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seven small firms and 19 larger potential customers. The
main activities within the project were networking, market
investigation, seminars on e.g. business and customer strategies,
speed dating, and workshops on creating system solutions.
This latter aspect of developing system solutions is highlighted
as a specific condition, necessary for success of emerging
technologies and in the real estate and construction industry.
From a practical point of view, the implications of the project
are that speed dating can create new businesses opportunities
in an efficient and quick, but limited way, while market
investigation, seminars and discussion with others takes more
time and needs more work from the companies in order to be
translated into practical businesses. On the other hand these
are bases for long term development for creating business.
From a theoretical point of view, the contribution of the paper
is the suggested model of how organizational capabilities can
be developed through interactive learning approaches including
both DUI (doing, using and interacting) and STI (science,
technology, innovation) approaches
22:06
”Like we’ve always said in this house, I think...” How stabilizing
movements unfold in double-voiced utterances
Helin, Jenny 1 ; Norbäck, Maria 1 ; Raviola, Elena 2
1 Jönköping International Business School, Entrepreneurship,
Strategy, Organization and Leadership Department, Jönköping,
Sweden; 2 Handelshögskolan i Göteborg, GRI, Göteborg,
Sweden
In this paper, we focus on how organizational ’things’ (local
truths, entities, relationships) come to be and are maintained by
what we call stabilizing movements. Our focus is on language
in use and its role for making stabilizing movements possible
and effective. Building on process studies to question the
traditional taken-for-granted concepts of linearity, conformity
and organization, we depart from a world in messiness and
movement to understand how processes of both stabilization
and change unfold through language. If the world is in
continuous processes of becoming and there is no ultimate
finalization, essence or stable entities, we want to investigate
how temporary stabilization and feelings of arrested moments
are created in this fuzziness (Chia & Tsoukas, 2003; Hernes,
2008).
Borrowing Bakhtin’s (1984) notion of ’double-voicing’, we
focus on how people ’borrow’ each other’s utterances and reuse
them in various ways: ”[W]ith some of them we completely
merge our own voice, forgetting whose they are; others, which
we take as authoritative, we use to reinforce our own words;
still others, finally, we populate with our own aspirations, alien
or hostile to them” (Bakhtin, 1984:195). Thus, double-voicing
draws on the preceding language world where past events and
actions are recycled to form context to current circumstances
and needs, by creating a feeling of order, or ’wholeness’. Such
a feeling always needs to be worked on, as strong centrifugal
forces strive to create chaos: Thus, stabilizing is ”an attempt to
create order by positing it” (Bakthin in Morson & Emerson,
1990:140). Our analysis builds on three longitudinal in-depth
studies in different organizations. Based on direct observations
on site, interviews and document analysis, these studies have
been conducted during times when organizational actors
have established new ways of working. This offered good
possibilities for understanding how stabilizing movements
take place in social interactions. Understanding not only
change and dynamism, but also the need for closings, feelings
of ’wholeness’ and slowing down in organizational life has
relevant implications both for theory and practice. By using
the concept of stabilizing movements, we aim to dismantle the
unfortunate popular misconception of process and stability as
dichotomies, and rather embrace them as mutually constitutive.
22:07
Organizational change through interactive research or a
consultant’s intervention. Reflections about pros and cons
Lindskog, Pernilla
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Ergonomics, Stockholm,
Sweden
This abstract is written in the start up of an interactive
oriented or an action oriented research project. The author
has previous experience as a consultant and is reflecting upon
possible differences between being a consultant and being
a researcher. In the paper, a reflection is made on possible
differences when using an academic or a consultant approach
in an organizational intervention. The consultants are seen
as the change agents, fully devoting themselves to the needs
of the clients in doing an organizational intervention. The
consultant’s role, as being a change agent, is sometimes
compared to the role of an action researcher. However, the
action researchers are not only to satisfy the organizations
but are also to add critical knowledge to existing research
(Westlander, 2006). In interactive research, the emphasis
is even larger on the importance of separating the role of a
researcher from a developer in order to carefully consider
issues of validity (Wallo, 2008). As opposed to the action
researcher’s role, an interactive researcher is to perform a joint
analysis with the involved actors of the organization instead
of taking a responsibility of the change process. Even so, both
interactive and action research can be seen as a new production
of knowledge as to traditional research (Svensson and Nielsen,
2006). The question which is reflected upon is:
If there is a difference between the role of a consultant and an
action researcher in an organizational intervention, is there
really a difference between interactive and action research?
Aspects such as participation, learning and sustainability are
considered.
The empirical data is collected from the author’s involvement
in two parallel organizational change projects as an interactive
or an action researcher. One organization is in the public sector
and the other is in the private sector. Both change projects
are aimed towards the development of lean production. The
empirical data is planned to include ten interviews.
22:08
On the way to commitment in business relationship – Trust
related factors as the key influencers in process of change
Suvanto, Hannele
University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute, Seinäjoki, Finland
Business organisations live nowadays in the dynamic
environment where changes are mundane driven by crisis
after crisis. When the business organisations face their crisis,
the radical change is needed. The process of change is very
challenging inside the organisation, but when two organisations
are going through the process together, it is even more
challenging. Indeed, the process of change is always a stressing
and risky situation to the business relationship. Therefore
business organisations have to be committed to achieve the
ambitions of the change, such as an increase in the profitability
or longevity and stability of the business relationship (Meyer
and Allen, 1991; Wu et al., 2004). The success of the process
depends on how committed the organisations are to each other
and the process from its early stage. Indeed, commitment can
be considered the main influencing factor of the process of
change. But how is commitment accomplished in the beginning
of change? Several researches claim that trust is a prerequisite
for commitment and that trust is created in combination of
communication, past history, power positions and personality
of humans etc. (Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Kwon and Suh,
2004). However, the influence of these factors behind trust
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