Organizational forgetting in local governments: a study from rural India

IF 0.9 Q4 MANAGEMENT
Soumyabrato Bagchi, Bhaskar Chakrabarti
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to develop a theory of organizational forgetting in the context of local governments from the paradigmatic lens of existing research orchestrated in management literature. The paper empirically explores how and why local governments forget and discusses the role of local politics in promoting memory loss in organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe authors do an ethnographic study in a Village Panchayat, the lowest tier of the local government in rural India, in West Bengal, a state in eastern India. Data are collected through participant observation and informal interviews.FindingsThe paper argues that the existing framework on modes of organizational forgetting developed in the management literature is not sufficient in understanding the types of knowledge loss that occur in local governments. It shows that as a consequence of “memory decay” and “failure to capture,” local governments involuntary lose past knowledge and critical sources of expertise. The study also acknowledges the role of politics in deliberately endorsing organizational forgetting in local governments to eliminate failure and ethical lapses of elected representatives.Originality/valueBy exploring the phenomenon of organizational forgetting in local governments in the context of grassroots politics, this paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of organizational forgetting in a hitherto understudied area of how, and under what circumstances, public organizations such as local governments undergo forgetting, unlearning or loss of knowledge.
地方政府的组织遗忘:来自印度农村的研究
目的:本文的目的是从管理文献中编排的现有研究的范式视角出发,发展地方政府背景下的组织遗忘理论。本文实证地探讨了地方政府如何以及为什么会忘记,并讨论了地方政治在促进组织记忆丧失中的作用。设计/方法/方法作者在印度东部西孟加拉邦的一个村务委员会(Panchayat)进行了一项民族志研究,村务委员会是印度农村地方政府的最低一级。通过参与观察和非正式访谈收集数据。本文认为,现有的管理文献中关于组织遗忘模式的框架不足以理解发生在地方政府中的知识损失类型。它表明,作为“记忆衰退”和“未能捕捉”的结果,地方政府非自愿地失去了过去的知识和关键的专业知识来源。该研究还承认,政治在故意支持地方政府的组织性遗忘方面发挥了作用,以消除当选代表的失败和道德失误。原创性/价值通过探索基层政治背景下的地方政府组织遗忘现象,本文有助于在一个迄今尚未得到充分研究的领域中对组织遗忘进行讨论,即地方政府等公共组织如何以及在什么情况下经历遗忘、遗忘或知识丧失。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.90
自引率
37.50%
发文量
17
期刊介绍: The Journal of Organizational Ethnography (JOE) has been launched to provide an opportunity for scholars, from all social and management science disciplines, to publish over two issues: -high-quality articles from original ethnographic research that contribute to the current and future development of qualitative intellectual knowledge and understanding of the nature of public and private sector work, organization and management -review articles examining the history and development of the contribution of ethnography to qualitative research in social, organization and management studies -articles examining the intellectual, pedagogical and practical use-value of ethnography in organization and management research, management education and management practice, or which extend, critique or challenge past and current theoretical and empirical knowledge claims within one or more of these areas of interest -articles on ethnographically informed research relating to the concepts of organization and organizing in any other wider social and cultural contexts.
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