Role of Social Construction in the Making of Organisational Vision - Coursework Example

Discuss the role of social construction in the making of organisational vision Name Institution Introduction According to Papulova (2014), visions refer to images created in people’s mind that is founded on experiences and knowledge. Fairholm (2009) contends that vision roughly means an image of the future. It is an image of excellence, which an organization, team or individual seeks to create in the foreseeable future. It is important to note that in organisations, vision originates from people’s inventive imaginations and is characteristically shared by members of an organisation. Scholars like Papulova (2014) have agreed that there is no definite methodology for developing mission and vision within an organization. However, a significant issue is not only creating and developing issue, but also seeking the meaning, value, and importance of vision for an organisation. Creating vision and mission is a critical component of strategic management process, and is usually part of formulating organisational strategy when members of an organisation share their experiences and knowledge. The Social constructionism theory becomes relevant at this point. It is a theory of knowledge that attempts to examine how mutually constructed understandings of a society is developed, which form the foundation shared assumptions regarding reality. In order to make sense of an organisation, social constructionists would consider visions as having been constructed rather than created (Hosking & McNamee, 2006). This essay argues that social construction emphasises sharing of experiences, opinions, and knowledge as a means through which members of an organisation interpret and develop organisational vision. Bringing up members of an organisation together Social construction plays a crucial role in bringing up members of an organisation together to participate in a sharing knowledge and experiences with the view of developing organisational vision. The idea of shared ideas, concerns, and assumptions is particularly consistent with the social constructionist theory. Harrison (1970) also commented that the role of an individual is crucial in facilitating change. He added that as individual is important, the extent to which the processes that efficiently decide his behaviour become stronger, which play a crucial role in influencing the success of an intervention. In which case, if the processes that necessitate change run counter to the expectations of individual employees, they are likely to resist change, leading to a failure of an organisational visions. For instance, when employees feel the management has not invited them to share their concerns and opinions in the process of developing a vision, they are likely to resist change, and the vision may never materialise. In other words, it is the contribution of social constructionist theory, which enables employees to have a share of ownership of an organisational vision. According to Hosking and McNamee (2006), social constructionist theory refers to an approach to human inquiry that takes in a critical standpoint toward assumptions or opinions that are commonly shared. In respect to an organisational theory, the theory would therefore hold the idea that shared assumptions or opinions play a crucial role in strengthening the interests of a dominant group of organisational members in determining the content of an organisation’s vision. Additionally, the way the members would understand the organisation would be a product of their experiences in the organisation and negotiation with other members. According to Andrew (2012), the social constructionist theory contends that knowledge is socially constructed. The construction also comprises people’s knowledge of what should be considered as the reality. It could, therefore, be argued that social constructionism supports the notion that an organisation’s vision is only understandable relative to the individual members of the organisation’s thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions. By emphasising on individualisation and participation in construction of knowledge of what a society should be whether at present or in future, a social constructionist theory therefore plays a significant tool that can enable an organisation to develop a vision. An additional implication of the theory is its role in bringing up people together to participate in a helping process, which is essentially a significant principle for enabling change (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). Collective problem solving through a shared vision Social construction assists organisational members to come up with a vision that can guide them to confront problems collectively within and outside the organisation. Social constructionism is strongly linked to the value system and mission of people within a society, including within an organisation (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). It attempts to understand the effects of history and culture on people’s overall development and functioning, whether within an organisation or the larger society. Therefore, it may assist people within an organisation to come up with a vision that can enable them to confront problems within and outside the organisation. As Hosking and McNamee (2006) argues, as a theoretical model, the social constructionist theory seeks to address the challenges confronting a society by enabling them to voice their concerns borne out of their experiences individually and collectively. Facilitating, and legitimising of a vision Social constructionism also recommends a need to support, facilitate, and legitimise a vision that is grounded in people’s shared knowledge and experiences. As Andrew (2012) explains, social constructionism advocates for a need to support, facilitate, and legitimize a range of traditions, knowledge, as well as means to people to individually and publicly express themselves. This implies that while developing an organisational vision, members of an organisation have to express their concerns individually and publicly, their rights, as well as their opinions. Additionally, a vision has to integrate the individual expression to be considered to have been socially constructed. Indeed, Hosking and McNamee (2006) comments that social constructionists believe that individual members in the society who lack the capability to express themselves or their concerns, opinions and rights, have to be considered in the process of social construction of knowledge. In a typical organisational setting for social construction of knowledge, or in this case knowledge on organisational vision, to take place all members of the organisation, including those who may feel marginalized, have to be allowed to express their experiences and opinions about what should constitute an organisation’s vision. Empowering organisational members to pursue organisational change The social constructionist theory orients and empowers members of an organisation to pursue organisational change by enabling them to share a vision of change. Andrew (2012) contends that the one goal of social work is enriching the society by orienting and empowering people and the larger society to pursue change by enabling positive interaction of people to solve common problems. Social construction also views meanings as shared, as a result made up of reality that may be taken for granted. Proponents of the grounded theory would view vision as made up of bundles of beliefs that members of the organisation may have reasonable confidence in, consensual ideas and common understanding as what makes up knowledge. The social constructionist theory contends that people make meanings out of their experiences of through their interaction with others. As a result, social constructionists view various competing standpoints of the society. The idea of empowerment was largely discussed by Conger& Kanungo (1988). In their view, organizational actors who possess power tend to have a greater potential to attain their desired outcomes than actors who have no power. Conger& Kanungo (1988) further argued that empowerment enables organisational actors who have no power to have their ideas heard, without which they would feel marginalised. The social constructionist opines that knowledge should be based on the needs of all people, and empowers them to support shared knowledge that is in their favour. This is necessary in the process of developing an organisational vision as it shows that it is necessary for members of the organisation to be provided with an opportunity to tell their stories in their own words so that problems within an organisation can be identified and a shared vision of change developed. It also provides members of an organisation within an opportunity to express their individual assessments of the situation. Aligning people to a shared vision Social construction aligns all members of an organisation to a shared vision. It also provides a means to set up organisational cultures that are aligned to the vision. As Andrew (2012) argues, the means to developing a strong impetus for developing visions that can bring about competitive advantage to an organisation is to determine and rectify pitfalls in what people are knowledgeable and what they learn from their experiences. The idea of alignment with shared objectives and images of the future is consistent with the point of view of alignment theory, which suggests that effective communication and interconnectedness with employees may enable an organisation to successfully align them to a strategic vision. According to Hosking and McNamee (2006), the potency of the alignment theory is its capacity to bring together the members of an organization to form a logical and cohesive vision. What this implies is that the level of performance of an organization is determined by how its functional alignment strategy is successful. It could be reasoned that social construction can bring about alignment essentially because it offers a means to capture effective approaches as it links people to strategy and integrates them with process improvement. It could further be reasoned that the driving forces that underlies a successful organizations is strong leadership, vision, in addition to strong organizational culture that is in line with a consensual vision. Enables constructive interaction among people Social construction enables constructive interaction among members of an organisation as they attempt to come up with a shared vision. The social construction theory is centred on the idea that human beings tend to interact and communicate to express experiences in order to make them to appear rational by forming models of the social world, which they can share through language (Andrew, 2012). According to Clarke and Meldrum (1999), when the existing approaches to managing change management fail to deliver results, people would need interaction to form different ideas and to come up with shared meanings of what should constitute change. Social construction informs people’s activities in the organisation, both in generating theoretical writings and talk in people’s day by day activities. It ensures this by enabling organisational actors to provide explanations for human relations and nature. Additionally, social construction enables members of an organisation to reflect on the relational practices encouraged by individual’s theories regarding how organisational change should take place. At this rate, it is easy to see that social construction is, therefore, both a theory regarding theories as well as an orientation toward practices in the society in addition to the kinds of people as well as the practices that these practices generate. Still, developing a shared vision would need leadership. As Caldwell (2003) argues, the role of “change leaders” in developing organisation strategies for change is crucial, although it may present counter‐image of traditional roles of managers. Conclusion Social construction emphasises sharing of experiences, opinions, and knowledge as a means through which members of an organisation interpret and develop organisational vision. It enables constructive interaction among members of an organisation as they attempt to come up with a shared vision. It also plays a crucial role in bringing up members of an organisation together to participate in a sharing knowledge and experiences with the view of developing organisational vision. Additionally, it assists organisational members to come up with a vision that can guide them to confront problems collectively within and outside the organisation and to legitimise a vision that is grounded in people’s shared knowledge and experiences. Social construction aligns all members of an organisation to a shared vision. References Andrew, T. (2012). What is social constructionism? Grounded Theory Review, 1(11). Caldwell, R. (2003). Change leaders and change managers: different or complementary? Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 24(5), 285 – 293 Clarke, M. & Meldrum, M. (1999). Creating change from below: early lesson for agents of change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 20 (2), 70 – 82 Conger, J. & Kanungo, R. (1988). The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice. The Academy of Management Review, 13(3), 471-482 Fairholm, M. (2009). Leadership and Organizational Strategy. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 14(1), 1-19 Harrison, R. (1970). Choosing the depth of organisational intervention. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 6(2), 181-202 Hosking, D. & McNamee, S. (2006). The Social construction of organization. Rosenoerns Allé: CBS Press Maitlis, S. & Christianson, M. (2014). Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forward. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 57-125 Papulova, Z. (2014). The Significance of Vision and Mission Development for Enterprises in Slovak Republic. Journal of Economics, Business and Management, 2(1), 12-16 Read More