Mana 341 - Articles
Mana 341 - Articles
Mana 341 - Articles
SCHACHTER 2014 (Boston Consulting Group – Yves Morieux & Peter Tollman)
– Hard scientific, analytical approach – traces back to mechanical engineer Fredrick Taylor’s efforts
to improve industrial efficiency
– Soft approach – the human relations thinking
– Companies try to combine both
– Morieux & Tollman argue it’s not working
– The hard approach is becoming counterproductive as new structures, processes, and systems
are slapped in place to supposedly improve performance
– The soft approach tries to control the individual, even if that is disguised, using emotional
rather than financial incentives like celebration and encouraging management systems to
address the problems created by the hard approach
– The hard and soft creates vicious circles, in which managers are trapped and people are
suffering
– They believe management needs to focus on autonomy & co-operation
– Autonomy frees people to use their full intelligence and energy at work
– But companies need to encourage people to use that autonomy to enhance the
effectiveness of others
– Autonomy and co-operation are threatened by the hard approach
– Control lies elsewhere, with the executives setting the rules, directions and targets that
must be met
– Balance scorecards gets in the way of enhancing co-operation
– 6 simple rules
– Understand what people do
– Understand what your employees do
– Support integrators
– Spread power more broadly
– Companies must be careful not to empower some people while disempowering others
– Increase reciprocity
– Make people more dependent on others so there is more reason to co-operate
– Extend the shadow of the future
– Create feedback loops that force people to see the consequences of their actions
– Reward those who co-operate
– Provide incentive so people use their autonomy to work with others
Current Challenges
– Globalization: rapid advances in technology and communications. Today's organizations needs to feel
“at home” anywhere in the world. Organizations have to learn to cross lines of time, culture, and
geography to survive.
– Ethics & Social Responsibility: Public opinion on corporates is turning negative due to numerous
scandals and wrongdoings. Shareholders and public now hold organizations and their employees to
high ethical and professional standards.
– Speed of Responsiveness: Organizations need to respond quickly and decisively to environmental
changes, organizational crises or shifting consumer expectations. Mindset of organizational leaders is
to expect the unexpected, and be ready for rapid change and potential crises -nimble organizational
design.
– The Digital Workplace: organizational leaders not only need to be technologically savvy but also are
responsible for managing a web of relationships that reaches far beyond the boundaries of the physical
organization, building flexible e-links between a company and its employees, suppliers, contract
partners, and customers.
– Diversity: organizations operate on a global playing field, workforce is changing dramatically.
Managing diversity is a rewarding challenge for global organizations.
What is an organization?
– Social entity - made up of people, their activities and interactions
– Goal directed - purpose to exist, achieve its collective goals
– Structured activity system - division and coordination of activities into roles and departments
– Linked to the external environment - different stakeholder groups, beyond formal boundaries
Importance of Organizations
– Create value for owners, customers, and employees
– Accommodate challenges of diversity, ethics and coordination
– Adapt to and influence a rapidly changing environment
– Use modern manufacturing and information technologies
– Facilitate innovation
– Produce goods and services efficiently
– Bring together resources to achieve desired goals
Perspectives on Organizations
– System → set of interacting elements that require inputs from the environment, transforms them and
discharges outputs to external environment.
– Subsystems → perform specific functions required for organizational survival [boundary spanning,
production/maintenance/adaption/management]
– Open System
– A system that must interact with the environment openly to survive
– Consumes resources and exports resources to the environment
– Find and obtain resources, interpret and act on environmental changes, dispose of outputs, and
control and coordinate internal activities in the face of environmental disturbances.
Organizational structure
– Designates formal reporting relationships
– Identifies group the grouping together of individuals into departments
– Includes the design of systems to ensure communication, coordination & integration
Organizational Culture
– Social Capital → quality of interactions among people and their shared perspective (goodwill)
– Culture → set of values, norms, beliefs, and unwritten guidelines
– Integrate members to relate to one another
– Help organization adapt to external environment
– Internal integration: members develop collective identity + how to work together
effectively
– External adaption: how organization meets its goal and deals with outsiders
– Organizational culture exists at 2 levels:
– The surface level – visible artifacts and observable behavior
– Deeper values in the mind of organization members (underlying assumptions, beliefs,
attitudes, feelings, thought processes)
– Unobservable organization culture
– Integrations with internal relations
– Adaption with the external environment
– Observable Organizational Culture
– Norms and rules → daily routine activities
– Stories = heroes, legends, myths
– Symbol - physical symbols or illustrations
– Rites and ceremonies → reinforcer of values
– Passage
– Enhancement
– Renewal
– integration
– Language - industry jargon
– Espoused values → explicit expressions of organizational values
Organizational Design and Culture
– Culture must reinforce strategy & structured design = organization effective in environment
– Categories of culture
– Adaptability culture: strategic focus on external environment with flexibility and change
– Mission culture: serve specific clients in external environment, no need for rapid change
– Clan culture: involvement and participation of organizations members in rapidly changing
environment
– Bureaucratic culture: internal focus and consistency orientation for stable environment
– Culture of discipline
– Level 5 leadership = complete lack of personal ego, strong will and ambition for the success
of the organization
– Right values = culture based on values of individual freedom and responsibility
– Right people in right jobs = persons whose values embody the organization's values and fit
the culture
– Knowing where to go = best direction for the company
– Culture strength → degree of agreement among members on specific values
– Subcultures → reflect common goals, experiences etc within a culture/team