Scope of Action as Scene of 'Everyday Drama' – A study in a Finnish newspaper. An institutional and critical perspective to the interpretation of empiric material

Abstract

Occupational psychology deals with the work of an individual person with all its characteristics and implications, but refrains from meddling with the structures and dynamics of the employer organization. Organizational studies, on the other hand, are very little concerned with the work of a single employee and its impacts on the individual. This paper describes how the ‘grey area’ between the disciplines can be covered by integrating the action regulation theory, an approach of occupational psychology, with the institutional and critical perspective of organization studies. Scope of action, the pivotal area of the action regulation theory, is examined with results derived from an ethnographic study on the scope of action of journalists. As both the business and the subject of the study were experiencing a transitional stage, an institutional perspective is applied in the analysis of the results when describing the present state. The results are analysed from a critical perspective in order to achieve the emancipatory aim of the study. The paper is an example of how problematic dichotomies in organizational studies and the organizational dynamics they contain are viewed within the framework integrating occupational psychology and organizational theory. There are two dimensions in the scope of action of journalists: editorship and context of action. The emancipatory approach of the paper distinctly highlights power that is institutionalised into the context of action, as well as the many forms in which power is exercised.