Does planning belong to the politics of the past?

1. Does planning belong to the politics of the past? Tiffany Clark ECO 5338 Fall 2013 Barbara Czarniawska

2. About the author • Czarniawska was born in 1948 in Poland • She holds an MA in Social and Industrial Psychology from Warsaw University and a Ph.D. in Economic Sciences from Warsaw School of Economics • Her research takes a constructionist perspective on organizing, particularly examining the connections between popular culture and practice of management • She also has a vested interest in methodology, especially in field studies and in the application of narratology to social studies

3. Research questions • While many would argue that central planning disappeared from European countries by 1989, is that actually true? • What are the similarities between strategic planning in large private and public units and central planning in a small-sized economy? • Can the basic principles of central planning be used in urban planning for modern communities in Europe?

4. Methodology • Czarniawska uses a historical analysis based on two research projects: • 1972-1975: Conducted fieldwork in three head offices of domestic trade in Poland and 49 enterprises that were subordinated to one of them. The study aimed to describe the actual functioning of a part of a centrally planned economy. • 1980-1981: Interviewed 40 representatives of corporate headquarters and CEOs in business divisions in Massachusetts. Corporations were the same size the Polish Head Offices of Trade and they could have 49 or more subsidiaries. Purpose of this study was to determine if strategic planning in the business sector of the US was similar to central planning of the Polish economy. • She then updates her analysis by testing her conclusions in the 70s and 80s against what she observed during her fieldwork with urban planning in Rome in the early 2000s

5. Findings from original study • Local business translations of the central plan as handed down from the HOT resulted in unexpected variances due to the large number of individuals that were charged with fulfilling the plan. • This had several consequences: • Decision-making processes were extended over time in the hope that inconsistent expectations would be reconciled • There was a general feeling of powerlessness because GMS could not act upwards • GMs tended to avoid risks, no matter how great the potential economic gains • GMs made choices that could be harmful to the enterprise but that protected the GMs from punishment

6. Comparison to Strategic planning in US corporations • CEOs set their own objectives based on information gathered from both above and below • Plans still had to be approved CHQs and when disagreements arose, negotiations did not always reach consensus • CEOs would delegate responsibilities to subordinates, resulting in risk-avoiding behavior, similar to risk-avoiding for the Polish GMs • Central planning in the US was always more “participatory” than Polish planning but there was still no input from the bottom-up at the operational level

7. Application to urban planning • Total planning- Warsaw and St Petersburg are two cities that have been developed through total planning. Economic and technical problems surrounding the city, from water and sewage to recreational space were subordinated to urban planning and legal changes • Plan-less city development- Rome serves as her case study, during which she finds that the city did not even have an urban traffic plan • Issues were handled by municipalities • “Chaos seems to prevail” because of time and swift pace of political change

8. Areas for clarification • Case study examples seem to be all across the board • Bias in choosing Warsaw as her case study for Total Planning • Was Massachusetts the best choice for her US case study? • And what kinds of corporations were chosen? • Would she find the same conclusions as she did in the 1970s if she revisited Polish HOT today?

9. Questions and follow-up