Leading in inter organizational networks towards a reflexive practice matthias mitterlechner - Downl
Leading in Inter Organizational Networks Towards a Reflexive Practice Matthias Mitterlechner
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Inter-Organizational Culture: Linking Relationship Marketing with Organizational Behavior Fabiano Larentis
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Acknowledgements
Tis book results from a research project that started in September 2011. It would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions of many people.
Te research center “Organization Studies” at the University of St. Gallen has provided a uniquely collegial and inspiring context for developing and writing this book. I particularly wish to thank Johannes Rüegg-Stürm, who sparked my interest in organization studies many years ago and who created ideal conditions for starting this project in the frst place. He has been a tremendous source of inspiration, a mentor, and a supporting friend all along my academic career. I am also grateful for my collaboration with Harald Tuckermann, who has been an insightful and caring colleague for many years. Furthermore, I would like to thank the entire Organization Studies team for their continuous support, fun, and intellectual inspiration at numerous seminars and retreats in the Swiss mountains. I also wish to express my gratitude to the Avina Foundation for trusting in this project and to the University of St. Gallen for supporting my academic development with a faculty position.
Doing qualitative longitudinal research as reported in this book builds on years of trusting relationships with partners in the feld. I am indebted to numerous executives, professionals, and politicians, who provided me with unconstrained access to their everyday work and frsthand insight into the challenge of working across organizational boundaries. I particularly thank Philipp Gunzinger, Joachim Koppenberg, Claudia Farley, and David Fehr for their openness and ongoing trust in our collaboration.
Tis book has benefted greatly from high-quality conversations with scholars from around the world. Special thanks go to four international reviewers and to the participants of the sub-theme “Practices of InterOrganizational Collaboration” at the 32nd Egos Colloquium in Naples, who ofered extremely helpful feedback to earlier versions of this book. I also thank Liz Barlow, Madeleine Holder, and Gabriel Everington from Palgrave Macmillan, who initiated and managed the publication process with great dedication and care. Ellie Bradsher Schmidt patiently edited the text and brought it into publishable language and shape.
Finally, writing this book was largely possible because of the unconditional support of my family members Andrea, Carina, and Lea Maria. Tey granted me the freedom to pursue my passion for research including countless days in the feld and nights in the ofce. Tey are the joy of my life, and my gratitude to them is boundless.
St. Gallen August 2018
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Argumentative structure of the book 17
Fig. 5.1 A practice-theoretical model of refexive leadership in networks
100
Fig. 6.1 A practice-theoretical model of refexive leadership in Peripheral 110
Fig. 6.2 Integration process as proposed by the third Care Commission
Fig. 6.3 Peripheral’s governance structure as suggested by the third Care Commission
127
128
Fig. 7.1 A practice-theoretical model of refexive leadership in Urban 168
Fig. 7.2 Structure of MHD as of 2006
172
Fig. 7.3 Organizational structure of Commission Urban 178
Fig. 7.4 Urban’s governance structure as of November 2009 182
Fig. 7.5 Division of roles and responsibilities among TT, EC, and SC 192
Fig. 7.6 Attendance of leadership constellation members in refexive spaces 220
Fig. 8.1 Peripheral’s structure to refect 237
Fig. 8.2 Urban’s structure to refect
Fig. 8.3 Seven starting points for enabling refexive conversations in networks
Table 7.1 Planned implementation projects as of 2006
Table 7.2 MHD implementation projects launched between 2007 and 2009
Table 7.3
Table
Table 7.5 Refections about Urban’s strategy in Tink Tank meetings
Table 7.6 Agendas of Urban’s General Meetings
Table 7.7 Agendas of Urban’s Annual Meetings 201
Table 7.8 Refections about Ambulatory Primary Care 216
Table 8.1 Building blocks of a practice theory of refexive leadership in networks 231
1
The Need for Refexive Leadership in Inter-Organizational Networks
Scholars have long recognized the growing importance and prevalence of collaboration in inter-organizational networks that consist of three or more partner organizations (Huxham, 2003; Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Sydow & Windeler, 1998).
Strategy researchers argue that organizations engage in inter-organizational networks (networks, for short) to secure competitive advantage (Dyer & Singh, 1998). Tey also contend that today’s competition increasingly takes place among blocks of allied frms rather than among single, isolated companies (Gomes-Casseres, 1996; Vanhaverbeke & Noorderhaven, 2001).
Public policy experts additionally submit that networks composed of a variety of government, nonproft, and business organizations are essential for tackling collective action problems, such as integrated health, migration, environmental protection, or poverty alleviation (Kenis & Provan, 2006). Solutions for these issues necessarily “sit within the inter-organizational domain” (Huxham & Vangen, 2000b, p. 1159) and can be addressed efectively only if several organizations collaborate. Many governments around the world therefore seek to improve their efectiveness and efciency by transforming the structures
M. Mitterlechner, Leading in Inter-Organizational Networks, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97979-3_1
of their service delivery from hierarchies and markets toward networks (Crosby & Bryson, 2010; Currie, Grubnic, & Hodges, 2011; Currie, Lockett, & Suhomlinova, 2009; Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; Kenis & Provan, 2006; Kickert, Klijn, & Koppenjan, 1997).
In view of the rising importance and prevalence of network-based collaboration both within and across the private and public sector, it is quite astonishing how little we know about how member organizations actually practice leadership in the networks in which they are engaged. Huxham and Vangen (2000b) notice that with few notable exceptions “the literature on collaboration—including that on private sector alliances—has had little to say about leadership. Some texts make passing reference to leaders, but the concept is rarely discussed in detail” (p. 1160). In a similar vein, Crosby and Bryson (2010) observe that “leadership language and scholarship have been remarkably scarce in the academic literature on collaboration” (p. 212).
One reason may be that previous research has focused on leadership between people, in groups or within organizations, neglecting more complex inter-organizational contexts such as supply networks, public–private partnerships, regional clusters, and other inter-organizational innovation systems (Sydow, Lerch, Huxham, & Hibbert, 2011).
Regardless of the causes, there seems to be a growing need for advancing research and theory on the practice of leadership in interorganizational networks. Leadership is understood here as the exertion of infuence in order to make things happen, often despite a lack of formal authority (Huxham, 2000; Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; MüllerSeitz & Sydow, 2012). Leadership is widely seen as a critical ingredient for efective collaboration in networks (e.g., Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2015; Chrislip & Larson, 1994; Crosby & Bryson, 2005; Huxham & Vangen, 2000b, 2005; Müller-Seitz, 2012; Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Provan, Fish, & Sydow, 2007; Vangen & Huxham, 2003). Crosby and Bryson (2010) argue that “leadership work is central to the creation and maintenance of cross-sector collaborations that advance the common good” (p. 212). Provan et al. (2007) suggest that “it is imperative that network researchers understand how whole networks operate, how they might best be structured and managed, and what outcomes might result. At present, network researchers in business, public management, and
health care services have only a marginal understanding of whole networks, despite their importance as a macro-level social issue. Enhancing this knowledge is clearly a challenge that researchers in all sectors must take seriously” (p. 512). Sydow, Schüssler, and Müller-Seitz (2016) similarly contend that forming networks is not only a strategic but also a leadership issue, calling for refexivity in the leadership of networks.
Tis book reports on a study designed to address this challenge and meet the need and opportunity for more theory in this area. It aims at theoretically conceptualizing and empirically describing the practice of refexive leadership in the context of networks.
Research Question and Research Issues
Tis study explores the following research question: How do member organizations practice leadership in a refexive way in the networks in which they are involved? Tis research question entails fve research issues.
First, there is a need to adopt a dynamic view on leading in networks. Teory building on networks has mainly focused cross-sectional analyses (Ahuja, Soda, & Zaheer, 2012; Bizzi & Langley, 2012; Lorenzoni & Lipparini, 1999). Although longitudinal research has become more common in recent years, we still know very little about the dynamics of leading in networks. As Clegg, Josserand, Mehra, and Pitsis (2016) note, “the question of the management of network dynamics, while crucial, remains under-researched” (p. 281). Provan and Kenis (2008) therefore argue for more systematic research on how leadership in networks emerges and changes over time. Lorenzoni and Lipparini (1999) similarly suggest that there is “still a strong need for better theories on network evolution and change” (p. 318).
Second, there is a need to study the interplay between leadership practice and network efectiveness. Raab and Kenis (2009) argue that scholars need to develop network theories that are able to explain the emergence, functioning, efectiveness, and failure of networks. Regarding leadership practice, they suggest explaining network efectiveness by observing the actions of individual actors, which are based
on the cultural norms of the professions and the sectors in which these actors are embedded. In a similar vein, Provan et al. (2007) argue for a closer analysis of network efectiveness. “If we are to understand about networks and network performance, then it is essential that network efectiveness be addressed” (p. 509).
Tird, there is a need to study leadership in networks from multiple analytical levels. Relevant analytical levels span the societal, feld, network, organizational, group, and individual level (Sydow & Duschek, 2011). It has been suggested that leadership in networks should be studied at least from the network and the two neighboring levels, i.e., the organizational feld and the organization level. “At the same time, it is clear that at a more micro level, organizations should be brought back into network-level research to investigate, for example, how, on the one hand, organizations are afected by their engagement in diferent types of networks and how, on the other hand, organizations get ready for networking. On a more macro-level, the more or less recursive interplay between whole networks and regional clusters, organizational felds, or complete societies should also be put on the agenda of network researchers” (Provan et al., 2007, pp. 511–512). At present, multi-level theorizing has remained scarce in network research (Sydow et al., 2016). Tis lack of multi-level research provides one explanation for our still poor understanding of the temporal evolution of networks. “Te fact that the development of networks has remained poorly understood is due to a lack of research on the co-evolution of network, network environment, and network organizations” (Sydow & Duschek, 2011, p. 203, my translation).
Fourth, there is a need to study leadership in heterarchical networks. A recent literature review (Müller-Seitz, 2012) reveals that the few studies that do exist on leadership in networks tend to focus on leadership in hierarchical networks. In hierarchical networks, a single organization (sometimes called a “hub frm,” “strategic center,” or “network orchestrator”) ofcially presides over a network and exerts, at least in part, formally legitimated leadership. Heterarchical networks, by contrast, consist of more or less equal partners that do not formally dispose of a leading actor (Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012). In heterarchical networks, leadership tends to be more dispersed and temporary, and activities and
decisions are frequently based upon consensus across network partners (Sydow et al., 2016). In these networks, leadership-exerting organizations only have the capacity to set some boundary conditions but might not be able to exert strong infuence on their networks due to a lack of formal authority (Müller-Seitz, 2012). Müller-Seitz (2012) points out that the study of leadership in heterarchical networks is closely connected to the frst research issue, i.e., the need to adopt a dynamic perspective on leadership. “Because the organization responsible for the exertion of leadership in heterarchical networks can vary over time because of conficting outcomes from consensus-based decision-making processes (Huxham, 2000; Provan & Kenis, 2008), longitudinal and more process-oriented studies are likely to be more suitable for understanding leadership in heterarchical networks” (p. 439).
Fifth, there is a rising need for refexivity (Cunlife, 2004; Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004) in the leadership of networks. Huxham (2000) has long argued that those who take leadership roles in networks need to be serious refexive practitioners. Sydow et al. (2016) make a similar call for refexivity in leading and managing networks, arguing for an institutionalization of refexivity in organizations in general and in networks in particular. At the moment, however, we know little about how refexivity can be institutionalized in the leadership of networks. Research is largely still concerned with the collection of questions and problems rather than with the creation of satisfying answers (Sydow & Duschek, 2011).
Relevance to Research and Managerial Practice
A more detailed theoretical conceptualization and empirical description of the practice of refexive leadership in networks is highly relevant because it relates to emerging issues in at least three research felds and is of considerable importance for managerial practice.
First and foremost, as indicated previously, the practice of refexive leadership turns into an increasingly relevant feld of study for network scholars (Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Sydow, 2004; Sydow et al., 2016; Sydow & Windeler, 1998, 2003). Nosella and Petroni (2007)
emphasize that leadership in networks is an extremely interesting topic that has been dealt with very little in the literature. Tey therefore propose that “further research could study this topic more thoroughly and, more generally, study the diferent ways networks, especially multilateral networks, are managed” (p. 198). Provan and Kenis (2008) equally propose that the role of leadership in networks needs to be addressed in greater depth. Tey argue that a closer investigation of leadership is crucial because only then can we understand why networks produce certain outcomes—including the poor performance of some of them.
Second, exploring refexive leadership in networks resonates with recent advances and emerging questions in the broader leadership literature, in particular in the emerging leadership-as-practice feld (e.g., Denis, Lamothe, & Langley, 2001; Denis, Langley, & Rouleau, 2005, 2010; Denis, Langley, & Sergi, 2012; Raelin, 2016). Leadership-aspractice scholars draw from social theories of practice (Bourdieu, 1990; Giddens, 1984; Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 2002, 2012; Schatzki, Knorr Cetina, & Von Savigny, 2001) and make the argument that leadership occurs as a social, collective practice, as opposed to residing in the traits and behavior of particular leader-individuals. Tey thereby question and reconstruct one of the most fundamental assumptions of traditional leadership studies. Tey aim to increase the relevance and meaningfulness of leadership research by focusing on the “mundane aspects of managerial work and leadership” (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003, p. 1436), deeply probing into everyday leadership practice (Knights & Willmott, 1992). Researchers in this feld are particularly interested in developing an understanding of how leadership can be conceptualized and studied when organizations are considered as practices rather than static entities (Crevani, Lindgren, & Packendorf, 2010).
Tird, the aim of this study is connected to emerging questions in the debate on refexivity in leadership practice (e.g., Boud, Cressey, & Docherty, 2006; Cunlife, 2004; Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004; Cunlife & Jun, 2005; Gorli, Nicolini, & Scaratti, 2015; Nicolini, Sher, Childerstone, & Gorli, 2004; Reynolds & Vince, 2004; Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2015). Tis debate has gained substantial momentum since the turn of the millennium. With regard to the public sector, Cunlife and Jun (2005) argue for instance that refexive leadership is crucial to
public administration because it can lead to more critical and responsible action, which, in turn, can provide a basis for organizational transformation. Similarly, Boud et al. (2006) propose that the growing need for refexive leadership practice is constituted by structural changes in the production regime from stable markets and physical mass products toward volatile, fexible, and knowledge-intensive markets, products, and services. Tey argue that this latter regime requires new forms of responsiveness, learning, and refexivity at work. While the growing importance and signifcance of refexive leadership practice is well established, empirical studies are still rare in this nascent feld. Researchers have therefore called for more empirical studies that shed light on how leadership is practiced in a refexive way (Antonacopoulou, 2004; Cotter & Cullen, 2012; Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004).
Finally, a robust theoretical conceptualization and thick empirical description of refexive leadership in networks is also of considerable relevance for managerial practice. As Silvia and McGuire (2010) point out, “just as organizations require some degree of leadership to function efectively, so too do collaborative, integrated structures require leadership that facilitates productive interaction and moves the parts toward efective resolution of a problem” (p. 265). Tere are, however, substantial limitations with regard to the transfer of knowledge and insights from single organizations to networks because leadership in networks is likely to be signifcantly diferent from leadership in organizations (Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; Müller-Seitz, 2012; Provan & Lemaire, 2012). Networks are unique forms of organizing—neither markets nor hierarchies (Powell, 1990)—that need to be analyzed and understood in their own right (Kenis & Provan, 2006). In contrast to traditional organizations, networks cannot be led by hierarchical fat (Podolny & Page, 1998). In networks, refexive leadership turns into a joint efort (Huxham & Vangen, 2000b) that needs to be collectively accomplished by a constellation of distributed, legally autonomous organizations (Beyer & Browning, 1999). In view of the ubiquity of networks in both the public sector and private sector, practitioners will need to become increasingly sophisticated in their understanding of the leadership practices required for efectively accomplishing this task (Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; McGuire & Silvia, 2009; Silvia & McGuire, 2010).
Theoretical Perspectives
To develop a theoretical conceptualization of the practice of refexive leadership in networks, this book draws on advances in four research felds.
First, this research is situated in the recent practice-turn in the social sciences (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman & Worline, 2016; Giddens, 1984; Nicolini, 2012; Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki et al., 2001). In essence, practice theory proposes a distinct social ontology, conceiving of the social as “a feld of embodied, materially interwoven practices centrally organized around shared practical understandings” (Schatzki, 2001, p. 3). It thereby difers from other social theories, which privilege individual action or social structure in defning the social (Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 2001). Practice theory, with a focus on structuration theory (Giddens, 1984), will provide the main organizing framework of this research.
Second, network scholars are increasingly interested in conceiving refexive leadership in networks from a practice-theoretical perspective (e.g., Araujo & Brito, 1998; Huxham, 2003; Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; Martin, Currie, & Finn, 2008; Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Sydow, 2005; Sydow et al., 2011, 2016; Sydow & Windeler, 1997, 1998). Drawing on Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory, Sydow and Windeler (1998) argue, for instance, that an adequate analysis of leadership in networks requires an exploration of how leadership action and leadership structure are mutually related. Scholars adopting this view suggest that practice theory ofers a potentially promising alternative to traditional action- and structure-oriented notions of leadership in networks for at least two reasons. On the one hand, practice theory is best placed to provide a dynamic account of leadership in networks and thereby to increase the practical relevance of research on this topic. On the other hand, practice theory is able to conceptualize the interplay between action and structure as a duality rather than as a dualism. To develop this argument in more depth, Chapter 2 will provide an overview of extant research on leadership in networks. In a frst step, it will review a selection of established research, which tends to emphasize
either action or structure when theorizing leadership in networks. In a second step, it will shed light on some of the afordances and limitations of this line of research. In a third step, it will review studies that call for advanced practice theories on refexive leadership in networks. Tese studies submit that practice theories are able to capture the recursive interplay between action and structure over time.
Tird, leadership scholars are increasingly interested in conceptualizing leadership from a practice-theoretical perspective. Tey assume that leadership occurs as a practice rather than from the traits or actions of individuals (Denis, Kisfalvi, Langley, & Rouleau, 2011; Denis et al., 2001, 2005, 2010; Raelin, 2016). Te emerging leadership-as-practice perspective thereby ofers a potentially valuable theoretical alternative to individualistic notions of leadership in complex and pluralistic contexts such as networks (Denis et al., 2005, 2010; Denis, Langley, & Rouleau, 2007; Huxham & Vangen, 2000a; Vangen & Huxham, 2003).
Pulling together recent ideas from practice, network, and leadership scholars, Chapter 3 will develop theoretical foundations for conceptualizing leadership in networks from a practice-theoretical perspective. It will proceed in four steps. In a frst step, it will review key principles of practice theory with a special focus on Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman & Worline, 2016; Giddens, 1984; Nicolini, 2012; Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki et al., 2001).
In a second step, it will review contemporary defnitions of the term “network” and suggest adopting a view of a network as a social system in which the activities of at least three legally independent organizations are coordinated in time-space (Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012). From a practice-theoretical perspective, a network can thus be understood as formed by a bundle of inter-organizational practices, which are practices that transcend the boundaries of individual organizations (Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Sydow, Van Well, & Windeler, 1997). In a third step, it will review latest insights into leadership in networks and suggest a view of leading in networks as the exertion of infuence by a single or several organizations in order to refexively coordinate the activities in the network (Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Sydow & Windeler, 1998). In a fnal step, in view of the refexive nature of leading in networks, it
will clarify the meaning of the term “refexivity,” which leads to the fnal relevant research feld.
Fourth, refexivity scholars are increasingly interested in studying the role of refexivity in leadership practice (Boud et al., 2006; Cunlife, 2004; Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004; Cunlife & Jun, 2005; Gorli et al., 2015; Nicolini et al., 2004; Reynolds & Vince, 2004a). Building on Dewey’s (1910) early ideas about learning through refective experience and Schon’s (1983) theory of the refective practitioner, these scholars have advanced the meaning of the notion of “refexivity” into three directions. First of all, they have drawn a distinction between “refection” and “refexivity” (Cunlife, 2004; Cunlife & EasterbySmith, 2004; Cunlife & Jun, 2005). Te notion of “refection” is rooted in an objectivist ontology and describes an analytical process in which an individual actor constructs a “mirror” image in order to solve an objectively given problem. By contrast, the term “refexivity” builds on a social-constructionist ontology and suggests a view of refexivity as a conversational practice through which actors question traditional practices and explore new possibilities for joint action (Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004; Cunlife & Jun, 2005). In addition, and related to the previous point, they have proposed that refexivity is a collective rather than an individual accomplishment (Boud et al., 2006; Raelin, 2001; Reynolds & Vince, 2004a). Refexivity is not the isolated act of an individual but occurs in the midst of practice and is shared in the presence of others. Finally, refexivity scholars have recently argued that refexivity is not an objective and value-neutral practice as implied by a realist ontology, but situated in socio-political structures (Antonacopoulou, 2004; Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004; Nicolini et al., 2004). Refexive practice is enabled and constrained by these socio-political structures and recursively changes them over time. Taken together, Chapters 2 and 3 provide the theoretical background of this book. While Chapter 2 sheds light on traditional theoretical ideas about leading in networks, Chapter 3 provides important conceptual sensitizing devices for theorizing leadership in networks as a refexive practice.
Empirical Perspectives
To empirically describe the practice of refexive leadership in networks, I conducted a longitudinal, qualitative comparative case study in the Swiss healthcare sector.
I conducted a qualitative comparative case study because qualitative cases are particularly useful for studying “how” and “why” questions in unexplored felds (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). Both criteria applied in this research. As mentioned before, research on leadership in networks has generally remained scant. In addition, we currently lack an in-depth empirical understanding of how leadership in networks is practiced and why it produces certain outcomes. Moreover, I conducted a comparative case study because comparative cases are typically considered as more compelling and robust (Yin, 2014).
I conducted the case study in the Swiss healthcare sector. Health care is a particularly well-suited context for studying leadership in networks because policy makers and organizational leaders around the world currently strive to improve the delivery of healthcare services by means of better inter-organizational collaboration. Practitioners and researchers suggest that more coordination among provider organizations is required to adapt a highly fragmented healthcare system to population aging, increasing frailty at old age and a rapid rise in the number of people with multiple health and care needs (e.g., Amelung, Hildebrandt, & Wolf, 2012; Goodwin, Sonola, Tiel, & Kodner, 2013; Kodner & Spreeuwenberg, 2002; Nolte et al., 2016). Leadership is found to be a critical success factor for implementing these new integrated care and population health models (e.g., Ling, Brereteon, Conklin, Newbould, & Roland, 2012; Nolte et al., 2016).
In view of current ambitions to transform health care toward more inter-organizational coordination and the critical role of leadership in this context, I conducted the case study in collaboration with two healthcare networks in Switzerland, “Peripheral” and “Urban.”1
1In order to protect the identity of my research partners, I will use pseudonyms throughout the book.
Peripheral was located in a rural region secluded by mountains at the Swiss border. Te most important network members were the regional hospital, an outpatient care organization, an inpatient care home, a thermal spa, and several regional social services organizations. Due to its efectiveness, it was considered as a pioneer network in Switzerland.
Urban was located in one of the major cities in Switzerland. It included the most important healthcare provider organizations in the city—among others the municipal health department, the municipal pharmacy association, general practitioners, health insurance companies, an ethics foundation, social services organizations, nurses, three hospitals, an outpatient care organization, and an education foundation. Similar to Peripheral, the Swiss public considered Urban as one of the most promising initiatives to advance integrated care in Switzerland. Over time, however, it lost some of its initial momentum due to various difculties, which will be empirically described and theoretically explained in this book.
Reporting on these two case studies, this book generates several fndings.
First, it shows that individual network member organizations are unable to refexively coordinate network activities on their own. Rather, leadership in networks is accomplished by a constellation of co-leaders (e.g., Denis et al., 2010). Te leadership constellation typically consists of delegates from member organizations, but at times, it may also include delegates from the organizational feld level, for example, representatives from political authorities. Leading in networks is hence a collective, multi-level, and widely distributed undertaking (Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; Sydow et al., 1997).
Second, leadership constellations refexively coordinate network activities by establishing refexive spaces. Refexive spaces are episodic communicative events that involve several actors who are colocated in the same physical or virtual space (Bucher & Langley, 2016; Hendry & Seidl, 2003; Seidl & Guerard, 2015). In everyday life, these actors are physically distributed across the various organizations constituting a network. Refexive spaces separate these actors from their everyday practice and thereby provide them with a communicative occasion for
jointly refecting on mutual dependencies and new ways of coordinating practices across organizational boundaries.
Tird, leadership constellations refexively coordinate network activities by enabling refexive conversations. Practical refexivity about the coordination of activities across organizational boundaries is a conversational accomplishment (Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004; Cunlife & Jun, 2005). Te two case studies provide a few clues about how leadership constellations enable refexive conversations. Leadership constellations may enhance the refexive quality of conversations by creating transparency about decision-relevant information; by allowing for improvisation and experimentation; by deploying visual mapping tools; by building personal ties; by showing understanding for diferences; by providing solution-oriented support; and by wisely orchestrating refexive spaces.
Fourth, leadership constellations refexively coordinate network activities by exercising power. In structuration theory, power is a means for getting things done and as such, directly implied in human action (Giddens, 1984). In networks, however, in which member organizations lack formal hierarchical fat, powerful interventions need to be considered as useful and legitimate (Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012). Te fndings reported in this book suggest that meaningfulness and legitimacy are sustained by consensual decision-making and communication on “equal footing.” By contrast, dominant interventions from one network member, despite best intentions, can create unintended consequences. Tey may not only trigger questions about their usefulness and legitimacy, but also induce other network members to assume a passive role in their network, which may eventually frustrate the refexive coordination of network activities.
Finally, leadership constellations do not act in a vacuum. Teir refexive actions are situated in structural properties at the organization, network, and organizational feld level. Over time, the recursive interplay between refexive leadership action and structural properties at these three levels creates virtuous and vicious leadership dynamics. Te book proposes that these diferent leadership dynamics provide an explanation for the divergent efectiveness of inter-organizational networks.
Contributions and Structure of the Book
With these empirical fndings, this book contributes several insights into current debates on leading in inter-organizational networks (Huxham & Vangen, 2005; Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Provan et al., 2007; Sydow et al., 2016), leadership-as-practice (Crevani et al., 2010; Denis et al., 2001, 2010; Raelin, 2016), and refexivity in leadership and management (Antonacopoulou, 2004; Cotter & Cullen, 2012; Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004; Gorli et al., 2015).
First and foremost, this book contributes to the inter-organizational network literature by proposing a novel practice-theoretical model of refexive leadership in networks. It thereby improves our currently marginal understanding of how inter-organizational networks are led in diferent ways (Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Provan et al., 2007; Provan & Kenis, 2008; Sydow et al., 2016).
Second, this book suggests a rare dynamic perspective on leading in networks, demonstrating how leadership action and structural properties at various levels recursively interrelate over time. A dynamic perspective on leading in networks is timely because leading in networks consumes and takes place in time (Sydow, 2004) and because it creates knowledge about how leadership is actually done in networks (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & Van de Ven, 2013). With this dynamic account of leading in networks, the book difers from most previous research on this topic, which has foregrounded either leadership action or structure in a cross-sectional way.
Tird, this book contributes a multi-level study to network research. Despite several calls (e.g., Brass, Galaskiewicz, Greve, & Wenpin, 2004; Provan et al., 2007), multi-level research on networks has remained scarce and still waits to be implemented (Sydow et al., 2016). Tis book responds to these calls and proposes a practice-theoretical model that considers multiple analytical levels—including the organization, network, and organizational feld level. Te model illuminates how leadership action is recursively intertwined with these three levels. It also suggests that leading in networks cannot be adequately understood and explained without considering these three levels.
Fourth, this book contributes to our understanding of leadership practice in heterarchical networks. In contrast to hierarchical networks, heterarchical networks consist of more or less equal partners that do not formally appoint a leading actor. Te book adds a “refexive twist” to previous research on this topic (Browning, Beyer, & Shetler, 1995; Huxham & Vangen, 2000b; Müller-Seitz & Sydow, 2012; Sydow, 2004), shedding light on preconditions allowing members of heterarchical networks to refect jointly on the coordination of activities across their organizational boundaries.
Fifth, this book constitutes a move toward an understanding of how refexivity can be institutionalized in networks (Huxham, 2000; Sydow et al., 2016). Although several scholars have made calls for more refexivity in leading networks, we still know little about how this is accomplished (Sydow & Duschek, 2011). Te practice-theoretical model suggested in this book ofers a dynamic perspective on institutionalizing refexive leadership in networks.
Sixth, this book suggests an alternative approach for operationalizing network efectiveness. Te multiplicity of stakeholders involved in assessing the performance of networks and the normative character of all assessment criteria makes measuring network efectiveness extremely problematic (Kenis & Provan, 2009; Provan & Milward, 1995). Sydow and Windeler (1998) propose that efectiveness assessments are context-dependent social constructions and as such, both outcome and medium of refexive leadership action. Denis et al. (2010) shed light on the substantive, symbolic, and political consequences of leadership action. Tis book combines these complimentary research angles in order to ofer a novel endogenous and dynamic approach for empirically assessing network efectiveness.
Seventh, this book contributes a conceptualization of leadership practice to leadership-as-practice research (Crevani et al., 2010; Denis et al., 2010; Raelin, 2016). In contrast to traditional perspectives, leadership-as-practice scholars understand leadership as a social practice rather than as traits or behaviors of individuals. At the moment, the feld lacks an understanding of how to conceptualize and study leadership when organizations and networks are considered as a web of conjoined practices rather than static entities (Crevani et al., 2010). Te model
presented in this book provides a possible approach for conceptualizing leadership as a practice and thus may serve a source of inspiration for future research on this issue.
Finally, this book contributes to the current debate on practical refexivity in leadership and management (Antonacopoulou, 2004; Cotter & Cullen, 2012; Cunlife & Easterby-Smith, 2004; Gorli et al., 2015). Scholars in this feld have recently argued that the practices that support or interrupt moments of practical refexivity have generally been under-researched (Cotter & Cullen, 2012), and that future research could explore new methods with which to sustain practical refexivity (Gorli et al., 2015). Tis book provides new insights into such practices and methods, showing how refexive leadership action in networks is recursively related to structural properties at the organization, network, and organizational feld level. On this basis, it shows how refexive leadership in this context is a dynamic and highly fragile exercise.
Tis book also contains several implications for leadership practice. Most importantly, by presenting and empirically illustrating a practice-theoretical model of refexive leadership in networks, it provides practitioners with a novel conceptual tool for refecting on their own concrete leadership situation (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; Huxham & Vangen, 2005; Langley, 2010). Te proposed model, if understood and used as a practical conceptual tool, draws attention to virtuous and vicious leadership dynamics in networks. On this basis, it suggests four “areas of refexivity” for coping with these dynamics (see Appendix 6—questions for refexive practitioners).
Tis book will proceed as follows (see Fig. 1.1).
Chapter 2 will explore the theoretical foundations of leading in networks. Te majority of extant research on this topic can be divided into two streams. Action-oriented studies theorize leading in networks as the purposeful actions of individual or collective actors. Structure-oriented studies, by contrast, attribute leadership to certain structural features of a network, including social coordination mechanisms. Taken together, the two streams have provided important theoretical foundations for conceptualizing and describing leadership in networks. At the same time, the two streams are not without limitations. On the one hand, their fndings tend to be relatively static. On the other hand, there is only little connection between the two streams as an explanation of how
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Now then, notice this. About the end of August, 1846, a change came over me and I resolved to lead a better life, so I reformed; but it was just as well, anyway, because they had got to having guns and dogs both. Although I was reformed, the perturbations did not stop! Does that strike you? They did not stop, they went right on and on and on, for three weeks, clear up to the 23d of September; then Neptune was discovered and the whole mystery stood explained. It shows that I am so sensitively constructed that I perturbate when any other planet is disturbed. This has been going on all my life. It only happens in the watermelon season, but that has nothing to do with it, and has no significance: geologists and anthropologists and horticulturists all tell me it is only ancestral and hereditary, and that is what I think myself. Now then, I got to perturbating again, this summer-all summer through; all through watermelon time: and where, do you think? Up here on my farm in Connecticut. Is that significant? Unquestionably it is, for you couldn’t raise a watermelon on this farm with a derrick.
That perturbating was caused by the new planet. That Washington Observatory may throw as much doubt as it wants to, it cannot affect me, because I know there is a new planet. I know it because I don’t perturbate for nothing. There has got to be a dog or a planet, one or the other; and there isn’t any dog around here, so there’s got to be a planet. I hope it is going to be named after me; I should just love it if I can’t have a constellation.
MARJORIE FLEMING, THE WONDER CHILD
Marjorie has been in her tiny grave a hundred years; and still the tears fall for her, and will fall. What an intensely human little creature she was! How vividly she lived her small life; how impulsive she was; how sudden, how tempestuous, how tender, how loving, how sweet, how loyal, how rebellious, how repentant, how wise, how unwise, how bursting with fun, how frank, how free, how honest, how innocently bad, how natively good, how charged with quaint philosophies, how winning, how precious, how adorable--and how perennially and indestructibly interesting! And all this exhibited, proved, and recorded before she reached the end of her ninth year and “fell on sleep.”
Geographically considered, the lassie was a Scot; but in fact she had no frontiers, she was the world’s child, she was the human race in little. It is one of the prides of my life that the first time I ever heard her name it came from the lips of Dr. John Brown--his very own self--Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh--Dr. John Brown of Rab and His Friends--Dr. John Brown of the beautiful face and the sweet spirit, whose friends loved him with a love that was worship--Dr. John Brown, who was Marjorie’s biographer, and who had clasped an aged hand that had caressed Marjorie’s fifty years before, thus linking me with that precious child by an unbroken chain of handshakes, for I had shaken hands with Dr. John. This was in Edinburgh thirty-six years ago. He gave my wife his little biography of Marjorie, and I have it yet.
Is Marjorie known in America? No--at least to only a few. When Mr L. MacBean’s new and enlarged and charming
biography[17] of her was published five years ago it was sent over here in sheets, the market not being large enough to justify recomposing and reprinting it on our side of the water. I find that there are even cultivated Scotchmen among us who have not heard of Marjorie Fleming.
She was born in Kirkcaldy in 1803, and she died when she was eight years and eleven months old. By the time she was five years old she was become a devourer of various kinds of literature--both heavy and light--and was also become a quaint and free-spoken and charming little thinker and philosopher whose views were a delightful jumble of first-hand cloth of gold and second-hand rags.
When she was six she opened up that rich mine, her journals, and continued to work it by spells during the remainder of her brief life. She was a pet of Walter Scott, from the cradle, and when he could have her society for a few hours he was content, and required no other. Her little head was full of noble passages from Shakespeare and other favorites of hers, and the fact that she could deliver them with moving effect is proof that her elocution was a born gift with her, and not a mechanical reproduction of somebody else’s art, for a child’s parrot-work does not move. When she was a little creature of seven years, Sir Walter Scott “would read ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement over them; and he would take her on his knee and make her repeat Constance’s speeches in King John till he swayed to and fro, sobbing his fill.”
[Dr. John Brown.]
“Sobbing his fill”--that great man--over that little thing’s inspired interpretations. It is a striking picture; there is no mate to it. Sir Walter said of her:
“She’s the most extraordinary creature I ever met with, and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else does.”
She spent the whole of her little life in a Presbyterian heaven; yet she was not affected by it; she could not have been happier if she had been in the other heaven.
She was made out of thunderstorms and sunshine, and not even her little perfunctory pieties and shop-made holiness could
squelch her spirits or put out her fires for long. Under pressure of a pestering sense of duty she heaves a shovelful of trade godliness into her journals every little while, but it does not offend, for none of it is her own; it is all borrowed, it is a convention, a custom of her environment, it is the most innocent of hypocrisies, and this tainted butter of hers soon gets to be as delicious to the reader as are the stunning and worldly sincerities she splatters around it every time her pen takes a fresh breath. The adorable child! she hasn’t a discoverable blemish in her make-up anywhere.
Marjorie’s first letter was written before she was six years old; it was to her cousin, Isa Keith, a young lady of whom she was passionately fond. It was done in a sprawling hand, ten words to the page--and in those foolscap days a page was a spacious thing:
“M D I --
“I now sit down on my botom to answer all the kind & beloved letters which you was so so good as to write to me. This is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my life.
“Miss Potune, a lady of my acquaintance, praises me dreadfully. I repeated something out of Deen Swift & she said I was fit for the stage, & you may think I was primmed up with majestick Pride, but upon my word I felt myself turn a little birsay-birsay is a word which is a word that William composed which is as you may suppose a little enraged. This horid fat Simpliton says that my Aunt is beautifull which is intirely impossible for that is not her nature.”
Frank? Yes, Marjorie was that. And during the brief moment that she enchanted this dull earth with her presence she was the bewitchingest speller and punctuator in all Christendom.
The average child of six “prints” its correspondence in rickety and reeling Roman capitals, or dictates to mamma, who puts the little chap’s message on paper. The sentences are labored, repetitious, and slow; there are but three or four of them; they deal in information solely, they contain no ideas, they venture no
judgments, no opinions; they inform papa that the cat has had kittens again; that Mary has a new doll that can wink; that Tommy has lost his top; and will papa come soon and bring the writer something nice? But with Marjorie it is different.
She needs no amanuensis, she puts her message on paper herself; and not in weak and tottering Roman capitals, but in a thundering hand that can be heard a mile and be read across the square without glasses. And she doesn’t have to study, and puzzle, and search her head for something to say; no, she had only to connect the pen with the paper and turn on the current; the words spring forth at once, and go chasing after each other like leaves dancing down a stream. For she has a faculty, has Marjorie! Indeed yes; when she sits down on her bottom to do a letter, there isn’t going to be any lack of materials, nor of fluency, and neither is her letter going to be wanting in pepper, or vinegar, or vitriol, or any of the other condiments employed by genius to save a literary work of art from flatness and vapidity. And as for judgments and opinions, they are as commodiously in her line as they are in the Lord Chief Justice’s. They have weight, too, and are convincing: for instance, for thirty-six years they have damaged that “horid Simpliton” in my eyes; and, more than that, they have even imposed upon me--and most unfairly and unwarrantably--an aversion to the horid fat Simpliton’s name; a perfectly innocent name, and yet, because of the prejudice against it with which this child has poisoned my mind for a generation I cannot see “Potune” on paper and keep my gorge from rising.
In her journals Marjorie changes her subject whenever she wants to--and that is pretty often. When the deep moralities pay her a passing visit she registers them. Meantime if a cherished love passage drifts across her memory she shoves it into the midst of the moralities--it is nothing to her that it may not feel at home there:
“We should not be happy at the death of our fellow creatures, for they love life like us love your neighbor & he will love you Bountifulness and Mercifulness are always rewarded. In my travels I met with a handsome lad named Charles Balfour Esge
[Esqr.] and from him I got offers of marage--ofers of marage did I say? nay plainly [he] loved me. Goodness does not belong to the wicked but badness dishonor befals wickedness but not virtue, no disgrace befals virtue perciverence overcomes almost al difficulties no I am rong in saying almost I should say always as it is so perciverence is a virtue my Csosin says pacience is a cristain virtue, which is true.”
She is not copying these profundities out of a book, she is getting them out of her memory; her spelling shows that the book is not before her The easy and effortless flow of her talk is a marvelous thing in a baby of her age. Her interests are as wide and varied as a grown person’s: she discusses all sorts of books, and fearlessly delivers judgment upon them; she examines whomsoever crosses the field of her vision, and again delivers a verdict; she dips into religion and history, and even into politics; she takes a shy at the news of the day, and comments upon it; and now and then she drops into poetry--into rhyme, at any rate.
Marjorie would not intentionally mislead anyone, but she has just been making a remark which moves me to hoist a dangersignal for the protection of the modern reader. It is this one: “In my travels.” Naturally we are apt to clothe a word with its present-day meaning--the meaning we are used to, the meaning we are familiar with; and so--well, you get the idea: some words that are giants to-day were very small dwarfs a century ago, and if we are not careful to take that vast enlargement into account when we run across them in the literatures of the past, they are apt to convey to us a distinctly wrong impression. To-day, when a person says “in my travels” he means that he has been around the globe nineteen or twenty times, and we so understand him; and so, when Marjorie says it, it startles us for a moment, for it gives us the impression that she has been around it fourteen or fifteen times; whereas, such is not at all the case. She has traveled prodigiously for her day, but not for ours. She had “traveled,” altogether, three miles by land and eight by water--per ferryboat. She is fairly and justly proud of it, for it is the exact equivalent, in grandeur and impressiveness, in the case of a
child of our day, to two trips across the Atlantic and a thousand miles by rail.
“In the love novels all the heroins are very desperate Isabella will not allow me to speak about lovers and heroins, and tiss too refined for my taste a loadstone is a curous thing indeed it is true Heroic love doth never win disgrace this is my maxum and I will follow it forever Miss Eguards [Edgeworth] tails are very good particularly some that are very much adopted for youth as Lazy Lawrence Tarelton False Key &c &c Persons of the parlement house are as I think caled Advocakes Mr Cay & Mr Crakey has that honour. This has been a very mild winter. Mr Banestors Budget is to-night I hope it will be a good one. A great many authors have expressed themselfs too sentimentaly.... The Mercandile Afares are in a perilous situation sickness & a delicante frame I have not & I do not know what it is, but Ah me perhaps I shall have it.[18] Grandure reigns in Edinburgh.... Tomson is a beautifull author and Pope but nothing is like Shakepear of which I have a little knolegde of. An unfortunate death James the 5 had for he died of greif Macbeth is a pretty composition but awful one Macbeth is so bad & wicked, but Lady Macbeth is so hardened in guilt she does not mind her sins & faults No.
“... A sailor called here to say farewell, it must be dreadful to leave his native country where he might get a wife or perhaps me, for I love him very much & with all my heart, but O I forgot Isabella forbid me to speak about love.... I wish everybody would follow her example & be as good as pious & virtious as she is & they would get husbands soon enough, love is a parithatick [pathetic] thing as well as troublesome & tiresome but O Isabella forbid me to speak about it.”
But the little rascal can’t keep from speaking about it, because it is her supreme interest in life; her heart is not capacious enough to hold all the product that is engendered by the everrecurring inflaming spectacle of man-creatures going by, and the surplus is obliged to spill over; Isa’s prohibitions are no sufficient dam for such a discharge.
“Love I think is the fasion for everybody is marring [marrying].... Yesterday a marrade man named Mr John Balfour Esg [Esq.] offered to kiss me, & offered to marry me though the man was espused [espoused], & his wife was present & said he must ask her permission but he did not, I think he was ashamed or confounded before 3 gentleman Mr Jobson and two Mr Kings.”
I must make room here for another of Marjorie’s second-hand high-morality outbreaks. They give me a sinful delight which I ought to grieve at, I suppose, but I can’t seem to manage it:
“James Macary is to be transported for murder in the flower of his youth O passion is a terible thing for it leads people from sin to sin at last it gets so far as to come to greater crimes than we thought we could comit and it must be dreadful to leave his native country and his friends and to be so disgraced and affronted.”
That is Marjorie talking shop, dear little diplomat--to please and comfort mamma and Isa, no doubt.
This wee little child has a marvelous range of interests. She reads philosophies, novels, baby books, histories, the mighty poets--reads them with burning interest, and frankly and freely criticizes them all; she revels in storms, sunsets, cloud effects, scenery of mountain, plain, ocean, and forest, and all the other wonders of nature, and sets down her joy in them all; she loves people, she detests people, according to mood and circumstances, and delivers her opinion of them, sometimes seasoned with attar of roses, sometimes with vitriol; in games, and all kinds of childish play she is an enthusiast; she adores animals, adores them all; none is too forlorn to fail of favor in her friendly eyes, no creature so humble that she cannot find something in it on which to lavish her caressing worship.
“I am going to-morrow to a delightfull place, Braehead by name, belonging to Mrs. Crraford [Crauford], where there is ducks cocks hens bobblyjocks 2 dogs 2 cats and swine which is delightful. I think it is shocking to think that the dog and cat should bear them and they are drowned after all.”
She is a dear child, a bewitching little scamp; and never dearer, I think, than when the devil has had her in possession and she is breaking her stormy little heart over the remembrance of it:
“I confess I have been very more like a little young divil than a creature for when Isabella went up stairs to teach me religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other lessons I stamped with my foot and threw my new hat which she had made on the ground and was sulky and was dreadfully passionate, but she never whiped me but said Marjory go into another room and think what a great crime you are committing letting your temper git the better of you. But I went so sulkily that the devil got the better of me but she never never never whips me so that I think I would be the better of it & the next time that I behave ill I think she should do it for she never does it.... Isabella has given me praise for checking my temper for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an whole hour teaching me to write.”
The wise Isabella, the sweet and patient Isabella! It is just a hundred years now (May, 1909) since the grateful child made that golden picture of you and laid your good heart bare for distant generations to see and bless; a hundred years--but if the picture endures a thousand it will still bring you the blessing, and with it the reverent homage that is your due. You had the seeing eye and the wise head. A fool would have punished Marjorie and wrecked her, but you held your hand, as knowing that when her volcanic fires went down she would repent, and grieve, and punish herself, and be saved.
Sometimes when Marjorie was miraculously good, she got a penny for it, and once when she got an entire sixpence, she recognized that it was wealth. This wealth brought joy to her heart. Why? Because she could spend it on somebody else! We who know Marjorie would know that without being told it. I am sorry--often sorry, often grieved--that I was not there and looking over her shoulder when she was writing down her valued penny rewards: I would have said, “Save that scrap of manuscript, dear; make a will, and leave it to your posterity, to save them from want when penury shall threaten them; a day will come when it
will be worth a thousand guineas, and a later day will come when it will be worth five thousand; here you are, rejoicing in copper farthings, and don’t know that your magic pen is showering gold coin all over the paper.” But I was not there to say it; those who were there did not think to say it; and so there is not a line of that quaint precious cacography in existence to-day.
I have adored Marjorie for six-and-thirty years; I have adored her in detail, I have adored the whole of her; but above all other details--just a little above all other details--I have adored her because she detested that odious and confusing and unvanquishable and unlearnable and shameless invention, the multiplication table:
“I am now going to tell you the horible and wretched plaege [plague] that my multiplication gives me you can’t conceive it the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 & 7 times 7 it is what nature itself cant endure.”
I stand reverently uncovered in the presence of that holy verdict.
Here is that person again whom I so dislike--and for no reason at all except that my Marjorie doesn’t like her:
“Miss Potune is very fat she pretends to be very learned she says she saw a stone that dropt from the skies, but she is a good christian.”
Of course, stones have fallen from the skies, but I don’t believe this “horid fat Simpliton” had ever seen one that had done it; but even if she had, it was none of her business, and she could have been better employed than in going around exaggerating it and carrying on about it and trying to make trouble with a little child that had never done her any harm.
“... The Birds do chirp the Lambs do leap and Nature is clothed with the garments of green yellow, and white, purple, and red.
“... There is a book that is called the Newgate Calender that contains all the Murders: all the Murders did I say, nay all Thefts & Forgeries that ever were committed & fills me with horror & consternation.”
Marjorie is a diligent little student, and her education is always storming along and making great time and lots of noise:
“Isabella this morning taught me some French words one of which is bon suar the interpretation is good morning.”
It slanders Isabella, but the slander is not intentional. The main thing to notice is that big word, “interpretation.” Not many children of Marjorie’s age can handle a five syllable team in that easy and confident way. It is observable that she frequently employs words of an imposingly formidable size, and is manifestly quite familiar with them and not at all afraid of them.
“Isa is teaching me to make Simecolings nots of interrigations periods & commas &c. As this is Sunday I will meditate uppon senciable & Religious subjects first I should be very thankful I am not a beggar as many are.”
That was the “first.” She didn’t get to her second subject, but got side-tracked by a saner interest, and used her time to better purpose.
“It is melancholy to think, that I have so many talents, & many there are that have not had the attention paid to them that I have, & yet they contrive to be better then me.
“... Isabella is far too indulgent to me & even the Miss Crafords say that they wonder at her patience with me & it is indeed true for my temper is a bad one.”
The daring child wrote a (synopsized) history of Mary Queen of Scots and of five of the royal Jameses in rhyme--but never mind, we have no room to discuss it here. Nothing was entirely beyond her literary jurisdiction; if it had occurred to her that the laws of Rome needed codifying she would have taken a chance at it.
Here is a sad note:
“My religion is greatly falling off because I dont pray with so much attention when I am saying my prayers and my character is lost a-mong the Breahead people I hope I will be religious again but as for regaining my character I despare of it.”
When religion and character go, they leave a large vacuum. But there are ways to fill it:
“I’ve forgot to say, but I’ve four lovers, the other one is Harry Watson, a very delightful boy.... James Keith hardly ever Spoke to me, he said Girl! make less noise.... Craky hall ... I walked to
that delightfull place with a delightful young man beloved by all his friends and espacialy by me his loveress but I must not talk any longer about him for Isa said it is not proper for to speak of gentalman but I will never forget him....
“The Scythians tribe live very coarsely for a Gluton Introduced to Arsaces the Captain of the Army, 1 man who Dressed hair & another man who was a good cook but Arsaces said that he would keep 1 for brushing his horses tail and the other to fead his pigs....
“On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made bucks, the names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey [Cragie], and Wm. Keith and Jn Keith--the first is the funniest of every one of them. Mr. Crakey and I walked to Craky-hall [Craigiehall] hand and hand in Innocence and matitation sweet thinking on the kind love which flows in our tender hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic pleasure no one was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my existence. Mr. Craky you must know is a great Buck and pretty good-looking.”
For a purpose, I wish the reader to take careful note of these statistics:
“I am going to tell you of a melancholy story. A young turkie of 2 or 3 months old, would you believe it, the father broke its leg, & he killed another! I think he ought to be transported or hanged.”
Marjorie wrote some verses about this tragedy--I think. I cannot be quite certain it is this one, for in the verses there are three deaths, whereas these statistics do not furnish so many. Also in the statistics the father of the deceased is indifferent about the loss he has sustained, whereas in the verses he is not. Also in the third verse, the mother, too, exhibits feeling, whereas in the two closing verses of the poem she--at least it seems to be she--is indifferent. At least it looks like indifference to me, and I believe it is indifference:
“Three turkeys fair their last have breathed, And now this world forever leaved; Their father, and their mother too, They sighed and weep as well as you; Indeed, the rats their bones have cranched. Into eternity theire launched. A direful death indeed they had, As wad put any parent mad; But she was more than usual calm, She did not give a single dam.”
The naughty little scamp! I mean, for not leaving out the l in the word “Calm,” so as to perfect the rhyme. It seems a pity to damage with a lame rhyme a couplet that is otherwise without a blemish.
Marjorie wrote four journals. She began the first one in January, 1809, when she was just six years old, and finished it five months later, in June.
She began the second in the following month, and finished it six months afterward (January, 1810), when she was just seven. She began the third one in April, 1810, and finished it in the autumn.
She wrote the fourth in the winter of 1810-11, and the last entry in it bears date July 19, 1811, and she died exactly five months later, December 19th, aged eight years and eleven months. It contains her rhymed Scottish histories.
Let me quote from Dr. John Brown:
“The day before her death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and thin, her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a tremulous, old voice repeated a long poem by Burns-heavy with the shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment seat--the publican’s prayer in paraphrase, beginning:
“‘Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene? Have I so found it full of pleasing charms? Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between, Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms.’
“It is more affecting than we care to say to read her mother’s and Isabella Keith’s letters written immediately after her death. Old and withered, tattered and pale, they are now; but when you read them, how quick, how throbbing with life and love! how rich in that language of affection which only women, and Shakespeare, and Luther can use--that power of detaining the soul over the beloved object and its loss.”
Fifty years after Marjorie’s death her sister, writing to Dr. Brown, said:
“My mother was struck by the patient quietness manifested by Marjorie during this illness, unlike her ardent, impulsive nature; but love and poetic feeling were unquenched. When Dr. Johnstone rewarded her submissiveness with a sixpence, the request speedily followed that she might get out ere New Year’s Day came. When asked why she was so desirous of getting out, she immediately rejoined: ‘Oh, I am so anxious to buy something with my sixpence for my dear Isa Keith.’ Again, when lying very still, her mother asked her if there was anything she wished: ‘Oh yes, if you would just leave the room door open a wee bit, and play the Land o’ the Leal, and I will lie and think and enjoy myself’ (this is just as stated to me by her mother and mine). Well, the happy day came, alike to parents and child, when Marjorie was allowed to come forth from the nursery to the parlor. It was Sabbath evening, and after tea. My father, who idolized this child, and never afterward in my hearing mentioned her name, took her in his arms; and while walking her up and down the room she said: ‘Father, I will repeat something to you; what would you like?’ He said, ‘Just choose for yourself, Maidie.’ She hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase, ‘Few are thy days and full of woe,’ and the lines of Burns already quoted, but decided on the latter; a remarkable choice for a child. The repeating of these lines seemed to stir up the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked to be allowed to write a poem. There was a doubt whether it would be right to allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded earnestly, ‘Just this once’; the point was yielded, her slate was given her, and with great rapidity she
wrote an address of fourteen lines ‘To my loved cousin on the author’s recovery.’”
The cousin was Isa Keith.
“She went to bed apparently well, awoke in the middle of the night with the old cry of woe to a mother’s heart, ‘My head, my head!’ Three days of the dire malady, ‘water in the head,’ followed, and the end came.”
17. Marjorie Fleming. By L. MacBean. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, publishers, London and New York.
Permission to use the extracts quoted from Marjorie’s Journal in this article has been granted me by the publishers.
18. It is a whole century since the dimly conscious little prophet said it, but the pathos of it is still there.
ADAM’S SOLILOQUY
(The spirit of Adam is supposed to be visiting New York City inspecting the dinosaur at the Museum of Natural History)
(1905) I
It is strange ... very strange. I do not remember this creature. (After gazing long and admiringly.) Well, it is wonderful! The mere skeleton fifty-seven feet long and sixteen feet high! Thus far, it seems, they’ve found only this sample--without doubt a merely medium-sized one; a person could not step out here into the Park and happen by luck upon the largest horse in America; no, he would happen upon one that would look small alongside of the biggest Normandy. It is quite likely that the biggest dinosaur was ninety feet long and twenty feet high. It would be five times as long as an elephant; an elephant would be to it what a calf is to an elephant. The bulk of the creature! The weight of him! As long as the longest whale, and twice the substance in him! And all good wholesome pork, most likely; meat enough to last a village a year.... Think of a hundred of them in line, draped in shining cloth of gold!--a majestic thing for a coronation procession. But expensive, for he would eat much; only kings and millionaires could afford him.
I have no recollection of him; neither Eve nor I had heard of him until yesterday. We spoke to Noah about him; he colored and changed the subject. Being brought back to it--and pressed a little--he confessed that in the matter of stocking the Ark the stipulations had not been carried out with absolute strictness-that is, in minor details, unessentials. There were some
irregularities. He said the boys were to blame for this--the boys mainly, his own fatherly indulgence partly. They were in the giddy heyday of their youth at the time, the happy springtime of life; their hundred years sat upon them lightly, and--well, he had once been a boy himself, and he had not the heart to be too exacting with them. And so--well, they did things they shouldn’t have done, and he--to be candid, he winked. But on the whole they did pretty faithful work, considering their age. They collected and stowed a good share of the really useful animals; and also, when Noah was not watching, a multitude of useless ones, such as flies, mosquitoes, snakes, and so on, but they did certainly leave ashore a good many creatures which might possibly have had value some time or other, in the course of time. Mainly these were vast saurians a hundred feet long, and monstrous mammals, such as the megatherium and that sort, and there was really some excuse for leaving them behind, for two reasons: (1) it was manifest that some time or other they would be needed as fossils for museums and (2) there had been a miscalculation, the Ark was smaller than it should have been, and so there wasn’t room for those creatures. There was actually fossil material enough all by itself to freight twenty-five Arks like that one. As for the dinosaur----But Noah’s conscience was easy; it was not named in his cargo list and he and the boys were not aware that there was such a creature. He said he could not blame himself for not knowing about the dinosaur, because it was an American animal, and America had not then been discovered.
Noah went on to say, “I did reproach the boys for not making the most of the room we had, by discarding trashy animals and substituting beasts like the mastodon, which could be useful to man in doing heavy work such as the elephant performs, but they said those great creatures would have increased our labors beyond our strength, in the matter of feeding and watering them, we being short-handed. There was something in that. We had no pump; there was but one window; we had to let down a bucket from that, and haul it up a good fifty feet, which was very tiresome; then we had to carry the water downstairs--fifty feet again, in cases where it was for the elephants and their kind, for
we kept them in the hold to serve for ballast. As it was, we lost many animals--choice animals that would have been valuable in menageries--different breeds of lions, tigers, hyenas, wolves, and so on; for they wouldn’t drink the water after the salt sea water got mixed with the fresh. But we never lost a locust, nor a grasshopper, nor a weevil, nor a rat, nor a cholera germ, nor any of that sort of beings. On the whole, I think we did very well, everything considered. We were shepherds and farmers; we had never been to sea before; we were ignorant of naval matters, and I know this for certain, that there is more difference between agriculture and navigation than a person would think. It is my opinion that the two trades do not belong together. Shem thinks the same; so does Japheth. As for what Ham thinks, it is not important. Ham is biased. You find me a Presbyterian that isn’t, if you think you can.”
He said it aggressively; it had in it the spirit of a challenge. I avoided argument by changing the subject. With Noah, arguing is a passion, a disease, and it is growing upon him; has been growing upon him for thirty thousand years, and more. It makes him unpopular, unpleasant; many of his oldest friends dread to meet him. Even strangers soon get to avoiding him, although at first they are glad to meet him and gaze at him, on account of his celebrated adventure. For a time they are proud of his notice, because he is so distinguished; but he argues them to rags, and before long they begin to wish, like the rest, that something had happened to the Ark.
II
(On the bench in the Park, midafternoon, dreamily noting the drift, of the human species back and forth.) To think--this multitude is but a wee little fraction of the earth’s population! And all blood kin to me, every one! Eve ought to have come with me; this would excite her affectionate heart. She was never able to keep her composure when she came upon a relative; she would try to kiss every one of these people, black and white and all. (A baby wagon passes.) How little change one can notice--none at all, in fact. I remember the first child well----Let me see ... it is
three hundred thousand years ago come Tuesday This one is just like it. So between the first one and the last one there is really nothing to choose. The same insufficiency of hair, the same absence of teeth, the same feebleness of body and apparent vacancy of mind, the same general unattractiveness all around. Yet Eve worshiped that early one, and it was pretty to see her with it. This latest one’s mother worships it; it shows in her eyes--it is the very look that used to shine in Eve’s. To think that so subtle and intangible a thing as a look could flit and flash from face to face down a procession three hundred thousand years long and remain the same, without shade of change! Yet here it is, lighting this young creature’s face just as it lighted Eve’s in the long ago--the newest thing I have seen in the earth, and the oldest. Of course, the dinosaur----But that is in another class.
She drew the baby wagon to the bench and sat down and began to shove it softly back and forth with one hand while she held up a newspaper with the other and absorbed herself in its contents. Presently, “My!” she exclaimed; which startled me, and I ventured to ask her, modestly and respectfully, what was the matter. She courteously passed the paper to me and said-pointing with her finger:
“There--it reads like fact, but I don’t know.”
It was very embarrassing. I tried to look at my ease, and nonchalantly turned the paper this and that and the other way, but her eye was upon me and I felt that I was not succeeding. Pretty soon she asked, hesitatingly:
“Can’t--can’t--you--read?”
I had to confess that I couldn’t. It filled her with wonder. But it had one pleasant effect--it interested her in me, and I was thankful, for I was getting lonesome for some one to talk to and listen to. The young fellow who was showing me around--on his own motion, I did not invite him--had missed his appointment at the Museum, and I was feeling disappointed, for he was good company. When I told the young woman I could not read, she asked me another embarrassing question:
“Where are you from?”
I skirmished--to gain time and position. I said:
“Make a guess. See how near you can come.”
She brightened, and exclaimed:
“I shall dearly like it, sir, if you don’t mind. If I guess right will you tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Honor bright?”
“Honor bright? What is that?”
She laughed delightedly and said:
“That’s a good start! I was sure that that phrase would catch you. I know one thing, now, all right. I know----”
“What do you know?”
“That you are not an American. And you aren’t, are you?”
“No. You are right. I’m not--honor bright, as you say.”
She looked immensely pleased with herself, and said:
“I reckon I’m not always smart, but that was smart, anyway. But not so very, after all, because I already knew--believed I knew--that you were a foreigner, by another sign.”
“What was that?”
“Your accent.”
She was an accurate observer; I do speak English with a heavenly accent, and she had detected the foreign twang in it. She ran charmingly on, most naïvely and engagingly pleased with her triumph:
“The minute you said, ‘See ’ow near you can come to it,’ I said to myself, ‘Two to one he is a foreigner, and ten to one he’s English.’ Now that is your nationality, isn’t it?”
I was sorry to spoil her victory, but I had to do it: “Ah--you’ll have to guess again.”
“What--you are not an Englishman?”
“No--honor bright.”
She looked me searchingly over, evidently communing with herself--adding up my points, then she said:
“Well, you don’t look like an Englishman, and that is true.” After a little she added, “The fact is, you don’t look like any foreigner-not quite like ... like anybody I’ve seen before. I will guess some more.”
