127 research outputs found
Functional spaces for team working
No full textWith an increased focus on flexible working practices, employers need to be conscious of creating an environment which enhances learning, creativity and knowledge transfer so when teams do come together, they are in the best environment to achieve maximum results. In the latest of our articles with academic leaders, we talk to Dr Harriet Shortt, Associate Professor and Dr Selen Kars, Senior Lecturer from Bristol Business School, at the University of the West of England, about how an organisation structures it’s work, breakout and functional spaces and how these can positively impact knowledge transfer and idea generation
Organisational learning and capability development in mature medium-sized firms : an exploration from an enactment perspective
No full textThis thesis uses an enactment perspective to critique and develop the concept of organisational capability. It approaches organisational capability from an interpretivist angle and inquires how organisations actually develop and renew their capabilities for sustainable competitive advantage. As a consequence of adopting the enactment perspective, the thesis reveals that organisational capabilities are much more context based and variable than the positivist and predictive representation of the concept in the extant literature. It also proposes that organizational design and learning processes play a key role in the development of organisational capabilities. The research uses qualitative interviews within a case study research design. It studies six medium-sized, mature organisations operating successfully in a variety of industries with diverse market dynamism. In order to move away from a linear representation of organisational capability, the study particularly focuses on the organisational antecedents of capability development in these organisations by relying on participants’ accounts to describe how the firm coped with external environmental changes throughout its history. Based on inductive theorising from intra- and cross-industry analysis, the study observes certain discrepancies in the way existing theories conceptualise organisational capabilities as well as confirms some of their suppositions. Regarding the antecedents of organisational capabilities, the empirical evidence concludes that the development and evolution of organisational capabilities are not only determined by the level of industry dynamism (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Zollo and Winter, 2002); on the contrary, internal endogenous factors seem to matter as much as exogenous shocks. In terms of endogenous antecedents the study reveals a broad contrast between two distinct organisational learning mindsets – learning to innovate and innovating to learn – that influence how external industry factors are interpreted and translated into internal actions. The thesis confirms existing theories which claim that it is possible to decompose organisational capabilities into distinct, sequenced, hierarchically-ordered levels. But contrary to the literature which claims that only firms with higher-order ‘dynamic’ capabilities can succeed in changing environments, the thesis shows that multiple levels of capabilities can yield successful competitive performance for many years. Lastly, the thesis applies the concept of organisational learning mechanisms (Popper and Lipshitz, 2000) to investigate the process of capability development and argues that the structural and social facets, such as agent participation patterns and valuation of knowledge, are of particular importance in producing higher-levels of capabilities and more extensive organisational learning. The thesis contributes to the literature by showing that organisational capabilities are context-bound and idiosyncratic. They are a by-product of organisational life which comes not only through external factors and internal resources, but more importantly through managerial enactment, organisational mindset and learning mechanisms. It critiques existing theories based on the idea of organisation-environment alignment and proposes to introduce the idea of ‘envelopment’ which redefines the relationship between the organisation and its environment. The key idea is that within the same external environment, it is possible to have varying levels of firm dynamism and still to be able to maintain competitive advantage, without necessarily aiming for organisation-environment fit. This thesis contributes to the debates about the development and evolution of organisational capabilities by providing empirical support for the proposition of Zollo and Winter (2002) that there is a relationship between learning mechanisms and capabilities. As a result, it provides alternative insights into the genesis of organisational capabilities and the consequences of learning processes
Ryan E. Smerek, Organizational learning and performance: The science and practice of building a learning culture
No full textThis is a book review of Ryan E. Smerek, Organizational Learning and Performance: The Science and Practice of Building a Learning Culture, Oxford University Press: New York, NY, 2018; 190 pp., ISBN: 978019064837-4, $4
How do we educate future innovation managers? Insights on innovation education in MBA syllabi
No full text© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Innovation education is regarded as a critical area in most business schools. This growing importance is partly a strategic response to managing in a knowledge-driven competitive environment. Given the expansion in popularity of innovation courses, it is surprising that little is known about the content and process of innovation education. This paper reports on the results of an exploratory study aiming to establish what is taught and how it is taught in innovation courses. This involves analysis of course syllabi of 29 innovation courses at 20 top-ranked business schools. Results revealed that although there is a consensus on the process of innovation education, shying away from traditional didactic approaches toward a more explorative and experiential mode, there exists substantial variation in course content. While this is not indicative of the quality of individual courses, it suggests that members of the innovation community run very dissimilar courses in their teaching practices. A common motif was found around multidisciplinarity and balanced coverage of static and dynamic components of innovation. Implications of findings for innovation teaching, pedagogy and curriculum development are discussed and benchmarks developed for evaluating existing curricula by instructors
A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about management theory
No full textSitting down to read a management theory textbook can be an uninspiring activity. They cover issues relevant to anybody who interacts with organisations (virtually everybody!). But the lengthy coverage of theories after theories makes the topic seem sterile. And because these theories have been regurgitated by so many people so many times, a reader not following the contemporary research published in journal articles (virtually everybody!) would form the impression that not much has been discovered in the last half a century or so. What one can expect from ‘a very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book’ in a field where even the heaviest textbook is not remotely interesting let alone inspiring? It turns out quite a lot – though perhaps not what one might expect
Emotional foundations of capability development: An exploration in the SME context
No full textResearch uncovering the behavioural and cognitive foundations of capability development has gained traction in recent years. However, the emotional foundations of capability development have not been adequately addressed. This is an important gap; if emotions impact decisions and actions of key organisational actors, this suggests an influence on capability development processes in organisations, with implications for their survival and evolution. In this paper, we therefore explore 'how do the emotions of key strategists enable and/or hinder capability development?' Our in-depth qualitative research, based on five small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), shows that emotions of key strategists, including emotional tensions and ambivalence, have multi-faceted effects on capability development depending on the activation level of pleasant and unpleasant emotions experienced. This adds to extant understanding of idiosyncratic foundations of capability development and extends conversations regarding the internal dynamics behind organisational survival and evolution
“That was a pretty serious jump”: Feelings of ambivalence and complexity of arts-based educators in online environments
No full textArts-based methods which traditionally rely on engagement with material artefacts (e.g. LEGO® bricks, finger puppets, craft materials) have been on the rise in management learning and teaching. However, COVID-19 has challenged educators to adapt these methods to online teaching environments with an impact on learning development. This blog post reports on the results of a piece of qualitative research that sought to deepen our understanding of the pedagogy of arts-methods with an aim to explore the effective transferability to online teaching environments. Drawing on participant observation of six teaching sessions, which employed arts-based teaching online, and 13 story-elicitation interviews conducted with the educators in these sessions, this paper explores the lived experience of art-based teaching in the virtual world of teaching and learning. The analysis indicated that the technical limitations and the physical separation posed challenges in terms of transference of activities to virtual setting, inability to “read the room” caused by the lack of micro-social interactions in these settings. These limitations got in the way of the “embodied” experience of learning which has implications for learner development. The blog post concludes by surfacing questions and reflections into the future of arts-based methods for virtual world of learning development
Unleadership: The Remarkable Power of Unremarkable Acts
No full textLeaderly acts and practices from unexpected places are often overlooked and yet have remarkable power. These spontaneous acts are in sharp contrast to those of formal leaders in governments and leading corporations. Global events like the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate crisis light up these differences. This book delves deeper, exploring these leaderly acts and practices more fully and beyond extraordinary events. The authors describe these as "unleadership", a term defined in this book as a set of acts and practices that are undertaken in a spirit of spontaneity and generosity for social good.Four dimensions of unleadership are identified in this book: paying it forward, living with the unknown, catching the wave, and confident connecting and collaborating. Unleadership exposes the potential that is unleashed when members of the community discover their own power to act and reclaim what they have delegated to their leaders.Based on extensive research, the authors highlight the flourishing of alternative forms of leading that encourage rethinking ideas of leadership and followership. They provide practical guidance to organisations and practitioners for enriching their leaderly capacity and cultivating unleadership practices to co-exist with and complement leadership practices.Unleadership is an invaluable resource for leaders and managers in public and private organisations as well as students of leadership and organisational development
What happens when you give an entrepreneur a camera? Illuminating spatial, embodied and affective aspects of entrepreneurship
No full textThe use of video to unlock the minutiae of everyday entrepreneurship is growing in response to calls for more creative research methods in studying entrepreneurship. In this paper, we explore the value and relevance of participant-generated video diaries to the field. Drawing on data from a year-long empirical research project that used participant-generated video diaries, we evaluate the contribution of this method by contrasting it with adjacent and related video methods used by entrepreneurship scholars to-date. We find that it is the seemingly mundane and ordinary, the unromantic and commonplace, but powerfully intimate and otherwise invisible aspects of everyday entrepreneurial life that we get to see, efficiently and effectively, when we give an entrepreneur a camera. This, in turn, significantly enhances our understanding of the spatial, embodied and feeling-based experiences of entrepreneurs. Building on our experience, we provide suggestions for the design and execution of participant-generated video diaries in entrepreneurship research. We contribute to the field by guiding scholars to capitalize on the unique affordances of this method to broaden the methodological base of entrepreneurship research and to elicit new data about the minutiae of complex entrepreneurial experiences and practices
Healthy returns: Leadership learning and innovation climate in the UK health sector
No full textSir Ian Carruthers’ (2011) report for the Department of Health entitled ‘Innovation, Health and Wealth’ highlighted a pressing need for the NHS to improve its capacity for innovation to deal with growing demand and shrinking/static budgets, a challenge the sector struggles to meet. This study examines the role leadership learning can play in facilitating a climate supportive of the innovation needed. A study conducted between 2012-2017 amongst 148 participants attending leadership development programmes and leading innovations in the health sector, used mixed methods to assess the climate for innovation and leadership learning, alongside the everyday experience of senior managers trying to make innovation happen. A follow-up survey and interviews explored the sustainability of learning. The study demonstrates the impact of leadership learning on the climate for innovation, amongst participants, their teams and service users. It adds depth and richness to extant research on the dimensions influencing the climate for innovation and contextualises them in the health sector in England.In the follow-up survey, up to 3 years after the programme had finished, 45% of respondents claimed the influence of their leadership learning remained “about the same”, while 42% said it had “snowballed”. Our findings highlight the important role embodied leadership learning and the space for reflection play in encouraging participants to: reconnect with purpose; create protected time and space; embrace constructive challenge; foster diversity of thinking; grow peer networks; encourage appropriate risk-taking and a sense of ‘playfulness’ in making innovation happen. We conclude by suggesting that a well-designed, leadership development programme can have a positive impact on releasing innovation potential through the programme team’s role modelling of the positive factors listed above, generating a very healthy return on investment for individual and organisation alike
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