Coordination & Control in Contemporary Organizations Defended on Thursday, 10 June 2021

Achieving coordination and cooperation are universal challenges to organizing. In modern organizations, the problems are the same, but solutions have changed. Hierarchies and routines operate differently as means of coordination and control in contemporary forms of organizing than in bureaucracies. This dissertation explores how power hierarchies and organizational routines are changing, arguing for a grounded approach to understand their implications on people and work. By theorizing the effects of flattening and stretching hierarchies from a social identity perspective, the first study offers a multilevel framework for understanding and addressing the intra and interpersonal dynamics that arise from such mandated organizational change. In examining the accomplishment of self-governing routines, the second study contributes to our understanding of the ongoing nature of conflict and control in organizational routines. From reviewing empirical findings and theoretical intuitions on the unique dynamics at play in self-managed organizations, the third study explains concrete ways scholars can leverage self-managed organizations as a novel empirical setting to advance routine dynamics theorizing. As a result, this dissertation provides three accounts of contemporary work for individuals and organizations seeking to understand why new forms of organizing matter and contributes to bridging the extant divide between the practice and study of organizing.

Keywords

Routine dynamics, power, hierarchies, governance, truce, new ways of working


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