Talking About Organizations Podcast

Presents a professional development workshop we hosted at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. It sheds light on the foundational texts of female scholars for the field of organization and management theory but whose work is often overlooked. Part 1 includes presentations by Emmanuelle Vaast on Jean Lave, Marta Calás on Edith Penrose, and Martha Feldman on Susan Leigh Star.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on societies and the workspace have demonstrated the importance of open conversations on matters of diversity and inclusion. The theme for the 37th Colloquium of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS), hosted virtually in July 2021 by the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, was “Organizing for an inclusive society: Meanings, motivations, and mechanisms.” In this special episode, we offer the keynote address of that colloquium by Mirjam van Praag, “The Value (Drivers) of Diversity: A Perspective from Research and Management Practice.” She provides insights from her research on the added value and imperative of sustaining diversity in the workplace.

We conclude our discussion of Sumantra Ghoshal’s article, “Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices,” with a further exploration of the purposes of business schools and the question of what exactly is a “good” management practice? If we are to break the feedback loop that Ghoshal is critiquing, where do we begin and what is required?

Sumantra Ghoshal, business education critic, discusses the negative impact of business schools in shaping management theories. The podcast explores the preference for quantifiable models, ethics disregard, and the challenges of teaching students with different motivations. It also touches on everyday entrepreneurship, the influence of management theories, the pessimistic view of ethical responsibility in corporations, the evolution of business schools, and the importance of ethical behavior.

We continue our discussion of Jane Addams’ "A Modern Lear" and asked ourselves the same questions she asked. How can one approach a difficult, complex, or dynamic situation and avoid the conflagrations that engulfed the Pullman situation? To what extent can pragmatism contribute to a suitable approach for contemporary labor relations challenges?

We discuss a famous speech by Jane Addams, titled "A Modern Lear," her reflections on the events leading to and during the infamous Pullman Railway Strike of 1894. Using ideas drawn from the emergence of classic pragmatism and Shakespeare’s King Lear as an analogy, Addams took both the ownership and workers to task for the violence and provides a way to avoid a recurrence of such a tragedy. In Part 1, we discuss the reasons for the strike and how Addams’ reactions to it contributed to the speech’s content.

We continue our discussion of a classic 1954 book by Alvin Gouldner titled, 'Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.' We asked ourselves to what extent do the patterns that Gouldner and his research team uncovered still apply today, and how much do certain patterns seem to emerge more readily than others.

We discuss a classic 1954 book by Alvin Gouldner titled 'Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.' This describes the results of an ethnographic study conducted at a gypsum processing plant that included both a mine and a production line for construction materials. Gouldner and his team uncovered three distinct patterns of bureaucratic rules based on the acceptance and compliance of bureaucratic rules by workers and management.

We continue our discussion of the 1975 article by J. Richard Hackman and Greg R. Oldham in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.” We asked ourselves to what extent does the JDS apply today, by looking at a range of contexts and industries that present tough challenges for today’s job designers.

We discuss a 1975 article by J. Richard Hackman and Greg R. Oldham in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.” The purpose of the instrument was to help managers increase the motivational potential of jobs. They developed the JDS through the studies of existing jobs to determine what makes a job motivating and also how to improve the motivating potential of jobs from how they are defined and described. It remains a seminal reading in job design today. With Special Guest Lisa Cohen from McGill University.