HC1 ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY
You need dan integrative view
Only when you add up:
- Humans
- Division of power
- Teams, departments, business units, projects
- Management
- Manufacturing, purchasing
- Product
- An environment
- Etc.
You have a full organization
You also need a focused view
Only if you understand, in detail
- Humans
- Division of power
- Teams, departments, business units, projects
- Management
- Manufacturing, purchasing
- Product
- An environment
- Etc.
You have a chance of understanding the full organization.
Personal theories
- Every day we work with ‘personal and policy theories’
- If I do X, then Y will happen
- Ex. If government subsidizes the salary costs of R&D workers, firms’ innovations will go up
The challenge with theory
- We need an integrated & Focused view.
- Most people juxtapose practice with theory, and like examples more than theories
o But Practice as we saw in our case, suffers from partial views that hinder more
complete observation, and thus (better) explanations Eight blind and an elephant.
- Whereas generalization – being able to claim validity of a certain mechanism over a large
sample of organization – requires abstraction from the individual firm or practice, based on
impartial observation.
- S0… Nothing as practical as a good theory
- How to study theory is therefore challenging, but that is what this degree course aims at.
,Core concepts
Organizations
- Social entities that are goal directed are designed as deliberately structured and coordinated
activity systems, and are linked to distinct external environments.
Theory
- A theory consists of a set of interrelated concepts definitions, and propositions that explain
or predict events or situations by specifying relations among variables.
- The word theorise comes from the greed word theorien which consist of a blend of two
words:
o Thea to see or observe
o Horan to see a thing attentively or to contemplate it
What have we learnt?
A theory
- Typically focused on a small part of reality
- Abstract of many other relevant aspects
- Helps us see detail this way
- Helps us understand that limited part of reality better
- Is NOT the whole story, and needs to be seen in a larger theoretical context?
Whetten 1989
A theory
- Consist of a set of concepts (what) and the relationships that tie them together (how) into an
explanation of the phenomenon of interest (why)
- Building on a set of assumptions that form the foundation for a series of logically interrelated
claims.
A good hypothesis needs at least
- Two concepts
- variation between the groups, so you have a comparison. Higher/lower, men/women,
old/young.
- A direction
The elements of a theory
- The what has to be clear Level of analysis
- The how has to be clear Relation between variables
- The why has to be clear Narrative logical explanations. The because. Theoretical
mechanism that connects X and Y. We only measure X and Y and if we find a significance, we
assume that the explanation functioned.
In the dependent variable you always name a level of analysis.
,Why What make the effect logical?
- A short story that explains what makes the effect of x on y plausible, with reference to either
former theoretical work, or combined empirical findings.
What and how Content of hypothesis
- What and how Conceptual model
Size of CEO’s Network could be a good explanation for Decision quality.
- How: The hypothesis The Larger the CEO’s Network the better the decision-making quality
is.
- Why Argument used The Larger the network the more usage of specialized knowledge
within the network can be helpful toward the decision-making process.
o Not only the amount of knowledge but also the variation of knowledge is helpful.
- What and how Conceptual model
- How The hypothesis The Larger the size of a CEO’s network the lower his/her decision
quality
- Why The argument Individual CEO’s have limited cognitive capacity, and the more ties
a CEO has, the more diverse info she receives, the more ambiguous the info can become and
the more she needs to process. This creates cognitive overload and deteriorates decision
quality.
What and how: CEO Network size Decision quality
The opposing hypothesis 1 and 2 are reconciled in this figure. H1 and H2 predict different effects on Y
for different parts of the continuum of the X-variable, which are now integrated.
, EX2: What Team members creativity
X1 The frequency of interaction
X2 The ‘age’ of the group
X3 Size of the group
X4 Amount of resources
EX2: Nature of relation: Interaction frequency and creativity performance
All kind of possible relationships.
What to look for in each theory?
Make sure you:
- Know the dependent (Y) and independent (X) variable(s)
- Define the concepts (what), specify the relations between the concepts (how), and give
arguments (why) for these relations
- Are aware of the timeframe (when), place (where), unit of analysis (who) to which your data
applies.
- Can reproduce, understand and compare theories in terms of levels of analysis, main
assumptions, main concepts, main arguments!
You need dan integrative view
Only when you add up:
- Humans
- Division of power
- Teams, departments, business units, projects
- Management
- Manufacturing, purchasing
- Product
- An environment
- Etc.
You have a full organization
You also need a focused view
Only if you understand, in detail
- Humans
- Division of power
- Teams, departments, business units, projects
- Management
- Manufacturing, purchasing
- Product
- An environment
- Etc.
You have a chance of understanding the full organization.
Personal theories
- Every day we work with ‘personal and policy theories’
- If I do X, then Y will happen
- Ex. If government subsidizes the salary costs of R&D workers, firms’ innovations will go up
The challenge with theory
- We need an integrated & Focused view.
- Most people juxtapose practice with theory, and like examples more than theories
o But Practice as we saw in our case, suffers from partial views that hinder more
complete observation, and thus (better) explanations Eight blind and an elephant.
- Whereas generalization – being able to claim validity of a certain mechanism over a large
sample of organization – requires abstraction from the individual firm or practice, based on
impartial observation.
- S0… Nothing as practical as a good theory
- How to study theory is therefore challenging, but that is what this degree course aims at.
,Core concepts
Organizations
- Social entities that are goal directed are designed as deliberately structured and coordinated
activity systems, and are linked to distinct external environments.
Theory
- A theory consists of a set of interrelated concepts definitions, and propositions that explain
or predict events or situations by specifying relations among variables.
- The word theorise comes from the greed word theorien which consist of a blend of two
words:
o Thea to see or observe
o Horan to see a thing attentively or to contemplate it
What have we learnt?
A theory
- Typically focused on a small part of reality
- Abstract of many other relevant aspects
- Helps us see detail this way
- Helps us understand that limited part of reality better
- Is NOT the whole story, and needs to be seen in a larger theoretical context?
Whetten 1989
A theory
- Consist of a set of concepts (what) and the relationships that tie them together (how) into an
explanation of the phenomenon of interest (why)
- Building on a set of assumptions that form the foundation for a series of logically interrelated
claims.
A good hypothesis needs at least
- Two concepts
- variation between the groups, so you have a comparison. Higher/lower, men/women,
old/young.
- A direction
The elements of a theory
- The what has to be clear Level of analysis
- The how has to be clear Relation between variables
- The why has to be clear Narrative logical explanations. The because. Theoretical
mechanism that connects X and Y. We only measure X and Y and if we find a significance, we
assume that the explanation functioned.
In the dependent variable you always name a level of analysis.
,Why What make the effect logical?
- A short story that explains what makes the effect of x on y plausible, with reference to either
former theoretical work, or combined empirical findings.
What and how Content of hypothesis
- What and how Conceptual model
Size of CEO’s Network could be a good explanation for Decision quality.
- How: The hypothesis The Larger the CEO’s Network the better the decision-making quality
is.
- Why Argument used The Larger the network the more usage of specialized knowledge
within the network can be helpful toward the decision-making process.
o Not only the amount of knowledge but also the variation of knowledge is helpful.
- What and how Conceptual model
- How The hypothesis The Larger the size of a CEO’s network the lower his/her decision
quality
- Why The argument Individual CEO’s have limited cognitive capacity, and the more ties
a CEO has, the more diverse info she receives, the more ambiguous the info can become and
the more she needs to process. This creates cognitive overload and deteriorates decision
quality.
What and how: CEO Network size Decision quality
The opposing hypothesis 1 and 2 are reconciled in this figure. H1 and H2 predict different effects on Y
for different parts of the continuum of the X-variable, which are now integrated.
, EX2: What Team members creativity
X1 The frequency of interaction
X2 The ‘age’ of the group
X3 Size of the group
X4 Amount of resources
EX2: Nature of relation: Interaction frequency and creativity performance
All kind of possible relationships.
What to look for in each theory?
Make sure you:
- Know the dependent (Y) and independent (X) variable(s)
- Define the concepts (what), specify the relations between the concepts (how), and give
arguments (why) for these relations
- Are aware of the timeframe (when), place (where), unit of analysis (who) to which your data
applies.
- Can reproduce, understand and compare theories in terms of levels of analysis, main
assumptions, main concepts, main arguments!
