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The knowledge of local staff (post offices) is directly mediated by theirexperience, their perception of postal service role in the local community and theidea of local community life. The analysis showed that an employee’s notion ofcorporate standards may contradict the his/her subjective understanding of postoffice objectives and his/her place in gaining them (the napkins story).Innovations break the regular and common interaction and can indirectly affectthe relations between employees and citizens (the “deadly daisy” story).
Postoffice staff is often much better informed about client preferences and practices,16which in some cases could save the organization from rash expenses (the PAPstory).4. In contrast to previous, managerial knowledge is more abstract and theorized.On the one hand, it allows managers to make decisions, but on the other – itmakes these decisions inflexible and oversimplified for lifeworld of specific postoffices. As an example, this is the case of installing unnecessary expensiveequipment for internet connection at public access places. Still, even if there wasan attempt to prospect the details of post office existence, the actions of clientsmay remain misunderstood with a fleur of disregard (as in the butter story).5.
As a result, change and innovation tickle down from confident managers, whorely on immutability and universality of market laws. At the same time, ordinaryemployees do not always obey requirements. At best, they can criticize (as withparcel tracking in “deadly daisy” story). Employees can practically simulate andloosen polices with practices (Bromley, Powell, 2012), as did the grandmother– post office administrator on the Circum-Baikal railway. And another employeestrategy would be fulfilling the requirements without reflection and linking themto organizational goals. This is what Bromley and Powell (2012) call “meansends loose coupling”.
A great example of such situation is ubiquitous installationof PAPs.6. Since the knowledge of local staff is based on experience and is more likely tobe implicit, innovations and shift of existing practices puts at risk the selfperception of their professional identity. This has a negative impact on howemployees perceive resolutions and regulations from the “top”. Therefore the“poisoned chalice” story reveals a latent tragedy of the gradual identity loss,“demonizing” the material object (a cup) as the cause of organizational changeinstead.7. Five stories told by employees also reflect conflicts and problems that are notarticulated directly and lay deeper.
These are: competing interests and contradictactions of participants (the napkins story); dissatisfaction with rotation in staffand organizational structure (the “poisoned chalice” story); lack of17complementarity among the updated units, the level of interaction with theexternal environment (the butter story); new ways of communication andgrowing control/surveillance (the “deadly daisy” story); intentions failure due toan oversimplified understanding of customers’ lives and needs and of humanrelationships (the PAP story).8.
Employees experience organizational changes in stories which vary by narrativeforms, structures, plots and emotions. These stories can be an empirically richanalytical material per se. The stories of “dramatic” (B. Czarniawska),“unmanaged” (Y. Gabriel) and “storytelling” (D. Boje) organizationdemonstrate the “backstage” of organizational change at the micro-level, andreflect organizational activities in general.General findingsThe processual approach to organizational change analysis allows productivelinking of the macro-context of organizational performance to the micro-practicesof its various actors. This allows one to analyse how managerial decisions are carriedand translated, how these decisions are reflected in the actions of lower-levelemployees. Research focus on organizing instead of organization allows one toidentify how events are assigned, understood and acted upon at different levels andin various divisions of the organization.The peculiarities of Russian Post reorganization are largely determined by thespecifics of the organization itself.
Throughout the world national postal operatorshave faced serious challenges and competition - internal, from private companiesand courier services, and external, from the means of internet communication. Inmost countries, the same questions arise for national posts: how to increaseprofitability (or decrease losses); whether the amount and quality of universal postalservice should be reconsidered; how to deal with monopolistic ownership and whatto do about privatization; what are the indicators of an efficient postal service, is18there a way to combine financial success with social obligations.
These are only afew issues determined by industry characteristics. In addition to that, Russian Posthas a number of its distinctive features related to economic, political, cultural,historical and social factors. These are the scale of organization, loose coupling andlocality of its parts.The current notion of organizational change as a planned sequential action ofimprovement can hardly describe the real organizational performance, especiallywhen change is natural for an organization.
Russian Post demonstrates thatorganization is not always a certain entity and being, but more of a process andconstant becoming.Geographically distributed organizations exist in different localities. Forvarious reasons Russian Post exists literally in different temporalities, with distinctpaces of life, speed of change and even understanding of these changes. At the lowestlevels of organization change can be perceived in a form of separate and not alwaysthought-out actions, as they are divorced from the context, local knowledge andemployee experience. At the managerial level change most likely exists in a frameof planned and managed events, and one only need to bring them further (or deepdeep down).Geographical remoteness and power distance simultaneously simplify andimpede the introduction of innovations.
On the one hand, loosely coupled structureprovides an opportunity to adjust centralized solutions at the local level. On the otherhand, there is a decrease in responsiveness – post offices staff can prefer their owncurrent needs or demands of the nearest authorities to instructions from far-far-awayMoscow. Despite inevitable difficulties, loose coupling of organizational partsallows their compatible. However, this also complicates communication, experienceand knowledge exchange, increases the power distance between the worlds of“production” and “management”.The specific features of Russian Post human resources enhance the meaningof communication within and between organizational levels.
The lack of universalprofessional knowledge of increases the role of tacit, implicit knowledge, which is19hardly explicated and transmitted. The high staff turnover among postmen andoperators even more devalues this experience. Experts professionalize gainingmanagerial power, and workers of the core professions (postmen, operators, sorters)seek for independent regulation of their own activities. Innovations tickle down fromconfident managers, who rely on immutability and universality of market laws. Atthe same time, ordinary employees can either obey the requirements, or rethinkthem, or even refuse to perform (because there is a lower control and lower speed ofreal change in such a huge organization).The identity of post office employees is largely based on tacit knowledge,therefore they perceive and shifts and innovations either neutrally (at best) ornegatively. Reactions come from irony and scepticism to sheer disapproval.
Theexperience and emotional perception of the reorganization are reflected in stories.These stories may provide a rich material and an independent source for analysis ofRussian Post performance.The stories of employees' perception of change analysis allows one to accessthe micro-level, to link the macro level of tasks - indicators - strategies withorganizing process. The case of the Russian Post demonstrates methodological andempirical advantages of processual approach. It weakens the normative power oforganizational success / failure and provides a completely different perspective onwhat the daily life of a constantly changing organization is.List of publications, which reflect the main scientific results of the thesis:Gudova, E.A.
(2018) “Nu eto zhe pochta!”: kak proiskhodiat istorii vorganizatsiiakh, a organizatsii v istoriiakh [“Well, That’s the Postal Service!”: HowOrganizations Produce Stories and Stories Shape Organizing]. Etnograficheskoeobozrenie, 3: 151–167 (in Russian).GudovaE.A.(2017)Dramatichnaya,neupravlyayemayaipovestvuyushchaya: organizatsiya skvoz’ prizmu narrativnogo analiza [Dramatic,20unmanaged and storytelling: organizations through narrative analysis]. Zhurnalsotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii [The Journal of Sociology and SocialAnthropology], 20(3): 50–73 (in Russian).Gudova E.A.
(2016) Effektivnost' s «chelovecheskim licom»: jevoljucijaponimanija «jeffektivnosti» v teorii organizacij [Effectiveness with a human face:Evolution of the notion in the organizational theory] // Monitoring obshhestvennogomnenija: jekonomicheskie i social'nye peremeny [Monitoring of Public Opinion:Economic and Social Changes], 1: 231—239 (in Russian).Konobeeva E.A.
(2015) Proizvodstvo smyslov v rabote gosudarstvennykhorganizatsiy: sluchai “Pochty Rossii” [Sensemaking in State-Owned Enterprises:The Case of “Russian Post”] // Journal of Economic Sociology = Ekonomicheskayasotsiologiya, 16(3): 46–73 (in Russian)..
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