Stacey's "Complex Responsive Processes" meets Wenger's "Communities of Practice"

A few months ago, I came across the work of Etienne Wenger on communities of practice. In a postscript to an earlier post, I suggested that I could see many overlaps between Wenger’s perspective on organizational dynamics and Ralph Stacey’s view of organizations as complex responsive processes.  This was despite Stacey’s own comments to the contrary in the 5th edition of Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics (reviewed here).

Following a brief exchange of comments with Stacey’s colleague, Chris Mowles (see his Reflexive Practice blog), I decided that I would look again at Wenger’s views, as expressed in his book, Communities of Practice.  This ‘scene-setting’ post sets out what I see as the areas of ‘contention’, and why I feel that embracing Wenger’s views increases support for the radical shift in the understanding of organizational dynamics for which Stacey – and Informal Coalitions -  is arguing. In a couple of subsequent posts, I will then explore these points further. In doing so, I hope to explain why I still believe that Wenger has much to say that complements Stacey’s work, and the view of organizational dynamics that is expressed in Informal Coalitions.

In Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics, Stacey identifies what he sees as several points of difference between Etienne Wenger’s description of organizational dynamics and his own. This analysis forms part of his argument about how the radical, complex responsive process-based view of organizations differs from other, more mainstream conceptions. And he sees Wenger’s formulation as being part of the latter.  It’s on this point that I disagree.  Although Wenger doesn’t couch his argument in terms that openly challenge conventional wisdom, I think that he says many things that are much closer to Stacey’s thinking than to the established view.

I see Stacey as one of the most enlightened thinkers on organizational dynamics. And I like to think that my own notion of informal coalitions reflects many of these same themes – although using different language at times and reflecting some differences ‘around the edges’.  At the same time, though, I think that there is merit in embracing – or at least recognizing – other formulations that are broadly supportive of the argument (and/or which challenge conventional thinking along similar lines).  If you like, it’s not necessary for people to agree on everything for them to form a powerful coalition of support for a different way of viewing and acting in organizations.

Somewhat provocatively perhaps, I have earlier drawn some parallels between Stacey’s work and Edward de Bono’s writing on the self-organizing nature of the brain (see here).  My reading of Wenger’s work similarly sees many parallels with the views expressed by Stacey (and with the dynamics of informal coalitions), even though the language is again different and there are a few points which sit less comfortably.  As I said in relation to de Bono, the fact that there are so many parallels provides, for me, a sort of ‘triangulation’ around the central ideas that I am trying to advance.  I would make a similar argument in relation to Wenger’s work.  I see any apparent differences as ‘the grit in the oyster’, stimulating new thoughts and/or causing me to critically review my own views.

As I see it, Stacey argues that the ideas put forward by Wenger differ from his own views on the following counts:

• the latter’s use of system-based language
• his movement away from the micro-level description of daily lived experience to the use of abstract conceptions, such as the “negotiation of meaning”, “participation” and “reification”
• his discussion of these meaning-making acts of participation and reification in non-paradoxical terms
• his notion of design, which implies that someone can ‘step outside of’ the ongoing process of interaction and design the whole.

In later posts, I shall explore each of these points in turn.  In doing so, I hope to show that these two perspectives have more in common than is apparent at first sight.  And, in particular, that Wenger's perspective adds further weight to the challenge to mainstream thinking on organizational dynamics that is advanced by 'the Stacey School' and by Informal Coalitions.