A commentary from Louise Fitzgerald: A view from ‘off field’

Citation

(2009), "A commentary from Louise Fitzgerald: A view from ‘off field’", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 23 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jhom.2009.02523bae.003

A commentary from Louise Fitzgerald: A view from ‘off field’

Article Type: Commentaries and rejoinder From: Journal of Health, Organization and Management, Volume 23, Issue 2

Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 22 No. 5, 2008, pp. 525-59

In agreeing to respond to the invitation to comment on this article, I pointed out my particular position-first, as an observer, a female, social scientist, who has worked in the field of health care research for over 25 years and second, as an active empirical researcher who has sought to reflect on what they have found and on their inductive analysis. But unusually, I can lay no claim to expertise in the literature upon which this article is partially based, namely the literature of ethology and field biology.

My commentary is presented under three main headings.

Focus

The focus of this paper is to apprehend human behaviour through the relational lens of animal studies. More specifically the author states: ldquo;The theory proposed here is that male managerial display routines can be seen as alternative but keenly analogous forms to those which occur in other species which inhabit natural as opposed to built environments.rdquo; Is this an interesting focus, and a useful endeavour? My own view is positive, I agree with the broad thrust of the endeavour, (if not always with the analysis). I think, like the author, that specialization creates deep shafts. In order to attempt to innovate and think ldquo;outside the boxrdquo, we may well need to draw on comparative study across species and across time.

Methods adopted

In reviewing the method, I concur with the author’s stance that work in organizational behaviour lacks an ethological perspective in its portrayal of managerial behaviour and that there are generally, too few emic accounts, with the result that organizational research may be imbalanced. Certainly organizational research is still in its infancy and there must therefore be many novel opportunities for research.

At a more detailed level, I have considerable sympathy with the concept of attempting to synthesise across a range of empirical studies-indeed with colleagues, I have attempted to achieve this end. But it certainly does present problems, not the least of which is that there is, as stated in the conclusions, little guidance for the researcher who attempts this endeavour. So I think it would have been helpful to set out in greater detail this novel process for scrutiny (for example, in Dopson and Fitzgerald (2005), we set out our attempt at synthesis). Aspects of Figure 1 around the iterative nature of data assembly and meaning derivation and the impact of a sole researcher’s mindset are worthy of longer debate than is possible here.

Six discrete studies form the base of this article. But the author does not provide sufficient data in this article for a robust interpretation of the data. For example, we do not have even minimal data on the positions; seniority or numbers of the managers observed and interviewed. This is critical to our understanding of the data presented on task allocation and talk and interaction. My second concern is with the issue of conflating observational and interview data, since I am doubtful this is easy to do.

Comments on data and the analysis

My “habitat” may differ from the one described here. In the UK, whilst many senior clinicians are male, general management is populated by many women managers as well as male managers. So the “alpha male” habitat is now leavened by the presence of women.

In reading the data, there were many points at which I recognised and concurred with the descriptions of male behaviour from my own observations and experiences. The sections on conformity in appearance and task allocation were particularly apt. But at many points, I thought that, in my experience, both male and female managers behave in this way. Perhaps, the explanation for this behaviour is that it is historically based, and involves “copying” from previously male dominated organizations.

The “tete a tete” huddles also appeared to me to be crucially important. I thought that what was omitted from this analysis was the extent to which some of these “informal” activities are male forums. The question is who is missing?

So crucially, does the ethological framework offer a coherent explanation for the behaviour observed in organizations. I would argue only partially-if both males and females display a substantial proportion of these “male” dominance behaviours in organizations, where does that leave the explanatory framework based on animal behaviour? A second important flaw appears in the section on benefits and outcomes. I was uncertain if organizational rewards can be said to flow solely from the “lekking” behaviour. But it is apparent that poor lekking does not lead to injury or death as in the jungle, indeed as the author states, poor performance rarely leads to dismissal.

In conclusion, this article was thought provoking. Whilst I did not find the lekking analogy completely convincing, this research draws attention to unexplained aspects of managerial behaviour. Many of the observed behaviours are not based on the needs of the tasks, indeed several, such as the lack of debate over options for action and ways of achieving objectives are counter-productive.

Louise FitzgeraldDe Montfort University, Leicester, UK and Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK