences of the discussion for organization design and organizational action?

Sidst opdateret af Trine Flyvbjerg 27.05.2010