New phenomena that need to be addressed by Organization Theory

With the advance of modern technology and transformation of the society, there are new phenomena that need to be addressed by organization theories and the organization theory itself demonstrate several characteristics that points to the future of the field.


New phenomena


First, organization boundaries have become open and flexible. The openness is reflected by the fact that permanent workers are replaced with temporary workers. Team and project teams include members from several firms, production and service systems are likely to extend across several firms and industries (the environment is more complex). The flexibility is reflected by the fact that sizes of the firms have become smaller, which further influences internal labor ladder, formalization, complexity and differentiation of jobs and full-time employees. Boundaries of the firms start to be determined more by symbolic signals rather than materialist modes.


Second, strategy of the organizations changes from internalized to externalized (Pfeffer and Baron, 1988). Firms do not buffer uncertainty by merging or hiring the experts. They tend to rely on external systems. The development of online media has made organizations more sensitive to the environment. That can be one reason that firms are now seen as reside in communities and the community environment is seen as so important.


Third, overall the structures of firms have become more flattened. More centralized authority has been changed to more decentralized and horizontal systems.


Fourth, history differences in different countries has been ignored and abstracted away. Most of the theories fail to account for the differences within different country and culture, where we left out one dimension of environmental complexity.


Possible Recommendations


Theoretically


Davis and Marquis (2005) and Meyer et al. (2005) have proposed several ways to deal with the problems.


1)     Focusing the unit of analysis on field level.  With the fast reaction to environment, it is meaningless to keep organizations as closed systems.


2)     Focusing on process rather than results


3)     Consider different application in different countries.


4)     Develop mesotheory: previous literature has focus mostly on macro level and ignores the micro process of the macro phenomena. Network form organizations focus mostly on collective actions that derive from individual level actions. Therefore, as Merton has argued that we need more meso level theory to account the current world.


Empirically


The methodology has evolved from Linear (GLR assumption (general linear relationship), GLM methods (general linear model)) to Nonlinear (Complex adaptive systems (CAS), coevolution, field configuration (QCA), network formation, autocatalytic feedback, niche evolution, emergence)


By Kate Jue Wang


References:


Clegg, Stewart R., et al., eds. The Sage handbook of organization studies. Sage, 2006.


Buchanan, David, and Alan Bryman, eds. The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods. Sage Publications Ltd, 2009.


Davis, G. F., & Marquis, C. (2005). Prospects for Organization Theory in the Early Twenty-First Century: Institutional Fields and Mechanisms. Organization Science, 16(4), 332–343. doi:10.1287/orsc.1050.0137


Maanen, J. Van. (1995). Style as Theory. Organization Science, 6(1), 133–143.


Meyer, A. D., Gaba, V., & Colwell, K. a. (2005). Organizing Far from Equilibrium: Nonlinear Change in Organizational Fields. Organization Science, 16(5), 456–473. doi:10.1287/orsc.1050.0135