New Psychoanalytic
Responses in Our Work with Organizations and Society
“Management Control and
Organizational Psychoanalysis”
Dr. Thibault de SWARTE
Associate Professor
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des
Télécommunications de Bretagne
CS 17607
35576 Cesson-Sévigné Cédex
France
Phone : +33 299 127 017
Fax : +33 299 127 013
Thibault.deSwarte@enst-bretagne.fr
Coauthor
Dr. Alain
Amintas
Associate
Professor
Université Rennes 2 -
Haute Bretagne
Campus Villejean
Place du Recteur Henri Le Moal
CS 24 307
35 043 Rennes Cedex
France
Phone : +33 299 141
817
This document is a working
paper and could be later submitted to a journal ; please do not print or copy.
Copyright : Amintas & de Swarte
Abstract
An examination of a field of research:
the relationship of the unconscious and management control in the
context of post-modern organization systems.
Introduction : to be written later
1 / The psycho-institutional approach:
its relevance and conditions of validity
1.1 The Organization:
a duality, subject of much theorizing
In management literature an organization is presented as a composite
ambiguous system, made up of elements of different natures. However, many
managers insist on describing it as a coherent, logically ordered system, which
borrows its principles from disciplines such as mathematics and transforms them
into metaphors aimed at structuring the sphere of managerial activity: pyramids, matrices, divisions or
functions. More recently, the appearance
of a "post modern" managerial theory has put forth archetypes of
organization systems which appear more complex from the point of view of
concrete organizational forms but probably more primitive from a theoretical
point of view e.g. neural networks or organization systems based on a computer
model. Organizational metaphors used in
management literature are often predominantly technological, while borrowing
largely from nonlinear complex system theories[1].
We propose to take another approach, one which accepts organizational
ambivalence as a core issue. In our eyes
the issue of duality constitutes the epicenter of our queries on the existence
and development of organizations. This
fundamental characteristic is insightfully posited by P. Zelznick
(XXXX) when he underlines the possibility of the coexistence, within the same
framework, of an organization as a technical artifact and as a
"natural" social system institution: "Organizations are
technical instruments, designed as a means of reaching a given end. They are
evaluated on the basis of engineering premises; in a word they are easily
suppressed or replaced. Institutions,
whether they be considered as groups or practices, can only be partly
engineered, insofar as they also have a natural dimension. They are the products of interaction and
adaptation; they become the receptacle of group idealism; and are all the more
difficult to eradicate". By
setting out such a viewpoint, Zelznick synthesizes a
program of research, the premises of which had already been posited by authors
such as Goulner and Blau,
which will become a crucial construction element in the theory of organizations
field. Beyond the technical and
engineering dimensions of organizations embodied in organizational structures
and built around the instruments of management, psychological and social bonds
are brought into play which amalgamate and interlink the "network" of
members in the organization, forging a system likely to lead to attachment and
commitment or, on the contrary, withdrawal and apathy among its members.
The hypothesis posited and defended by P. Zelznick
is that the intelligibility of central organizational processes cannot make do
with hypotheses based on linear causalities or ballistic models: crucial phenomena such as
cohesion/coherence/coherency or adaptation are in no way the controllable
results of technical measures but are the systemic results of the interactions
and relationships woven between members of the organization.
The imaginary construction of the organization shaped by the psyche of
its members then becomes an issue deserving of clarification. One could undoubtedly be satisfied with a
functionalist approach such as that proposed by Talcott
Parsons (1960) which above all perceives the organization as a place where a
process of socialization is carried out based on phenomena such as the
integration of behavioral norms and the adherence to a set of values. But such an approach could quite rightly be
criticized for foregrounding the processes of social conformity, for
reintroducing hypotheses of consensus and cohesion/coherence/coherency and
finally for negating the issue of (the) tension between the various dimensions
of the organization.
A second line of research consists in considering the organization as a
symbolic universe in which significations are interchanged, interpretations
(are) formulated and representations (are) worked out. Indeed organizational reality is a second
order reality as far as P. Watzlawick is concerned,
that is to say a reality which can only be perceived through the prism of the
relationships in which the various significations and representations have been
constructed. But the very status of such
significations is ambiguous. Indeed are
they coherent representations put forward by the management of the organization,
“professed action theories” as set down by C Argyris
or latent implicit representations, which in reality explain those decisions
that Argyris qualifies as operative or effective
action theories which can be in total breach of instituted theories? By positing this distinction, Argyris acknowledges the reality of cleavages, of conflicts
at the very core of what we could call organizational cognition and the fact
that part of the representations upheld in an organization may be latent or
even unconscious.
We think that this question of cleavage in the subject is a core issue
for (the health and/or welfare?) of organizations. The tensions, conflicts and contradictions
found in the majority of organizations correspond to psychic cleavages,
internal divisions in the symbolic system, cleavages resting on the existence
of phenomena of repression, denial, and in a more general way on the existence
of unconscious psychic processes as put forward in Freudian psychology. The production and reproduction of sense in
an organization does not follow the linear trajectory that cognitive
engineering delights in outlining, but follows the twists and turns of the
equivocal, takes the paths of denial and repression, winds its way through contradictions and reconciles itself to
absurdity: the meanings are always
ambiguous, often unconscious and the adherences/attachments which they elicit
are suffused with concessions and defense mechanisms.
1.2 The institutional perspective
The organization itself is the result of organizational acts, of dynamic
processes that Weick calls organizing. This process then includes psychic
transactions which take place between the unconscious structures of the members
(Pagès & all.). Organizational reality therefore
does not spring uniquely from conscious and controlled processes of
significations. It is also grounded on
transactions of an imaginary nature producing organizational significations,
which operate over three dimensions[2]
in the organizational process. On the
one hand they structure the representations in play. On the other, they indicate the finalities
and the values which guide the action/activity. Finally, they implement
particular styles of affects in the organization.
This institutional perspective, as we like to call it, differs from
other psychoanalytically inspired approaches.
Indeed the pioneering role played by Eliott
Jacques and the Tavistosck Institute is
acknowledged. Their research was focused
above all on the psychic life of groups, as fields of unconscious
exchanges. More recently Kets de Vries has more
specifically sought to examine leadership and management practices: the unconscious fantasies which underlie the
visions and interpretations of managers, the methods of interaction and
influence that they employ in their work.
To re-echo the distinction between the seven organizational
processes suggested by Enriquez (1992) the approaches of Tavistock
and Kets de Vrie focus
above all on two processes that take place before the organizational process
and which are close to instinctive impulse:
individual and group drive. We are
of the opinion that the institutional process, which follows on from this,
delineates a different field of exploration, different but fundamental to our
understanding of organizational dynamics.
The fact that the organization is also an act of language (Levy 1997)
and a system of interpretations (Weick) emphasizes
the tireless work which is constantly taking place in an organization to
respond to the "need to set forth, with a minimum of coherence, collective
existence and experience, to understand it and give it a sense, by means of
explanations calling upon imagination or reason " (Levy 1997 p.7).
Thus there are many processes of imaginary institutionalization to
examine and elucidate. To what extent do
the modes of organizing, the choices carried out in terms of structures and
control procedures, institutionalize unconscious psychic mechanisms? To what
extent does the shaping of an organization crystallize impulses, to what extent
is it dependent, or not, on imaginary organizational significations?
This institutional perspective depends on a triadic vision of
organizational dynamics. First of all,
it is based on the idea that the structure of an organization is shaped by the
recursive relationship connecting organizational structures and individual interactions: the interactions that take place within the
organization are embedded in the structures already in place but at the same
time contribute to the reproduction or the modification of these very
structures. Next, our triadic
perspective implies that the organizational bond itself is not founded on the
basis of bilateral exchanges but by reference to a Third Party, to this Other
Realm in which the imaginary organization is forged. The interactions themselves mobilize complex
psychic phenomena of projection and introjection,
which are anchored in procedures and structures. Lastly, if the organization structures the
unconscious psyche of its members, it is also built on the mobilization of the
aforementioned psyche, in a process of circular reinforcement, sometimes
employed by the life instinct sometimes by the death instinct. Indeed an organization is a space in which a
whole array of practices, procedures and technologies are being constantly
updated which constitute for the psyche of its members just so many objects of
personal investment, conformity and instinctive anchorage.
.
In this case an organization must be analyzed as an instituted symbolic
system, a place where signifiers circulate freely. To further our argument we re-echo Mary Douglas’
question "How do institutions think?" and in addition embrace a
psychoanalytical corpus which she rejects. Indeed this "thought
process" cannot be analyzed without taking into account the modes of
structuring that make up the relationship between the employee and the
structure within which he operates or the presence of an instituted Third Party
and instinctive dynamics.
We would now like to illustrate this position through an analysis of
management control discourse which will attempt to reveal some of the
instinctive procedures that it mobilizes.
2. Putting the discourse of
management control to the test
What are the impulses that are marshaled, updated and reproduced by the
procedures of management control? It
seems to us that an examination of writings on the subject enables us to offer
some clues and lines of research. This
is in no way intended to be an exhaustive examination of the questions we have
developed: it merely seeks to make them
more concrete.
2.1 Control management and Thanatos
A discursive discourse seems to haunt the handbooks of management
control: an injunction to control the
whole array of organizational behavior, while at the same time ensuring, on the
one hand, its visibility, and, on the other, setting forth normative bases. Indeed from its beginning management control
was designed as a process whose end-product was "to ensure the behavioral
coherence of the members of its organization ", the contemporary
interpretation of which is the "alignment of employee conduct to the
strategic choices made by management".
This requirement generates a whole array of procedures and instruments
the end-product of which is obvious: to
ensure the visibility of the measures taken, " to designate the levers of
(these) measures ", " to assess the contribution of each employee to
the execution of global efficiency", " to break down the mechanisms
of economic value added” and to ensure the coherence of " all the elements
" which make it possible for the organization " to constantly aspire towards
the objectives that it is pursuing ". Authors have stressed that
management control constitutes an energizing mechanism for the
organization. It is advisable to
supplement this definition while highlighting how this mechanism depends on its
own internal tension which affects the management control function. This is at the core of a whole array of
injunctions. The injunction of omniscience:
the goal of management control is "to manage the strategic
adaptation of the firm" and enable it to fulfill "the contemporary
requirements of competitiveness ".
The injunction of meticulousness:
management control requires a "thorough and precise knowledge of
the mechanisms of the firm ", a clear and lucid vision of the "levers
and causes of efficiency ". The
injunction of thoroughness: indeed it is essential to display efficiency within
the organization "right through to the slimmest layers of the
structure" "to clarify how each one of them can contribute to the
global objective". In the final
count, it is based on such knowledge that the management auditor must draw up
"an economic model of the firm", a blueprint synthesizing what his
work consists of.
This discourse comes across above all as a denial of the
multidimensional and ambiguous nature of organizations. Here one must question why the terms of the
debate between a technical and engineering approach of organizations defended
by management control on the one hand and partisans of more comprehensive
approaches, sensitive to symbolic plurality, on the other have barely changed
since the emergence of the sociology of organizations. The aim of Merton’s work
on dysfunctions and the non-anticipated effects of rationality, and Blau and Gouldner’s highlighting
of informal regulations was above all to contradict the idea that management
requires a hold over its employees. It
is in the wake of their research that a whole new stream of organizational
analysis has sprung up which is at least in agreement on a protean definition
of organizations. However faced with this accumulation of empirical
observations, the discourse of management control remains above all a
globalizing discourse, admittedly integrating partial elements of this stream
of organizational analysis, but all the while attempting to rescue the unicity of coherence and rationality.
This attempt to make the tenets/precepts of management control absorb
and thus neutralize a discourse highlights a whole set of contradictions. Thus
the fact that an organization is a space of significations and that the members
of the organization can only act in relation to it, leads the precepts of
management control to integrate the concepts of representation and
cognition. But that is tantamount to
maintaining that bound by omniscience, the management auditor/controller must
also show himself to be the "Master of signs ", since he is the one
responsible for "developing/processing the representations which mobilize
those taking part" in the course of everyday operations. Thus the
controller is transformed into a socio-cognitive engineer, subjecting the
organizational symbolic system to necessary rationality. This makes traditional management control
seem like an abstract financial exercise, unconnected to operational concerns
and highlighting the plurality of logics at play. That being so the discourse of calculation
and cost allocation methods, Activity Based Costing (ABC) or Activity Based
Management (ABM), brings us "back to reality". By integrating and indicating the operational
levers that bring about efficiency, it restores the consensus of the people and
the congruity of the tools involved. Is
the efficiency of the organization a subject of discussion for the various
parties involved? The solution lies in a
balance scorecard which synthesizes and outlines the conciliation of the
various logics at work.
The discourse of management control is structured by an original
repression (the fact that an organization is plural and is subjected to
contradictory and therefore conflictual tensions) and
at the same time by continually returning to this repression which is then
treated as meaningless, both present and absent. Management control cannot be based on
anything other than on the realm of organizational order, but at the same time
the very foundation of its existence is that this order is unstable and can be
called into question at any time. Behind
the continual research into an absolute transparency of behavior and an
evaluation of actions a death instinct comes into play which manifests itself
as a negation of reality or more precisely as a paranoiac perspective: it tries to engender the Law, to offer it new
foundations, by giving the organization a utopian horizon born of a desire for
fullness and non-compartmentalization:(after all)does not management control exist
“to supervise partial logics and to promote the processes of integration"?
This submission of the organization to instituted Law can only be based
on a desire for absolute power which is echoed in the terms “control” and
“piloting”, whose redundancy in the discourse of management control is
manifest. Here the discourse
fashions/molds/shapes the affects of the management auditor who is the expert
in the interpretation of a Law which eludes the members of the organization
(since it pertains to efficiency, Value and Competitiveness, true projections
of the organizational imaginary system in an absolute space), it is his job to
submit actions and behavior to this law.
The management auditor is the subject "supposedly in the know"
dear to Lacan and he possesses this knowledge of a Realm other than that of the
everyday space of operations in which the members of the organization exert
themselves.
2.2 The question of Law
By hypostatizing efficiency, the management control function
objectifies/objectivizes an abstract, omnipresent
imaginary system, rendering it possible to make the real subjects disappear or
at least to reify and instrumentalize them in favor
of a fantasy dependence. Added to this
idealization is a mechanism of denial of subjectivity, a counter effect to the
subjective chaos and narcissistic magma. The concrete relationships of power
and authority are replaced by an egalitarian fiction in which members of the
same organization submit to the objectified image of the customer,
competitiveness, excellence and value " In a hypermodern organization,
everything that is irrational is concentrated at the top in the unconscious
transactions of the individual with the organization, thus releasing the field
for relatively free human relationships " (PAGES et al..)The only
acceptable modes of behavior are therefore collaboration, co-operation,
involvement and commitment.
Lay-offs are no longer concrete decisions by people in charge, concerned
for instance in preserving the particular interests of shareholders but the
stringent and impartial application of the Law. «No space of interchange and
symbolization is possible therefore without accounting for the role of absence
and of presence and their interplay which is essential to the smooth running of
the symbolic system of interchanges.
There has to be a present absent present everywhere for these symbolic
interchanges to prevail". So the
management control function is dependant on the construction of imaginary
procedures/rules, auto-referential guarantors of the institution, apparently
born of themselves. But this auto-reference is powerless when it comes to
resolving the question of (the) Other which remains concealed as a symbolic
schema and makes all attempts by management control to replace it doomed to
failure.
In this respect the Enron affair is very revealing. This firm based its initial success on the
fact that it turned down, and continued to do so, a raft of contracts aimed at
minimizing transaction costs. This
auto-representation instituted by the company tallied not only with the
competitive environment of the firm (the brokerage of electricity utilities)
but also with a liberal vision which refused to accept anything in its
relations with its members other than contractual relations. By denying any institutional dimension, in a
context of great flexibility in the organizational framework, the only process
that took into consideration social and psychic bonds was an accounting system
that was «left to itself". It could
be thought that this institutional weakness had a significant role to play in
the demise of the company.
So, as highlighted by Cooper & James (2004) in their case-study of
the Enron affair, their accountants were able to «use the past as a
psychological defense against the future ". Could it have been otherwise?
Thus, the issue of the Other remains the logical condition of
possibility/potentiality of any inter-subjective relationship. On the other hand, it is deployed as a great
absolute Other offering a framework to organizational relationships.
In the fragmented and divided universe of organizational interactions,
management control is therefore an attempt to remedy the shortcomings of the
Other, by regrounding a central referential figure,
based on a libido-impulse-driven system.
But one must query here the limits of such an attempt and the reality of
taking on the original question. Modern
organizations are emerging from the defeat of the Subject (do they not lay
claim to existence and autonomy?) but are in fact held captive in the trap of
auto-reference.
Conclusion to be written later
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[1] Only Russian research at the