Global boundary work tactics: managing work and family transitions in a 24–7 global context

ABSTRACT

This study addresses how today’s global managers navigate their work and family transitions through employing various boundary work tactics in a global context. Interviews with 25 global travelers or international business travelers in dual-career families uncovered how they handle global workflows and protect family time when working domestically or abroad. Patterns emerged across a typology of temporal, communicative, behavioral and physical boundary work tactics. A key contribution is that workplace flexibility in addition to technology allows global managers to maintain connectivity beyond spatial or temporal boundaries. Moreover, technology was perceived as an integral tool by global managers, with few cases of tensions reported from a blurring of boundaries. The research contributes to the nascent literature on work-life balance among global managers. It also provides evidence of how mobile and telepresence technologies are being used in performing global work. Companies are encouraged to foster flexibility among their global managers around viewing time and using communication techniques and technology to manage role transitions. Results suggest that global work approached in this manner can be sustainable as well as beneficial to the individual, his/her family, and the organization.     

Agencies,normative personalities and the Viable Systems Model

Abstract

Modelling the organization to enable purposeful analysis and diagnosis of its ills is often problematic. Beer's use of the Viable Systems Model (VSM) and its development as a methodology for analysis and diagnosis of organizational pathologies has been successful in exploring this, but viewing the organization as a personality provides additions control perspectives that are distinct from those identified by Beer. In this article the notion of normative personality is defined in terms of socio-cognitive processes operating through trait controls, and the resulting model is then related to the VSM.     

Digitalization as “an Agent of Social Change” in a Supermarket Chain: Applying Blumer's Theory of Industrialization in Contemporary Society

In this article I pursue Blumer's argument in Industrialization as an Agent of Social Change that social changes are the consequence of people's interpretation of technology. By examining oral history interviews with managers and other staff of the British supermarket chain Tesco I explore the relationship between “digitalization” and the organization of the business. The analysis reveals how the interviewees interpreted emerging computing technologies, and how the deployment of these technologies in the business impacted the material and ecological arrangement and the distribution of knowledge in the company. The article ends with a discussion of the relevance of Blumer's framework for contemporary studies of “digitalization” and social change.     

The role of local businesses in addressing multidimensional needs of homeless populations

ABSTRACT

Contrary to the perception that the business community can be hostile and exclusive toward individuals experiencing homelessness, local businesses can and do serve homeless populations at multiple levels. This article proposes a theoretical framework that links the versatile roles that local businesses can play in addressing various dimensions of human needs. This theoretical framework is illustrated through two models in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, which focus on the role of business improvement districts (BIDs) and a social enterprise intervention (SEI), respectively. These models demonstrate that the business community can meet not only physical needs but also the emotional and self-actualization goals of homeless individuals. This article suggests that social work education and field education curricula can benefit from engaging the business sector in addressing complex social issues, such as homelessness.     

Resistance to change as issue selling in multinational firms

Abstract

Strategic change is a challenge because it tends to have repercussions for the organization as well as its members. Existing literature promotes a view that resistance to change is detrimental to an organization, especially during strategic change processes. However, resistance to change can alternatively be viewed as a beneficial factor. Given that middle- and operating-level managers are close to customers and markets and therefore have access to a different source of information than top managers, this article develops ideas about resistance to change as issue selling presents a conceptual model, and proposes a series of testable propositions.     

Transformation Management and Cultural Diversity Training Through Employee Assistance Programs

ABSTRACT

This article explores motivation of black managers in two different settings. A study was conducted to explore the hypothesis that perception of organizational environment will influence both motivation and locus of control. Tt was further hypothesized that black managers working in a white management dominated organization will have a less positive perception of the organizational environment in comparison with their counterparts working in a black management dominated organization. It was hoped that such a study will help influence the focus of black advancement programs from an individual perspective to a more dynamic person-environment transactions focus. The results confirmed the hypothesis to a significant extent. This article suggests an intervention that utilizes EAP expertise in helping organizations to create and manage diversity for competitive advantage.     

A ‘Tripadvisor’ for disability? Social enterprise and ‘digital disruption’ in Australia

ABSTRACT

We explore how social enterprises can use platform technologies to plug ‘informational gaps’ in the provision of disability services. Such gaps are made more apparent by policies promoting self-directed care as a means of giving service users more choice and control. We use a case study of a start-up social enterprise seeking to provide a TripAdvisor style service to examine the potential for social innovation to ‘disrupt’ current models of service. The case study suggests that any disruptive effects of such changes are not due to new digital technology per se, nor to novel platform business models, but rather rest in the manner in which the moral orders which justify current patterns of social disablement can be challenged by social innovation.     

The sociological perspective and policy analysis: A case study approach

Case studies are widely used in law, medicine and business schools. In this paper an example of how the case method can be used in complex organization, industrial sociology or political sociology classes is presented. The case method also lends itself to an applied approach challenging the student to use a sociological perspective in policy analysis. The utility of the case method for instructors using an applied approach is demonstrated.     

Intranet use: a study of five Swedish organizations

Abstract

This article presents a study carried out in 2002, concerning the use of an Intranet in five Swedish organizations. The purpose is to investigate in what way different aspects influence the use and understanding of an Intranet. An explorative approach is used, based on two interview guides. The first guide is aimed at managers and information systems (IS) representatives and covers background aspects of the Intranets, as well as data about the businesses and their Intranets. The second guide is directed to all kinds of users and covers aspects of the use of an Intranet and in what way users can influence the content and understanding of it. The persons interviewed represent end-users, managers and members of the IS staff. Results show that the Intranets in the study are poorly matured and that the main-use mode is ‘publishing’. The underlying philosophy of the Intranets seems to be self-information rather than informing others. Furthermore, the use and understanding of the Intranet differs between end-users, managers and IS staff, according to trust and ideas of responsibilities. Finally, important aspects to be considered when investigating the use of Intranets in further research are identified. These aspects are strategies, social context, further development processes, competence and the Intranets' organizational affiliation as well as the culture of the organization.     

BRAC: Anatomy of a “poverty enterprise”

Management of the poverty alleviation process has created a new form of poverty enterprise. This enterprise provides poverty‐production‐market linkages, and in the process, it combines three features: a nonprofit nongovernmental organization, a for‐profit nongovernmental organization that has established an internal market, and a profit‐making industrial and business concern. This article explains how BRAC (Building Resources Across Community) in Bangladesh has used poverty to transform itself from a tiny relief distribution organization into the world's largest poverty enterprise. This enterprise is characterized by contradictions between its public claims and actual practices.     

Competing demands,competing solutions,differing constructions of the problem of recruitment and retention of frontline rural child protection staff

Abstract

This article reports on a study conducted in rural Victoria. It examines the problem of recruitment and retention of frontline staff in the Victorian Child Protection program. The article delineates those factors identified by managers and supervisors as influencing workers to enter, stay and leave the program. Managers and supervisors have collective responsibility for recruiting and retaining staff. It is for this reason that their viewpoints are considered crucial in responding to the problem. What this study found was that, while managers and supervisors recognise that the problem is complex, they differ in the emphasis placed on facets of the problem, thus their approaches to solving it. As solutions are contested the problem is exacerbated. The argument advanced is that any response should recognise the complexity of the problem and solutions be considered in a coordinated way.     

Enterprise Schemes for Nonprofit Survival,Growth, and Effectiveness

The need for nonprofit organizations to develop a viable enterprise scheme is discussed in this article. An enterprise scheme indicates how the organization can meet social needs and stakeholders' interests in a self‐sustaining way over the long haul. Without a viable enterprise scheme, the organization will not survive, let alone grow, prosper, and achieve its mission.     

Transforming finance for the future

Abstract

Significant changes in external market conditions have resulted in operations placing greater demands on the finance function. Traditional finance departments are increasingly expected to deliver more value and be more proactive in supporting the organization's overall business strategies. Unfortunately, many finance departments are not yet ready to meet such challenges. This article proposes a transformation process to reorganize present day finance functions to become a finance of the future. The proposed process applies tools such as best practices, outsourcing and technology to achieve a desired future outcome.     

Managerial power in the German model: the case of Bertelsmann and the antecedents of neoliberalism

ABSTRACT

Our article extends research on authoritarian neoliberalism to Germany, through a history of the Bertelsmann media corporation – sponsor and namesake of Germany’s most influential neoliberal think-tank. Our article makes three moves. Firstly, we argue that conceptualizing German neoliberalism in terms of an ‘ordoliberal paradigm’ is of limited use in explaining the rise and fall of Germany’s distinctive socio-economic model (Modell Deutschland). Instead, we locate the origins of authoritarian tendencies in the corporate power exercised by managers rather than in the power of state-backed markets imagined by ordoliberals. Secondly, we focus on the managerial innovations of Bertelsmann as a key actor enmeshed with Modell Deutschland. We show that the adaptation of business management practices of an endogenous ‘Cologne School’ empowered Bertelsmann’s postwar managers to overcome existential crises and financial constraints despite being excluded from Germany’s corporate support network. Thirdly, we argue that their further development in the 1970s also enabled Bertelsmann to curtail and circumvent the forms of labour representation associated with Modell Deutschland. Inspired by cybernetic management theories that it used to limit and control rather than revive market competition among its workforce, Bertelsmann began to act and think outside the postwar settlement between capital and labour before the settlement’s hotly-debated demise since the 1990s.     

e-Tools and Organization Transformation Techniques for Collaborative Case Management

SUMMARY

Welfare and workforce development reforms propel individual agencies into formal partnerships with one another. Collaborative Case Management is the cooperative delivery of social services to common clients. This paper describes technological tools and organization transformation issues for collaborative case management. A road map for a successful transition includes a shared vision, business/technology requirements, an information management strategy, redesigned jobs and processes, and a change management strategy.     

Healthy organization: analysing its meaning based on the HERO Model / Organizaciones saludables: analizando su significado desde el Modelo HERO

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyse the meaning of healthy organization from an empirical-theoretical perspective based on the HERO Model (HEalthy & Resilient Organizations). Analyses were performed by four independent judges on 14 interviews carried out with 14 CEOs or human resources managers in 14 Spanish organizations using content analysis. Qualitative results show: (1) a partial overlap in the categories proposed by the theoretical model (based on the concordance index, Cohen’s Kappa and ICC); and (2) that the empirical definition mainly focuses on employees’ psychosocial health as a key element of the meaning of healthy organization. Finally, categorical matrixes provide evidence of subcategories emanating from the key elements that comprise a healthy organization. Results as well as theoretical and practical implications are discussed based on the HERO Model.     

The Viable System Model and inter-organizations

Abstract

To work against threats and to obtain new possibilities, new forms of interorganizational collaborations are formed. The management literature deals mainly with one single organization although aspects of collaborative processes are discussed. In this article problems with inter-organizational management and decision-making are discussed. In this article the possibilities and the limits of using the Viable System Model (VSM) for diagnosing and design of inter-organizations are discussed. The conclusion is that VSM seems to be promising but further evaluation must be performed. Organizational learning and negotiation support systems are approaches that should be used in inter-organizational management.     

New dawn or end of labour?: from South Africa’s East Rand to Ekurhuleni

ABSTRACT

The question raised in this article is whether the key role played under apartheid by labour in the transition to democracy can be revived in the struggle against the persistent and deepening inequality of the post-apartheid period. We argue that the transition to a neoliberal state in the post-apartheid period has fragmented workers and weakened their capacity to build sustainable workplace organization. However, in spite of this, we identify the emergence of collective action and organization amongst these precarious workers. We show how in response to the degeneration of their traditional organizations, these workers are rebuilding worker organization still very much inscribed in the organizational traditions built on the East Rand over 40 years ago. We challenge the pessimistic ‘end of labour’ thesis that suggests that the informalization of employment has made collective organization impossible.     

Methodology out of context: Getting Zimbabwean entrepreneurs to participate in research

This paper reports on a project carried out in Zimbabwe in 1998. The aim of the work was to develop a methodology, based upon participative techniques, which could be adapted for use by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) in assessing entrepreneurs' perception of government and non-government business support services. The overriding purpose of the project was to improve DFID's policies towards facilitating an enabling environment for the private sector. The project was commissioned in order to alter the conventional donor agency approach to businesses in Africa of using questionnaires. Instead, the project team developed a system of semi-structured interviews with individual entrepreneurs and managers, supplemented by a variety of visual techniques and collective workshops incorporating the participants themselves, government representatives and agency staff. Whilst the techniques used are not in themselves unique, the approach certainly is, within an African context.     

Interpersonal trust in GermanCzech work relations: Mutual expectations and suggestions for improvement

Abstract

Issues of trust have received much attention of researchers of multiple disciplines. Growing interest can be seen on how culture and trust are interrelated and what trust means for intercultural work relations. In this study, trust and trustworthiness are analyzed between Czech and German employees and managers through a qualitative and a quantitative approach. First, we focus on the question if cultural differences exist in the process of evaluating the trustworthiness of another person (implicit trust theory), and which specific actions are (not) considered trustworthy behaviour on both sides. Second, the relevance and degree of perceived trustworthiness between Czechs and Germans within the business context is explored. Finally, suggestions by practitioners for successful trust development are described. The results show that abstract categories of trustworthiness (e.g. reliability) are similar on the German and the Czech side, but the reported signals and actions are somewhat different. Perceived trustworthiness was found to be significantly related to the satisfaction with the co-operation.