Asymmetries of responsibility in self-managing organization: Authoring shared and hierarchical control

Abstract

We studied change initiatives towards self-managing organization in five companies, focusing on changes in leader-follower relations. Our discursive analysis based on interviews of 18 middle-managers and 38 employees suggests that organizational members identify with different types of responsibilities depending on their organizational position. We grouped these responsibilities into four orientations – organizational, institutional, coordination, and individual/work – that involve both synergistic and antagonistic elements, reflecting a plurality of interests and organizational concerns. When the authority relations between ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ were weakened in the case organizations, these asymmetries of responsibility pushed the authoring of organizational activities into divergent trajectories. Sometimes this divergence was perceived by managers as conflicting with the organizational or institutional responsibilities they identified with. Managers controlled this tension both by influencing their subordinates’ authoring normatively and by resorting to hierarchical control practices in situations and authoring arenas perceived as critical. This resulted in hybrid arrangements including both shared and hierarchical forms of control. Eventually, one of the companies remained in and another one reintroduced conventional hierarchical structures. Accordingly, we discuss our reservations regarding the emancipatory enthusiasm around shared forms of control, as the shared mode of control seems to ‘work’ as long as employee authoring is contained within managerial power and interests.