TOPIC 5: In search of new paradigms

1. TOPIC 5: In search of new paradigms

2. Culture–Excellence • Key figures • • Tom Peters and Robert Waterman • • Rosabeth Moss Kanter • • Charles Handy • Core concept: • Culture determines Performance • Peters and Waterman found a strong link between excellence (good performance) and organisational culture. • Proposed a particular type of culture that is “best” for organisational performance

3. Peters and Waterman Eight key attributes of excellent organisations • Bias for action • Closeness to the customer • Autonomy and entrepreneurship • Productivity through people • Hands-on, value-driven • Stick to the knitting • Simple form, lean staff • Simultaneous loose–tight properties.

4. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1989) Kanter’s Post-entrepreneurial model – the importance of communication, teamwork, alliances in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship • Internally, restructuring to find synergies • Externally, opening boundaries to form strategic alliances • Creating new ventures from within – encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.

5. Charles Handy (1989)The age of unreason The world is changing, therefore, organisations must change. • In future, organisations must be • Knowledge-based • Run by a few smart people (knowledge workers as core workers; lean simple structure to promote flexibility) • Populated by a host of smart machines (use of technology to replace non-knowledge work)

6. Charles Handy Emerging organisations • The Shamrock organisation • Focus on core workers to do the knowledge work • Non-core work outsourced or use temporary workforce • To keep lean and simple organisational structure • The Federal organisation • Organisation made up of a “federation” of independent units with high level of autonomy • Decentralisation: increases flexibility • The Triple I organisation. • Improves organisational Intelligence; acquires new Information; create new Ideas

7. ‘Culture-Excellence’ in Googlehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdrctZ3EDPUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOZhbOhEunY

8. Summary • Organisations must promote • Strong, flexible cultures • Innovation and entrepreneurship • Teamwork and individual enterprise and development • Reward systems based on contribution and not position • Brain power and not muscle power • Flat, anti-hierarchical structures • Small corporate and middle management staffs • Tight control of a few key measures • Continuous, radical change.

9. Criticisms • Back to ‘one best way’ • Assumes all organisations face the same problems and opportunities • Culture is the great cure-all – is it the “best” culture applicable to all? • What about the Japanese?

10. The Japanese approach • Distinct features • Personnel policies (soft) • Business practices and work systems (hard) • Effectiveness comes from the ability to combine • soft and hard practices.

11. The Japanese approach(Continued) • Personnel policies (soft) • Lifetime employment • Internal labour market • Seniority-based promotion and rewards • Teamwork and bonding • Enterprise unions • Training and education • Company welfarism.

12. The Japanese approach (Continued) • Designed to promote: • Loyalty and gratitude • Commitment • Sense of security • Strong, unified culture • Hard work and improvement • Co-operation not conflict • Self-development.

13. The Japanese approach (Continued) Business practices and work systems (hard) • Long-term planning • Timeliness • Fast product development • JIT – Just-in-time production • Right first time. • Quality • Total quality approach • Continuous improvement “Kaizen”

14. The Japanese approachSummary • Values and promotes loyalty • Slow promotion • Seniority principle • Lifetime employment • Paternalistic and deferential • Slow, collective decision-making • Change is continuous, incremental, bottom-up but • within an overall company vision.

15. Discussion: Criticisms of the Japanese management approach?? • Especially its ‘soft’ personnel policies?? • Lifetime employment • Internal labour market • Seniority-based promotion and rewards • Teamwork and bonding • Enterprise unions • Training and education • Company welfarism.

16. End of lifetime employment in Japan http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/playlist/1778/1265302?title=bloomberg

17. The Japanese approachCriticisms • Two-tier labour markets • Lifetime employment = slavery • Motivation? • Teamwork = coercive pressure • Enterprise unions = exploitation • Cannot accommodate globalisation and workforce diversity • Threatened by economic shocks.

18. Organisational learning Some definitions • Organizational learning is the process by which the organization’s knowledge and value base changes, leading to improved problem-solving ability and capacity for action (Probst and Buchel, 1997: 15). • A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating,acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights (Garvin, 1993: 80).

19. Organisational learning (Continued) • Organizational learning means the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding (Fiol and Lyles, 1985:803). • An entity learns if, through its processing of information, the range of its potential behaviors is changed (Huber, 1991: 89). • Organizational learning occurs through shared insight, knowledge and mental models and builds on past knowledge and experience, that is, on memory (Stata, 1989: 64).

20. In summary… • Rapidly changing, hypercompetitive environment • Organisations need to learn continuously • Acquire knowledge • Share knowledge – benefits all, improve organisation’s memory/knowledge base, stimulate new ideas • Create new knowledge • Changes behaviour, improves performance

21. Organisational learning (Continued) • Positives • A rich, multi-dimensional concept affecting many aspects of organisational behaviour. • An innovative approach to learning, to knowledge management and to investing in intellectual capital. • A new set of challenging concepts focusing attention on the acquisition and development of individual and corporate knowledge. • An innovative approach to organisation, management and employee development. • Innovative use of technology to manage organisational knowledge through databases and internet or intranets.

22. Organisational learning (Continued) • Negatives • A complex and difficult set of practices, difficult to implement systematically. • An attempt to use dated concepts from change management and learning theory, repackaged as a management consulting project. • A new vocabulary for encouraging employee compliance with management directives in the guise of ‘self-development’. • An innovative approach for strengthening management control. • A technology-dependent approach that ignores how people actually develop and use knowledge in organisations. (From Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001: 135)

23. Many proposed practices to promote organisational learning, e.g. • Use of online databases to share knowledge and information is the most common practice • Promote knowledge sharing through more flexible organisational structure • Technologies such as chatrooms, instant messaging at work, social media…etc. • Promote learning and knowledge sharing culture e.g. use of HR practices, leadership role modelling, reward system…etc. • Very complex! • Over-reliance on the use of technologies such as databases – not genuine communication and sharing?