In: Nickelsen , N C M 2017 , ' Five currents of organizational psychology : from group norms to enforced change ' , Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies , vol. 7 , no. 1 , pp. 87 - 106 . https://doi.org/10.18291/njwls.v7i1.81402
Organizational psychology was established as a particular discipline in the context of the Great Depression and the two World Wars, and was thus present from the beginning of the international history of psychology. The appearance of organizational psychology was partly related to a need for recruitment and selection principles and job design. After the Second World War, a need arose in addition to the treatment of war trauma and the collective processing of the painful experiences from the Holocaust. Kurt Lewin's term "resistance to change" and his interest in norms, values and dynamics of the small group stands centrally in organizational psychology's contribution to the study of organizations. In this article I present and discuss the impact and significance of five strands in organizational psychology: A social psychological strand, a psychodynamic strand, an occupational psychology strand, a humanistic strand and a systemic-constructionist strand. I present some of the most noteworthy authors and concepts. The strands I present make up neither a complete nor unequivocal description of the field. I use them as a founding structure to create an overview of a number of more or less coherent theory forms which collectively constitute what we mean by organizational psychology. I argue that organizational psychology as a discipline has been influenced by a number of paradigms and strands, but that the notions of resistance, the small group and process consultation, although they have variegated meaning go through all the strands and continues to be central in organizational psychology. Key words: Organizational psychology, resistance to change, the small group, process consultation, basic assumptions ; Organizational psychology may be seen as consisting of a number of mutually conflictual currents developed over several decades. This article discusses five currents in organizational psychology that have both been dominant in Scandinavia and have had particular significance in relation to the field of organizational development: The social psychological, the socio-technical, the humanistic, the work psychological and the social constructionist currents. Central arguments and works from leading scholars are discussed. It is argued that although treated differently the notions of the small group, group dynamics, resistance to change and process consultation constitute pivotal and through going tenets in all the currents. These notions, it is argued, link the discipline of organizational psychology together into a mutually discordant, but anyway relatively consistent research area. The discussion in the article illustrates that while the early contributions to organizational psychology were explicitly focused on interpersonal process based on egalitarian dialogue in the small group for the sake of democracy, satisfaction and efficiency; the latter rather focus on involving organizational participants in reflection and movement as a goal in itself. Moreover, the analysis exposes a decrease over time of strict analytical interest in group norms and contextualized tasks and also an increasing general socio-cognitive focus on providing flexible mindsets and reversing ready bodies for the sake of continual organizational change. It is argued that this latest budding in organizational psychology has negative implications both for the fineness of the scientific discipline and for the credibility in practice. A firmer ethics is demanded. Keywords: Organizational psychology, group dynamics, resistance to change, basic assumptions, relations, currents
This article discusses the entanglement of implementing welfare technology in disability care, and draws on ethnographic observations from a pilot project involving 30 disabled citizens from three different boroughs in Denmark. The disabled citizens suffered from diseases such as multiple sclerosis and cerebral paralysis. The article follows four care assistants and four citizens through a period of 10 months, focusing particularly on the experiences and struggle of two citizens. Against this background, the article takes up a number of conflicting values and criteria practiced by diverse interested groups: 1. employee retrenchment, 2. citizen independence and 3. workforce flexibility. The main argument is that the housing institution studied has turned into a battlefield, where professional values of authentic care meet a strong governmental discourse of modernization of the public sector. The study demonstrates that the implementation of welfare technology in disability care is highly fragile, which is predominantly due to the delicate body-technology assembly, and takes place in agony.
In: Elkjær , B & Nickelsen , N C M 2016 , ' "Us Versus Them!" … Or …? Exploring Coordination practices as a Pathway to Sustainable Universities ' , Creative University Conference (CUC), AAU , Aalborg , Denmark , 18/08/2016 - 19/08/2016 .
1 Single abstract for the CUC (Creative University Conference), August 2016 UNIVERSITIES AS ORGANIZATIONS FOR MARKETIZATION AND SELF-BRANDING. Bente Elkjaer and Niels Christian Mossfeldt Nickelsen Contact author: elkjaer@edu.au.dk"Right. As long as you have access to a telephone, a Xerox machine, and a conference grant fund, you're OK, you're plugged into the university that really matters – the global campus" (Lodge, 1985: 44)Knowledge production through innovation and learning appear crucial in contemporary knowledge based economies (Edmondson, 2012), and universities are ascribed a central role in this endeavor (Bleiklie & Byrkjeflot, 2002). One of the ways this has shown is through politically implemented new ways in which to manage universities in order to make them fulfil their contribution to societies (Carney, 2006; Deem, 2001; Halvorsen & Nyhagen, 2011; Wright & Ørberg, 2008). The Danish University system has not been exempted from this worldwide development, and in 2003 the university system in Denmark was changed from one in which managers at all levels were elected amongst peers to a system where a Board with a majority of external members (i.e. people who are not employed at the university) is the highest authority of the university. The result is that we as university scholars within the last 10-15 years have witnessed an increased emphasis on 'professional management' occupied with formulations of distinct strategic goals in combination with a more closely monitoring of quantitative measurements of research outputs (Wright, 2011) and the demands of adaptation to international and standardized ranking systems (Czarniawska, 2015) through for example lists of which publication outlets count and not count as well as a steady stream of invitations to answer surveys on our knowledge of the reputation of universities.The purpose with the paper is to discuss how this increased emphasis upon the professionalization of management and a strategic marketization of universities (Czarniawska & Genell, 2002; Kallio, Kallio, Tienari, & Hyvönen, 2016) will influence universities' abilities to2maintain their pivotal position with regard to production of new knowledge and learning. The question is whether the 'plurality of thoughts' (Kallio et al., 2016: 702) and the 'intellectual model' of the university (O'Byrne & Bond, 2014: 572) will be squeezed in professional management, measurement and ranking with innovative learning and knowing as the losers.Some dilemmas appear to be interesting in this debate both with regard to what drives scholarship, learning and knowledge production, and to the contemporary organization of scholars. With regard to the latter, we believe that it is important to recall that university scholars are not only embedded in their home-university but also participants in worldwide social worlds of scholars within their fields of inquiry and a competitive market for university scholars. This may for example be exemplified through not only citation indexes but also through the many competitions in which scholars are invited to vote for other scholars' work in order to be nominated as the 'author of the year' or similar prizes. With regard to what drives scholarship, learning and knowledge production, we understand this as both driven by exploration and experimentation (Dewey, 1913 [1979], 1922 [1988]) as well as struggles for visibility, attention and recognition (Merton, 1968, 1988) and even aspirations for celebrity (Van Krieken, 2012).The theoretical framework that informs the paper is both a pragmatist inspired understanding of organizations as "people doing things together" (Becker, 1986; Hughes, 2015), learning and knowing as driven by tensions (Brandi & Elkjaer, 2013; Elkjaer, 2005; Elkjaer & Huysman, 2008) and passions (Dey & Steyaert, 2007; Gherardi, Nicolini, & Strati, 2007). This will allow us to both look at the organizing processes amongst scholars but also how the university as an organization of knowledge production organize around this pursuit, for example with regard to support mechanisms for scholarly research. Theories on how the branding of selves unfold in academia (see for example Wirtén, 2015), and how this may be supported by the web-based platforms (Marwick, 2013; Senft, 2013) also inform the research in order to help interpret how scholars' own participation in marketization through branding of selves may be understood.The methodology is based upon a reading of books, reports, papers and articles on the changes of management at universities and the dilemma of university scholars to adapt to these changes. For example, it may be observed how the demands for Open Access to knowledge and new network sites for academics (for example ResearchGate and Academia.edu) (Thelwall & Kousha, 2014, 2015) may act as a way in which academic scholars gain not only voice and visibility amongst3peers but also easy access to a worldwide market of knowledge. The new media platforms allow for work to be cited, uploaded, spread and measured by other members of the field of inquiry in order for university scholars to not only brand themselves in a competitive market for knowledge. This latter may also be captured in a competitive or a collaborative ethos of scholarship, or maybe best as a balance between the two (Kallio et al., 2016).The results are to re-consider what sort of organizing may benefit universities when innovative and competitive learning and knowing is the aim bearing in mind that university scholars not only serve organizational but also their own interests, which are situated in both markets and their fields of inquiry and their social worlds of peers. So, basically it is a paper highlighting the relationship between the employing organization (in case universities) and the employed person (in case university scholars) with a focus upon universities as organizations for learning and knowledge production.The limitations may be that the paper is a discursive voice into a field of many voices and as such does not represent a cumulative 'truth' – but a voice.The implications are to consider looking at the organizing processes of university scholars and knowledge production, for example to map how the support system for research in universities works to enhance scholarly learning and knowing, and how scholars participate in the marketization of selves and knowledge production.The originality lies in the reconsiderations of how management and marketization also taps into scholars as part hereof, not only out of compliance (Alvesson & Spicer, 2016), but also as active participants and with own aspirations for celebrity.4ReferencesAlvesson, M., & Spicer, A. 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This paper aims to discuss the implications of adopting an STS (science and technology studies)- based conceptualization of the psychosocial work environment. We problematize how work environment research presently divides elements of working conditions into separate physical and psychosocial dimensions. Based on actor network theory, a currently dominant perspective in the field of STS, we discuss the concept of sociomaterial work environment. An ANT perspective on work environment is relevant and timely, we argue, first and foremost because more entities are embraced in the analyses. We argue that the ANT perspective leads to a more nuanced understanding of the work environment where it is not a set of predefined categories that is the focus of interest, but rather the work environment as multiple locally performed aspects of agency, translation, and collectively constructed reality. This perspective on work environment, we argue, addresses pivotal issues raised in the work environment debate during the last ten years, for instance of how the work environment as a concept saliently belongs to a social democratic Scandinavian agenda in which the singular employee in a work environment context is predominantly seen as a victim. This trope, which was peaking in the 1970s, is increasingly becoming obsolete in a changing economy with still more flexible jobs. The contribution of this paper is to provide a presentation and a discussion of the potentials and pitfalls provided by a shift toward a sociomaterial work environment perspective, as well as an empirical exemplification of a sociomaterial approach to work environment assessment.
This paper aims to discuss the implications of adopting an STS (science and technology studies)- based conceptualization of the psychosocial work environment. We problematize how work environment research presently divides elements of working conditions into separate physical and psychosocial dimensions. Based on actor network theory, a currently dominant perspective in the field of STS, we discuss the concept of sociomaterial work environment. An ANT perspective on work environment is relevant and timely, we argue, first and foremost because more entities are embraced in the analyses. We argue that the ANT perspective leads to a more nuanced understanding of the work environment where it is not a set of predefined categories that is the focus of interest, but rather the work environment as multiple locally performed aspects of agency, translation, and collectively constructed reality. This perspective on work environment, we argue, addresses pivotal issues raised in the work environment debate during the last ten years, for instance of how the work environment as a concept saliently belongs to a social democratic Scandinavian agenda in which the singular employee in a work environment context is predominantly seen as a victim. This trope, which was peaking in the 1970s, is increasingly becoming obsolete in a changing economy with still more flexible jobs. The contribution of this paper is to provide a presentation and a discussion of the potentials and pitfalls provided by a shift toward a sociomaterial work environment perspective, as well as an empirical exemplification of a sociomaterial approach to work environment assessment.