Journal of Organizational Change Management

Emerald Article: Discursive manifestations of contradictions in organizational change efforts: A methodological framework Yrj Engestrm, Annalisa Sannino

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To cite this document: Yrj Engestrm, Annalisa Sannino, (2011),"Discursive manifestations of contradictions in organizational change efforts: A methodological framework", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 24 Iss: 3 pp. 368 - 387 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534811111132758 Downloaded on: 04-04-2012 References: This document contains references to 44 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 987 times.

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Discursive manifestations of contradictions in organizational change efforts

A methodological framework
Yrjo Engestrom and Annalisa Sannino
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new methodological framework for the identication and analysis of different types of discursive manifestations of contradictions. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on the dialectical tradition of cultural-historical activity theory. The methodological framework is developed by means of analyzing the entire transcribed corpus of the discourse conducted in a change laboratory intervention consisting of eight sessions and altogether 189,398 words. Findings Four types of discursive manifestations, namely dilemmas, conicts, critical conicts, and double binds, could be effectively identied in the data. Specic linguistic cues were a useful rst level of approaching the different types of manifestations. Critical conicts and double binds were found to be particularly effective lenses on systemic contradictions. Research limitations/implications The paper points to the need for theoretical and conceptual rigor in studies using the notion of contradiction. Further empirical testing of the framework is needed and may lead to more rened or alternative categories. Practical implications Dynamics of different organizational change interventions may be effectively analyzed and compared with the help of the framework. Originality/value The paper presents an original, empirically-tested methodological framework that may be a valuable resource for analyzes of contradictions driving organizational change. Keywords Intervention, Organizational change, Organizational conict, Change management Paper type Research paper

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Journal of Organizational Change Management Vol. 24 No. 3, 2011 pp. 368-387 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0953-4814 DOI 10.1108/09534811111132758

Introduction Contradictions are often mentioned as a signicant factor behind organizational change. However, the meaning of the term contradiction is commonly left vague and ambiguous. Almost any tension or aggravated problem seems to qualify as a contradiction. Similarly, related terms such as paradox, conict, dilemma and double bind tend to be bundled together or used interchangeably in an ad hoc manner. Such ambiguity and looseness of conceptualization are detrimental to research. There is a risk that contradiction becomes another fashionable catchword with little theoretical content and analytical power. A recent study by Osono et al. (2008) is a case in point. It uses the terms contradiction, opposite, paradox, and dichotomy synonymously, without denining or explicating theoretically any of them. It ends up listing no less than ten powerful contradictions that Toyota is embracing as keys to its business success. Most of these ten contradictions are formulated in a way which makes it difcult to see what actually is the core of the contradiction. For example, the rst contradiction is Know where reality

stands to take on impossibly high goals, and the second contradiction is Conduct small interim experiments to realize the occasional big jump. Contradiction generally refers to propositions which assert apparently incompatible or opposite things A and not-A. There is nothing foundationally opposite or incompatible between knowing reality and taking on impossibly high goals, or between conducting small interim experiments and realizing occasional big jumps. To the contrary, common sense tells that to achieve high goals one needs to know the reality. And the interplay between small interim steps and big jumps is the very message of standard theories of punctuated equilibrium in organizational change. In other words, what Osono, Shimizu and Takeuchi call contradictions look more like commonsensical recommendations of taking into account and keeping together different priorities simultaneously. A paper by Smith and Tushman (2005) on managing strategic contradictions may serve as another example. The authors declare that recognizing and embracing contradictions leads to increased success (Smith and Tushman, 2005, p. 527). They explain the emergence of contradictions as follows:
The act of organizing creates distinctions of roles and responsibilities, which must be coordinated and integrated to achieve an overall goal. These distinctions result in contradictions within rms (Smith and Tushman, 2005, p. 526).

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Notable in this explanation, as in many other treatments of organizational contradictions, is its ahistorical character. Contradictions are depicted as a universal consequence of organizing. They seem to have nothing to do with the socioeconomic formation, capitalism, within which the organizations operate. Smith and Tushman use the term inconsistency as an equivalent to contradiction. Their argument is that managers must learn to balance inconsistencies. To do this, managers need to acquire paradoxical frames embracing both/and logic, rather than an either/or logic (Smith and Tushman, 2005, p. 527). Again, contradiction is reduced to the existence of competing priorities, and the recommended way to deal with contradictions is to combine or balance the different priorities. In sum, in current organizational literature and research, contradictions tend to be watered down in three interrelated ways. First, they are not theoretically dened; instead they are equated with a number of other terms, the exact meaning of which is left vague. Second, contradictions are depicted ahistorically, as a universal feature of organizations, without embedding them in the socioeconomic formation of capitalism. Third, contradictions are commonly presented merely as constellations of competing priorities which need to be combined or balanced. In this paper, we develop a systematic conceptual framework that tries at least partly to overcome this unsatisfactory state of affairs. This requires, rst of all, that we dene our own understanding of contradiction. A crucial point is that contradictions cannot be observed directly; they can only be identied through their manifestations. This leads us to characterize four important types of discursive manifestations of contradictions. Taken together, these four kinds of manifestations may be used as a framework to analyze sequences of change efforts in organizations. In sum, we will address the following questions in this paper: how well does our proposed framework of discursive manifestations work in the analysis of data from an organizational change intervention? What kinds of dynamics can be found among the four kinds of discursive manifestations in a longitudinal intervention? How might

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the framework of discursive manifestations serve as a tool for identifying and elaborating organizational contradictions? We will use this framework to analyze data from a change laboratory intervention conducted in 2008-2009 with the managers of the municipal home care for the elderly in the City of Helsinki in Finland. The analysis will proceed in three steps. First, we will analyze rudimentary linguistic cues that potentially express discursive manifestations of contradictions. Second, we will identify and analyze the actual manifestations in our data corpus. Third, we will bring the discursive ndings together with a historical perspective on home care in Helsinki in order to identify and elaborate on organizational contradictions in this system of activity. We will conclude the paper with a discussion of the relevance and limitations of our ndings.

Dialectical contradictions In formal logic, the principle of non-contradiction states that if a given proposition is true then its denial cannot be true. As Wilde (1989, p. 102) points out, dialectical contradictions are different from the contradictions described in the principle of non-contradiction. Dialectics deals with systems in movement through time. The elements of a dialectical contradiction relate to each other within the moving structure, historically. A dialectical contradiction refers to a unity of opposites, opposite forces or tendencies within such a moving system:
I would argue that in analyzes of systems in motion the principle of non-contradiction loses its prominence, in which case a tighter denition of the principle is needed [. . .]. Rather than simply two contradictory propositions cannot both be true, we have to add when referring to any given moment of time and when used in the same sense (Wilde, 1989, p. 104).

At least since Bensons (1977) and Heydebrands (1977) early papers, many if not most of the authors in organizational studies who use the notion of contradiction either explicitly or implicitly refer to dialectical contradictions. If they would stick to the formal-logical understanding, the very idea of embracing contradictions would be uttter nonsense. Thus, uses of the notion of contradiction in organizational literature need to be assessed within a dialectical framework. Our own concept of contradiction stems from Marxist dialectics (Marx, 1990). In Marxist theorizing, dialectics in general and the nature of contradictions in particular have been debated topics both within Soviet Union and in the West (Althusser, 1969; Ilenkov, 1977; Kolakowski, 1971; Luckacs, 1972; Sartre, 1991; for an interesting attempt at a new synthesis, see Jameson (2010). For the purposes of this paper, we focus on a few broadly shared foundational ideas rather than on the differences and disagreements between scholars. From this point of view, the three common misunderstandings of contradiction pointed out in the preceding section may be corrected as follows. First, contradiction is a foundational philosophical concept that should not be equated with paradox, tension, inconsistency, conict, dilemma or double bind. Many of the terms misused as equiavalents of contradiction may better be understood as manifestations of contradictions. In order to be used fruitfully, these terms need to be theoretically dened on their own and set in relation to the concept of contradiction. In this paper, we will do this with the terms dilemma, conict, critical conict, and double bind.

Second, contradictions are historical and must be traced in their real historical development. The primary contradiction of capitalism resides in every commodity, between its use value and (exchange) value:
The formation of the capitalist organism emerges as the process of growing tension between the two poles of the original category. The transformation of the opposites of value and use-value into each other becomes ever more complicated (Ilenkov, 1982, p. 276).

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The primary contradiction generates secondary contradictions specic to the particular conditions of the given activity or institution (Giddens, 1984; on primary and secondary contradictions). Third, developmentally signicant contradictions cannot be effectively dealt with merely by combining and balancing competing priorities. Seeing contradiction as an inconsistency or competition between separate forces or priorities corresponds to the general mechanistic tendency to replace inner systemic contradiction with outer, external oppositions. In organizational literature, empirical work on structural contradictions has tended to focus on contests of logics among segments of the organizational eld (Hargrave and Van de Ven, 2009, p. 123). Focusing on inner contradiction requires that we analyze the concrete historical system within which the contradiction takes shape; dealing only with external contradictions means escaping this crucial theoretical challenge. For analysis of inner contradictions at the level of organizations, we need a theoretical model of the systemic anatomy of organization. In our own work, situated within the dialectical tradition of cultural-historical activity theory (Engestrom et al., 1999; Sannino et al., 2009), we frequently use the theoretical lens of the model of a collective activity system (Engestrom, 1987, p. 78), complemented and extended with models of multiple interconnected activity systems (Engestrom, 2001, pp. 136 and 145). Inner contradictions need to be creatively and often painfully resolved by working out a qualitatively new thirdness, something qualitatively different from a mere combination or compromise between two competing forces. The notion of thirdness stems from Hegel and was coined by Peirce (1998) in his critical discussion of Hegels logic (Prenkert, 2010). In the present context, the idea of thirdness refers to the generation of novel mediating models, concepts and patterns of activity that go beyond and transcend the available opposing forces or options, pushing the system into a new phase of development. As contradictions are historically emergent and systemic phenomena, in empirical studies we have no direct access to them. Contradictions must therefore be approached through their manifestations. We may also treat manifestations as constructions or articulations of contradictions; in other words, contradictions do not speak for themselves, they become recognized when practitioners articulate and construct them in words and actions (Hatch, 1997). However, contradictions cannot be constructed arbitrarily. Their material and historical power is not reducible to situational articulations and subjective experiences. In this paper, we will focus on discursive manifestations of contradictions. In organizational life in general, and in change efforts and interventions in particular, contradictions are to an important extent manifested and constructed in patterns of talk and discursive action with the help of which actors try to make sense of, deal with and transform or resolve their contradictions (Engestrom, 1999; Taylor and Van Every, 2011).

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Discursive manifestations of contradictions In her book on talk in teams, Donellon (1996) interprets her discourse data with the help of a notion of organizational contradictions. Work teams were told to make signicant and simultaneous achievements on dimensions that are typically in tension with one another (Donellon, 1996, p. 216). Typically teams were asked to cut costs, improve quality, and speed up the product development cycle, all at the same time. Such characterization of organizational contradictions seems quite realistic. Unfortunately Donnelons analysis of discourse data and her discussion of contradictions remain disconnected. In other words, the categories she uses in the analysis of talk (identication, interdependence, power differentiation, social distance, conict management tactics, and negotiation process) are neither theoretically nor empirically clearly connected to the conceptualization of contradictions as they emerge in the communications between team members analyzed within the framework of discourse analysis. Hatch (1997) analyzes managers ironically humorous remarks as constructions of contradiction. She point out that ironic remarks taken in context allow us to pinpoint aspects of experience that are constructed as contradictory by those producing or responding to the remark (Hatch, 1997, p. 278). Irony as well as humor in general as indeed interesting as potential manifestations and constructions of contradiction. Hatchs exclusive focus on these forms of talk only is, however, quite restrictive. In order to grasp and exploit contradictions in an organization in a systematic way, more comprehensive methodological frameworks are needed. Fairhurst et al. (2002) analyze the discursive construction of contradictions in interviews with employees who experienced successive downsizings of their organization. Signicantly, the authors point out that the primary contradiction of capitalism is that between prots and people. Secondary contradictions are any opposing ideas, principles, or actions that are made bipolar, negating, or incompatible and that depend on or emerge as a result of primary contradictions (Fairhurst et al., 2002, p. 507). In their data analysis, the authors set out identify secondary contradictions manifested in the talk of the the informants. In other words, they do not look for specic kinds of manifestations of contradictions but for the contradictions themselves. As a result, they identify ve secondary conradictions. These are useful in the interpretation and explanation of events, strategies and reactions that occurred in the specic organization studied by the authors. However, it is questionable to what extent these ve secondary contradictions are useful as resources for further studies in organizational contradictions in other settings. The very idea of identifying contradictions directly in talk seems methodologically problematic. Besides, a rather vague emphasis on bipolar opposites, the authors do not give a convincing account of their criteria for selecting segments of talk that would qualify as contradictions. In this respect, Hatchs study is methodologically more interesting as it uses irony as a theoretically dened criterion for nding constructions of contradictions. As Hatch (1997, p. 277) points out, irony is created and shared when the words spoken by an ironist are intended and/or understood to mean the opposite of what is literally stated. Within the framework of activity theory, Engestrom (2008) analyzed discursive disturbances in the work of a television production team specialized in live broadcasts of professional bowling contests. Disturbances were dened as deviations from the normal scripted course of events in the work process, interpreted as symptoms or manifestations of inner contradictions of the activity system in question. A total of 330 discursive

disturbances were identied in the data. The production team used a variety of ways to deal with the disturbances, but not a single instance of open conict or innovation attempt was found. This led to the assumption that the team was effectively masking or suppressing any signs of conict and any attempts to initiate change in the standard procedures of production. To explore this further, the analysis was focused on four critical disturbances which at least momentarily reveal substantive disagreements, fears, or other strong indications of systemic contradictions (Engestrom, 2008, p. 38). The analysis led to the conclusion that a pressing inner contradiction was developing between the expected higher ratings and revenues (demanded new outcome of the activity) on the one hand and the existing stable instruments and rules of the activity (There is only one way to cover bowling, and what we do is right) on the other hand. In the present paper, we will go beyond the relatively vague notion of disturbance and apply a more systematic and differentiated conceptual framework to identify discursive manifestations of contradictions. In particular, the rather preliminary idea of critical disturbances is here theoretically and empirically sharpened to allow a more rigorous analysis. We will discuss four types of discursive manifestations of contradictions, namely dilemmas, conicts, critical conicts, and double binds. This is not meant to be an exhaustive categorization of manifestations. However, the notions of tension, paradox, opposition, dichotomy, opposite, inconsistency and disturbance seem so general and diffuse that we do not nd them sufciently useful in an attempt to develop a robust framework for empirical analysis. On the other hand, Hatchs notions of humor and irony imply very specic modalities of expression and emotion. It might eventually be feasible to build a complementary analytical framework based on such categories as for example anger, humor, fear, enthusiasm, etc. Such an analytical framework would to a large degree have to build on theories and concepts from literary analysis (Booth, 1975) and possibly also on recent work on emotions in oganizations (Barsade and Gibson, 2007). Dilemmas are traditionally studied in social psychology as means for understanding processes of decision making, moral reasoning, social representations and ideologies. Dilemmas characterize our everyday thinking and conduct. As Billig et al. (1988) point out, dilemmas do not refer to the agonized mental states of the decision-maker who is faced with a difcult choice but to aspects of socially shared beliefs which give rise to the dilemmatic thinking of individuals. Contrary themes of discourse represent the materials through which people can argue and think about their lives (Billig et al., 1988, p. 8). Dilemmas are are ideologically created and products of history; thus, they can hardly be universal (Billig et al., 1988, p. 149). A dilemma is an expression or exchange of incompatible evaluations, either between people or within the discourse of a single person. It is commonly expressed in the form of hedges and hesitations, such as on the one hand[. . .] on the other hand and yes, but. In ongoing discourse, a dilemma is typically reproduced rather than resolved, often with the help of denial or reformulation. Conicts take the form of resistance, disagreement, argument and criticism. As De Dreu and Van de Vliert (1997, p. 1) dene it:
[. . .] conict occurs when an individual or a group feels negatively affcted by another individual or group, for example because of a perceived divergence of interests, or because of anothers incompatible behaviour.

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Another denition states that people are in conict when the actions of one person are interfering, obstructing or in some other way making anothers behaviour less effective (Tjosvold, 1997, p. 24). In verbal conict, participants oppose the utterances, actions, or selves of one another in successive turns at talk (Vuchinich, 1990, p. 118). Common expressions of conict in discourse are no, I disagree, and this is not true (Grimshaw, 1990). In particular, the negation, denial or rejection expressed with a no is a powerful potential indication of a conict (Litowitz, 1997). The resolution of conicts typically happens by means of nding a compromise or submitting to authority or majority. Vuchinich (1990) found ve formats of conict termination, namely submission, dominant third-party intervention, compromise, stand-off, and withdrawal. Critical conicts are situations in which people face inner doubts that paralyze them in front of contradictory motives unsolvable by the subject alone. As Vasilyuk (1988, p. 199) points out, a critical conict is a situation of impossibility or unintelligibility. In social interaction, critical conicts typically involve feelings of being violated or guilty, often silenced (Sannino, 2008). The discursive working out of critical conicts involves personal, emotionally and morally charged accounts that have narrative structure and frequently employ strong metaphors. The resolution of critical conicts takes the form of nding new personal sense and negotiating a new meaning for the intial situation. Such a resolution often takes the shape of personal liberation or emancipation. Double binds (Bateson, 1972; Sluzki and Ransom, 1976) are processes in which actors repeatedly face pressing and equally unacceptable alternatives in their activity system, with seemingly no way out. Such repetitive processes tend to get aggravated, to the point of reaching crises with unpredictable and explosive consequences. In discourse, double binds are typically expressed rst by means of rhetorical questions indicating a cul-de-sac, a pressing need to do something and, at the same time, a perceived impossibility of action. This impossibility is commonly expressed with the help of desperate rhetorical questions of the type What can we do? A double bind is typically a situation which cannot be resolved by an individual alone. Thus, a discursive elaboration of a double bind typically involves an attempt at a transition from the individual I to the collective we, such as we must, we have to, loaded with a sense of urgency. The resolution of a double bind requires practical transformative and collective action that goes beyond words but is often accompanied with expressions such as let us do that, we will make it. Key characteristics of the four kinds of discursive manifestations of contradictions may now be summed up (Table I). The distinction between contradictions, their discursive manifestations, and linguistic cues indicating possible presence of those manifestations has important methodological implications. We may think of the analysis of contradictions in discourse data as similar to the peeling of an onion (Figure 1). The outer layer of the onion consists of rudimentary linguistic cues, that is, simple expressions such as butand no, or somewhat more vague but still relatively straightforward forms like narratives seasoned with metaphors and rhetorical questions. Going through and identifying them may help us to locate potential discursive manifestations. For example, clusters of buts may lead us to dilemmas, and clusters of nos may lead us to conicts. This does not mean that rudimentary linguistic cues correspond mechanically to specic manifestations. Clearly a but can express many other things besides a dilemma, and a rhetorical question is certainly not always a sign of a double bind. In other words, we should expect that a corpus of discourse data contains many more

Manifestation Features Double bind Facing pressing and equally unacceptable alternatives in an activity system: Resolution: practical transformation (going beyond words) Facing contradictory motives in social interaction, feeling violated or guilty Resolution: nding new personal sense and negotiating a new meaning Arguing, criticizing Resolution: nding a compromise, submitting to authority or majority Expression or exchange of incompatible evaluations Resolution: denial, reformulation

Linguistic cues we, us, we must, we have to pressing rhetorical questions, expressions of helplessness let us do that, we will make it Personal, emotional, moral accounts narrative structure, vivid metaphors I now realize that[. . .] no, I disagree, this is not true yes, this I can accept on the one hand[. . .] on the other hand; yes, but I didnt mean that, I actually meant

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Table I. Types of discursive manifestations of contradictions

Rudimentary linguistic cues No Discursive manifestations Conflict

But

Dilemma

Contradictions

Critical conflict

Narrative, metaphor

Double bind

Rhetorical question

Figure 1. Methodological onion for analyzing contraditions in discourse data

rudimentary linguistic cues than actual discursive manifestations of contradictions. Still the relative ease of detecting rudimentary linguistic cues, for example, with the help of an appropriate computer program, makes their analysis a useful preliminary step. Furthermore, a high frequency or heavy concentration of some cues in some parts of the discourse may in itself be an indication of something important that is not fully captured by looking only at the actual manifestations. For example, when the discourse is heavily saturated by nos although not so many of those nos are directly connected explicit conicts, we may ask whether there might be a strong conictual undercurrent which is for some reason largely kept implicit and under surface. This example indicates that the connection between contradictions and rudimentary linguistic cues may not always be mediated by explicit discursive manifestations. In other words, a careful look

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at the linguistic cues may be worthwhile in and for itself, not only as an instrument for the purpose of locating possible manifestations. Intervention and data To demonstrate and examine the potential of this conceptual framework, we will analyze data from an organizational change intervention conducted in 2008 and 2009 with the management group of municipal home care for the elderly in the City of Helsinki. The Helsinki municipal home care employs over 1,700 home care workers, mainly practical nurses and nurses. It supports elderly people who live at home with various kinds of medical problems. The home care managers are struggling to redene their service so as to meet such demanding problems as increasing loneliness and social exclusion, loss of physical mobility, and dementia (Nummijoki and Engestrom, 2009). The challenge is complicated by the fact that the population of Finland is aging very rapidly and it is increasingly difcult to recruit and retain competent home care workers. The vision of home care in the City of Helsinki is to enable the client to lead a good life safely at home despite his/her illnesses and impairment of functional ability. The models that in practice dominate encounters between home care workers and their elderly clients do not t well with this holistic service vision. When the home care worker encounters her or his elderly client, time is spent mainly to help the client in bathing and/or toileting, feeding, giving medications to the client, and informing the client about other possible services. Fullling these tasks usually takes up all the time of the home care worker, leaving no opportunity for her or him to focus on the clients broader needs and risks. The growing problems of loneliness, immobility and dementia are typically left in the shadow of the necessary minimum tasks. In addition, the delivery of home care has been fragmented. Care is delivered into the old persons home by several actors. In addition to the home care worker, there are employees from external services including meals-on-wheels, supermarket home delivery, dry cleaning and housekeeping who come and go to and from the old persons residence. It is the responsibility of the home care worker to coordinate the external services. In practice, there is hardly any communication between the services. For the home care managers, the challenge was to work out a new, future-oriented concept for home care as a whole. This effort was made in 2008-2009 by means of a change laboratory intervention (Engestrom, 2007). The change laboratory is a method for developing work practices by the practitioners in dialogue and debate among themselves, with their management, with their clients, and not the least with the interventionist researchers. It facilitates both intensive, deep transformations and continuous incremental improvement. The idea is to arrange on the shopoor a room or space in which there is a rich set of representational tools available for analysis of disturbances and for constructing new models of the work activity. The change laboratory in Helsinki home care consisted of eight intensive sessions. In these sessions, the top manager, six area managers, two or three expert members of the management group, and a personnel representative went through a cycle of collaborative analysis and design. In addition, a group of four researcher-interventionists participated in the sessions as facilitators. The rst seven sessions took place between April and October 2008. The last session was conducted in March, 2009. In the process, the participants constructed of a new type of document, the service palette, a 40-page overview of the services offered to home care clients. The palette is meant to serve as shared basis

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of negotiations between managers and supervisors, outside service providers, frontline home care workers, and the elderly clients. The change laboratory sessions began with the viewing and dicussion of a series of videotaped interview excerpts and service encounters from the eld. These led to a preliminary attempt to analyze the situation in historical and systemic terms, and to examine critically recent solutions implemented in Sweden and the UK. Starting with the third session, the work was focused on the design of the service palette, rst its general structure, then its substantive contents and textual formulations. In the eighth session, the participants discussed the experiences gained in testing the service palette in practice. The change laboratory sessions were videotaped and the conversations were transcribed by a professional transcriber. The length of the eighth sessions ranged 236 to 116 minutes. From the entire corpus of conversation data contains altogether 189,398 words. The excerpts used in this paper were translated from Finnish to English by the rst author. Linguistic cues for discursive manifestations of contradictions To identify rudimentary linguistic cues in a large corpus of discourse, the cues need to be simple and unambiguous, preferably so that they can be picked up by a computer program, even with the help of the nd function of MS Word. To accomplish this, we limited our search for linguistic cues to a single type of cue for each type of discursive manifestation of contradictions (bearing in mind that the correspondence between the cues and the manifestations is only probabilistic). For dilemmas, we identied the occurrences of the word but (in Finnish, mutta). For conits, we identied the occurrences of the word no (in Finnish, ei); we purposefully excluded all other linguistic forms of the basic negative. These two cues were easy to pick up with the help of the nd function. For critical conicts, we could not determine a rudimentary linquistic cue comparable to but and no. Critical conicts are by their very nature personal, and they are expressed by means of emotionally and morally charged accounts. The common linguistic characteristic of such accounts is their narrative structure accompanied by vivid metaphors. There seems to be no simple way to identify them, so we did it by careful reading of the corpus. For double binds, we identied the occurences of rhetorical questions, that is, questions expressed without expecting an answer. We had instructed the transcriber to pay attention to any kinds of questions in the data and to mark them with a question mark. Thus, we rst picked up all question marks in the corpus, then read the associated utterances carefully to identify rhetorical questions. In terms of simplicity, this procedure was between that used for but and no on the one hand and that used for cues of critical conicts on the other hand. The quantitative results of this step of our analysis are presented in Table II. In the table, the numbers in parentheses represent the average frequency of the given cue per minute in the data. Several initial observations may be made on the basis of Table II. First of all, the but expressions are consistently fairly frequent across the sessions. At the end of the process, the relative frequency of these potential indicators of dilemma is the same as in the rst meeting. This may imply that not only the analysis of the problematic

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situation but also the design of the new artifact, the service palette, was inherently a dilemmatic process saturated with doubts and hesitations. Second, the frequency of negative no expressions is consistently high through the sessions, more than twice the relative frequency of the but expressions. Perhaps, surprisingly, these potential indicators of conict are more prevalent in the last three sessions than in the rst three sessions. This calls for particular attention to the nature of conicts in the next step of the analysis. Third, narrative structures peppered with vivid metaphors are extremely rare in the data. This may indicate that this type of management context, combined with the Finnish cultural heritage of not showing ones emotions, does not favor the explication and elaboration of critical conicts. Finally, the frequency of rhetorical questions is quite high in the rst two sessions but drops radically after that, to practically disappear in the last three sessions. This may indicate a presence of aggravated double binds at the beginning of the process. Conceivably the double binds may have been set aside, perhaps even partially transcended or resolved, in the ensuing design efforts oriented toward the generation of a new pattern of practice. These tentative observations may be solidied or refuted in the next step of the analysis in which we look closely at the actual discursive manifestations of contradictions. Dilemmas and conicts In our analysis of the discursive manifestations of contradictions, we will rst examine their quantitative distribution (Table III). We will then move into the qualitative characteristics of the rst two types of manifestations, namely dilemmas and conicts. A comparison between Tables II and III shows that while dilemmas and conicts are indeed more frequent than critical conicts and double binds, the relationship between manifestations and cues is very different between the rst two and the last two categories. We identied a total of 38 dilemmas and 41 conicts in our data. These numbers represent 3.3 and 1.6 percent of the numbers of bits and nos, respectively. In other words, the linguistic cues are extremely frequent compared to the corresponding manifestations. This relationship changes completely when we move to critical conicts. Every time we identied a cue, we also indentied a critical conict a one-to-one
Narrative and metaphor 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 (0) (0) (0) (0) (0) (0) Rhetorical question 20 (0.09) 18 (0.08) 3 (0.02) 4 (0.02) 2 (0.01) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1 48

Lab session (1) April 9, 2008 (2) April 16, 2008 (3) June 2, 2008 (4) June 5, 2008 (5) August 27, 2008 (6) September 3, 2008 (7) October 1, 2008 (8) March 24, 2009 Total

Length (min) 228 236 190 218 164 116 128 155

But 161 (0.7) 136 (0.5) 170 (0.9) 233 (1.1) 158 (1.0) 93 (0.8) 81 (0.6) 112 (0.7) 1,144

No 409 (1.8) 412 (1.8) 257 (1.3) 432 (2.0) 300 (1.8) 247 (2.1) 280 (2.2) 306 (2.0) 2,643

Table II. Rudimentary linguistic cues potentially indicating discursive manifestations of contradictions

correspondence. In the case of double binds, roughly every second cue (46.8 percent) led also to a discursive manifestation. This difference does not necessarily mean that but and no are poor cues. Dilemmas and conicts are very commonly associated with whole clusters of several buts and nos, so a one-to-one correspondence is not to expected. Such atom-like clustering cues seem all but impossible to nd for critical conicts, and the clustering tendency is weak in rhetorical questions as cues of double binds. Moreover, as we have stated above, high prevalences of buts and nos may also indicate suppressed or implicit dilemmas and conicts which cannot be identied as explicit expressions. The occurrence of dilemmas in our data shows a temporal dynamic not revealed by the buts as linguistic cues. In the rst two sessions, dilemmas were common (nine occurrences in both sessions), then their frequency drops and stays relatively consistent. This indicates that the rst two sessions, devoted to analysis of the situation, were after all the most dilemmatic ones. When the process moved to design, the frequency of dilemmas decreased, although the design process itself remained dilemmatic to the very end. The occurrence of conicts conrms the observation tentatively made on the basis of the cues: this intervention was all through a conictual process. Interestingly, enough, the highest frequency of conicts occurred in the sixth session, when the design process was coming toward its conclusion. The conictual nature of the process did not, however, translate into critical conicts. In other words, the conicts remained almost exclusively relatively impersonal. One of the repeated dilemmas in our data had to do with the tension between the proclaimed services ofcially available on the one hand and the actualy limited or missing capacity to provide those services on the other hand. The following excerpt demonstrates how a dilemma often emerged in an exchange between two or more interlocutors. It also demonstrates the uidity of the line between a dilemma and a conict:
Home care manager 4: On the one hand, we promise, or we aim at, that our physician will see each one of our regular clients once a year. We do promise [. . .] And it is specically for assessment of the clients health situation that the physician goes to visit the home [. . .] Home care manager 8: [. . .] Only 30 percent of the clients are visited. Home care manager 4: Yes, yes, but the goal is still that [. . .] [Session 5].

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Another recurring dilemma was that between the ofcial principle of equally and comprehensively competent home care workforce on the one hand and the realization that many of the home care workers were in fact not competent to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the clients situation on the other hand:
Session 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total Length (inch) 228 236 190 218 164 116 128 155 Dilemmas 9 9 1 4 5 3 3 4 38 Conicts 7 5 1 5 6 9 3 5 41 Critical conicts 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 Double binds 5 9 2 3 2 0 0 1 22

Table III. Distribution of discursive manifestations of contradictions

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Home care manager 6: But I think that here we see what I took up earlier, should it be experts, competent evaluators or planners, who takes them [clients] in into home care. And they think through the whole palette and package, and whatever things starting with a p they need to think about. And then they distribute the work tasks into the frontline teams, to executors, ready and prepared. Researcher: Well [. . .] Home care manager 6: But, well [. . .] Researcher: Yes. Home care manager 6: [. . .] but then we are in [. . .] Researcher: [. . .] Then we are in two levels, steeply. Home care manager 6: The we are in two levels, but is it necessarily [. . .] Researcher: Is it bad or is it necessary? [Session 2].

In this excerpt, home care manager 6 used four times the word but. The excerpt also contains rhetorical questions. Since the rhetorical questions in this case seemed to express hesitation and doubt rather than impossibility and helplessness, we categorized this excerpt as dilemma, not as a double bind. There were three kinds of conicts in our data, namely: (1) those between the standpoint of a home care manager and the perceived standpoint of the researchers; (2) those between the standpoints of two or more home care managers; and (3) those between the standpoint of a home care manager and an the perceived standpoint of authorized text, rule or practice. Here, is an example of the rst kind of conict:
Home care manager 4: But I would like to ask, dont you [the researchers] really see that we do have a service palette? We have rationalized [. . .] these, what Ive been talking about, we have organized as support services the meals and house cleanings and laundry tickets. And all that has been submitted to competitive bidding, all the terms and conditions have been kind of produced for the workers. For me this if anything is a service palette. [. . .] So I am somewhat bothered by the fact that you sort of start from point zero, as if we did not have anything here. This has brought me to the threshold of irritation [Session 1].

The above excerpt exemplies conict as resistance toward the intervention, as defense of the already existing practice. The next excerpt, representing the second kind of conict, shows how conict emerges in the opposite direction, as critique of the status quo. Not accidentally, the critical utterance of home care manager 5 is saturated by no less than ve nots (four of them were expressed in Finnish as no):
Home care manager 3: In my opinion it [the tool for getting the client committed to his or her own care] is the service and care plan, which is also signed by the client. It also lists the agreed-upon tasks. And it is what we try to get the client committed to. Home care manager 8: Yes, it is simple enough. Researcher: Does it work at the moment? Home care manager 3: Well, it is the only thing that works. Researcher: Mmm, yes, your turn, please. Home care manager 5: Well, I disagree a bit. The clients do not know what they sign. We are not able to open up for them what it means what they sign. So I am not quite [. . .] Well, surely some of us can, but not all. We take a paper to the client and tell her that she has to sign it, and she

signs it and we leave it in the folder, and [. . .] In fact they do not know what they have signed [Session 4].

Contradictions in change efforts

The third kind of conict appeared in our data several times as critique or rejection of a text that the home care managers themselves had collectively produced in previous sessions:
Home care manager 3: And then, this according to a physicians order. Well, a physician certainly does not command home care [Session 6].

381

In this case, home care manager 3 was not epressing a direct conict between herself and physicians. She expressed a conict between what she herself with her colleagues had written and what she now saw as a negative implication of the text. Critical conicts and the primary contradiction in home care As pointed out above, we found only two critical conicts in our entire data. Here, is the rst one:
Home care manager 5: Last week I participated in a home visit to a client who is, who lies in bed and receives 80 hours a week personal assistant service, plus another similar number of hours of our services. And his needs are just enormous. Even what he now gets is not nearly sufcient. You know the case. Home care manager 8: Yes, I have also visited his home. Home care manager 5: And the situation has been terribly aggravated for a long time. Negotiations have been conducted for a long time, Ive been involved. And now we were there, the chief physician, and the social worker, and me, and the responsible home care nurse, and the home care supervisor, and we are sitting around his bed, thinking about this clients [. . .] quite concretely, what does he want and what do we have, what do we have to give. And as I am myself competent in the substance [of nursing], having been there in the eld, I have a terrible agony, about having to be a sort of a policeman and gatekeeper: no we cannot, no we cannot, no we cannot, unfortunately this will be terminated, and this [. . .] and this, and this, and this. We cannot provide. I don know. This clients need is completely absurd, what he would want. And I understand it. That is somehow it. And our workers are in panic because they cannot respond to the need. And they have to say no, we cannot all the time, and they feel awfully bad about it. They want me to come and say that no, we cannot, so that they get someone to take the load off their shoulders, that they cannot meet the need. I mean, it is somehow extremely difcult to bring this up, I mean the clients need and our need, and what is actually the object. I at least can ponder, what is our object [Session 2].

Home care manager 5s account was a narrative seasoned with the vivid metaphor of policeman and gatekeeper. It also operated with reported speech, in the form of the repeated No, we cannot. The personal agony stems from the fact that the manager has also nursing competence and understands substantively the medical need of the client, yet as a maneger and gatekeeper she cannot accept the need and offer the services the client would want. Thus, the conict is not between the manager and the client, it is between the manager as nurse and the manager as gatekeeper. The other critical conict in our data (Session 4) had to do with a somewhat similar tension. A home care manager told that she had helped an old lady on the street and mentioned to her the possibility of home care. The old lady responded that she does not have money to pay for such services. The manager recounted that a red lamp was lit in her mind and she took up the possibility of getting services free of charge. But I could not tell her any criteria or anything, or the minimum amount of Euros one may earn to be eligible.

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The two critical conicts are both related to the primary contradiction between use value and exchange value in home care work. The foundational purpose and use value of home care is help. Old people who suffer from illnesses but try to keep living at home need help. On the other hand, municipal home care services cost money and budgets are tight. In other words, the exchange value is measured in negative terms, as costs to be contained and as fees or payments to be collected to cover part of the costs. A home care manager is torn between two opposite but mutually dependent motives: to provide help and to contain costs. This primary contradiction is experienced as personal conict between ones role as a helper and ones role as a bureaucrat. From double binds to secondary contradictions Among the double binds in our data, one core theme stood out above the others. This was the theme of reduction and fragmentation of services to separate minimum chores vs the principle of holistic assessment, care and activation of the client. Eight out of the 22 double binds were directly focused on this. Here, are three examples:
Home care manager 7: Somehow I think we are not taking comprehensive responsibility. It is not clear. I mean, comprehensive responsibility for the situation of the client. Our services have been split into small pieces with all the support services. I am not criticizing them, we wouldnt have managed without putting together those support services. But this has created a new need for us. To satisfy the client and to handle the totality in a manageable way with regard to our resources and the clients needs, who has the responsibility for that? [Session 2]. Home care manager 8: On the one hand, it [fragmentation of services] takes away motivation from our workers, that they dont have a holistic grasp of the patient, the client. And on the other hand, it is not possible for us because we have so little time per client, so that doesnt make it possible for us to activate the client. So we function inefciently in my opinion. I cannot say how wed function better. I cannot say anything but that wed need more time. But how? [Session 2]. Home care manager 9: But in practice, home care culminates in the physiological functions of Maslows hierarchy, hunger, cold, thirst, medications, wiping the ass and toilet functions. Because those are things which cannot necessarily be taken care of by others than trained and experienced personnel, people who can endure all that. So what remains outside Maslows physiological functions is stuff that we easily outsource. Because that can be handled and done by someone else. So our resources go solely into maintaining life, oxygen [. . .] so that oxygen ows and the heart beats. Thats our domain. We restrict our resources into a really small circle. Or is it resources, or is our set of values wrong? Why dont we instead outsource the sick, and then home services would focus on something different? Well, now we have directed ourselves this way, focusing on illness. We do not focus on health and resources but on care of the illness. And this makes home care workers anxious because they would like to provide good care. And what would reward them would be to take the client out. Not so much that the wound is taken care of. That is not so rewarding as enabling the old lady to go out, or enabling her to do something herself. Or allowing her to chat about her own things for half an hour and having the patience to listen. Thats what we all need, that someone listens [Session 2].

Moreover, additional three double binds were focused on the closely related theme of making clients passive vs nding, supporting and activating their own resources. Here, is an example of this theme:
Home care manager 2: We make the people passive there, when we serve them. Im not saying that they are served helpless, but we are not giving them an opportunity during our visit

to do the things they could still do. And from my point of view, this little by little pushes the people a bit too early toward their death. They are not so frail as we imagine [Session 2].

Contradictions in change efforts

There were two other themes represented by two double binds each, namely the need for coordination and overview of services vs the prevalence of low-level tasks of dirty work in the current practice, and the need to get the client committed to her care vs existing tools that exclude the client from joint negotiation. The remaining seven double binds were scattered into seven different themes. The core theme of the double binds indicates that secondary contradictions in current home care stem from an object split into two poles. The home care pole consists of fragmented tasks of routine maintenance of the clients life the physiological lowest level of Maslows hirarchy often referred to by the home care managers. The clients pole consists of the old persons life resources and threats. These translate into simple but foundational needs, such as going out or being listened to, as mentioned for example by home care manager 9 above. These life needs generally do not t into the list of necessary tasks to be peformed by the home care worker. In everyday practice, there is a deep gap and constant struggle between the to poles of the object. This contradiction is indicated with the help of the horizontal lightning-shaped arrow in Figure 2. The two poles of the object are mediated by actions. In the discourse of the home care managers, three distinct spheres of action may be identied. The sphere of execution of standard chores dominates home care work. It tends to marginalize and exclude the two other spheres. The rst one of these marginalized spheres of action is the coordination of services, the handling of the totality in a manageable way in the words of home care manger 7 above. The other one is the activation of clients resources. As home care manager 2 says above, we are not giving them an opportunity during our visit to do the things they could still do. These contradictions between the spheres of action are depicted with the help of vertical lightnings in Figure 2. What gives rise to these contradictions? Cost containment seems to be the prime source, as expressed by the top manager of home care:
Top manager of home care: It is so that we just have to handle it. Surely taxpayers demand that we keep things in order and under control. With the tax money, we do rst what the law requires. [. . .] This is a bit difcult. The content of our work becomes taking care of dirty tasks. And the nicer stuff is given to others who then nd it easier to recruit personnel. So, if we more and more concentrate on the tuning and maintenance of basic vital functions, then we hand over to others those other things [. . .] [Session 2].

383

In this and other double binds, pressures toward outsourcing and privatization were taken up as forces that threaten to fragment and atten the services even further. In her statement, the top manager actually spelled out the historical tendency of the neoliberal
Instruments Object Activation of client's resources Subject: home care worker Home care: Tasks of routine maintenance of life Execution of standard chores Coordination of services Division of labor Community Rules Instruments

Client: Life resources and threats

Subject: Old person

Rules

Community

Division of labor

Figure 2. Secondary contradictions in home care

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new public management that has strongly inuenced the City of Helsinki over the past ten years. In the very last session of the change laboratory, this contested historical perspective was taken up again:
Home care manager 2: Somehow I would expect from ourselves now a discussion. We talk all the time about privatization and buying services. We should somehow now dene our standpoint. I myself have a notorious case, and we have plenty of examples that what we buy from private providers is not purchasing the whole. We must do a part of it all the time ourselves. [. . .] We live as if in a bubble. Our politicians live in a bubble: privatize, privatize, privatize. [. . .] Home care manager 9: The conservative party would attack us if we said that we wont outsource and buy services. They always remind us how much cheaper it is. [. . .] We wouldnt get any broad support if we said that we wont do it, that buying is out of question. Home care manager 2: Certainly we wont get support, but we can discuss and make visible that it does not work this way. And how terribly expensive it actually is. Home care manager 2: Well, it is approximately two to three times more expensive than our own production [Session 8].

384

The contradictions shown in Figure 2 are not natural forces. They are societally produced and can be inuenced by collective human actions. This is indeed what home care manager 2 realized in the above excerpt. Conclusion At the beginning of this paper, we asked three questions: How well does our proposed framework of discursive manifestations work in the analysis of data from an organizational change intervention? What kinds of dynamics can be found among the four kinds of discursive manifestations in a longitudinal intervention? How might the framework of discursive manifestations serve as a tool for identifying and elaborating organizational contradictions? The framework shown in Table I and Figure 1 worked well in the analysis of our corpus. The obvious next step is to conduct comparative analyzes between multiple Change Laboratories or similar organizational change interventions. Especially, the rudimentary linguistic cues, the outermost layer of the methodological onion (Figure 1), may take a quite different shape if a particular social language (Bakhtin, 1982) dominates in an organization. In this article, we have barely started to uncover some of the dynamics of the discursive manifestations in a longitudinal intervention. In our case, the frequencies of dilemmas and double binds were relatively high in the early sessions of the intervention and went down in the later sessions. This implies that the contradictions in this activity system were quite mature, if not aggravated, so that they could be made explicit from the very beginning. The ensuing design work aimed at producing a partial solution in the form of the service palette did not eliminate the contradictions but focused the participants attention to construction rather than analysis. Overall, analyzes of the dynamic movement and evolution of different types of manifestations and their various combinations or strings over time will benet from the use and testing of theoretical models of organizational transformation. Within activity theory, the theory of the stepwise cycle of expansive learning (Engestrom, 1987; Engestrom et al., 2007; Engestrom and Sannino, 2010) is an obvious framework for such analyzes.

We used critical conicts and double binds as windows into systemic contradictions in the activity system under scrutiny. In this case, the two critical conicts shed light on the nature of the primary contradiction. The double binds were decisive for the formulation of our hypothesis about the secondary contradictions (Figure 2). We do not claim that these connections can be found more generally in other similar analyzes. But it will certainly be interesting to explore the possibility further. In organizational change efforts, transitions from dilemmas and conicts to critical conicts and double binds may lead to the articulation and historical specication of the contradictions actors are facing. Of course, a discursive identication of systemic contradictions is in itself only a hypothesis, to be tested and revised in practical transformative actions. Concrete studies on agentic uses and resolution efforts of contradictions in organizational change efforts are sorely needed.
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