Emmanuel Mastio, Eng Chew and Kenneth Anthony Dovey
This paper aims to explore the relationship between the concept of the learning organization and that of the co-creation of value.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between the concept of the learning organization and that of the co-creation of value.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is conceptual in nature and draws on data from a case study of a small highly innovative Australian company.
Findings
The authors show that, from a value co-creation perspective, the learning organization can be viewed as an open, collaborative, social/economic actor engaged in social/economic activities with other interdependent actors (organizations or stakeholders) in a network or ecosystem of actors to serve its mission/purpose and the well-being of the ecosystem.
Research limitations/implications
As a conceptual paper, the authors rely primarily on previous research as the basis for the argument. The implications of the findings are that, as value co-creation practices are founded upon the generation and leveraging of specific intangible capital resources, more research located in alternative research paradigms is required.
Practical implications
There are important implications for organizational leadership in that the practices that underpin value co-creation require the leadership to be able to work constructively with multiple forms of systemic and agentic power.
Social implications
In increasingly turbulent and hyper-competitive global operational contexts, sustainable value creation is becoming recognized as a collective achievement within a broad eco-system of collaborators. This has implications for the relational capabilities of all collaborators.
Originality/value
The authors introduce a new perspective on the role of power management in the facilitation of the co-creation of value. Arguing that value creation is becoming recognized as a “collective achievement”, they focus on the collaborative practices that enable such an achievement.
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Ken Dovey, Amy Strydom, Barbara Penderis and Peter Kemp
The paper sets out to explore the leadership processes and dynamics of change management in a fragmented, and resource‐poor, health service in an impoverished rural region in…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper sets out to explore the leadership processes and dynamics of change management in a fragmented, and resource‐poor, health service in an impoverished rural region in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper outlines an action research process aimed at assisting the stakeholders of two rural clinics to integrate psychiatric care into the Primary Health Care service that they offer their respective communities. This involved the transformation of existing practices through a form of praxis that involved learning from action and acting on learning.
Findings
The findings of the paper relate to the role of leadership in the facilitation of transformational learning in team‐based social action. Four areas of leadership responsibility are highlighted: the transformation of inappropriate mental models; the development of strategic resilience; the shifting of the locus of control of stakeholders to a more internal position; and the creation of a social environment in which intangible capital resources are generated and leveraged in the collective interest.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is subject to the limitations of potential bias and distortion in action research. Although the “objective” evidence of the integration of psychiatric services at Pelsrus and Kwanomzamo clinics exists, the portrayal of the learning processes through which this was achieved could have been influenced unwittingly by the authors' own knowledge and other interests.
Practical implications
The paper endorses the educational importance of work‐based projects through which strong tacit leadership knowledge bases can be developed in health sector personnel.
Originality/value
This paper has attempted to share the effectiveness of work‐ and project‐based learning in district health teams in South Africa. In particular, it has outlined how the learning strategy of the module leverages the team structure of the district health management units in order to create and exploit the social and morale capital resources that are potentially available through such a structure and the covenantal culture that it spawns. Furthermore, an attempt has been made to show how these resources are leveraged in the generation of mission‐pertinent tacit knowledge that is then converted by project stakeholders into explicit knowledge forms that can be used more effectively in framing subsequent strategic action.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of trust in the collaborative learning processes that underpin innovation as a competitive strategy in organizations.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of trust in the collaborative learning processes that underpin innovation as a competitive strategy in organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
As a conceptual paper, the argument is framed by academic perspectives, drawn from the academic literature on the topic and by professional and life experience.
Findings
The collaborative learning practices that underpin idea generation and realization in organizations are strongly dependent for their effectiveness upon the availability, within and beyond stakeholder networks, of trust and other key social capital resources.
Practical implications
If innovation is dependent upon social capital resources, such as trust, then leadership endeavour needs to be much more focused upon the creation of a social environment that nurtures rich stakeholder and other relevant network, relationships. New forms of governance and power management, and more appropriate and aligned organizational structures, are required in organizations that are attempting to compete through innovation.
Originality/value
The paper's explication of the role of social capital resources, like trust, in organizational innovation offers new insights into this complex but increasingly vital form of competitive strategy.
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To explore the collective means through which professional sports teams learn and generate new knowledge forms in order to remain competitive in challenging global arenas, and to…
Abstract
Purpose
To explore the collective means through which professional sports teams learn and generate new knowledge forms in order to remain competitive in challenging global arenas, and to examine the applicability of these means to business organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The objectives were achieved by drawing on the business and sporting experience of two executive coaches who have access to current elite‐level sports coaches. Through unstructured interviews with sports coaches and business executives over a period of years, the research question of collective learning in sports teams has been explored and its relevance to business contexts, analyzed.
Findings
Using social capital theory as an analytical lens, the research shows that organizational form is a critical determinant of the effectiveness of collective learning. This is the main reason why business teams are unable to emulate the successful learning that occurs in elite‐level sports teams. The research shows that the hierarchical structure of most business organizations constrains the development of the social capital necessary for sustained learning and knowledge construction.
Practical implications
The primary implication of the research findings is that business leaders need to view their role as that of creating and managing a social environment in which mission‐pertinent learning and knowledge construction activities are nurtured. In practice, it means that the nature of business leadership and, in particular, power management practices in business organizations needs to be questioned and re‐conceptualized.Originality/valueUsing social capital theory as a framework for the analysis of this phenomenon is new. The article should be valuable to the leader of any organization that is attempting to sustain superior competitive performance in the global knowledge economy.
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This paper describes and analyses an attempt to engage in transformational learning, oriented to the development of a culture of innovation, at a medium‐size software development…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper describes and analyses an attempt to engage in transformational learning, oriented to the development of a culture of innovation, at a medium‐size software development organization in Australia.
Design/methodology/approach
An action research methodology was used whereby continuous cycles of strategic social learning were collectively theorized, implemented, evaluated and renewed.
Findings
The most important finding of this study is that of the influence of power relations and communication practices upon learning‐for‐innovation in organizations, and the need for the mediation of this influence through the creation of an organizational role that we have entitled an “external critic”. The case also shows the central importance of the relational dimension of social capital generation to learning and the sensitivity of this dimension to power relations.
Research limitations/implications
The research provides a rich analysis of one company's attempt to learn how to build and sustain a culture of innovation but, as with all case study research, the findings cannot be reliably generalized to other companies. Similarly, the case generates grounded theory that needs to be tested in other organizational contexts.
Practical implications
The case raises the issue of power management in organizations and its relationship to social learning practices. In particular, it argues for the establishment of a “negotiated order” in organizations (through a mission, vision and core values that are collectively and meaningfully constituted) and for the role of an “external critic” whereby the power of the executive, especially, can be mediated effectively in the interests of mission‐critical learning within the organization.
Originality/value
The paper offers an original strategy for the mediation of power in organizations in the interests of greater learning, creativity and innovation.
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The paper reports the outcomes of one module of a collaborative learning project aimed at the development of leadership capacity in district health management teams in the East…
Abstract
The paper reports the outcomes of one module of a collaborative learning project aimed at the development of leadership capacity in district health management teams in the East Cape province of South Africa. A work‐based learning methodology was selected for the module with the intention of developing strategic and procedural knowledge bases within these teams as a way of addressing the complex problems of policy implementation in South African state organisations. The paper demonstrates the effectiveness of collaborative work‐based projects in developing team members’ capacity to solve difficult workplace problems and to implement strategy in a challenging operational environment. It endorses the role of leadership coaching in the development of, and ability to leverage, important strategic knowledge resources that reside within and between team members. The paper concludes with an example that demonstrates the developing ability of team members to initiate successful collaboration around the resolution of complex service delivery problems.
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Eng Chew and Kenneth Anthony Dovey
This paper aims to report on case-study research that explores the role of leadership practices, in particular, in enhancing the capacity of an enterprise to learn to create new…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report on case-study research that explores the role of leadership practices, in particular, in enhancing the capacity of an enterprise to learn to create new value from a diverse range of sources. The capacity to sustain value creation over time, and across turbulent environments, increasingly differentiates enterprise performance. Under the umbrella term of “dynamic capabilities”, a range of practices have been identified in the literature as contributing to an enterprise’s ability to learn to perform this task successfully.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on case studies of three enterprises whose founders have sustained the creation of new value for customers over decades. Through a series of unstructured interviews with each founder, the tacit knowledge gained from years of learning how to create, and re-create, value, is made explicit through hermeneutic analysis of the interview transcripts.
Findings
The data identify four key areas of leadership practice that underpin the capacity to learn to continuously create new value over significant periods of time. The most important of these are the social practices that generate and leverage the intangible capital resources (in particular, the resource of trust) that underpin the collaborative learning on which value creation processes depend.
Research limitations/implications
As interpretive research, the knowledge accessed through this research is context-dependent and cannot be readily generalised. The validity of the knowledge is high, however, as the epistemological and ontological assumptions of the interpretive research paradigm recognise the political nature of organisations and, thus, of learning and value creation. As such, the knowledge generated by the case analyses offers a rich alternative perspective on the issue under research.
Practical implications
The cases illuminate the nature of learning that supports continuous value creation in enterprises. Such learning is framed by several leadership practices that enable the self-reflexivity that underpins the continuous conversion of action-generated tacit knowledge into more strategically useful explicit knowledge. At the core of these leadership practices is stakeholder collaboration and intellectual humility.
Social implications
The results show that learning to create sustainable value over time and diverse contexts, has a socio-political dimension in that it depends heavily on generating and leveraging the intangible resources (such as trust, commitment, ideas) that reside within social relationships.
Originality/value
The research is located within the interpretive research paradigm and thus offers an alternative view to that of conventional positivist research. Furthermore, the results indicate that learning is a strategic priority in rapidly changing environments and, thus, is a key leadership responsibility. Furthermore, the results show that value creation is a collaborative stakeholder achievement.
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OWING to the comparatively early date in the year of the Library Association Conference, this number of THE LIBRARY WORLD is published so that it may be in the hands of our…
Abstract
OWING to the comparatively early date in the year of the Library Association Conference, this number of THE LIBRARY WORLD is published so that it may be in the hands of our readers before it begins. The official programme is not in the hands of members at the time we write, but the circumstances are such this year that delay has been inevitable. We have dwelt already on the good fortune we enjoy in going to the beautiful West‐Country Spa. At this time of year it is at its best, and, if the weather is more genial than this weather‐chequered year gives us reason to expect, the Conference should be memorable on that account alone. The Conference has always been the focus of library friendships, and this idea, now that the Association is so large, should be developed. To be a member is to be one of a freemasonry of librarians, pledged to help and forward the work of one another. It is not in the conference rooms alone, where we listen, not always completely awake, to papers not always eloquent or cleverly read, that we gain most, although no one would discount these; it is in the hotels and boarding houses and restaurants, over dinner tables and in the easy chairs of the lounges, that we draw out really useful business information. In short, shop is the subject‐matter of conference conversation, and only misanthropic curmudgeons think otherwise.
This study aims to analyze the policies and strategies used by governmental organizations to address the impacts of climate change in informal neighborhoods, kampungs, such as…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the policies and strategies used by governmental organizations to address the impacts of climate change in informal neighborhoods, kampungs, such as Bukit Duri and Melayu in Jakarta, Indonesia, focusing on canal and river flooding mitigation and infrastructure development. The research examines the displacement of residents due to the demolition of informal settlements along riverbanks, the role of different governmental organizations and the implications of these policies on affected communities.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the theoretical framework of environmental injustice to evaluate the strategies used by the Indonesian Government to address climate change adaptation in Jakarta, with a specific focus on the problem of flooding and its impact on displacement. By analyzing the history and outcomes of flood mitigation policies, this paper assesses the government’s strategies related to infrastructure, evacuation and socialization. In doing so, the study examines the social impact of these policies on affected communities. Furthermore, social listening and media analysis of Twitter data and various news outlets are conducted to gain insights into the living conditions and experiences of displaced residents in two public housing projects.
Findings
The study revealed the challenges faced by the government in implementing policies for climate change adaptation and flood mitigation in Jakarta, including a lack of community engagement with residents of the Kampungs in the decision-making process for relocation. Despite government efforts and providing low-cost apartments (rusuwana), the analysis sheds light on the various forms of injustice that result from the government’s approach to climate change adaptation in Jakarta.
Originality/value
This study examines social justice issues in Jakarta’s informal neighborhoods and explores locally driven efforts vs government-mandated policies for managing natural hazards and adapting to climate change.