The usual apologies for cross positing
 

Nottingham Business School HRM seminar series presents


Theorising institutional change: reflexivity, critical realism and the institutional entrepreneur 


Professor Alistair Mutch 

At the Bass Management Centre, 15th November, 4-6 pm, food and drink included

Everyone welcome!

Introduction

The approach known as 'new institutionalism', pioneered in North America, has become one of the most important perspectives employed in the study of organizations. However, persistent questions are asked about how well it tackles the nature of organizational change. Many of these concerns are expressed in the paradox of 'embedded agency'. How is it, that is, that institutions which shape what can be thought and done can be changed, if agents are all subject to the same institutional context?

This seminar addresses these questions from the perspective of critical realism. Drawing on work recently published in a special issue of the journal Organization Studies on institutional entrepreneurship (an issue which drew the largest number of submissions ever for an issue of the leading European journal) Alistair Mutch explores the nature of reflexivity. Drawing on the work of Margaret Archer, he contrasts her views on reflexivity to those of Giddens and Bourdieu, and shows how they can be applied to concrete examples of organizational change. This then poses some important questions for the future direction of institutionalism, a debate in which Alistair is centrally engaged.

The Speaker

Alistair Mutch is Professor of Information and Learning at Nottingham Business School. He has been at the centre of moves to ground organizational analysis in perspectives drawn from critical realism, co-editing an influential special issue of the journal Organization in 2006 with Rick Delbridge (Cardiff University) and Marc Ventresca (University of Oxford). His most recent book is Strategic and Organizational Change:  From production to retailing in UK brewing 1950-1990 where he combined both critical realism and his love of history in an innovative approach to the nature of organizational strategy. As well as publishing in the leading organization theory journals, Alistair also publishes on the history of management, where his work on public houses in the UK has reshaped research in the field. He is currently working on a text on information and knowledge in organizations (due out in early 2008) and on a history of the Liverpool pub.

For further information see http://hrmseminar.googlepages.com/home or conact [log in to unmask]

 


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