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Understanding Organisations:
theory & practice

Lecture 7
Organizations and Practices
SPRING 2016
Week 7 23/9/2016

Philosophical
reflections
How do we know? How can we decide
truth of statements? What is our
Positivism
relationship to reality?

There is a real world (object)

separated by on observer (object)
Facts (intersubjectively valid
observations) versus values
(idiosincratic opinions)
Possibility of value-free scientific
knowledge
Falsifiability, generalization,
Constructionism
replicability
Reality is a social construction(e.g.
double hermeneutic effects (Giddens
1984)
Knowledge is shaped by power
relationships and defines how we
interpret reality
Cognition is the result of an iterative,
gestaltic formation process
Credibility, transferability,

Philosophical
reflections

Ontology

Epistem
o-logy

Methodo
-logy

Method

What is
reality?

How do we
know?

How do we
research
reality

How to
collect data

E.g.
positivismconstructivi
sm

E.g.
grounded
theory,
discourse
analysis,
statistical
methods

E.g. survey,
interview,
observation

E.g.
objective /
interpreted
/ imagined

Philosophical
reflections
How would you position different
organizational theories?

Contingency
Scientific
management
RBV-Dynamic
capabilities
Culture

REALISM/
POSITIVISM

TCE
ANT
Discourse
Sense-making

CRITICAL
REALISM

CONSTRUCTIVISM/
INTERPRETIVISM

Subject- object
relationship

Renee Descartes (1596-1650)

Dualism: subject is distinct from the world
Thinking mind is immaterial and separate
from the material Body

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

Phenomenology: Dasein, or being-in-the
world
We are never separated but always already
entwined with others and things in a world

Implications
Positivist scientific rationality
human reality is constituted by discrete entities with distinct
properties that can be captured by an external observer, in a
time-free context;
Practice derives from applying theory

Practical rationality

What give meaning to things is their relationship with others

in a specific space-time
We are immersed in practices and we know the world
through them
(Sandberg & Tsoukas 2011)

phenomena always exist in relation to each

other, produced through a process of mutual
constitution

Some key theories

Structuration theory (Giddens 1984)
Agency recursively constitutes structure; institutions
and social realities that appear solid are the product
of a repeated performance by social actors

Theory of practice (Bourdieu 1990)

Action is based on habitus, embodied set of norms
inscribed in their bodies by past experience and that
guide action and perception

Practice theory
approach

human actions are always situated,

drawing meaning and substance
from their embeddedness in social
and material networks
the regularities that we observe in
social systems are an ongoing
achievement, requiring constant
production and reproduction.

Practices
embodied, materially mediated arrays of
human activity centrally organized around
shared practical understanding (Schatzki
2001, p. 11).
a mode,
relatively stable
in time and
socially
recognized, of
ordering
heterogeneous
items into a
coherent set

Practice theory:
Different objects

As a phenomenon
Practices as what people actually do

As a theoretical perspective
practice as a lens to interpret social
interactions

As a philosophical stance

practices as constitutive of social world

(Orlikowski 2010)

Practice theory:
Different
implications

sets of interconnected activities

ordering reality and orienting
collective action;
processes that produces shared
meaning among practitioners;
elements that reproduce the social,
due to their interconnectedness
and recursiveness.

(Corradi, Gherardi & Verzelloni 2010

Components of
practices

Knowledge &
practices

Practices incorporate both explicit and tacit

knowledge

Examples:
aesthetic understanding;
knowing-that versus
knowing how

(see Polanyi 1966; Strati

2010)

Knowledge: The
artists dilemma
He must practice in order to perform the craft
components of his job. But to practice has always
a double effect. It makes him, on the one hand,
more able to do whatever it is he is attempting;
and, on the other hand, by the phenomenon of
habit formation, it makes him less aware of how
he does it.
(Bateson 1972, p. 114)

Embodiment
Practices are also inscribed in bodies, and bodies
are therefore the artefacts through which people
know and work (Gherardi 2012, p. 61); therefore
they become automated and unconscious and
emerge only in the event of a breakdown

Breakdown
When we approach a new activity (e.g. learning to
drive a car) we need to perform a series of actions
in a deliberate, planned way; as we become
proficient these actions become automated and are
routinized into unconscious operations

Breakdown:
a crisis/ unexpected event
which interrupts the flow of
habit
unconscious operations cannot
fluidly produce the desired
action anymore
operator must resort to
conscious actions
we become aware of
practices only when there

Materiality

Material objects are part of our

practices and function in ways that
are intermediary, connecting and
translating, producing change and
altering meaning (Gherardi
2000, 2006)
Practices are conceivable as sociomaterial systems

Routines
Routines are repository of knowledge
(cf. Dynamic capabilities theory).
They are also emergent accomplishments. They are
often works in progress rather than finished products.

Routines

(Feldman 2000, p. 613)

Performative
dimension:

they are brought

to life by the
activities
(performances) of
practitioners

Ostensive
dimension:

symbolic essence
(they stand for
something) as the
sum of the explicit
and tacit
knowledge
(Feldman & Pentland 2003).

Improvisation
Adaptation and
improvisation to local
circumstances play a
central role in practice
constitution.
in the absence of
perfect information on
the problem or the
procedure to follow the
practitioner reflectively
manipulates a set of
resources using
experience as a guide
(bricolage)

Organizations as sets
of practices

an organization can be conceived as

a field of practices (Gherardi 2006, p.
227)

Organizations as Action nets:

a set of connections between and
among actions [that], when stabilized,
are used to construct the identities of
actors (Czarniawska 2004, p. 18).

Practice theory

An application: strategy as practice

A conceptual framework
for analysing strategy as
practice

strategy as something
people do
Strategising

Praxis

Practitioner
s

Practices

(Whittington

Strategy as practice

Strategy as
post hoc
rationalisation
of success?

(Mintzberg 1987)

Strategy as practice

Questions:
What are the skills and practices that compose
strategy?
What does strategy produce?
How is strategy accomplished?
What is the role of consultants in strategy as
practice?
Who is and is not included in the practice of
strategy?
Where and how is strategy conceived and
However beautiful
practiced?
the strategy, you
should
occasionally look
at the results

References
Bateson, G. 1972, Steps to an ecology of mind: collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and
epistemology, Intertext, Aylesbury
Bourdieu, P. 1990, The logic of practice, Blackwell, Cambridge.
Corradi, G., Gherardi, S. & Verzelloni, L. 2010, 'Through the practice lens: Where is the bandwagon of practicebased studies heading?', Management Learning, vol. 41, pp. 265-83.
Czarniawska, B. 2004, 'On Time, Space, and Action Nets', Organization, vol. 11, pp. 773-91.
Feldman, M.S. 2000, 'Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change', Organization Science, vol. 11,
pp. 611-29.
Feldman, M.S. & Pentland, B.T. 2003, 'Reconceptualizing Organizational Routines as a Source of Flexibility and
Change', Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 48, pp. 94-118.
Feldman, M.S. & Orlikowski, W.J. 2011, 'Theorizing Practice and Practicing Theory', Organization Science, vol. 22,
pp. 1240-53.
Gherardi, S. 2006, Organizational knowledge: The texture of workplace learning, Blackwell, London.
Gherardi, S. 2012, How to conduct a practice-based study: problems and methods, Edward Elgar, Northampton,
MA
Giddens, A. 1984, Constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Orlikowski, W.J. 2010, 'Practice in research: Phenomenon, perspective and philosophy', in D. Golsorkhi, L. Rouleau,
D. Seidl & E. Vaara (eds), The Cambridge Handbook on Strategy as Practice, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, pp. 23-33.
Polanyi, M. 1966, The tacit dimension, Routledge & K. Paul, London.
Sandberg, J. & Tsoukas, H. 2011, 'Grasping the logic of practice: theorizing through practical rationality', Academy
of Management Review, vol. 36, p. 338.
Schatzki, T.R. 2001, 'Introduction: Practice theory', in E.v. Savigny, T.R. Schatzki & K. Knorr-Cetina (eds), The
Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, Routledge, London, pp. 10-23.
Strati, A. 2010, 'Aesthetic Understanding of Work and Organizational Life: Approaches and Research