Bridging Activity Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis.docx

1、Bridging Activity Theory and Critical Discourse AnalysisBridging Activity Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis: Four Studies of Finnish Public and Third sector OrganisationsHeli KaatrakoskiAbstractAn extensive structural change currently underway in Finnish welfare society is evident in the change

2、 in the societal division of labour between the public, private and third sectors. This change seems to be guided by the neo-liberalist New Public Management (NPM) doctrine. In workplaces this change is evident in the emergence of new organisational forms and new ways of organising work. From the po

3、int of view of employees, the emergence of new forms of organisations with blurred and mixed boundaries can affect them in many ways: work may become fragmented, less secure and more individual. The pressures to customer orientation, profitability and constant evaluation, among others, create change

4、s in organisations and their activities. NPM typically has a linear view of the world through which it underestimates the balance between productivity, customers and employees. In other words, NPM emphasises the points of view of the organisations (productivity) and its services (customers) while it

5、 undermines the quality of working life (employees). An imbalance is also evident in power relations between organisations, thus affecting employees daily work.My research interest is two-layered. Firstly, I am interested in activities that aim to develop employees own work in a situation of organis

6、ational change. For that, I focus on power relations between agents in intervention sessions. Secondly, I am studying local work activity in the context of a changing broader society mainly being interested in the effects of societal change as materialised in employees speech. I approach these issue

7、s through discourses, word meaning and the movement of meaning. The theoretical framework of my study is cultural historical activity theory, which is based on Karl Marxs materialistic view of historically developed human consciousness. The theory views human activity as object-oriented, mediated by

8、 tools and signs, and social and historical in nature. I have chosen to use Faircloughs critical discourse analysis (CDA) “method” to analyse my discursive data. In his framework, Fairclough divides the analysis into three interlinked levels: the level of text (description, linguistics), the level o

9、f discursive practice (interpretation, micro-sociology) and the level of social practice (explanation, macro-sociology). The main challenge in my study consists of bridging activity theory and the method of critical discourse analysis.The empirical data consist of 61 interviews (about 67 hours) and

10、15 intervention sessions (about 31 hours). In addition, I have complementary data consisting of 62 documents and 156 newspaper and magazine articles. The data were collected from four organisations, representing new organisational forms. The organisations are the Work Training Foundation Tekev (a mu

11、lti-agency organisation), the City of Tampere (internal purchaser-provider split), the Finnish Road Administration (external purchaser-provider split) and the City of Espoo (outsourcing model). Developmental sessions were conducted in Tekev and Tampere.The intervention method used was the Hybrid Lab

12、oratory, inspired by the Finnish intervention method known as the Change Laboratory. The aim of the Tampere intervention was to record the experiences of the purchaser-provider split pilot combined with the process thinking model, and to develop proposals to solve problems. Tekevs preliminary interv

13、ention theme was to develop the organisational culture. Tekev was established by eight public and third-sector organisations and the merger was still in process. During the intervention, the development focused on co-operation with other organisations, future-oriented planning and evaluation.1. Intr

14、oductionIn the late 1980s the neo-liberalist New Public Management (NPM) doctrine and organisational models stressing market logic in public and third-sector activity gradually arrived in Finland, thus initiating changes in the nature of the Finnish welfare society. The trend followed changes that l

15、eaders in several Anglo-Saxon and Western countries had executed some years earlier. Today, the position of NPM seems contradictory: some researchers argue that it is “dead”, but in fact it seems very much alive at least in Finland. NPM ideas are evident in the change in the societal division of lab

16、our between the public, private and third sectors. An ongoing extensive structural change in the Finnish welfare society is one way to describe the current situation.At the organisational level, the change in workplaces can be seen through the emergence of new organisational boundary-crossing (see,

17、e.g., Kerosuo, 2006) forms and new ways of organising work. The reorganisation of work and organisations means that the private and third sectors increasingly assume more responsibility for providing services and production that used to belong to the public sector. What makes for example, the charac

18、ter of the purchaser-provider split interesting is that it changes the traditional hierarchical structure in organisations, relations between agents, steering processes and the whole logic of such activity (Meklin 2006, 22-23).When the public sector transfers production and the provision of services

19、 to other sector agents, administrative tasks such as purchasing and tendering become more central to the work of public sector employees. The nature of the work changes and may become very different from what it used to be. From the employees point of view, the emergence of new forms of organisatio

20、ns with blurred and mixed organisational boundaries may affect them in many ways: activities turn out to be fragmented and the idea of the work may become less secure and more individual. Ones relationship to the organisation may also become insecure with regard to responsibilities and loyalty (see

21、e.g. Grimshaw et al., 2005). Insecurity and risk-taking, in addition to independence, are also characteristic of the self-employed. Kovalainen & sterberg (2000, 80-81) argue that the reorganisation of the public sector pushes its employees to begin working as the self-employed and as subcontractors.

22、 This shift as such is not a negative phenomenon if it is based on ones own choice.Kalliola and Nakari (2006, 35) claim that the NPM doctrine has a rational and linear view of world and it undermines the balance between productivity, customers and employees. In other words the NPM doctrine stresses

23、the point of view of the organisations (productivity) and services (customers) while at the same time as it undermines the quality of working life (employees). In this study, my interest lies in the employees perspective.The reason I became involved in this extremely interesting and demanding resear

24、ch area goes back several years. Since 2003 I have been working in the former Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, now (as of the beginning of 2009) known as CRADLE or the Center for Research on Activity, Development, and Learning at the University of Helsinki. The centre is v

25、ery active in studying and developing the work of various organisations all over Finland. When my supervisor, Professor Yrj Engestrm, introduced a project that he and some of his colleagues planned to carry out, I became very interested in it and in the multidimensional challenge it seemed to offer.

26、 I was lucky to be recruited for the project, and as a result, this study is based on data gathered during the project.The project was called Options of privatization and shared responsibility (Yksityistmisen ja yhteisvastuun ylisektoraaliset vaihtoehdot). It began on 1 November 2004 and lasted unti

27、l 29 February 2008. The aim of the project was to delineate different kinds of hybrid organisations in Finland and to develop an intervention method for such organisations. The organisations chosen for the project were defined as hybrid organisations representing organisations currently experiencing

28、 the societal change underway in Finland. The hybridity in and of organisations was first defined in the project to mean that traditional, generally known and accepted boundaries of organisations are crossed to form new functional entities, or that these organisational boundaries are somehow blurred

29、, mixed or transformed (Pirkkalainen & Kaatrakoski, 2007). Later, the definition of hybridity was refined to take into account the societal division of labour. That is, hybridity came to mean changes in the societal division of labour that are realised inside the organisations or between the organis

30、ations (Pirkkalainen & Kaatrakoski, 2009).Four organisations were chosen for the project. The Finnish Road Administration represented a pure external purchaser-provider split organisation at the state level. The City of Tampere (day care and primary school) was one of the municipal-level organisatio

31、ns representing an internal purchaser-provider split where the production/service production is mainly internal. The other municipal-level organisation, the City of Espoo (elderly care), represented the outsourcing model. In the outsourcing model, the organisation is not divided to purchasers and pr

32、oviders, but part of the production is organised internally and part externally in varied amounts. The fourth case was the multi-agency organisation Tekev which, though formally an independent third-sector organisation, remains strongly governed by other organisations (which purchase services from T

33、ekev, send customers to Tekev or otherwise work in co-operation with Tekev) and retains both business and social dimensions in its activity (Pirkkalainen & Kaatrakoski 2009). Participants (total 61) were interviewed in all four organisations, and developmental interventions (15 sessions) were conducted in Tampere and Tekev. The interv