Understanding public organisations:collective intentionality as cooperation

Social ontology – particularly its leading concept, collective intentionality –provides helpful insights into public organisations.

The paper sets out the some of the limitations of cultural theories and takes as its example of these the group-grid theory of Douglas and Hood.

It then draws upon Brentano, Husserl and Searle to show the ontological character of public management. Modern public institutions – such as advisory organisations and service delivery agencies, including schools and universities – are expressions of human collective intentionality.

Public institutions are natural structures that emerge from our evolutionary ancestry as cooperative animals and enduringly display all the features of that ancestry.

The central concept within these institutions, as a phenomenology reveals, is cooperation.

Understanding public organisations

- collective intentionality as cooperation

Rober t ShawThe Open Po l y techn i c o f New Zea land

How to expla in inst i tut ions

Psychological theories

Cultural theories

Grid-group

Socia l ontology

Husserl

Searle

Today

W h a t c a l l s f o r a n e x p l a n a t i o n ?

1 P s y c h o l o g i c a l t h e o r i e s

Fo c u s o n t h o s e w i t h i n – r o l e s , p o w e r, i n p u t s - o u t p u t s

2 C u l t u r a l t h e o r i e s

Fo c u s o n i n s t i t u t i o n s – k i n d s , d y n a m i c s ,

r e l a t i o n s h i p s , s t a k e h o l d e r s ,

e v o l u t i o n o f o r g a n i s a t i o n s

3 S o c i a l o n t o l o g y

P h e n o m e n o l o g y

C r e a t i o n o f m e a n i n g

How to explain institutions

A c u l t u r a l t h e o r y

C h r i s t o p h e r H o o d ( O x f o r d )

“Grid/group cultural theory captures much of the variety in current and historical debates about how to organize in government and

public services, because it offers a broad framework for analysis which is capable of incorporating much of what is already known about

organisational variety.

“Application of a cultural-theory framework can illuminate many of the central analytic questions in public management.

E x p l a i n s f a i l u r e s

N e w P u b l i c M a n a g e m e n t ( n e o - l i b e r a l e c o n o m i c s )

F o u r w a y s t o u n d e r s t a n d p u b l i c m a n a g e m e n t :

H i e r a r c h i c a l

I n d i v i d u a l i s t i c

E g a l i t a r i a n

F a t a l i s t

Grid-group theory – its use

Ruth Benedict Patterns of Culture , 1934

Mary Douglas

Socia l anthropology

“A start for this will be to construct (yes, I mean

construct, fabricate, think up, invent) two dimensions. ... I

use ‘grid’ for a dimension of individuation, and ‘group’ for a

dimension of social incorporation”(Douglas, 1982, p. 190).

Grid-group theory – its foundation

People take on ro les or at t i tudes in accordance with

the ir inc l inat ions on the d imensions o f :

Group (bel ie fs about the bonds between people) &

Gr id (bel ie fs about how people take on ro les in

groups) .

Grid-group theory – its foundation

1 . H e g e l

1 8 0 7

“ W a y i n w h i c h k n o w l e d g e a p p e a r s ”

2 . F r a n z B r e n t a n o

1 8 7 4

P s y c h o l o g y f r o m a n E m p i r i c a l S t a n d p o i n t

“Every mental phenomenon is characterised by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental)

in-existence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction upon an

object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity.

“Every mental phenomenon includes something as an object within itself; although they do not all do so in the same way. In

presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired,

and so on.

3 . H u s s e r l

T h e o r y o f n t e n t i o n a l i t y

‘Intentionality’- origins

I n t e n t i o n a l i t y i s a f e a t u r e o f c o n s c i o u s n e s s : “ d i r e c t e d n e s s o f t h o u g h t ”T h i n kF e e lT o u c hH a t eH o p eK n o wU n d e r s t a n d

O r g a n i c a p p r o a c h : I t i s “ p r i m o r d i a l o r i g i n a r i n e s s ” w h i c h p r o v i d e s u sw i t h i n s i g h t s i n t o t h e o n t o l o g i c a l s i t u a t i o n o f t h e a n i m a t e o r g a n i s m .

E g o a n d a l t e r e g o ( w h i c h m a y b e s h a r e d w i t h a n o t h e r h u m a n b e i n g ) T h i s s h a r e d o v e r l a y c o n s t i t u t e s a s a “ m u t u a l t r a n s f e r o f s e n s e ” .

R e c e n t e n q u i r e s t h a t b u i l d o n H u s s e r l :

1 , M e t h o d o f p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l r e d u c t i o n → S h a w ( l o c a l g o v e r n m e n t , d e m o c r a c y, d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g )

2 . C o n c e p t o f i n t e n t i o n a l i t y → S e a r l e ( c o l l e c t i v e i n t e n t i o n a l i t y, c o o p e r a t i o n , i n s t i t u t i o n s )

Husserl

My pro jectThe essence o f loca l government

Be wi thEl iminate categor iesThat which you cannot e l iminate

Phenomenological reduction

A lead concept is collective intentionality

John Searle

The construct ion of socia l real i ty (1995)

Making the socia l world: the structure of

human c iv i l izat ion (2010)

Social ontology

Sear le ’ s method: Based on exper ience / refl ect ion

Organic foundat ion & cont inu i ty

Unifi ed account : One wor ld : factsSoc ie ty, ins t i tu t ions , ind iv iduals , language

I in tend / we in tend

Co-operat ion

Collective intentionality

Institutional facts / background / capacities

X counts as Y in a Context

Collective prior intentions / intentions in action

Human institutions = structures of constitutive rules (typically not conscious)