Summary Managing & Organising 2024-2025
Lecture 1: Managing and organizations
Sensemaking
Guiding questions:
What does sensemaking mean?
What is managerialism?
Can you describe and discuss managerial rationality?
Managing & Managerialism
- Making sense of managing as a coherent set of assumptions, concepts, values, and
practices that constitute a way of viewing reality
- Managing entails sensemaking and framing
- Managerialism justifies the application of its one-dimensional managerial techniques
to all areas of work, society, and capitalism on the grounds of superior ideology,
expert training, and the exclusiveness of managerial knowledge necessary to run
public institutions and society as corporations.
Notes: Managing also means there is not only one reality, we have to frame and make sense
of something. Ex. Trump is applying managerialism to everything. But that doesn’t make him
a good manager; there is not just one dimension
Making sense of Managing
- We can differentiate managing as a practice, as something that we do, from
organizations as goal-oriented collectives, entities in which we are organized
- Management is the process of communicating, coordinating and accomplishing
action in the pursuit of organizational objectives
- Managing collaborative relationships with stakeholders, technologies and other
artefacts, both within as well as between organizations and managing more or less
considerate relationships with those employed as well as with those encountered as
suppliers, customers, communities, and so on
- Management is not a neutral activity !
- Management cannot simply be considered in terms of its capacity to deliver objective
gains in productivity/efficiency
- It is also a socio-political activity, which implies the need to adhere to societal,
political and ethical responsibilities
Notes: Managing is oriented towards the goal. Management is process of communication,
coordination, you try to bring something into action to reach the goal
As a manager you have different kinds of relationships with different people. You
also have relationships with people outside of the team.
,You have to find a good balance of how to integrate this (all of this, communication,
technologies to consider,…) à to tackle everything is managing
What does managing mean? What is management? → for the exam
Management is not a neutral activity! You need to make sense to what is going on in
the company and what is going on outside of the company.
This is called sensemaking
- For the past 40 years, the predominant sense of what an organization should be has
been modelled on lean and efficient private sector organizations that are profit
oriented
- In such organizations, top management teams strive to set a common frame so that
organizational members, customers, suppliers, investors, and so on, can make
common sense of the organization – what it is and what it does
Notes: Management used to be about efficiency and being lean.
Sense-making
Sensemaking is the process through which individuals and groups give meaning to
something, especially to explain novel, unexpected or confusing events.
- We are constantly making sense, revising past rationalizations in the light of new
information, knowledge and events not previously available
- Meaning is constructed in an ongoing process in which past experience informs the
present.
Notes: Process where people give a meaning to something.
It's like you put a purpose to a set goal. Important if you have confusing events (ex. Corona,
it was important for management to make sense of the situation, bc u cant just do nothing)
The way you make sense, you try to collect info you already have (or received in the past)
Your personal reality is constructed because we all have different ‘previous’ information
(backgrounds, education, etc). So we all reflect differently on different topics
What role does sensemaking play in management? De definitie niet exact kennen.
Sense-making in a capitalist system
- Making sense of profit orientation?
- Does it make sense to you?
- The art of making sense of your work (proud to working for Apple, Google or another
‘hip’ company
- Dare to challenge the narrative of selling company! (Projection of an image that may
not be reality)
- Dare to challenge the narrative of your manager!
,Notes: All of those companies did a good job in sensemaking of the purpose of their
company. There is also a dark side: Starbucks positioned itself in Japan as a good brand,
good coffee etc. That's why you want to pay more, it's the hip place to go. But it got bad
reviews because it's run by America, so that image turned around. Companies build up a
collective goal, but dare to change the narrative
Managing in a complex world
- A ‘one size fits all’ management approach will not work
- Contemporary managers can no longer rely on hierarchy and nominal roles to
manage people
- Managing has become an increasingly difficult, political, and challenging endeavor
- People work in complex organizations that are embedded in contexts inscribed by
complex networks
- Managers should have an understanding of(human) complexity
Notes: It has become very difficult to manage in different situations where you have a lot of
pressure going on. Without different reflections you can't innovate either, you need different
inputs. Management is not a hierarchical process anymore, it's a complex process
Managing and framing
- While the sense you make is always your sense it is never made in isolation. Not
only is sense made through the language and concepts you use but also through the
many cues that prompt you to make sense: experience, what others say they think is
happening, likely stories that you are familiar with that seem to fit the pattern that
appears to be forming
- People will not use these cues in a uniform way, because they are individuals and, as
a result, people can make wildly different sense of the same set of cues
Notes: Your narrative isn't only based on the info you previously had but also on the your
perspective after gaining information (for example, after watching a video)
Framing
- Framing is a term that comes from film making: a director frames a shot by including
some detail and omitting other elements
- A frame defines what is relevant. All managing involves framing: separating that
which deserves focus from that which does not. One thing that managers do all the
time is to differentiate between the relevant and the irrelevant
- Framing involves the creation of devices that assign meaning to organizational
situations
- Framing entails the ideational use of metaphors, the repetition of stories, the citing of
traditions, the articulation of slogans and the material creation of artefacts to highlight
or contrast a particular organizational issue
Notes: You define what is important and relevant. Managing means to put something in the
spotlight and maybe also leave some things out, but there is a fine line between this and
being fully transparent (which is important). As a manager you make the decision if things
, are relevant to communicate about. You can use metaphors,…etc to give meaning to
something.
Managerialism
- Managerialism, portrays management as a universal solution to all problems
- Managerialism combines management’s generic tools and knowledge with ideology
to establish itself systemically in organizations, public institutions, and society while
depriving business owners (property), workers (organizational-economic) and civil
society (social-political) of all decision-making powers
- Managerialism justifies the application of its one-dimensional managerial techniques
to all areas of work, society, and capitalism on the grounds of superior ideology,
expert training, and the exclusiveness of managerial knowledge necessary to run
public institutions and society as corporations.
Notes: Difference between managerialism and managerial rationality.
Managerialism, management strength, its a generic tool and I can manage everything with
this. It justifies that we have this one dimensional approach, one technique you can apply
everywhere
Managerial Rationality
- Some managers argue that they can make decisions based on management on their
managerial competence, it's called managerialism
- But is this possible?
- Management as in ideology?
- No because within an organization management goes beyond managing financial
capital
- What about symbolic capital (reputation), social capital (set of relations)
- Organizations have professionalized workflows YET organizations are full of stories
(rumour, gossip, official statements, business plans, etc)
- Managerialism as an ideology
- Economic rationalism and its metaphors
- Organization stories
- Rationality is always contextually and cognitively limited: bounded rationality
- Managing and organizations are constantly changing
- Resistance to change is to be expected
- Rational managers never have perfect knowledge of the situation
- A belief in rationality – a myth?
Lecture 1: Managing and organizations
Sensemaking
Guiding questions:
What does sensemaking mean?
What is managerialism?
Can you describe and discuss managerial rationality?
Managing & Managerialism
- Making sense of managing as a coherent set of assumptions, concepts, values, and
practices that constitute a way of viewing reality
- Managing entails sensemaking and framing
- Managerialism justifies the application of its one-dimensional managerial techniques
to all areas of work, society, and capitalism on the grounds of superior ideology,
expert training, and the exclusiveness of managerial knowledge necessary to run
public institutions and society as corporations.
Notes: Managing also means there is not only one reality, we have to frame and make sense
of something. Ex. Trump is applying managerialism to everything. But that doesn’t make him
a good manager; there is not just one dimension
Making sense of Managing
- We can differentiate managing as a practice, as something that we do, from
organizations as goal-oriented collectives, entities in which we are organized
- Management is the process of communicating, coordinating and accomplishing
action in the pursuit of organizational objectives
- Managing collaborative relationships with stakeholders, technologies and other
artefacts, both within as well as between organizations and managing more or less
considerate relationships with those employed as well as with those encountered as
suppliers, customers, communities, and so on
- Management is not a neutral activity !
- Management cannot simply be considered in terms of its capacity to deliver objective
gains in productivity/efficiency
- It is also a socio-political activity, which implies the need to adhere to societal,
political and ethical responsibilities
Notes: Managing is oriented towards the goal. Management is process of communication,
coordination, you try to bring something into action to reach the goal
As a manager you have different kinds of relationships with different people. You
also have relationships with people outside of the team.
,You have to find a good balance of how to integrate this (all of this, communication,
technologies to consider,…) à to tackle everything is managing
What does managing mean? What is management? → for the exam
Management is not a neutral activity! You need to make sense to what is going on in
the company and what is going on outside of the company.
This is called sensemaking
- For the past 40 years, the predominant sense of what an organization should be has
been modelled on lean and efficient private sector organizations that are profit
oriented
- In such organizations, top management teams strive to set a common frame so that
organizational members, customers, suppliers, investors, and so on, can make
common sense of the organization – what it is and what it does
Notes: Management used to be about efficiency and being lean.
Sense-making
Sensemaking is the process through which individuals and groups give meaning to
something, especially to explain novel, unexpected or confusing events.
- We are constantly making sense, revising past rationalizations in the light of new
information, knowledge and events not previously available
- Meaning is constructed in an ongoing process in which past experience informs the
present.
Notes: Process where people give a meaning to something.
It's like you put a purpose to a set goal. Important if you have confusing events (ex. Corona,
it was important for management to make sense of the situation, bc u cant just do nothing)
The way you make sense, you try to collect info you already have (or received in the past)
Your personal reality is constructed because we all have different ‘previous’ information
(backgrounds, education, etc). So we all reflect differently on different topics
What role does sensemaking play in management? De definitie niet exact kennen.
Sense-making in a capitalist system
- Making sense of profit orientation?
- Does it make sense to you?
- The art of making sense of your work (proud to working for Apple, Google or another
‘hip’ company
- Dare to challenge the narrative of selling company! (Projection of an image that may
not be reality)
- Dare to challenge the narrative of your manager!
,Notes: All of those companies did a good job in sensemaking of the purpose of their
company. There is also a dark side: Starbucks positioned itself in Japan as a good brand,
good coffee etc. That's why you want to pay more, it's the hip place to go. But it got bad
reviews because it's run by America, so that image turned around. Companies build up a
collective goal, but dare to change the narrative
Managing in a complex world
- A ‘one size fits all’ management approach will not work
- Contemporary managers can no longer rely on hierarchy and nominal roles to
manage people
- Managing has become an increasingly difficult, political, and challenging endeavor
- People work in complex organizations that are embedded in contexts inscribed by
complex networks
- Managers should have an understanding of(human) complexity
Notes: It has become very difficult to manage in different situations where you have a lot of
pressure going on. Without different reflections you can't innovate either, you need different
inputs. Management is not a hierarchical process anymore, it's a complex process
Managing and framing
- While the sense you make is always your sense it is never made in isolation. Not
only is sense made through the language and concepts you use but also through the
many cues that prompt you to make sense: experience, what others say they think is
happening, likely stories that you are familiar with that seem to fit the pattern that
appears to be forming
- People will not use these cues in a uniform way, because they are individuals and, as
a result, people can make wildly different sense of the same set of cues
Notes: Your narrative isn't only based on the info you previously had but also on the your
perspective after gaining information (for example, after watching a video)
Framing
- Framing is a term that comes from film making: a director frames a shot by including
some detail and omitting other elements
- A frame defines what is relevant. All managing involves framing: separating that
which deserves focus from that which does not. One thing that managers do all the
time is to differentiate between the relevant and the irrelevant
- Framing involves the creation of devices that assign meaning to organizational
situations
- Framing entails the ideational use of metaphors, the repetition of stories, the citing of
traditions, the articulation of slogans and the material creation of artefacts to highlight
or contrast a particular organizational issue
Notes: You define what is important and relevant. Managing means to put something in the
spotlight and maybe also leave some things out, but there is a fine line between this and
being fully transparent (which is important). As a manager you make the decision if things
, are relevant to communicate about. You can use metaphors,…etc to give meaning to
something.
Managerialism
- Managerialism, portrays management as a universal solution to all problems
- Managerialism combines management’s generic tools and knowledge with ideology
to establish itself systemically in organizations, public institutions, and society while
depriving business owners (property), workers (organizational-economic) and civil
society (social-political) of all decision-making powers
- Managerialism justifies the application of its one-dimensional managerial techniques
to all areas of work, society, and capitalism on the grounds of superior ideology,
expert training, and the exclusiveness of managerial knowledge necessary to run
public institutions and society as corporations.
Notes: Difference between managerialism and managerial rationality.
Managerialism, management strength, its a generic tool and I can manage everything with
this. It justifies that we have this one dimensional approach, one technique you can apply
everywhere
Managerial Rationality
- Some managers argue that they can make decisions based on management on their
managerial competence, it's called managerialism
- But is this possible?
- Management as in ideology?
- No because within an organization management goes beyond managing financial
capital
- What about symbolic capital (reputation), social capital (set of relations)
- Organizations have professionalized workflows YET organizations are full of stories
(rumour, gossip, official statements, business plans, etc)
- Managerialism as an ideology
- Economic rationalism and its metaphors
- Organization stories
- Rationality is always contextually and cognitively limited: bounded rationality
- Managing and organizations are constantly changing
- Resistance to change is to be expected
- Rational managers never have perfect knowledge of the situation
- A belief in rationality – a myth?
