I became really attached to Sullivan et al's article about organizational critique from a few years ago, so I immediately found something to like in Stuart Blythe's piece about agency within organizations. As he sets up the paradox of agency, though, I think he simply doesn't offer too many strategies for taking agency within organizations.

Blythe describes the paradox of agency is that it "involves a 'lack of constraint,' by which people are free to make meaningful decisions and take purposeful action" and "the ability to function 'as part of something larger'--as, for example, our positions within institutions of higher education enable us to teach and write" (173). And I completely agree that this does seem to be the major paradox at work here; we must operate within the constraints of an organization while also taking charge of something meaningful within that organization. Often, we can't find the space to maneuver and gain some control over our positions. I can especially see where this paradox works in Porter, Sullivan et. al.'s piece about organizational critique, because the answer that article provides is that by performing departmental, organizational , etc. critiques we can suggest change in the departments and schools in which we labor. The critique model must, of course, be taken seriously and implemented by those that have the power to make rooted organizational changes, though. And this is where I see something missing in Blythe's argument. He argues that we can take control of institutions in one of three ways: how texts are written, presented, and received--each of these points on the rhetorical pyramid offer locations to enact or effect change. Aside from changing policies or the methods by which those policies are enacted, how are we to create change? Perhaps I see most of these main points being covered in the earlier piece I referenced and Blythe only reiterating some of the claims, but with a broader, perhaps less-directed focus.