Organizational dysfunction
20 Feb 2024 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneThe academic field that I abandoned after a couple of years all those ages ago, without writing a bachelor's thesis, was sociology. In recent years, when it occurred to me to potentially (someday) finish the degree now that it's easier to study at a distance, I've started occasionally gnawing away at what (sub)fields there are of interest to me, if any.
And also lately I've been occasionally thinking about organizational culture. With all the discussions swirling around problems with the OTW in recent years and the mental comparisons I've inevitably made to the volunteers and committees related to the Unitarian Universalist congregation I grew up in, I've always wondered if science (but it might be more likely to be psychology than sociology?) has something to tell us about the dynamics of volunteer organizations and why it is that they seem to be so similarly prone to the same kinds of failings. I tried to google the idea a bit, and it seems the concept of organizational culture has pretty much been taken over from sociology by business schools in recent years, and yuck, but also I'm specifically thinking about volunteer organizations here anyway. I know there is a body of research on charities and the problems that arise as they scale up, which is also interesting but maybe not exactly what I'm thinking about.
There was a recent national scandal in the Finnish Red Cross (up on the west coast of Finland some way away from here) to do with a boss who turned out to have been abusive for a long time to a whole bunch of employees, and it hasn't really led to a thorough reckoning or even a complete investigation by a third party, although people have been fired and resigned. This is nothing ESPECIALLY shocking; big charities have scandals like this with some regularity, and this isn't even nearly as bad as some of the international Red Cross scandals I remember in my adult life. I suppose this probably is dealt with in the research on the problems with big charities that I mentioned. The Finnish Red Cross, at the national level, has a high degree of transparency and a lot of regulations and checks and things, but perhaps these regulations are more complete and more useful in terms of the volunteers, members, and leadership, and less so in terms of the stuff that's staffed by employees?
And this Hugo disaster now is just absolutely flabbergasting. The fact that it now looks like the genre's hugely prestigious literary awards were made fraudulent for the whole year mostly at the instigation of one volunteer Western bad actor probably prompted in large part by ignorant racism?, assisted willingly by a bunch more Western volunteers who didn't sound the alarm at the time even though we hear that more than one was uncomfortable - the fact that it was apparently not even difficult for this to happen with the active efforts of what looks like perhaps quite a small group of people, possibly without any input from Chinese participants... it's bizarre in multiple ways, frankly, but one of the most amazing things is the level of institutional failure implied. I know the Hugos and Worldcon are run by small volunteer committees and that we're not talking about a huge number of people involved in planning. But at the same time, they're an institution that operates at the scale of Worldcon, with a huge community that they represent. The inevitable conclusion that they've been running like this all along, apparently held together with chewing gum and string, with most of the participants passively nodding along even to something as absolutely crazy as this...! That there are no built in checks or balances with enough robustness to ensure that someone with the ability to go "Wait just a goddamn minute here" is going to see what's happening before it happens! And that someone can coast into such a key position even if they're known by a bunch of people around the community after multiple reports to multiple conventions to be a serial sexual harrasser! It's a stunning indictment.
And also lately I've been occasionally thinking about organizational culture. With all the discussions swirling around problems with the OTW in recent years and the mental comparisons I've inevitably made to the volunteers and committees related to the Unitarian Universalist congregation I grew up in, I've always wondered if science (but it might be more likely to be psychology than sociology?) has something to tell us about the dynamics of volunteer organizations and why it is that they seem to be so similarly prone to the same kinds of failings. I tried to google the idea a bit, and it seems the concept of organizational culture has pretty much been taken over from sociology by business schools in recent years, and yuck, but also I'm specifically thinking about volunteer organizations here anyway. I know there is a body of research on charities and the problems that arise as they scale up, which is also interesting but maybe not exactly what I'm thinking about.
There was a recent national scandal in the Finnish Red Cross (up on the west coast of Finland some way away from here) to do with a boss who turned out to have been abusive for a long time to a whole bunch of employees, and it hasn't really led to a thorough reckoning or even a complete investigation by a third party, although people have been fired and resigned. This is nothing ESPECIALLY shocking; big charities have scandals like this with some regularity, and this isn't even nearly as bad as some of the international Red Cross scandals I remember in my adult life. I suppose this probably is dealt with in the research on the problems with big charities that I mentioned. The Finnish Red Cross, at the national level, has a high degree of transparency and a lot of regulations and checks and things, but perhaps these regulations are more complete and more useful in terms of the volunteers, members, and leadership, and less so in terms of the stuff that's staffed by employees?
And this Hugo disaster now is just absolutely flabbergasting. The fact that it now looks like the genre's hugely prestigious literary awards were made fraudulent for the whole year mostly at the instigation of one volunteer Western bad actor probably prompted in large part by ignorant racism?, assisted willingly by a bunch more Western volunteers who didn't sound the alarm at the time even though we hear that more than one was uncomfortable - the fact that it was apparently not even difficult for this to happen with the active efforts of what looks like perhaps quite a small group of people, possibly without any input from Chinese participants... it's bizarre in multiple ways, frankly, but one of the most amazing things is the level of institutional failure implied. I know the Hugos and Worldcon are run by small volunteer committees and that we're not talking about a huge number of people involved in planning. But at the same time, they're an institution that operates at the scale of Worldcon, with a huge community that they represent. The inevitable conclusion that they've been running like this all along, apparently held together with chewing gum and string, with most of the participants passively nodding along even to something as absolutely crazy as this...! That there are no built in checks or balances with enough robustness to ensure that someone with the ability to go "Wait just a goddamn minute here" is going to see what's happening before it happens! And that someone can coast into such a key position even if they're known by a bunch of people around the community after multiple reports to multiple conventions to be a serial sexual harrasser! It's a stunning indictment.
(no subject)
Date: 20 Feb 2024 06:03 pm (UTC)The good news is that the Hugo voting records are always made public and exhaustively analyzed by people who are interested, most prominently Locus magazine and the blogger known as Camestros Felapton.
The total fraud of Chengdu by McCarty and his committee seems to be a one-off. Camestros Felapton has looked at Hugo numbers going back years and looked again after the Chengdu debacle.
A gentleman's agreement to do the right thing is not enough any more for sure.
(no subject)
Date: 21 Feb 2024 09:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20 Feb 2024 07:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21 Feb 2024 09:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21 Feb 2024 04:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23 Feb 2024 02:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24 Feb 2024 03:20 am (UTC)I agree - when they first put out the scholarly journal on fandom I thought oh yes two things I love but I never even finished the first issue. It was like the fun of them cancelled each other out weirdly. But I can read organisational development and knowledge management articles for hours.
(no subject)
Date: 24 Feb 2024 06:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21 Feb 2024 08:50 am (UTC)The Hugo thing really reeks of pathological conflict evasion at the expense of people you have social power over. You'd think after dealing with the likes of Sad Puppies and what else the people running the show would have thicker skins.
(no subject)
Date: 21 Feb 2024 09:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 22 Feb 2024 06:45 am (UTC)Perhaps, but how bad is the internal communication that they all didn't have a sit-down about how they handled a PR mess like that.
(no subject)
Date: 22 Feb 2024 07:58 am (UTC)