Abstract
A theoretical problem has haunted organization studies for decades: How can we move from the “micro” level of individual sense-making and action to the “macro” level of organizational sense-making and action? The very dichotomy micro–macro refers to a dualist opposition between “individual” and “organizational” which has been criticized as static and irrelevant. This critique has prompted many organization scholars to look for a more relational and dynamic perspective, abandoning the traditional view of organizations as structures and replacing it with a dynamic view of organizations as organizing processes that continuously adapt the relationships between actors, artefacts and situations. But the theoretical frameworks available to study organizations must then be thoroughly revised. This chapter examines the potential contribution of the pragmatist concept of trans-action to a processual and relational approach to organizations. It applies this approach to the analysis of a merger between two large retailers and its concrete impact on ordinary logistic tasks, for example loading and unloading pallets. Controversies do not only lead to new work methods, but also to an emergent and radical redefinition of the situation and of its participating entities, including human actors. Apart from a deep renewal of organizational theory, the trans-actional framework supports research methods based on exploratory inquiries that involve field actors and researchers as co-inquirers.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The spelling “trans-action” is adopted here, as suggested by Dewey and Bentley, to avoid any confusion with the usual meanings of “transaction” in economics, management or psychology.
References
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. New York: Addison-Wesley.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (M. Holquist, Ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Callon, M. (2006). What Does It Mean to Say That Economics Is Performative? In D. MacKenzie, F. Muniesa, & L. Siu (Eds.), Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics (pp. 311–357). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chia, R. (1996). Organizational Analysis as Deconstructive Practice. Berlin, NY: De Gruyter.
Dale, K. (2005). Building a Social Materiality: Spatial and Embodied Politics in Organizational Control. Organization, 12, 649–678.
Dépelteau, F. (2018). From the Concept of ‘Trans-Action’ to a Process-Relational Sociology. In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology (pp. 499–519). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dewey, J. (1922). Human Nature and Conduct. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
Dewey, J. (1988a). The Public and Its Problems. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey’s Collected Works: The Later Works 1925–1953, Volume 2: 1925–1927 (pp. 235–372). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (Original Work Published 1927).
Dewey, J. (1988b). Theory of Valuation. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey’s Collected Works: The Later Works 1925–1953, Volume 13: 1938–1939 (pp. 191–251). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (Original Work Published 1939).
Dewey, J., & Bentley, A. F. (2008). Knowing and the Known. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey’s Collected Works: The Later Works 1925–1953, Volume 16: 1949–1952 (pp. 1–294). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (Original Work Published 1949).
Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What Is Agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023.
Feldman, M., & Pentland, B. (2003). Reconceptualizing Organizational Routines as a Source of Flexibility and Change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48, 94–118.
Feynman, R. P. (1970). The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Vol. 1). Boston: Addison-Wesley Longman.
Follett, M. P. (1951). Creative Experience. New York: Peter Smith. Downloadable at http://www.pqm-online.com/assets/files/lib/follett.pdf (Original work published 1924).
Follett, M. P. (1995). Coordination. In P. Graham (Ed.), Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management (pp. 183–199). Washington, DC: Beard Books (Original Work Published 1933).
Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Helin, J., Hernes, T., Hjorth, D., & Holt, R. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophies and Organization Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hernes, T. (2014). A Process Theory of Organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Howard-Grenville, J. (2005). The Persistence of Flexible Organizational Routines: The Role of Agency and Organizational Context. Organization Science, 16(6), 618–636.
Jarzabkowski, P. (2004). Strategy as Practice: Recursiveness, Adaptation, and Practices-in-Use. Organization Studies, 25(4), 529–560.
Joas, H., & Beckert, J. (2006). Action Theory. In J. H. Turner (Ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory (pp. 269–286). New York: Springer.
Kerveillant, M. (2017). The Role of the Public in the French Nuclear Sector: The Case of “Local Information Commissions” (CLI) for Nuclear Activities in the West of France (PhD dissertation). ESSEC Business School, Paris.
Langley, A. (2007). Process Thinking in Strategic Organization. Strategic Organization, 5(3), 271–282.
Langley, A., & Tsoukas, H. (2010). Introducing Perspectives on Process Organization Studies. In T. Hernes & S. Maitlis (Eds.), Process, Sensemaking and Organizing (pp. 1–26). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Linstead, S. (2002). Organization as Reply: Henri Bergson and Casual Organization Theory. Organization, 9(10), 95–111.
Lorino, P. (2014). From Speech Acts to Act Speeches: Collective Activity, a Discursive Process Speaking the Language of Habits. In F. Cooren, E. Vaara, A. Langley, & H. Tsoukas (Eds.), Language and Communication at Work: Discourse, Narrativity, and Organizing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lorino, P. (2018). Pragmatism and Organization Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. EGOS Book Award 2019.
Lorino, P., & Mourey, D. (2013). The Experience of Time in the Inter-Organizing Inquiry: A Present Thickened by Dialog and Situations. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 29(1), 48–62.
Lorino, P., Tricard, B., & Clot, Y. (2011). Research Methods for Non-representational Approaches to Organizational Complexity: The Dialogical Mediated Inquiry. Organization Studies, 32(6), 769–801.
Marková, I. (2003). Constitution of the Self: Intersubjectivity and Dialogicality. Culture Psychology, 9(3), 249–259.
Maturana, H. (1975). The Organization of the Living: A Theory of the Living Organization. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 7, 313–332.
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht: Reidel.
McReynolds, P. (2019). Does Pragmatism Need a Concept of Autonomy? In K. P. Skowroński & S. Pihlström (Eds.), Pragmatist Kant—Pragmatism, Kant, and Kantianism in the Twenty-First Century (pp. 133–149). Nordic Studies in Pragmatism 4. Helsinki: Nordic Pragmatism Network.
Mead, G. H. (1932). The Philosophy of the Present. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Mourey, D. (2004). Le rôle des instruments de gestion dans la dynamique du changement organisationnel [The Role of Management Instruments in the Organizational Change Dynamic] (Unpublished master’s thesis). Université Paris X Nanterre.
Nayak, A. (2008). On the Way to Theory: A Processual Approach. Organization Studies, 29, 173–190.
Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.
Polanyi, M. (1962). Tacit Knowing: Its Bearing on Some Problems of Philosophy. Reviews of Modern Physics, 34(4), 601–615.
Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company.
Prawat, R. (2002). Dewey and Vygotsky Viewed Through the Rearview Mirror—And Dimly at That. Educational Researcher, 31(5), 16–20.
Probst, G., & Buchel, B. (1997). Organizational Learning: The Competitive Advantage of the Future. London: Prentice-Hall.
Shotter, J. (2006). Understanding Process from Within: An Argument for ‘Withness’-Thinking. Organization Studies, 27(4), 585–604.
Simon, H. A. (1957). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. New York: Macmillan.
Simon, H. A. (1991). Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning. Organization Science, 2, 125–134.
Simon, H. A. (1996). The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Simpson, B. (2009). Pragmatism, Mead, and the Practice Turn. Organization Studies, 30(12), 1329–1347.
Simpson, B. (2014). George Herbert Mead. In J. Helin, T. Hernes, D. Hjorth, & R. Holt (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies (pp. 273–286). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Simpson, B. (2016). Where’s the Agency in Leadership-as-Practice? In J. Raelin (Ed.), Leadership-as-Practice: Theory and Application (pp. 159–177). New York and London: Routledge.
Taylor, F. (2004). Scientific Management. Oxford: Routledge (Originally Published 1911).
Tsoukas, H. (2005). Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tsoukas, H. (2009). A Dialogical Approach to the Creation of New Knowledge in Organizations. Organization Science, 20(6), 941–957.
Tsoukas, H., & Chia, R. (2002). On Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567–582.
Verheggen, T., & Baerveldt, C. (2007). We Don’t Share! The Social Representation Approach, Enactivism and the Ground for an Intrinsically Social Psychology. Culture and Psychology, 13(1), 5–27.
Weick, K. E. (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lorino, P. (2020). Trans-Action: A Processual and Relational Approach to Organizations. In: Morgner, C. (eds) John Dewey and the Notion of Trans-action. Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26380-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26380-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-26379-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-26380-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)