High-Intensity Organizations
Research Group
The High-Intensity Organizations Research Group (HI-ORG) is a multi-disciplinary research forum focusing on shared leadership, interprofessional collaboration, and organizational transgressions. We are located in and around the Department of Management of the Royal Military College of Canada.
What are Hi-ORGs?
High-Intensity Organizations (HI-ORGs) are characterized by a high degree of interdependence engendered by a fluid environment.
While sharing similarities with extreme contexts (Hallgreen et al., 2018) and high-reliability organizations (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2007) HI-ORGs are most analogous to High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). In this types of physical training, sudden short periods of explosive activity to the point of exhaustion are interspersed with periods of recovery. These periodic bursts are a central feature of HI-ORGs and may include severe psychological and material consequences (Hannah et al., 2009).
Examples of HI-ORGs may span from life and death activities such as the military or healthcare to potentially less lethal professions like end-of-year fiscal accounting. In HI-ORGs, failures may have important repercussions.
Research Axes
1. Shared Leadership in HI-ORGs
How are leadership dyads and triads leveraged, practiced, and sustained over time? Whether and how do these plural leadership configurations contribute to diversity and inclusion?
2. Breaking and bridging silos in HI-ORGs
How do military members and civilians collaborate in military organizations? How do professional groups work together in healthcare organizations?
3. Transgressions in HI-ORGs
How (and whether) are cases of sexual misconduct handled by management? How do people experience, recover, and grow from moral transgressions and traumas in their everyday working lives?
4. Ontological, epistemological, and methodological matters matter
How do we approach and study HI-ORGs? How do we capture becoming and organizing "in the making"?
Selected Research Output
Presentations
Fachin, F. & Gibeau, É. (2021). Identity work and posttraumatic growth: Lt-Gen Roméo Dallaire and the Rwandan genocide. Academy of Management Annual Meeting (AOM), A Virtual Experience.
Gibeau, É. & Fachin, F. (2021) The identity work of medical directors as collateral construction. Academy of Management Annual Meeting (AOM), A Virtual Experience.
Publications
Brunet, M., Fachin, F. & Langley, A. (2021) Studying Projects Processually. International Journal of Project Management. 39(8), 834-848.
Clifton, J., Fachin, F. & Cooren, F. (2021) How Artefacts Do Leadership: A Ventriloquial Analysis. Management Communication Quarterly. 35(2), 256–280.
Gibeau, É., Langley, A., Denis, J-L, & van Schendel N. (2020) Bridging Competing Demands Through Co-leadership? Potential and Limitations. Human Relations. 73(4), 464-489.
Gibeau, É., Langley, A. & Reid., W. (2016). Co-leadership: Contexts, Configurations and Conditions. Dans Storey, J., Hartley, J., Denis, J., Hart, P. & Ulrich, D. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Leadership. New York: Routledge.
Current projects
Leading in and around triads
We explore triadic leadership in military healthcare organizations to advance our understanding of how this leadership arrangement can be successful and sustained over time.
Posttraumatic growth
Based on a longitudinal case study of LGen Roméo Dallaire during and after the Rwandan Genocide, we explore how individuals are able to not only cope with but also grow from traumatic experiences.
Handling sexual misconduct
While sexual misconduct is a hot topic, we address the dearth of studies that deal with how cases of sexual misconduct are handled by high-ranking organizational actors.
Military-civilian collaboration within defence organisations
While the study of military-civilian inter-organizational collaboration has received considerable attention, we focus on the intra-organizational level to provide insights on bridging these two worlds within organizations.
Moral injury in the everyday
While the study of how one's actions may contradict one's own values has focused on extreme specific incidents, we explore this process over time based on unfolding events in individuals' everyday working lives.
Gender dynamics in command teams
We explore gender dynamics in command teams in Canada and abroad.
HI-ORG Research Seminars
"Reducing Rates of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment in the U.S. Armed Forces: Strategies and Challenges"
Dr. Joie Acosta and Dr. Matthew Chinman
RAND, U.S. Dept Veterans Affairs, U of Virginia
15 February 2022
"Influencing Strategic-Decision Making: A Pandemic Perspective"
MGen Marc Bilodeau, Surgeon-General
Canadian Armed Forces
Special Edition: Meet the Generals
14 February 2022
"Integration of Military and Civilian Personnel within the Total Defence Workforce: An International Comparative Study"
Dr. Irina Goldenberg
Director General Military Personnnel and Analysis (DND)
25 January 2022
"Ethics and Culture in the U.S. Army"
Dr. Stephen Gerras
US Army War College
10 November 2021
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Myths, Facts and Concrete Strategies"
Rosine Twagirimana
Special Edition: Practitioner
20 October 2021
"The Warrior’s Character: Ethical Leadership in Practice"
Dr. Sean Hannah
Wake Forest University
22 September 2021
"How Groups Sustain Engagement with Temporally Uncertain Work"
Dr. Derin Kent
University of Warwick
21 March 2021
“I Go Here…But I Don’t Necessarily Belong”: The Process of Transgressor Reintegration in Organizations”
Dr. Erin Frey
University of Southern California
18 February 2021
"Personal and Family Changes of the Military Civilian Transition"
Dr. Dave Blackburn
Université du Québec en Outaouais
21 January 2021
"How can you do it? The challenges of doing - and researching - dirty work''
Dr. Blake Ashforth
Arizona State University
24 October 2022
"Wicked, Tame & Critical Problems: Leadership, Command and Management''
Dr. Keith Grint
Warwick Business School
14 November 2022
"Effectuation: How Entrepreneurs (Really) Think And Act''
Dr. Philippe Silberzah
EMLYON Business School, France
16 February 2023
"Entrepreneurship as social change: Innovation in the face of stigma''
Dr. Madeline Toubiana
University of Ottawa
16 March 2023
"Fostering collaborative governance in major projects''
Dr. Maude Brunet
HEC Montreal
26 March 2023
HI-ORGers
Michelle Hudon, MBA candidate
Triadic leadership in military health care
Erin Steele, MA
Civil-military collaboration, shared leadership
Christian Keresztes, PhD
Health care administration
Xiao Fan Wang
Healthcare administration officer
Wagner
HI-Dog
Alumni
Yoan St-Onge, MPA (2022). “Blockchain Technology and Knowledge Management.” Nominated for Governor’s General Academic Gold Medal.
Emilie Gibeau, PhD
Co-Founder
emilie.gibeau@rmc.ca
Julie Rocheleau
Research Assistant