Talking About Organizations Podcast

Routinely ranked as one of the greatest movies of all time, Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film “Modern Times” balances great physical comedy with powerful social commentary. Playing his famed “Tramp” role for the final time, Chaplin portrayed a hapless Worker on an assembly line who is tormented both by supervisors and the work itself. After being subjected to a humiliating experiment intended to improve the line’s efficiency, the Worker runs through a series of rotating jobs, stints in jail, and other misadventures as he tries to find his purpose in life.He eventually finds his purpose through a growing relationship with the Gamine (Paulette Goddard), a tragic young woman orphaned after a worker’s strike turns violent and kills her father. She escapes becoming a ward of the state but resorts to stealing to survive until caught by the police. After the Worker sacrifices himself to save them, the two would become inseparable. Seeing a happy couple in a well-to-do, they imagine themselves being happy and carefree living together in a rundown falling-apart shack. But in the end, she cannot hide from her past as an escaped orphan. Destitute and alone, the two find themselves on a barren road — she appears to have given up on life, but the Worker convinces her to continue on and try again. They leave, walking down the road to who knows where?As we viewed the film, our initial thoughts were about how Taylorism is portrayed and critiqued through the scenes at the factory and the social turmoil going on outside. But the film actually touches on many of the themes of this podcast. Referenced throughout the episode were Taylor (Episode 1), Maslow (Episode 3), Max Weber’s Bureaucracy (Episode 6), The Hawthorne Studies (Episode 9), Banana Time (Episode 13), Suchman’s Human-Computer Interactions (Episode 22), the Gig Economy (Episodes 36 & 40), Socialization a la Van Maanen (Episode 38), the Garbage Can Model of Decisionmaking (Episode 39), and Kunda’s Study of Tech Culture (Episode 49).Listen as we discuss this fantastic and powerful film whose insights on work and society are still relevant today!

Please join us as we conclude discussing Rosemary Stewart's classic work on management in practice. What is the significance of this book? How does it relate to what managers do? Why are we talking about magic wands? Tune in to find out!

Continuing with our discussion of Rosemary Stewart's classic work on management in practice with the wonderful Dr. Maja Korica of Warwick Business School

So what do managers do in practice? How do they spend their time (or put another way, how does their time spend them)? Are there differences in the demands of managers in different positions, or within different organizations? These were the questions that famed management theorist Rosemary Stewart set out to uncover in her research back in the 1960s, resulting in the first edition of this episode’s subject–her book "Managers and Their Jobs: A Study of the Similarities and Differences in the Ways Managers Spend Their Time".Join us, and our special guest Dr. Maja Korica from Warwick Business School, as we discuss this work and bring it into present-day focus.

What are the implications of The Tyranny of Light and what can it teach us about management in an increasingly digitised workplace? Join us as we conclude Episode 51 and reflect on the lasting impact of this work.

The podcast is back for 2019 with Part 2 of Episode 51 on The Tyranny of Light by Hari Tsoukas! If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, please go and do so before playing this episode as this is a direct continuation of that discussion.

"The Tyranny of Light" was a bold 1997 article that challenged conventional wisdom about the oncoming information society. The Internet, personal computers, and the dot-com boom were still new and exciting. With information technologies advancing at an incredible pace, the sky (and the capacity of silicon) was the limit. Internet start-ups were sprouting up everywhere as young entrepreneurs strove to become the next Bill Gates. Never mind that the vast majority failed and faded quickly away (see Episode 49 and the example of normative control in a tech company). The possibilities seemed endless.But so too were the dangers. Hari Tsoukas foresaw the problems that an information dominated society might produce. Could greater access to information have undesirable consequences, such as the loss of understanding or the growth of distrust? Could an information society disrupt socio-political norms? If these became true, what would happen.Bolstered by hindsight and knowledge of how the information society evolved, we (your intrepid podcasters) take a look back at 1997 and examine to what extent Tsoukas got the future right, and what else transpired that Tsoukas could not have known or anticipated. What does this suggest for society and its leaders today?

Do you remember the Principles of Scientific Management? The one from 50 episodes ago? As we continue to celebrate this milestone of the podcast, please join us for a trip down memory lane to Episode 1, originally aired on 13 October 2015! But that's not it - to complement the podcast, we have produced and released the audiobook version of Taylor's classic text! So if you (or anyone you know) ever wanted to read his work but could not find the time to do so, it is now available to listen to! Featuring a new historical introduction that sets the text in contemporary management theory context, The Principles of Scientific Management is a must-have work for any serious management scholar or enthusiast. As a treat to our listeners only, this re-release of Episode 1 features the Historical Introduction chapter from the audiobook! Please share and enjoy!You can listen to the book for free here: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B07KY2THBF/?source_code=AUKFrDlWS02231890H6-BK-ACX0-135067&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_135067_rh_uk , or get it on Amazon or iTunes.

To mark our 50th episode, we gathered all seven of us hosts to discuss what we like (and perhaps not) about the podcast and podcasting, what our favorite or most remembered episodes were, and what we have learned along the way. Turns out, one of the key things we learned was how much such a small number of dedicated scholars and practitioners can do with a lot of motivation and energy. As we discuss, there were many in the beginning who scoffed at the idea of podcasting on classic and emerging organization theories and concepts of management science. But with over 12,000 active listeners worldwide, Talking About Organizations has proven to be useful and entertaining all at once.

Conclusion of our discussion of Gideon Kunda’s ethnography of culture engineering in high-tech corporation. What are the practical and research implications of this work?