Relational Bureaucracy: Structuring Reciprocal Relationships into Roles

Gittell, Jody Hoffer; Douglass, Anne

doi:10.5465/amr.2010.0438

Cited by 226 publications

(210 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…This is consistent with Gittell and Douglass (2012) who argue that relations within organizations can be organized as structured roles to coordinate collective action to produce caring, timely, and knowledgeable responses. Collective effort from within and outside an organization conjoins structure, action, and agency to enable restoration of basic organizing practices and relationships within an organization-this is resilience.…”

Section: Collective Effortsupporting

confidence: 61%

The Process and Mechanisms of Organizational Healing

Powley

2013

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

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Organizational healing refers to the work of repairing practices, routines, and structures in the face of disruption and strengthening organizational functioning through social relationships. Healing, more than resilience, coping, or recovery, enables greater organizational strength than what previously existed. Its unique characteristics make it an important construct for further explaining what accounts for developing exceptional organizational systems. Based on the financial and economic challenges facing Prudential Real Estate after the housing market crash in 2008, and parallels from physiological healing processes, I provide an in-depth description of the process of organizational healing that is supported by four mechanisms: empathy, interventions, collective effort, and leadership. Together the process and mechanisms explain how organizational healing enables both resilience and strengthening. These mechanisms point to activities practitioners and leaders may consider when promoting virtuous human systems.

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Section: Collective Effortsupporting

confidence: 61%

The Process and Mechanisms of Organizational Healing

Powley

2013

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

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“…Marchington and Kynighou (2012) highlight the importance of high level of employee engagement that enables firms to successfully differentiate themselves from the competitors in times of crises. Gittell and Douglass (2012) have argued that "relational reserves", the interpersonal bonds among employees are crucial for dealing with crises. Roberts, Stout, and Halpern (1994) have argued that locus of decision-making also has important implications for organizational resilience.…”

Section: Crisis Resilience and Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Does governance confer organisational resilience? Evidence from UK employee owned businesses

Lampel

Bhalla

Jha

2014

European Management Journal

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link ABSTRACTCurrent economic crisis has highlighted the importance of an organization's ability to withstand economic shocks. This has rekindled the interest in organization resilience on the one hand, and the relationship between alternative governance forms such as employee owned businesses (EOBs) on the other. We explore this relationship using performance data on 204 publicly traded non-employee owned businesses and 49 EOBs prior to the economic downturn (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008), and during the economic downturn (2008)(2009)). This data is complemented with a survey of resilience related governance and organizational practices in 41 EOBs and 22 non-EOBs. Our results show that: a) employee ownership form is associated with greater stability in business performance over a business cycle; b) EOBs have longer payback horizon when compared to non-EOBs across a number of activities; c) EOBs top management seek employee input beyond operational aspects by involving them in strategic decision making; d) EOBs achieve tighter coupling between the feedback from operations and the feed forward on strategic direction. These results suggest that employee stock ownership programs alone are not sufficient to develop higher levels of organizational resilience. Managers must combine employee stock ownership with employee involvement in governance if they wish to build up resilience in advance of adverse economic conditions. 2 INTRODUCTIONThe recent economic crisis and the prolonged economic recession that has ensued is focusing increasing attention on 'organizational resilience': the organization's capacity to cope with "unanticipated dangers after they become manifest (Wildavsky, 1988: 147) Our analysis of the performance data show that EOBs are more resilient than non-EOBs.We follow this with analysis of managerial practices that points to differences in employee voice and involvement that may account for higher resilience.The paper is structured as follows. We begin with an overview of the concept of organizational resilience. We then examine current research on the relationship between organizational resilience and stakeholders' governance. We then turn our attention to governance in employee owned businesses, contrasting publicly traded corporations where owners are generally external to the organization, with firms where employees substantially own and exercise control over the organization.We begin by looking at elaborating the role governance plays in ensuring long-term stability of the firm. Next, we highlight employee-ownership governance structure and whyEOBs are a case for more resilient organisations. We then present our research methodology and discuss the findings of our research. Finally, we close with a discussion and implications for the managers and future research directions.

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“…Bureaucratic work can encourage self-transcendence by emphasizing procedural fairness of impartial conduct, due process and formal protection against irrational and abusive behavior of co-workers (du Gay, 2000Gay, , 2005. Bureaucratic work can also emphasize equal treatment of all irrespective of belonging to an in-group (Parsons, 1951;Gittell and Douglas 2012), concern with socially responsible conduct (Goodsell, 2005) and alleviation of social inequalities (Henderson et al, 2007).…”

Section: Self-enhancement Vs Self-transcendence Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Merton, 1952;Thompson and Broek, 2010;Ritzer, 2011) and those who highlight its individualizing and pro-social implications (e.g. Kohn, 1971;du Gay, 2005;Gittell and Douglas, 2012). Recently, there has been an increased concern with the reconciliation of these perspectives (Adler, 2012;Kallinikos, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Values of Bureaucratic Work

Racko

2016

Sociology

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While understanding values of bureaucratic work has been a fundamental concern of organizational sociology, research has remained divided over the nature of the values that underpin it. Examining the more generalized sociological insights on the values of bureaucratic work using a rigorous approach to value measurement this study contributes to the reconciliation of the divergent conceptual insights on these values. Using the European Social Survey data of highly rationalized societies, this study finds employed senior managers to place systematically higher value on self-enhancement and openness to change and lower value on self-transcendence and conservation than their self-employed, entrepreneurial counterparts. Study also contributes to the understanding of the values of bureaucratic work, by examining the value implications of the duration of the employment of senior managers in bureaucratic organizations, and the organizational and the managerial bureaucratization of their work.

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Relational Bureaucracy: Structuring Reciprocal Relationships into Roles

Cited by 226 publications

References 73 publications

The Process and Mechanisms of Organizational Healing

The Process and Mechanisms of Organizational Healing

Does governance confer organisational resilience? Evidence from UK employee owned businesses

Values of Bureaucratic Work

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