Managing hierarchy through organizational ceremonies: Insights from a disruptive event
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Seeking flexible structures, many organizations today are abandoning the ceremonies of hierarchy. The idea is that removing dress codes, segregated workspaces, and formality with superiors will de-emphasize status distinctions and encourage members of different rank to collaborate freely. On the other hand, researchers show that hierarchies are often resilient because they are reinforced by external institutions such as professions and industry norms. This study explores the conditions under which ceremonial change helps flatten large, institutionalized organizations. We report on an inductive study of four Toronto hospitals in which scripted experiences of the medical hierarchy were undermined by a disruption. We find that disruption to the ceremonial system weakened members’ commitment to hierarchies, sometimes helping junior members bring their expertise to settings usually reserved for senior members, but at other times leading to tensions and conflict. Based on the findings, we propose that institutionalized organizations can encourage flexible use of authority in a two-step process in which ceremonies emphasizing status distinctions are first replaced then senior members build consensus around new rules, norms, and beliefs that coordinate expertise.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.015 | 0.016 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".