Innovation and Change: Reflective Journal - Essay Example

?Reading 2 Cole, M, Harris, S & Bernerth, J 2006, ‘Exploring the implications of vision, appropriateness, and execution of organizational change’, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 352-367. The subject article investigated the various kinds of interactional after effects placed on the manager’s perceptions that were modified due to organisational change. The major facets that were focused upon included the vision clarity and the appropriateness as well as the execution of a major organisational change. These facets were further analysed for the issues of job satisfaction, turnover expectations, and commitment to the organisation’s overall purposes as well as the introduction of role ambiguity. The study utilised data that was collected from the middle and upper tier management of a large manufacturer in the United States which was manufacturing consumer goods. The subject company was one of the Fortune 500 companies in the world and was involved in a major organisational change program. A survey based technique was used in which a total of 217 upper and middle level managers completed the survey corresponding to a response of 89%. A number of variables were evaluated for these levels of management including the change of attitudes, commitment to organisational objectives, ambiguity in roles, job satisfaction, and expectation for turnovers as well as control variables. The major findings of the study indicated that there was a three way interaction between execution of change, clarity of vision for the overall change and appropriateness of change. The interaction between these three elements was found fitting enough to be able to predict the expectation of turnovers, job satisfaction and ambiguity in roles. One of the critical defects in the study was that it relied on reports that were collected at the same point in time. This research methodology may actually introduce common method bias in the overall research. Moreover it can also be seen that the relationships derived were both non linear and complex which in turn means that common method bias alone cannot account for the relationships being reported. The results of the study clearly indicate that the individual experiences in organisational change are multifaceted especially if that change is large. Moreover it was also shown that practitioners of organisational change can better comprehend the consequences of organisational change if they were to account for the individual’s change of attitudes including the individual’s readiness and the perception of the change’s effectiveness on key job functions. These effects would need to be considered simultaneously. The individual’s change of attitude necessitates that the individual must believe that change is both required and appropriate at the same time. Overall it can be concluded that the sentiments of individuals need to be given strong focus when organisational change is being mustered. The nature of such a focus should be interaction based so that the perceptions and effectiveness of the overall change can be gauged and redirected as required by the top most management. Furthermore the study strongly indicates that ignoring such perceptions of individuals during major organisational changes is tantamount to the failure of change and change management. Reading 3-1 Mathisen, G & Einarsen, S 2004, ‘A review of instruments assessing creative and innovative environments within organizations’, Creativity Research Journal, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 119–140 This study was geared to review the various tools that have been developed in order to assess the environment inside an organisation with respect to innovation and creativity. A variety of different tools was selected for this review and included KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity, CCQ (Creative Climate Questionnaire), SOQ (Situational Outlook Questionnaire), TCI (Team Climate Inventory) and SSSI (Siegel Scale for Support for Innovation). The chosen instruments were assessed through their differing dimensions, tool norms, factor structures as well as their reliability and validity. The overall findings of the study indicated that both TCI and KEYS were reliable and valid instruments for evaluating the overall environmental factors that represent their scientific quality. The findings also indicated that both creativity and innovation in organisations is not affected by the overall organisational environment. It must be related that the article discusses how both creativity and innovation are different and how they are both equally important for an organisation. However as the article proceeds the investigators can be seen as lending greater weight to creativity against innovation. It has been indicated that innovation is more relevant to the organisation’s overall point of view while creativity is seen as more relevant to being a singular term. Another area of shortcoming in the study is the neglect of frame of reference with respect to time. The aspects of innovation and creativity demonstrated by individuals in organisations are dependent on a number of factors such as their age, their overall experience years in the organisation as well as other time based constraints. However the study failed to account for these factors in the study. If a time based frame of reference had been involved in this study it would have lent more credibility to the investigation. The use of the term organisational environment has also been carried out in a very broad sense in this study making it rather vague. It must be realised that organisations tend to vary in their defining parameters such as their structure, hierarchy, values, size, geographical and cultural relevance as well as others. The study has chosen to consider organisations without lending due credence to the aforementioned factors which in turn makes the study far more ambiguous when a definition for the term organisational environment is sought in context of this study. The tools chosen by the study as being reliable and valid for innovation and creativity assessment cannot be applied to any organisation without considering the critical defining parameters listed above. Hence the final chosen tools for assessment cannot be practically applied to organisations effectively. Overall this study indicates that environmental quality inside an organisation has a definite impact on the levels of innovation and creativity displayed by the individuals employed. A host of different tools have been identified and discussed at length in order to warrant their use for creativity and innovation assessment inside an organisation. However a number of shortcomings in this study limit the practical aspects of such an assessment strategy. Reading 4-3 Karami, A, Jones, BM & Kakabadse, N 2008, ‘Does strategic human resource management matter in high-tech sector? Some learning points for SME managers’, Corporate Governance, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 7-17 The subject article is based on research carried out through empirical surveys of the CEOs of around 500 private high technology SMEs operating within the electronics industry in the United Kingdom. The overall purpose behind the research was to test out two different imperative hypotheses developed by the investigators. These hypotheses were centred on finding out the CEOs perceptions and corresponding attitudes towards their organisation’s human resources as strategic assets for the organisation as well as investigating the impacts of human resources differing capabilities on the performance of the organisation. The hypotheses developed by the investigators were: H1: Increasing the capabilities of the firm will positively correlate with the increasing performance of the firm. H2: In the high performance firms human resources have been more involved in the process of formulating strategy than low performance ones. The study investigated both hypotheses positively using surveys directed at 132 CEOs from the aforementioned market segment. The results of the study showed that both hypotheses tested out as positive. The majority of CEOs saw their human resources capabilities as critical resources. Consequently the high degree of correlation between the two variables led to the conclusion that if a company increased its human resources capabilities it would directly lead to increases in organisational performance. Moreover the study’s results also revealed that in high performance organisations the human resource management is far more involved in strategic management than organisations that display low performance levels. While the study’s results are overwhelmingly conclusive in particular directions but the study suffers from some oversights. For example the study is limited to investigation data collected from knowledge based businesses that are operating in the electronics industry within the United Kingdom using a limited and small data set (132 CEOs). Therefore it would be inappropriate to superimpose the findings of this study onto other industries in other countries as they might have other dimensions for evaluation and assessment. It must be borne in mind that strategic management can be directly and indirectly affected by a host of factors such as the market, the demands of the particular industry, organisational structure as well as others. Expecting one model to fit all else in this scenario would be expecting too much from the subject research. Another shortcoming posed by the research is its dependence on the subjective opinions and personal analysis of CEOs alone. This could have been augmented by a combination of subjective and objective subject matter derived from an in depth analysis of the hypotheses being tested. The credibility of the current study could have been enhanced by a large amount if the study relied on a collection of subjective and objective data sets. However the subject study must be appreciated for its relevance to contemporary SMEs even though the corresponding markets are constantly in a state of change. The investigation also reveals how contemporary organisations are relying increasingly on innovative strategies in order to gain competitive edge in the market. Reading 5-1 Argyris, C 1998, ‘Teaching Smart People How to Learn’, in Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management, A Harvard Business Review Paperback, Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College, USA The subject article places emphasis on the vitality of learning for innovation to both the individual employee and to the organisation. A number of benefits have been related for organisations that place focus on learning activities. The major benefits related for learning in organisations are success in the longer run as competitive edge is gained over the competition, promotion of self leadership, management of knowledge, gradual change of environment in organisation based on learning, continuous improvements in performance and growth of business. The text also examines the effects of employee commitment and motivation for influencing the particular individual’s attitude towards learning in the short term and the long term. The author delineates that a majority of senior managers represent the single loop learning system as well as defensive learning. Both these processes are harmful for learning in the longer run. It has been indicated that the educational background and work experience of these senior managers might limit their learning capabilities as they would have reached the threshold of their optimum learning capability. This problem also aids in explaining why executives keep blaming others for their personal mistakes. In contrast if double loop learning is considered it becomes obvious that there are greater benefits to be realised. For one thing the capacity to reason effectively is enhanced. In the longer run the professionals who have never experienced a failure would never be able to learn how to handle failure effectively. Such professionals cannot be expected to reason in a productive fashion either. The author has attributed such behaviour to the consequences of human defensive reasoning. It can be seen that the article is supported well based on the author’s experiences as the article reflects on actual events. The article is powerful and convincing however from an academic perspective the article lacks the kind of strong literature review that would lend the article an air of enhanced credibility. The author has shown scorn for organisations that have neglected continuous learning and tend to focus on identifying inaccuracies in the external environment alone. Instead the author proposes for organisations to provide greater focus to the analysis of human behaviour in their rank and file. It has also been indicated that the development of an organisation’s learning capabilities enables the organisation to achieve various strategic objectives through a combination of innovation and continuous performance management. The author also contends that change management within an organisation should be led from the top and that change can only be effectively executed from the top. Allowing the senior managers to develop new skill sets such as reasoning skills allows them to enhance their performance and this in turn affects the organisation’s overall performance. The influence of such initiatives can easily be gauged using standard procedures and documents such as performance evaluations, performance appraisals as well as effective feedback from all and sundry. This would imply that the facets of continual effective reasoning, making mistakes and positive reinforcement ought to be viewed as a chance to improve, learn and grow rather than viewing it as something that should be avoided at all costs. Reading 6-2 Carnall, C 2007, ‘Theories of organisational change’, in Managing Organisational Change, Prentice Hall, Harlow, England. The subject article deals with the management of change within an organisational context accounting for uncertainty as well as a host of other factors. It has been related that innovation has a major role to play for successfully managing the onset of change using a combination of intelligence, flexibility, adaptability, creativity and a genuine openness to new methods of thinking, reasoning as well as the capacity for learning continually. In the modern era organisations have to struggle hard in order to differentiate their businesses products, processes as well as services in order to adapt to an ever changing market. Moreover this has to be accomplished using various innovative strategies. The author is highly critical of the emerging set of schools of thought related to organisational change. These schools of thought include the critical theory, post modernism and the complexity theory. The author has also indicated that literature on change management requires the theoretical depth which in turn makes it unrealistic. The current literature tends to view the entire process as a systematic one and has been based largely on steps taken for introducing organisational change. It must be seen that these approaches possess inherent problems which must be accounted for before these approaches are implemented practically. For an organisational change to go to successful completion the architects of change should consider social, behavioural as well as cultural factors and any local peculiarities that may exist in the overall organisational environment. The author’s critique on human resources literature is rather unsupported as human resource tends to take into account a host of factors such as demographics, technology and economics in order to manage these factors effectively and sustainably. It must be mentioned that the size of the organisation is critical to the change being introduced because the organisation’s size is vital in determining the required implementation costs as well as the scale and scope of the overall change based also the organisational environment and local circumstances. It must be realised that organisations that have adapted their operational strategies based on emerging technologies and innovation have reaped the long term benefits of such changes. Virtual organisations such as online businesses have used innovation and emerging technologies in order to expand their domain of operations to new geographical markets. Moreover the employees of such organisations are able to operate in tandem no matter where they are located in the world. This enables these employees to work towards common goals although they posses diverse and often differentiated backgrounds. This trend indicates that the more an organisation develops its capability for innovation using effective management of change, the more it ensures its long term success. Overall this is becoming more and more important for organisations given the competitive environment as well as regulatory constraints along with environmental and demographic change. The fast pace of change makes it ever more hard to predict and forecast change. This can be dealt with using a systematic approach is adopted which serves as a management guideline for the entire organisation. Read More