Johannes Rüegg-Stürm
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Rüegg-Stürm
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  • Publication
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/86672
  • 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
    The communicative formation of strategic alliances : Tackling the alliance paradox from a process perspective
    (European Group for Organizational Studies, 2012-07-05)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    Process thinking that privileges time, flux and change over static organization design has recently received increasing attention among organization theorists. In this qualitative singlecase study, we propose that process theory can significantly enhance our knowledge about how to form strategic alliances. A process-based understanding may be helpful in this field because of a growing divide between the necessity to form alliances and their high failure rates. Building on key concepts of Luhmann's social systems theory, we analyze an alliance formation process in the health care sector. Our results indicate that a successful alliance formation process goes hand in hand with respectful communication at eye-level among the prospective alliance partners as well as with an early involvement of key stakeholders. We also show that to increase the odds of a successful alliance formation, prospective partners need the courage to decide under incomplete information and are well advised to include a certain degree of institutional flexibility into their agreements. With these findings, we aim to enrich the literature on alliance formation from a process-theoretical perspective and hope to raise managers' awareness for some of the obstacles they may face when engaging in an alliance formation process.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/91335
  • Publication
    Communicative Dynamic to Reconstruct Paradoxes in Organizations
    (EGOS European Group for Organizational Studies, 2010-07-01)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Schumacher, Thomas
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    The paper explores the question of how paradoxes become reproduced in daily organizing practice. Based on a single longitudinal case study of changing a nursing department, we demonstrate not only historically how a specific paradox emerged, and was unfolded successfully. But more so, and inspired by social systems theory, we use a the concept of communicative dynamic to depict how the paradox was reproduced within the daily organizing in which it is situated locally. In our view, the communicative dynamic provides a promising approach to explore paradoxes within organizations for academics and practitioners alike. It contributes to the understanding of paradoxes as integral to organizational life to pursue both/and approaches and encourages a paradoxical lens on organizational phenomena such as change processes.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/96237
  • Publication
    Recursive Change : Changing change during a hospital merger
    (Academy of Management Conference, 2009-08-10)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    An important challenge for practitioners and students of fundamental change processes is their recursive dimension. The paper explores this dimension based on a longitudinal case study of a hospital merger. It shows that change changes over time due to its internal dynamics and thereby demonstrates the recursive dimension. The conceptual contribution thereof, the recursive model “changing change”, consists of two interlocking cycles: the dynamic interaction between those involved and the interplay between crises and their handling. Recursive change implicates for practice and research to reconsider the question of how to provide stability within a dynamic understanding of change processes.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/75701
  • Publication
    Managing the Catch-22 of Organizational Change Processes - A system theoretical perspective on communicative practices
    ( 2008-06-05)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    The paper explores how complex organizational change processes can be succesfully handled. The fundamental challenge is to unfold the operative paradox which systematically emerges in the contradiction of current and future organizing. The paper is based on a longitudinal, single case study in a Swiss acute hospital over a period of eight years. Taking a system theoretical perspective, we identified six interrelated communicative practices to handle the paradox within the organization. These practices point to "structuring communication" as the relating principle to handle the two opposing poles involved in paradoxes of changing.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/78248
  • Publication
    Changing Change : An empirical study towards a recursive understanding of change processes
    (Academy of Management, 2008-08-08)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    This paper explores the recursivity of change processes. As episodic approaches exclude this dimension and continuous approaches do not explore it in depth, the research question is: how and why does recursivity of change processes unfold? Based on a longitudinal, interpretative single case study of a change process in the nursing departments to integrate two hospitals, we detect four different change theories in use over time. Triggered externally, they emerge from internal challenges within the process. The research first provides the insight that the recursivity of change can be understood as change of the change process itself. Secondly, we explain this dynamic with a recursive model, rooted in social systems theory. It gives rise to reconsider the question of stability in change for future development of continuous change theories as well as for practice to organize change mindfully to neither risk change, nor ongoing daily organizing.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/78012
  • Publication
    "Sub-Cutane" Change: Introducing Fast Track Surgery in the Context of Multiple Discourses
    ( 2007-08-07)
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    ;
    Vonarx, Widar
    Recontruction of the introduction of a new surgical regime for enhanced rehabilitation in the clinic of surgery in which different discourses of the involved professionals (nursing, surgeons, anaesthesiologists, administration) were to be balanced throughout the process.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/80324
  • Publication
    How organizational practices act as a strategy generating principle: an empirical case from a university hospital
    ( 2006-05-08)
    Vonarx, Widar
    ;
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    Investigation into the practices involved when conducting a strategic change project in a Swiss University Hospital to explore the interrelated network of practices to stabelize daily organizing within a complex organization
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/82934
  • Publication
    Strategizing - a passing context of interconnected and ambiguous practices: An empirical case from a university hospital
    ( 2006-07-07)
    Vonarx, Widar
    ;
    Tuckermann, Harald
    ;
    Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes
    Exploring the interrelated practices that lead to the failure of a strategic change initiative in a large university hospital in Switzerland.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/82706