Institutional Dynamics in International Organizations: Lessons from the Recruitment Procedures of the European External Action Service

Abstract

This article examines how organisational designs develop by proposing a novel theoretical framework that views organisational change as resulting from a dialectic process between interpretive agents. The key claim is that existing formal procedures (such as recruitment processes, our empirical focal point) are subject to involved actors' interpretive efforts. This results in a bargaining situation based on the interpretations of the principal actors, which may induce a feedback loop whereby the original procedures are amended. The empirical relevance of the theoretical argument is illustrated via a case study of the hiring procedures in the European External Action Service.

A System Dynamics Model of Resistance to Organizational Change: The Role of Participatory Strategies

“…This method captures complexities and nonlinearities of organizational phenomena in a causal loop diagram (Voyer et al ., ; Sterman, ; Tucker et al ., ; Schaffernicht, ) that visualizes feedback loops. This means that variables explaining a social phenomenon can be both cause and effect, thereby enabling a representation of nonlinear processes (Vennix, ; Senge, ; Murdoch and Geys, ). There are two types of feedback loops: reinforcing (positive feedback) and balancing (negative feedback) feedback loops.…”

Public support for European fiscal integration in times of crisis

“…This is not only seen in advances of the EU into foreign policy with the establishment of the European External Action Service (Murdoch, 2012;Juncos and Pomorska, 2013;Murdoch and Geys, 2014), but also in proposals towards "substantially reinforced fiscal surveillance and policy coordination" (European Commission, 2011a, p. 4, italics added). Two recent examples in this direction include the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance -in force since 1 January 2013 and colloquially known as the 'Fiscal Compact' (European Council, 2012) -and the so-called EU economic governance 'Sixpack' -which entered into force on 13 December 2011 (European Commission, 2011b).…”

Identity, threat aversion, and civil servants' policy preferences: Evidence from the European Parliament

“…A first set of questions therefore enquires into respondents' preferred distribution of decision‐making power in the European Union as an issue of sovereignty (i.e., the authority over a given policy) (taken from Kassim et al ; Schafer ; Murdoch et al ). EU‐level decision‐making as an issue of sovereignty remains high on the political agenda (Murdoch ; Hobolt ; Murdoch and Geys ), which allows us to operationalize the extent to which someone favours European over national decision‐making power. The question employed in the survey reads: ‘What is your position on the distribution of authority between member states and the EU on public policies?…”