Learning Organization and Human Motivation - Literature review Example

Learning Organization and Human Motivation affiliation Learning Organization and Human Motivation Introduction This paper discusses Six Sigma as a company-wide approach for organizational improvement incorporating organizational learning. Six Sigma programmes have been studied and the fundamental principles of organizational learning have been applied in order to improve the long-term implementation of the programmes. The paper also discusses factors associated with manufacturing work organization and leadership that are essential for improving organizational learning and for stimulating the competence development and motivation among personnel. In recent years, an increasing number of manufacturing organizations have used different types of quality programmes in order to improve internal and external customer satisfaction. By focusing on the performance measures, the companies have received knowledge of the processes. If the knowledge is used properly, improved goods and services and lower costs of rejection will be attained. Process improvement has often been accomplished through an integrated approach, using problem-solving techniques such as total quality management (TQM) tools and classic statistical analysis (Wiklund & Sandvik Wiklund, 1999a: pp. 101- 115, b: pp. 434- 443). Aspects related to the knowledge transformation where important approaches such as training and practice in the personal working situation have been discussed frequently (Wiklund & Sandvik Wiklund, 1999a: pp. 101- 115). Another aspect is how the company should change and act when disseminating methods and support quality improvement, where the structure of the company, strategies and education performance and content are considered essential factors for a successful implementation. An interesting question is how an improvement programme should be designed to support changed attitudes and result in changed behaviour and learning, which is a central necessity, among others, in such an implementation process. Six Sigma as an improvement programme has received considerable attention in the literature during the last few years (e.g. Bergman & Kroslid, 2000: pp. 260- 266; Breyfogle, 1999: p. 21-42; Harry, 1994: pp. 112-131, 1998: pp. 60- 64; Hellsten & Klefsjo , 2000: pp. 238- 244, Hoerl, 1998: pp. 35- 42; Klefsjo et al., 2001: pp. 31-35). Motorola launched Six Sigma in 1987 and was also the first to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in 1988. Today, companies like Motorola, Texas Instruments, ABB, Allied Signal, General Electric (GE) and 3M have been striving to achieve Six Sigma quality, and as a result they have become known internationally as best-in-class companies (e.g. Fuller, 2000: pp. 311- 315; Sanders & Hild, 2000: , pp. 303-309). Although many success stories have been reported in the literature, the ultimate objective is to understand Six Sigma and place it in an appropriate context to reap the benefits. Well-known statistician and quality consultant Ron Snee (2000: pp. ix- xiv) has indicated that Six Sigma should be a strategic approach that works across all processes, products, company functions and industries'' and Bajaria (1999: n/a, 2000: pp. 15- 17) reinforces this idea as a nuts and bolts' point counterpoint discussion of each of 14 key Six Sigma ideas. In these papers by Bajaria an examination is made of the heads and tails of the Six Sigma concept and some warnings are also given against limitations and misuses. The technical aim of Six Sigma is to keep the distance between the process average and the nearest tolerance limit to at least six standard deviations and thus reduce variability in products and processes in order to prevent defects. The original motivation for Six Sigma at Motorola was centred on manufacturing improvement, and this was also how Six Sigma was introduced in many other organizations. To meet this aim, Six Sigma methods have been based heavily on the use of statistical methods to understand product and process performance. During the last few years, however, the central theme has begun to broaden from focusing principally on the manufacturing field to encompassing all business operations, especially those that affect the customer (Hahn et al., 2000: pp. 317- 326). Still, the focus of Six Sigma is of a rather technical nature and there is a need to discuss Six Sigma in an even broader organizational perspective. For example, the understanding of variation has been pointed out as an important aspect in the implementation of Six Sigma (Bergman & Kroslid, 2000: pp. 260- 266). Six Sigma has also been discussed as a metaphor for excellence and managerial thoughts, rather than a purely statistical concept (Yilmaz & Chatterjee, 2000: pp. 67- 78). In their paper, Six Sigma quality thinking is discussed as a means for what they call robust management' ; one that is able to confront the challenges of a highly competitive and variable environment. This argument suggests the necessity of a systems view of an organization beyond its individual departments or processes, and the true appreciation of inherent variability in the system. The content in the Six Sigma concept still varies between companies and between authors. Despite the many reported success stories concerning Six Sigma programmes, there are some central implementation aspects that need to be discussed. The question is how to get more people-not just Black Belts and other formalized problem-solvers-to overcome mental barriers and to use statistical methods in their daily work. In this paper, Six Sigma is discussed as an approach for organizational improvement where aspects related to method dissemination and organizational learning are highlighted. The traditional roles of formal quality experts, such as Black Belts, Master Black Belts, Champions, etc. are discussed. The reason is that an exclusive use of these types of quality experts' can tend to focus more on organizational learning disciplines such as personal mastery' rather than on team learning' and on systems view' (Senge, 1990: pp. 45-63). A part of the fieldwork was conducted at Solectron Sweden AB in Ostersund (former Ericsson Network Core Products AB). The Solectron Corporation received the MBNQA in 1991 and 1997. Six Sigma as a Concept for Organizational Improvement Six Sigma has been established as an improvement approach that seeks to find and eliminate causes of mistakes or defects in a business process by focusing on outputs that are of critical importance to customers. As a result, process performance should be enhanced, customer satisfaction should be improved and the bottom line should be impacted through cost savings and increased revenue. According to Snee (2000: pp. ix- xiv), Six Sigma should be a strategic approach that works across all processes, products, company functions and industries. The important components of Six Sigma are presented in Fig. 1. This approach consists of several methods, all well known in the quality field, for example hypothesis tests, design of experiments, quality function deployment, regression analysis, statistical process control, etc. Some of the central features that should characterize a successive Six Sigma process have been described by Hahn et al. (2000: pp. 317- 326) as: It is a top-down, rather than a bottom-up, approach; see, e.g. Allied Signal and GE. Champions are appointed from the ranks of the leaders in each business. They are responsible for ensuring the successful implementation of Six Sigma in their own areas of influence. Both, at the business and project level, Six Sigma leadership is, traditionally, the responsibility of Master Black Belts and Black Belts. These are full-time responsibilities; include the setting of quality objectives for the business and monitoring progress towards these objectives, selection of Six Sigma projects, and mentoring, and project teams. Implementation is the responsibility of the project team members. They receive Green Belt training from the Master Black Belts or the Black Belts. It is a highly disciplined approach that typically involves the four stages, measure, analyse, improve and control, with an up-front stage (define) sometimes added (DMAIC), see Fig. 2. It is a highly data-oriented approach. Therefore, implementation of the DMAIC concepts is heavily based on statistical tools and the statistical design of experiments (DoE). It involves training everyone in the company in DMAIC, or modified concepts and tools. Six Sigma represents a systematic approach when reducing defects that affect what is important to the customer and positively affect the bottom line. The programme includes qualitative, statistical and instructional devices for observing process variables and their relationships as well as managing their character. In fact, by introducing Six Sigma programmes, many companies have experienced (see Wiklund & Sandvik Wiklund, 2000: pp. 118-124): cost savings; improved customer satisfaction; Lower frequency of defects; Efficient sharing of best practices; Shorter cycle times; increased productivity; improved supplier participation; and A common language and metrics for quality. Roles of Black Belts and Master Black Belts Quality engineers and statisticians play a major role in the deployment of the Six Sigma philosophy. In their role as Black Belts, they should provide leadership for the teams working on the projects as well as doing a portion of the project work. Some of the more experienced professionals should serve as Master Black Belts and provide guidance to Black Belts as well as Champions. These professionals should also be called on to be members of Black Belt-led teams and provide the expertise needed to complete the project successfully. Black Belts usually work full time with the Six Sigma programme. At, for example, Solectron, they receive a 4-month special education in quality engineering and industrial statistics. They are also responsible for the Green Belt education, which is focused on statistical tools and on other problem-solving tools and is offered to several categories of employees. A person with a Master Black Belt is also responsible of co-ordinating and supervising the Black Belts. Aspects on Organizational Learning Without organizational learning, there can be no continuous improvement. One of the most important stages in the quality planning process is the implementation stage, and so in Six Sigma. Education, training and participation are factors that are critical in such a process (e.g. James, 1996: pp. 75-83). Everyone's commitment to the Six Sigma programme should be the natural driving force for managers at all company levels. As pointed out in Senge et al. (1994: pp. 28-45), however, neither training nor team training will be successful unless reinforced by the regular follow-up of an ongoing, systematic change in how work is conducted. Sandvik Wiklund and Karlsson (1997: pp. 55-66) also discuss this, and they state that lack of quality learning causes insufficient implementation of quality methods. They define quality learning as the learning necessary for a permanent change in the way of working that is adequate for quality achievements, including both knowledge and ideology. In the literature, it has been argued that learning teams need practice fields, ways to practise together so they can develop their collective learning skills (Henry et al., 1995: pp. 56-73; Senge, 1990: pp. 84-92). When considering organizational learning, the experiential learning model proposed by Dixon (1994: pp. 23-63) can be used, see Fig. 3. The continuous flow of cross-functional information and knowledge is an important driving force that supports the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle (Deming, 1993: pp. 63-97) and the work with improving the organizational learning. This is generally how the information is integrated and collectively interpreted in the company. Thereafter, necessary actions should be taken to fulfil the needs identified in the interpretation stage. Here, information networks can be a method to transport information and knowledge throughout the company, as considered by Mayo and Lank (1995: pp. pp. 48-67). Process consultation (see Argyris, 1970: pp. pp. 34-64) is the primary strategy of organizational development. The most important qualities of a process consultant are described in Porras and Silvers (1991: pp. 51-78) through four main sets of characteristics: interpersonal competence, theory-based problem-solving capabilities, the ability to create learning experiences and the awareness of one's own assumptions and models. While an expert consultant is highly competent in the current subject area and is the problem-solver, in process consultancy in contrast to expert consultancy, the client him/herself makes the decisions. Hence, necessary conditions for learning in accordance to Kolb's learning cycle are created (Kolb, 1976: pp. 21- 31).Except for the statistics, this viewpoint has much in common with W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge', which is composed of the four interrelated parts: appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge and psychology. Profound Knowledge is known as a system of knowledge of importance for the understanding of the application of a new economic system (Deming, 1993: pp. 34-53). Introducing Soft Sigma in the Six Sigma Programme In this paper, Soft Sigma is regarded as a complement to DMAIC and the statistical methods and includes all aspects that deal with learning and implementation of Six Sigma, i.e. knowledge in behaviour science. The overall goal of introducing Soft Sigma is to improve the outcome of a Six Sigma programme by increasing organizational learning. This is achieved by having Black Belts and Master Black Belts that have more of Deming's Profound Knowledge, thus theory of knowledge and psychology. Their roles as internal consultants and facilitators have to be very clear and understandable. The relationship between organizational learning and how these types of quality experts act in the projects is clear. They can act either as expert consultants or as process consultants. Depending on their role in the projects, they either can focus on the process improvement itself or on the implementation of methods needed for continuous improvement. The expert consultants act as problem-owners and problem-solvers. Focus is on the process problem and the employees are not usually involved in the problem-solving parts. Expert consultants are often looked upon as authorities in their role as quality experts. They generally work alone and reach good results on a short-term basis, and the big organizational long-term savings seldom appear, as the organizational learning is very limited. The process consultants act as facilitators and support the implementation of Six Sigma methods. They focus on the employees and their training and active problem solving to support the improvement work. The aim is to create long-term opportunities for implementing Six Sigma methods and Profound Knowledge among personnel and thereby support individual and organizational learning. See also parallels to Senge's team learning' (Senge, 1990: pp. 53-78). The strategy of introducing Soft Sigma at Solectron Sweden AB, Ostersund, consists of some important elements. First, the Black Belt training should cover themes such as leadership, change management, learning aspects and supervision together with parts that increase self-knowledge. Second, the infrastructure should include expertise not only in statistics and finance, but also in behaviour science. The infrastructure at Solectron, Ostersund, has one part-time finance person, one part-time statistician and one full-time Soft Sigma person (behaviour scientist). The finance person should facilitate the follow-up of savings, and the statistician should supervise the Black Belts and Master Black Belts in statistics and quality engineering. Finally, the Soft Sigma person should help the Black Belts and Master Black Belts to develop and understand their roles as internal consultants and facilitators. As mentioned earlier, the ambition is to get them to act as process consultants. The full-time resources for this indicate how important Solectron regards this role to be. The infrastructure of Solectron, Ostersund, is presented in Fig. 4. Human Motivation Training assists employees, as shown by reviews, by increasing their skills (Gritz, 1993), wages (Mangum, Mangum, & Hansen, 1990), and career advancement (Tharenou, 1997a). Recent studies have explained participation in training chiefly at organizational level from structural and job variables (e.g. establishment characteristics, work practices) and employee demographics (e.g. Clarke & Metalina, 2000; Frazis, Gittleman, & Joyce, 2000; Green, Machin, & Wilkinson, 1999; Whitfield, 2000). Yet reviewers suggest that how motivated individuals are towards training should also influence their participation (Ford & Noe, 1992; Noe, Wilk, Mullen, & Wanek, 1997). Scholars advocate that the expectation of gaining valued benefits from training is an important precursor to participation (Dubin, 1990; Farr & Middlebrooks, 1990; Ford & Noe, 1992; Noe et al., 1997; Salas, Cannon-Bowers, Rhodenizer, & Bowers, 1999), and more than the traditional measure of motivation to learn (Mathieu & Martineau, 1997). The aim of this study is to examine how training motivation, both as motivation through expectation and motivation to learn, explains participation in training and development. Mathieu and Martineau (1997) classified pre-training motivation into three types: motivation to learn, self-efficacy, and valence-instrumentality-expectancy beliefs (i.e. motivation through expectation). Noe and Schmitt (1986) defined motivation to learn as a specific desire on the part of the trainee to learn the content of a training programme. They proposed that motivation to learn should be most relevant to how much a trainee learns during training, but it has also been used to explain how much employees participate in development (Birdi, Allan, & Warr, 1997; Noe & Wilk, 1993). Mathieu and Martineau (1997) pointed out that motivation to learn is a simple, direct and straightforward way of gauging how trainees view their participation but is transparent (and thus may be subject to response acquiescence and social desirability), says little about why some trainees are more motivated than others, and provides very little diagnostic information. Motivation through expectation, a label given by Noe et al. (1997), is the employee's expectancy that putting in the effort to participate in training will result in skills, knowledge and ability that leads to outcomes of value (Dubin, 1990; Farr & Middlebrooks, 1990); that is, combining expectancy (E), instrumentality (I), and valence (V). Mathieu and Martineau (1997) argued that the VIE approach is superior to other pre-training motivation approaches because it goes beyond self-efficacy perceptions, places participation in training into a motivational framework that captures the context of trainees' work roles, and ties individuals' motivation to the perceived rewards available in their organizations. Indeed, perceived benefits have been found related to participation in development, although inconsistently by the type of benefit (Maurer & Tarulli, 1994) or sample (Noe & Wilk, 1993). These studies directly asked employees if benefits arose from participating in training and development, rather than assessing expectancy, instrumentality, and valence, or their combination. Mathieu and Martineau (1997) argued that an advantage of the VIE approach is that the three components can be disaggregated to help diagnosis. They pointed out, however, that the approach suffers from the several criticisms made of expectancy theory including its complexity, emphasis on a rational model of human motivation and projection of thoughts into the future, and assumptions that people maximize satisfying behaviour (Miner, 1980). Concluding remarks Six Sigma is a very powerful programme for improving organizational performance. There is much evidence of the success of the programme. This paper has presented how Six Sigma can be extended to gain even more. The approach presented has been implemented at Solectron in Ostersund and has shown very good results in terms of improved organizational learning and thus fast and efficient implementation of Six Sigma. Today, not only the Black Belts connected to the Six Sigma centre but also employees on the shop-floor use DMAIC and the incorporated statistical methods. Motivation to learn has been related to participation in development in cross-sectional studies (Birdi et al., 1997; Noe & Wilk, 1993). Motivation through expectation and motivation to learn predict participation in training and development in combination with supervisor support rather than through transmitting its effects. Figure 3. The organizational learning cycle (left) by Dixon (1994) and the plan-do-study-act cycle by Deming (1993) Bibliography Argyris, C. (1970) Intervention Theory and Method: A Behavioural Science View (Reading, MA, Addison- Wesley). Australian Bureau of Statistics (1993). Employer training expenditure. 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