Congealing Oil: Inventing Ideologies to Justify Acting Ideologies Out

ABSTRACT Studies of organizations in crisis show how forcefully and universally ideologies affect organizations, and life in general. Under the influence of societal and organizational ideologies, quite normal organizations manufacture crises for themselves, and then escape or succumb, depending on which ideologies dominate. Yet organization theorists have paid little attention to the ideological elements in organizations—apparently because of misguided perceptions that objectively measurable phenomena are more real or more important. Organization theorists have carried out numerous studies of so‐called objective phenomena, and their aggregate finding is that almost nothing correlates strongly and consistently with anything else. This null finding fits the hypothesis that organizational structures and technologies are primarily arbitrary, temporary, and superficial characteristics. These characteristics are determined by complex interactions among ideologies‐ although determined may be an inappropriate description because people acting under the influence of ideologies perceive that they are choosing freely. Ideologies are logically integrated clusters of beliefs, values, rituals, and symbols. The interactions among elements within an ideology enable a change by one element to produce far‐reaching effects. The interactions between ideologies are probably controlled by ceremonies and rituals, and communications between ideologies emphasize stylized or metaphorical language. One can see rituals and language at work when organizations are acting. Organizations can act in either of two modes: a problem‐solving mode in which perceived problems instigate searches for solutions, or an action generating mode in which choices of actions stimulate the creation of problems to justify the actions. Problem solving is abnormal, and action generating normal. In the action‐generating mode, people watch the results of their actions, appraise these results as good or bad, and propose needs for action. Whether needs for action are real is decided by collective voting in which votes are phrased as clichts about causation. These clichts give birth to quasi‐theories that explain why certain actions are needed to solve problems.