article title
Two Faces of Organizational Irony:
Endemic and Pragmatic
Eric Hoyle and Mike Wallace
Abstract
This paper puts forward a perspective on organizational irony framed in terms of two
reciprocal faces, as a contribution to the developing interest in irony as a tool for organizational analysis. Endemic irony explores theoretical approaches implying that irony
Mike Wallace
is a characteristic of all organizations, extended by contingent manifestations in conUniversity of Cardiff, UK
temporary organizations. Pragmatic irony conceptualizes how organization members
engage in ironic strategies and deploy verbal irony as modes of coping – with both
endemic discrepancies between intention and outcome, and contingent contradictions
generated through major change efforts. This perspective is offered as a heuristic for
exploring organizations whose members are inherently confronted by irony. First, those
philosophical, literary and organization theory approaches to irony are reviewed which
relate most closely to organizational irony. Second, the endemic nature of organizational irony is elaborated. Third, distinctive manifestations of irony in contemporary
organizations that extend endemic irony are discussed. Fourth, instances of pragmatic irony in contemporary organizations, conceived as the reciprocal of endemic
irony, are explored. Finally, the value of an ironic perspective as a means of understanding organizations is asserted and suggestions offered for future theory-building
and research.
Eric Hoyle
University of Bristol
Keywords: endemic irony, pragmatic irony, ironic disposition, ambiguity, principled infidelity
‘Irony: The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.’
Julian Barnes (1984) Flaubert’s Parrot
Organization
Studies
29(11): 1427–1447
ISSN 0170–8406
Copyright © 2008
SAGE Publications
(Los Angeles,
London, New Delhi
and Singapore)
www.egosnet.org/os
The use of irony as a trope for understanding organizations has been a relatively
recent development in organizational studies. Inevitably, given the hyperreferential character of the concept of irony, a variety of approaches has been
adopted but, as yet, none has emerged that could be regarded as canonical. The
process continues and the purpose of this paper is to contribute to it by proposing two distinct aspects of organizational irony which can be regarded as reciprocal: endemic and pragmatic. We argue that irony is endemic in social life
generally and hence inherent in the logic of organizations. We further argue that
while organizational members have of necessity to learn to live with irony, there
is an aspect of irony which allows for a degree of agency. We use the term pragmatic irony to refer to the strategies which organizational members use to cope
with the ambiguities and dilemmas that endemic irony engenders.
DOI: 10.1177/0170840607096383
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The paper falls into four sections. The first briefly explores the ubiquity of
irony. The second explores the endemic nature of organizational irony. However,
manifestations of endemic irony are historically contingent and thus the third
section explores some of the distinctive manifestations of irony in contemporary
organizations. In the fourth section, we reverse the medal of irony and explore
some instances of pragmatic irony. In a final section we argue for the value of
an ironic perspective as a means of understanding organizations.
On Irony: Gathering Mist
Muecke (1969: 2) has written: ‘Getting to grips with irony seems to have something in common with gathering the mist, there is plenty to get hold of if we
could.’ Formal definitions are of little help. The first chapter of Enright’s (1986)
study of irony is headed: ‘Definitions?’ He argues that the term defies any simple definition. We too avoid a stipulative definition, preferring to retain a flexibility that allows us to range over different facets of irony and to draw on
different academic traditions.
The philosophical roots of irony go back to Socrates, about whom there are
two major views, summarized by Rorty (1988: 31) as follows:
‘For Plato the life of Socrates did not make sense unless there was something like the idea
of the Good at the end of the dialectical road. For Dewey, the life of Socrates made sense
as a symbol of a life of openness and curiosity.’
It is the latter view which presents us with the ironic Socrates. He was an
ironist in terms of epistemology and also in the matter of pedagogical practice.
Socrates’ epistemology is characterized by ‘[the] renunciation of epistemic certainty’ (Vlastos 1991: 4). His ironic pedagogy consisted of affecting ignorance,
putting questions to his students and using their answers to reveal the shaky
foundations of belief. Epistemic uncertainty is the thread that runs though most
philosophical approaches to irony, notably those of Kierkegaard (1965), who
treated knowledge as a contingent consensus rather than as a fixed body of truth,
and Nietzsche (1968), who treated truth as ‘a mobile army of metaphors’. We
find the term postmodernism too hyper-referential to be analytically useful,
but epistemic uncertainty is a characteristic of some formulations of postmodernism and many theorists would consider irony as a typically postmodern trope.
Irony has been given its most recent extended philosophical treatment in the
work of Richard Rorty (1989), who has postulated the notion of the ‘liberal ironist’. Such a figure accepts that knowledge is relative. What often counts as
knowledge is what reflects the most general and contingent consensus. The liberal ironist accepts the limitations of his or her own knowledge, but respects the
knowledge of others. What counts as knowledge changes through the process of
metaphoric re-description: old metaphors that we seek to understand the world
by are replaced with new metaphors (see Hoyle and Wallace 2007a).
A link between the philosophical and literary treatments of irony is provided
in the work of Schlegel (1991), for whom the world is chaotic and unpredictable
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and for whom truth changes according to circumstance. For him Romantic Irony
constitutes an alternative to the Enlightenment faith in science and rationality.
Schlegel attributes to the imaginative artist the function of incorporating competing perspectives. As Skolberg (2005: 127) puts it:
‘The “romantic” part of the conception expresses the boundless creative potential of
transforming seemingly frozen polarities. This is realized by ironically soaring, in a kind
of weightless non-synthetic dialectic, in the abyss of uncertainty between apparently
irreconcilable opposites.’
The work of key writers on irony in literature, including particularly Burke
(1945), Muecke (1969) and Booth (1974), offers taxonomies which help our
understanding of this elusive notion. One can also mention White’s (1985) taxonomy of tropes and dramatic styles used in the writing of history. But Enright
(1986) warns that while taxonomies are an important means of analysis they
can become stultifying. We have therefore striven to avoid taxonomic overelaboration in the belief that what is thereby lost in precision has the compensation
of sharper focus on the ‘mist’ we are attempting to gather.
However, one important taxonomic distinction widely accepted in literary theories of irony, which we adopt, is the distinction between verbal and situational
irony (see Muecke 1969). We regard verbal irony as including all forms of irony
expressed in speech and in writing. Verbal irony is the form most widely understood and the basis of most formal definitions; Samuel Johnson defined irony as
‘a mode of speech in which the meaning is contrary to the words’. This form of
irony is generally associated with humour. Rightly so, but there is perhaps a tendency to regard verbal irony as always having the intent to amuse when it is
sometimes far from being a joking matter (Hardy and Phillips 1999).
The literary expression of irony ranges from incidental ironies of speech,
through the exploration of ironic situations, to complete novels, plays and poems
as an ironic genre. Examples are Sterne’s Tristran Shandy, Heller’s Catch 22 and
Zinoviev’s depiction of Soviet bureaucracy in The Yawning Heights. A much
more subtle and fundamental deployment of irony in literary works lies in the
compression of multiple meanings in single sentences or passages. Perhaps the
finest exposition of the analysis of multiple meanings in literature is Empson’s
(1930) study of ambiguity, which (as we discuss below) is a close cousin of
irony.
Situational irony in literature ranges from what Thomas Hardy termed ‘life’s
little ironies’ to the deep ironies which are embedded in the logic of a situation.
Verbal irony and situational irony come together in literary works. One example
is contained in a poem by Thomas Hardy called ‘A Workhouse Irony’. A wellmeaning curate persuades the Board of Guardians to allow a long-married couple
to live together in the workhouse – to the great consternation of the husband who
preferred the company of strangers to that of his wife. We can stay with Hardy
for the further distinction of Dramatic Irony, occurring where the audience or
readership is aware of how events will unfold but the dramatis personae are not.
This disjunction between awareness levels is characteristic of Hardy’s novels.
The ironic role of Fate in shaping events is captured in the chilling final sentence
of Tess of the d’Urbervilles: ‘…the President of the Immortals…had ended his
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sport with Tess.’ We mention Dramatic Irony because it has significance for an
important question arising for the study of irony in organizations: whose irony?
Irony that is intended by organizational members, or is unintended by some but
perceived by others, or is perceived only by the observer? For a discussion of the
problematic standpoint of the researcher who adopts the frame of irony, see the
seminal study by Hatch (1997).
Specific reference to irony in organizational studies has, until recently, been
patchy. Most writers have merely made passing reference to irony, while some
have deployed irony in a more systematic manner as a post factum method of
making sense of data. Relatively few organizational researchers have explicitly
adopted an ironic frame, though there are notable exceptions (including Hatch
1997; Johansson and Woodilla 2005).
A valuable taxonomy locating irony in relation to other tropes – metaphor,
metonymy, synecdoche and anomaly – has been developed by Oswick et al.
(2002). They deliberately do not distinguish between irony and paradox, a wise
move which we broadly adopt here. There is little to be gained for our purpose
here from a taxonomic elaboration of such differences as exist between the two
concepts (on paradox, see Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Hatch and Ehrlich 1993;
Metcalfe 2007). We simply suggest that, as with irony, paradox occurs when two
ostensible contraries co-exist and that (as will be discussed) an ironic disposition denotes the capacity to hold contrary positions simultaneously. The second
– and major – point is that the function of irony is very different from that of
metaphor and other tropes. It is ostensibly concerned with difference rather than
similarity. Oswick et al. (2002: 296) write: ‘[Irony] provides a means of collapsing false binary oppositions by revealing common patterns between, and
mutually implicated aspects within, supposedly diametrically opposed
domains’.
That irony assumes a capacity to live with the dissonance of opposites is
our core claim, as noted earlier. This idea is explored in a number of contributions to the collection by Johansson and Woodilla (2005: 25), whose contextualizing chapter captures the essence of irony in a neat set of metaphors:
‘Irony, therefore, relies on paradoxes and ambiguities, which grow like
weeds in the modern project, refusing the analytic trellis of pure reason and
strict logic.’
This characteristic of irony is perhaps a major reason why ironic perspectives
have not emerged sooner in the analysis of organizations – plus the fact that
irony has been widely regarded as irredeemably flippant, nugatory and cynical.
Even in Socrates’ time the eiron was regarded as an unworthy person who would
deliberately mislead and who generally had unworthy motives. Swearingen
(1991) suggested that an appropriate translation would be ‘dissembling
scoundrel’. We are, of course, aware of the downside of irony (see Hutcheon
1994), but here we explicitly adopt an ‘appreciative’ approach. So we would prefer to apply other terms to the more negative aspects: cynicism in terms of perspective, nihilism in terms of action and sarcasm in terms of language. In
particular we would stress the distinction between irony and cynicism. Badham
and McLoughlin (2005/2006) identify writers who focus on what they term the
‘ideology of cynicism’ (including Collinson 1988; Kunda 1992; Rodrigues and
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Collinson 1995). Our approach allows for the possibility that for the actors
involved or implicated, irony may range from benign to malign.
Endemic Irony
Endemic irony in organizations is signified by organizational pathos: the
inevitable discrepancy between formal goals and their achievement. Its parallel
in the inter-organizational change embodied in policy implementation is policy
pathos, the gap between policy-makers’ declared aspirations for a policy and
ensuing practice on the ground. The roots of endemic irony lie in the limits to
rationality, the ambiguities that are generated as a result of these limits, and
the dilemmas which ambiguities generate for individuals and groups in organizations.
Limits to Rationality
Early contributions to management theory were cast in the paradigm of scientific
management. This paradigm was challenged by the findings of the Hawthorne
studies and has subsequently been widely questioned, although the avatar of scientific management is still to be found in management theories – such as business process re-engineering (Hammer and Champy 1993), as its critics soon
pointed out (Greenbaum 1995).
Probably the most significant contribution to the literature challenging the
rationalistic perspective was mounted by March and Simon (1958), particularly
in their chapter on the cognitive limits to rationality. Even the subsequent transformation undergone by most organizations as a result of developments in information technology has not greatly reduced the gap between intention and
outcome, since much information remains open to social construction. March
and Simon briefly discussed the phenomenological limits to scientific rationality, but it was only later that social phenomenology became a major orientation
in understanding organizations. Similarly, subsequent growth in the application
of game theory and rational choice theory to organizations has illuminated the
logical limits to scientific rationality in social and economic systems. March and
Simon’s metaphor of satisficing implies irony since it recognizes the inevitable
shortfall between intention and outcome.
Ambiguity
March has made a further contribution towards identifying the characteristics
that predispose organizations to irony: the ambiguity perspective (March and
Olsen 1976; March 1999; see also McCaskey 1982). Ambiguity implies an
ineradicable degree of uncertainty in meaning. Organizations are characterized
by ambiguities in goals, structures, decision-making processes, technology and
outcomes. These characteristics can be attributed to the emergent properties of
organizations, a perspective that turns conventional management theory on its
head. From this perspective, organizations ‘run backwards’, with solutions
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preceding problems, actions preceding structures, and decisions awaiting
opportunities to be confirmed. March’s telling metaphors of ‘organized anarchy’,
the ‘garbage can’ model of decision-making and ‘the technology of foolishness’
are widely known. They draw attention to the paradoxes of social life that generate irony when overzealous attempts are made to ‘manage them away’.
Change increases ambiguity because organization members must learn how to
carry out altered practices. Since they cannot fully comprehend what it is like to
operate in new ways until they have experienced doing so, ambiguity surrounds
the meaning of the new mode of operation unless or until the change is institutionalized. A degree of emergent change is endemic in the most stable organizational settings, as with periodic turnover of members and the redistribution of
responsibilities. Planned change, including externally initiated policy initiatives,
equally increases ambiguity through the new learning required for implementation (Hoyle and Wallace 2005).
Ambiguity is a property of all organizations. But it is particularly salient in
organizations that have diverse and diffuse goals, typified by public service
organizations in the health, education and welfare fields. While ambiguity may
be an emergent property of organizations, the creation or acceptance of ambiguity can also be a political or managerial strategy. Thus while the latent function of much current UK public service reform legislation is to reduce or
diminish ambiguity at the level of practice – by adopting a regime of performance targets, for example – we suggest that ambiguity is maintained at the
level of policy as a means of achieving control through uncertainty (in this case
about the processes by which those targets are to be achieved).
Dilemmas
There is no particular tradition of theory and research that addresses the issue of
organizational dilemmas, though there are many references to dilemmas
throughout the literature. From the perspective of prescriptive management theory, the issue is one of how best to resolve dilemmas. From an ironic perspective they cannot be solved. The problem is one of living with them. Ogawa
et al. (1999: 279) write:
‘Dilemmas are neither problems to be solved nor issues to be faced. Problems are presumed solvable; issues can be negotiated and are thus resolvable. As we use the term, we
assert that dilemmas reveal deeper, more fundamental dichotomies. They present situations with equally-valued alternatives.’
Examples of organizational dilemmas are those arising out of the tensions
between centralized and decentralized decision-making, formal and informal
structures, discretion and co-ordination, stability and change, external pressures and internal integrity. An orientation towards one pole eventually brings
pressure for action towards the opposite pole. No stable cost-free balance is
achievable between the two poles. Thus decentralization of organizational
decision-making gives more members a voice, favouring their commitment to
decision implementation. But it reduces managerial control over such decisions, for which managers are held personally accountable. Where members
advocate decisions that lie outside the parameters acceptable to managers,
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pressure mounts on the latter to centralize decision-making, so keeping the
range of decision alternatives within manageable bounds. But centralization
denies some organizational members a voice, favouring their overt or covert
resistance to implementation, and creating pressure on managers to decentralize decision-making (see Wallace and Hoyle 2007). There is a parallel
here with Romantic Irony since there is no dialectic ‘synthesis’ that provides
a lasting resolution. It is in the nature of irony that we always live in a nest
of contraries.
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is an outcome of ambiguity and an endemic feature of social institutions (see Brunsson 1989, 2003). The essential irony of hypocrisy lies in the
disjunction between speech and action. Superficially this would appear to
represent the downside of irony but such is not necessarily the case. Brunsson
(2003: 22) writes: ‘The word “hypocrisy” has a negative ring. It is easy to condemn it as both immoral and problematic. But on closer inspection, hypocrisy turns
out to create positive opportunities. It facilitates action in conflict situations.’
Hypocrisy arises where there are conflicting demands to be resolved or where
the legitimacy of the organization is important. There appears to be a tolerance
of the fact that organizations and institutions are suffused with hypocrisy, and an
implicit recognition of the fact that accusations of hypocrisy can easily become
a regressive game of motes and beams. Thompson (2005) has made a useful distinction between personal and institutional hypocrisy, the latter defined as ‘the
disparity between the publicly avowed purposes of an institution and its actual
performance or function’ (which resonates with organizational pathos as outlined above). The hypocrisy of organizational vision and mission statements
generally raises a tolerant smile – how many universities claim to be ‘world
class’ or are allegedly soon to become so? (For a critical review, see Birnbaum
2007.) Its function in relation to the integrity of the organization is recognized.
But there is a tipping point at which ironic response crosses over into cynicism,
the downside.
Unintended consequences
Merton (1957) used the term unanticipated consequences – for our purposes
treated as a synonym for unintended consequences. He drew upon the
Hawthorne studies to illuminate the notion of unintended consequences. These
studies revealed that what appeared initially as the manifest consequences of
such managerial strategies as payment by results and the improvement of working
conditions subsequently turned out to have been the latent function of other –
social – factors. In one sense the Hawthorne studies were themselves ironic: the
researchers discovered what they had not initially been seeking. Unintended
consequences are not invariably unfortunate. In a posthumously published book
on serendipity, Merton and Barber (2004) discussed the history of the word and
examples of happy unanticipated consequences, not least in relation to scientific
discovery. Their approach is consistent with our concern, indicated earlier, to
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include within the compass of irony the possibility that unintended
consequences can be benign.
There is an established literature on the unintended consequences of social
policies (including Sieber 1981; Stone 1997). There are also numerous studies
of the unintended consequences of organizational decision-making. Hoffmann
(2006) writes about the ironic nature of loyalty whereby the most loyal workers
are also those most likely to raise grievances. Hoek (2004) showed how restrictions on tobacco advertising stimulated the development of new marketing initiatives which were harder to regulate. Loosemore (1998) identified three ironies
in the construction industry: the time when effective communication, mutual
sensitivity and collective responsibility were at a premium was the time when
they were least forthcoming. Takeda and Helms (2006) illustrate the tragic irony
of emergency relief operations after the 2004 tsunami being hampered through
having to work within a well-established bureaucracy. And Gillham and Marx
(2000) discuss the ironies that arose in the policing of the protests against the
World Trade Organization in Seattle in 2000.
The unintended consequences of government policies are currently a staple of
political debate in Britain, epitomized by the recent abandoning of the government’s ‘tough target’ regime to improve performance across the public services.
Unintended consequences included perverse side-effects where concentrating on
targets resulted in the neglect of other service areas, and media interpretation of
service failure to meet targets as a failure of the government target regime: the
targets were too tough and proved tough on the government.
Contingent Irony
Fernandez and Huber (2001) suggest that irony flourishes under certain historical
conditions and claim that such conditions currently prevail. We endorse the view
that the prevalence of irony is contingent and argue here that the celebration of market forces, coupled with advances in information technology and increasing globalization, has induced a condition of aggravated irony. In both the public and
private sectors the ‘management of change’ has become a central concern, leading
to developments that have been mapped by Pettigrew and Fenton (2002). Studies
of complex and multiple changes show how the radical increase in ambiguity, for
reasons discussed above, renders such change relatively unmanageable by creating
fertile conditions for irony to flourish (Wallace 2003, 2007). We suggest that additional factors may also partly account for the current prevalence of irony.
Managerialism
There has been a rapid growth in management across both the private and public spheres. This growth has also been marked by the professionalization of management in the form of management education, bodies of managerial knowledge
and the means of their dissemination, credentialism, and the creation of new professional organizations. Expansion of the enterprise of management has led to
the development of managerialism, a major source of irony.
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We define managerialism normatively as ‘management to excess’ (see Grey
1996 for a discussion of Simone Weil’s critique of managerialism). It is impossible to establish a sharp distinction between management and managerialism,
either conceptually or in the analysis of particular cases. Interpretations of what
constitutes managerialism will vary, most obviously between those who manage
and those who are managed. Interpretations will also vary among those in management positions, since one manager’s excess is another’s normal practice.
However, there is an ideology underlying managerialism: not only can everything be managed but everything should be managed. An extension of this
assumption is the mantra that everything that matters can be measured and what
can be measured can be managed. Managerialism can constitute, in March and
Olsen’s (1976) terms, a solution in search of a problem.
Irony arises because management, a problem-solving enterprise, can become
a problem-creating enterprise. It is implicit in the ideology of managerialism that
management skills cannot be allowed to stand idle, since it would represent an
uneconomic use of resources. Thus problems must be found or created. For
example, the UK central government advocacy of a permanent striving for continuous improvement in every public service organization implies that provision
can never be good enough (Wallace and Hoyle 2007). Managers are pressured
perennially to problematize provision, however well it fares on measures of performance and however well it is regarded by local stakeholders. Change has also
created increased opportunities for problem-finding. It has provided a new range
of career opportunities in the fields of risk, quality, welfare, information technology and so forth. These opportunities have led to a proliferation of new job
titles – with the suspicion that sometimes the titles precede the jobs.
Accountability
Accountability is an endemic feature of hierarchical systems and an essential component of management practice. However, we include it as a source of irony because
it has greatly increased in its scope and forms across the private and public sectors.
It characterizes what Power (1997) has termed ‘the audit society’. Private sector
organizations have seen added to their ‘normal’ routines of accountability the need
to meet new regulations and conform to extensive legislation. Ironies arise from the
fact that the activities for which organizations are accountable may be only loosely
related to their core functions and may even be inimical to them. Increasingly
diverse goals arising out of issues concerning safety, rights, the environment, duty
of care and so forth have generated increased accountability.
It is in public sector organizations where accountability has had its most profound impact and has perhaps generated the greatest degree of aggravated irony.
In many public sector organizations, particularly in health care, education,
social work and the penal and justice systems, ironies have arisen as an outcome
of ‘the new public management’ (Hood 1991; Clarke and Newman 1997). The
peer accountability which was central to the idea of – some would say the ideology of – a profession, has been found wanting by politicians of all parties. It
has been replaced by a fraught combination of bureaucratic and market forms
of accountability.
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Endemic ironies arising from the dilemmas cited above – centralization–
decentralization, control–discretion, formal–informal and so forth – have been
given a contingent expression by the accountability movement. Perhaps the
clearest manifestations of irony in the public services have arisen from the
increased use of performance measures to inform user choice in a climate of
competition. The ironic consequences of performance measures, often linked to
targets, have been widely reported in the media and discussed in the academic
literature. One instance will suffice. Propper et al. (2007) discovered that hospitals succeeded in reducing much-scrutinized and publicized waiting times, yet
they did not simultaneously measure the death-rate among patients admitted
who had suffered heart attacks. The researchers found that the death-rate for
these patients had actually increased, suggesting that resources may have been
diverted towards waiting-time reduction efforts. There is now widespread
recognition of the problem and proposals are being advanced for what we
term accountability-without-intensification with, as yet, little sign of any
major change.
Metaphoric change
Shifts in the metaphors of management and leadership, occurring from the early
1980s, induced a degree of ambiguity from which ironies arose. In short, the
metaphors of management and leadership were ‘gentled’. The shift had two
manifestations. One was the ‘cultural turn’ which introduced into the discourse
the hyper-referential term ‘culture’. The other was marked by the shift from static and adaptive concepts of leadership to ‘transformative’ leadership, a term
introduced by the political theorist Burns (1978) and quickly adopted – as
‘transformational leadership’ – by management theorists (e.g. Bass 1998).
Ambiguity arose from the emergent disjunction between the rhetoric of ‘transformation’, ‘vision’, ‘mission’, implying a high degree of agency at the organizational level, and the actuality of practice. The latter continued to be described
through metaphors like ‘targets’ and ‘delivery’, implying tight delimitation of
organization-level agency.
The ambiguity, and hence irony, was especially acute in the public services,
particularly as there has been occurring a convergence between the new
metaphors of leadership and management and the new metaphors of politics
such as ‘reform’, ‘renewal’, ‘delivery’ and ‘modernization’ (Fairclough 2002).
The irony of this shift in metaphors is perhaps best caught by the notion of
‘transformational leadership’. Insofar as this term implies radical change, there
is little scope for such leadership in public service organizations serving social
reproduction rather than social revolution.
Pragmatic Irony
In this section we reverse the medal and conceptualize a reciprocal form of irony
whereby organizational members endeavour to cope with both fundamentally
endemic and contingent irony by developing ironic strategies. We here use the
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term pragmatic in the everyday sense of ‘practicality’, ‘making things work’. We
see pragmatic irony as benign. It fulfils a palliative function and counters the
effects of unrealistic policies and strategies promulgated at the higher institutional
levels. It is ultimately congruent with the official goals of an organization, or with
wider professional goals. Pragmatic irony may therefore be regarded as a positive
rather than a disruptive form of resistance (on forms of resistance, see Ackroyd and
Thompson 1999). It is also a defence mechanism against the potential overload
and stress that unrealistic policies and strategies create. As such it is self-interested
but not necessarily inimical to organizational purposes. Indeed, one could argue
that these ironic practices are ultimately in organizational interests at the deepest
level: they serve both to reduce dissatisfaction and to make policy implementation
work in the contingent circumstances of each organization.
We distinguish between ironic responses and cynical responses, the latter
implying negative, excessively self-interested and disruptive behaviour and verbalization. We concede, however, that in practice it is difficult to distinguish
between self-interest and the interests of the organization and its clientele. Thus
the irony that we have in mind can be regarded as principled infidelity: ‘infidelity’ because the policy procedures are not implemented to the letter but ‘principled’ because the goals of policy are pursued by other means. Principled
infidelity resonates with the concepts of ‘tempered radicals’ (Meyerson 2003),
and ‘evidence-based misbehaviour’ (Pfeffer and Sutton 2006), but it is explicitly
framed as a constructive unfaithful response.
We term the paradigm form of benign irony as mediation. It is through the
processes of adaptation, negotiation, ‘working round’, sensemaking and collusion that goals are achieved that would not have been achieved through a fidelity
model. Organization theory has long acknowledged the vital role of informal
groups and processes in achieving formal goals. This insight applies a fortiori at
the present time. Below we highlight several forms of mediation which exemplify pragmatic irony. At this stage in the development of irony as a tool for organizational analysis they should be regarded as indicative rather as exhaustive,
both within and between categories.
Presentation
We use this term to denote all the forms in which organizations, groups and individuals present their activities as conforming to the expectations of various
stakeholders, while in practice moderating these activities in accordance with
everyday realities of the workplace – as well illustrated in the work of Goffman
(1959). In our use of the term, presentation is an aspect of the institutional theory approach to organizations (March and Olsen 1984, 1989). The work of
Meyer and Rowan (1977) on educational organizations illustrates our point.
They offer an account of how schools present themselves to the public through
such standardized classifications as teacher qualifications, student categories,
student grouping and so forth. Meyer and Rowan note that these categories
‘index’ education but are not understood to be education. They serve to create a
‘logic of confidence’ whereby the public is content that effective teaching and
learning is occurring without direct evidence that such is the case.
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The accountability movement has questioned this ‘logic of confidence’,
leading to a demand for detailed evidence that effective teaching and learning
has been taking place. However, although the intention of new accountability
measures was to mitigate ambiguity, it has just taken on different forms. Many
of the accountability procedures introduced (including assurance of teaching
quality in UK universities and the external inspection of schools) have generated
new forms of ‘presentation’. There is a growing literature on the ways in which
school staff have used Goffmanesque techniques of ‘backstaging’ difficult pupils
(sanctioned absence) and weak teachers (off-site staff development). One paper on
school inspections has the neatly ironic title ‘Please show you’re working’ (Case
et al. 2000).
Performance
This concept denotes a variety of forms of presentation which are analogous to
a theatrical performance. It is well established in organization and management
theory through the dramaturgical approach of Mangham and Overington (1987)
among others. While social life in general may be equated with performance,
what we have in mind is the conscious, deliberate playing of parts.
We contend that increasingly pervasive accountability mechanisms not only
generate aggravated irony. They also call forth presentational coping responses
in the form of ‘performances’, because the apparatus of surveillance frequently
involves set-pieces – meetings, inspections, validations or reviews – and ‘presentations’. There may be much improvisation entailed but ‘productions’ may be
staged with scripts, roles, props and ‘special effects’ – often involving state-ofthe-art information technology. The irony here is that those who are undertaking
accountability procedures are usually aware that they are seeing the performance
and not the everyday ‘reality’, and perhaps function as ‘critics’ and evaluate the
‘performance’. Even though massive resources are currently invested in surveillance in the UK, the labour-intensive nature of direct surveillance would greatly
increase costs. Thus the ‘performance’ stands as proxy for the reality, and it is
implicitly recognized to be so.
Documentation
This has become an increasingly significant form of presentation in both the private and the public sectors, partly as an aspect of marketing and partly as an element in accountability facilitated by reprographic developments. In brochures,
reports, accounts and other organizational data there is an interaction between
message and medium that becomes increasingly important. Assessment of quality through direct observation certainly occurs, but documentation is frequently
taken as a proxy. On occasion it is the compelling quality of the story that the
documents tell which is assessed, rather than the quality of the delivery. Often
the documentation assessed is actually more concerned with management procedures than with the quality of front-line provision of services. Thus there is
scope for what might be termed ‘creative accountability’, by analogy with the
ironic term of ‘creative accounting’. Except that following the scandals of Enron
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Hoyle & Wallace: Two Faces of Organizational Irony
1439
and Worldcom, creative accounting has become more tragic than ironic, underscoring the shadowy line between the benign irony of presentation and the
malign consequences of excess.
Documentation is characterized by hyperbole. Given the gap between report
and reality, some examples of hyperbole might be regarded as shameless. But
the fact that hyperbole is not universally so regarded is presumably because it is
widely recognized as being ironic. This is particularly true of the vision and mission statements that have become de rigeur, as already mentioned. Vision and
mission statements have their place, but their function is more symbolic than
representing some future reality.
Language
We noted above how the discourse of management (managerialism) has become
pervasive. The extensive ridiculing of the language of management has not led
to any modification. (The irony of our copious use of it in this paper has not
escaped us.) Presumably part of the reason for its persistence is that careers are
built on its use. We wonder to what extent this language is employed ironically.
We know of no research which would help us to distinguish between the ironic
and non-ironic use of the language of management. But anecdotal evidence and
a reading of professional workplace studies (Hoyle and Wallace 2005) suggest
that it is a language spoken and written with degrees of irony.
We hypothesize the following three types of user. True believers employ the
language of management in a wholly non-ironic way. The language has probably become so internalized that its shapes the perception and cognition of users
in ways that Lakoff and Johnson (2003) described for metaphor. Strategic ironists are bilingual in that they can slip into and out of management language
according to context, and especially in the pursuit of their interests. Conscious
ironists will be aware of the excesses of the language of management and – to
mix a metaphor – always speak it with tongue in cheek.
Humour
By far the most widely discussed aspect of irony is humour. Since there is an
extensive literature on workplace humour (such as Linstead 1985; Hatch and
Ehrlich 1993; Collinson 1988; Rodrigues and Collinson 1995) and specifically
on ironic humour, we will deal only briefly with the topic.
There is a general view that ironic humour is that of the downtrodden – ‘the
humour of slaves’ according to Milosz – and there is no doubt that it is through
ironic humour that the shop-floor, the lower ranks and the denizens of the cellblock keep up their spirits. This humour is often praised for its spontaneity, but
such humour also occurs at more senior levels of organizations and can be
equally spontaneous (Hatch 1997). The question is whether ironic humour
remains humorous when it is used intentionally and strategically. The indicators
are that – ironically – deliberative humour is not always amusing, at least intentionally. Reporting on a study of humour as a management tool, Warren (2005:
176) writes: ‘I focus my discussion around three ironic themes: Structured fun
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Organization Studies 29(11)
is probably not fun at all; Humour and fun at work is probably no laughing matter; and Structured fun may not be a management tool after all.’
There are many reasons why this finding comes as no great surprise. Irony is
humorous when it is spontaneous and is caught sur le vif. Otherwise it can be
leaden, as reflected in the term ‘heavy irony’, and can thus be counter-productive.
Ironic humour is easily misunderstood because it involves the inversion of meaning. It is very much context-bound humour, readily understood by members of
the speaker’s reference group but sometimes not otherwise. Intentional irony has
its dangers but one can turn to its corollary – unintentional irony – which can
often be the most amusing form to others who perceive it as ironic. We can quote
from Warren’s (2005: 179) account of those management consultants who peddle ‘fun’:
‘Dr Joel Goodman runs the Humor Project offering courses with such titles as “Jest for
success: Making humor work at work”, and “Laughter loves company and companies
love laughter: the funny line and the bottom line intersect”. There even exists an on-line
ISO 9000-style quality standard to help organizations ensure that their workplace is a fun
one, “The Fun Standard” – document number W371WS.’
The Value of an Ironic Perspective
Irony is a trope. Its purpose is to illuminate. While raising practitioners’ awareness
of the workings of irony can inform the way they think about their practice, this
trope yields no prescriptive theory of management. In fact, what little evidence
exists suggests that managerial attempts to deploy ironic strategies are hazardous at
best, since irony has the propensity to backfire. The relationship between organizational theory and management practice is, in any case, highly contested. It would be
ironic indeed to make irony the keystone of a management theory.
Maybe a way forward is for those organizational theorists who are sympathetic to encourage an ironic perspective through their teaching, writing and consultancy. Studies of many kinds, and not just those dealing specifically with
irony, have suggested that the elements of an ironic disposition are to be found
in many organizations. However, it has had a largely samizdat status and thus the
task of the organizational theorist is perhaps one of reassurance. The basic reassurance to be given is that the ironist can live with, and flourish amid, dissonance. It is a reassurance that is necessary in an age that celebrates ‘solutions’
and ‘resolutions’, and yet is pervaded by ineradicable ambiguity.
Many theorists of irony are led to engage with the most fundamental problems
of relativism in relation to truth, rationality and values. These problems raise
intriguing epistemological and ontological questions for both the theorists of
irony and for their critics, as where Rorty is a prominent target in Williams’
(2002) critique of ‘truth deniers’. We do not engage with this issue and remain
agnostic on the question of whether truth exists beyond consciousness. That
question will not be solved or resolved here, or perhaps anywhere: ambiguity
rules. For Rorty, truth is contingent and is whatever achieves the highest degree
of consensus. However, this should not be taken as dismissing the quest for evidence, since evidence has a crucial role to play in constructing consensus.
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Hoyle & Wallace: Two Faces of Organizational Irony
1441
The current press for evidence-based practice sometimes implies the
possibility of undisputed solution. However, evidence deals in probabilities and
tells us about the past – what has already been perceived or has happened. From
an ironic perspective, evidence should always be regarded as provisional and
subject to the peer review of specialists and the public review of ‘those who feel
where the shoe pinches’. Evidence-informed practice is plausible; evidencebased practice is not. Similarly, the slow death of the application of scientific
rationality to management and the recognition of different forms of rationality,
at least since the work of Max Weber, should not inhibit the attempt to
exercise reason.
Haack (1998), a self-described ‘passionate moderate’, refers to relativists as
‘the new cynics’. We would reject the notion that ironists are cynics but would
happily endorse the notion of ironists as sceptics. Scepticism has a respectability beyond the remit of irony: Merton (1957) described science as ‘institutionalized scepticism’. The ironist acknowledges the centrality of values but accepts
the fact that his or her own values are rarely universal and never incontestable.
In this matter, the ironist can follow Berlin (1969) in conceding that ultimately
some values are incommensurable, but that one is not thereby inhibited from
arguing the case for one over the other. Berlin (1969: 170) cites Schumpeter
(1942): ‘To realize the relative validity of one’s conviction and evidence and
argument yet to stand for them unflinchingly, is what distinguishes the civilized
man [sic] from the barbarian.’ Berlin adds: ‘To demand more than this is perhaps
a deep and incurable metaphysical need, and, more dangerous, moral and political immaturity.’
Another cluster of objections to an ironic perspective centres on its potential
threat to transformational leadership, strong organizational cultures and collegiality. Again we believe these reservations to be misplaced. The basic problem is that
the current rhetoric of leadership and management – and politics – emphasizes continuous improvement through large-scale change. However, as we have indicated at
various points, large-scale change can have large-scale ironic consequences. The
focus on radical change, even extending to new organizational forms, can detract
from maximizing the potential to make more modest incremental improvements
within the existing mode of organizational operation.
There are many expressions of the necessary balance between stability and
change in organizations, and the wisest theorists are clear in valuing stability.
March (1999) distinguishes between exploitation (doing familiar things better)
and exploration (undertaking radical change) in organizational strategy, noting
the need for both but warning of the heavy costs of exploration. Most new ideas
don’t work, though the few that do can make a big difference. Yet it is exploration which tends to receive most emphasis. Similarly, transformational leadership receives far greater attention than the allegedly conservative transactional
leadership. Yet ironically, the emphasis on transformational leadership ignores
the point that there is actually little room for transformation, particularly in the
public sector where policies are centrally determined and leadership is required
to be more transmissional than transformational. Our own concept of ‘temperate
leadership’ we believe to be congruent with the ironic disposition (Hoyle and
Wallace 2005).
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1442
Organization Studies 29(11)
Conclusion
We see the ironic disposition as a prophylactic against the excesses of managerialism generated by the policy frenzy of governments and the feverish large-scale
change efforts that are the response of private organizations to competition. This
is an admittedly conservative take on irony which may disappoint those who see
irony to reach beyond coping as the stimulus to active resistance. But moderation,
mediation and modulation may be subtly subversive, working in the interests of
organization members and their clients. The snorkel of sanity might offset the
stress induced by the endemic disjunction between aspiration and fulfilment and
the aggravation of change for change’s sake.
The literature on irony suggests many lines of enquiry for organizational
analysis. One explores how individuals and groups in organizations actually
cope with the ironic task of living with contradictory principles. Sewell and
Barker (2006) report an important study taking irony as a frame for understanding the interplay between two ostensibly opposed principles of surveillance:
coercion and care. They report self-surveillance teams as illustrating the point
that the paradox of the co-existence of the two principles in a system of concertive control entailed an ironic response. They write (2006: 964):
‘…in a situation of paradox, organizational members work to “know” the meaning of surveillance by negotiating the simultaneous “truths” of coercion and care that then informs
value-based judgements about surveillance’s status in the “here and now”.’
Badham (2004) reported a study of ‘the complexities of ironic engagement’
which revealed how three individuals in a company coped in different ways with
the pragmatic uncertainties entailed in the tension between ‘engagement’ and
‘distance’. Clearly, more studies such as these would provide materials on which
theories of organizational irony might build, focusing on ironies generated
through the increased interpenetration of managerial and professional modes
of work. For example, Dent (2003) has studied the professional–managerial
relationships in a hospital under threat, exploring the ironic stance adopted by
medical staff in the face of managerialization (and also hospital closure). Real
and Putnam (2005) reported how a splinter group of pilots opposed to a management settlement used ironic strategies to defend their professional status, in
combination with routine practices of resistance.
The – generally correct – assumption is that professional services are being
managerialized. But we suggest that management is being professionalized, not
in the obvious sense of courses, credentials, journals and professional bodies,
but in terms of an orientation to professional practice fostering an ironic disposition. We have argued elsewhere (Hoyle and Wallace 2007b) that, notwithstanding the traditional and heavily criticized ideology of professionalism
regarding knowledge, ethics and discretion, there is emerging a model of professional knowledge and professional practice whose elements might be congruent with an ironic perspective. This model:
• recognizes the contingency of professional practice;
• is initially sceptical towards research evidence, but may become more
confident in its validity;
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Hoyle & Wallace: Two Faces of Organizational Irony
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• takes a pragmatic approach to problem-solving;
• constructs solutions from a combination of theory, evidence, experience and
common sense;
• is reflective in relation to both successful and unsuccessful practice.
If there is merit in the emergence of a new model of a profession, we believe that
the ongoing reconfiguration of the relationship between managerialism and professionalism might be one of a number of fruitful areas for further investigation.
We contend that in this process our classification of two faces of irony is helpful.
Our exploration of the literature reflecting the growing interest in translating
irony from a diverse literary trope into a tool for serious social scientific enquiry
suggests the risk of an ‘irony-of-intellectual project’. Engaging with irony presents an organizational analyst’s dilemma, with no uncontentious resolution.
Irony is a slippery concept because it is intrinsically concerned with the slipperiness between intent and outcome in action and the slipperiness of meaning in
language.
The dilemma lies in how far to define something that is in its essence elusive.
One pole favours backing off from ‘gathering mist’ to retain the range of usages to
be found in this long-established trope. But doing so risks irony meaning all things
to all analysts, and the irony-of-intellectual project that progressive theorization is
inhibited. The other pole favours stipulative definition to capture the essence of
irony for the purposes of analysis. But doing so risks rigid conceptualization and
the irony-of-intellectual project that significant aspects of the phenomenon get
defined out of analytical focus. In other words, defining the life out of irony – of
all tropes – risks the irony of enhancing scholarly reputations at the expense of the
social scientific potential of this trope. We have lived with the dilemma by attempting just sufficient definition to articulate a perspective that is fit for the purpose of
developing irony as a heuristic device for organizational analysis. But this
approach will not please everyone. That is the nature of irony.
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Eric Hoyle
Eric Hoyle is Emeritus Professor and Senior Fellow in the Graduate School of Education,
University of Bristol. His major interests are in organization theory, the professions, and professional development. He is the author (with Mike Wallace) of Educational Leadership:
Ambiguity, Professionals and Managerialism, of The Politics of School Management and
(with Peter John) Professional Knowledge and Professional Practice.
Address: Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, 35 Berkeley Square,
Bristol BS8 1JA, UK.
Email: [email protected]
Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace is a Professor of Public Management at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff
University. His research interests lie in organizational change and the systemic process of
complex and programmatic change in the public services. He is the editor (with Michael
Fertig and Eugene Schneller) of Managing Change in the Public Services, author (with
Keith Pocklington) of Managing Complex Educational Change, and (with Alison Wray)
of the teaching text Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates.
Address: Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum
Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK.
Email: [email protected]
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