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Cross-Disciplinary Scientific Foundation for Sustainability Chapter j 3 49

making systematic as well as simplified sense of complex phenomena that
often defy understanding by everyday, common-sense means. Theorizing
might also be seen as a means by which people in organizations make their
own and others’ actions intelligible by reflective observations of organizing
processes; through these processes, novel meanings are created and possibil-
ities for action are revealed. Theorizing becomes an act of organizing, first,
when it is a cooperative activity shared in by several or even all of the actors in
an organizational setting, and second, when its purpose is to reveal hidden or
novel possibilities for acting cooperatively. Organizing is cooperative theo-
rizing, and vice versa (see Hummel, 1990, p. 11). In short, the firm is a social
construction and a collective phenomenon.
This discussion of organizing can be seen as the beginning of an under-
standing of changes and innovation in the “firm.”
Intersubjectivity and the Organizational Approach
The actors act and develop knowledge, and in the same time, they create a
moving picture of the firm and the experiential space, which over time,
through interaction processes, becomes the actors’ intersubjective moving
picture of reality (or paradigm). Among the actors moving pictures are created
of a reality that contains specific actions (routines, traditions, procedures,
politics, myths etc.), mental maps of the experiential space, norms, and values
(as symbols). This is related to the actors’ interpretations and expectations of
each other in the organization or firm.
In the social subsystem constituted by a formal organization, the assign-
ment of meanings is not left to the discretion of the members alone. The
organization presents the individual member with a number of anonymous,
functional typifying schemes that will help him orient his behavior toward the
incumbents of other positions, especially hierarchical positions. These types
are furnished to the newcomer in the organizational chart or the nomenclature
of organizational titles. They underlie job descriptions and expose rights and
duties attached to each organizational position, rules of conduct, customs, etc.
By such standardization of the scheme of typifications, the organization
attempts to establish a congruency between the typified scheme used by each
actor as a scheme of orientation and that of his organizational fellowmen as a
scheme of interpretation. This standardization is supposed to promote the
smooth flow of authority relationships required for the efficient functioning of
the organization (see Jehenson, 1978, p. 226; Benson, 1977).
Silverman’s (1983) understanding of action and development can be seen
in relation to the discussion of organizing and the organizational paradigm. His
understanding of the organizational connections is that the path in interactions
and in related meanings is built up over time. This reflects the consequences of
the actions of the different actors and their knowledge. There are institution-
alized expectations of possible actions by othersdthe foundation for social
lifed“the rules of the game.” In the group there is acceptance because the