So, yes, thank you very much for joining me here at my presentation.
Well, yesterday was a quite interesting day for me because, well, I came to realize that,
well, let's say some points in my presentation or in my, well, in my thinking, do not really,
well, let's say, fit with the CCO views.
So particularly I come to realize that I have not incorporated this, well, let's say ontology
of CCO that really communication is constitutive of organization.
But in my perspective, and that's maybe why you can see here, I say communication meets
for you and not CCO meets for you.
So probably, well, so in my perspective, you know, I really, well, I'm more focused on
communication than on CCO, but I think these are some points we can discuss afterwards.
So how can I or is it possible to come or to get into this CCO perspective and into
the CCO ontology in this topic?
So well, yeah, my topic today is, well, let's say something like the transmission.
I know CCO scholars don't want to hear something like transmission transferred.
I had a short talk with Dennis about that and so, well, but I still use that wording
because this is a wording in from new institutional theory.
And so what I'm trying to explain here is the transmission of institutions in organization,
particularly from a Bodusian and from a communicative perspective.
So the starting point for me was that the transmission of institutions is quite important
for organizations because first of all, through this transmission, organizations can secure
the cultural persistence within an organization.
So there is this famous experiment of CCO from 1977 where she showed that something
like transmission happens within an organizational context.
Second, and I think that's also a quite important point, well, members within an organization,
they have to share something which I called an objective reality.
I know this reality is subjective, yes, but as Bergen-Lukman said in their work, people
perceive the reality not as something subjective but as something objective and that's why
I called it the objective reality.
But although CCO has this very similar paper in 1977, new institutionalism so far lacks
research on transmission processes.
So while new institutionalists, they know that such a thing happens within organizations
but they have no idea or, well, they have no explanation why these processes and how
these processes work.
And so there was recently an article by Balammers who argued that communication plays an important
role in the, he does not use the word transmission or, well, at least I think that he does not
use the word transmission of institutions or in his words he used the term institutional
logics but he used institutional logics in a way you can also refer to institutions in
that case.
There's also a good paper from Nelson Phillips and Cynthia Hardy and Tom Lawrence who also
used the discursive perspective on institutions and on institutionalization.
But well, this communicative perspective is just one perspective, how something like
a transmission may work within organizations.
There's also a practice theory perspective, particularly in my case it is influenced by
the work of Pierre Bordeaux and Bordeaux argued that this transmission takes place on a level
below discourse and below consciousness.
So he argued that most of these institutions within a society are transferred from practice
to practice.
So not in a discursive manner, not by using language or something else but just by, well,
he has some processes such as mimesis mimicking which are quite important in his theory to
explain these processes.
So the aim of my presentation is to analyze the transmission of institutions in organizations.
So first of all I want to start with a short introduction in the concept of institutions
because as I said yesterday in the keynote from Tim, institutions, the concept of institutions
is at least as ambiguous as the concept of communication.
So just most of you will know these three pillars of institutions by Richard Scott,
the normative pillar, the regulative pillar and the cognitive cultural pillar.
And in current new institutional research, researchers particularly focus on the normative
and on the regulative pillar while the cultural cognitive pillar, as Phillips and Malhotra
say, is, well, not taking into account.
So it is not, so there is not really a focus on the cognitive cultural pillar.
And this is, as Phillips and Malhotra also say, this is quite critical for new institutional
research because, well, if you look in the work of Mayer and Rowan or in the work of
Zacher, you will see that particularly this cultural cognitive pillar is the, well, let's
say the unique selling proposition of new institutional theory because, you know, the
normative pillar is also present in the so-called old institutionalism while the regulative
pillar is present in this new institutional economics.
So it is a cultural cognitive pillar which really presents a contribution from new institutional
theory to the field of organizational studies.
And well, as I said, the problem is that new institutionalism so far lacks an explanation
how cognitive institutions are transmitted within an organization.
So how does it come that we have a shared sense of reality within an organization that
although misunderstandings happen, that there are only so few, maybe so few misunderstandings
within an organization?
And so how does it come that these cognitive institutions are transmitted from actor to
actor?
So the first perspective I try to introduce here, and this is the, or this is the role
of communication in these transmission processes.
So first of all, there's a nice quote in this Phillips-Howdy and Lawrence paper where
they argue that language is fundamental to institutionalization.
So institutionalization occurs as actors interact and come to accept shared definitions of
reality, and it is through linguistic processes that definitions of reality are constituted.
So it is, so they really also, they stress in this quote that, well, it is linguistic
processes that will come to constitute this reality, this shared reality from among actors.
And so from my perspective, it is so that an organization's, let's say, behavioral rules
or institutions are communicated as a social given to individuals or to newcomers within
an organization.
So it is, well, we don't think that, well, or at least you don't consciously think that
you are transmitting an institution, it is just something, well, it is your reality or
it is the reality you perceive, you are just transmitting that or communicating that reality
to the newcomers or to other members of the organization.
So it is questionable if these newcomers do not also think, okay, it seems that it
is clear, it is evident, so this is not a subjective reality, but it's, well, it's the
way it is, is it taken for granted or it becomes taken for granted.
And it also becomes habitualized after some time, so if you, well, if you don't question
it, if you just, well, behave in that certain way, well, at some time, well, this, you lose
your conscious knowledge about it and it becomes an unconscious knowledge and it is quite difficult
to reflect on such unconscious knowledge and so this might be an, well, this might be an
explanation how this process of institutionalization may work within an organization.
But so, well, what's the question I have or what was difficult for me to explain?
So to what extent can institutions really be transmitted through communication?
Because as I said, communication also involves something like misunderstanding, so it is
not the case that I can directly, without any problem, communicate to Gordon and Gordon
will have the same interpretation of what I say because he has got very different experiences
and so these are some questions I'm a little, I have a little struggle with, but so maybe
it's also a point we can discuss them afterwards.
So the other perspective on this transmission process is a Rogerzian perspective.
So as I said in the introduction, from Rogerz's perspective, institutions are also transmitted
below the level of discourse and consciousness.
So through the mimicking of actions, of actions from other persons, so mimicking is not, is
not imitation, imitation, as Rogerz says, is a conscious process.
So if I also grab my pen and doing the same as, or consciously doing the same as Gordon
now do, it is just an imitation, it is not a mimicking.
Mimicking is really such an unconscious process and so individuals unconsciously observe the
actions of other organizational members and they, well, somehow understand the reasons
for the actions and just, well, I use the term imitate, imitate, but it's an unconscious
imitation in that, in that case they unconsciously imitate these actions.
So and, well, Rogerz was frequently criticized for this understanding of the transmission
process because social researchers say, hey, how does that work?
So how can I just from unconsciously observing some actions, how can I, well, understand
the reasons for the actions and is, is there really some processes such as mimicking?
But there's recent evidence from the cognitive sciences, particularly these, the, well, discovery
of the so-called mirror neurons within the human brain that really provides evidence
for Baudrilles' claim.
So and also research in the social, in social psychology reveals that humans are not just,
just mimicking an action or imitating an action, but they really have developed an understanding
for the reasons of the actions.
It's not quite clear if, well, if you understand this reason in every case in the right way,
but you try to make sense of what the other peoples do and what are their reasons for
doing it in that case.
And so it might be a, probably it is an explanation for these transmission processes in organizations.
And so I come to the, well, to the end of this very short presentation.
So with some, let's say open questions, because, well, as I told you before, I, well, I really
come to realize that that what I presented here to you is not, is not a CCO perspective
by far.
It is not a CCO perspective.
And so I have some, some questions and there are also some, some, some problems I have
with these, well, try to combine Baudrilles' new institutional theory and also the CCO perspective.
And I talked to Tim with, about that yesterday.
And so the question, my first question is, what is communication?
And also what is communication from a new institutional perspective?
But because there are some, some work that try to introduce a discursive perspective
on a new institutional theory, but it is, well, is discourse the same as communication?
Is it something different?
Well, it's, it's, I'm really struggling with that because new institutionalism, at least
in the work that I read, does not really talk about communication or presents a communique,
communicative perspective.
So there is this discussion in, in management communication quarterly, just, just recently
a few months ago.
But well, also in that case, I think that, well, also Sutterby, Hardy and Bali stressed
that, well, there is communique and communication is important for institutionalism.
I have no idea what is communication from a new institutional perspective.
And so, and, and the next question is, are communicative acts really involved in some
processes such as transmission?
Then can communication really transmit something or diffuse, maybe that's, that's a better
word, I'm not quite sure, diffuse institutions or is it the other way around that institutions
are a prerequisite for communication or not communication, but well, to reduce misunderstandings
within an organization.
So that, that's the point I tried to make with this.
We have to share an objective, an objective reality within an organization.
And so, and, and the last question, to what extent can we really combine the ontology
of CCO and so putting communication in the center of our, of our research with new institutional
theory and also with produced theory of practice.
So these are some, some questions or some problems I have, and I'm not quite sure particularly
with this last question I posed, if this is really, really possible because when I, well,
at least in the, in the way I interpret Baudrillard's work, I'm not quite sure if that really fits
with, with, with CCO.
So these are some, some struggles I have or I had in preparing this presentation also
in the discussion yesterday.
And so I'm, well, I welcome every comment and thank you very much for your attention.
Thanks.