Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

should be the motto for spontaneously and randomly interactions for which reliance
upon people and reliance upon the quality of emerging organizational renewal are
conditional.
Self-organization
These many networks and connections should not be idealized as if working together
will be the solution for excluding differences or conflicts between two or more people.
Neither I nor the others involved were working together in a network through which
the truth about our situation was unveiled. I and others were involved in a social
construction of truth (Gergen, 1999) in which in different networks of people and
through different connections an agreement was reached about the profile and value
targets for our UAS.
Strictly speaking I could say that the performance agreements only were a product of
a coalition of powerful managers and these performance agreements express that
these managers, with the support of some advisers, are “... supposed to know what is
happening through environmental scanning and internal resource analysis, on the
basis on which they are supposed to choose the best outcomes for their organization
and design the systems, including learning systems, which will enable them to be in
control of the strategic direction of their organizations ‘going forward’ so that improvement
and success are secured.” (Stacey, 2012b: 41). Given the nuisance these powerful
managers felt because the performance agreements for Higher Education might
lead to old fashioned Soviet-state planning (Science Guide, 2012b), one can image that
this nuisance will be shared by more members of staff throughout the UAS, yet blaming
managers for agreeing to them. The fact that the reduction of overhead was the
most conspicuous fact for quite some people shows that some networks of people
were not tightly connected. Also it shows how a coalition of powerful managers was
not sufficiently in touch with parts of what is traditionally called the shop floor. I doubt
that sufficiently being in touch to produce predictable outcomes is ever possible;
different connections and coalitions would have produced different outcomes.
Power and interdependency
Looking back it is easy to see that interdependency of and power differences among
the involved people influenced the outcomes. They were most manifest in the discussions
about the profile. In its practical sense profiling will mean that more budgetary
means of the UAS will be allocated to the projects faculties which promote technology
and care. Given the budgetary consequences the outcomes of the discussion were
important for every dean. However, at the beginning of the discussion no one had the
power to decide for them all. For a long time it was known that a profile had to be
chosen by the UAS, but the deadline of the performance agreements obliged everybody
to follow suit in a short span of time.
136