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Working to improve organizations is the mainstay of organization development (OD) practice and includes figuring out the sources of workplace disruptions and dysfunctions. Casting aside the focus of most change-management initiatives, the organization, organizing intelligence (OQ) relies on paying attention to what people actually do, making meaning of complex, messy human-social organizing activities, in the interests of fostering productive workplaces. Resting on dialog with and among participants “feeling their way” as they organize their work, OQ is an exercise in synthesis rather than analysis. A holistic understanding of organizing activities is helped by exploring the roles of a triad of closely interwoven factors – organizing structures, work-practices, and relationships – in how people get things done, while understanding how these are interconnected. This chapter examines why the capacity for OQ matters, why and how OQ differs from widely practiced, technically framed, organizational analysis, and what distinguishes people with OQ from those with a more conventional interest in organizational change. A case study of the Dutch home-nursing organization, Buurtzorg, illustrates OQ in practice. With small groups of nurses who self-organize, this is a structure that changes both the way people work and their relationships, to the benefit of nurses and the quality of life and care of their patients, while reducing costs; clearly an example of a more productive workplace.

Argues that there are two strands in the organizational learning (OL) literature marked by incompatible world views. The dominant substance is modernist while the spirit is interpretive. The focus on systems, in the form of learning loops and systems archetypes, identifies an acceptance of the tenets of modernism. The spirit offers an innovative view of management and contradicts the modernist substance. Drawing on contemporary hermeneutics, the spirit leads to a different conception of the organization, the role of management, and OL. Organizations comprise communities with different interests and understandings. Both organizational problems and solutions reflect people’s understanding. Co‐operation involves establishing mutual interests and is achieved through discourse that builds communities of understanding. Concludes that an important role of managers is to facilitate discourse, and organizational learning occurs in communities of discourse.

Past decades have witnessed significant contributions to theories of the firm, innovation and economic growth from two closely related paradigms, namely, the Capabilities School and National Innovation Systems Approach. Unlike the neoclassical models of the firm and growth, these two paradigms place emphasis on the knowledge and learning process in understanding economic development. Despite being closer to reality in their treatment of economic issues than their neoclassical school counterpart, the two paradigms have not put human agency in the forefront of their analysis. This paper constructs a theory of national capabilities in the subjectivist perspective, which is then extended to understand firm and national capabilities and competitiveness. While this paper recognizes the influence of institutions on firms' decision making, unlike contemporary evolutionary literatures, the subjectivist perspective highlights the fact that all institutions are the coordinating effort of human actions which attempt to interpret external events or make sense out of social or economic interactions.

Examines popular theories of learning in organizations to highlight their limitations for reform and change. Divides learning approaches into four general strategies ‐ organizational learning, learning organization, learning environment, and “learning space”. Examines how issues of power, diversity, indeterminacy and hierarchy are treated in each approach and the extent to which multi‐vocal strategies of learning are engendered. These issues have been central to concerns raised in the literature about organizational control. However, much of what is popularly promoted as prescriptions for learning in organizations ‐ on dimensions such as teamwork, leadership, and culture ‐ have significant elements in which there is little evidence of reflection on issues of control. Gives particular attention to Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline, which has become the blueprint for many organizational learning projects and other learning approaches. Also gives attention to a popular account of learning, an address by the CEO of the Australian telecommunications firm, Telstra. The analysis provides a basis for raising questions about popular learning strategies and underlines the need for managers to reflect on the complex, contextualized, and contentious nature of learning and its macro‐level constraints and its micro‐level impacts.

By adopting a condition‐dependent approach to maintenance, facility managers can exercise control over the desired maintenance performance levels and costs. The practice of condition assessment by building inspectors yielded variable results due to subjective perceptions of inspectors. Nowadays well‐trained building inspectors are able to manage condition surveys and provide property managers with objective, reliable information about performance loss and defects in building components. The implementation of various performance levels in planned maintenance requires not only the standardisation of the condition assessment method, but also the related planning methodology. This paper describes the findings from research in the Netherlands which examined the methodology of condition assessment of building components using a six‐point condition scale. Different categories of performance loss in maintenance are distinguished and linked to different kinds of maintenance activities.

Considers the development in construction of subfloors. Examines the various parts of the subfloor system. Discusses the need for and provision of subfloor ventilation. Shows that the main developments in subfloor ventilation have occurred in the last 30 years of the twentieth century. Highlights the dangers in overlooking the importance of subfloors to the performance of ground floors.