Alexandra Viet-Huong Lai
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Dipl.-Oek.
Last Name
Lai
First name
Alexandra Viet-Huong
Phone
+41 71 224 2525

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  • Publication
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/88992
  • Publication
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/89086
  • Publication
    "Bootstrapping" to handle the decision-making paradox
    ( 2013-06-20)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Alexandra, Lai
    ;
    Mitterlechner, Matthias
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    Many scholars increasingly suggest adopting a paradox lens to study organizations. They consider paradoxes as integral to organizations (Clegg, Vieira da Cunha, & Pina e Cunha, 2002; Ford & Backoff, 1988; Lewis, 2000; Luescher & Lewis, 2008), in which paradox is defined as an operation that implies the conditions for its possibility and impossibility (Ortmann, 2004). These works, however, remain vague on what "integral" means. Do organizations need to handle paradoxes or are they manifestations of handling paradoxes themselves? We argue that organizations represent manifestations of paradoxes and develop practices of handling paradoxes. To illustrate this claim, we draw on an in-depth case study on decision-making in a pluralistic context. First, the study demonstrates that a paradox underlies decision-making in pluralistic contexts: The autonomy of organizational members who pursue diverse interests requires decisions which span professional boundaries; at the same time, the autonomy of organizational members impedes such decisions (Bate, 2000; Ericson, 2001; Glouberman & Mintzberg, 2001; Jarzabkowski & Fenton, 2006; Lozeau, Langley, & Denis, 2002). Second, results from a decision premise (Luhmann, 2000) analysis show that organizational members apply a "bilateral-situative" decision-making practice, a both/and approach which both acknowledges their autonomy and enables decisions across boundaries. A decision-premise focuses on who decides on what, when, and how within an organization. A decision-premise specifies what an organization regards as "organizational". To argue our claim theoretically, we draw on the concept of "bootstrapping" by American sociologist Barry Barnes (Barnes, 1983) which addresses the issue of self-reference in reproducing social phenomena. "Bootstrapping" means that ongoing flows of activities, like actions, communications or decisions, pass through a label - like "organizational" - that filters activities as to whether they belong to the label, and then attaches this label to the activity so that it counts as expressing the label, i.e. as belonging to or expressing "organizational". Such a label like "organizational" allows to distinguishing what is organizational, while all other activities are disregarded. The label in turn emerges through this ongoing flow of activities, in which the process consists of activities that result endogenously from the same process as well as from exogenous inputs. "Bootstrapping" conceptualizes the way of how decisions and decision-premises relate with one another, either in a way that reproduced the label or undermines it over time. Our empirical results exemplify the former, i.e. the reproduction that allows handling the paradox of decision-making in a pluralistic setting. Thus, we argue that a pluralistic organization is a manifestation of a paradox, rather than having a paradox. The latter alternative in which the label is undermined over time, would involve a continuous change of the label or an episodic attempt of altering it. This study speaks to three bodies of literature: First, our study speaks to pluralistic organization by arguing that they are manifestations of paradox and that they developed specific ways of handling them. Second, the empirical results exemplify an organizational perspective on paradoxes, whereas most paradox literature focuses in individuals and groups. Third, bootstrapping offers an insight into how two components of a duality relate over time through feedback. This conceptualization complements the existing view of duality (Farjoun, 2010; Feldman & Pentland, 2003). These works elaborate on what one component serves for the other component, thus representing a functional perspective. In comparison, our conceptualization of bootstrapping with decision-premises as the label captures not only such functions but also opens the pathway to pursue the opposite, a disfunctional relation. Bootstrapping allows explaining reproducing and changing a temporal social order as a self-referential process.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/89100
  • Publication
    Multiple Ways of Decision-Making in a Hospital : A Process View on Decision-making in Pluralistic Organizations
    ( 2012-06-21)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Alexandra, Lai
    ;
    Mitterlechner, Matthias
    Decision-making in pluralistic organizations, like hospitals, is a fragile process, particularly when they span professional boundaries, as in change or merger projects. The fragility is often explained by divergent goals, knowledge-intensive work processes and dispersed power structures. Due to the high autonomy of different actors decisions need to be made collectively and to a certain degree the consent of those affected by the decisions is required. In addition, decision-making is a cyclical process as decision effects feedback on the decision-makers. However, the question of how actors carry out decisions over time has not been widely explored in management and organization theory. Traditional theories of rational choice do not incorporate the social and cyclical nature of nature of decision-making. We turn to literature of the process perspective that suggests understanding decision-making as a pattern of action unfolding over time. Emphasizing the role of time decisions emerge from the temporal proximity of challenge, solutions and decision maker. This paper uses a process lens to examine how different actors enact different decisions practices in order to enable collective strategic actions. Although various scholars have established decision-making as a central concern of organizational science, less attention has been paid to the actual decision practices/processes in pluralistic organizations. Apparently, it is assumed that the ways of decision-making do not vary across a pluralistic organization. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing the diverse decision practices of different professions within a hospital. This paper extends existing understandings of how distinct decision practices shape the process of strategic actions. We elaborate on the role of the professional background in making decisions, based on analysis of a longitudinal case study of a merger process between two hospitals. Our data show distinctly different decision-practices within a hospital: fast and personalized decision-making by surgeons, collaborative decision-making that appeals to the nurses' notion of caring, consensus-seeking understanding of emerging patterns that fits to the routines of internists and bureaucratically pre-planned project management by administrators. Our study makes two contributions: first, reaching a strategic decision and generating organization action around strategic goals is not only difficult because different interest groups pursue their own goals. But also, it is because the decisions practices within a pluralistic organization differ significantly; second, decision-making is heavily shaped and legitimized by the way actors perform their daily work. Such referencing stabilizes a specific decision-practice inside a professional domain. At the same time, organization-wide decisions during which different ways of decision-making join, making decisions becomes ambiguous.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/91423