A short history of structure

The Chinese philosopher K’ung-fu-tzu, better known in the

West as Confucius²⁵, believed in an ideal, harmonious social structure where every part contributes to the good of the whole, based on the principle of compassion. It should, according to the sage, would be based on merit rather than traditional (feudal) distinctions. Education would enable social mobility and even a person of low origin could become a government officer of high status. At the centre of this structure is the charismatic king, its calm core, around which everything revolves (Xinzhong, 2000).

The Christian philosopher Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite²⁶ had a vision of a harmonious hierarchy, where all the celestial spirits were arranged in three spheres, each containing three kinds of beings. The structure is based on their proximity to God. The social structure of the Church should be made as a likeness to this celestial order to ensure participation in the holiness and beauty (Dionysius the Areopagite, 1899).

Hierarchy is, in my judgment, a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated, as far as attainable, to the likeness of God, and conducted to the illuminations granted to it from God, according to capacity, with a view to the Divine imitation (ibid.).

The aim of the hierarchy is union with God.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes²⁷ conceived of social structure as a means of achieving greater good for a society

The finall Cause, End, or Designe of men, (who naturally love Liberty, and Dominion over others,) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, (in which wee see them live in Common-wealths,) is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby (Hobbes, 1651).

25 551–479 BC, ancient China 26 5th to 6th century 27 1588–1679, England.

In order to achieve that aim, people consent to “to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will” (ibid.), or they agree to submit to the authority of the ruler in exchange for the protection of their rights and needs.

The German sociologist and thinker Max Weber²⁸ believed that the most rational type of authority, power based on the rule of law, was best realized through the bureaucratic structure, which is also effective and the most technically superior, even if not always good from the point of view of individual freedoms.

Bureaucracy is based on several principles, among them foremost:

strict hierarchy based on the rules and regulations, defined lines of authority, formalization, that is written rules concerning all of the organization’s activities and professionalization based on merit and expert knowledge (Weber, 1992).

4.2. Reflection 1

Only some 40 years ago structure was a very popular topic of study and while many theorists and practitioners looked for an optimal structure, some, as notably did Henry Mintzberg (1983) showed the variety of different structural configurations available to organizations and suitable (or not) for different purposes.

Structure was often considered central to organizations and many considered it something of a cure for all ills of organizations.

Perhaps it was so because it was fashionable, or many people trusted solutions that had a systemic air. Consultants often had toolkits of suitable structures and when they were given a specific problem to solve, they fitted it with a structure. Krzysztof Obłój (1986) shows how this style of thinking was attracted to certain

“general” solutions which, however, rarely lived up to real systemic challenges. Restructuration, yes, but only so that the system may continue to perpetuate itself. Nowadays management

28 1864 – 1920, Bavaria (Germany).

theorists rarely speak of systemic change and structure seems to be decidedly passé, judging by the amount of more recent publications, but there is yet some faith in its effectiveness.

Organizational structure has been tested and proven to have an effect on the number of initiatives pursued by organizations and whether they were able to avoid decision making errors – in general, a structural decentralization was more beneficial for mutual funds management in several important respects (Csaszar, 2012). Organizational structure is shown to be positively related to knowledge management – the less centralized, less formalized, more complicated and more integrated, the more the levels of knowledge management were demonstrated to be enhanced (Mahmoudsalehi, 2012). These more traditional perspectives on structure are, however, much less prevalent today than they were a few decades ago. Yet, there is a lively research activity focused on alternative structural ideas and different perspectives, not aimed at establishing a link between structure and effectiveness but rather using it as a means of organizing collective action.

From this perspective, structure is seen as the ordering basis for collective effort. According to Karl Weick (2001) organizational structures that work particularly well in changing contexts are based on loose coupling. Each interaction needs a definition of the conditions and there are few assumptions as to its results.

Loose coupling suggests that any location in an organization (top, middle, or bottom) contains interdependent

elements that vary in the number and strength of their interdependencies. The fact that these elements are linked and preserve some degree of determinacy is captured by the word coupled in the phrase loosely coupled. The fact that these elements are also subject to spontaneous changes and preserve some degree of independence and indeterminacy is captured by the modifying word loosely (Orton and Weick, 1990, p. 204).

Such a structure enables ordering while at the same time does not limit autonomy which makes it particularly suitable for self-management. It also has a beneficial effect on decision making, as it allows more freedom to point out errors and problems, and some discretion to act from different standpoints. Thus some decisions with catastrophic effects may be avoided. It has positive effects on job satisfaction because people have more agency in such organizations. It is also advantageous for adaptability, as the organization has a greater potential to respond to different signals from the environment if it is not determined and bound by a tight structure. Loose structure prevents spread of problems and enables buffering. It allows to show both the rational and non-rational processes that work together in organizations. Loosely coupled organizational systems tend to thrive in environments that are complex, indeterminate and fragmented (Orton and Weick, 1990).

This seems to describe quite well the typical current organizational context, and so it is perhaps not surprising that this type of structure is currently quite often the topic of interest of researchers of a variety of organizational areas, from customer relations (Danneels, 2003) to asset management (Marriott et al., 2011).

Another popular alternative structural idea is the heterarchy, a form based on decentralization and diversity, where power is dispersed and every actor’s uniqueness is recognized (Hedlund, 1994; Grabher, 2002). Heterarchy is “an ideal type in opposition

to hierarchy” (Hedlund, 1994, p. 87), where “several strategic apexes emerge, that these shift over time, and that there are several ordering principles at work” (Ibid., p. 87, emphasis removed).

In firms that are constructed around projects the traditional stability is undercut but not necessarily substituted by the dynamics of the project. Personal ties and geographical contexts make such project oriented organizations multilayered structurally.

Gernot Grabher (2002) proposes to regard them as project

ecologies, meaning spaces of collaborative practices, containing some temporal and some stable features. Their basic structure is heterarchic – the diversity of the participating actors is one of the fundamental characteristics of such project teams. Collaborative relations develop over time and become stable relations. Different kinds of loyalties develop, from personal to industry-based. The projects are also embedded in much wider, global corporate communication networks. Another feature of project heterarchies is the rivalry which drives potential reconfigurations. It is the core of the structure and all the social actors

[orbit] around a in the contested terrain of boundaries between professions, project teams, organizations and, in fact, in the understanding of the sub-sectors of the trade (ibid., p. 255).

It ascertains that the diversity is not limited in time, even though there exist strong ties of loyalty between the participants. Stability is derived from this supportive social networks rather than from rules, regulations or a tendency to imitation and convergence.

Organizations that are concerned about their creativity prefer heterarchies rather than other structural types because they provide an institutional support for diversity (Spelthann and Haunschild, 2011). Heterarchy consists of forms that are multilayered and overlapping and may be incongruent and dynamic, where the diversity is guarded by the co-existence of different organizing principles. This ensures that no hegemonic tendencies or routines survive on a more permanent basis. Inconsistency, slack and redundancy are constitutive characteristics of organizational creativity, and heterarchy is best suited to safeguard their existence in the longer term. Managing creativity is a latent activity and should not take on more active, controlling roles. Its role is to bring in creative people into the organization and to ensure the diversity that is necessary for them to be able to practice their

creativity. Heterachy turns out to be a good structure for such leadership, as it prevents more intrusive management practices through its inherent power instability. In sum

the diversity of organizational forms and practices constitutes a potential for organizational creativity that gets activated through a particular organization of diversity, which is characterized by multilayeredness, duplication, overlap, incongruence, redundancy, organizational slack, rivalry and latency (ibid., p. 106).

Another example of organization, where heterachy is seen as particularly desired is the entrepreneurial firm, or event as Bengt Johannisson (2005) calls it. It is based on action and reflection, all individuals are treated as unique, and even though they enact the event together and cooperate, they need a dynamic of rivalry in order to prevent clustering of power which has the tendency to block entrepreneurship. Heterarchy ensures that all are considered different yet equal. Entrepreneurship is a dynamic collection of contradictions which cannot and should not be harmonized or stabilized: anarchy and ordering, individuality and collectivity, work and play, organizing and affirming uncertainty. It is both reflection and action at the same time, a kind of creative process where the organization is the medium. Heterachy also provides a structural context that does not prevent entrepreneurial learning, a process which demands much experimentation and experiencing, and abhors tight rules and regulation, as well as formal authority, which often blocks individual courage and passion to explore and question certainties (Johannisson, 2005). Finally, heterachy has a potential for self-organizing, which gives the entrepreneurial firm a potential for a long term survival, despite all the inherent contradictions, and a development of an identity as well as a capability for endurable sense-making (Johannisson, 2008).

4.3. Sounds, images, dreams

Franz Kafka’s novel The Castle (2012), first published 1920 in Munich, tells the story of the encounter of a man and a powerful yet inscrutable organization. The protagonist, K., tries to get access to the Castle governing over a village where he is working and land surveyor – and ultimately, to be accepted as an inhabitant and employee. He is sent from one official to another, but no one seems to be willing to speak to him, claiming that there is another clerk, more suitable for making such a contact. When he succeeds in talking to some of them, they remain for the most part completely unhelpful, or else obliging in a bizarre kind of way, giving advice that is absurd and confusing. K., regardless of the unwillingness of everyone he encounters to pursue the matter, insists on trying to get in contact with a character whose name he has heard in the village and who, he presumes, must be the one knowing what is going on – a man called Klamm. The villagers themselves never explain the nature of their relationship with the Castle, not the rules embedded in it; they are more than willing to talk about the officials, but only to make excuses for their, at times, strange and disquieting behaviour, or to engage in lengthy and obscure storytelling about the culture of the Castle, of which they seem to be in awe. However, K. can clearly see that there is an underlying order of everything that happens here, a structure so potent that it is a taboo, while at the same time determining everything, providing the firmest foundation for all that the people do. He has an overpowering need to find out what it is, and, at the same time, the Castle is demanding that he justify his presence in the village. He feels that he cannot work without establishing some kind of meaningful link to what he sees as the ultimate source of the ruling order. Waiting, he listens to the villagers’ stories, which are contradictory, obscure, more confusing than helpful. K. tries to keep his mind as clear as possible, he

takes it all in but does not adopt the unstated rules as his own.

He realizes that nothing is as voluntary or mutually agreed as the villagers claim; he comprehends that the Castle controls the village completely and unidirectionally, even though he seems to be the only one seeing this. He is increasingly lonely and isolated, the reality he perceives is different from anyone else’s, and with the Castle’s enduring elusiveness and thus refusal to justify his being there, he becomes more and more something of a vague presence himself, maybe wicked, possibly foolish, probably paranoid. If it is at all recognized by the reality based on the structure of Castle, then he is, at best, its chief visible error: he has, after all, been called upon to come to the village and once there, there does not seem to be a place for him in the system. But even worse from its point of view, perhaps, he is wide awake within a reality whose main organizing principle seems to be oblivion.

I read The Castle for the first time when I was a pupil in secondary school in southern Sweden. From the first pages I felt a strange connection: it was as if Kafka had written this book especially for me. My school was just like the Castle, resting on an invisible but all powerful structure, unknowable but imperative, closely knit together by the understanding of all the teachers, administrators, school nurses, pupils, even librarians. I was the only alien element, unfit even to be given a place as an outsider.

It was like an immense ship drifting on an ocean by a perfectly renewable force, in a unchanging landscape of perpetual gray dusk.

In this school I kept silent for two years, only K., and later a Polish teacher, coming to my rescue.

An equally powerful but much more dynamic and constructive sense of structure can be found in the paintings of Pablo Picasso, the Spanish 20^th century painter, sculptor and peace activist, known foremost as the precursor of cubism. Picasso and Braque pondered how objects and people were visually set together

as shapes, imaginatively took them apart and then painted the different structural principles they found. Instead of adopting the principles of perspective, canonic, since the renaissance, the cubist painting presents several planes, revealing the structure in the process of seeing itself. That way, the work of art actively co-created reality, together with the viewer, instead of re-creating it, for the viewer to more or less passively absorb. Picasso sought out the basic geometric shapes and framed them the elements present in his artwork in. In his oil painting Three Musicians from 1921 (MoMa, 2013), this is very visible both in the silhouettes of the three men, their musical instruments and the furniture, but also the colours, with dominating brown tones and inky blues, emphasizing the structure rather than, as in many other directions in art, serving to convey the experience of either outer, natural, or inner, spiritual light. The Musicians speak much more to my senses of touch and hearing than most other paintings, and the impression they make on my sense of vision is very dynamic, watching it feels like seeing a short trailer of a musical video, perhaps uploaded to youtube. I clearly see the noise they are making, and the fun they are having by playing together. I gather they might not be very talented musicians but certainly good friends, their faces vibrant with joy and they feet impatient to stomp the rhythm. Are they, however, able to hold a common rhythm? Of that I am not entirely sure;

they seem too eager and too exuberant to be capable of producing an orderly structure. But I feel invited to share their joy as a viewer, stomp my own rhythm if I like, as long as I do not impose it on the musicians in the painting. It is said that the Three Musicians are an homage to a bygone bohemian era in Picasso’s life, it is indeed himself, portrayed in a harlequin costume, and his two artist friends who are represented in the picture. One of them had recently died when Picasso made the painting. The harlequin costume was used by Picasso in his earlier pictures as a statement

of his identity as an outsider, not quite fitting in the bohemian ideal. Being able to catch something of the dynamic structure of the memory, Picasso has avoided sentimentality and idealization of the past, while strongly playing upon the tones of nostalgia, a longing for a younger, more boisterous world.

4.4. Reflection 2

Not only heterarchy supports the construction of organizational identity. All structures have this ability potentially and Anthony Giddens’ (1979) structuration theory helps to describe the processes that underlie it. Giddens focuses on the pattern of ongoing interactive processes between structure and human actors.

Structure at the same time enables human action and hinders it: it provides rules derived from past actions as to what actions to take in the future. When used anew, these rules are reinforced, or else they vanish if abandoned by new actors. The duality of structure refers to the

the essential recursiveness of social life, as constituted in social practices: structure is both medium and outcome of reproduction of practices. Structure enters simultaneously into the constitution of the agent and social practices, and

“exists” in the generating moments of this constitution (Giddens, 1979, p. 5).

Structure is thus both the process and the result. Not a solid or material fact, but rather the abstract feature of human action, structure is real because it appears as real to the human agents but it is not able to exist without them. There is both a aspect of agency and of determination in the process of structuration.

Furthermore, agents are reflexive, that is, they actively observe and reflect upon what they are engaged in (ibid.). The recreation of organizations can be viewed in terms of “interlocking modalities comprising interpretive schemes” (Wilmott, 1981, p. 472). A focus on schemes such as hierarchy makes it possible to see the

underlying cultural meanings (ibid.). Yolanda Sarason (1995) proposes a model of organizational transformation based on Giddens’ theory with reference to the role of identity and change.

Structuration theory enables to regard managers’ action as

Structuration theory enables to regard managers’ action as