Decision entity-ness: taking agency seriously in organizational decision-making studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5585/riae.v21i1.18815Keywords:
Decision, Action, Agency, Transaction, Relational sociology.Abstract
Objective of the study: In this essay, we problematize the onto-epistemological assumptions of organizational decision-making theories, focusing on the concepts of action and decision.
Approach: Based on the epistemological perspective of transaction, we propose an understanding of decision as a relational element of action and in action, constructing an explanation supported on the relational ontological understanding of reality.
Originality/relevance: We introduce the concept of decision entity-ness, based on relational sociology from the perspective of transaction and the idea of relational agency.
Main results: The concept of decision entity-ness allowed us to theoretically combine the processual and performative dimensions of organizational decision-making.
Theoretical contribution: As a contribution, we developed an original theoretical-explanatory framework that emphasizes decision, understanding it as an element that distinguishes organizations from other social systems.
Downloads
References
Abbott, A. (1995) Things of Boundaries. Social Research, 62(4), 857–82. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971127
Abend, G. (2018). Outline of a sociology of decisionism. The British Journal of Sociology, 69(2), 237-264. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12320
Ahrne, G., Brunsson, N., & Seidl, D. (2016). Resurrecting organization by going beyond organizations. European Management Journal, 34 (2), 93-101. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2016.02.003
Allison, G. T. (1971). Essence of Decision – explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Harper Collins Publishers.
Allison, G. T., & Zelikow, P. (1999). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile crisis (extended version). New York: Longman Publishing.
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating research questions through problematization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247-271. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2011.59330882
Archer, M. S. (2000). Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer M. S. (2003). Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Balogun, J., Pye, A., & Hodgkinson, G. P. (2008). Cognitively skilled organizational decision making: making sense of deciding. In Hodgkinson, G. P., & Starbuck, W. H. (Eds.) The Oxford handbook of organizational decision making. Oxford University Press, USA.
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs, 28(3), 801-831. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/345321
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Penguin, UK.
Brunsson, N. (1982). The irrationality of action and action rationality: decisions, ideologies and organizational actions. Journal of Management Studies, 19(1), 29-44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1982.tb00058.x
Brunsson, N. (2007). The consequences of decision-making. New York: Oxford University Press.
Burkitt, I. (2016). Relational agency: Relational sociology, agency and interaction. European Journal of Social Theory, 19(3), 322-339. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431015591426
Burkitt, I. (2018). Relational Agency. In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology (pp. 523-538). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cabantous, L., & Gond, J. P. (2011). Rational decision making as performative praxis: explaining rationality's éternel retour. Organization Science, 22(3), 573-586. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1100.0534
Cabantous, L., Gond, J. P., & Johnson-Cramer, M. (2010). Decision theory as practice: Crafting rationality in organizations. Organization Studies, 31(11), 1531-1566. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840610380804
Cabantous, L., & Sergi, V. (2018). Seeing the potentialities at the intersection: A reflection on performativity and processuality mindsets. M@n@gement, 21(4), 1229-1243. https://www.cairn.info/revue-management-2018-4-page-1229.htm
Calabretta, G., Gemser, G., & Wijnberg, N. M. (2016). The Interplay between Intuition and Rationality in Strategic Decision Making: A Paradox Perspective. Organization Studies, 38(3-4), 365-401. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616655483
Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. The Sociological Review, 32(S1), 196-233. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x
Callon, M., & Law, J. (1995). Agency and the hybrid collectif. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 94 (2), 481-507. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822382720-006
Chia, R. (1994). The concept of decision: A deconstructive analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 31(6), 781-806. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1994.tb00639.x
Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. (1963). A behavioral theory of the firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 2.
Cohen, M. D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17 (1), p. 1-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2392088
Dawson, P. (2014). Reflections: on time, temporality and change in organizations. Journal of Change Management, 14(3), 285-308. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2014.886870
Denis, J. L., Dompierre, G., Langley, A., & Rouleau, L. (2011). Escalating indecision: Between reification and strategic ambiguity. Organization Science, 22(1), 225-244. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1090.0501
Dépelteau, F. (2013). What Is the Direction of the ‘Relational Turn’?. In: C. Powell & F. Dépelteau (Ed.). Conceptualizing Relational Sociology: Ontological and Theoretical Issues, Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 163-185.
Dépelteau, F. (2015). Relational sociology, pragmatism, transactions and social fields. International Review of Sociology, 25(1), 45-64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2014.997966
Dépelteau, F. (Ed.), (2018a) The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 686 pp.
Dépelteau, F. (2018b). Relational Thinking in Sociology: Relevance, Concurrence and Dissonance. In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology (pp. 3–33). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dépelteau, F. (2018c). The Promises of the Relational Turn in Sociology. In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology (pp. I - XXI). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dépelteau, F. (2018d). From the concept of ‘trans-action’ to a process-relational sociology. In Dépelteau, F. (Ed.). (2018). The Palgrave handbook of relational sociology London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 499-519).
Dewey, J., & A. Bentley (1949) Knowing and the Known. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Donati, P. (2011). Relational sociology: a new paradigm for the social sciences. London: Routledge.
Elias, N. (1978). What Is Sociology? New York: Columbia University Press.
Emirbayer, M. (1997). Manifesto for a relational sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 103(2), 281-317. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/231209
Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency?. American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962-1023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/231294
Ericson, M. (2010). Towards a sensed decision-making approach: From déjà vu to vu jàdé. Management Decision, 48(1), 132 – 155. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/00251741011014490
Gavetti, G., Levinthal, D., & Ocasio, W. (2007). Perspective—Neo-Carnegie: The Carnegie school’s past, present, and reconstructing for the future. Organization Science, 18(3), 523-536. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1070.0277
Giddens A (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hendry, J. (2000). Strategic decision making, discourse, and strategy as social practice. Journal of Management Studies, 37(7), 955-978. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00212
Krarup, T. M., & Blok, A. (2011). Unfolding the social: quasi-actants, virtual theory, and the new empiricism of Bruno Latour. The Sociological Review, 59(1), 42-63. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2010.01991.x
Langley, A., Mintzberg, H., Pitcher, P., Posada, E., & Saint-Macary, J. (1995). Opening Up Decision Making: the view from the black stool. Organization Science, 6(3), 260-279. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.6.3.260
Laroche, H. (1995). From decision to action in organizations: Decision-making as a social representation. Organization Science, 6(1), 62-75. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.6.1.62
Laroche, H. (2014). La décision comme production d'ordre dans les organisations. Connexions, 1, 11-18. https://www.cairn.info/journal-connexions-2014-1-page-11.htm
Latour, B. (1988). The pasteurization of France. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
Latour, B. (2012). “What’s the story?”: Organizing as a mode of existence. In Passoth, J., Peuker, B., & M. Schillmeier. (Eds.). Agency without Actors? New Approaches to Collective Action. London: Routledge, pp. 163-177.
Lorino, P. (2018). Pragmatism and organization studies. Oxford University Press. 347 pp.
Lorino, P. (2020). Trans-Action: A Processual and Relational Approach to Organizations. In Morgner, C. John Dewey and the Notion of Trans-action (pp. 83-109). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Maitlis, S., & Ozcelik, H. (2004). Toxic decision processes: A study of emotion and organizational decision making. Organization Science, 15(4), 375-393. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1040.0070
March J. G. (1988). Decisions and organizations. Oxford: Brackwell.
March, J. G. (1994). Primer on decision making: How decisions happen. New York: Free Press.
March, J. G. (1997). Understanding how decisions happen in organizations. In: Shapira, Z. (Ed.). Organizational decision making. Cambridge University Press, pp. 9-32.
Merkus, S., De Heer, J., & Veenswijk, M. (2014). Decision-making as performative struggle: Strategic political-executive practices influencing the actualization of an infrastructural development. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 3(2), 224-245. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-12-2012-0058
Mintzberg, H., Raisinghani, D., & Theoret, A. (1976). The structure of ‘unstructured’ decision processes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21 (2), 246-275. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2392045
Mintzberg, H. & Waters, J. (1990). Studying deciding: An exchange of views between Mintzberg and Waters, Pettigrew, and Butler. Organization Studies, 11(1), 1-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/017084069001100101
Morgner, C. (2020). Reinventing Social Relations and Processes: John Dewey and Trans-Actions. In Morgner, C. John Dewey and the Notion of Trans-action. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 1-30.
Nayak, A., & Chia, R. (2011). Thinking becoming and emergence: process philosophy and organization studies. In: Tsoukas, H.; & Chia, R (Ed.). Philosophy and Organization Theory (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, v. 32). London: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 281 – 309.
Nutt, P. (2011). Making Decision-Making Research Matter: some issues and remedies. Management Research Review, 34 (1), 5-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/01409171111096441
Passoth, J., Peuker, B., & Schillmeier, M. (Eds.). (2012). Introduction. In Passoth, J., Peuker, B., & M. Schillmeier. (Eds.). Agency without Actors? New Approaches to Collective Action. London: Routledge, pp. 1-11.
Pham, Q.N. (2013). Enduring bonds: politics and life outside freedom as autonomy. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 38(1), 29–48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0304375412465676
Poole, M. S., Seibold, D. R., & McPhee, R. D. (1985). Group decision‐making as a structurational process. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 71(1), 74-102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638509383719
Rammert, W. (2012). Distributed agency and advanced technology: or how to analyze constellations of collective inter-agency. In Passoth, J., Peuker, B., & M. Schillmeier. (Eds.). Agency without Actors? New Approaches to Collective Action. London: Routledge, pp. 89-112.
Rorty R. (1999). Philosophy and Social Hope. Penguin Books. 288 pp.
Rudolf, F. (2012). Questioning the human/non-human distinction. In Passoth, J., Peuker, B., & M. Schillmeier. (Eds.). Agency without Actors? New Approaches to Collective Action. London: Routledge, pp. 54-66.
Sayes, E. (2014). Actor–Network Theory and methodology: Just what does it mean to say that nonhumans have agency?. Social Studies of Science, 44(1), 134-149. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312713511867
Simon, H. A. (1965). Administrative behavior . New York: Free Press.
Tsoukas, H. (2010) Strategic decision making and knowledge: a Heideggerian Approach. In: Nutt, P. C. & Wilson, D. C. Handbook of Decision Making. United Kingdom: Wiley, 2010.
Tsoukas, H. (2017). Don't simplify, complexify: from disjunctive to conjunctive theorizing in organization and management studies. Journal of Management Studies, 54 (2), 132-153. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12219
Vandenberghe, F. The Relation as Magical Operator: Overcoming the Divide Between Relational and Processual Sociology. In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology (pp. 35-57). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Villar, E. G.; Rese, N.; Roglio, K. D. (2020). (Trans)Formative Trajectories of Decisions: An Analysis from The Translation Perspective. BASE - Revista de Administração e Contabilidade da Unisinos, 17 (3), 361-391. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4013/base.2020.173.01
Vo, L. C., & Kelemen, M. (2014). John Dewey (1859–1952). In Helin, J., Hernes, T., Hjorth, D., & Holt, R. (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies. Oxford University Press.
Weick, K. E. (1969) The social psychology of organizing., Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations (v. 3). Sage.
Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obsfeldt, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking, Organization Science, 16 (4), 409-421. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0133
White, H. C. (1992). Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Iberoamerican Journal of Strategic Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.