دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله به سمت تئوری سازی فرآیندهای اجتماعی اسرار سازمانی – Sage 2014

فاش کردن راز: به سوی استدلال نظری فرایندهای اجتماعی رازداری سازمانی

Bringing Secrecy into the Open: Towards a Theorization of the Social Processes of Organizational Secrecy

Abstract

This paper brings into focus the concept of organizational secrecy, defined as the ongoing formal and informal social processes of intentional concealment of information from actors by actors in organizations. It is argued that existing literature on the topic is fragmented and predominantly focused on informational rather than social aspects of secrecy. The paper distinguishes between formal and informal secrecy and theorizes the social processes of these in terms of identity and control. It is proposed that organizational secrecy be added to the analytical repertoire of organization studies.

Introduction

Consider the following phenomena that may occur daily within organizations: the development of plans for new products or strategies which must be concealed from competitors; the protection of personal data relating to customers or employees; a private agreement between two colleagues over lunch as to how to handle a meeting that afternoon; an exchange of confidential gossip in the corridor. All of these, and many other similar examples, relate to some form or other of organizational secrecy, which we will define as the ongoing formal and informal social processes of intentional concealment of information from actors by actors in organizations. In considering secrecy in both a formal and an informal sense, we are invoking a longstanding distinction within organization studies which has been used to understand a wide range of phenomena encompassing organizational structures, hierarchies, groups, leadership and much else. At the most general level, ‘formal’ refers to the official realm of an organization, e.g. its official rules, goals, structures and positions, whereas ‘informal’ refers to the unofficial realm, e.g. social activities, relationships and persons (Diefenbach & Sillince, 2011; Scott, 2008). In a similar way, by ‘formal secrecy’ we mean cases such as trade secrecy which are officially sanctioned and organized through prescriptive rules or laws; by ‘informal secrecy’ we mean examples such as confidential gossip which operate unofficially and are organized through social norms. In considering secrecy in this way, we aspire to explore theoretically how secrecy can fundamentally shape behaviour and interactions in organizations, regulating what is said and not said by whom and to whom. Such regulation not only is a result of and a source of control, but also shapes particular identity constructions, that is, how individuals, groups and organizations define ‘who they are’. In this way, the paper shows how secrecy is relevant for a broad range of important organizational phenomena and concepts, such as change, leadership, politics, communication, trust, networking and gossip. Yet none of these in itself captures the specific issues of intentional concealment and its interrelation with control and identity processes, which may run through them. If we can understand the concealed elements of organizational relationships then it follows that we will have a fuller and deeper picture of organizational life than would otherwise be possible. Indeed, by drawing attention to the social dynamics of secrecy we are able to demonstrate that it involves much more than is typically realized. Extant studies mainly approach organizational secrecy from what we will call an informational perspective, in that they assume that its significance lies primarily in the protection of valuable information1 (e.g. Beamish, 2000; Greve, Palmer, & Pozner, 2010; Hannah, 2005; Katila, Rosenberger, & Eisenhardt, 2008; Louis, Blumenthal, Gluck, & Stoto, 1989; Roberts, 2012). While there are scattered and passing references to the social aspects of secrecy in the organizational literature, especially in ‘classic’ organizational studies texts (e.g. Argyris, 1957; Dalton, 1959; Jackall, 1988; Moore, 1962; Schein, 1985), a systematic analysis of secrecy is still missing. This paper deploys sociological theorizations of secrecy (e.g. Bok, 1989; Goffman, 1959, 1963/1990; Simmel, 1906/1950; Zerubavel, 2006) to theoretically develop in detail the social nature of secrecy in organizations in contrast to the dominant informational focus. In line with these theorizations, we propose that the focus should be on secrecy as a social process rather than simply on secrets and their informational content. Secrecy is constituted through social interactions and, specifically, needs to be understood in terms its conditions and consequences for identity and control. By depicting social process in terms of conditions and consequences we suggest that what is at stake is not a linear cause-and-effect relationship but an ongoing, iterative and dynamic relationship (see Hernes, 2007; Langley & Tsoukas, 2010). For example, members of an informal organizational network may share a secret with each other, and if the members keep that secret then the social bonding within the network is reinforced and further secrets may be shared; secrecy here is both a condition and a consequence of the organizational relationships, such as the creation and cementing of a group identity, over time. Because organizational secrecy potentially encompasses a broad range of phenomena, we narrow what would otherwise be an unmanageable discussion. First, and as already mentioned, we do not take an informational approach, meaning that we are not concerned with the information being concealed, e.g. its value and strategic relevance, or to discuss whether, when or how this concealment should occur. Second, our discussion concentrates on the intra-organizational processes of secrecy rather than its wider, extra-organizational effects. Third, we do not focus on organizations which are themselves secret, i.e. clandestine organizations such as secret political societies or terrorist groups (e.g. Stohl & Stohl, 2011), but, rather, on secrets within non-secret organizations. Finally, and perhaps most contentiously, we do not engage with the highly ethically charged debates to which secrecy often gives rise. There are sound analytical reasons for this. The first and most elaborate sociological theorization of secrecy, that of Georg Simmel (1906/1950), emphasizes the need to approach secrecy not simply from the standpoint of ethics: ‘We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the manifold ethical negativeness of secrecy. Secrecy is a universal sociological form, which, as such, has nothing to do with the moral valuations of its contents’ (Simmel, 1950, p. 463; see also Bok, 1989, p. 14; Birchall, 2011a). This emphatically does not mean that we are uninterested in, or dismissive of, the way that the social process of secrecy may have an ethical dimension for organizational actors. Indeed, it often will: ethically charged issues of loyalty, fidelity, shame, guilt and so on are very likely to structure the experience of organizational secrecy. Our point is, rather, that we do not start from the position that secrecy is either inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. For example, it is desirable that medical staff maintain patient confidentiality, but not that they conceal malpractice. This approach is, indeed, contentious from the point of view of some important discussions of transparency and democratic accountability, especially in public organizations (Garsten & Lindh de Montoya, 2008; Hood & Heald, 2006; Roberts, 2009), which typically start from the normative position that secrecy is undesirable and problematic (for fuller critical discussion, see Birchall, 2011b; Van den Brink, Benschop, & Jansen, 2010). This is clearly one area where considerations of secrecy are important, but our intention is to provide a much more general and overarching analysis of the social processes of secrecy which may be deployed in the analysis of organizations which valorize secrecy as much as those which valorize transparency. Moreover, in what is already a lengthy paper, space precludes doing justice to the transparency debates. Nevertheless, while sidestepping these debates in pursuit of our main focus, our analysis has significant implications for them. For example, as we will suggest, it may be that an organization setting formal standards of disclosure may as an unintentional by-product encourage organizational members to engage in informal practices of concealment. Indeed, this would be an example of how recognizing the distinction of formal and informal secrecy serves to supplement existing understandings of organizations. The paper proceeds as follows. After developing our definition of organizational secrecy, we consider the various ways in which organizational secrecy has been approached within existing literatures. While extant research has predominantly taken an informational approach, we show the significance of social approaches to secrecy, specifically in relation to identity and control. In arguing that treatments of secrecy need to move beyond the informational focus and incorporate the social aspects of secrecy, we introduce the distinction of formal and informal secrecy as an insightful way for doing so. We present these as ‘ideal types’ and outline their dynamic relation within organizational contexts. The discussion theorizes the principal social processes of formal and informal secrecy, namely, those upon identity and control. Finally, we return to the proposal that organizational secrecy be added to the repertoire of organizational studies, and some of the implications of doing so.