28.sept-ideology

What is ideology?

• Ideology is a system of ideas and beliefs about how society or an organization should work. These ideas can shape how people understand what is normal, desirable, legitimate, or possible.

• In management and organization studies, ideology is especially connected to power. Ideas can make particular forms of authority or inequality appear natural or reasonable. The classic definition discussed by Seeck et al. describes ideology as ideas promoted by or for people who have authority in economic organizations, which help explain and justify that authority. The concept also has a strong connection to Marxism and therefore often has a critical purpose: it can be used to uncover hidden power relationships.

• However, ideology does not have one single meaning. Seeck et al. identify seven different ways ideology has been used in management studies.

1.Ideology as domination

• Ideology can make unequal power relationships seem normal.

• Ideology as domination means that ideas can help powerful groups maintain control over less powerful groups.

• The important point is that domination does not always happen through direct force. People can come to accept ideas about how organizations should work, which makes existing power relationships seem normal.

• For example, if an organization presents management's authority as completely natural and necessary, employees may see the existing hierarchy as something that simply makes sense rather than something that could be questioned

• Domination is one of the two roles that have been especially central to the use of ideology in management and organization studies.

2.Ideology as legitimation

• Legitimation means making something appear justified, acceptable, or reasonable.

• Ideology can therefore help explain why people should accept a particular form of authority or organizational arrangement.

• For example, a manager's authority might be presented as legitimate because managers are supposedly more knowledgeable, responsible, or necessary for organizational efficiency. The ideology does not simply say “the manager has power”; it gives a reason why that power should be accepted.

3.Ideology as interpretation

• Ideology can influence the way people see and understand organizational reality.

• Ideology can also shape how people understand and interpret reality.

• People do not simply observe an organization objectively. They understand what happens through their existing beliefs and assumptions. Ideology influences what people notice, how they explain situations, and what they think is possible.

• This connects ideology with concepts such as sensemaking, culture and discourse, which Seeck et al. identify as concepts in management studies that have partly taken over functions previously associated with ideology.

4.Ideology as integration

• Ideology can create shared beliefs and a sense of belonging.

• Ideology does not only divide or control people. It can also bring people together.

• Shared beliefs, values and ideas can create a common identity and help people feel that they belong to the same organization or group.

• For example, an organization may develop a strong idea of what its members stand for. Employees who identify with these ideas may feel connected to one another and to the organization.

5.Ideology as a normative logic

• A normative logic provides ideas about how people should behave.

• It establishes standards for what counts as appropriate, desirable or “good” behaviour.

• For example, an organization might promote the idea that a good employee should always be motivated, flexible, productive and willing to improve themselves. These expectations then influence how employees behave and how they judge themselves.

• This is important because ideology can operate without someone explicitly saying “you must behave this way.” The idea of what a “good employee” should be can become an internal standard.

6.Ideology as an object of critique

• Ideology can be something we analyse in order to question power.

• Here ideology becomes something that researchers question and expose.

• Instead of simply accepting organizational ideas as natural, critical researchers ask:

  • Who benefits from this idea?

  • Whose interests does it serve?

  • What power relationships does it support?

  • What does it make invisible?

  • Could things be organized differently?

• This reflects the critical and subversive potential of ideology. The Marxist history of the concept is important here because ideology can be used to reveal contradictions and challenge existing power structures.

7.Ideology as fantasy structuring social reality

• Here, ideology does not necessarily work because people fully believe the ideas they are presented with. People can actually recognize that an organizational message is unrealistic or contradictory and still behave as if they accept it.

• For example, employees might know that an organization cannot really provide unlimited opportunities for everyone, but the idea that “anyone can succeed if they work hard enough” can still influence how they understand success and failure.

• So ideology can structure reality even when people are partly aware that the ideology is unrealistic.

• People do not have to completely believe an idea for it to influence their behaviour and reality.

Ideology, power and management

• The seven definitions show why ideology is useful in management studies. Ideology helps us look beyond the surface of organizational practices and ask how particular ideas become accepted.

• How does an idea become so normal that people stop questioning it?

• This is important because organizational practices can appear neutral while actually reflecting particular interests or power relationships.

• Seeck et al. also point out that ideology has become connected to concepts such as institutions, legitimacy, innovation, sensemaking, culture and discourse. This means that ideology is sometimes not explicitly named even though the underlying idea is still present.

Ideology and religion

• Both can provide a kind of blueprint for how society should be organized. Ideologies can offer a vision of an ideal society, while religions can offer a vision of an ideal state or world. The lecture therefore presents ideology and religion as “twin sisters.”

Haderer: Ideology through space

• Haderer uses a more specific understanding of ideology than Seeck et al. Her focus is on political ideologies and how they become connected to physical space.

• Her key argument is that political ideologies do not only exist as abstract ideas. They can become physically built into cities, housing and urban environments.

• For example, political projects such as socialism or liberalism can influence how cities are planned and how housing is organized. Space can therefore become a way of expressing and implementing political ideas. The lecture describes Haderer's definition as ideology being both a political belief system and a lived experience.

Space as a canvas and vessel

• A useful way of understanding Haderer is that space can become both:

• Canvas: political ideas are expressed through buildings, housing and urban planning.

• Vessel: those physical spaces then carry and reproduce those ideas in people's everyday lives.

• So ideology becomes something people can actually live through, not just something they think about.

Ideology is not simply imposed from above

• One of the most important points from Haderer is that political elites cannot completely control what happens once a space has been created.

• Governments or political leaders may design places to show certain values, but ordinary people can understand, use, challenge, or change the meaning of these spaces in their own ways.

• This means power is multi-directional.

• People can change the meaning and use of spaces through how they actually live in them.

• Haderer: ideology shapes space, but people also reshape ideology through how they experience and use space.

Seeck vs. Haderer

• Haderer focuses mainly on how political beliefs become part of physical spaces, such as buildings, housing, and cities. She also shows that people can question these ideas and change the way spaces are used.

• Political ideas can shape physical spaces, but people can also challenge these ideas and give spaces new meanings.

• Seeck et al. use a much broader definition. They identify seven different ways ideology has been understood in management and organization studies, including domination, legitimation, interpretation, integration, normative logic, critique and fantasy.

• Ideology can shape power, legitimacy, interpretation, norms and social reality in organizations.

Nadal: Ideology, religion and cows

• Nadal does not explain ideology directly like Haderer or Seeck et al. Instead, she shows how cultural and religious beliefs influence how people think about and treat cows.

• In India, cows have a strong religious and cultural meaning. They are seen as sacred and are sometimes called “go mata,” meaning mother. This gives cows a special place in society.

• Nadal shows that there is a contradiction between these beliefs and how cows are actually treated.

• People may say that cows are sacred and should be protected, but some cows are abandoned or treated as a burden when they can no longer produce milk. Farmers might abandon a cow when it is no longer useful, but claim it again when it becomes valuable.

• This shows that ideology does not always match people's actions. People can believe in protecting cows while also treating them according to their economic value. Different beliefs and interests can exist within the same culture.

The cow and political ideology

• The meaning of the cow also connects religion, culture and political ideology.

• Nadal discusses how the popularity of indigenous cattle breeds has increased alongside the political success of right-wing parties that appeal to national pride.

• This means the cow is not only a religious symbol. It can also become connected to national identity and political projects.

Ideology and the “scientific discursive space”

• Researchers can also repeat ideological ideas through the words and concepts they use. They are not completely separate from the society they study.

• A concept might seem neutral, but it can already contain assumptions about how the world works.

• Berenskoetter argues that researchers often use concepts without thinking deeply about them. They sometimes turn complex ideas into simple things they can measure, without considering where the ideas came from or the different meanings they can have.

Anthropocentrism as ideology

• ideology into multispecies research.

• Anthropocentrism means putting humans at the centre of analysis and treating human experiences, needs or characteristics as the main standard for understanding the world.

• consider how human-centred science can itself function as ideology

Fallacy 1: Humans become the standard

• One problem occurs when researchers use human characteristics as both the tool for measuring something and the thing being measured.

• For example, when researchers define intelligence according to human cognitive abilities and then use those same human abilities to rank animals, humans automatically become the standard against which animals are judged.

• The result can be a hierarchy where animals are considered more or less intelligent according to how closely they resemble humans

• If humans define the standard using themselves, humans will probably end up looking like the standard.

Fallacy 2: Ignoring researcher positionality

• Researchers can also fail to recognize their own position, assumptions and biases.

• The lecture gives the example of early physical anthropology, where researchers claimed to objectively study human races while placing White European men at the top of an evolutionary hierarchy.

• The lecture connects this to the ideal worker norm in management studies: the supposedly “ideal” worker is often imagined as white, male, rational, reasonable, cisnormative and free from care or domestic responsibilities.

• This is important because what looks like a neutral academic concept can actually contain assumptions about what a normal or ideal person is supposed to be.

Fallacy 3: Science and politics become blurred

• Another problem occurs when scientific categories are influenced by political or administrative goals.

• The lecture uses European “green infrastructure” as an example. Nature can be treated mainly as something that provides services for humans, such as cooling cities or preventing flooding. Trees, parks and drainage systems then become “assets” designed around human needs.

• The issue is that nature is being understood primarily according to what it can do for humans, rather than being considered as something with its own complexity and forms of life.

Fallacy 4: Categories of practice vs. categories of analysis

• This is another difficult but important distinction.

• A category of practice is the everyday word or understanding that people themselves use.

• A category of analysis is the concept researchers use to study something.

• The problem happens when researchers simply take an everyday human concept and apply it directly to animals without examining whether the concept actually works analytically.

• For example, researchers might see orcas carrying a dead calf and immediately ask: “Are the orcas experiencing grief?”

• But “grief” is a human category of practice. Researchers need to be careful not to automatically force animal behaviour into a human emotional category.

Summarize Harderer

• Margaret Haderer looks at how political ideas are created and changed through physical spaces. Her main argument is that ideology is not only found in people’s thoughts or in political texts. It can also become part of places like cities, neighbourhoods and housing. This is important because it shows that political ideas can affect people’s everyday lives in very real ways. The way a city or neighbourhood is designed can show ideas about how society should work and how people should live.

• Haderer mainly looks at examples from Vienna and Berlin, where housing and urban planning were connected to different political ideas. Political leaders and planners can use spaces to support certain ideas and create a specific image of how society should look. In this way, physical space can become a way of showing and supporting ideology. The article is therefore relevant because it shows that power does not only work through laws, speeches or political institutions. It can also work through the places where people live and spend their everyday lives.

• Haderer also shows that people are not simply passive. People can use spaces in their own ways and give them meanings that were not originally intended. They can accept, change or challenge the ideas connected to these spaces. This shows that ideology is not fixed. It can change through people’s everyday experiences and actions. Haderer therefore connects ideology with both power and resistance, showing how political ideas can shape spaces, while people can also change how these spaces are understood and used.

Summarize Seeck et al

• Seeck et al. examine how the idea of ideology is used in management and organization studies. They argue that ideology does not have one fixed meaning. Instead, it can be understood in different ways depending on what we want to study. Ideology can shape how people understand their work, how they behave, and how organizations are controlled. It can also make certain ideas about work and society seem normal or natural.

• The authors identify seven roles of ideology: domination, legitimation, interpretation, integration, normative logic, critique, and fantasy. Ideology can support powerful groups by making unequal relationships seem normal or by making their authority seem reasonable. For example, decisions made by managers may be presented as necessary or efficient, even though they also benefit certain people.

• Ideology also affects how employees understand their workplace. It can give people shared beliefs and a sense of belonging, while also creating ideas about what a “good” employee should be like and how people are expected to behave.

• Ideology is present in everyday organizational life, even when there is no obvious political message. It helps us question why certain practices are seen as normal and whose interests they support.