Despite repeated demonstrations of the dysfunctional effects of social defences in organisations, social defence theory's (SDT) problem of organisational change (Long, 2006) remains. Why? Can this be avoided? The research centres on a four-year coaching and consulting project within a multinational manufacturing company. Social defences appeared but a careful Tavistock action-research intervention failed. Despite Menzies’ (1960) 'sociological innovation' that social defences are more than psychic phenomena and get built into organisations, she did not explain how this happens or what to do. A review of the literatures and case study revealed problems with the theory and intervention. Clues from Trist, Emery and Jaques suggested that both sociological and psychological theories are needed, implying that social defences be re-examined as both causes and symptoms. The change literature proposes that organisational change is qualitatively different from individual and team change (the focus of SDT). We develop realist explanations of the causes of social defences along with forecasting of their consequences, while retaining Tavistock interpretive methods. The cultural theory (CT) of anthropologist, Mary Douglas, emerged as the preferred sociological resource. We reconceptualise social defences as 'informal institutions' carrying implicit rules, norms and 'ways of thinking' that generate consequences (feedback). CT posits that contending 'thought-styles' derive from Strong/Weak Social Regulation and Strong/Weak Social Integration (solidarity). Anxiety and social defences may be understood as directed against a prevailing thought-style and the practices it inspires: leading to either task-undermining or anxiety-circumventing behaviour in service of task. Together, SDT and CT improve our capacity for diagnosing and facilitating change. SDT recognises that social defences are forewarnings of unspecified troubles ahead, but does not explain or forecast what these might be. CT improves our forecasting of the effects of social defences. SDT assists CT in seeing anxiety and defences as significant evidence of cultural shifts and realigning of the organising logic of institutions. This thesis should appeal to leaders who prioritise 'financial' rationality; and to change agents concerned with reading 'emotional' warning-signs and enhancing an organisation's capacity to do things differently.

Dans Les Règles de l'art, Bourdieu propose une science des œuvres. A l'aide des concepts de champ, d'habitus, d’espace des possibles, il tente de faire le lien entre la littéraire et le social. Son approche récuse toute tentation psychologisante et ferme la porte à toute explication du processus créatif en termes de génie, de sensibilité ou d’inspiration. La littérature est d’abord au carrefour des faits sociaux. Les textes sont des faits sociaux, comme apparition mais aussi comme expression. Ils ne sont ni à sacraliser ni à désacraliser. Bourdieu tente de rendre intelligible l’espace littéraire des auteurs. Il veut mettre en lumière ce qui rend l’œuvre d’art nécessaire, c’est-à-dire sa formule informatrice, son principe générateur, sa raison d’être. Il affirme qu'au fond l'écrivain, quelle que soit son orientation, n'a pas d'autres choix que d'être traversé par la sociologie de son époque. Il suggère même que tout effort de distanciation formelle, supposant que l'œuvre soit un ailleurs du réel, est signe de cette connaissance intuitive du réel lui-même. L’Education Sentimentale de Flaubert se prête particulièrement bien à ce paradigme analytique. En s’arrêtant sur la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle, Bourdieu décrit la genèse et le processus d’autonomisation de l’espace littéraire qui entérine le fonctionnement du champ. Il essaie alors de montrer comment les règles sont articulées par/dans une configuration sociale, politique, économique, culturelle et quelle place nouvelle occupe, dans cette modernité, l'artiste. / I have used Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological approach as a critical tool for the study of literary texts. As a sociologist, Bourdieu is not satisfied with the notion that the literary text would be isolated from the world and considers the writer as a product of economic, social, religious or political circumstances that may be recovered through analysis. According to Bourdieu, the development of literature as an independent field goes hand in hand with the expansion of a liberal politics, a connection critics refuse to recognize as they will believe in the myth of inspired creation. Bourdieu retraces to the nineteenth century the moment when literature became independent and describes how twentieth-century literature is but a perpetuation of nineteenth-century literary myths. I also look at the ways the specialists of Flaubert responded to the publication of Les Règles de l’art as the book provoked heated debates when it was issued. I have especially examined the arguments of critics hostile to Bourdieu in order to demonstrate how such an emblematic figure as Flaubert embodies what is at stake when one questions the notion of literature. How can Bourdieu fit in literary studies? One has to be careful interpreting the title of Bourdieu’s book. Les Règles de l’art is no prescriptive book : Bourdieu is not the one who sets the rule nor does he suggest that there were no rules before the advent of the modern age. He is simply trying to show how, from the start of this period, the literary world is determined by specific social, political, economic and cultural conditions and questions the particular role played by the artist in this new state of things.

This study explores the various processes that constructed and transformed the undergraduate curriculum in a Faculty of Education at a South African university. It attempts to delve beneath the representation of post-apartheid curriculum change as a linear process. The thesis argues that scholars should attempt to unravel how the curriculum performs the task of social transformation at the site of the university by empirically investigating how the relationship between structure and action links with the ideals of post-apartheid higher education policy. Theoretically, this study posits that the deficit in the local literature on the use of the structure/agency relationship as a heuristic device for examining institutional change should be addressed with the relational sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)

This study explores the various processes that constructed and transformed the undergraduate curriculum in a Faculty of Education at a South African university. It attempts to delve beneath the representation of post-apartheid curriculum change as a linear process. The thesis argues that scholars should attempt to unravel how the curriculum performs the task of social transformation at the site of the university by empirically investigating how the relationship between structure and action links with the ideals of post-apartheid higher education policy. Theoretically, this study posits that the deficit in the local literature on the use of the structure/agency relationship as a heuristic device for examining institutional change should be addressed with the relational sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)