Paper presented at the Academy of Management Conference 2014, Philadelphia, USA.
Jens Rennstam ([email protected]) Department of Business Administration
Lund University
and
Dan Kärreman Copenhagen Business School
Control work in complex organizations – constructive disobedience, translation
and peer reviewing in a high-tech firm
Abstract:
The extant research on organizational control builds on the assumption of vertical control – managers are thought to develop orders, rules and norms to control the operating core. Yet it is claimed that work becomes increasingly “knowledge intensive” and that organizations rely heavily for their productivity on the knowledge and creativity of their work force. When analyzing this type of “knowledge work”, the strong focus on vertical control creates theoretical limitations because it fails to account for the important operative and horizontal interactions upon which many contemporary organizations depend. Drawing on practice theory and an ethnographic study of engineering work, this paper theorizes control as a form of work that does not only belong to formal management, but is dispersed among various work activities, including horizontal ones. The article introduces the idea of control work as a key practice in contemporary organizations, and the concepts of constructive disobedience, translation, and peer reviewing as ways of understanding how control work is exercised at the operative level. Our conceptual framework thereby offers a complement to traditional theories of control by bringing out how expert knowledge and local interactions play a central role in the control of work.
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Traditional understandings of organizational control – that is, understandings of “the processes
and methods by which an organization’s members determine what things get done and how they
are done” (Johnson & Gill, 1993: x) – are based on the assumption of a vertical division of labor
through a separation between the conception and execution of work. It is assumed that formally
appointed managers are the conceivers and employees the executors of work, and that control
flows from top to bottom. Although it has been claimed that this division of labor remains
strong and is still relevant today in certain contexts (e.g. Jones, 2000), there has also been a surge
in work claiming that the division has lost much of its relevance. Many organizations today are
complex, contested social systems (Kuhn, 2008), organized in projects (Hogdson, 2004), with
distributed leadership (Fairhurst, 2008), increasingly intent on creating worker participation (Stohl
and Cheney, 2001), teamwork (Cohen and Bailey, 1997), and empowerment (Styhre, 2001). The
work in these organizations becomes increasingly complex and “knowledge intensive,” i.e. based
on non-routine problem solving and relying heavily for its productivity on the expertise and
creativity of the employees (e.g. Starbuck, 1992; Alvesson, 2004). These statements about the
contemporary workplace set the stage for the present paper, which asks the question: how is
work controlled under these circumstances?
In the type of “knowledge-intensive organizations” hinted at above, conception of work is no
longer separated from its execution and the assumption of vertical control becomes problematic
as it fails to account for the important horizontal interactions among those who are to execute
the work (Barley, 1996). As a result, we need to acknowledge that control may appear in multiple
forms and delve into the operative and often horizontal practices where work is performed to
expand our understanding of organizational control (cf. Barley and Kunda, 2001; Kuhn, 2008).
Drawing on practice theory and an ethnographic study of engineering work, this study theorizes
3
control as a form of work that does not only belong to formal management, but is dispersed
among various work activities, including horizontal ones. The article thus introduces the idea of
control work as a key and dispersed practice in contemporary organizations, and the concepts of
constructive disobedience, translation, and peer reviewing as ways of understanding how control work is
exercised at the operative level.
Control in contemporary organizational studies
Although the blurred boundary between conception and execution and the increasing importance
of horizontal interaction is widely acknowledged (Manz and Sims, 1987; Barker, 1993; 1999;
Katzenbach and Smith, 1993; Ezzamel and Willmott, 1998, Hargadon and Bechky, 2006; Kuhn
and Jackson, 2008), the prevailing understanding of organizational control is still developed from
studies that focus mainly on formal managerial/vertical practice, which has resulted in a limited
understanding of control between people on the same formal hierarchical level (Loughry, 2010;
Kirsch and Choudhury, 2010). This vertical bias prevails from Taylor’s (1911) ideas of direct
control via Weber’s (1922) bureaucracy and Mintzberg’s (1979) standardization of output
processes and skills, to more recent ideas of controlling subjectivities through normative control
(Kunda, 1992) and identity regulation (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002).
Identity- and normative control are particularly associated with knowledge work, whose
requirement of esoteric expertise and focus on non-routinized work and problem-solving
arguably make the work process too complex to be efficiently controlled by direct or bureaucratic
means. The exercise of normative control has fruitfully been analyzed, particularly as attempts at
producing a specific culture through socialization practices (e.g. Kunda, 1992), and in terms of
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attempts of aligning individuals’ identification with the perceived identity of the organization (e.g.
Pratt, 2000; Alvesson and Willmott, 2002; Alvesson and Kärreman, 2007; Anteby, 2008; special
issues on identity in Academy of Management Review, 2000, and Organization, 2008). However, in
common with their more traditional counterparts, studies of normative control and identity
regulation also focus on managerial work rather than work of the “operative core.” As a result,
we are left with many useful concepts for making sense of control as it appears in management
practice, but a limited vocabulary for making sense of how it appears at the site where it is
claimed that the most important action of knowledge work is – in the horizontal operative practice.
Horizontal control in the operative practice.
Horizontal control is understood here as control that is exerted among people on the same
formal hierarchical level, and operative practice is understood as the practices that the “operative
core” engages in to produce the basic products of the organization (Mintzberg, 1979). Horizontal
control in operative practice is typically not discussed in its own right, but either as something
that is necessary for efficient organization to take place, or something that is the result of formal
management design. For example, when work becomes more complex, “mutual adjustment”
among people in the operating core becomes increasingly necessary (Thompson, 1967;
Mintzberg, 1989). Similarly, good “teamwork” (e.g. Katzenbach and Smith, 1993; Cohen and
Bailey, 1997) and “self-management” (e.g. Manz and Sims, 1987) are typically seen as conditions
for the effective organization of work that cannot be controlled by direct surveillance or
bureaucratic rules.
Thus, the dominant scholarship on organizational control has paid much attention to what
5
managers should do to facilitate and optimize horizontal control, but failed to analyze control
from the perspective of those horizontal operative practices that are deemed so important
(Barley, 1996). Arguably, mutual adjustment and teamwork are necessary for knowledge work to
function efficiently. But these practices are typically treated in uncritical ways (for an exception,
see e.g. McKinlay and Taylor, 1996), and we need further conceptual development to better
understand how horizontal control works in the operative practice.
Despite the perspectival shortcomings pointed at above, there are, of course, concepts that relate
to horizontal control. One well-known concept is the notion of “professional control.” A central
feature of professional control – i.e. the control that is thought to guide professional work – is
that it is horizontal: it is exercised by peers rather than by managers (Løwendahl, 1997; Alvesson,
2004). As Freidson (1975) notes, “the professional model of control” stresses that “instead of
being controlled and directed by superiors who are not trained to perform the basic productive
work, it [i.e. professional work] is directed and controlled by the workers themselves” (p. 9; see
also Mintzberg, 1979). However, the conceptualization of this professional self-control is
typically geared toward the institutional rather than interpersonal and operative level, and thereby
fails to pay explicit attention to the operative practice. The emphasized methods of control are
the development of “professional associations” (Abbot, 1991) that give rise to “professional
norms” (Wilensky, 1964), “restrictive licensing, formal training and educational requirements”
(Freidson, 1975). It is thus mainly control in terms of “institutional circumstances” (Freidson,
2001: 12) that is debated in this literature, whereas less attention is paid to forms of control that
emerge as work gets done.
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Another body of literature that has addressed horizontal relationships consists of ethnographic
studies of various types of technical work (e.g. Orr, 1996; Barley, 1996). Often, the notion of
“communities of practice” (see Lave and Wenger, 1991) is drawn upon, organization is seen as a
collective accomplishment and a horizontal division of labor is seen as central for the
organization of work and transfer of knowledge (Barley, 1996; Bechky, 2003; Hargadon and
Bechky, 2006). Also, and importantly, this scholarship tends to stress the importance of studying
practice for understanding organizational activity (see also Brown and Duguid, 1991; 2001;
Schatzki et al, 2001; Kuhn and Jackson, 2008).
This ethnographically inspired research has enabled new insights into operative practice and
thereby produced an important counterweight to the more managerially or institutionally oriented
literatures. However, this scholarship does not explicitly address issues of control, and thereby
reproduces an overly unitarist view of the organization (Contu and Willmott, 2003; Delbridge,
2010) that neglects the relationship between vertical and horizontal aspects. For example,
Hargadon and Bechky (2006) identify “help seeking” and “help giving” as central activities in
operative knowledge work and frame them as “creative activities;” Kuhn and Jackson (2008)
fruitfully discuss how employees engage in “instruction” and “improvisation” to solve problems,
and frame this in terms of “knowledge accomplishing activities;” and Orr (1996) identifies the
importance of “storytelling” between technicians and frames this mainly in terms of knowledge
sharing and how membership in communities is established. Such a framing affords insight into
how everyday work is a collective accomplishment, but neglects the element of struggle over
influence that is inherent in organizational processes (Fleming and Spicer, 2008) and the
relationship between vertical and horizontal aspects of organization. Thus, we largely side with
this body of literature, but similar ethnographic studies are needed that, however, also
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acknowledge organization as a struggle and develop a vocabulary of control that is applicable to
the operative work in knowledge intensive settings.
We have so far briefly reviewed literature that relates to but does not explicitly address issues of
operative horizontal control. An exception to this shortcoming is the critical literature on teams.
This scholarship contains a discussion of control that emerges not explicitly as a result of formal
management, but inside operative teams (e.g. Ezzamel and Willmott, 1998; Sewell, 1998; Barker,
1993). The perhaps most fruitful attempt to conceptualize team control was made by Barker
(1993; 1999), who in an ethnographic study of the introduction of teamwork in a manufacturing
firm observed how employees in the teams developed norms for controlling their own behavior.
In order to understand how this form of control operates he used the concept of “concertive
control” (see also Tompkins and Cheney, 1985). Concertive control tones down the role of
managerial practice and shows instead how the employees are highly active in the production of
control in the shape of rules of behavior. Control is seen as the result of the group members’
own negotiation about what constitutes good work; the members of the group “act in concert with
each other to create a mechanism for controlling their own behavior” (Barker, 1999: 35).
Concertive control is to be seen as an unobtrusive (e.g. Tompkins and Cheney, 1985) and largely
normative (e.g. Kunda, 1992) form of control that operates through the inculcation of values
rather than direct or bureaucratically based control of behavior.
Concertive control is a useful contribution to the understanding of horizontal control. It is not
without drawbacks, however. First, it is developed based on a study of manufacturing work (see
also Batt, 2001). Although this does not make the concept irrelevant in a more knowledge
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intensive context, one can expect operative control of knowledge work to take a different shape.
Second, concertive control is horizontal normative control, explaining how norms and rules for
legitimate behavior are formed in teams vertical methods of control are distant. But norms are
only one among many sources of control. They do not account for work-related knowledge as a
source of control, which is especially central in knowledge-intensive work where knowledge of
the operative practice is likely to be an important resource for exercising control. Therefore,
norms may set the stage for work, but they do not necessarily explain how control operates in the
interaction between employees (and managers) when operative work gets done.
To sum up, in terms of theoretical development of operative horizontal control, there are indeed
ideas and concepts. But with some exceptions (e.g. Barker, 1993; 1999; Ezzamel and Willmott,
1998), they tend to be either overly managerialistic, or overly “coordinationistic.” The former
conceive of horizontal control mainly as a function of managerial activity and focus on what is
seen as necessary for accomplishing complex work, such as self-management, teamwork,
commitment, empowerment and involvement. The latter delve deeper into operative processes,
but fail to explicitly address issues of control in favor of a more unitaristic vocabulary of
coordination, knowledge accomplishment and creativity. In other words, they neglect that there is
an element of “struggle” (Fleming & Spicer, 2008) between control forms in organizational
processes and do not frame horizontal activities in terms of control.
A practice-based approach to make sense of polymorphous control
This article considers organizational control to include practices in operative horizontal work,
situated in a struggle over influence that takes place in relationship with vertical/managerial
9
activities. We thereby acknowledge the simultaneous operation of and intersection between
different forms of control. There is a strong focus in the literature on control as something that
theoretically might take on different shapes but empirically tends to be viewed as fairly
homogenous and dominated by one particular form. This makes it difficult to pay attention to
the polymorphous ways in which control is exercised in complex organizations. There are ample
reasons to develop vocabularies and perspectives on control that accommodate empirical realities
were control forms are blunt, but plentiful, and were work to some degree consist of control work,
i.e. attempts to align and make sense of the various control forms at play. We suggest that
focusing on the variety of and the interfaces between forms of control may provide an
opportunity to rethink control in ways that open up for understanding control forms as
interconnected (but perhaps in disjointed ways) and consequently as helpful tools for making
sense of control at the modern work place. Thus, a case can be made for understanding various
forms of control as simultaneously active, at least in reasonably complex organizations. Indeed,
Kunda (1992) maintains that certain elements of bureaucratic control remain in place, even when
normative control is predominant (see also Kärreman and Alvesson 2004). In the company
studied by Kunda, normative control is supplemented by bureaucratic and utilitarian control. To
use Mintzberg’s (1989) typology, a battery of control forms seems to be used in many
contemporary organizations, typically blending standardized output measures with standard
operating procedures (standardized work procedures) and a professionalized work force
(standardized knowledge). In such settings it might be counter-productive to assume the
existence of a dominating form. Indeed, different control forms may be linked to, and supporting
and sustaining each other, rather than subdued and marginalized by a dominant one.
In our aim to highlight the dynamic interface between vertical and horizontal forms of control
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we draw on “practice theory.” Practice theory is not one unified body of knowledge but rather a
theoretical orientation (Ortner, 1984; Blackler and Regan, 2009) that generally advocates a focus
on process and practice as a method for making sense of organizational phenomena (e.g. Brown
and Duguid, 2001; Kuhn and Jackson, 2008), and a view of practice as the site where knowledge
as well as social order is accomplished in organizations (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Lave and
Wenger, 1991; Orr, 1996; Schatzki et al, 2001). In addition, it has some characteristics from
which we bring out strands that support our aim to make new sense of how knowledge work is
controlled. We shall briefly outline these below.
First, practice theory is a useful backdrop for us because it makes up a complement to the focus
on symbolism and norms (Schatzki, 1996; Reckwitz, 2002; Blackler and Regan, 2009). A focus on
norms is relevant in many ways, but it has a tendency to assume that although norms and ideas
are invisible, they are identifiable in humans and presumed to have certain implications for those
who are subjected to them. The benefit of a practice approach is that it is based on something
visible and, thus, observable. As Barnes (2001: 17) notes: “to insist that the bedrock of all order
and agreement is agreement in practice is to cite something public and visible, something that is
manifest in what members do.” This is not to say that practices are objectively describable or that
the unobservable is irrelevant, but practice theory strives to offer something beyond the
ideational and symbolic. For us who are interested in organizational control, a practice
perspective thus enables us to go beyond a focus on normative consensus and conceptualize
what people actually do when they work in terms of control.
Second, influenced by ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967), practice theory rejects a priori
assumptions about the impact of structures, norms and formal arrangements in favor of studying
social phenomena from within (Lynch, 2001), thus enabling a critique of the assumption in most
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control literature about the omnipotent relevance of the formal vertical order. Yet, it does not
neglect the vertical order, but invites to analysis of the relationship between vertical and
horizontal practices (Lundholm, Rennstam & Alvesson, 2012). The relevance of the formal is
analyzed in so far as it is represented and observable on the everyday level where it is expected to
have an impact. This is what Coulter (2001): 38) refers to as “the occasional relevance of the
macro-social level to our everyday lives.” In other words, from a practice perspective, the
relevance of the vertical system of control should be analyzed based on how it is represented and
observable in the operative practice where it is supposed to have effect.
Third, practice theory enables a theorization of control as a practice that may be carried out not
only by formally appointed managers, but by anyone in an organization. Put differently,
controlling may be understood as what Schatzki (1996: 89ff.) calls a “dispersed practice.”
Schatzki makes a distinction between and “integrative” and “dispersed” practices, where the
former make up specific domains of social life, such as formal managing, engineering, policing,
farming, doctoring etc., while the latter are widespread and permeate various activities of social
life, including the integrative practices. For example, “discussing” and “asking” are dispersed
practices because discussing and asking are parts of policing, engineering, doctoring etc., although
they may adopt different forms in, say, policing than doctoring. Using this distinction between
dispersed and integrative practices, controlling is seen here not as a practice exclusively associated
with formal management, but as a dispersed practice that permeates engineering work in general.
That is, treating controlling as a dispersed practice implies that formal management as well as the
horizontal operative doings of the engineers involves “control work.” By drawing on these tenets
of practice theory, we set the stage for a more open interrogation of how work, and in our case
knowledge work, is controlled.
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The next section describes the method for our enterprise, followed by the empirical part of the
paper where we present three episodes in which horizontal control, conceptualized as peer
reviewing, intersects with vertical control. After this we turn to a discussion of control work in
terms of constructive disobedience, translation, and peer reviewing.
The site and method of the study
The site in which this study was conducted is a fairly large (about 800 employees) organization –
“GlobalTech” – in the highly dynamic telecom industry. 76 interviews with managers and
engineers were conducted. They lasted between one and two hours and were recorded and
transcribed. The interviews were of a semi-structured kind and discussion oriented. This means
that there was an overarching agenda but that the direction of the discussion partly depended on
the response of the interviewee. Questions were asked such as: How would you describe your
work? How are you doing it? How would you describe your work with others? What do you do
when you encounter problems? Later interviews were more specific and asked about phenomena
that had been observed by the researcher, such as the role of deadlines and the quality control
system reported further down in this paper. In addition to the interviews, the first author
conducted 45 observations of various meetings, with an emphasis on the operative engineers’
weekly work meetings (20 work meetings were observed). The meetings lasted for 1-2 hours,
except one that lasted for a whole day. Most meeting observations, and all used in this paper,
were recorded and transcribed. During the most intense phase of the study, the first author spent
29 workdays at GlobalTech, interviewing people or observing meetings, but also just “hanging
out” (Dingwall, 1997) with them, i.e. sitting in their laboratory observing their work, sometimes
chatting, going for coffee breaks and having lunch with them. In order to gain insight into their
work from an everyday, more continuous perspective, one engineer was shadowed (Czarniawska,
13
2007) for a full workweek.
The majority of the employees at GlobalTech are highly educated engineers who develop
technology that will be used in mobile phones. This technology is developing fast and work is
characterized by innovation and uncertainty of how long it will take to finish projects because
many things are done for the first time. Furthermore, a high degree of both formal and
contextual knowledge is required to perform tasks, and as a result the organization to a large
extent depends on the people in the “operating core” (Mintzberg, 1979) to come up with ideas of
how to improve the product. In other words, the work is to be characterized as knowledge-
intensive (e.g. Alvesson, 2004). GlobalTech is very much one of those firms that Barley (1996)
and others refer to when they argue that knowledge is transmitted within communities of practice
rather than through rules and procedures. This is one of the types of work where the traditional
division between conception and execution breaks down, since engineers tend to develop
expertise that makes it difficult for formal managers to tell them how to do a good job (e.g.
Barley, 1996; Orr, 1996). Thus, as a vehicle for exploring how control appears in the operative
knowledge intensive practice, the engineering work at GlobalTech is a highly relevant example.
Although the work at GlobalTech is characterized by innovation, one should avoid getting too
romantic about it. The engineers of the telecommunications industry cannot innovate in just any
way they like. There are formal requirements for technology development as well as formal
management practices directed towards the engineers’ work. In terms of the former,
requirements are developed by the 3GPPi, an international partnership between a number of
officially recognized standardization organizations whose purpose is to “prepare, approve and
14
maintain globally applicable Technical Specifications [...] for a 3rd Generation Mobile System”ii.
An important objective of the 3GPP is thus to standardize requirements and specifications for
mobile telecommunication. An example of such requirement that affects the engineers at
GlobalTech regards the regulation of the radio frequency that can be used by a telecom device.
The device must not “leak” signals to such an extent that it disturbs other devices that use the
atmosphere for communication. In this sense the 3GPP is a form of institutional control that sets
the scene on which GlobalTech acts by prescribing in broad terms what it means do develop a
functional technology.
Moving to the firm-level and formal management, there are practices intent on controlling the
product development work. It is the task of the higher echelons of the project organization –
which consists of three levels, let us name them top- middle- and low-level – to formulate
requirements for the new products. The requirements are of a rather general character, such as
whether the technology should support a camera, a USB-port or that it should have a certain size
memory. These must be broken down onto the various sub-projects. The process of breaking
down requirements is thus intended to filter down through the project hierarchy to the low-level
managers, who are the ones who interact with the engineers and do the follow-up on their work.
When asked about how work is controlled at GlobalTech, project managers typically stressed the
importance of goals, both in terms of what needs to be done (although this “what” is quite
general) and when it needs to be finished. Time was put forth as a particularly important aspect.
Managers pointed out that “this company is controlled by time to a large extent” (project
manager). The management of projects was thus said to revolve around formulating, breaking
15
down, and following up goals. Somewhat simplified, they were basically describing traditional
project management techniques where the definition of goals and objectives is emphasized (e.g.
Kerzner, 1992; Maylor, 2003), and where goal fulfillment is the main method of evaluation
(Thomas, 2000). Following up goals and making sure people finish on time were often stressed as
the most important methods of controlling the project work, as one manager stated: “[project
management] is about following up, understanding if we’re on track or not.” Or as put by
another: “leadership to me is to set up goals and to follow them up.”
Examples of goals tended to be rather technical, such as “[The project] shall deliver a [...]
reference design, including the new circuit [called] Steven2 and the new GSM RF ASIC [called]
Tina” (from project description). But at a general level, they often boiled down to the following
premise: smaller, less power consuming and cheaper. As one project manager put it: “they are
truths.”
The analytical process
In light of these formal elements, a research design was developed that aimed at bringing in the
operative work of the engineers (cf. Barley and Kunda, 2001). More specifically, an ethnographic
approach was taken to pursue this goal (Schwartzman, 1993; Prasad, 2005). Particularly, the
research design was influenced by the ethnographic methods of a) developing an understanding
of the field by being open to what the empirical material has to offer in terms of new insights,
and b) creating these insights by being close to the object of study (for studies employing a
similar approach, see for example Kunda, 1992; Orr, 1996; Ashcraft, 2001). “Empirical
openness” and “empirical proximity” thus guided the study, and the focus on the operative work
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privileged observation over secondary sources such as interviews or documents (Carlile, 2002;
Kuhn and Jackson, 2008).
The aim of our analysis is less to identify a gap in our understanding of organizational control
and more of an attempt to problematize dominant understandings (Alvesson & Sandberg 2011,
Alvesson & Kärreman 2011), in particular the idea that organizational control is a practice
exercised primarily by managers and executives. We understand problematization as an effort to
reconsider assumptions, ideas and conceptualizations of a particular subject matter. It is thus
something different than puzzle-solving work (Morgan 1980). Problematization first and
foremost involves systematic questioning of some aspects of the received wisdom in the sense of
dominant research perspectives and theories (but also of the subject matter itself), while at the
same time offering a “positive” or constructive formulation of interesting research questions. The
way we define problematization here then also differs from critique or deconstruction or
reflexivity although these may be major elements in (resources for) the process.
Our approach can be characterized as explorative, in the sense that fieldwork was carried out in
an open-ended fashion and with a local/emergent research orientation (Deetz 1996). Deetz
contrasts elite/a priori and situated/emergent research perspectives. The former position means
that the researcher starts with a set of concepts a priori and applies them to whatever field he or
she deems suitable for the purpose of testing the theory at hand. The point of the research design
is to make data say “yes” or “no” to the theory. The situated/emergent position means providing
“a participatory ethnographic rearticulation of the multiple voices of a native culture” (Deetz
1996:592). In this case, the researcher aims towards hermeneutical translation and clarification of
the life-world of the particular group of people under study. This ideal may be reframed as the
postponement of closure in the research process as well as the written text.
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Here, of course, it is important to avoid the naive idea of being “non-theoretical” or blank as a
means to be open, as implied by some views of grounded theory (e.g. Glaser & Strauss, 1967;
Eisenhardt, 1989). This simply means that cultural taken-for-granted assumptions and other
implicit theories take precedence. Openness, the consideration of alternative routes of
interpretation and analysis are better accomplished through familiarity with an extensive
repertoire of theories and vocabularies used reflexively (Rorty, 1989).
In this sense, our approach is not inductivist. Rather, we have used abduction (Peirce 1978) as
the primary inference mechanism to guide our analysis. Abduction typically consists of three
steps:
1) the application of an established interpretive rule (theory)
2) the observation of a surprising empirical phenomenon
3) the re-imagination of the interpretive rule (theory) that resolves the surprise.
Thus, the hands-on efforts to explore the engineers’ work were partly planned, but many
initiatives were taken ad hoc as opportunities arose during the fieldwork. As a result, the analysis
emerged interactively in dialogue with the empirical material (see Blumer, 1969; Schwandt, 2000;
Alvesson and Kärreman, 2007). The most clearly planned effort was to study their weekly work
meetings. During the introductory phase of research it become clear to the first author that the
engineers worked in projects that were responsible for developing different parts of GlobalTech’s
products. GlobalTech is a large organization and it was impossible to follow all projects, so three
project-groups already familiar to the first author where chosen. The attention was directed
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towards their weekly work meetings, because they make up a situation where managerial meets
operative practice. The meetings are situations where project managers are expected to follow up
the goals of the projects, but also where the engineers discuss the ongoing work with each other
and their managers. In concrete terms, the design for studying the work meetings looked as
follows:
1. Interview the project manager of the group to get a grasp of what they are
currently working on and what the formal intention behind holding the work meeting is.
2. Observe 5-6 consecutive work meetings to get an idea of their dynamics.
3. Interview all the participants of the project (8-10 people in each project) in order
to get their view of the work meetings, what they think about situations when they get
instructions of different kinds, when deadlines are discussed, how they perceive their own
role and their manager’s role, but also how they conceive of the way they are working, of
top-management and of their organization. Also interview the project manager again to
discuss the observations from the meetings.
As noted, the first author also shadowed an engineer for a full workweek. In concrete terms,
shadowing meant following an engineer, Jake, in all his activities: sitting in his office when he sat
there, sitting in the laboratory when he did, standing in his colleague’s office listening when Jake
stood there talking, sitting in meetings listening when he was there participating, going for lunch
when Jake did, and so on. Shadowing is a way to get a closer and more coherent view of the
operative work by moving with the person who does it (Czarniawska, 2007), and it is a good way
of pursuing the ethnographic aims of empirical openness and proximity. Another and more
19
specific purpose of the shadowing was to get a more profound understanding of activities that
were referred to at work meetings. The shadowing helped putting flesh on activities that
previously were only known by their names. (For example, to understand what it means to “make
measurements”).
One general observation after some time in the field was that their work was rather loosely
coupled with the instructions that came “from above.” It became clear that it was difficult for
project managers to influence the pace of the engineers’ work, and that the engineers seemed to
know what to do and very seldom asked for instructions from their manager. This impression
was strengthened by interview statements, such as this first line manager who claimed that “there
is nobody who tells us what to do.”
These emergent designs (general observation and shadowing Jake) in combination with the more
planned and structured design (study of the work meetings) provided support for existing
findings, and gave rise to some new ones. Specifically, there was support for the observation that
the engineers to a large extent “controlled themselves,” horizontally. But there was also an
emerging understanding of how the horizontal control often and in various ways circumnavigated
the managerial control forms. As a last step in the analytical process – much in line with how
Charmaz (2006: 127) recommends the use of theoretical conceptualization – we constructed
from the data the theoretical concepts of peer reviewing, translation and constructive
disobedience as a way of representing our findings in more abstract terms. Concepts are central
to theory development. They are “knowledge of the world” in abstract terms, intended to say
something of relevance about the case at hand, but also of relevance about the world outside of
the case (Becker, 1998: 128). We shall expand more on these concepts below and in the
20
discussion.
Analysis: operative control at GlobalTech – circumnavigating vertical
control
In the following empirical section we present three episodes that illustrate the practice of
horizontal control as it appears in relationship with the more formally organized vertical control
of the work. All the episodes point in the same direction, towards the argument that vertical
control is in place but is circumnavigated by the engineers as they engage in control work that can
be described as a sequence of 1) constructive disobedience of the formal system, 2) translation of
the formal system into workable problems, and 3) peer reviewing, i.e. scrutiny and feedback
between colleagues on the same hierarchical level. The vertical form of control is different in the
episodes, however. In the first episode, vertical control appears as follow-up attempts form the
project leader, in the second as deadlines set up by top-management, and in the third, it appears
as a quality assessment system. Finally, the practice of peer review is further scrutinized.
Episode one: Follow-up at work meetings – the horizontal takes over from the vertical
As has been noted, managers at GlobalTech argued that operative work is controlled mainly by
follow-up practices, making sure that people finish on time. This follow-up took place most
commonly and clearly at the weekly work meetings, which was thus one site where the vertical
practice encountered the horizontal and operative one. The purpose of the meetings was to
communicate the overall goals of the to the operative core. There was a time plan that needed to
be followed, there were objectives to be met, and there was an apparent element of evaluation
from the part of the project manager who was expected to find out if the engineers were on time,
and if not, exert influence to make sure that they are.
21
At a typical work meeting, the project manager began by informing of decisions that had been
made at higher levels. Then he (there were no women in the group) started the follow up, which
was sometimes a rather mechanical activity where he mentioned the names of the engineers and
the processes they worked on, whereby the engineers gave a report that tended to be very brief
and technical. However, there were often problems of some kind, which is when the element of
control is accentuated. In these cases the complexity of the encounter between the vertical-
managerial and the horizontal-operative was played out, as in the following example.
Christian (project leader) asks Isac (engineer) how much time it would take to
design a more advanced version of a component called “VCO.” “Well, that
depends how different it is,” says Isac, mumbling. Christian asks if he can estimate:
“I mean if you take a guess?” “Well ... a month,” Isac replies. “Is it gonna get
bigger, or ...?” Christian asks. Isac says that it will get bigger. Christian then asks
cautiously: “How much is it size-wise ... you don’t know ... yet…?” “No idea” says
Isac. Marcus (engineer) chimes in with a joke, “Don’t you know that?” he says,
sarcastically pointing out the difficulty of knowing such a thing. Christian tries to
get an approximate answer, asking if they are talking 50 % bigger or more, but Isac
says that he doesn’t “have the slightest clue.” “No …” says Christian, a bit
resigned.
The observation shows that the encounter between the managerial and the operative practice was
far from straightforward. Instead, when trying to follow up the engineers’ work, Christian
encountered quite much resistance as the engineers emphasized the uncertainty of the work
process. When he tried to find out how long Isac’s work would take he answered vaguely that “it
22
depends,” and at other meetings he received responses such as “I hope I’ll finish” and “[I may
finish] with a bit of luck.” Christian’s attempts to align the work process with the time plan were
thus frequently circumnavigated by the engineers, who stressed the uncertain nature of their
work, and even joked about the fact that Christian wanted exact information about time.
This distortion of the vertical control process calls for the investigation of other control
dynamics, and one thing that commonly happened in this work group was that the engineers
turned to colleagues instead of the project manager to discuss what to do, how to do it, and when
it could be finished, as in the excerpt below.
Christian follows up Isac’s work. Isac says he is “not done.” Christian asks about
his status and receives a very technical report. After a short discussion in which
Alex (experienced engineer) is also involved Christian asks: “When do you think
...?” Isac replies a bit evasively, looking at Alex: “Well, I mean ... I can do it on the
blocks we have today, but now we added some extra stuff so ...” Christian is about
to say something when Alex chimes in: “I guess it’s rather little, at least it’s still the
same interface.” Isac asks Alex a question about the power. Alex explains. Then
Isac says: “Well, sure, I guess I’ll have to add those things.” Christian then asks
again when this will happen. “Next week in that case” says Isac. Alex chimes in
again, suggesting a way of taking care of the issue so that Isac will be able to send
off the document on Monday morning. Isac seems to think that sounds ok: “I’ll try
to do it tomorrow then” he says. “Good” says Alex.
This observation thus shows that the engineers tend to disobey the vertical order and, instead of
following the project leader, ascribe authority to knowledgeable colleagues and turn to them
23
instead for guidance. Together, they then engage in “translation” of the vertical order into
technical problems and a discussion between peers. Thus, the vertical order is neutralized in
favor of a horizontal one where colleagues discuss and scrutinize each other’s work to come up
with improvements and solutions.
Christian, the project leader, seems to be aware of this dynamic between the vertical and the
horizontal, as he, in an interview, says that “there are other people who understand better than I
what to do.” Isac, one of the engineers at the work meeting similarly communicates this
understanding:
The most effective way [of leading] is to gain enough authority among the ones
you’re supposed to lead by having deep enough technical knowledge and
experience. You know ... when he [Alex] says something, then there is a reason for
it, he knows what he’s talking about.
In other words, the vertical order, which is based on knowledge of the managerial practice, is
undermined as controller of the operative work, in favor of what we label “peer reviewing”,
which is a horizontal order based on knowledge of the operative practice.
Episode two: Disobeying and translating deadlines
The second episode illustrates the functioning and treatment of deadlines at GlobalTech. In line
with follow-ups, deadlines are a part of the vertical practice that controls through the
formulation, breaking down, and follow-up of goals. Deadlines indicate when something specific
should be completed. This study shows, however, that although deadlines told the engineers
24
when something should be completed, and although they were big goals broken down to small
goals, their effect as a managerial instrument to control the content of the engineers’ work was
limited. Put bluntly, the deadlines tended to control time but not content, and they often
provided more nuisance than guidance. Guidance and content control was instead accomplished
in processes of peer reviewing, where the engineers and their immediate managers needed to
manage the deadlines in order to make things work. As a result, deadlines were just as much
something that needed to be controlled through work, as something that was controlling the
work.
At GlobalTech, the objectives created by top management, formulated in time plans, thus did not
function as instruction manuals for the engineers, telling them how to go about in order to
produce a functioning product. Instead, the objectives were vague and the engineers often found
the requirements in the time plans unrealistic. As one engineer pointed out regarding the
deadlines, “it seems like the leaders just won’t listen when someone comes up with a realistic time
plan.” Carl, a first level project leader, also expressed this, saying that “some things that they want
us to do require a totally different time plan [than this] you know.”
The unrealistic character of the time plans was also expressed at the work-meetings, such as the
one presented below. We enter the meeting, which was held on a Tuesday, as the engineers are
talking about a deadline on Friday the same week, and Carl, the project leader, explains the
situation to the group:
Ok, we are talking a lot about RF5 [a version of a prototype], and everything
should be finished this week. Actually, it’s a very tough job to do all that we should
25
do this week, but I have tried to ... I made a plan for RF5. I will just briefly go
through this and I think the status you have presented now ... [the engineers have
just presented their work status, i.e. how far they have proceeded in their respective
areas of responsibility] well ... it doesn’t fit too well into this really tight schedule
[Carl laughs a bit]. If we focus on PCB-related changes, then I think we can do it ...
I’m sure we can do it. So actually, according to the present plan, we must have
some kind of a small design review already tomorrow [some laughter]. That’s
tough [smiling, and then laughter from everybody]. It’s really tough [some people
are whispering]. But this gives you feedback ... It must fit into some deliveries in
the end.
What Carl is saying here is that it is basically impossible to fulfill the requirements. “It’s a very
tough job to do all that we should do,” he says, but he has made a plan, thus pointing out that they
will fix it somehow. Their laughter indicates that they found the requirements unrealistic, perhaps
ridiculous even. For an outside observer, they may seem face an impossible situation: they cannot
do everything that they should do until the deadline on Friday, but they are still going to keep the
deadline on Friday.
The resolution to this “mystery” lies in the way that the deadlines were perceived: as a point in
time when something needs to be completed, but not so much as a description of what shall be
delivered. As Carl noted, “... it’s better to deliver something than nothing,” and “if it’s a real
deadline, then we modify its content in order to keep it […] that’s often the only way.”
26
The relevance of the dynamics presented above was also communicated in interviews. For
example, in an interview with Lars, an experienced engineer with a background as project leader,
the first author confronted him with the work meeting presented above, whereby he gave his
view of what this was all about:
When people laugh a bit at it like that, it can be either ... sometimes you make sure
that you finish it on time, as good as you can. I mean ... a deadline, it’s something
that is to be done, and it is to be done before that deadline. And they are often very
sacred; you can’t move those deadlines. And if you can’t move the point in time,
then you can change what’s to be done. So you give it your best shot and redefine
the content in order to keep the deadline. And this is often a very informal process,
you do what you manage to do or ... people can sort of make decisions under the
table regarding what they find appropriate to do, or you so to speak interpret it as
constructively as possible and do what you think should be done, although it’s not
really what you said you would do.
Researcher: So you change the content a little sometimes ...
Yeeeah, not all that little. Quite much. Just in order to keep that deadline.
Keeping deadlines thus seemed to be a matter of a quite autonomous interpretation of the
situation, where priorities were made on an ad hoc basis at the work meetings as well as in
everyday interaction among the engineers. The data thus illustrates that a deadline is not just
something that needs to be kept. It is also something that needs to be managed. In terms of our
conceptual apparatus, it needs to be disobeyed and translated into the horizontal dimension so that it
makes sense in the engineers’ practice of technical problem solving. Once translated, the work
can be exposed to peer reviewing.
27
Episode three: Quality control – A formal ritual taken over by peer reviewing
The formal quality control is a third example of a formally vertical control practice that tends to
be turned into a horizontal one. At GlobalTech, they had a quality control system called
“Guido,” which is a database to which errors were to be reported and through which changes
were to be managed. For example, a project specification stated: “All error-reports inside [the
project] shall be reported in the Guido. It is the responsibility of all project members to act on
assigned error-reports.”
In brief, Guido was intended to function as follows: If somebody finds an error or a problem,
s/he is expected to, via the database, write a “change request” (CR) to the “change control
board” (CCB), whose members are managers and experts in various fields. The CCB will then
analyze and approve or disapprove the CR. If the CR is approved, it will be forwarded to the
engineer who wrote it via Guido. The engineer will work on the change and then report it back
to Guido. The change is analyzed by the CCB, and if approved, it can be formally documented in
Guido that a change has been made.
Following the description made above, the management of changes seemed to follow a formal
and vertical movement where the CCB takes on the role of an “expert board.” In practice,
however, the dynamic looked different. Often, the route via the CCB was more of a ritual than
an actual check. Jake, one of the engineers in the radio-group, provided insight into when he, in
an interview, clarified to the first author what happened when he found out that circuit did not
28
fulfill the requirements and things needed to be changed.
Well, the [circuit] did not fulfill the specified requirements and what you can do
then is to change either the circuit or the specification, and this time the ASIC-
people [the people who design the circuit] asked if we could change the
specification instead of the circuit because that’s a smoother solution. So what I
did was an investigation to see if we could loosen up the specification in terms of
the systems aspect, which I am good at. And I saw that we could. So I told them
that they could change their specification, but I did that by saying that they have to
make a change request on the specification.
Researcher: To the CCB?
Jake: Yes, to the CCB. And that’s where Thor [a project leader] enters the picture.
Because he’s the one who makes the approval in the CCB. And after he has
approved the request, which I asked the ASIC-people to write, then we can update
the specification. [...] And then everything will look fine.
Researcher: So you ask ASIC to make a change request, and then it’s approved.
Jake: Ehrm, it’s not approved until I say, “we can approve this.”
Researcher: Ok, so you’re supposed to say that it can be approved.
Jake: Yes.
Researcher: But what about Thor?
Jake: He’s not ... he’s just a formal ... button.
Researcher: Yeah. So he’s just supposed to sign?
Jake: Yes. I say, “write approved”, to him.
29
Researcher: There seems to be quite much of this “sign here”-thing.
Jake: Yes [laugh]. Oh yes. Sometimes they don’t even sign. There’s a lot of ... that
they don’t even get in contact with the document. I think they get some sort of
mail where they can check what they have approved [laughs].
What happened in the example above was thus that Jake discussed the issue with some people at
the ASIC-department, who asked if it would be possible to change the specification and still
fulfill the general requirements. Jake investigated the issue and found that it would be possible.
Instead of just changing his own and the ASIC-group’s specification, however, Jake – in line with
the Guido-requirements – asked the ASIC-group to write a change request (CR) to the change
control board (CCB) so that the board could approve the change. The board gave its approval, an
approval that was formally given by Thor, but in practice it was given by Jake who told Thor to
sign the document, to “write approved.” According to Jake, as we see in the quote, this sort of
dynamic between the vertical and the horizontal is quite common.
Another example of how the formal use of Guido has to make place for a more horizontal way
of working comes from the shadowing of Jake. He worked on an issue where he “got a Guido”
that indicated the need for updating some measurements. The formal way of working here would
be for the CCB to analyze the changes and either approves or disapprove them. Instead of
waiting for a decision from the CCB to get approval, however, Jake caught Thor, who was a
member of the CCB, when he walked by in the lab to get approval right away. The reason for
this, said Jake, was that there was no time to wait for the next CCB-meeting.
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Thus, Guido was another example of an attempt to vertically control the work process. The
effect of the attempt was ambiguous in terms of vertical control, however, as it seemed to be
rather loosely coupled (Weick, 1976) to the practical work. There was something ritualistic about
the communication with the CCB. The very existence of a CCB may give the impression that the
formal vertical system is necessary for qualitative engineering work to take place, but its actual
impact on the work appeared to be limited. Instead of flowing from the CCB to the engineers,
the engineers seemed to manage the CCB. In our terms, they disobeyed the rules of the system in
a way that was constructive in terms of solving the technical problems at hand. As a result of this
constructive disobedience, the control over what to do then took place primarily between the
engineers in a peer review process where Jake and the “ASIC-people” negotiated how the
problem could be solved by making changes in the systems requirements.
Last: Peer reviewing permeates work behind the formal façade
We thus want to show how the vertical control system was systematically circumnavigated as the
engineers constructively disobeyed the rules of the systems or the people representing it,
translated the content of the system into technical problems, and then engaged in a horizontal
process of control that we call peer reviewing. Peer reviewing permeated much of the work at
GlobalTech beyond the formalized work meetings, deadlines, or quality control systems. In
addition to what has been presented in the episodes, the fieldwork showed that the engineers
organized meetings where they scrutinized and gave feedback on each other’s work. The
participants at the meetings were rarely there to supervise, but they were people who were
knowledgeable enough to give “valuable feedback,” as one engineer put it, or who will be
affected by the result of the work. Such people were typically not managers but other engineers,
or “peers.” Peer reviewing also characterized the many ad hoc meetings held by the engineers.
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Typically, the engineers who were working on a problem – it could, for example, be the
introduction of a new component to minimize power consumption – met to discuss and find out
a solution. In the process, they gave each other feedback, and they decided what to do and how
to do it. For example, at one such meeting, observed by the first author, three engineers – Lars,
Jake and Andy – worked on a future version of their product. They decided that Jake and Lars
would work out possible solutions until the following day, when they would have a new meeting.
Jake worked in the afternoon on his solutions, often walking over to Andy to ask for advice. On
the following day, they met again and Jake and Lars presented their solutions. They had intense
discussions for about an hour, when Andy got an idea, which he presented and, after about
another hour of discussion, the other engineers decided that his idea was the best one, and he
would be responsible for developing it more properly.
When the engineers left the meeting, the first author asked Jake who was the manager at the
meeting, whereby he responded, “Yeah, I’d wonder that too,” and smiled. There was no project
manager, according to Jake. This work by the engineers then turned out to make up the ground
for a new solution that was less power consuming and smaller than the previous one. The
observation that work was very much controlled in horizontal relationships at the bottom of the
hierarchy was also articulated in interview statements. Lars, for example, said:
That we’re working on things like this from below, that’s definitely common,
because there’s no leadership from above regarding issues like this. So all initiatives
must come from below, yes. Management takes no initiatives, no. You can easily
count on that.
Thus, we are presenting this final empirical section to show that – in contrast to the formal
32
project meetings, deadlines, and quality control systems where the vertical was always present as
an “other” with which the horizontal interacted – there was much work done with little
intervention from formal vertical control systems at all. Instead, horizontal control in the shape
of peer reviewing dominated.
Discussion: control work as a dispersed practice
The episodes show how control work is not only a vertical undertaking, but also inherent in the
horizontal operative practice. In light of this insight, the study suggests that control work is a
“dispersed” practice (Schatzki, 1996) that engages many different organizational actors, including
the engineers as they do their work. Viewing control as a dispersed practice is quite different to
most approaches to control. The classical notions of simple, technological, and bureaucratic
control (Edwards, 1979) all rest on the assumption that control is a managerial practice external
to the operative work. The same thing can be said about the concepts of normative control
(Kunda, 1992) and identity regulation (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002); they are understood as
managerial activities. Even the concept of “mutual adjustment” (Mintzberg, 1979) is constructed
as a managerial practice of control. Although the actual “adjustment” is supposed to happen
horizontally in the operative work, it is thought of as the result of managerial design of an
organization that promotes “adjustment.” Thus, according to this view, the adjustment as such is
not seen as containing any element of control.
Barker’s (1993) concept of “concertive control” offers a different take. It indeed centers on the
control effects of horizontal interactions. But, as noted earlier, while concertive control fruitfully
conceptualizes how norms of behavior are created not by managers but among team members, it
does not explain how control is exerted at the point of execution of operative work. Also, the
emphasis on control as a dispersed practice and the subsequent discussion of the interplay
33
between the vertical and the horizontal is left out.
Constructive disobedience, translation and peer reviewing as practices of horizontal control
Control may be dispersed but that does not mean that different control practices cannot be
aligned. Control work at GT is certainly multifaceted but also executed according to a particular
sequence. As we have seen in the episodes, operative control work typically happened in light of
vertical control practices, from which the horizontal practice took over. For this “takeover” to
happen, a link between the vertical and the horizontal needs to be constructed. In other terms,
the vertical needs to be “horizontalized,” which is an example of control work.
We suggest that the construction of the link to vertical forms of control can be understood in
sequential terms through the concepts of constructive disobedience, translation and peer reviewing.
Constructive disobedience happens when the engineers are confronted with vertical control
systems and basically think, “no way, we’re not doing that.” Constructive disobedience is
disobedient in the sense that the rules of the formal system are broken, but constructive in the
sense that the result of breaking the rules is that work, arguably, gets done more efficiently. The
concept can be understood as a contrast to “malicious compliance,” that is, following rules and
thus knowingly, and therefore maliciously (from the managerial point of view), allowing for
inefficiencies. Constructive disobedience is like a game of “making out” (Burawoy, 1979) that is
done in good faith. Making out is about manipulating a system (of rewards) for one’s own
personal gain, whereas constructive disobedience is about “fixing” a non-functional system in
order to enable the production of functional products. The episodes exhibit how the hierarchy
was “disobeyed” in the follow up and the quality control (episodes one and three), and how the
34
content of the deadlines was manipulated (episode two).
Being constructively disobedient is a knowledge-intensive activity. Basically, unless you are an
obstinate child that just refuses to cooperate, disobedience triggers translation, which requires the
use of knowledge to convert vertical control into technical problems that can be solved. As
indicated by the data, the engineers often perceived vertical control as “unrealistic.” This was
dealt with by translating the unrealistic deadlines, which made little sense to the engineers, into
sensible technical problems that could be solved in the operative work. Thus, translation is the
second element in the sequence of control work at play here.
It is of note that translation changes its object (e.g. Latour, 2005). As a result, both the meaning
of the message and the mode of control take on a new shape through the translation. The
message changes from a check or an order to a technical problem, and the control changes not
only from the vertical to the horizontal mode, but also from a monitoring and constraining mode
to a more productive and enabling mode of horizontal control. This was illustrated well in both
episode one and two, where follow-up attempts (episode one) and deadlines (episode two)
appeared to be unrealistic and non-sensical at first, but after having been translated they made
new sense and operative action was enabled.
The final sequence is the execution of horizontal control. We suggest “peer reviewing” as a way
to conceptualize horizontal control as an operative practice. The data illustrates that the control
largely took place among peers. Peers, as understood here, are people who belong to the same
“community of practice” (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991). A central aspect of
35
communities of practice is that they consist of members who share knowledge of a specific
(integrative) practice. In our study, this is exemplified by engineers who shared knowledge of the
technical problems to be solved, engineers who were knowledgeable enough to make insightful
comments about the operative work.
The controlling mechanism of peer reviewing differs from the traditional cybernetic form that
monitors, identifies, and corrects deviances from a rule or norm. Rather than monitoring, control
in peer reviewing resembles editing, which is a more productive form of control that enables the
use of knowledge to solve problems. Editing signifies control as an alignment of the work in
progress as a result of convincing and insightful comments, corrections or criticisms. These are
arguably control dynamics that characterized the operative work in at GlobalTech. In light of the
above, peer reviewing can be defined as controlling that takes place at an operative and local level when one
or more members of a knowledge community edit – i.e. scrutinize, evaluate, discuss and suggest alterations – the
work of another member or other members. In this sense, peer reviewing is exercising control while
doing work.
Peer reviewing: unobtrusive control by doing work
Since doing work and controlling are intertwined in the practice of peer reviewing, control work
and other types of work may phenomenologically be the same. In other terms, control work in
the shape of peer reviewing does not have to be perceived as control, but as “just” work, which is
why it is often perceived as unobtrusive. At GlobalTech, having meetings to scrutinize each other’s
work is described by the engineers as a “good way of working” that is about “having several eyes
directed towards the problems in order to cover up for the possibility that you miss something.”
36
In a similar vein, the peer review is not seen as disruptive or disquieting, which is often the case
with vertical control, but rather as constructive and productive: “New things are added” in the review,
as one engineer said. In a sense, peer reviewing does not seem to be perceived as control at all,
but as “support” or even “help.” Indeed, the engineers talked much about the importance of
helping and of helping as a “cultural thing.”
Horizontal control does not necessarily have to be unobtrusive, especially not when it is
perceived as directed towards one’s person. But taking the context presented here into
consideration, the unobtrusiveness is understandable. The direct target of peer reviewing is work
and not the individual person. This is different to the horizontal control put forth by studies
where employees are expected to evaluate each other based on their qualities as employees, such
as their adherence to team- or company norms and rules (e.g. Barker, 1993; McKinley and Taylor,
1996). Colleagues who are expected to evaluate each other based on their qualities as employees
may indeed find this awkward and obtrusive and invent ways of resisting requirements to
perform such tasks (McKinley and Taylor, 1996). But peer reviewing is integrated in and directed
towards work. It is perceived as a “good way of working” and not a way of control, and it does
not clash with what the engineers have learned to do at work: solve technical problems.
Unobtrusiveness can make control very effective (Sewell, 1998). One reason for this is that the
employees are unlikely to engage in critical reflection directed towards a control system that is
perceived as a good way of working, as a constructive practice. As Barker (1999) who studied
normative control in teams noted: “To cultivate means for critiquing these powerful and
unobtrusive processes, the team must deliberately set aside time to review how they are
controlling themselves” (p. 180). Such reflection is not a part of peer reviewing. Instead, its
smooth integration in the production process, its alignment with the engineering practice of
technical problem solving, and the fact that it is preceded by disobedience and translation and
37
thereby decoupled from managerial practice gives it the appearance of “non-control.” But it has
controlling effects in that it makes work move forward by guiding the behavior of the members
that are reviewed.
Peer reviewing can thus be said to contain a combinatorial feature: a direct work focus combined
with normative overtones. The work focus means that peer reviewing has direct effects on work
behavior. This is different from normative control or identity regulation (Kunda 1992, Alvesson
& Willmott 2002), which rely on indirect effects: that is, changed norms or identifications are
thought to cause changes in work behavior. To understand the normative overtones of peer
reviewing, we need to keep in mind that it takes place in a community of practice, which is an
important site for identity building (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Orr, 1996). In other terms, when we
engage in work practice, we also gain a sense of who we are. Following this practice-based line of
reasoning – which is quite different from managerially instilled normative control through culture
management or identity regulation – peer reviewing is simultaneously a practice where technical
problems are solved and where an identity of being a technical problem solver is (re)produced.
Peer reviewing thus controls work directly, but it also reproduces what is perceived as normal for
an engineer to do and what it means to be an engineer. This combination of directly targeting
work and indirectly (re)producing an engineering identity that includes viewing peer reviewing as
unobtrusive, as “not-control,” may make peer reviewing a particularly powerful form of control.
In light of the above, it makes sense to understand peer reviewing as a kind of professional
control: it is connected to complex work, non-routine problem solving, and takes place in a
community of practice where esoteric knowledge is shared by the practitioners, and the work is
largely controlled by the employees themselves. Indeed, in contrast to indirect professional
control with focus on institutional arrangements that give rise to professional norms (e.g. Abbott,
1991), peer reviewing can be seen as a direct method of professional control that takes place
38
through social interaction between peers in everyday settings, as work gets done.
The practice of peer reviewing may also suggest an explanation of how professionalism is
maintained. As noted, professionalism can be referred to as “the institutional circumstances in
which the members of occupations rather than consumers or managers control work” (Freidson,
2001: 12). Professional work is thus thought of as “protected” from management control and
customer influences by the institutional circumstances (such as professional associations and
norms, formal education etc.) surrounding the profession. A functioning practice of peer
reviewing is likely to construct a similar protection, but on a local and operative rather than institutional
level. Under the shield of a community of practice, the professionals are likely to remain in control
of their knowledge, out of reach of knowledge-management attempts of making their tacit
knowledge explicit (Alvesson and Kärreman 2001, Sewell, 2005), or various attempts of
commodification (Braverman, 1974; Cooley, 1980) that may threaten their professionalism. The
notion of peer reviewing may thus be relevant for the study of both how professionals control
each other on a local level, and for understanding how this control enables them to maintain their
status as professionals.
Conclusion
Complex work means complex control. This study highlights that much of the management of
complex/knowledge intensive work takes place in communities that do not exist on
organizational charts, and is exerted by those who are not formally thought of as managers. It
points at the limits of the means of control used by formal management and indicates that it is
not so much hierarchy or traditional project management tools that make up the main method of
control but rather the flexible involvement of colleagues in feedback, scrutiny, and quality
assessments. As a result, we may ask ourselves, as scholars of organization, how much we know
39
about how the operative work in organizations is controlled. If the impact of formal management
practice is limited, and our knowledge comes from studies of this very practice, how relevant is
that knowledge? The point of this paper is not to deny the relevance of formal management –
neither in the shape of rules and standards (e.g. Mintzberg, 1979) nor in the shape of culture
control and identity regulation (e.g. Alvesson and Willmott, 2002) – but to tone it down and
boost the idea that control is a dispersed practice, exercised also in non-managerial work.
As a way of broadening the interpretive repertoire of control, the concepts of peer reviewing,
translation and constructive disobedience have been introduced as a framework for
understanding a) control work as a concept, b) control as a horizontal practice and c) how
horizontal control is related to vertical control. Although this study was conducted in a quite
special environment, where technical knowledge plays an important role, there is reason to
suggest that the dynamics presented here are relevant also for other types of work. When work
gets complex and based on workers’ discretion, the need for being constructively disobedient,
translate, and engage in peer reviewing arguably increases. One may, for example, expect similar
dynamics in other types of “traditional” knowledge work. Consider also the resemblance to the
work of public servants who, receiving new directives “from above” as governments change,
need to “disobey” parts of the directives because they are impossible to implement, translate
them into something that works in their operative environment, and then apply them in
interaction with their peers. Arguably, the data presented in this paper may represent a quite
typical dynamic of contemporary work, where employees need to disobey, translate and
reinterpret managerial practices, as they struggle to execute their own, operative, practice.
40
It is of note that constructive disobedience, translation and peer reviewing should not to be seen
as “resistance” to managerial control. Resistance is about friction, and, reasonably, therefore
slows things down. The conceptual framework developed here around the practice of peer
reviewing offers an alternative way of understanding the control work of the engineers – it
doesn’t slow down, but changes the direction of work. Instead of being a practice of resistance in
the control-resistance dichotomy, constructive disobedience, translation and peer reviewing are
practices that enable horizontal control in a struggle (Fleming and Spicer, 2008) in which
influence over work is negotiated with the vertical dimension of control. On the one hand, the
practices here indicate that the engineers have resisted commodification and still have control
over their own work. On the other hand, their way of being “constructive” makes little overt
resistance to the idea that managers manage and thus does not disrupt the formal hierarchy.
In the grander scheme of things, peer reviewing contributes to the understanding of how it can
be that organizations seem to be efficiently controlled despite the limited efficiency of traditional
means of control, and despite the fact that much of the power over core operations has moved
from formal managers to employees in complex organizations. When the traditional means fail
we can deduce that there needs to be “something else” that offers guidance. The dominant
response to this has been that managerially instilled culture (e.g. Kunda, 1992) or identification
(e.g. Alvesson and Willmott, 2002) guide the actions of employees. Constructive disobedience,
translation and peer reviewing make up an alternative set of concepts that represent the dynamics
of work that, so far, has largely resisted the “deskilling” that Braverman (1974) and others
predicted. They offer a complement that “de-fetishizes” the role of formal management,
emphasizing not how managerially produced norms, values and identities drive action, but how
expert knowledge and local interactions play a central role when it comes to deciding what to do
42
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