Page 73 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

50 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

actors do not themselves feel that they can change “the rules,” and at the same
time, stabile group relations give some advantages.
The organizing should be seen in relation to the extent of the actors’
involvement in more or less involvement to keep or to change the rules.
Organizational changes are the actors’ change of the rules or their change of
attitudes toward them. The actors solve problems with developed definitions
and take actions in relation to the dominant views of reality. They act ratio-
nally and logically according to their understanding and interpretation. Ra-
tionality should therefore be understood as a social construction in itself and as
a social product rather than action guiding rules for organizational life. It is a
symbolic product, constructed by actions depending on the actors’ moving
picture of reality and interaction. That is, the structuring of organizational
interactions requires members to rely upon shared but largely tacit background
knowledge that is embodied in an organizational paradigm (Brown, 1978,
p. 374; Garfinkel, 1967). Rationality as well as the definition of “problems,”
“situation,” “leadership,” and so on, are afforded by the dominant moving
picture of reality.
Interaction between actors in a situation allows for many different
interpretations whereby the actors are facing multiple realities. The interaction
between different opinions means that new conceptions may arise. The reality
is seen differently, which produces changes. Brown states that the organiza-
tional change could be seen as an analogy with scientific change (see also
Imershein, 1977):
.most of what goes on in organizations, involves practical as well as formal
knowledge. That is, the relevant knowledge is often a matter of application, such
as how to employ the official procedures and when to invoke the formal
description of those procedures, rather than abstract knowledge of the formal
procedures themselves. Paradigms, in other words, may be understood not only
as formal rules of thought, but also as rhetoric and practices in use.
Brown (1978, p. 373).
Bartunek (1984, p. 355) talks about an organizational paradigm as inter-
pretive schemes (with references to Schutz and Giddens), which describes the
cognitive schemata that map our experience of the world through identifying
both its relevant aspects and how we are to understand them. Interpretive
schemes operate as shared, fundamental (though often implicit) assumptions
about why events happen as they do and how people are to act in different
situations.
The essence of all this is that the meaning people create in their everyday
reality gives the understanding of why people are like they are, which can be
seen in their interaction and intersubjectivity, including their common
interpretations, expectations, and typifications. As long as organizational actors
act as typical members, they tend to take the official system of typification for
granted as well as the accompanying set of recipes that help them define their