The aim of this module is to facilitate learners in building, integrating and extending knowledge and understanding of organising. As a module in organisational analysis, the intention is to move beyond seeing and understanding organisations in limited ways so as to increase the ways learners are able to see, analyse, understand and take action in organisations. Ultimately, the intention is that learners will gain more flexibility as organisational actors and managers, while also exploring ways to strengthen theory-practice linkages (and vice-versa). Thus, while learners will become skilled at applying a body of theoretical perspectives to analyse organisation, they will also be developing their organising and managing skills as they complete module work with others. In developing such mastery, learners are encouraged to exercise skills of selectivity, analysis, interpretation, and communication in managing their learning, thinking through readings, conducting research, and expressing a comprehensive, internalised understanding of organising. A further aim is to build on the learner’s competence in learning to learn.
Organisations as Machines: The language of efficiency and control
—How should an organisation be designed and managed? A common answer that is still trotted out is ‘like a well-oiled machine’. Classical management theories – from Taylor’s scientific management, to Fayol’s work on administrative theory and Weber’s on bureaucracy – represent the historical underpinnings of this still current, and often derided, view of organising. While bureaucracy is a popular target of such derision, there is still much that is positive about this form of organising.
Organisations as Organisms: The ‘needy’ human and job and organisation design
—Different to classical management theories, and their economic assumptions about human nature, present-day theories of organising are often anchored in psychological and biological models of human nature. According to these theories, humans are understood as organisms that develop, grow and adapt, and have needs that must be accounted for in organisational settings. This way of seeing and understanding human nature is represented in management concerns, for example, to find a ‘fit’ between the individual and the organisation and to design ‘motivating’ jobs. This view raises the question as to whether the needs of the individual and of the organisation can be balanced or whether they invariably are in conflict.
Organisations as Organisms: Varieties of structures and organisational environments
—In contrast to the machine view, the more recent view of organisations as living organisms facilitates attending to the nature of the external environment and the problem of how an organisation can adapt to its environment. Just as it is possible to study the variety of species among living creatures, the variety of organisations can also be examined to see how different kinds of organisations may exist in different environments.
Organisations as Cultures: Creating social reality
—Thanks to the growing trend towards globalisation, ‘culture’ and the idea of ‘cultural differences’ are now acknowledged as important managerial concerns. In parallel, organisations are seen as symbolic, as well as economic, phenomena. Understanding organisations as ‘worlds of meaning’, reflecting and shaping who organisational actors are, this perspective focuses on the beliefs, values, ideas, rituals, norms and other patterns of shared meaning guiding organisational life. It affords a different way of thinking about and accounting for why things are the way they are. It also addresses the idea of ‘corporate culture’, the belief that organisations develop internal cultures, or subcultures, which may make them more or less effective. Another area of interest is that of the ‘multi-cultural organisation’, which raises challenges in ‘managing diversity’.
Organisations as Political Systems: Interests, conflict and power
—As political arenas or sites of power, but also embedded within political systems, how can politics in organisations be understood? Through exploring organisations as systems of government, a framework for analysing the political aspects of organisational life is presented that emphasises the interplay among interests, conflict and power in shaping work situations and organisational activities.
Organisations as Psychic Prisons: Assumptive traps, emotions, anxieties and unconscious processes
—Emphasising the psychological and emotional dimensions of organisational life, this perspective focuses on the idea that organisations are ‘psychic prisons’, with organisational activity reflecting the playing out of conscious and unconscious processes. In this view, organisational actors become trapped by the images, ideas, thoughts and actions that these processes generate. Affording many valuable insights into the psychodynamic facets of organisation and preferred management styles, this perspective encourages seeing and paying attention to the non-rational aspects of organisations and the structures within which all are imprisoned.
Organisations as Instruments of Domination: The ugly face of organisation
—Organisations often exploit their employees, their environment and the wider society in pursuit of their own ends. Instead of thinking of organisation in terms of shared vision, goals, purpose, consensus and smooth functioning, this view stresses the deep structures of power and conflict that underlie many problems of industrialised society. Presenting a very different image of management and the manager, this perspective proves useful for understanding organisations from the standpoint of exploited groups and for understanding how actions that are rational to one can be exploitative to another.
Implications for Practice
—Having engaged with different modes of thinking, the focus turns to how the insights from the various perspectives can be used and integrated from the point of view of management.
The module takes a combined self-directed learning, seminar discussion and workshop format, with learners expected to read and think about the assigned material prior to each class meeting such that they can participate actively in class discussion and activities. Through creating a highly hands-on learning environment, learners are continually immersed in situations reflective of the practical world of organisation and management through in-class activities and continuous assessments comprising cases, exercises, role-plays, simulations, film/video, debates, contemporary media articles, and lived experience. Each classroom session is designed as a dialogue within a community of practice, with the role of the faculty to stimulate and facilitate that dialogue, encouraging learners to develop an integrative understanding of the field and to generate questions that allow for reflection on, and application of, learning in both familiar and ill-defined contexts. Additionally, the module embraces a reflective stance, in which both learners and facilitator explore the implications of each session for their careers and broader lives.
| Module Content & Assessment | |
|---|---|
| Assessment Breakdown | % |
| Other Assessment(s) | 100 |