The map and the territory. Sensemaking and sensebreaking through the organisational architecture

• Authors: Dzidowski Adam

Title variants

PL

Mapa i terytorium. Nadawanie i odbieranie sensu przez architekturę organizacyjną

• Languages of publication: PL EN

Abstracts

PL

„Mapa nie jest terytorium” – ten sławny cytat autorstwa Alfreda Korzybskiego doskonale oddaje trudne relacje pomiędzy strukturą i przestrzenią organizacyjną. Wraz z ewolucją podejść do projektowania organizacji oba te wymiary przeszły głębokie zmiany paradygmatyczne. Organizacyjne struktury ewoluowały od podejścia funkcjonalnego, dywizjonalnego, przez macierzowe, szczupłe, sieciowe, aż po wirtualne i fraktalne, odzwierciedlając reorganizację procesów biznesowych i źródeł przewagi konkurencyjnej. Równolegle zasady projektowania przestrzeni pracy ewoluowały od taylorowskich biur, przez Bürolandschaft, Action Office i farmy kubików, aż po biura sieciowe, wirtualne i swobodne, odzwierciedlając zmiany w kulturze organizacyjnej i istocie pracy. Jakkolwiek przekonująca, w warunkach współczesnej gospodarki, jest elastyczność struktur organizacyjnych, połączona z łatwym do adaptacji środowiskiem pracy, to nie można zapominać, że często brakuje jej wymiarów odpowiedzialnych za budowanie tożsamości i nadawanie sensu, które są tak istotne dla współczesnych pracowników wiedzy.

EN

“The map is not the territory” is a famous dictum by Alfred Korzybski that accurately describes the difficult relations between organisational structure and space. With the evolution of the contemporary approaches to organisational design, both these issues have faced a deep paradigmatic shift. The concept of organisational structure has advanced through functional, divisional, matrix, lean, networked, virtual and fractal approaches, reflecting the reorganisation of entrepreneurial processes and sources of competitive advantage. Concurrently with that, the principles of organisational space arrangement evolved from Taylorist offices, through Bürolandschaft, Action Office, cube farms, to networking, virtual and casual working places, reflecting the changing corporate cultures and the essence of modern work. While agility of organisational design, accompanied by elasticity of working environment might seem very appealing in a modern economy, it often lacks the elements of identity building and sensemaking that are crucial for contemporary knowledge workers.

Keywords

PL

struktura organizacyjna; architektura korporacyjna sensemaking; estetyka organizacji

EN

organisational structure; corporate architecture; sensemaking; organisational aesthetics

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Warszawski. Wydział Nauk Ekonomicznych
• Journal: Problemy Zarządzania
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 4/2014 (49) t.2
• Pages: 29-44

Dates

published

2014-12-15

Contributors

author

Dzidowski Adam

• Faculty of Computer Science and Management, Wroclaw University of Technology

References

• Allen, T.J. and Henn, G.W. (2007). The Organization and Architecture of Innovation: Managing the Flow of Technology. Oxford: Elsevier.
• Arieff, A. (2011). Beyond the Cubicle. Retrieved from: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/beyond-the-cubicle/ (19.07.2013).
• Baldry, C. (1997). The Social Construction of Office Space. International Labour Review, 136(3), 365–378.
• Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Becker, F. and Steele, F. (1995). Workplace by Design: Mapping the High-Performance Workscape. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Becker, F.D. (2004). Offices At Work: Uncommon Workspace Strategies That Add Value And Improve Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Biehl-Missal, B. and Fitzek, H. (2014). Hidden heritage: A Gestalt psychology approach to the aesthetics of management and organization. Gestalt Theory,
• 36(3), 251–266.
• Carroll, J. (2006). Art at the Limits of Perception: The Aesthetic Theory of Wolfgang Welsch. Bern: Peter Lang.
• Chappell, E. (2012). Office Space: Defending the Cubicle. Retrieved from: http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/office-space-defending-the-cubicle/
• (19.07.2013).
• Dale, K. (2005). Building a Social Materiality: spatial and embodied politics in organizational control. Organization, 12(5), 649–678,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350508405055940.
• Dale, K. and Burrell G. (2008). The Spaces of Organisation and the Organisation of Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Dale, K. and Burrell, G. (2003). An-Aesthetics and Architecture. In: A. Carr and P. Hancock (Eds.), Art and Aesthetics at Work (pp. 155–173).
• Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Degen, R. J. (2010). Designing matrix organizations that work: Lessons from the P&G case. Revista Eletrônica de Estratégia & Negócios, 2(1), 179–211.
• Donald, I. (2001). Emotions and Offices at Work. In: R.L. Payne and C.L. Cooper (Eds.), Emotions at Work (pp. 281–306). Chichester: Wiley.
• Dzidowski, A. (2011a). Antropologia wizualna organizacji [Visual Organisational Anthropology]. Problemy Zarządzania, 32(2), 51–62.
• Dzidowski, A. (2011b). Organizacje wirtualne we współczesnej gospodarce [Virtual organisations in the modern economy]. Przegląd Organizacji, 7–8, 20–24.
• Dzidowski, A. (2013), Kompetencje wizualne w zarządzaniu organizacjami gospodarczymi i edukacji kadry menedżerskiej [Visual competencies in management
• and managerial education]. Zeszyty Artystyczne, 24, 143–153.
• Foucault, M. (1975, 1995). Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 2nd ed. New York: Vintage, http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/9780822390169-018.
• Fullagar, C.J. and Kelloway, E.K. (2009). Flow at Work: An Experience Sampling Approach. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82(3),
• 595–615, http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/096317908X357903.
• Gabriel, Y. (2005). Glass Cages and Glass Palaces: Images of Organizations in Image-conscious Times. Organization, 12(1), 9–27,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350508405048574.
• Galbraiht, J.R. (2009). Designing Matrix Organizations that Actually Work: How IBM, Procter & Gamble, and Others Design for Success. San Francisco:
• Jossey-Bass.
• Gibb, S. (2006). Aesthetics and human resource development. New York: Routlege.
• Gieryn, T. (2002). What Buildings Do. Theory and Society, 31(1), 35–74, http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1014404201290.
• Guillén, M.F. (2006). The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical: Scientific Management and the Rise of Modernist Architecture. Princeton: Princeton
• University Press.
• Guillet de Monthoux, P. (2004). The Art Firm: Aesthetic Management and Metaphysical Marketing. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Hancock, P. (2003). Aestheticizing the World of Organization – Creating Beautiful Untrue Things. In: A. Carr and P. Hancock (Eds.), Art and Aesthetics at
• Work (pp. 155–173). Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Hatch, M.J., Kostera, M. and Kozminski, A. (2005). The Three Faces of Leadership: Manager, Artist, Priest. Malden-Oxford-Carlton: Blackwell.
• Hirst, A. (2011). Settlers, Vagrants and Mutual Indifference: Unintended Consequences of Hot-desking. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(6),
• 767–788, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534811111175742.
• Hunter, C., Jemielniak, D. and Postula, A. (2010). Temporal and Spatial Shifts within Playful Work. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 23(1),
• 87–102, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534811011017225.
• Jones, A. (2008). The Innovation Acid Test: Growth Through Design and Differentiation. Axminster: Triarchy Press.
• Knight, C. and Haslam, A. (2010). The Relative Merits of Lean, Enriched, and Empowered offices: An Experimental Examination of the Impact of Workspace
• Management Strategies on Well-being and Productivity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 16(2), 158–172, dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019292.
• Kornberger, M., and Clegg S. (2004). Bringing space back in: organizing the generative building. Organization Studies, 25(7), 1095–1114,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840604046312.
• Korzybski, A. (1958, 2000). Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. 5th ed. New York: Institute of General
• Semantics.
• Lefebvre, H. (1974, 1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Linstead, S. and Höpfl, H. (2000). The Aesthetics of Organization. London: Sage Publications.
• Maitland, A. (2005). OFFICE DESIGN: Good Ideas Don’t Only Have to Come in the Bath. Financial Times London, July 20.
• McMillan, E. (2002). Considering Organisation Structure and Design from a Complexity Paradigm Perspective. In: G. Frizzelle and H. Richards (Eds.),
• Tackling Industrial Complexity: The Ideas that Make a Difference (pp. 123–136). Cambridge: University of Cambridge.
• Mitchell, T. (1988). Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Munro, I. and Huber, C. (2012). Kafka’s Mythology: Organization, Bureaucracy and the Limits of Sensemaking. Human Relations, 65(4), 523–544,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0018726711430558.
• Ng, R. Y. K. and Höpfl, H. J. (2011). Objects in Exile: The Intimate Structures of Resistance and Consolation. Journal of Organizational Change
• Management, 24(6), 751–766, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1108/09534811111175733.
• Nonaka I., Toyama, R. and Konno, N. (2000). SECI, Ba and Leadership: a Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation. Long Range Planning, 33(1), 5–34,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00115-6.
• Peltonen, T. (2011). Multiple Architectures and the Production of Organizational Space in a Finnish University. Journal of Organizational Change
• Management, 24(6), 806–821, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534811111175760.
• Peter, B. (2013). Form Follows Fun: Modernism and Modernity in British Pleasure Architecture 1925–1940. Oxon: Routledge.
• Price, A. (2007). Human Resource Management in a Business Context. London: Thomson Learning.
• Salaman, G. (2001). The Emergence of New Work Forms. In: G. Salaman (Ed.), Understanding Business Organisations (pp. 75–83). London: Routledge.
• Schlosser, J. (2006). The Great Escape. FORTUNE Magazine, 153(5), March 22. Retrieved from:
• http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/09/magazines/fortune/cubicle_howiwork_fortune/ (19.07.2013).
• Schneider, J. (2007). Inspiring Offices: Office Design that Drives Creativity. Building Design & Construction, 48(3), 24–30.
• Shellenbarger, S. (2011). Designs to Make You Work Harder. For a Dream Office, Four Firms Create Ways to Bring in Touches of Home, and Hiding Places for
• Them. The Wall Street Journal, June 21. Retrieved from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070104576399572462315158.html (19.07.2013).
• Strati, A. (1999). Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage Publications.
• Sutcliffe, K. (1994). What Executives Notice: Accurate Perceptions in Top Management Teams. Academy of Management Journal, 37(5), 1360–1378.
• Taylor, S., and Spicer, A. (2007). Time for Space: a Narrative Review of Research on Organizational Spaces. International Journal of Management Reviews,
• 9(4), 325–346, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2007.00214.x.
• Taylor, S.S. and Hansen H. (2005). Finding Form: Looking at the Field of Organizational Aesthetics. Journal of Management Studies. 42(6), 1211–1232,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2005.00539.x.
• Toffler A. (1984). Future Shock. New York: Bantam.
• van Marrewijk, A.H. (2009). Corporate Headquarters as Physical Embodiments of Organizational Change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 22(3),
• 290–306, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534810910951078.
• van Marrewijk, A.H. and Yanow D. (Eds.). (2010). Organizational Spaces. Rematerializing the Workaday World. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Warren, S. (2008). Empirical Challenges in Organizational Aesthetics Research: Towards a Sensual Methodology. Organization Studies, 29(4), 559–580,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840607083104.
• Weber, M. (1968, 1978). Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Weick, K., Sutcliffe, K. and Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421,
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0133.
• Weick, K.E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Identifiers

ISSN

1644-9584

DOI

10.7172/1644-9584.49.2