Resume_Gudova_Е.А_ (1136930)
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National Research UniversityHigher School of EconomicsAs a manuscriptElena A. GudovaProcessual approach to organizational change:the case of FSUE “Russian Post”Thesis Summary for the purpose of obtaining PhD in Sociology HSEAcademic supervisor:PhD in SociologyIvan V. PavlyutkinMoscow, 20182The problem statementOrganizational change is a subject of interest among both researches invarious fields (sociology, management, administration studies and relateddisciplines) and business practitioners. “Changes” are connected with allorganizational facets, as they influence formal structure, aims and processes,interrelations and connections with the environment, organizational culture, powerrelations, knowledge creation, decision-making, etc.There are two main theoretical approaches toward the study of organizationalchange, which differ in philosophical origins and empirical implications.
The firstone sees organization as a static entity, which changes by a transition between itsdifferent states. Change in this case is considered as any observed difference in size,shape, characteristics and state of the organization. The second approach toorganizational change is based on the idea that change is not an exceptional event,but a completely natural process that even precedes organization and enables itsexistence.However, since the very first interest in organizations as special objects ofsocial reality most part of theory and practice of organizational change have beendeveloping within the framework of the first approach. Transition between differentstates of organization - entities focused attention of researchers on the issues ofrationality and effectiveness (as in theory of a formal organization andfunctionalism), survival(in organizational ecology) and legitimacy (ininstitutionalism).
An “entified organization” problematized the goals-means ratioand simplified evaluation of change performance.In the 1970s-1990s in accordance with more global shifts in social sciencesand philosophy (the so-called “turns”), emerged an understanding thatorganizational life cannot be fixed in time, and change is not always intentional fororganization. From the 1990s researchers pay growing attention toward agency,performativity, enactment and sensemaking, rituals and routine practices inorganizations.3Nevertheless, research optics for organizational change analysis is determinednot only by scientific fashion or personal preferences, but by specific features of anobject, a particular organization. In her analysis of Swedish public sectortransformation B.
Czarniawska compares organizational change with serials. Serialslack a clear structure and connect episodes with each other by themes or main ideas,they are potentially endless (or they last until nobody is interested) (Czarniawska1997: 79). Directors and scriptwriters can change, but the action unfolds inexorably,adapting to new conditions and demands of the external environment.National postal operators have a number of specific organizational features: ahistorically rooted form of monopoly; a costly universal service obligation; acontradiction between financial success and social outcomes. Russian Post hasseveral additional distinctions –it’s the scale of organization, loose coupling andlocality of its parts.The intensity and course of change process differs significantly because ofgeographical and hierarchical boundaries (O'Leary, Mortensen 2010, EasterbySmith, Lyles 2011, Gibbs et all.
2015). In geographically dispersed organizations,one can even speak of different paces of change and peculiarities in their perception.Since its very establishment in 2002 and until 2016, Russian Post has beenchanging managerial teams and following disparate goals. This complicates theevaluation and definition of organizational change (both by direct participants andexternal observers), and also demonstrates the limits of the “entified” approach atthe empirical level. In this case events can only formally be divided into steps orstages (e.g. by managerial teams periods). If this logic is applied to the analysis ofchanges the the Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FSUE) “Russian Post”, thenorganizational activities may seem irrational and dysfunctional.
Approaching aprocessual lens to an ongoing organizing of Russian national postal operator allowsone to escape the normative discourse of evaluation and goals-means ratio. In thisinstance changes become a natural process for the organization.The processual approach toward organizational change raises a number ofquestions central to this work. How change is perceived, what are the meanings of4change at different levels of the organization? How managerial decisions are carriedand translated, how these decisions are reflected in the actions of lower-levelemployees? What the arrangement of organizational change microlevel “backstage”can tell about organizational activities in general? This study attempts to answerthese questions on the example of the Russian Post reorganization in 2013-2016.Problem developmentThe idea of change as a shift in any observed characteristic of an entifiedorganization lies at the very core of M.
Weber’s project of formal organization.According to it, rationalization and bureaucratization or an organization areinevitable due to development of competitive markets and search for effectivemanagement models. These assumptions were further developed both in modernbureaucracies research (by R. Merton, A. Gouldner, F.
Selznik, P. Blau, D. Beetham,M. Crozier – only to name a few) and in practice-oriented approaches of C.I.Barnard, A.P. Sloan, R.C. Townsend, T.J. Peters and R. Waterman.The same approach toward change is partially adopted in Durkheim's projectof collective organization. His notion of collective consciousness largely determinedthe “cultural turn of 1970s and the interest in organizational culture as a product ofsocial processes. Durkheim's ideas about customary problem‐ solving strategieswere further developed by J.
March and G. Simon (bounded rationality); K. Weickinvestigated the relation of individual cognitive sensemaking with collectiveschemes; J. Meyer and B. Rowan considered the symbolic part of organizationalstructure components (as organizational myths), and P. DiMaggio and W. Powellproposed the typology of isomorphism; N. Fligstein's conceptions of control connectdominant ideas about organizational reality with organizational effectiveness.
Therewere attempts to categorize change in the framework of an entity-based approach by“orders” (J.M. Bartunek, M.K. Moch), “ideal types” (A.H. Van de Ven, M.S. Poole),“degrees” (G. March, G.P. Huber, Glick W.H. K. Sutcliffe, J. Porras, R. Silvers,5etc.), “stages” (K.
Levin and numerous apprentices of his model “Change At ThreeSteps” (CATS)) etc.The theoretical foundations of procedural approach rely on works of suchphilosophers as A. Bergson (becoming instead of being), William James (radicalempiricism), A.N. Whitehead (a subject emerges from a process), as well as J.Dewey. Sociological heritage is represented by the legacy of G.
Tarde (socialcontamination and imitation as a basis of collectivity). Tarde's works, previouslyforgotten in the shadow of his more influential cotemporary Durkheim, went througha renaissance in the 1990s discovered by science and technology (STS) researchers,actor-network theory, and those researchers interested in innovations. Tarde’s“imitation” as a method of change is not just a residual form of imitativeisomorphism according to P.
DiMaggio and W. Powell, but a fundamental principleof the organization's existence. When there’s a lack of knowledge about what andhow to imitate, communication plays an important role (N. Luhmann).The idea that organizational life cannot be fixed in time due to various externalfactors existed in organizational ecology (M.T. Hannan, J. Freeman), newinstitutionalism (W.R. Scott, W.W. Powell, J.W. Meyer, B. Rowan, J.G. March),resource dependence theory (J. Pfeffer, G.R. Salancik), the evolutionary approach(H. Aldrich). Since then attention has also moved to less certain issues of agency,sensemaking and organizational routines and practices.
Some of the maincontributors are to J. Law, B. Latour, M.S. Feldman, W.J. Orlikowski, K.E. Weick,D.A. Gioia, R. Chia, D. Obstfeld, K. Chittipeddi, S.J. Magala, J. Sandberg, H.Tsoukas, T. Hernes, B. Czarniawska, K.J. Gergen.Since the understanding of change depends directly on the specifics oforganization, it is also important to take into account its origin, ownership andindustry area. The majority of national postal operators has been established andfurther developed as state monopolies for economic reasons (as economies of scopeand scale) and non-economic reasons (such as national sovereignty, strategicimportance and state security, equality and democratic access for all citizens).Recent privatization of national operators evokes a comparison of two ownership6forms, as well as a comparison of international experience of the transition periodand privatization outcomes (G.
Sidak, M.A. Crew, P.R. Kleindorfer, J. Campbell, S.Perelman, and others). Moreover, there are two international organizations engagedin changes and development of postal industry – the International Post Corporation(IPC)1 and the Universal Postal Union (UPU)2. The clash of market logic with socialsignificance of national postal operation was highlighted in the studies of N. Biggart,T.E.
Leavey, P.L. Maclachlan, T. Goydke.Transformations of such a large organization as a national postal operatorimplies time duration, hierarchical and geographical distance costs. Studies ofdifficulties in the work of geographically distributed teams were conducted by M.B.O'Leary, M. Mortensen, P.M Hinds, J. Eisenberg, J.L. Gibbs. These types of distanceand disconnection in organization may be exacerbated by a “gap” between worldsof administrative decision-making and local service provision (local contexts). Theinconsistency of formal prescriptions and practical implementation is well describedin the anthropological works of J.C. Scott, A.
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