Competing logics in evaluating employee performance: Building compromises through conventions
Keywords:
institutional complexity, performance appraisal system, conventionsAbstract
Recent interest in institutional complexity has raised the question how organizations manage rival institutional logics. In this paper we argue that organizations can embed compromises between institutional logics in conventions that impart information how organization members should align competing logics. Using the case of performance appraisal reform in a German public sector organization, we illustrate how a convention aligns accountability and professional logic and show how the compromise between these competing logics is established over time. By introducing the concept of convention, we provide an alternative to research that studies coexistence of logics in organizations as a result of organization members with different identities.References
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Wagner, P. 1999: After Justification: Repertoires of Evaluation and the Sociology of Modernity. European Journal of Social Theory, 2(3): 341–357.
Zeitz, G., Mittal, V., McAulay, B. 1999: Distinguishing Adoption and Entrenchment of Management Practices: A Framework for Analysis. Organization Studies, 20(5): 741–776.
Boltanski, L., Thévenot, L. 1999: The Sociology of Critical Capacity. European Journal of Social Theory, 2(3): 359–377.
Boltanski, L., Thévenot, L. 2006: On Justification: Economies of Worth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
Brunsson, N. 1985: The Irrational Organization. Irrationality as a Basis for Organizational Action and Change. Avon, UK: Bath Press.
Cloutier, A., Langley, A., 2013: The Logic of Institutional Logics: Insights from French Pragmatic Sociology. Journal of Management Inquiry, forthcoming (online first already available).
Crozier, M., Friedberg, E. 1977: Actors and Systems. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Cyert, M., March, J. G. 1963: A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Eymard-Duvernay, F. 2002: Conventionalist Approaches to Enterprise. In O. Favereau, E. Lazega (Eds.), Conventions and Structures in Economic Organization. Market, Networks and Hierarchies: 60–78. Celtenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.
Flick, U. 2000: Episodic Interviewing. In M. W. Bauer, G. D. Gaskell (Eds.), Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound: 75-92. London: Sage.
Friedland, R., Alford, R. R. 1991: Bringing society back in : Symbols, Practices, and institutional Contradic-tions. In Powell, W. W., P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chica-go : University of Chicago Press, 232–266.
Gomez, P.-Y., Jones, B. C. 2000: Conventions: An Interpretation of Deep Structures in Organizations. Orga-nization Science, 11, 696–708.
Greenwood, R., Raynard, M., Kodeih, F., Micelotta, E. R., Lounsbury, M. 2011: Institutional Complexity and Organizational Responses. Academy of Management Annals 5(1): 317–371.
Grote, D. 2000: Public Sector Organizations. Today’s Innovative Leaders in Performance Management. Public Personnel Management, 29(1): 1–20.
Hallett, T. 2010: The Myth Incarnate: Recoupling Processes, Turmoil, and Inhabited Institutions in an Urban Elementary School. American Sociological Review, 75(1): 52–74.
Jagd, S. 2011: Pragmatic Sociology and Competing Orders of Worth in Organizations. European Journal of Social Theory, 14(3), 343–359.
Kozica, A., Kaiser, S. Friesl, M. (2014). Organizational routines: Conventions as a source of change and stability. Schmalenbach Business Review (sbr), 66, 334–356.
Kozica, A., Brandl, J. 2015: Handling paradoxical tensions through conventions: The case of performance appraisal, Zeitschrift für Personalforschung (ZfP), 29(1), 49–68.
Lazega, E., Favereau, O. 2002: Introduction. In O. Favereau, E. Lazega (Eds.), Conventions and Structures in Economic Organization. Market, Networks and Hierarchies: 1–28. Celtenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.
Lok, J. 2010: Institutional Logics as Identity Projects. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6), 1305–1335.
Meyer, M.W., Gupta, V. 1994. The Performance Paradox. Research in Organizational Behavior, 16: 309–369.
Meyer, R. E., Hammerschmid, G. 2006: Changing Institutional Logics and Executive Identities: A Managerial Challenge to Public Administration in Austria. The American Behavioral Scientist, 49: 1000–1014.
Moynihan, D. P. 2008. The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform, Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Pache, A., Santos, F. 2010: When Worlds Collide: The Internal Dynamics of Organizational Responses to Conflicting Institutional Demands. Academy of Management Review, 35(3), 455–476.
Thévenot, L. 1984: Rules and Implements: Investments in Forms. Social Science Information, 23(1): 1–45.
Thévenot, L. 2001a: Organized Complexity: Conventions of Coordination and the Composition of Economic Arrangements. European Journal of Social Theory, 4(4): 405–425.
Thévenot, L. 2001b: Pragmatic Regimes Governing the Engagement with the World. In K. Knorr-Cetina, T. Schatzki, E. Savigny (Eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory: 56-73. London: Routledge.
Thiel, S. v., Leeuw, F. L. 2002: The Performance Paradox in the Public Sector. Public Performance and Ma-nagement Review, 25(3): 267–281.
Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., Lounsbury, M. 2012: The Institutional Logic Perspective. A New Approach to Culture, Structure, and Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tichy, N. M., Fombrun, C. J., Devanna, M. A. 1982: Strategic Human Resource Management. Sloan Manage-ment Review, 23(2): 47–61.
Townley, B. 1997: The Institutional Logic of Performance Appraisal. Organization Studies, 18(2): 261–285.
Townley. B. 1999: Practical Reason and Performance Appraisal. Journal of Management Studies, 36(3): 287–306.
Townley, B. 2002: The Role of Competing Rationalities in Institutional Change. Academy of Management Journal, 45(1): 163–179.
Wagner, P. 1999: After Justification: Repertoires of Evaluation and the Sociology of Modernity. European Journal of Social Theory, 2(3): 341–357.
Zeitz, G., Mittal, V., McAulay, B. 1999: Distinguishing Adoption and Entrenchment of Management Practices: A Framework for Analysis. Organization Studies, 20(5): 741–776.
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Published
2016-05-16
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Ad-hoc: Die krisenhafte Pluralität und die praktische Krise der institutionellen Routinen und Koordinationslogiken
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