Abstract
This book, published in 2019, is a result of a three-decade-old curiosity of the authors, as tohow ordinary citizens acting as purposeful agents of change can seemingly cause shifts in the existing social structures. The authors seek to understand how local actions shape social foundations and their multifaceted impact on individuals, organisations and institutions that lead to the dilapidation of certain existing theoretical ideas and generate newer ones, through the overarching lens of ‘work’. The purpose of the book is to consolidate the different disparate notions of work within organisational context, in light of social constructionism and to provide opportunities to future researchers to identify possibilities arising at the fringes of the ever-evolving ideas of work, mentioned in the book and beyond. By amalgamating the historical development, conceptualisation, modelling and future implications of several forms of social-symbolic work to understand, analyse and apply this discourse, the book contributes to its title Constructing Organizational Life: How Social-Symbolic Work Shapes Selves, Organizations and Institutions being apt.
The present book review is an attempt to critically analyze the book in light of the importance of ‘social-symbolic work’ and its relevance in contemporary organisations. The review looks into highlighting important theoretical underpinnings and insights provided by the authors and the implications for several targeted stakeholder groups. This book is broadly divided into three parts. The first two parts build the conception of social-symbolic work by critically analysing it from the perspective of individual, organisation and institution. Each chapter begins with a primary history of how work has been constructed overtime concerning the above three reference points, followed by their continued emphasis in organisational research. The third part analyses the opportunities of framing theories and the challenges associated with applying methodologies in future research on social-symbolic work. The last chapter concludes with the significance of social-symbolic work on several stakeholders such as academicians, change-makers, politicians and, most importantly, citizens.
Part I consists of two chapters (Chapters 1 and 2), emphasising the gradual growth of contemporary literature in management research, on the changes in work related to strategy, identities and boundaries. It looks into the diversity in organisations that affects employees in their personal and professional lives, and aims to develop a comprehensive narrative of intertwined purposeful actions of individuals in attempting to design the social lives of contemporary workplaces. The authors deliberately do not consider these as secluded actions by certain individuals but look forward in forging connections, as they consider the conjunction of these actions to comprise a ‘common focus on shaping what we refer to as social-symbolic objects – combinations of discursive, relational, and material elements that constitute meaningful patterns in social systems’ (p. 5). The authors take a step forward in determining how intentional changes of individuals cause shifts in social structures, as compared to the conventional wisdom of social structures inherently guiding human actions. The authors embrace the influence of the theoretical foundations of modernity and postmodernity in their identification and analysis of social-symbolic objects.
Chapter 1 provides the introduction to the rest of the book, and the intellectual foundations of social-symbolic work, in which the authors spotlight language as a catalyst in changing how social phenomena are perceived in contemporary times by individuals and scholars alike (Wittgenstein, 2009). Chapter 2 focuses on social-symbolic objects as an outcome of social-symbolic work with modernity as its backdrop, in which previously attributable social changes in the name of either nature or God came to be analysed as an outcome of purposeful human-induced actions. Further, the chapter illuminates the advent of postmodernity, when existing notions of social science based on natural sciences, were shattered into conflicting opinions of locally induced actions (Lyotard, 1984) and the subsequent attempts of seeking local situations as opposed to following a path of planned development. The chapter concludes by introducing several kinds of work in contemporary organisational research in management (p. 44), and aggregates them under three specific forms in which social-symbolic work can be divided—self, organisational and institutional.
Part I sets the tone of the book by creating an integrated framework of social-symbolic work through amalgamating a variety of factors—historical backdrop, social underpinnings, diverse background and work ethics of people in different cultural settings. Moreover, it acknowledges how perspectives about work arise from frequent human interactions as a fundamental constituent. The reader starts to comprehend the examples of real life presented; of activities that they face in their everyday surroundings. The pace set in this part continues in the later chapters, which comprise a fine balance between theoretical underpinnings, contextual viability and lucid illustrations to cover aprodigious set of topics.
Part II (Chapters 3–8) accentuates the description of concepts introduced in Chapter 2, both for the three aggregated frames of references and each of the new kinds of work. The authors draw their citations of these concepts from reviewing extensive literature, which is evident from the extensive 36-page reference list. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on self-work—actions taken by individuals to shape themselves; Chapters 5 and 6 highlight organisational work—actions by a combined network of individuals in the pursuit of designing their workplaces; Chapters 7 and 8 contextualise institutional work—actions taken by individuals, collective of individuals or their networks to construct and shape institutions, effectively being the most noticeable dimension of social-symbolic work. Simultaneously, Chapters 3, 5 and 7 concentrate on explaining these concepts, while Chapters 4, 6 and 8 converge on specific research in management on these concepts.
Chapter 3 introduces the concept of self as a social-symbolic object, by drawing in references from an individual to the entire ambit of references across religions and societies (Giddens, 1991). The individuality and interior efficacies of self brings in unlimited potential of self-improvement, leading to the emergence of an entire discourse. Again, the idea of a ‘saturated self’ through postmodern theory is a combined version of innumerable fractures arising out of social relationships. Drawing on the discourse, relationships and materiality of self-work, the authors dissect self-work as a result of the combination of coordinated actions by a network of individuals which themselves arise as fragmentations but posit a reflection of the past, present and future narratives of the individuals involved.
Chapter 4 reviews the literature on management research corresponding to the different forms of self-work—emotion work, identity work and career work. Emotion works are actions attempting to change an emotion, followed by research on emotional exhibits of employees placed in certain roles; identity works are actions undertaken to comprehend an individual’s position within groups, followed by research on power, hierarchy and control within organisations; and career works are actions undertaken to survive in challenging job roles in contemporary times, as compared to traditional jobs, followed by transition of careers from being a sequence of higher roles to experiences gained in each role over time.
In Chapter 5, the authors distinguish organisation work to be ‘working on organisations’from‘work done in organisations’ (p. 119). Organisations are considered as social-symbolic objects in themselves, leading toincreased engendering and designing of organisational work. The emergence of modern organisations as machines, as separate identities, as independent actors to pursue interests not attaining to goals of particular people, have contributed to organisations’ growth as social actors in themselves (Selznick, 2011). Developed on postmodern ideas, organisations have thrived on democratic ideals, based on networks and platforms. The development of these types of organisations contributes to the diversification of organisation work due to adaptability to changes in the marketplace, evident through the rise of start-up culture and e-commerce.
Chapter 6 reviews the literature on management research on the different forms of organisation works—strategy work, boundary work and technology work. Strategy works are actions undertaken on organisational strategies concerning articulating resources, mitigating competition and creating common narratives about strategy to all stakeholders concerned. Boundary works are actions across different subjects, which traverse boundaries to cause desired impacts; for example, the growth of interdisciplinary studies. In organisations, research spans from legal boundaries to impact stakeholders and environmental resources. Technology works are purposeful actions by an individual that simultaneously shape the material and social dimensions of technology. The integration of information technology and systems research in management is an outcome of technology work discourse (Orlikowski, 2000).
In Chapter 7, the authors illustrate the invention of cryptocurrencies in 2008, as an alternative form of financial transaction without standardised financial institutions such as banks. Drawing on debates about the constitution of institutions, the chapter focuses on gradual shift of institutions from premodern to postmodern, with language being the most significant social institution. Three characteristics of institutions are presented—they have shared histories based on ‘interrelationships among broad social-historical shifts that cut across specific societal domains’ (p. 198), these shared histories have changed in specific ways, and as social-symbolic objects, institutions are ‘coherent and fragmented’ (p. 198) versions of individuals and organisations simultaneously. Thus, institutional work occurs as concurrent actions of a network of individuals take place, such as entrepreneurs, caretakers and troublemakers, concerning their aspirations regarding an institution, thus inherently shaping up social structure of institutions themselves.
Chapter 8 reviews the literature on organisations concerning two different perspectives of institutional work—practice work and category work. Practices are performed across societies in community levels (Whittington, 2006), and contemporary research focuses on the problem-solving agility of alternative practices to arrive at solutions, as compared to conventional practices. The emergence of entrepreneurship has institutionalised practices due to external shocks and heterogeneous stakeholders at play in business activities.
Part II theoretically imprints importanceto understand the interrelations of different actors in any particular setting as a fundamental precise of defining human psychology and their approach to work. The concept of social-symbolic objects and social-symbolic work categorises them not only on the basis of their individual or collective actions, but also tries to illustrate several unknowns that govern workplaces. The authors successfully illustrate how actions inside organisations and institutions are dependent on several factors, and do not rise as separate instances that lead to change, or the birth of newer organisations or new forms of institutions—through several examples from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) operating as an organisation, even to the Pussyhat Project of 2017. This part is a comprehensive reply to the pertinent question that got the authors thinking about the central topic in this book, that whether Francis Fukuyama’s definition of the ending of history with the fall of the Soviet Union could actually be analysed as a combination of several factors, in which the aspirations and changing attitudes of common people, never got recognition before.
Part III (Chapters 9–11) studies the interrelationships of the different types of work elaborated before, and emphasises the opportunities for research and the challenges associated with devising methodologies for conducting studies of social-symbolic work for different stakeholders.
Chapter 9 combines the different forms of social-symbolic work to establish connections between social-symbolic objects, left out of conventional management research before. As a result, the chapter looks into the potentials and opportunities of context-based research that can provide insights into localised actions requiring localised solutions instead of a defined homogenous development plan. Strategies for such combinations include identifying sequences with respect to shifts and changes across societies and aligning similar occurrences in them. The chapter concludes with enactment: embodiment of one object into another; abstraction: construction of ideas based on previous experiences;translation: contextual shifting of social-symbolic objects; and inversion: appropriation of original meanings in specific contexts, as the necessary tools required for such identification and combination of sorts, required for further research.
Chapter 10 addresses the methodological challenges of researching in such diversified settings, with multiples of alternatives at stake in every stage. Identifying a particular context thus becomes very important while researching about social-symbolic work. The authors aimed to provide a ‘recipe’ (p. 262) for future researchers—by formulating a good research question based on comprehending interrelationships between the occurrences of two phenomena. However, identification and application of social-symbolic work on conventional research requires a researcher to understand that ‘any complex facet of social life are likely to span multiple kinds of social-symbolic work’ (p. 269).
In Chapter 11, the authors point that micro-assessment of researchers concerning the differences in topics all share some forms of social-symbolic work, which provides ground for comprehensive interdisciplinary research in the future. Further, differences regarding boundaries for organisational researchers can be potentially overcome in future studies. Myriad local actions can be studied based on the occurrence of minute similarities across societies, and the ineffectiveness of certain concepts can be proven practically. The correlations of seemingly unrelated fields of research can open up discourses of dependent studies in the future. The governance of institutions in the face of plurality and the disruptions caused by technology can be understood through the framework of social-symbolic work as a reference by policymakers. Finally, citizens can comprehend the power of purposeful actions leading to positive changes across boundaries through social-symbolic work.
The authors have been successful in instigating the interest of the readers to look at future possibilities, as most of previous literatures have tried to understand concepts and phenomena in isolation. Emergence of new management research on the frontiers of social-symbolic work will contribute to the growth of the discourse and the interpretations of social constructions for several stakeholders in future. And this becomes very important depending on which perspective the reader wants to juxtapose it with, modernity or postmodernity and the epistemology of reflexivity.
This also brings us to certain weaknesses of the book. In a bid to consolidate the concepts related to different forms that social-symbolic work may be divided into, the authors might have diverged from several differing perspectives of a particular form, in order to be dependably coherent with their ideas and illustrations. A comprehensive review of each of these forms with differing alternatives will improve their understanding. Further conceptualisation of social-symbolic work can involve more references from the countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to understand from a plurality of perspectives and views. Moreover, while the authors aimed to provide a fluidity of motion over social-symbolic objects through their dynamic interpretations, the illustrations somehow generate an impression of these objects to be fixed in nature. Perhaps, the mechanisms of abstraction or inversion mentioned in Chapter 9 can help contribute to alleviate this. This needs further research, from a multiplicity of viewpoints.
The idea of writing a review was triggered with the title of the volume, especially ‘social-symbolic work’, on which literature has been growing in contemporary times. However, what struck our imagination was the initiative of the authors to approach it from the angle of intentional actions causing change, such that organisations and organisational research is not a result of direct cause and effect situations, but accommodates several factors and perspectives of different stakeholders. In the end, the book served the purpose for its review—to reflect upon an overarching model of contextual work from its micro-individual perspective to a macro-institutional one.
The concepts of social-symbolic work and social-symbolic objects for researchers in organisation theory are the central takeaways from this book. The analysis of the formation of social constructions through purposeful efforts, by engaging to understand different social relationships for various stakeholders is captured through the true intention of the authors themselves—‘Our perspective, thus, sits at the intersection of social construction and human agency—it emphasizes the socially constructed nature of social reality, but points to the role of purpose and reflexivity in guiding the efforts on which social construction depends’(p. 320).
The book serves as an important precedent to contextualise organisational processes in South Asia, which have been primarily dominated by service sector jobs for the past three decades, and where economies are significantly dependent on service sector exports (Chanda, 2011). The frameworks provided in the book and identification of social-symbolic work, and social-symbolic objects in these conditions, will help us in examining the effects of the growth of service sector on employment opportunities, labour policies, export of labour services, migration and human resource practices that organisations follow. These will in turn help in framing policies for developing skills and training for future generation workers in South Asia.
In conclusion, the book is an important illustration of the research prowess of the authors, and comprehensively contributes to the literature on organisational studies. The authors have done a commendable job of identifying and combining the discourse of social-symbolic objects and social-symbolic work, reviewed extensive literature, established their argument, provided numerous examples and guided future researchers to carry studies in this discourse. With adapting a certain structured method of elucidating concepts in a lucid language the book is well directed towards practitioners and academicians in the Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour domains to rediscover human interactions in organisational settings as an outcome of several factors and gain directions for analysing social-symbolic work.
