Transcript Strategic HRM

Human Resource Development:
Managing Learning and Knowledge Capital
Chapter 14
Organisational culture, leadership and
knowledge management
Copyright © 2010 Tilde University Press
Knowledge as an asset
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Three basic resources – time, money & knowledge
Knowledge has to be created, learned, and maintained
A unique resource
A complex resource needing careful management
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Data
Information
Encoded knowledge
Embedded knowledge
Embodied knowledge
Encultured knowledge
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A systems approach – see Figure 14.1
• Legitimate system
– Strategic planning
• Check current knowledge (e.g., in standing plans)
• New knowledge needed
– Operational planning
• Standing plans
• Single use plans
– Organisation control systems
• Negative feedback loops
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Performance appraisal
Selection
The four stages of HRD
Potential problems
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Workplace learning
• Supervisor is the key actor
• The worksite is the crucible for learning
• Unique space in knowledge management
– spans both the legitimate system and the
shadow system
• Well managed workplace learning curriculum
then moves seamlessly into the creative process
of the shadow system
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A systems approach (cont)
• Shadow system
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Emergent strategic plans
Creativity
Draws organisation towards inequilibrium
Individuals in relationships
Self-organising groups and communities
of practice
– Networks
– Learning partnerships
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Bounded instability
• Both systems have sufficient and appropriate power
to undertake their roles
• The responsibility of the shadow system
– Select or create SOGs
– Develop SOGs
– Use political processes
• The responsibility of the legitimate system
– Avoid defence mechanisms
– Use embedding process
• A seamless transition
– One system morphs into the other
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The paradox
• Good organisational governance is based on
a paradox
– the need for conformity and creativity.
• To achieve the state of bounded instability
– Accessibility of the leader
– Encourage employees to have a noteworthy and
practical input
– Negate status and power
– Establish informal spaces for all staff
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Organisational culture
• Patterns of basic assumptions
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Invented or discovered by the group
To cope with external adaptations and internal integration
Worked well over a long period of time;
Taught to new members
• Formed, over time, by a number of influences
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philosophy and values founding members
strategic orientation
primary function and technology
Size
beliefs and values of the current senior management/key staff
• Organisational culture eats strategy for lunch
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Organisational culture (cont)
• Elements of organisational culture
– Level 1: Artefacts and creations
– Level 2: Espoused values
– Level 3: Basic underlying values
• Web of factors
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Routine behaviours & Processes
Rituals
Stories
Symbols
Power structures
Control systems
Organisation structure
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Types of organisational culture
• Determining factors
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degree of risk
speed of feedback
process (from flexibility to control)
focus (internal to external)
• Four types – see Figure 14.2
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Teamwork
Entrepreneurial
Bureaucratic
Premeditative.
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Four types of organisational culture
• Team work
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Focus on the group and creativity
Attention is on the internal environment
Flexibility and participation in decision making
Speed in feedback to staff is essential
Ensure staff are empowered
Social events used to enhance morale
Cohesion achieved by commitment to the group
Produce volume - at the expense of quality?
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Four types (cont)
• Entrepreneurial
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Creativity as well as innovation and agility
Focused on the demands of the external environment
Risk taking, individual freedom, and initiative
Quick feedback, but only at the informational level
Flexibility, resource acquisition, continual adaption to the
external environment, and individual competition
Internal conflict and intense pressure is often the norm
Star performers are highly valued
Aim for the organisation to be at the leading edge
Can cause a non-cohesive and erratic culture, with a lack of trust
and high staff turnover
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Four types (cont)
• Bureaucratic
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Focus on the internal environment
Control, particularly the control of the individual
Explicit standing plans, associated control systems and routine
Clear structure, with power distributed accordingly
Authority centralised
Emphasis is on low risks and slow feedback
Attention to minor detail, formality, and technical perfection
Maintain stability and predictability
Assumes close-to-certainty external environment
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Four types (cont)
• Premeditative
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Focuses on the external, clearly understanding of client needs
Strong control over processes
Competition between individuals and groups is encouraged
Stresses achievement of well defined goals being
Sense of deliberateness
Values clarity in tasks, achieving goals, quality, and efficiency
Large-stake decisions with high risk but slow feedback
Hierarchical system of authority, with decisions from the top
Desire to be market leader through high-quality inventions and
scientific breakthroughs
– Culture is vulnerable to short-term fluctuations
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The multi-dimensional view
• One culture for the legitimate system
– PLP had a premedative culture
• Another culture for the shadow system
– PLP had a teamwork culture
• Culture should link the two sub-cultures
– PLP “don’t let colleagues down”
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Leadership
• Transactional leadership
– Uses negative feedback loops and single-loop learning
– Most useful in situations
• Under near-to-certainty conditions
• When facing clear, familiar tasks
– That is, operating in the legitimate system
• Transformational leadership
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Appeal to the emotional, motivational and developmental needs
Reframe stressful situations as opportunities
Provides necessary support (e.g., positive feedback)
Theory-in-Use Model II
That is, operating in the shadow system
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Judicious amalgamation
• Of leadership
– medium level of transactional leadership maximises
the positive effects of transformational leadership
• Of culture
– Multi-dimensional approach needed
– Different but supporting cultures for legitimate and shadow
systems
• Of leadership and culture - For example
– Will need transactional for bureaucratic and transformational for
teamwork
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