Organisations- og Virksomhedsteori

7. Undervisningsgang – 15. april 2013

Lectures, Spring 2013Week

Date Subject Literature

5 28. Jan Introduction to the course

6 4. Feb Multiple Perspectives MJH, Chap 1+2

7 11. Feb Winter holiday

8 18. Feb Organizations and Environment MJH, Chap 3

9 25. Feb Cancelled

10 4. Mar Organizational Social Structure + Case MJH, Chap 4 + Comp

11 11. Mar Culture + Technology MJH, Chap 6 + 5

12 18. Mar Organizational Power, Control & Conflict + Case MJH, Chap 8 + IKEA

13 25. Mar Case Work kick off

14 1. Apr Easter holiday

15 8. Apr Case work – supervision at ITU

16 15. Apr Theory in Practice / New directions in Organization Theory

MJH, Chap 9+10

17 22. AprStrategizing; Intro + Decision Theory

Nygaard, Chap 1+2

18 29. AprStrategizing; Agent- and Transactional cost analysis

Nygaard, Chap 4+5

19 6. May Strategizing; Institutional- Networks theory Nygaard, Chap 8+9

20 13. May Strategizing; Corporate Systems Theory Nygaard, Chap 10

21 20. May Whit Monday

22 27. May Spare week

Organizational design Theories of organizational design are

prescriptive by nature; they intentionally change organizations

Symbolic interpretivists are sensitive to the cultural embedded meanings

Simple Organizational designs Functional Organizational designs Multidivisional forms Matrix organizations Strategic alliances The Global Matrix

Organizational design

GeneralManager

LogisticsPurchasin

gHR /

FinanceManufac-

turingSales

Functional Organizational design

Organizational design

GeneralManager

Division 2Division 1 Division 3

Multidivisional organizational design

Pur

Mft

Log

SalPur

Mft

Log

SalPur

Mft

Log

Sal

Organizational design

GeneralManager

Division 2Division 1 Division 3

Multidivisional organizational design (M-Form)

Pur

Mft

Log

SalPur

Mft

Log

SalPur

Mft

Log

Sal

S S CPL Centric Structure

Organizational design

GeneralManager

LogisticsHR /

FinanceManufac-

turingSales

Matrix Organizational design

Project 1

Project 2

Project 3

Organizational design Process Centric Organizational Design

Inquiry & Quotation Processing

Sales Order Processing

Delivery Billing Collections& Dispute Payment Complaints

Management

Order to Cash process

Organizational design

GeneralManager

N America E EuropeAsia EC

The Global Matrix

P Group A

P Group B

P Group C

Strategic alliances & Joint Ventures

Local firms

Organizational design

Unfreeze Movement Refreeze

Complex Responsive Processes

Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics

Den systemiske tankegang Er baseret på ideen om, at alle elementer har en

funktion ogtilsammen danner et system

Systemers virke er altid forudsigelige og der er en klar kausalitet mellem in- og output

Systemer designes af en udefra kommende entitet

Eksempler: maskiner, økologi, vejr

Negative feed-back loop

Desiredtemperature

Actual- desired

Desiredtemperature

Applianceswitched off

-Temperature

+Temperature

Applianceswitched on

Cybernetic Systems

Is based on Wieners idéa about control to human activity

Always seeks an equilibrium, which can be stable, unstable or dynamic

Based on individual centred cognitive psychology

When we desire a motion to follow a given pattern, the difference between the pattern and the actually performed motion is used as a new input to cause the part regulated to move in such a way, as to bring the motion closer to that given pattern

Norbert Wiener 1948

Cybernetic Systems 2

Organisations are goal-seeking, self-regulating adapting to pre-given environment through negative feed-back (learning)

Effective control requires forecasts and a control system that contains as much variety as the environment

Effective organisations are self-regulating, an automatic mechanical feature flowing from the way the control system are structured

Success is a state of stability, consistency and harmony

Strategic choice theory

Formulation and evaluation of long-termstrategic plans. Including analysing andforecasting market development, as wellas other alternatives and their implications

Results in a blueprint to guide the organisation for a reasonable long period of time

Implementation is in effect the construction of cybernetic systems. Effective implementation is a prerequisite for success

Partial and limited explanation of how organisational life unfolds!

Complexity rejects systems

When complexity raises in organisations and not least in the environment, systems thinking is not sufficient for understanding organisations.

A number of theories has been used in the last two decades for handling complexity, such as: The learning organisation Chaos theory Complex adaptive systems

Same paradigm in terms of the leader is observing/designing outside the organisation

Complex Responsive processes

Based on temporal processes of human interaction Concerned with the actions of human bodies such as

walking, talking and thinking Psychological model based on relationships between

people instead of on the individual Strategy is no longer someone’s intended or desired

future state, but is understood as evolving patterns of organisational and individual identities

Legitimate- and shadow themes

Legitimate Shadow

-Organise what people feel free able to talk about open and freely.-Organise conversations that in which people give acceptable accounts of themselves and their actions, as well as the imputations about the actions of others-Kind of conversation you readily engage in with others, even if you do not know them well

-Organise what people do not feel able to talk about openly and freely-Organise conversations that in which people give less acceptable accounts of themselves and their actions, as well as the imputations about the actions of others-Kind of conversation you would only engage in informally, in very small groups, with others, you know and trust

If there is one thing that everyone knows about life in organisations or any other grouping of people for that matter, it is this: it is not possible to talk freely and openly to just anyone, in any situation, about anything one likes, in any way one chooses, and still survive as a member.

Legitimate- and shadow themes

Legitimate Shadow

Conscious Unconscious

InformalFormal

Shadow connectionsLegitimate connections

Complex Responsive processes

Five shifts in focusing attention on:1. Quality of participation2. Quality of conversational life3. Quality of anxiety and how it is lived with4. Quality of diversity5. Unpredictability and paradox

1. Quality of participation

Responses can’t be designedTop executives form organisation-wide intentions, leverage points and structures. However responses to these intentions can never be designed.

No manager can stand outside an organisation. Therefore all managers are active participants with each other in the interactive processes that are the organisation

Stay inside the organisationStep inside the organisation and participate with other members in evolutionary processes of communicating and power relating

Unexpected eventsFocus on the unexpected and complex patterning of responses of organisational members to managers’ intentions

2. Quality of conversational life

Conversations and power relatingIn organisations relationships between people are organised in conversations that form and are formed by the power relations between them

Organising themesConversational relating is organised by themes of an ideological nature that justify the pattern of power relations

Changing themesOrganisations change when the themes that organise conversation and power relations change. Learning is changing the themes

Quality of conversational life is paramount!

3. Quality of anxiety

Anxiety follows uncertaintyAnxiety is a companion of shifts in themes that organise the experience of relating because such shifts create uncertainty

Affecting the silent private conversationsThese themes also resonate with and change the silent private conversations

Anxiety and excitementManagers must ask and reflect what makes it possible to live with anxiety so it is also experienced as the excitement required for people to continue

Avoid stressing peopleAvoid stretching targets and stressing people because this will increase anxiousness which will decrease the quality of the conversational life and hence block creativity

4. Quality of diversity

The paradox: When organisational members have nothing in common, obviously

no joint action would be possible When organisational members conform too much, the emergence of

new forms of behaviour is blocked

Spontaneously changesOrganisations only display the internal capacity to change spontaneously, when they are characterised by diversity.

Deviance, eccentricity and ideologiesDiversity focuses on the importance of deviance and eccentricity. This also focuses on the importance of unofficial ideologies that undermine current power relations. Such unofficial ideologies are expressed in conversations organised by shadow themes

5. Unpredictability and paradox

One of the most radical implications of CRP is the limits to certainty and predictability that it points to, which is a major departure from SCT

Focusing on not knowingThinking about not and the potential for feelings of incompetence and shame that this arouses. Managers must often decide without knowing the long term outcome of the decision. They must act, because failure to do so, will also have an unpredictable outcome!

Surprise is inseparable from creativityNo matter how well informed you are, surprises are inevitable and a good way of thinking about and living with anxeity

Quality decisions keeps options openA quality action is one that creates a position from which further actions are possible. That is why the option of doing nothing is such as poor response to uncertainty

5. Unpredictability and paradoxParadox – para ´besides´ + dóksa ’meaning, learning´

Conservation

Control

Expansion

Integration

Competition

BoundaryOpening

BoundaryClosing

CooperationDifferentiation

Contraction

Autonomy

Innovation

5. Unpredictability and paradox

Examples of paradoxes in organisational life: Organising is at the same time self-organising emergence and

intention. Intention emerges in self-organising processes of conversation while at the same time organising that conversation

Conversational patterns in an organisation enable what is being done and at the same time constrain what is done

The performance of complicated tasks requires that they be divided up but at the same time they have to be integrated

Managers operating in a state of knowing and not knowing at the same time

Managing is then a process of continually rearranging the paradoxes of organisational life

Management competences Reflexive activity

Paying more attention to the quality of your own experience of relating and managing relationships with others. This a reflexive activity requiring each one of us to pay more attention to our own part in what is happening around us

Unusual and fuzzy leadership skills: Self-reflection Owning ones part in what is happening Skills in facilitating free floating conversations Ability to articulate what is emerging in conversations Sensitivity to group dynamics

Strategic managementStrategies emerge, intentions emerge, in the ongoing conversational life of an organisation. Strategic management is the process of actively participating in conversations around important emerging issues.Strategic direction is not set in advance!

The end

Q & A