The purpose of this paper is to explore how the quest for management as a science-based profession, conceived as a grand societal challenge, can be revitalized.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the quest for management as a science-based profession, conceived as a grand societal challenge, can be revitalized.
Design/methodology/approach
A reflective approach is adopted by questioning some of the key assumptions made by management scholars, especially those that undermine their capacity to inform management practice. One key assumption is that management needs to be done by a few people at the top of the organization; this idea is widespread but false.
Findings
An important finding is that the future of the management discipline may largely depend on the rise of new forms of management drawing on distributed intelligence and circularity of power and authority. Management scholars thus need to shift their attention from an almost exclusive focus on managerial intentions and behaviors to (the development and use of new) management technologies, similar to how modern aviation technology involves airplanes that only to a limited extent require intervention and control by a single pilot.
Practical implications
The practical implications of the shift from managerial behavior to management technology are illustrated by means of so-called circular management practices, also known as holacracy and sociocracy.
Originality/value
This paper provides a novel perspective on how the quest for science-based professionalism in management, as a grand societal challenge, can be revitalized.
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Minou Weijs-Perrée, Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, Theo Arentze and Georges Romme
Knowledge sharing is a process where individuals mutually exchange knowledge to create new knowledge. Understanding the knowledge-sharing process, during which organizations share…
Abstract
Purpose
Knowledge sharing is a process where individuals mutually exchange knowledge to create new knowledge. Understanding the knowledge-sharing process, during which organizations share spaces, facilities and services, is highly important for owners/managers who seek to optimize their business centres and to attract more innovative tenants. For users of business centres, it is interesting to know how, where and what type of knowledge is shared. However, there is hardly any research into sharing different types of knowledge in business centres. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of personal and organizational characteristics on sharing different types of knowledge within and between organizations in business centres.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected using a questionnaire that was completed by 268 users of 53 business centres in The Netherlands. A seemingly unrelated regression analysis was used to simultaneously analyse the influence of personal and organizational characteristics on knowledge sharing in business centres.
Findings
The results show that public and private non-codified knowledge is more frequently shared with people from other organizations by those who more frequently use an event space, lounge space, canteen or consultancy services. Knowledge sharing with colleagues within organizations was influenced by the use of individual closed workspaces, meeting spaces and restaurant/canteen and gender.
Originality/value
The study suggests that owners and managers of business centres can optimize their business centres by offering specific facilities, services and workspaces to attract a specific group of tenants. In addition, organizations that want to enhance knowledge sharing with other organizations need to stimulate their employees to use shared facilities and services.
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A. Georges L. Romme and Arjen van Witteloostuijn
The organizational learning literature distinguishes different levels of learning (zero learning and single, double and triple loop learning) in order to understand the complexity…
Abstract
The organizational learning literature distinguishes different levels of learning (zero learning and single, double and triple loop learning) in order to understand the complexity and dynamics of changes in policies, objectives, mental maps, and structures and strategies for learning. This article explores the case of an emerging new organizational design, the circular organization, in order to understand the role of triple loop learning. The circular model was developed on the basis of ideas about the relationship between organizational structure and behavior taken from theories of dynamic systems. Circular design precepts appear to provide a structural facilitation of single and double loop learning. In this respect, the circular design tends to act as a facilitating infrastructure for triple loop learning, that is, exploring the structural opportunities and key competences people need to participate in making well‐informed choices about policies, objectives and other issues.
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Explores a scenario for how work can be organized in a circular manner. Outlines two tendencies in work relations: a return to authoritarian governance of the workplace, and at…
Abstract
Explores a scenario for how work can be organized in a circular manner. Outlines two tendencies in work relations: a return to authoritarian governance of the workplace, and at the same time, the inevitable and necessary shift towards more participation. Subsequently, explores the possibility of a synthesis of traditional and participative work relationships by organizing work in a circular manner. Circularity implies that, although authority may continue to play an important role in the workplace, an ultimate authority is absent, and each member can participate directly or through representation in decision processes which are organized in circles.
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Liisa Välikangas and A. Georges L. Romme
This paper aims to contend that to achieve the resilience needed to thrive long‐term in a dynamic, highly competitive marketplace companies need to commit to continual…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contend that to achieve the resilience needed to thrive long‐term in a dynamic, highly competitive marketplace companies need to commit to continual customer‐focused agility training.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses “Big Brown Box Inc.”, which is a disguised case about a real company's practices and experiences.
Findings
The paper reveals that training for resilience involves mastering three strategic management practices: cultivating foresight, rehearsing non‐routine behaviors and building an experimentation‐oriented community.
Practical implications
The takeaway from the Big Brown Box Inc. example is that all companies need to continually exercise their operational resilience to prepare for setbacks and the maneuvers of rivals.
Originality/value
The paper reveals that the rehearsing and training exercises needed to develop resilience will help an organization learn how to proactively engage in exploration and experimentation.
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Deborah E.M. Mulders, Peter A.J. Berends and A. Georges L. Romme
The dynamic capability view serves to explain how particular practices ensure the firm's performance and competitiveness within a continuously changing environment. In this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The dynamic capability view serves to explain how particular practices ensure the firm's performance and competitiveness within a continuously changing environment. In this paper, the staff induction processes of two small firms in The Netherlands (management consultancy and biotech (BT) start‐up) are examined from a practice‐based view. The authors explore whether the staff induction processes of these firms can be regarded as practices, and if so, whether and how these firms have developed a dynamic capability in staff induction.
Design/methodology/approach
Case studies are conducted in the management consultancy and biotechnology sectors to explore the practising of dynamic capability.
Findings
The findings suggest small firms can effectively develop and master their staff induction processes (as practices), but do this on the basis of ad hoc problem solving rather than a dynamic capability. If small firms develop any dynamic capability at all, they apparently do so towards specialized resources and processes that are perceived as most critical to the firm's continuity and performance (e.g. product development in the case of the BT firm). As such, this study confirms Winter's hypothesis about the fundamentally different cost structures of dynamic capabilities and ad hoc problem solving, which explains why dynamic capabilities tend to be rare and ad hoc problem solving prevails in many small organizations.
Originality/value
The paper examines the interaction between staff induction practices, dynamic capabilities, learning strategies, and ad hoc problem solving in two small firms. Implications for practitioners are that consciously engaging in learning strategies helps to adapt practices and build a dynamic capability in staff induction.
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Minou Weijs-Perrée, Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, Bauke De Vries and Georges Romme
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the objectives, tenants, spaces and services of different business center concepts and test whether the existing classifications in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the objectives, tenants, spaces and services of different business center concepts and test whether the existing classifications in literature and in the real estate market draw on significantly different concepts.
Design/methodology/approach
After a literature review, data on business centers were collected with a questionnaire among owners/mangers of 139 business centers in the Netherlands. The existing business center concepts are examined whether these concepts are significantly different, using bivariate analyses.
Findings
The findings of this study give insight into the business center market, the existing business center concepts and (dis)similarities between the concepts. Although many dissimilarities were found between the business center concepts, like offered services, social spaces and contractual agreements, findings show that the four business center concepts can be offered in similar objects.
Originality/value
New ideas about working and the work environment have caused the business center market to become more differentiated. Some studies have attempted to classify the business center market into several categories or analyzed in detail one specific business center concept. However, these studies did not describe in detail the differences between the concepts. Also there is hardly any empirical research on this sector. This paper addresses gaps in previous research on business centers and demonstrates that there are significant (dis)similarities between the existing business center concepts.
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Jeltje van der Meer‐Kooistra and Ed Vosselman
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how practical relevance of management accounting knowledge relates to research paradigms and theoretical pluralism.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how practical relevance of management accounting knowledge relates to research paradigms and theoretical pluralism.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is conceptual in nature.
Findings
As the management accounting discipline is considered to be an applied discipline, a number of authors claim that management accounting research should develop relevant theory that can be used in practice. This call for increased practical relevance of management accounting knowledge interrelates with a debate on the desirability of theoretical pluralism and paradigm diversity in management accounting research. Drawing on the work of Nicolai and Seidl, the paper distinguishes different forms of practical relevance, and analyses the effects of theoretical pluralism on these different forms. The paper argues how theoretical pluralism particularly enhances relevance in a conceptual sense rather than an instrumental sense. The conceptual relevance of research may further be enhanced by interpretive research that acknowledges complexity and that has the potential to challenge the performativity of mainstream management accounting knowledge, without challenging the pursuit of efficiency as such. This is different from critical research. The instrumental relevance stemming from mainstream management accounting research entails de‐contextualization and simplification, and might create unintended self‐fulfilling prophecies.
Research limitations/implications
The paper broadens the concept of relevance so that it includes conceptual relevance and legitimative relevance. It links these concepts of relevance to three research paradigms: a mainstream paradigm, an interpretive paradigm and a critical paradigm. For each paradigm, relevance is related to the use of theory.
Originality/value
The paper broadens the concept of relevance and advocates the pursuit of conceptual relevance, particularly through interpretive research.
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One of the urgent questions in the field of diversity is the knowledge about effective diversity practices. This paper aims to advance our knowledge on organizational change…
Abstract
Purpose
One of the urgent questions in the field of diversity is the knowledge about effective diversity practices. This paper aims to advance our knowledge on organizational change toward diversity by combining concepts from diversity studies and organizational learning.
Design/methodology/approach
By employing a social practice approach to organizational learning, the author will be able to go beyond individual learning experiences of diversity practices but see how members negotiate the diversity knowledge and how they integrate their new knowledge in their day-to-day organizational norms and practices. The analysis draws on data collected during a longitudinal case study in a financial service organization in the Netherlands.
Findings
This study showed how collective learning practices took place but were insufficiently anchored in a collective memory. Change agents have the task to build “new” memory on diversity policies and gender inequality as well as to use organizational memory to enable diversity policies and practices to be implemented. The inability to create a community of practice impeded the change agenda.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could expand our knowledge on collective memory of knowledge on diversity further and focus on the way employees make use of this memory while doing diversity.
Practical implications
The current literature often tends to analyze the effectiveness of diversity practices as linear processes, which is insufficient to capture the complexity of a change process characterized with layers of negotiated and politicized forms of access to resources. The author would argue for more future work on nonlinear and process-based perspectives on organizational change.
Originality/value
The contribution is to the literature on diversity practices by showing how the lack of collective memory to “store” individual learning in the organization has proven to be a major problem in the management of diversity.