Organisation Perspectives & Dynamics

 

Dr. Peter J. Peverelli

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Faculty of Economics & Business Administration

Strategy & Organisation

 

 

The study of organising processes is a basic science studying the ways human actors organise themselves into groups of various degrees of complexity.  Organisation theory is not the study of organisations. Groups of actors referred to as ‘organisations’ in every day parlance are only one part of the groups introduced in this course. Organisation theory is therefore a necessary tool not only for students of business administration, but also for those of a wide range of other academic fields, including: sociology, cultural anthropology, public administration, education, philosophy, etc.

As this course is part of the business administration program, we will concentrate on offering tools to study and understand enterprises from an organisational perspective. After having gained insight in a broad range of practical aspects of management, students will be ready to dive deeper into the complexity of human organisation processes, to extend their understanding of what they have learned in the two years before. This course will be useful for all students of management, but is indispensable for those who aspire a career in consultancy and those who wish to study management as an academic field.

The main theme of this course will be the perspective that human organising is a continuous process of ongoing interaction between actors in their quest to make sense of the world.  As a result of this process, groups of actors who frequently interact around a specific theme will gradually be perceived by the actors themselves and other actors as entities. Such entities are given generic names like: gangs, pressure groups, tribes, associations, enterprises, industrial sectors, nations, etc.

The members of a specific group will have a shared view on reality, at least on that part of reality relevant to their common task.  This shared reality will determine the actions they take.  Most actors will be members of a number of such groups.  During social interaction in one group, actors can access the shared reality of other groups.  This can alter the shared reality of the group in which the current interaction is taking place.  Multiple group membership (referred to as multiple inclusion) is therefore considered the motor of organisational change.

Often, however, actors start perceiving the shared reality of one group as the one and only reality.  As a result, they are less susceptible to other realities and in some instances even actively block access to alternative realities.  In organisation theory this is referred to as reification or fixation. Reifications are the major cause of organisational problems.

Identifying social structures, the members of the structures (actors), the nature of the shared realities, the multiple group membership of actors and occurrences of reification are the core tasks of the organisation scientist.  The main aim of this course is to teach students these basic concepts and to train them in exploring complex organisational processes.  Although this introduction emphasises theory, attention will be paid to practical applications of the theory as well.  These practical applications include firms, but also a few larger structures, in particular industrial clusters.