Organizing Differences

 

Dr. Peter J. Peverelli

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Faculty of Economics & Business Administration

Strategy & Organisation

 

Introduction
Although there are as many definitions of organisations as there are researchers in this field, all definitions include at least one item: an organisation is a group of actors co-ordinating their resources and activities to execute a certain task in a more efficient way than when doing it individually. They all stress the need for the actors involved to share to a certain extent a perception of reality. As a result, management theories based on those definitions also focus on unifying perceptions, team building, etc.
However, actors differ in many respects. They differ according to gender, race, religion, place of birth (different countries or different regions of same country), age, education, membership or social networks, etc. These differences are bound to affect the organising processes. Classical management theories tend to regard these differences as a necessary evil, something that exists, but needs to be contained. They often talk in terms of formal and informal processes, in which the former refers to regular co-ordinated actions controlled by the managers and the latter to the informal uncontrollable interactions. In this course we maintain the position that differences between actors are an organic aspect of healthy organising processes, these differences are regarded as the motor of the sustained duration of organisations. Management is thus positioned as the tool for perceiving and appreciating differences between actors, and thereby creating value from those differences. The first half of the course will be spent with an introduction to a number of current models of organisational diversity.

Each year, another source of difference will be highlighted as the central theme.

Prerequisite Coursework:
Organisation Perspectives & Dynamics (recommended).

 

 

The purposes and objectives of the course are to:

- introduce the student to the role of differences in an organisation; - assist the student with gaining a complex understanding of organisational theory and the actual practice in contemporary work environments; - enhance the student’s understanding of the significance of the quantitative, qualitative, emotional and behavioural factors involved in managing differences, and - heighten the student’s awareness to the inter-relationship of employee relations and organisational structures (both formal and informal structures).