Reducing defects through organizational learning within a Housing Association environment

Housing Associations (HAs) contribute circa 20% of the UK’s housing supply. HAs are however under increasing pressure as a result of funding cuts and rent reductions. Due to the increased pressure, a number of processes are currently being reviewed by HAs, especially how they manage and learn from defects. Learning from defects is considered a useful approach to achieving defect reduction within the UK housebuilding industry. This paper contributes to our understanding of how HAs learn from defects by undertaking an initial round table discussion with key HA stakeholders as part of an ongoing collaborative research project with the National House Building Council (NHBC) to better understand how house builders and HAs learn from defects to reduce their prevalence. The initial discussion shows that defect information runs through a number of groups, both internal and external of a HA during both the defects management process and organizational learning (OL) process. Furthermore, HAs are reliant on capturing and recording defect data as the foundation for the OL process. During the OL process defect data analysis is the primary enabler to recognizing a need for a change to organizational routines. When a need for change has been recognized, new options are typically pursued to design out defects via updates to a HAs Employer’s Requirements. Proposed solutions are selected by a review board and committed to organizational routine. After implementing a change, both structured and unstructured feedback is sought to establish the change’s success. The findings from the HA discussion demonstrates that OL can achieve defect reduction within the house building sector in the UK. The paper concludes by outlining a potential ‘learning from defects model’ for the housebuilding industry as well as describing future work.

Nurses' research utilization two years after graduation : a national survey ofassociated individual, organizational, and educational factors

Background. Nurses' research utilization (RU) as part of evidence-based practice is strongly emphasized in today's nursing education and clinical practice. The primary aim of RU is to provide high-quality nursing care to patients. Data on newly graduated nurses' RU are scarce, but a predominance of low use has been reported in recent studies. Factors associated with nurses' RU have previously been identified among individual and organizational/contextual factors, but there is a lack of knowledge about how these factors, including educational ones, interact with each other and with RU, particularly in nurses during the first years after graduation. The purpose of this study was therefore to identify factors that predict the probability for low RU among registered nurses two years after graduation. Methods. Data were collected as part of the LANE study (Longitudinal Analysis of Nursing Education), a Swedish national survey of nursing students and registered nurses. Data on nurses' instrumental, conceptual, and persuasive RU were collected two years after graduation (2007, n = 845), together with data on work contextual factors. Data on individual and educational factors were collected in the first year (2002) and last term of education (2004). Guided by an analytic schedule, bivariate analyses, followed by logistic regression modeling, were applied. Results. Of the variables associated with RU in the bivariate analyses, six were found to be significantly related to low RU in the final logistic regression model: work in the psychiatric setting, role ambiguity, sufficient staffing, low work challenge, being male, and low student activity. Conclusions. A number of factors associated with nurses' low extent of RU two years postgraduation were found, most of them potentially modifiable. These findings illustrate the multitude of factors related to low RU extent and take their interrelationships into account. This knowledge might serve as useful input in planning future studies aiming to improve nurses', specifically newly graduated nurses', RU.

Life and Death: The Religious, Philosophical and Moral Dilemmas in Medicine

Religious beliefs often play a major role in the decisions that are made in the home and the hospital concerning issues at the beginning and end of life. Only recently, however, due to rapidly advancing medical technology, have religious, moral, and philosophical beliefs taken such a controversial role. One of the major questions that has arisen from these various controversies is whether or not we have the right to posses control over the biological functions of our bodies. The answer is a difficult one, and it may be one that cannot be answered, but the attempt at an answer is what is at the heart of medical ethics.

Organizational design and incentive provision

We model the trade-off between the balance and the strength of incentives implicit in the choice between hierarchical and matrix or- ganizational structures. We show that managerial biases determine which structure is optimal: hierarchical forms are preferred when biases are low, while matrix structures are preferred when biases are high. Moreover, the results show that there is always a level of bias for which matrix design can achieve the expected profit obtained by shareholders if they could directly control the firm. We also show that the main trade-off, i.e., hierarchical versus matrix structure is preserved under asymmetric levels of bias among managers and when low-level workers perceive activities with complementary efforts.

Beyond indifferent players: on the existence of prisoners dilemmas in games with amicable and adversarial preferences

Why don’t agents cooperate when they both stand to gain? This question ranks among the most fundamental in the social sciences. Explanations abound. Among the most compelling are various configurations of the prisoner’s dilemma (PD), or public goods problem. Payoffs in PD’s are specified in one of two ways: as primitive cardinal payoffs or as ordinal final utility. However, as final utility is objectively unobservable, only the primitive payoff games are ever observed. This paper explores mappings from primitive payoff to utility payoff games and demonstrates that though an observable game is a PD there are broad classes of utility functions for which there exists no associated utility PD. In particular we show that even small amounts of either altruism or enmity may disrupt the mapping from primitive payoff to utility PD. We then examine some implications of these results.

Biased managers, organizational design, and incentive provision

We model the tradeoff between the balance and the strength of incentives implicit in the choice between hierarchical and matrix organizational structures. We show that managerial biases determine which structure is optimal: hierarchical forms are preferred when biases are low, while matrix structures are preferred when biases are high.

Web 2.0, dilemmas 1.0: essay on an evolving market

Today the Internet is entwined into our everyday society. From the beginning days in 1980 to today, the Internet has been evolving. The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, envisioned that the Internet would be a system with everything connected to everything. The web today is changing with new applications arriving from outside the previous channels of the megalithic software companies. Thousands of individual developers are creating micro-applications to enhance the earlier framework of the web. This revolution has been coined "Web 2.0". Many observers today are skeptical that Web 2.0 is really a revolution at all, but maybe is just a continuation of Berners-Lee's original concept. This paper examines, based on a critical literature review, the discussions taking place regarding Web 2.0.

Organizational design as an enabler for innovation: evidence from a German Mechanical Engineering Company

Over the past two decades there has been a profusion of empirical studies of organizational design and its relationship to efficiency, productivity and flexibility of an organization. In parallel, there has been a wide range of studies about innovation management in different kind of industries and firms. However, with some exceptions, the organizational and innovation management bodies of literature tend to examine the issues of organizational design and innovation management individually, mainly in the context of large firms operating at the technological frontier. There seems to be a scarcity of empirical studies that bring together organizational design and innovation and examine them empirically and over time in the context of small and medium sized enterprises. This dissertation seeks to provide a small contribution in that direction. This dissertation examines the dynamic relationship between organizational design and innovation. This relationship is examined on the basis of a single-case design in a medium sized mechanical engineering company in Germany. The covered time period ranges from 1958 until 2009, although the actual focus falls on the recent past. This dissertation draws on first-hand qualitative empirical evidence gathered through extensive field work. The main findings are: 1. There is always a bundle of organizational dimensions which impacts innovation. These main organizational design dimensions are: (1) Strategy & Leadership, (2) Resources & Capabilities, (3) Structure, (4) Culture, (5) Networks & Partnerships, (6) Processes and (7) Knowledge Management. However, the importance of the different organizational design dimensions changes over time. While for example for the production of simple, standardized parts, a simple organizational design was appropriate, the company needed to have a more advanced organizational design in order to be able to produce customized, complex parts with high quality. Hence the technological maturity of a company is related to its organizational maturity. 2. The introduction of innovations of the analyzed company were highly dependent on organizational conditions which enabled their introduction. The results of the long term case study show, that some innovations would not have been introduced successfully if the organizational elements like for example training and qualification, the build of network and partnerships or the acquisition of appropriate resources and capabilities, were not in place. Hence it can be concluded, that organizational design is an enabling factor for innovation. These findings contribute to advance our understanding of the complex relationship between organizational design and innovation. This highlights the growing importance of a comprehensive, innovation stimulating organizational design of companies. The results suggest to managers that innovation is not only dependent on a single organizational factor but on the appropriate, comprehensive design of the organization. Hence manager should consider to review regularly the design of their organizations in order to maintain a innovation stimulating environment.

Um Banco Central do Brasil independente: à procura de uma estrutura administrativa autônoma e descentralizada

o tema sobre a estrutura administrativa mais adequada para um Banco Central do Brasil, que procura sua autonomia, se desenrola a partir da situação administrativa do BACEN, que se apresenta no dias de hoje, e os questionamentos a respeito de sua independência, nos Capítulos 1 e 2, passando por modelos teóricos de estrutura administrativa e por modelos funcionais de Bancos Centrais independentes, comparados entre si e com o modelo brasileiro, nos Capítulos 3 e 4. Em seguida, são demonstrados os empenhos que se efetivam em realidade para que o BACEN chegue à sua autonomia, através de projetos que tramitam no Congresso Nacional e do Plano de Ação Estratégica para o BACEN, referidos nos Capítulos 5 e 6, até se chegar às opiniões de especialistas, no Capítulo 7, que serviram para reforçar a conclusão de que a mudança organizacional em busca da autonomia do Banco Central do Brasil não é apenas em decorrência do levantamento de aspectos técnicos, políticos e econômicos e, sim, uma consequência de um processo maior de integração entre estes e os aspectos comportamentais e administrativos dessa organização.

On the impossibility of prisoner's dilemmas in adversarial preference games

Why don't agents cooperate when they both stand to gain? This question ranks among the most fundamental in the social sciences. Explanations abound. Among the most compelling are various configurations of the prisonerís dilemma (PD), or public goods problem. Payoffs in PDís are specified in one of two ways: as primitive cardinal payoffs or as ordinal final utility. However, as final utility is objectively unobservable, only the primitive payoff games are ever observed. This paper explores mappings from primitive payoff to utility payoff games and demonstrates that though an observable game is a PD there are broad classes of utility functions for which there exists no associated utility PD. In particular we show that even small amounts of either altruism or jealousy may disrupt the mapping from primitive payoff to utility PD. We then examine some implications of these results ñ including the possibility of conflict inducing growth.

Leader-organization fit: comparing the effectiveness of paternalistic and transformational leadership in different organizational cultures

Research on paternalistic leadership (PL) has been based exclusively on national cultures´ differences. However there are cues that other contextual variables can add to the explanation of this construct. Due to its capacity to influence expectations of individuals in organizations, organizational culture can contribute to fill this gap. To test if organizational culture influences the effectiveness of leadership style, we conducted two experimental studies using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, comparing effects of paternalistic and transformational leadership on followers’ outcomes. Using video clips and vignettes, we found that PL is better related to followers´ outcomes in cultures oriented to people than outcome, and that TL has a better relationship in cultures oriented to innovation than stability. The results suggest that organizational culture helps in explaining PL endorsement, and that further analysis of the influence of this variable to PL can provide a better understanding of the expression of this leadership style in organizations.

A influência do estilo de liderança na construção de relações de confiança em uma instituição financeira

A turbulência dos mercados globais, o acirramento da concorrência, a velocidade das mudanças, a complexidade e a incerteza do cenário político, econômico e social trazem incessantes desafios para as organizações, que buscam responder a esses movimentos dinâmicos com a celeridade necessária, a fim de obter vantagem competitiva e assegurar a sustentabilidade dos negócios. Nessa perspectiva, a liderança tem um papel fundamental por ser capaz de mobilizar e orientar a força de trabalho para o cumprimento das metas organizacionais, uma vez que o líder pode influenciar positivamente e inspirar pessoas a dar o melhor de si em benefício da organização. O engajamento, a motivação e a cooperação que propiciam essa entrega pessoal ocorrem a partir da percepção dos liderados a respeito do comportamento do líder exemplar, o que remete à construção de vínculos de confiança. Em função disso, este trabalho teve como objetivo identificar o estilo de liderança prevalecente em uma unidade de uma instituição financeira, bem como avaliar se este estilo propicia a construção de relações de confiança entre líder e liderados. Para tanto, inicialmente foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico sobre os temas liderança e confiança. Na sequência, foram aplicados os questionários Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) e Behavioral Trust Inventory (BTI) e realizadas entrevistas, a fim de obter os dados para análise. Como resultado da pesquisa concluiu-se que prevalece na unidade estudada um estilo com traços da liderança transformacional e da liderança transacional recompensa contingente. Ficou evidenciado que esse estilo de liderança constrói vínculos de confiança mútua, demonstrando que as ações do líder fomentam o reconhecimento de sua credibilidade e auxiliam na solução de dilemas de gestão, possibilitando a cooperação espontânea para o alcance dos objetivos estratégicos da instituição.

On paternalistic leadership fit: exploring cross-cultural endorsement, leader-follower fit, and the boundary role of organizational culture

Although cross-cultural leadership research has thrived in international business literature, little attention has been devoted to understanding the effectiveness of non-western theories beyond their original contexts. The purpose of this study is to examine the cross-cultural endorsement of paternalistic leadership, an emerging non-western leadership theory, using data from GLOBE project. Using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses we found measurement equivalence of a scale derived from GLOBE’s data, which enabled us to compare the endorsement of paternalistic leadership dimensions across 10 cultural clusters and 55 societies. Our study revealed that there are significant differences in the importance societies give to each dimension, suggesting that paternalism as leadership style is not universally nor homogeneously endorsed. Furthermore, results suggest that different patterns of endorsement of each of these dimensions give rise to idiosyncratic shades of paternalistic leadership across societies. Implications for theory and future research on international business are discussed.

The art of being together: a social constructionist perspective on dialogic methods in the organizational context

The purpose of this project is to understand, under a social constructionist approach, what are the meanings that external facilitators and organizational members (sponsors) working with dialogic methods place on themselves and their work. Dialogic methods, with the objective of engaging groups in flows of conversations to envisage and co-create their own future, are growing fast within organizations as a means to achieve collective change. Sharing constructionist ideas about the possibility of multiple realities and language as constitutive of such realities, dialogue has turned into a promising way for transformation, especially in a macro context of constant change and increasing complexity, where traditional structures, relationships and forms of work are questioned. Research on the topic has mostly focused on specific methods or applications, with few attempts to study it in a broader sense. Also, despite the fact that dialogic methods work on the assumption that realities are socially constructed, few studies approach the topic from a social constructionist perspective, as a research methodology per se. Thus, while most existing research aims at explaining whether or how particular methods meet particular results, my intention is to explore the meanings sustaining these new forms of organizational practice. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 25 people working with dialogic methods: 11 facilitators and 14 sponsors, from 8 different organizations in Brazil. Firstly, the research findings indicate several contextual elements that seem to sustain the choices for dialogic methods. Within this context, there does not seem to be a clear or specific demand for dialogic methods, but a set of different motivations, objectives and focuses, bringing about several contrasts in the way participants name, describe and explain their experiences with such methods, including tensions on power relations, knowledge creation, identity and communication. Secondly, some central ideas or images were identified within such contrasts, pointing at both directions: dialogic methods as opportunities for the creation of new organizational realities (with images of a ‘door’ or a ‘flow’, for instance, which suggest that dialogic methods may open up the access to other perspectives and the creation of new realities); and dialogic methods as new instrumental mechanisms that seem to reproduce the traditional and non-dialogical forms of work and relationship. The individualistic tradition and its tendency for rational schematism - pointed out by social constructionist scholars as strong traditions in our Western Culture - could be observed in some participants’ accounts with the image of dialogic methods as a ‘gym’, for instance, in which dialogical – and idealized –‘abilities’ could be taught and trained, turning dialogue into a tool, rather than a means for transformation. As a conclusion, I discuss what the implications of such taken-for-granted assumptions may be, and offer some insights into dialogue (and dialogic methods) as ‘the art of being together’.