organizational analyses 2500 Problem Solving Case Study and Proposal Report
Organisational Analysis Power, Control and Coalition Tutorial (Week 8)
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Assignment 2 – Progress
Take 10–15 minutes to list down some updates about your group’s progress for Assignment 2
Your lecturer will come around to check your progress
Please take this opportunity to ask any questions you may have for Assignment 2
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Discuss these assumptions
Organisations are places of equality
Organisations are places of fairness
Organisations are designed objectively
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Discuss Critical Theory Analysis
Indicates ideology, which distorts and influences our view of the truth
The truth is distorted because of our individual ideology
So even if the truth exists and is independent, we can only see different versions because of our individual ideology
Truth is discovered through subjective epistemology
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What is Ideology?
Be aware of organisational ideologies
Technology (technological imperative)
Organisational ideology vs. Bureaucratic control /Technostructure
Sustainability (Maintenance of organisational ideology)
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Divisions in Organisations
Discuss: What ideologies cause divides in organisations?
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Discuss the practical implications for graduates
Discuss this statement: “Critical theorists have shifted the image of management and the theoretical agenda ‘from saviour to problem’’
Crowther and Green (2004: 119).
How are organisational members unconscious of their own exploitation? Discuss: “If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves”.
Lane Kirkland, former US trade union leader
How would you raise the consciousness of organisational members?
How would you work towards a more equal and democratic organisation?
How would you as a future manager work and deal with coalition?
Tutorial Exercise
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Discuss Machine Paced Labour
An example of Machine Paced Labour: Drum-Buffer-Rope
What are the consequences?
Eliminating the cost of skilled trades person
Reduction in the bargaining power of the skilled person
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Discuss the worker – management divide
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Efficiency, Automation, Deskilling and Job Losses
The effect of automation is deskilling and disempowerment of the workforce
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Critical Studies of Power and Control
Power and Ideology
Why do workers consent to their own marginalisation and exploitation within organisations?
The dominant ideology (ideas of a society) preserve and legitimise unjust and undemocratic relations within organisations.
Ideology “naturalises” unequal and exploitative arrangements
People consent and conform to their own domination.
“False consciousness”
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How is consciousness is raised from both internally and externally?
Concern with ideology—how do distorted accounts of reality attempt to conceal and legitimate unequal power/material relations (Marx’s “false consciousness”)?
Unmask the “roots” of domination within organisations
Express a concern with functionalist claims about the potentials of reason and knowledge.
Potential Exam Questions
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