Apologies for any cross-posting.
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CELEBRATING 70 YEARS OF HUMAN RELATIONS
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Last few tickets left for 70th Anniversary Workshop:
Can, and should, social science contribute to better quality jobs?
A 70-year retrospect and prospect
Tuesday 10 Oct 2017 at The British Academy, London SW1Y 5AH
Organizer: Prof. Paul K Edwards, former Editor-in-Chief, Human Relations
This year Human Relations celebrates its 70th Anniversary! As part of our celebrations, Human Relations will be running a workshop that will interest scholars of work and employment, policy makers in employers' organizations and trade unions, public officials, and researchers in research institutes with an interest in work and the labour market. It is intended to be an engaged conversation among experts. Numbers will be restricted.
There will four short (15 minute) presentations by experts in the field, taking specific examples to address some of the above questions, six short presentations from other participants on different aspects of work then space for questions and discussion, all leading up to a concluding round table of experts.
[Overview and Programme...]
Owing to some late cancellations, places at this event are still available - to book your place, please contact Claire Castle.
Reflections on the history of Human Relations – FREE access during October
Human Relations is one of the oldest social science journals. It was established in 1947, ahead of journals such as the British Journal of Sociology (1950), and long before other leading management journals such as those published by the Academy of Management (the Journal, 1958, and the Review, 1976) and journals of work, organization and employment (e.g. Organization Studies, 1980 and Work, Employment and Society, 1987).
For the 70th anniversary of the journal's foundation, Professor Paul Edwards, FBA, looks back over its development and contents and offers a series of reflections – all the articles in these collections have been made free to access during October:
- Human Relations: The first 10 years, 1947–1956
- Human Relations: 1957–1966
- Human Relations: 1967–1986
- Human Relations: 1987–1996 and beyond
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FREE ACCESS FEATURED ARTICLE FOR OCTOBER
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Free access until 31 October 2017:
Theorization as institutional work: The dynamics of roles and practices
Sébastien Mena and Roy Suddaby
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726715622556
Abstract
This study unpacks the construct of theorization – the process by which organizational ideas become delocalized and abstracted into theoretical models to support their diffusion across time and space. We adopt an institutional work lens to analyse the key components of theorization in contexts where institutional work is in transition from changing institutions to maintaining them. We build on a longitudinal inductive study of theorization by the Fair Labor Association – a private regulatory initiative that created and then enforced a code of conduct for working conditions in apparel factories. Our study reveals that when institutional work shifts from changing to maintaining an institutional arrangement of corporate social responsibility, there is a key change in how the Fair Labor Association theorizes roles and practices related to this arrangement. We observe that theorization on key practices largely remains intact, whereas the roles of different actors are theorized in a dramatically different manner. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the work involved in the aftermath of radical change by demonstrating the relative plasticity of roles over the rigidity of practices.
Keywords: corporate social responsibility, institutional change, institutional maintenance, institutional transition, private regulation, private regulatory initiative
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OCTOBER ISSUE ARTICLES
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A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations October 2017; 70(10) – we hope you enjoy reading these articles.
You might also like to take a look at recent issues: September 2017 70(9); August 2017 70(8); July 2017 70(7)
Critical Essay: Organizational cognitive neuroscience drives theoretical progress, or: The curious case of the straw man murder
Michael JR Butler, Nick Lee and Carl Senior
Human Relations, 70(10): 1171–1190. First published date: February-02-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726716684381
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716684381
Abstract
In this critical essay, we respond to Lindebaum's argument that neuroscientific methodologies and data have been accepted prematurely in proposing novel management theory. We acknowledge that building new management theories requires firm foundations. We also find his distinction between demand and supply-side forces helpful as an analytical framework identifying the momentum for the contemporary production of management theory. Nevertheless, some of the arguments Lindebaum puts forward, on closer inspection, can be contested, especially those related to the supply side of organizational cognitive neuroscience research: functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data, motherhood statements and ethical concerns. We put forward a more positive case for organizational cognitive neuroscience methodologies and data, as well as clarifying exactly what organizational cognitive neuroscience really means, and its consequences for the development of strong management theory.
Keywords: management, methodology, organizational cognitive neuroscience, practice, theory
Proactivity routines: The role of social processes in how employees self-initiate change
Heather C Vough, Uta K Bindl and Sharon K Parker
Human Relations, 70(10): 1191–1216, First published date: January-31-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716686819
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716686819
Abstract
Proactive work behaviors are self-initiated, future-focused actions aimed at bringing about changes to work processes in organizations. Such behaviors occur within the social context of work. The extant literature that has focused on the role of social context for proactivity has focused on social context as an overall input or output of proactivity. However, in this article we argue that the process of engaging in proactive work behavior (proactive goal-striving) may also be a function of the social context in which it occurs. Based on qualitative data from 39 call center employees in an energy-supply company, we find that in a context characterized by standardized work procedures, proactive goal-striving can occur through a proactivity routine – a socially constructed and accepted pattern of action by which employees initiate and achieve changes to work processes, with the support of managers and colleagues. Our findings point to the need to view proactive work behaviors at a higher level of analysis than the individual in order to identify shared routines for engaging in proactivity, as well as how multiple actors coordinate their efforts in the process of achieving individually-generated proactive goals.
Keywords: proactive work behaviors, proactivity, qualitative methods, routines, standardized work
The shaping of sustainable careers post hearing loss:
Toward greater understanding of adult onset disability, disability identity, and career transitions
David C Baldridge and Mukta Kulkarni
Human Relations, 70(10): 1217–1236. First published date: February-17-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716687388
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716687388
Abstract
Through this interview-based study with 40 respondents in the United States we have outlined enablers of career transitions and sustainable careers for professionals who have experienced severe hearing loss as adults. To sustain careers after adult onset disability, respondents engaged in a quest for meaning and big picture answers to 'who am I?' and 'am I still successful?' This included redefining themselves – e.g. I am now both a person with a disability (disability identity) and a successful professional (professional identity) – and career success (e.g. now I care about service to society as much as I care about material artifacts). Respondents also adopted new work roles where disability was a key to success (e.g. becoming an equal employment officer) and utilized social networks to continue being successful. Such redefining of work and networks supported the aforesaid quest for meaning and big picture answers. Findings not only indicate how individuals experience career success after a life-changing event but also help defamiliarize extant notions of ableism in workplace contexts.
Keywords: adult onset, career transitions, disability, disability identity, hearing loss, sustainable careers
How do we understand worker silence despite poor conditions – as the actress said to the woman bishop
Deborah Dean and Anne-marie Greene
Human Relations, 70(10): 1237–1257. First published date: May-12-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726717694371
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717694371
Abstract
This article considers the customary choice of silence over voice of two groups of UK workers – women clergy and women actors – who routinely tolerate poor quality conditions rather than express dissatisfaction. We argue that a key mediating factor is an expanded version of Hirschman's (1970) concept of loyalty. The article considers how occupational ideologies facilitate loyalty as adaptation to disadvantage in ways that discourage voice, in framing silence as positive. Consequently, we also identify this type of loyalty as potentially salient in understanding silence in other occupations. A descriptive model comparing strength of occupational ideology and voicing of dissatisfaction is outlined, and through discussion of findings the article offers conceptual refinements of loyalty in accounting for worker silence.
Keywords: calling, loyalty, occupational ideologies, voice, women workers - actors, clergy
Trajectories and antecedents of integration in mergers and acquisitions:
A comparison of two longitudinal studies
Martin R Edwards, Jukka Lipponen, Tony Edwards, Marko Hakonen
Human Relations, 70(10): 1258–1290. First published date: March-17-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716686169
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716686169
Abstract
Despite existing research examining snapshots of employee reactions to organizational mergers and acquisitions (M&A), there is a complete absence of work theorizing or exploring rates of change in employees' organizational identification with the merged entity. We address this gap using two three-wave longitudinal panel samples from different M&A settings, tracking change in identification through a two-year period. Theorizing trajectories of change in identification across the organizations in both settings, we make predictions linked to expected antecedents of change in identification. Our research context (M&A-1) involves a merger of three Finish universities tracking 938 employees from each organization in three waves (nine months pre-merger to 24 months post-merger). Our second context (M&A-2) involves a multinational acquisition tracking 346 employees from both the acquired and acquiring organization in three waves (from two to 26 months post-acquisition). Using Latent Growth Modelling, we confirm predicted trajectories of change in identification. Across both samples, a linear increase (across Time 1, Time 2 and Time 3) in justice and linear decrease in threat perceptions were found to significantly predict a linear increase in identification across the post-M&A period. We discuss organizational identification development trajectories and how changes in these two antecedents account for changes in identification across M&A contexts.
Keywords: employee integration, identity, longitudinal research, M&A, mergers and acquisitions, organisational identification, organisational psychology
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
Access all OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
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The role of co-workers in the production of (homo)sexuality at work:
A Foucauldian approach to the sexual identity processes of gay and lesbian employees
Koen Van Laer
Human Relations, first published September-19-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717711236
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717711236
Abstract
Adopting a Foucauldian perspective that focuses on the way power contributes to ensuring that sexuality leads a discursive existence, this study investigates the role of co-workers in the production of gay and lesbian employees' sexuality. Drawing on interviews with 31 employees who self-identify as gay or lesbian, this article makes three contributions to the literature on sexual minorities' identities at work. First, it shows how the production of sexuality is shaped by relations of attribution, evocation and circulation, which involve sexualizing practices through which co-workers directly contribute to ensuring that employees become sexually intelligible. By shaping the way sexual identities can be managed, these practices can turn the production of sexuality into a process that is not only unmanageable, but also even unmanaged by gay and lesbian employees themselves. Second, this article shows how an important element in sexual identity management is negotiating relations of truthfulness and inclusion, and constructing the occupied sexual subject position as positive or necessary. Third, it shows the connections between these different relations, which can occur and work together to ensure that all individuals come to be linked to a clear sexual identity.
Keywords: disclosure, diversity, gay and lesbian employees, identity, power, sexuality, sexual minorities
Imagining 'non-nationality': Cosmopolitanism as a source of collective identity and belonging
Irene Skovgaard-Smith and Flemming Poulfelt
Human Relations, first published September-19-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717714042
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717714042
Abstract
Current literature tends to see cosmopolitan identity formation as an individual endeavour of developing a stance of openness, and transcending discourses of national and other cultural identities. This article challenges the essentialism inherent in this model by proposing a different framing of cosmopolitan identity formation that shifts the focus to how people collectively mobilize cosmopolitanism as a resource for cultural identity construction. The article is based on an anthropological study of transnational professionals who are part of a diverse expatriate community in Amsterdam. The analysis shows how these professionals draw on cosmopolitanism to define themselves as 'non-nationals'. This involves downplaying national affiliations and cultural differences while also marking national identity categories and 'cultural features' to maintain the difference they collectively embrace. This, however, does not imply openness to all otherness. Boundary drawing to demarcate the cosmopolitan 'us' in relation to national (mono)culture is equally important. The article argues that cosmopolitan identities are socially accomplished as particular modes of collective belonging that are part of – not beyond – a global discursive sphere of identity politics.
Keywords: cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan identity formation, cultural identity and belonging, expatriate communities, global mobility, self-initiated expatriates, skilled migration, translocality, transnational professionals
Transnational power and translocal governance: The politics of corporate responsibility
Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee
Human Relations, first published September-19-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717726586
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717726586
Abstract
In this article, I provide a critical analysis of the politics of corporate social responsibility. I argue that corporate social responsibility is a strategy that enables multinational corporations to exercise power in the global political economy. Using the global extractive industries as a context, I focus on conflicts between communities, the state and multinational corporations that arise owing to the negative social and environmental impacts of mining and extraction. In particular, I analyse the role of political corporate social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives in managing conflicts and argue that these initiatives cannot take into account the needs of vulnerable stakeholders. Power asymmetries between key actors in the political economy can diminish the welfare of communities impacted by extraction. Several governance challenges arise as a result of these power asymmetries and I develop a translocal governance framework from the perspective of vulnerable stakeholders that can enable a more progressive approach to societal governance of multinational corporations.
Keywords: corporate social responsibility, governance, marginalized stakeholders, multinational corporations, power
Competition for control over the labour process as a driver of relocation of activities to a shared services centre
Petr Mezihorak
Human Relations, first published September-18-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717727047
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717727047
Abstract
New approaches to studying multinational corporations sensitive to issues of power and politics often neglect the way power and politics in corporations shape workplaces, specifically labour processes and modes of their control. The article presents a case study of a firm's relocation of activities to a shared services centre. The relationships among the shared services centre, its client departments and the headquarters involve an ongoing combination of cooperation and competition, resulting in increased managerial control over labour processes and changes in corporate governance. The shared services centre established as a support unit aims to strengthen its position in the organizational structure by gaining control over labour processes and their modification. Competition with client departments for control over labour processes leads to the introduction of controlling mechanisms, norms and standards both in the centre and in client departments. These rules, on the one hand, limit uncertainty; on the other hand, they drive the fragmentation of labour processes, rendering them more codifiable and less complex. These effects make labour processes easier to control and, eventually, to relocate, which is advantageous for the headquarters. Changes in labour processes thus shape the relationships within the corporation and the space for power struggles and politics.
Keywords: competition, control, global value chain, labour, labour process, multinational corporation, outsourcing, power, shared services, work
From horizontal to vertical labour governance:
The International Labour Organization (ILO) and decent work in global supply chains
Huw Thomas and Peter Turnbull
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi 10.1177/0018726717719994
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717719994
Abstract
The role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the governance of global supply chains is typically neglected or simply dismissed as ineffective. This is understandable as global supply chains have undermined the traditional nation state (horizontal) paradigm of global labour governance, most notably the international Conventions agreed by the tripartite constituents (governments, employers and workers' representatives) of the ILO. But this simply poses the question of whether, and if so how, the ILO can reframe the system of global labour governance to include the (vertical) global supply chains that all too often fail to deliver 'decent work for all'. Based on an extended ethnographic study, we demonstrate how policy entrepreneurs (international civil servants) within the ILO can play a pivotal role in not only reframing the discourse in a way that resonates with the 'lived experiences' of constituents but also 'orchestrate' the social partners in order to secure majority support for a process that might ultimately lead to a new standard (Convention) for decent work in global supply chains. A new approach to employment relationships in global supply chains is 'in the making', with the potential to improve working conditions and rights at work for millions across the globe.
Keywords: decent work, discursive institutionalism, global labour governance, global supply chains, international labour standards, strategic framing
A lifespan perspective for understanding career self-management and satisfaction:
The role of developmental human resource practices and organizational support
Yuhee Jung and Norihiko Takeuchi
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717715075
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717715075
Abstract
The contemporary career literature or 'new career' theory emphasizes the importance of individual agentic career management processes in which individuals manage their careers to achieve career satisfaction by flexibly adjusting to the dynamic environment. There is limited research, however, on how individuals strategize their careers as they age, by utilizing or balancing organizational career management factors, including developmental human resource (HR) practices and organizational support. This study, therefore, documents how age, career self-management and organizational career management factors interactively influence career satisfaction, integrating conservation of resources (COR) and socioemotional selectivity (SES) theories. Using time-lagged data collected from 364 Japanese employees, the results supported the predicted three-way interaction effects. For young employees, the positive relationship between career self-management and satisfaction was stronger when developmental HR practices and organizational support were high, and thus a synergistic effect was salient. For middle-aged employees, the positive relationship was stronger when these factors were low, and thus a compensatory effect was manifested. Interestingly, middle-aged employees who perceived a lack of developmental practices or support showed marked improvements in career satisfaction by engaging in career self-management behaviors. We discuss the changing nature of career management strategies across an individual's lifespan from both vocational and managerial viewpoints.
Keywords: career management strategies, conservation of resources theory, HR practices, perceived organizational support, socioemotional selectivity theory, young and middle-aged employees
Identities, mental health and work:
How employees with mental health conditions recount the pejorative discourse of mental illness
Hadar Elraz
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717716752
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717716752
Abstract
This article asks how identity is constructed for individuals with mental health conditions (MHCs) in the workplace. It takes especial regard to how MHCs are discursively situated, constructed and reconstructed in the workplace. Employees with MHCs face a difficult situation: not only do they need to deal with the stigma and discrimination commonly associated with MHCs, but they must also manage their health condition whilst adhering to organizational demands to demonstrate performance and commitment to work. Discourse analysis derived from 32 interviews with individuals with MHCs delineates how these individuals feel both stigmatized and empowered by their MHCs. The findings address three discursive strands: (i) a pejorative construction of mental illness in employment and society; (ii) contesting mental illness at work by embracing mental health management skills; and (iii) recounting mental illness through public disclosure and change. This article enhances understanding of how the construction of positive identity in the face of negative attributions associated with MHCs contributes to literature on identity, organizations and stigma as well as raising implications for policy and practice.
Keywords: disability, discourse, employment, mental illness, mental health, MHC
Political ideology and the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry
Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey, Roy Suddaby and Kevin O'Gorman
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718919
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718919
Abstract
How might political ideology help to shape an organizational field? We explore the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry through analysis of one of its leading actors, Hilton International (HI), conceived by Conrad Hilton as a means of combatting communism by facilitating world peace through international trade and travel. While the politicized rhetoric employed at hotel openings reflected institutional diversity, it resonated in parallel with a strong anti-communist discourse. We show that through astute political sensemaking and sensegiving, macro-political discourse that is ideological and universalizing may be allied to micro-political practices in strategic action fields. Our study illuminates the processes of early-stage post-war globalization and its accompanying discourses, demonstrating that the foundation of a global industry may be ideologically inspired. Our primary contribution to theory is specific acknowledgement of the importance of political ideology as a particular 'social skill', helping to determine how international business has been 'won'.
Keywords: discourse, global hotel industry, macro-politics, micro-politics, power, rhetoric
Gender segregation, underemployment and subjective well-being in the UK labour market
Daiga Kamerāde and Helen Richardson
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717713829
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717713829
Abstract
This article argues that gender segregation influences patterns of underemployment and the relationships that underemployment has with the subjective well-being of men and women. Previous studies have paid little attention to how gender segregation shapes underemployment, an increasingly prominent feature of the UK and European labour markets since the economic crisis of 2008. Using data from the UK Annual Population Surveys, this article examines time-related underemployment: people working part time because they cannot find a full-time job. The article asks whether there are gender differences in underemployment trends and in the links between underemployment and subjective well-being. The results suggest that the probability of underemployment is growing at a faster rate among women rather than men and that underemployment is most common in the jobs that women are more likely to perform, namely in female-dominated occupations, the public sector and small organizations. Underemployment is least common in male-dominated occupations and industries and in the private sector. Moreover, for employees with longer tenures, underemployment has more negative relationships with the subjective well-being of women than with that of men. These findings imply that gender segregation in labour markets is a crucial factor to consider when researching underemployment and its consequences.
Keywords: anxiety, gender segregation, happiness, involuntary part-time work, life satisfaction, part-time work, recession, subjective well-being, underemployment
Trust and betrayal in interorganizational relationships: A systemic functional grammar analysis
Love Börjeson
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718916
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718916
Abstract
What is it that we do when we say to our business partner that we trust them? Or when we hint that we would consider a withdrawal from cooperation a betrayal? Relying on a systemic functional grammar analysis, interorganizational relationships (IORs) are in this study shown to be characterized by a recurring dilemma: the involved partners are expected to be transparent and explicit regarding their intentions while at the same time being open to opportunities that the IOR may present. In the struggle to balance between these opposing demands, trust is used by trustees to promise both explicitness and opportunity. Conversely, trustors of IORs pressure the trustee to continue the cooperation by evoking latent accusations of betrayal. The intended result of these rhetorical strategies is to prolong the IOR until it can be properly evaluated. While this prolongation accrues to the systems of IORs and to participating organizations, the costs for the involved individuals can be considerable. The trustor risks feeling betrayed, and the trustee risks being accused of betrayal for reasons that are beyond his or her control.
Keywords: betrayal, dilemma, interorganizational relationships, systemic functional grammar, trust
Mechanisms of biopower and neoliberal governmentality in precarious work:
Mobilizing the dependent self-employed as independent business owners
Johanna Moisander, Claudia Groß and Kirsi Eräranta
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718918
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718918
Abstract
In the contemporary conditions of neoliberal governmentality, and the emerging 'gig economy,' standard employment relationships appear to be giving way to precarious work. This article examines the mechanisms of biopower and techniques of managerial control that underpin-and produce consent for-precarious work and nonstandard work arrangements. Based on an ethnographic study, the article shows how a globally operating direct sales organization deploys particular techniques of government to mobilize and manage its precarious workers as a network of enterprise-units: as a community of active and productive economic agents who willingly reconstitute themselves and their lives as enterprises to pursue self-efficacy, autonomy and self-worth as individuals. The article contributes to the literature on organizational power, particularly Foucauldian studies of the workplace, in three ways: (1) by building a theoretical analytics of government perspective on managerial control that highlights the nondisciplinary, biopolitical forms of power that underpin employment relations under the conditions of neoliberal governmentality; (2) by extending the theory of enterprise culture to the domain of precarious work to examine the mechanisms of biopower that underpin ongoing transformations in the sphere of work; and (3) by shifting critical attention to the lived experience of precarious workers in practice.
Keywords: biopower, enterprise culture, gig economy, managerial control, neoliberal governmentality, precarious work
Expanding role boundary management theory:
How volunteering highlights contextually shifting strategies and collapsing work–life role boundaries
Disraelly Cruz and Rebecca Meisenbach
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718917
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718917
Abstract
Despite interest in expanding work–family research to focus on work–life issues, few scholars have addressed non-family life enrichment roles and their potential additional forms of and issues for boundary management. Using in-depth qualitative interviews, this study investigates the management of under-researched work–life boundaries by focusing on how volunteers communicatively manage the volunteer role in light of work and home demands. The findings suggest new boundary management processes. Specifically, in addition to the established segmenting and integrating processes, the volunteers also articulated a process of collapsing boundaries. This latter new category is manifested in two forms, named simultaneous role enactment and role value fusion. Furthermore, findings highlight how rather than only enacting one stance, individuals described contextually dependent, shifting ways of managing multiple life roles. These findings have implications for how scholars study work–life management, how practitioners seek to recruit members, and how volunteers and organizational employees make membership decisions.
Keywords: multiple role engagement, role boundary management, volunteerism, work and family, work–life enrichment
Talking into (non)existence: Denying or constituting paradoxes of Corporate Social Responsibility
Jochen Hoffmann
Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717721306
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717721306
Abstract
Organizations can be understood as sites of persistent tensions between equally legitimate claims. In other words, organizations may be paradoxical. However, paradoxes do not pre-exist as a matter of fact. This article investigates how dominant academic discourses either constitute or deny potential paradoxes of Corporate Social Responsibility. It follows the theoretical perspective of CCO – Communication Constitutes Organizations and, more specifically, a ventriloqual approach. Academics are like ventriloquists, they breath life into dummies who establish theoretical figures that may or may not support paradoxical thinking in organizational research. The qualitative meta-analysis shows that potential Corporate Social Responsibility paradoxes are primarily talked into nonexistence. Managerial ventriloquists reject Corporate Social Responsibility tensions in the interests of organizational consistency and harmony. Critical ventriloquists accept tensions, but assume their causes lie in gaps between rhetoric and practice. The preferred figure is not a paradoxical one, but that of organizational hypocrisy. Overall, non-paradoxical approaches dominate; they, in turn, ventriloquize their creators, thereby limiting the scope of future research. A communicative perspective is instead open to the constitution of Corporate Social Responsibility paradoxes. It enables practitioners to engage in a proactive management of organizational tensions and encourages scholars to reflect on the constituted nature of academic discourses.
Keywords: Communication Constitutes Organizations, Corporate Social Responsibility, critical research, managerialism, paradox, ventriloquism
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VIRTUAL SPECIAL ISSUES
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- Knowledge and knowing in the study of organization: From commodity to communication
- Women, men, and work: Gender identity and gender differences in the workplace
- Diversity research: Theorizing the new frontier in sexual orientation diversity
- Change management
- Critical performativity
Editor's Choice Collections:
- Paper of the Year Award winners
- Classic papers from Human Relations
- Papers that have influenced Paul Edwards, former EIC
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is included in the FT50 list of journals (effective from January 2017) used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings. It is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015 and Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal (Source: 2016 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2017):
2-year impact factor: 2.622 Ranked: 4/96 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 58/193 in Management
5-year impact factor: 4.027 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 50/186 in Management
Read the journal's mission statement.
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Telephone: +44 (0)7432740583
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org