Managing people in Organizations
Making sense of managing
Managing: making sense of managing as a coherent set of assumptions, concepts, values and
practices that constitute a way of viewing reality
The difference between managing and management:
- Managing is a practice we do for the organization as goal-oriented collectives
o Collaborative relationships with stakeholders, technologies and other artefacts
- Management is the process of communicating, coordinating and accomplishing action in the
pursuit of organizational objectives
o Not a neutral activity
o Cannot simply be considered in terms of its capacity to deliver objective gains in
productivity/efficiency
o Socio-political activity, which implies the need to adhere to societal, political and
ethical responsibilities
Managerialism: a claim to special expertise premised on managerial rationality characterizing
organizations
Sensemaking: the process through which individuals and groups give meaning to something,
especially to explain novel, unexpected or confusing events
- Meaning is constructed in an ongoing process in which past experience informs the present
- We are constantly making sense, revising past rationalizations in the light of new information,
knowledge and events not previously available
Managing in a complex world
- A ‘one size fits all’ management approach will not work
o Managers can no longer rely on hierarchy and nominal roles to manage people
- Managing has become an increasingly difficult, political and challenging endeavor
- Complex organizations with complex networks that managers need to understand
Managerial Organization
Managing goes through 3 sorts of processes:
- Sense making
- Sense giving
- Sense breaking
The sense you make is never made in isolation, it will always be influenced by the outside; with
framing you can make sure that your sense is isolated as good as possible
Framing: defining what is relevant; separating that which deserves focus from that what does not
- Social realities of businesses and organizations change, change in framing must be done
- Much of managing is discursive: issuing orders, making suggestions, framing actions in order
to accomplish objectives
- Involves the creation of devices that assign meaning to organizational situations
, - Ideational use of metaphors, repetition, slogans, traditions,…
- Mobilizing followers through images, symbols and language
Managerial rationality
- Making decisions based on management (Managerialism as an ideology)
o This is not possible because within an organization, management goes beyond
managing financial capital
Think about symbolic capital and social capital
- Rationality is always contextually and cognitively limited (bounded rationality)
- Rational managers never have perfect knowledge of the situation
Digital organization
The digital age
- Digital technologies and a growing international division of labour between economies
o The world economy is increasingly globalized, although subject to pressures to
deglobalization from trade wars, pandemics and political responses to them
- Contemporary competition is based less on traditional comparative advantage as a result of
what economists call ‘factor endowments’
o Being close to raw materials, and more on competitive advantages that arise from
innovation and enterprise
- The fourth industrial revolution: algorithmic innovation, the gig economy, digital nomads,
working from home,…
Managing technological changes
- Organizations should have employees who are capable of problem solving without having to
refer to a higher authority
- New technologies costumer requirements can be approached flexible and timely
- From hard to soft power relations
Change in cultures and social relations at work
- Digitalization
o Changing experiences of time and space for employees
o Defects and affordances for different generations
- Increasing importance of EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion)
Contemporary management
- Rise of new public management
- Demise of the bureaucracies
- Economic neo-liberalism
- Tax cuts and trickle-down effects
- Political economy after Covid-19
, Global shifts
- Growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and smart teams working with intelligent machines and
devices
- Organizational and spatial decomposition of employment
- Changing skill formations globally in an international division of labour
Conclusion
- Sense-making is important and part of the managerial skill set
- Sense-making & framing go hand in hand
- It is crucial to critically reflect upon sense-making
- The rational manager doesn’t exist – reality is more complex and goes beyond capital
accumulation
- Technological developments & global shift have an impact on managerialism & sense-making
Making sense of managing
Managing: making sense of managing as a coherent set of assumptions, concepts, values and
practices that constitute a way of viewing reality
The difference between managing and management:
- Managing is a practice we do for the organization as goal-oriented collectives
o Collaborative relationships with stakeholders, technologies and other artefacts
- Management is the process of communicating, coordinating and accomplishing action in the
pursuit of organizational objectives
o Not a neutral activity
o Cannot simply be considered in terms of its capacity to deliver objective gains in
productivity/efficiency
o Socio-political activity, which implies the need to adhere to societal, political and
ethical responsibilities
Managerialism: a claim to special expertise premised on managerial rationality characterizing
organizations
Sensemaking: the process through which individuals and groups give meaning to something,
especially to explain novel, unexpected or confusing events
- Meaning is constructed in an ongoing process in which past experience informs the present
- We are constantly making sense, revising past rationalizations in the light of new information,
knowledge and events not previously available
Managing in a complex world
- A ‘one size fits all’ management approach will not work
o Managers can no longer rely on hierarchy and nominal roles to manage people
- Managing has become an increasingly difficult, political and challenging endeavor
- Complex organizations with complex networks that managers need to understand
Managerial Organization
Managing goes through 3 sorts of processes:
- Sense making
- Sense giving
- Sense breaking
The sense you make is never made in isolation, it will always be influenced by the outside; with
framing you can make sure that your sense is isolated as good as possible
Framing: defining what is relevant; separating that which deserves focus from that what does not
- Social realities of businesses and organizations change, change in framing must be done
- Much of managing is discursive: issuing orders, making suggestions, framing actions in order
to accomplish objectives
- Involves the creation of devices that assign meaning to organizational situations
, - Ideational use of metaphors, repetition, slogans, traditions,…
- Mobilizing followers through images, symbols and language
Managerial rationality
- Making decisions based on management (Managerialism as an ideology)
o This is not possible because within an organization, management goes beyond
managing financial capital
Think about symbolic capital and social capital
- Rationality is always contextually and cognitively limited (bounded rationality)
- Rational managers never have perfect knowledge of the situation
Digital organization
The digital age
- Digital technologies and a growing international division of labour between economies
o The world economy is increasingly globalized, although subject to pressures to
deglobalization from trade wars, pandemics and political responses to them
- Contemporary competition is based less on traditional comparative advantage as a result of
what economists call ‘factor endowments’
o Being close to raw materials, and more on competitive advantages that arise from
innovation and enterprise
- The fourth industrial revolution: algorithmic innovation, the gig economy, digital nomads,
working from home,…
Managing technological changes
- Organizations should have employees who are capable of problem solving without having to
refer to a higher authority
- New technologies costumer requirements can be approached flexible and timely
- From hard to soft power relations
Change in cultures and social relations at work
- Digitalization
o Changing experiences of time and space for employees
o Defects and affordances for different generations
- Increasing importance of EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion)
Contemporary management
- Rise of new public management
- Demise of the bureaucracies
- Economic neo-liberalism
- Tax cuts and trickle-down effects
- Political economy after Covid-19
, Global shifts
- Growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and smart teams working with intelligent machines and
devices
- Organizational and spatial decomposition of employment
- Changing skill formations globally in an international division of labour
Conclusion
- Sense-making is important and part of the managerial skill set
- Sense-making & framing go hand in hand
- It is crucial to critically reflect upon sense-making
- The rational manager doesn’t exist – reality is more complex and goes beyond capital
accumulation
- Technological developments & global shift have an impact on managerialism & sense-making
