Bringing Business into Sociotechnical Theory and Practice

Current developments in the sociotechnical framework address a number of vital issues that failed to occupy the high ground in its formative years. These include: (i) the purpose of the systems, to create customer value under social and resource constraints, (ii) the context or external business environment, and (iii) the dynamics of the sociotechnical system. Due attention to the dominant issues of purpose, context, and their dynamics make it more meaningful to speak of sociotechnical business systems (STBS) and organizational learning instead of sociotechnical systems (STS) and individual learning. In STBS each unit in an organization has business responsibilities and goal-based couplings with its environment and focuses on the creation of customer value. The implications of this shift from STS to STBS are discussed and illustrated with current research and two summary case studies.     

Organizational Symbolism as a Social Construction: A Perspective from the Sociology of Knowledge

This article describes organizational symbolismfrom a sociology of knowledge perspective and considersboth the theoretical and extra-theoretical bases of thesymbolic approach. It illustrates the distinctive principles of the symbolic approach withrespect to other methods used in the study oforganizations, the concepts on which it is based, andthe organizational issues on which it has shedsignificant light. Symbolist studies of organizations haverefocused scholarly attention on the multidisciplinaryunderstanding of the logos, ethos, and pathos oforganizational life. They have done so by stressing the production of knowledge tout court, rather thanconcerning themselves with the applicability of theorganizational knowledge acquired by this approach formanagerial purposes. Organizational symbolism is described in the article as a fluctuatingand emerging social construction whose growth and spreadhas been fostered by support within academia.     

Introduction to the Special Issue

Organizational innovation is now widely seen tobe a major source of competitive advantage for firms,along with product and process innovation. One of themajor intellectual sources for the upheavals, in which firms strive for some formof international best practice, is thesociotechnical systems tradition, which traces its rootsback to innovations such as semi-autonomous work teamsin manufacturing in the 1960s, associated with the work of theTavistock Institute. An international Colloquium wasstaged in Melbourne, Australia, in May 1995, to explorethe current relevance and contributs to organizational innovation.     

Disciplines of Organizational Learning: Contributions and Critiques

The paper argues against attempts to create asingle framework for understanding organizationallearning. Relevant literature is reviewed from sixdisciplinary perspectives: psychology and OD; management science; sociology and organizational theory;strategy; production management; and culturalanthropology. It is argued that each discipline providesdistinct contributions and conceptions of problems.Furthermore, a basic distinction between organizationallearning and the new idea of the learning organizationis noted. Whereas the former is discipline based andanalytic,the latter is multidisciplinary and emphasizes action and the creation of anideal-type of organization. Due to thediversity of purpose and perspective, it is suggestedthat it is better to consider organizational learning asa multidisciplinary field containing complementary contributions andresearch agendas.     

Experiencing Work: Values, Attitudes, and Moods

This paper describes a model (the VAM model)which integrates three of the most significantdimensions of the work experience, work values,attitudes, and moods, into one overarching framework.The VAM model proposes that a rich and more completeunderstanding of the experience of work necessitates thesimultaneous consideration of work values, attitudes,and moods. After describing how work values, attitudes, and moods, each capture key aspects ofexperiencing work, we discuss three important dimensionsalong which they vary: time, dynamism, and focus. Thesedimensions underscore the need for the simultaneous consideration of values, attitudes, and moodsfor a fuller understanding of the work experience. Wethen describe how work values, attitudes, and moods havethe potential to influence each other. Finally, we discuss the implications of the VAM modelfor understanding important organizational outcomesincluding extra-role behavior, job performance, socialloafing, absenteeism, and turnover.     

Decision-making practices in commercial enterprises: A cybernetic intervention into a business model

Abstract

This article presents a decision-making framework and a technology that senior managers can use to steer the enterprise within a volatile and competitive commercial environment. The main aim of introducing such a technology would be to maximize the enterprise's value vector by ensuring that business objectives are consistently unfolded throughout the enterprise and used by all managers to make decisions that are consistent with the purpose and objective of the organization. The article illustrates how a cybernetic intervention into the business model of a large organization can be used to achieve this.     

Some Brief Comments on the Jaques Amado Debate

Comments on the Jaques–Amado debate seekto show why it is necessary in organization consultancyto understand both the organization role context and theindividual psychoanalytic perspective. Failure to understand both, it is suggested, could doviolence to the person and the organization.     

The Evolution of Organizations: Suggestions from Complexity Theory About the Interplay Between Natural Selection and Adaptation

There has been much debate in the managementliterature between neo-Darwinists (who believe in thenatural selection of populations of organizations) andadaptationists (who contend that changes in organization structure and behavior occur in response to theenvironment). The general thesis of neo-Darwinism isthat species are blindly selected for survival by theenvironment. The latest empirical support for the dominant neo-Darwinism perspective adopted bymost biologists is based primarily on the experimentsconducted by Salvador Luria who claims to haveconclusively demonstrated that genes mutate randomly.Recently, however, biologists have re-examined Luria sresearch methods and, after replications of hisexperiments, now question some aspects of the validityof his results. Moreover, there is now new researchwhich provides support for the earlier adaptationistposition, namely, the existence of evolutionary driversand directors existing within self-organizing systems.Of particular importance to the present study is the experimental indication thatself-organizing systems play a conscious role in theirown evolution. We propose that similar mechanisms orprocesses operate in organizational adaptation, thuspointing toward a theoretical modification ofneo-Darwinism that embraces both adaptation and naturalselection in a general, unified theory.     

The Mechanistic Structure Shift and Strategic Reorientation in Declining Firms Attempting Turnarounds

Past researchers have observed that decliningorganizations often experience mechanistic structuralchanges that centralize authority, increase reliance onformalized procedures, and reduce the amount of information flowing to top managers. Many haveproposed that this “mechanistic shift” indeclining organizations reduces their adaptivecapability by making innovative organizational change in response to decline less likely. However,despite much research on declining firms and theirturnaround attempts, many questions about mechanisticshifts remain, such as: (1) To what extent do declining firms become systematically mechanistic whentrying to recover from decline? (2) What aspects ofdeclining firms' situations make mechanistic shifts morelikely? (3) Do mechanistic shifts reduce the likelihood of large-scale strategic reorientation asdeclining firms attempt to recover? We sought answers tothese questions through an analysis of data fromin-depth interviews with top managers (mostly CEOs) at 29 U.S. firms attempting turnarounds fromdecline. Our primary finding was that mechanisticstructure shifts did restrict firms' abilities to changetheir strategic orientations in response to decline. Highlighting the important role of the contextof turnaround attempts, we further found the averagedeclining firm attempting a turnaround did not becomemore mechanistic, but that turnaround attempts launched from financial crises were significantly morelikely to lead to mechanistic shifts. Also, we foundthat the common practice of replacing the firm's CEOduring turnaround attempts had conflicting andparadoxical effects on firms' abilities to enact strategicreorientations.     

Longevity and Cultural Differences of International Joint V entures: Toward Time-Based Cultural Management

This article explores the relationships amongtime, organizational, and national cultural distance inan international joint venture setting. Moreparticularly, the extent to which the longevity of aninternational joint venture affects the intensity of itscultural differences, is investigated in a sample of 51international joint ventures set up in Hungary. Itaddresses certain mechanisms available to aninternational joint venture's managers and to its partners todeal with cross-cultural issues. The results suggestthat the temporal dimension is a cultural moderator ofprime importance, but to be totally effective, it must be combined with a willful strategy ofcultural integration.