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IOP 2602ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

STUDY UNIT 1 (Chapter 1 Pg. 1 -21)Organisational Psychology in Context

What managers do

Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions. Managers do their work in an organisation. Managers oversee activities of others and who are responsible for attaining goals in organisations.

Management functions; Planning – defining an organisation’s goals, establishing an overall strategy of achieving

those goals and developing a comprehensive set of plans to integrate and coordinate activities.

Organising – designing an organisations structure Leading – every organisation contains people and it is management’s job to direct and

coordinate those people. Controlling – to ensure that things are going as they should, management must monitor the

organisation’s performance.

Management roles; Interpersonal

o Figurehead – symbolic head, required to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or social nature.

o Leader – responsible for the motivation and direction of employees.o Liaison – maintains a network of outside contracts that provide favours and

information.

Informationalo Monitor – receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve centre of internal

and external information of the organisation.o Disseminator – transmits information received from outsiders or from other

employees to members of the organisation.o Spokesperson – transmits information to outsiders to the organisation’s plans,

policies, actions and results; serves as expert on organisation’s industry.

Decisionalo Entrepreneur – searches organisation and its environmental for opportunities and

initiates projects to bring about change.o Disturbance handler – responsible for corrective action when organisation faces

important, unexpected disturbances.o Resource allocator – makes or approves significant organisational decisions.o Negotiator – responsible for representing the organisation at major organisations.

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Management skills;

Effective vs. successful managerial activities;

1. Traditional management – decision making, planning and controlling.2. Communication - exchanging routine information and processing paperwork.3. Human resource management – motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, and training.4. Networking – socialising, politicking, and interaction with outsiders.

Enter organisational behaviour

Organisational behaviour – a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour within organisations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organisation’s effectiveness.

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Challenges and opportunities for OB

1. Globalisation: Globalisation is the creation of a borderless world which sees the free movement of

products, services, finances and skills between countries.

2. Workforce diversity: A diverse workforce is one that is heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, ethnicity,

age, and other characteristics.

3. Innovation and change: Innovation is the process of taking a creative idea and turning it into a useful product,

service or method of operation.

4. Quality management: Quality management is a philosophy that is driven by continual improvement and

responding to customer needs and expectations. Quality is the ability of a product or service to reliably do what it’s supposed to do and to

satisfy customer expectations.

5. People skills

6. Employee empowerment: Employee empowerment means to increase the decision making discretion of

employees.

7. Ethical behaviour Ethical behaviour encompasses actions which adhere to moral principles.

8. Temporariness: Temporariness refers temporary nature of events in a society driven by technology.

The consequence of this is that organisations are in a constant state of change.

Disciplines that contribute to the OB field

Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behaviour of humans and other animals.

Social psychology blends the concept from both psychology and sociology. It focuses on people’s influence on one another.

Sociology studies people in relation to their social environment or culture.

Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.

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Coming attractions: Developing an OB model

A dependent variable is the key factor that you want to explain or predict and that it affected by some other factor.

In the OB model these are:

Satisfaction: Job satisfaction is an employee’s general attitude towards his / her job.

Citizenship: Organisational citizenship behaviour refers to discretionary behaviour that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, but nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of the organisation.

Turnover: Turnover is the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organisation.

Absenteeism: Absenteeism is the failure to report to work.

Productivity: Employee productivity is a performance measure of both efficiency and effectiveness

Deviant workplace behaviour – voluntary behaviour that violates significant organisational norms and, in doing so, threatens the well-being of the organisation or its members.

Independent variables are the presumed cause of some change in a dependent variable.

(Chapter 3)

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STUDY UNIT 2 (Chapter 4 Pg. 72 -82 / Chapter 5 Pg. 100 - 103)Attitudes and Values

Attitudes

Attitudes are evaluative statements. They are complex.

3 components; Cognitive component – the aspect of an attitude that is a description of or belief in the

way things are. Affect component – emotional or feeling segment of an attitude. Behavioural component – refers to an intention to behave in a certain way towards

someone or something.

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Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is not just about job conditions. Personality also plays a role. People who are less positive about themselves are less likely to like their jobs.

Research has shown that people who have positive core self-evaluations – who believe in their inner worth and basic competence – are more satisfied with their jobs than those with negative core self-evaluations.

Exit – the exit response involves directing behaviour toward leaving the organisation, including looking for a new position as well as resigning.

Voice - the voice response involves actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and undertaking some forms of union activity.

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Loyalty – the loyalty response involves passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking up for the organisation in the face of external criticism and trusting the organisation and its management to “do the right thing.”

Neglect – the neglect response involves passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increase error rate

Values

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STUDY UNIT 3 (Chapter 6 Pg. 119 - )Perception and Decision making

Perception is the process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. This is important to know because peoples’ behaviour is based on their perception of what reality really is.

Factors influencing perception are:1. the perceiver 2. the target 3. the situation

Personal Perception: Making Judgements about Others

Attribution theory occurs when we observe others behaviour, we try to determine if it was internally or externally caused.

The theory proposes that, when we observe an individual’s behaviour, we attempt to determine whether it was caused internally (behaviour under the personal control of the individual) or externally (behaviour resulting from outside causes).

The fundamental attribution error can explain why a sales manager is prone to attribute the poor performance pf her sales agents to laziness rather than to the innovative product line introduced by a competitor

Self-serving bias – individuals and organisations tend to attribute their own successes to internal factors such as ability / effort, while putting the blame for failure on external factors such as bad luck or unproductive co-workers.

Frequently Used Shortcuts in Judging Others

Selective perception – any characteristic that makes a person, an object, or an event stand out will increase the probability that we will perceive it.

We only take in certain stimuli.

Selective perceptions allows us to “speed-read” others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture. Because we see what we want to see, we can draw unwarranted conclusions from an ambiguous situation.

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Halo effect – when we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic.

Contrast effects – “Never follow an act that has kids or animals in it.” We don’t evaluate a person in isolation.

Stereotyping – when we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he / she belongs.

We rely on generalisations because they help us making decisions quickly.

One specific manifestation of stereotypes is profiling – a form of stereotyping in which a group of individuals is singled out, typically on the basis of race or ethnicity, for intensive inquiry, scrutiny, or investigation.

Specific Applications of Shortcuts in Organisations

Employment interview – a major input into who is hired and who is rejected in an organisation.

Research has shown that we form impressions of others within a tenth of a second, based on our first glance of them.

Performance expectations – people attempt to validate their perceptions of reality even when those perceptions are faulty.

Performance evaluation – very much dependant on the perceptual process. Subjective evaluations of performance, though often necessary, are problematic because all the errors we’ve discussed thus far affect them.

Employee loyalty -

The Link between Perception and Individual Decision making

Individuals in organisations make decisions.

Top management – determine their organisation’s goals, what products or services to offer, how to best finance operations, or where to locate a new manufacturing plant.

Middle- and lower-level managers – determine production schedules, select new employees, and decide how pay raises are to be allocated.

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None managerial employees also make decisions – they decide whether to come to work on any given day, how much effort to put forth at work.

Decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem that’s perceived.

How should Decisions be made?

Rational decision making

6 steps in the decision making process:1. Define the problem2. Identify the decision criteria3. Allocate weights to the criteria4. Develop alternatives5. Evaluate alternatives6. Select the best alternatives

Bounded rationality

Because the human mind cannot formulate and solve complex problems with full rationality, we operate within the confines of bounded rationality.

Once a problem has been identified, we begin to search for criteria and alternatives. We identify a limited list of the most conspicuous choices. We review them. Focus on alternatives. Review alternatives.

So the solution represents a satisficing choice – the first acceptable one we encounter – rather that an optimal one.

Intuition

It is a nonconscious process created from distilled experience. Defining qualities occurs outside conscious thoughts, it relies on holistic associations.

Common biases and errors in decision making Overconfidence bias – “No problem in judgment and decision making is more prevalent and more potentially catastrophic than overconfidence.”

Anchoring bias – a tendency to fixate on initial information and fail to adequately adjust for subsequent information. It occurs because our mind appears to give a disproportionate amount of emphasis to the first information it receives.

Confirmation bias – represents a specific case of selective perception.

Availability bias – the tendency for people to base their judgements on information that is readily available to them.

Escalation of commitment – refers to staying with a decision even when there is clear evidence that it’s wrong.

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Randomness error –our tendency to believe we can predict the outcome of random events.

Decision making becomes impaired when we try to create meaning out of random events. One of the most serious impairments occur when we turn imaginary patterns into superstitions.

Winner’s curse – argues that the wining participants in a competitive auction typically pay too much for the item. Logic predicts that the winner’s curse gets stronger as the number of bidders increase.

Hindsight bias – the tendency to believe falsely, after the outcome of an event is actually known, that we’d have accurately predicted that outcome.

The hindsight bias reduces our ability to learn from the past. It permits us to think that we’re better at making predictions than we really are and can result in our being more confident about the accuracy of future decisions than we have a right to be.

Influences on decision making: Individual differences and organisational constraints

Individual differences

Decision making in practice is characterised by bounded rationality, common biases and errors, and the use of intuition.

Personality

Personality does influence decision making.

Gender

Women analyse decisions more than men do.

Organisational constraints

Performance evaluation

Managers are strongly influences in their decision making by the criteria on which they are evaluated.

Reward system

Reward systems influence decision makers by suggesting to them what choices are preferable in terms of personal payoff.

Formal regulations

All but the smallest of organisations create rules and policies to programme decisions, which are intended to get individuals to act in the intended manner.

System-imposed time constraints

Organisations impose deadlines on decisions.

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Historical precedents

Decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. They have a context.

Ethics in Decision Making

3 different criteria for making ethical decisions:

1. Utilitarian; making a decision that to the benefit of the majority.

2. Rights: making decisions within the rules and regulations of the company or country

3. Justice: making a decision that results in fair and equitable distribution of benefit and cost

Improving creativity in decision making

Creative potential

Other traits in creative people include independence, self-confidence, risk taking, a low need for structure, and perseverance in the face of frustration.

Three-component model of creativity

Expertise is the foundation for all creative work. The second component is creative-thinking skills. The final component in the three-component model of creativity is intrinsic task motivation.

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Global implications

Attributions

Ubuntu – a strategy for collective survival based on values inherited from the African tribal system in contrast to individual self-reliance.

Decision making

There are important cultural differences in decision making.

Ethics

Summary and implications for managers

Perception

Individuals base their behaviour not on the way their external environment actually is but rather on what they see or believe it to be.

Individual decision making

Individuals think and reason before they act.

First, analyse the situation. Adjust your decision making approach.Second, be aware of biases. Try ti minimise their impact. Third, combine rational analysis with intuition. Finally, try to enhance your creativity.

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Study Unit 4 (Chapter 7 Pg. 143 – 159 / Chapter 8 Pg. 175 - 182)Motivation

What is Motivation?

Motivation is the result of the interaction between an individual and a situation. It is the process that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.

3 key elements;1. Intensity – concerned with how hard a person tries. This is the element that most focus

on when we talk about motivation.2. Direction – benefits the organisation. Consider the quality of effort as well as intensity. 3. Persistence – measure of how long a person can maintain effort. Motivated individuals

stay with a task long enough to achieve their goals.

Early Theories of Motivational Ability

They represent a foundation from which contemporary theories have grown. Practicing managers still regularly use these theories and their terminology in explaining employee motivation.

Marlow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow separated the five needs into higher and lower orders. Physiological and safety needs were described as lower-order needs and social, esteem, and self-actualisation as higher-order needs.

McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

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Herzberg’s Motivation- Hygiene Theory

Contemporary Theories of Motivation

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Self – efficacy Theory

Goal-setting theory and self-efficacy theory don’t compete with one another.

The most important source of increasing self-efficacy is what he calls enactive mastery – that is, gaining relevant experience with the task or job.

The 2nd source is vicarious modelling – or becoming more confident because you see someone else doing the task.

The 3rd source is verbal persuasion, which is becoming more confident because someone convinces you that you have the skills necessary to be successful.

Finally, arousal increases self-efficacy.

The Pygmalion effect is a form of a self-fulfilling prophecy in which believing something to be true can make it true.

Self-efficacy is increased by communicating to an individual’s teacher / supervisor that the person is of high ability.

Reinforcement theory

A counterpoint to goal-setting theory is reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theory takes a behaviouristic approach, arguing that reinforcement conditions behaviour.

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Reinforcement theory ignores the inner state of the individual and concentrates solely on what happens to a person when he / she take some action.

Equity Theory

There are 4 referent comparisons that an employee can use;

1. Self-inside – an employee’s experiences in a different position inside the employee’s current organisation.

2. Self-outside – an employee’s experiences in a situation or position outside the employee’s current organisation.

3. Other-inside – another individual or group of individuals inside the employee’s organisation.

4. Other-outside – another individual or group of individuals outside the employee’s organisation.

The theory establishes the following propositions relating to inequitable pay:

A. Given payment by time, over-rewarded employees will produce more than will equitably paid employees.

B. Given payment by quantity of production, over-rewarded employees will produce fewer, but higher quality, units than will equitably paid employees.

C. Given payment by time, under-rewarded employees will produce less or poorer quality of output.

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D. Given payment by quantity of production, under rewarded employees will produce a large number of low-quality units in comparison with equitably paid employees.

Distributive justice – employee’s perceived fairness of the amount and allocation of rewards among individuals.Organisational justice – overall perception of what is fair in the workplace.Procedural justice – the perceived fairness of the process used to determine the distribution of rewards.

2 key elements of procedural justice are;

Process Control – opportunity to present one’s point of view about desired outcomes to decision makers.Explanations – clear reasons for the outcome that management gives to a person.

Interactional justice – an individual’s perception of the degree to which she is treated with dignity, concern, and respect.

Expectancy Theory

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Integrating Contemporary Theories of Motivation

We begin by explicitly recognising that opportunities can either aid or hinder individual effort. The individual effort box also has another arrow leading unto it. This arrow flows out of the person’s goals. Consistent with goal-setting theory, this goals-effort loop is meant to remind us that goals direct behaviour.

Expectancy theory predicts that employees will exert a high level of effort if they perceive that there is a strong relationship between effort and performance, performance and rewards, and rewards and satisfaction of personal goals.

Each of these relationships, in turn, is influenced by certain factors. For effort to lead to good performance, the individual must have the requisite ability to perform, and the performance appraisal system that measures the individual’s performance must be perceived as being fair and objective. The performance-reward relationship will be strong if the individual perceives that it is performance that is rewarded.

If cognitive evaluation theory were fully valid in the actual workplace, we would predict here that basing rewards on performance should decrease the individual’s intrinsic motivation. The final link in expectancy theory is the rewards-goals relationship. Motivation would be high to the degree that the rewards an individual received for high performance satisfied the dominant needs consistent with individual goals.

Remember, high achievers are internally driven as long as the jobs they are doing provide them with personal responsibility, feedback and moderate risks. They are not concerned with the effort-performance, performance-rewards, or rewards-goal linkages.

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Caveat Emptor (“Let the Buyer be Aware”): Motivational theories are Culture-Bound

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Motivation: From Concepts to Applications

Job design

Employee Involvement Programmes

Participative Management

The distinct characteristic common to all participative management programmes is the use of joint decision making.

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Representative Participation

Rather than participating directly in decisions, workers are represented by a small group of employees who actually participate.

The goal of representative participation is to redistribute power within an organisation, putting labour in a more equal footing with the interests of management and stock holders.

Quality Circles

It is defined as a work group of 8 to 10 employees and supervisors who have a shared area of responsibility and who meet regularly to discuss their quality problems, investigate causes of the problems, recommend solutions, and take corrective actions.

Using Rewards to Motivate Employees

What to pay: Establish a pay structure

Internal equity – the worth of the job to the organisation.External equity – the external competitiveness of an organisation’s pay relative to pay elsewhere in its industry.

How to pay: Rewarding individual employees through variable-pay programmes

The pay-for-performance trend has also been confirmed by national surveys of SA compensation practises.

Piece-rate plans, merit-based pay, bonuses, profit-sharing, gainsharing, and employee stock ownership plans are all forms of variable-pay programmes.

Piece-rate pay

Workers are paid a fixed sum for each unit of production completed. When an employee gets no base salary and is paid only for what he / she produces, this is a pure piece-rate plan.

Merit-based pay

Plans pay for individual performances. Merit-based pay plans are based on performance appraisal ratings.

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A main advantage is that they allow employers to differentiate pay based on performance so that those people thought to be high performers are given bigger raises.

The plans can be motivating because, if they are designed correctly, individuals perceive a strong relationship between their performances and the rewards they receive. The evidence supports the importance of this linkage.

Despite the intuitive appeal of pay for performance, merit pay plans have several limitations. One of them is that, typically, such plans are based on an annual performance appraisal.

Therefore, the merit pay is as valid or invalid as the performance ratings in which it is based. Another limitation of merit pay is that sometimes the pay raise pool fluctuates based on economic conditions or other factors that have little to so with an individual employee’s performance.

Finally, unions typically resist merit pay plans and they strongly rely on collective bargaining to determine salary increases.

Bonuses

A bonus is an additional once-off reward for high performance. One advantage of bonuses over merit pay is that bonuses reward employees for recent performances rather than historical performances.

Skill-based pay

An alternative to job-based pay. Skill-based pay sets pay levels on the basis of how many skills employees have or how many jobs they can do.

Skill-based pay also facilitates communication across the organisation because people gain a better understanding of each other’s’ jobs.

What about the downside of skill-based pay? People can “top out” – that is, they can learn all the skills the programme calls for them to learn.

Profit-sharing plans

Organisation wide programmes that distribute compensation based on some established formula designed around a company’s profitability. These can be direct cash outlays or, particularly in the case of to managers, allocations of stock options.

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Gainsharing

A variable-pay programmes that has received a great deal of attention in recent years. This is a formula-based group incentive plan. Improvements in group productivity form one period to another determine the total amount of money that is to be allocated.

Gainsharing is different from profit-sharing in that rewards are tied to productivity gains rather than on profits. Employees in a gainsharing plan can receive incentive awards even when the organisation isn’t profitable.

Employee stock ownership plans

Company established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock, often at below-market prices, as part of their benefits.

Evaluation of variable pay

Studies generally support the idea that organisations with profit-sharing plans have higher levels of profitability that those without them.

Gainsharing has been found to improve productivity and often has a positive impact on employee attitudes.

Global Implications

Job characteristics and job enrichment

Telecommuting

Variable pay

Flexible benefits

Employee involvement

Summary and Implications for Managers

Recognise individual differences

Managers should be sensitive to individual differences. Employees have different needs. Design jobs to align with individual needs and therefore maximise the motivation potential in jobs.

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Use goals and feedback

Employees should have firm, specific goals, and they should get feedback on how well they are faring in pursuit of those goals.

Allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them

Employees can contribute to a number of decisions that affect them. This can increase employee productivity, commitment to work goals, motivation and job satisfaction.

Link rewards to performance

Rewards should be contingent om performance. Importantly, employees must perceive a clear linkage between performance and rewards.

Check the system for equity

Employees should perceive rewards as equating with the inputs they bring to the job. At a simplistic level, this should mean that experience, skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs should explain differences in performance and, hence, pay, job assignments, and other obvious rewards.

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Study Unit 5 (Chapter 10 Pg. 217 – 232 / Chapter 11 Pg.242 - 253)Groups & Teams

Defining and classifying groups

The groups can further be sub-classified into;

Common groups – determines by the organisation chart. Composed of the individual who reports directly to a given manager.

Task groups – organisationally determined. Represent individuals working together to complete a job task. A task group’s boundaries are not limited to its immediate hierarchical superior.

Interest groups – people who may or may not be aligned into common command or task groups may affiliate to attain a specific objective with which each is concerned.

Friendship groups – groups often develop because the individual members have one or more common characteristics.

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Stages of group development

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Group properties: Roles, norms, status, size, and cohesiveness

Group property 1: Roles

All group members are actors, each playing a role.

Role Identity

Certain attitudes and actual behaviours are consistent with a role. People have the ability to shift roles rapidly.

Role Perception

Our view of how we’re supposed to act in a given situation is a role perception.Based on an interpretation of how we believe we are supposed to behave, we engage in certain types of behaviour.

Role expectations

Role expectations are defined as the way others believe you should act in a given situation. Psychological contract – an unwritten agreement that exists between employees and their employer.

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Role conflict

When an individual is confronted by divergent role expectations, the result is role conflict.

Group properties 2 and 3: Norms and Status

All groups have established norms – that is, acceptable standards of behaviour that are shared by the group’s members. Norms tell members what they ought and ought not to do under certain circumstances.

The most common group norm is a performance norm.

Other types include;

Appearance norms – dress codes.Social arrangement norms – with whom group members eat lunch.Resource allocation norms – assignment of difficult jobs.

Conformity

The important groups have been called reference groups and they’re characterised as ones in which a person is aware of other members, defines himself / herself as a member or would like to be a member and feels that the group members are significant to him / her.

The implication is that all groups do not impose equal conformity pressures on their members.

The impact that group pressures for conformity can have on an individual member’s judgement and attitudes was demonstrated in the now-classic studies by Solomon-Asch.

Deviant workplace behaviour

It is a voluntary behaviour that violates significant organisational norms and in doing so threatens the well-being of the organisation or its members.

Group property 3: Status

Status – that is, a socially defined position or rank given to groups to group members by others – permeates every society.

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What determines status?

According to status characteristics theory, status tends to be derived from one of the 3 sources:

1. The power a person wields over others. Because they likely control the group’s resources.

2. A person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals. People whose contributions are critical to the group’s success tend to have high status.

3. An individual’s personal characteristics. Someone whose personal characteristics are positively valued by the group typically has higher status than someone who has fewer valued attributes.

Status and norms

Status has shown to have some interesting effects on the power of norms and pressures to conform.

Status and group interaction

Interaction among members of groups is influences by status.

Status inequity

Perceived inequity creates disequilibrium which results in various types of corrective behaviour.

Group property 4: Size

One of the most important findings related to the size of a group has been labelled social loafing.

Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually. It directly challenges the logic that the productivity of the group as a whole should at least equal the sum of the productivity of the individuals on that group.

Ways to prevent social loafing;1. Set group goals so that the group has a common purpose to strive toward.2. Increase intergroup competition.3. Engage in peer evaluation so that each person’s contribution to the group is

evaluated by each group member.4. If possible, distribute group rewards, in part, based on each member’s unique

contributions.

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Group property 5: Cohesiveness

Groups differ in their cohesiveness – that is, the degree to which members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in a group.

Cohesiveness is important because it has been found to be related to group productivity.

Encourage group cohesiveness by;1. Make the group smaller.2. Encourage agreement with group goals.3. Increase the time members spend together.4. Increase the status of the group and the perceived difficulty of attaining

membership in the group.5. Stimulate competition with other groups.6. Give rewards to the group rather than to individual members.7. Physically isolate the group.

Strength and Weaknesses of Group Decision making

Strengths of group decision making Groups are generated more complete information and knowledge. They offer increased diversity of views. Groups lead to increased acceptance of a solution.

Weaknesses of group decision making

There are conformity pressures in groups. Group discussions can be dominated by one or a few members. Group decisions suffer from ambiguous responsibilities.

Effectiveness and efficiency

Group decisions are more accurate. If decisions effectiveness is defined in terms of speed, individuals are superior. If creativity is important, groups tend to be more effective than individuals. And if effectiveness means the degree of acceptance the final solution achieves, the nod again goes to the group.

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Groupthink and groupshift

Groupthink – related to norms. It describes situations in which group pressures for conformity deter the group from critically appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views.

Groupshift – in discussing a given set of alternatives and arriving at a solution, group members tend to exaggerate the initial positions they hold.

Group decision-making techniques

Interacting groups – members meet face-to-face and rely on both verbal and non-verbal interaction to communicate with each other.

Brainstorming is meant to overcome pressures for conformity in an interacting group that retard the development of creative alternatives.

The nominal group technique restricts discussion or interpersonal communication during the decision-making process.

Electronic meeting – blends the nominal group technique with sophisticated computer technology.

Differences between groups and teams

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Types of teams;

Creating effective teams

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4 categories;1. Contextual influences that make teams effective.2. Team’s composition.3. Work design.4. Process variables reflect those things that go on in the team that influence

effectiveness .

Contextual factors that determine team effectiveness; Adequate resources. Leadership and structure – teams need to agree. Leadership is important

in multi-team systems where different teams need to coordinate their efforts to produce a desired outcome. SA team leaders must achieve leader empowering behaviour through:

o Delegation of authority.o Acting as people developer for team members.o Making team members responsible and accountable for performance

results, and decisions.o Allowing employees to make decisions about issues that affect work.o Enhancing communication and information sharing between the

leader and the team.o Participative decision making.o Coaching and developing people to become competent and to

optimise potential.o Creating meaningful work.o Improving employees.

Climate of trust. Performance evaluation and reward systems.

Team composition; Abilities of members – people need technical expertise. People with

problem-solving and decision-making skills. People that have good listening and conflict resolutions.

Personality of members Allocation of roles Diversity of members – organisational demography suggests that attributes

such as age or the date that someone joins a specific work team or organisation should help us to predict turnover.

Size of teams – 5 to 9 members. Member preferences. Work design. Team processes.

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Study Unit 6 (Chapter 13 Pg. 289 – 302 / Chapter 14 Pg. 322 - 337)Leadership

What is Leadership?

Basic Approaches to Leadership

Trait theories

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Behavioural theories

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Contingency theories

Leader-member exchange theory

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Inspirational Approaches to Leadership

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Trust and Leadership

What is trust?

Trust is a positive expectation that another will not – through words, actions, or decisions – act opportunistically.

Positive expectation – assumes knowledge and familiarity about the other party.

Opportunistic refers to the inherent risk and vulnerability in any trusting relationship.

Integrity refers to honesty and truthfulness.

Competence encompasses an individual’s technical and interpersonal knowledge and skills.

Consistency relates to an individual’s reliability, predictability and good judgment in handling situations.

Loyalty is the willingness to protect and save face for another person.

Openness – can you rely on the person to give you the full truth.

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Trust as the Foundation of Leadership

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Study Unit 7 (Chapter 15 Pg. 351 – 365 / Chapter 16 Pg. 374 - 388)Power and Conflict

Definition of Power

Power refers to a capacity that A has to influence the behaviour of B so that B acts in accordance with A’s wishes.

Leadership and Power

Power does not require goal compatibility. Leadership requires some congruence between the goals of the leader anf those being led.

Bases of Power

Formal Power

An individual’s position in an organisation. Come from the ability to reward or from formal authority.

Coercive powerDependent on fear.

Reward powerOpposite of coercive. Positive benefits – receive rewards.

Legitimate powerIn formal groups and organisations, the most frequent access to one of the power bases is one’s structural position. It represents the formal authority to control and use organisational resources.

Personal PowerPower that comes from an individual’s unique characteristic.

Expert powerInfluence wielded as a result of expertise, special skill or knowledge.

Referent powerBased on identification with a person who has desirable resources or personal traits. Develops out of admiration of another and a desire to be like that person.

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Information powerPeople possess information power if they have access to information that others regard as valuable.

Connection powerIndividuals have direct access to people in higher positions in the organisational hierarchy.

Power tactics

What options do individuals have for influencing their bosses, co-workers, or employees?

9 tactics; Legitimacy – relying on one’s authority position. Rational persuasion – presenting logical arguments and factual evidence to

demonstrate that a request is reasonable. Inspirational appeals – developing emotional commitment. Consultation – increasing the target’s motivation. Exchange – rewarding with benefits. Personal appeals – asking for compliance based on loyalty. Ingratiation – using flattery prior to making a request. Pressure – warnings. Coalitions – enlisting the aid of other people to persuade the target.

Politics: power in action

Political behaviour in organisations are activities that are not required as part of one’s formal role in the organisation but that influence the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within the organisation.

Legitimate political behaviour refers to normal everyday politics.

Illegitimate political behaviours that violate the implied rules of the game.

Definition of Conflict

The human relations view of conflict argued that conflict was a natural occurrence in all groups and organisations.

The interaction view of conflict encourages conflict on the grounds that a harmonious, peaceful, tranquil and cooperative group is prone to becoming static.

Task conflict relates to the content and goals of the work.

Relationship conflict focuses on interpersonal relationships.

Process conflict relates to how the work gets done.

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The Conflict Process

3 general categories; Communication. Structure. Personal variables.

Five conflict-handling intentions can be identified; Competing Collaborating Avoiding Accommodating Comprising

Conflict Management Techniques

Negotiation

Approaches to negotiation

Bargaining strategies

Distributive bargaining – negotiation strategy you use.Fixed pie – bargaining parties believe there is only a set amount of goods to be divided up.

Integrative Bargaining – examples is the sales-credit negotiation. It operates under the assumption that there are one or more settlements that can create a win/win solution. The Negotiation Process

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Study Unit 8 (Chapter 17 Pg. 401 – 412)

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Organisation Structure

What is Organisation Structure?Organisational structure defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped and coordinated. The way in which job tasks are formally divided, grouped and coordinated, depends on the degree of complexity, formalisation and centralisation. Managers need to consider the following six key elements when designing their organisation’s structure:

1. Work specialisation Sees the job broken down into a number of steps, each step being completed by a

separate individual. Therefore, individuals specialise in doing part of an activity rather than the entire

activity.2. Departmentalisation

Sees jobs grouped together. One of the most popular ways to group activities is by functions performed.

3. Chain of command An unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the organisation to the

lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom. It answers questions for employers such as “to whom do I go if I have a problem”

and “to whom am I responsible?”4. Span of control

It determines the number of levels & managers an organisation has. All things being equal, the wider or larger the span, the more efficient the

organisation.5. Centralisation and decentralisation

Centralisation refers to the degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point in the organisation.

The concept includes only formal authority, that is, like rights inherent in one’s position. It is said that if top management makes the organisations key decisions with little or no input from lower level personnel, then the organisation is centralised.

Decentralised organisation, action can be taken more quickly to solve problems, more people provide input into decisions, and employers are likely to feel alienated from those who make decisions that affect their work lives.

6. Formalisation The degree to which jobs within the organisation are standardised if job is highly

formalised, then the job incumbent has a minimum amount of discretion over what is to be done, when it is to be done and how he/she should do it.

Key Question Answer provided byTo what degree are tasks subdivided into separate jobs. Work specialisation

On what basis will jobs be grouped together? Departmentalisation

To whom do individuals and groups report? Chain Chain of command

How many individuals can a manager direct efficiently and effectively?

Span of control

Where does decision-making authority lie? Centralisation & decentralisation

To what degree will there be rules & regulations to direct employees and managers.

Formalisation

Common Organisation Designs

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1. The Simple Structure This structure is characterised by a low degree of departmentalisation, wide spans of

control, authority centralised in a single person, and little formalisation Strength: Lies in its simplicity. It is fast, flexible and easy to maintain and

accountability is clear Weakness: It is difficult to maintain anywhere other than in small organisations

2. The Bureaucracy Highly routine operating basis achieved through specialisation Very formalised rules and regulations Tasks that are grouped into functional departments Centralised authority Narrow spans of control Decision making that follows the chain of command. Strength: Lies in its ability to perform standardised activities in an highly efficient

manner Weakness: Too much focus on specialisation can create conflict between different

departments as they are not focused on the organisational objectives but rather on the objectives of their respective departments. Another weakness is the obsessive concern with following rules

3. The matrix structure: It is used by advertising agencies, aerospace firms, research of development

laboratories, companies, hospitals, government agencies, universities and consulting firms.

The matrix attempts to gain the strengths of each, while avoiding their weakness. Matrix combines two forms of departmentalisation, functional and product.

o The strength of functional lies in putting like specialists together, which minimises the number necessary, while it allows the pooling and sharing of specialised resources across products

o Its major disadvantage is the difficulty of co-ordinating the tasks of diverse functional specialists so that their activities are completed on time and within budget.

o Product departmentalisation has exactly opposite advantages and disadvantages. It facilitates co-ordination among specialities to achieve on-time completion

and meet budget targets. It provides clear responsibility for all activities related to a product, but with

duplication of activities and costs.

New Design Options

1. The Team Structure: This structure breaks down departmental barriers and decentralises decision

making to the level of the work team. The teams are populated with generalists rather than specialists.

2. The Virtual Organisation: Here management outsources all of the primary functions of the business. The care of the organisation is a small group of executives, whose jobs are to

oversee directly any activities that are done in house and to co-ordinate relationships with the other organisation that manufacture, distribute and perform other crucial functions for the virtual organisation.

The virtual organisation is highly centralised, with little or no departmentalisation.

3. The Boundary-less Organisation:

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Seeks to eliminate the chain of command Has limitless spans of control, and replaces departments with empowered teams. Because it relies so heavily on information technology, some have turned to calling

this structure the T-form (technology based) organisation. By removing vertical boundaries, management flattens the hierarchy. Status and rank are minimized. Functional departments create vertical boundaries and these boundaries stifle

interaction between functions, product lines and units. The way to reduce these barriers is to replace functional departments with cross

functional teams and to organise activities around processes.

Why do structures differ?

The question is: Why do some organisations have mechanistic structures, while others have organic structures? The following factors provide an explanation.

1. Strategy. An organisational strategy is a way to assist management in achieving their

objectives. As objectives are derived from the organisation’s overall strategy, it is only logical

that strategy and structure should be closely linked. Structure follows strategy.

2. Organisation size. Considerable evidence supports the idea that an organisation’s size significantly

affects its structure. The large ones tend to have more specialisation, more departmentalisation, more vertical levels and more rules and regulations than the smaller ones, although the relationship is not Iinear.

3. Technology. This has to do with the way in which an organisation transfers its inputs into outputs

– that is the throughput process that it uses. The common theme differentiating technologies is their degree of routine – the more routine-oriented they are, the more automated, formal, centralised and regulated they tend to be.

4. Environment. This concerns those institutions or forces outside the organisation that potentially

affect the organisations performance. These typically include suppliers, customers, competitors, government regulatory agencies, public pressure groups and the like.

The Strategy-Structure RelationshipInnovationOrganic A loose structure, low specialisation/formalisation, decentralisedCost minimisationMechanistic Tight control, extensive work specialisation, high formalisation,

high centralisationImitationMechanistic &organic Mix of loose with tight properties, tight controls over current

activites and looser controls for new undertakings

Study Unit 9 (Chapter 18 Pg. 423 – 436)The Organisation Culture

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Institutionalisation

Institutionalisation provides members with a common understanding of what is appropriate and fundamentally meaningful behaviour.

Thus, when an organisation takes on institutional permanence, acceptable modes of behaviour become largely self-evident to its members.

This is essentially the same for organisational culture

What is organisational culture?

There seems to be a general agreement that organisational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by members, distinguish the organisation from other organisations.

Research suggests that there are seven primary characteristics that in aggregate capture the essence of an organisation’s culture.1. Innovation and risk-taking.

The degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take risks.2. Attention to detail.

The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision analysis and attention to detail.3. Outcome orientation.

The degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve these outcomes.4. People orientation.

The degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organisation.5. Team orientation.

The degree to which work activities are organised around teams rather than individuals.6. Aggressiveness.

The degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easy going.7. Stability.

The degree to which organisational activities emphasise maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth.

Culture is a descriptive term

Organisational culture is concerned with how employees perceive the characteristics of an organisation’s culture, not whether they like them.

Organisational culture is therefore descriptive, whereas job satisfaction is evaluative.

Do organisations have uniform cultures?

• A dominant culture expresses the core values that are shared by a majority of the organisation’s members.

• Subcultures tend to develop in large organisations to reflect common problems, situations, or experiences that members face.

Strong vs. weak cultures

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• In strong culture, the organisations core values are held strongly and shared widely.• The more the members accept the core values, and greater the commitment, the

stronger the culture.• Consistent with the definition, a strong culture will have a great influence on the

behaviour of the members because what they share and the intensity, create an internal climate of high behaviour control.

• Strong cultures have a greater impact on employee behaviour and are more directly related to reduce turnover.

What does culture actually do?

1. Culture’s functions. • Culture has a boundary-defining role: It conveys a sense of identity; facilitates the

generation of commitment to something larger than self- interest; enhances social system stability; and serves as a sense-making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes and behaviour of employees.

2. Culture as a liability. • This happens when the shared values are not in agreement with those that will

further the organisation’s effectiveness. It also happens when the environment is dynamic – that is, the entrenched culture may no longer be appropriate.

3. Barrier to change. • In adapting to upheavals in the environment, managers of organisations with strong

cultures that previously worked well for them, face a challenge. These strong cultures become barriers to change when “business as usual” is no longer effective.

4. Barrier to diversity. • Hiring new employees who, because of race, gender, ethnic or other differences,

are not like the majority of the organisation’s members, which creates a paradox.• Strong cultures put considerable pressure on employees to conform and limit the

range of values and styles that are acceptable.5. Barrier to mergers and acquisitions. Previously, the main consideration during a merger or an acquisition was financial

advantage. This has, however, increasingly moved to cultural compatibility (that is, do the cultures of the two organisations match?).

Creating and sustaining culture

How a culture begins

• The ultimate source of organisational culture is the organisation’s founders and them imposing their vision of what the organisation should be.

• Culture creation therefore occurs in three ways:1. Founders appoint and keep employees who feel and think the way they do.2. Founders then indoctrinate & socialise these employees to their way of thinking &

feeling.3. Finally the founders’ own behaviour acts as a role model for employees to follow.

Keeping a culture alive

Culture is kept alive by:

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Selecting people with job competencies and who show organisational ‘fit’ get appointed.

What top management says and the way they behave. Socialising employees in order to adapt them to the organisation’s culture across the

following stages:

1. The pre-arrival stage explicitly recognises that each individual arrives with a set of values, attitudes, and expectations. These cover both the work to be done and the organisation. The selection process is used in most organisations to inform prospective

employees about the organisation as a whole.

2. When the new members enter the organisation, they move to the encounter stage. Here the individual confronts the possible dichotomy between his or her

expectations – about the job, co-workers, the boss, and the organisation in general – and reality.

If expectations prove to have been more or less accurate, the encounter stage merely provides a reaffirmation of the perceptions gained earlier.

Where expectations and reality differ, the new employee must undergo socialisation that will detach him or her from previous assumptions and replace these with another set that the organisation deems desirable.

At the extreme, a new member may become totally disillusioned with the realities of his or her job and resign.

3. Finally, the new member must work out any problems discovered during the encounter stage during the metamorphosis stage. Note, for example, that the more management relies on socialisation

programmes that are formal, collective, fixed, serial, and emphasise divestiture, the greater the likelihood that newcomers’ differences and perspectives will be stripped away and replaced by standardised and predictable behaviours.

Many South African organisations use induction programmes to facilitate the process of socialisation.

The metamorphosis and the entry socialisation process are complete when the new member has become comfortable with the organisation and his or her job.

How employees learn culture

Culture is transmitted to employees in a number of forms, the most important being stories, rituals, material symbols, and language.

1. Stories• Stories typically contain a narrative of events about the organisation’s founders, rule

breaking, rags-to-riches successes, reductions in the workforce, relocation of employees, reactions to past mistakes, and organisational coping.

• These stories anchor the present in the past and provide explanations and legitimacy for current practices.

• For the most part, these stories develop spontaneously but some organisations actually try to manage this element of culture learning.

2. Rituals• Rituals are repetitive sequences of activities that express and reinforce the key

values of the organisation, the goals that are most important, and the people who are important and expendable.

3. Material symbols

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• The layout of corporate headquarters, the types of cars top executives are given, and the presence or absence of corporate aircraft are a few examples of material symbols.

• Others include the size of offices, the elegance of furnishings, executive perks, and dress attire.

• These material symbols convey to employees who is important, the degree of egalitarianism desired by top management, and the kinds of behaviour (for example risk-taking, conservative, authoritarian, participative, individualistic, and social) that are appropriate.

4. Language• Many organisations and units within organisations use language as a way to identify

members of a culture or subculture.• By learning this language, members attest to their acceptance of the culture and, in

doing so, help to preserve it.

Creating an ethical organisational culture

• An organisational culture that would be most likely to shape high ethical standards, is a culture that is high in risk tolerance, low to moderate in aggression, and which focuses on both means and outcomes.

• If the culture is strong and supports high ethical standards, it should have a very powerful and positive influence on employee behaviour.

• We can deduce that organisations which do not have cultures similar to the following would tend to show signs of unethical practices and an unethical culture.

• Managers can do the following to create a more ethical culture being a visible role model communicating ethical expectations providing ethical training visibly rewarding ethical acts and punishing unethical ones providing protective mechanisms

Creating a positive organisational culture

Creating a positive organisational culture is defined as a culture that emphasises building on employee strengths and which rewards more than it punishes, while also emphasising individual vitality and gr

Study Unit 10 (Chapter 20 Pg. 480 – 498)Organisational Change

Forces of change

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In these turbulent times, organisations are facing a dynamic, changing environment which, in turn, requires them to adapt. Six specific forces, which act as stimulants for change, are discussed.

Forces include:

1. Nature of the Work Force: More Cultural Diversity Increase in professionals Many new entrants with inadequate skills

2. Technology: Faster and cheaper computers TQM programs Re-engineering programmes

3. Economic shocks: Recessions Exchange rate Inflation rate Interest rate

4. Competition: Global competitors Merges and consolidations Growth of Internet Commerce

5. Social trends: Attitude towards smokers Delayed marriage by young people Popularity of sport utility vehicles

6. World politics: Globalisation

Managing planned change

Changes in organisations are often the result of events that management did not anticipate.

These unpleasant changes often result in chaos and upheavals, as the organisation endeavours to adapt to the changes.

The goals of planned change can be summarised as follows:1. Firstly, to improve the ability of the organisation to adapt to changes in the

environment.2. Secondly, to alter employee behaviour in order to meet the challenges of a new

environment. Planned change can also be considered in terms of order of magnitude:

1. First-order change is linear and continuous and implies no significant shifts in assumptions that organisational members hold.

2. Second-order change is a multi-dimensional, multi-level, discontinuous, radical change involving reframing or assumptions about the organisation and the world in which it operates.

What could change agents actually change?

Four categories that change agents can influence:

1. Structure: It involves altering authority relations, coordination mechanisms, job redesign or similar structural variables.

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2. Technology: It encompasses modifications in the way work is processed and the methods and equipment used.

3. Physical setting: It covers altering the space and layout arrangements in the workplace.

4. People: It refers to changes in employee attitudes, skills, expectations, perceptions and/ or behaviour

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Individual Resistance

The following summarises five reasons why individuals may resist change:

1. Habit: As human beings, we’re creatures of habit or programmed responses. When confronted with change, this tendency to respond in our accustomed ways

becomes a source of resistance.2. Security:

People with a high need for security are likely to resist change because it threatens their feelings of safety.

3. Economic factors: Another source of individual resistance is concern that changes will lower one’s

income. Changes in job tasks or established work routines can also arouse economic fears if

people are concerned that they won’t be able to do the new tasks or routines according to their previous standards, especially when salaries are closely tied to productivity.

4. Fear of the unknown: Changes substitute ambiguity and uncertainty for the known. Trading the known for the unknown and the fear or insecurity along with it will

create resistance.5. Selective information processing:

Individuals shape their world through their perceptions. Once they have created this world, it resists change. So individuals are guilty of processing selectively in order to keep their perceptions

intact.

Organisational Resistance

Organisations, by their very nature, are conservative and they actively resist change. Six major sources of organisational resistance have been identified:

1. Structural inertia: Organisations have built-in mechanisms to produce stability. When an organisation is confronted with change, this structural inertia acts as a

counterbalance to sustain stability.

2. Limited focus of change: Organisations are made up of interdependent subsystems. You can’t change one without affecting the others.

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So limited changes in subsystems tend to get nullified by the larger system.

3. Group inertia: Even if individuals wish to change their behaviour, group norms may act as a

constraint.

4. Threat to expertise: Changes in organisational patterns may threaten the expertise of specialised

groups.

5. Threat to established power relationships: Any redistribution of decision-making authority (such as the introduction of

participative management) could threaten long established power relationships within the organisation.

6. Threat to established resource allocations: Those groups in the organisation that control sizeable resources often see change

as a threat. They seem to be content with the way things are. Will the change, for instance,

mean a reduction in their budgets or staff cuts?

Overcoming resistance to change

Six tactics have been suggested for use by change in agents with dealing with resistance to change:

1. Education and communication: Resistance can be reduced through communicating with employees to help them

see the logic of a change. This tactic basically assumes that the source of resistance lies in misinformation or

poor communication If employees receive the full facts that would clear up any misunderstandings,

there will be less resistance.

2. Participation: It’s difficult for individuals to resist a decision to change in which they participated. Prior to making a change, those opposed could become part of the decision-making

process. Assuming that the participants have the expertise to make a meaningful

contribution, their involvement could reduce resistance, ensure commitment and increase the quality of the decision to change.

3. Facilitation and support: Change agents can offer a range of supportive efforts to reduce resistance. When employee’s fears and anxieties are high, counselling and therapy, new skills

training, or a short paid leave of absence may facilitate adjustment.

4. Negotiation: Another way in which the change agent could deal with potential resistance to

change is to exchange something of value to lesson the resistance.

5. Manipulation and co-optation: Manipulation refers to covert influence attempts.

Twisting and distorting facts to make them appear more attractive, withholding undesirable information, and creating false rumours to get employees to accept a change are all examples of manipulation.

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Co-optation, on the other hand, is a form of both manipulation and participation. It seeks to “buy off” the leaders of a resistance group by giving them a key role

in the decision to change. The leader’s advice is sought, not to make a better decision, but to get their

endorsement.

6. Coercion: Last on the list of tactics is coercion, that is, the resisters are threatened or forced

directly to accept the change. Examples of coercion are threats of transfer, loss of promotions, negative

performance evaluations, and a poor letter of recommendation.

Approaches to managing organisational change Lewin’s 3 step modelThe steps in the model are:

1. Unfreezing The status quo is considered the equilibrium state. Breaking this state can be achieved through:

Increasing the driving forces which direct behaviour away from the status quo. Decreasing the restraining forces, which hinder movement away from the status

quo. Combine the first two approaches.

2. Movement Here the actual changes are implemented.

3. Refreezing Here the new reality is imbedded.

Action Research

Action research is based on the collection of data and then selection of a change action based on what the analysed data indicate. The process involves five steps:

1. Diagnosis• This involves gathering information about the problems, concerns, and needed

changes from members of the organisation.2. Analysis

• Here information is synthesised into primary concerns, problem areas, and possible actions.

3. Feedback• Here the information found during the first two steps is shared with employees.

4. Action• This involves the implementation of specific actions to correct the problems

identified.5. Evaluation

• This involves assessing the success of the change intervention.Organisational development (od)

Organisation development (OD) is a term used to encompass a collection of planned change interventions, built on humanistic-democratic values, which seek to improve organisational effectiveness and employee wellbeing.

The underlying values to OD are

• respect for people• trust and support

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• power equilibrium• confrontation• participation

What are the OD interventions, aimed at bringing about change? Five interventions that change agents may use are:

• sensitivity training• survey feedback• process consultation• team-building• intergroup development

Contemporary change issues for today’s managers

Two issues have risen above the rest as current change topics, namely:

Innovation is a new idea applied to initiating or improving a product, process or service.

Sources of innovation include structural, cultural and human resources variables. Change agents should consider introducing the above if they wish to create an innovative climate.

Creating a learning organisation. Organisations where people continually develop their capacity to create the results they truly desire; where new and creative patterns of thinking are matured; where collective aspiration is set free; and where people are continually learning how to learn together.

The learning organisation is, therefore, an organisation that has developed the capacity to adapt and change continuously.

What are the characteristics of a learning organisation? A learning organisation

• Has a flat organisational structure.• Has open communication.• Is built on teamwork.• Focuses on empowerment.• Has inspired leadership.• Focuses on innovation and change.• Has a shared vision.• Uses a systems approach.• Focuses on job satisfaction and commitment among employees.• Is people-oriented.• Has an external focus.

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• Is technologically-driven.• Incorporates learning opportunities at all levels in the organisation.• Focuses on action and results.• Is customer-oriented.• Focuses on being a continuous learner.• Is committed to change, innovation and continuous improvement.• Has a flattened structure, combines departments and increases interdependence

between people (that is, reduces boundaries).

Managing change: is it culture-bound?

• Change issues are often culture-bound. Five pertinent questions relating to change and culture are asked.

• The concept of an African business cultural renaissance is particularly important within the South African context.

• The ubuntu values within organisations are the values that will unlock the cultural renaissance and enable organisations to function in a competitive global market.

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