Essai: on paragrammatic uses of organizational theory — a provocation

Organization Studies, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Yiannis Gabriel

Thus, different consumers make different uses of theories, and, in particular, organizational theories. A student may use a theory to fashion an essay which ensures success in his course; a researcher may use another theory to develop a questionnaire or a plan for field research; an academic may use it as a stalking horse against which her own theory can be pitched. A consultant may use it to impress a client. A client may use it to impress her superiors or to dazzle her peers. In all these instances, a theory may be used in a way which bears the hallmark of the user's appropriation. For academics, I would venture to suggest that the three commonest uses to which theories are put are critique, source of authority and source of ideas. Given the time pressures under which most academics work, it is likely that many spend more time writing than reading -- hence, they 'use' theories not in 'reading' them, reproducing or criticising them, but rather in cutting and trimming them to fit selective parts into their wr iting practices. Managers, too, may, and often do, use theories in ways particular to their own preoccupations, but, in a similar manner, they incorporate them into their own creative bricolage, using them to achieve diverse ends in more or less effective ways.

There may be those who do not view managers as the agents of 'rationalized, expansionist, centralist, spectacular and clamorous production', because their thinking is essentially strategic, and hence ill-suited to clandestine, opportunistic tactics of consumption. There may also be objections to De Certeau's strictures being taken as applying to the underdog, rather than the top dog, the position of management. De Certeau maintains, after all, that consumers use creative tactics to evade the power of business and capital, to reclaim spaces, discourses and meanings from management. For the past hundred years or more, management (and not only in the catering industry) has been seen as desperately trying to 'stop cooks from messing up the recipes' -- whether 'cooks' are recalcitrant workers, temperamental employees or unpredictable customers.

Yet, I would contend that what may be true of management is not necessarily true of managers. Managers may harbour the illusion of being in control, but such control is, at best, precarious, fragile and iconic. Organizations have unmanaged spaces which managers themselves help to create and maintain (de Certeau 1984; Watson 1994; Gabriel 1995; Gabriel and Lang 1995). Within these unmanaged spaces, the practices of every-day life are tactical, not strategic. As de Certeau (1984: 35-37) recognizes, 'strategy is the calculation of power relationships that becomes possible as soon as a subject with a will to power (an army, a business, etc.) can be isolated. It postulates a place from which targets and threats can be managed.' By contrast, a tactic is 'a calculated action determined by the absence of proper locus. ... It is a manoeuvre "within the enemy's field of vision", as von Bulow put it, "and within enemy territory". It does not, therefore, have the options of planning general strategy and viewing the adver sary as a whole within a distinct, visible, and objectifiable space. It operates in the form of isolated actions, blow by blow. It takes advantage of "opportunities" and depends on them, being without any base to stockpile its winnings, to build up its own position, and to plan raids. What it wins it cannot keep. ... It must vigilantly make use of the cracks that particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of proprietary powers. It poaches in them. It creates surprises in them. It can be where it is least expected. It is a guileful ruse. In short, a tactic is an art of the weak. (de Certeau 1984: 37)