Summary of new book for the course 'Intervention in organizations'. Summary is of the whole book of Achterbergh & Vriens (2019): ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT - Designing Episodic Interventions. It is a very elaborated summary, also with all the figures of the book.
Summary Organizational Development - Designing Episodic
Interventions
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Where is book about?
- Episodic interventions in the structure of organizations
- Goal: present a 3-D model that helps to understand and flexibly design episodic interventions
in organizational structures
Organizations: social systems delivering a societal contribution
➔ Contribution: the role of organizations in society. They can contribute positively to the well-
being of societal members:
1. By means of the societally valuable products or services they provide
2. By means of providing non-product or non-service related positive side effects such as
employment or the well-being of employees
3. By making sure that negative side effects are avoided as much as possible
➔ This positive societal contribution = rich meaningful survival
Social system: organizations deliver their societal contribution as a social system, i.e. as a system of
interlocking interactions.
= it means that organization members interact with each other and thereby realize the organization’s
contribution. It also means that an organization is seen as the (evolving) set of these interactions.
The interactions of organizations members, by means of which the organization’s contribution is set
and realized are influenced by several factors:
- Structure: the way tasks are defined and related – the organization’ structure – has an
important influence on organizational interaction
➔ Tasks: interactions depend on the tasks these members are assigned.
- Organizational goals: organizational interaction is also influenced by organizational goals (as
interaction always directly or indirectly relates to these goals)
- Organizational culture: which for instance, provides ‘informal rules’ about how organization
members should interact.
= interaction premises
Relation between interaction and interaction premises
Interactions are influenced by interactions premises, but interaction premises are themselves also
partly shaped by means of interaction.
➔ B.v. structure of organization co-determines interaction, but structure itself is made by
interactions of organization members who interacted about what the appropriate structure
might be.
This relation is:
- A circular one: one of mutual dependence
- Continuous relation: once particular interaction premises are ‘in place’, it is not certain that
these premises will continue to condition the interactions in such a way that they smoothly
realize the organization’s societal contribution. Due to all kinds of unforeseen circumstances
or developments, it may turn out that certain goals should change
, ➔ This uncertainty is fundamental for organizations and the best one can do is to experiment
with interaction premises. So, to decide to set goals per hypothesis: realize them by means
of interaction and hope that the organization’s contribution is viably secured by this set of
goals. This also counts for structure.
1.1.2 Organizational structures and their development
Development: the intended improvement of interaction premises – as changing interactions
premises in such a way that they better support the organizational interaction in realizing the
organization’s societal contribution.
➔ The development of the structure of organizations is the intended improvement of the way
tasks are defined and related. Comes about in experimentation
Structural development can sometimes be problematic: episodic interventions are needed.
Bureaucratic organizations: structures consisting of jobs with complex networks of highly dependent
small jobs with a large hierarchy.
These structures tend to have negative effects (well-being and productions effectiveness and
efficiency):
- There are much dependency relations, which are a possible source of error. Jobs lack the
regulatory potential to deal with these errors and these errors tend to affect many other jobs
in the network
- If disturbances need to be dealt with by means of separate managers, it takes time to repair
problems.
o The more removed these managers are from the jobs in which the disturbances
occur, the more difficult to come up with solutions.
o The less overview these managers have of the complex network, the more difficult it
is to come up with solutions. Can lead to disturbances in other part of organization
(just local sub-optimizations)
- Professional alienation: they are involved in only a tiny part of the complete process and
perform small activities and it difficult to have an overview of the whole production process
and to have an idea of the end products and services they contribute to. May lead to
alienation.
- Lack of development: Also hard to develop yourself as professional
- Lack of control: You are dependent on other jobs and you cannot deal with disturbances
which causes stress
➔ Last three may lead to a loss of professional identity, may cost of the ‘soul of
professionalism’
1.1.3 Episodic interventions
,Organizations have often lost their capacity for ‘normal’ structural development, because of their
structure. In such case, an episodic intervention may be required to regain the capacity for structural
development.
Self-inhibiting structure: the current structure disables its own improvement. The improving of this
structure has become problematic because of the state the structure is in.
- In ‘healthy’ organizations: structural deficits can be solved by ‘normal’ continuous structural
development. Organization members continuously monitor the way their job is structured
and whether this causes the experienced work-related problems. Employees have overview
of the whole process.
- In bureaucratic organizations: monitoring and changing the structure is no formal part of the
small operational jobs. It is the formal responsibility of managers. Managers are distant from
the primary process, so it is difficult to appreciate the connection between problems in the
primary process and the organizational structure. Managers are buzzy with dealing with
disturbances which leaves them little time to change the structure.
➔ Employees feel the need to change structure informally and implement workarounds.
But because of lack of overview and lack of communication, these are only local sub-
optimizations.
Episodic interventions: intentional, deliberate, comprehensive changes to the organization’s
structure that have their own separate temporary intervention organization.
- Deliberate and intentional: have the explicit goal to change the structure and do so by means
of explicit deliberation
- Comprehensive: they set out to change the structure of a large part or even the whole
organization – not just local change
- Separate, temporary intervention organization: on top of the standing organization, with a
clear beginning and end. In this intervention organization, different individuals participate
who have tasks and use tools dedicated to the intervention itself. And once the structure has
been changed, the intervention organization stops to exist.
➔ Intervention is not part of daily activities (like continuous development).
1.2 The 3-D Model: its outlines and use
Model that can help to understand and flexibly design episodic interventions in organizational
structures. Has three dimensions:
- Functional
- Social
- Infrastructural
Three basic challenges:
1. Functional: ensuring that a well-designed structure is implemented in the organization
2. Social: ensuring that the new structure is integrated in the interaction premises and
interactions of organization members
3. Infrastructural: designing the infrastructure of the intervention organization in such a way
that it helps to meet challenges 1 and 2
1.2.1 The functional dimension of the 3-D model
Functional dimension: goals are specified that should be realized in order to increase the probability
that a ‘well-designed’ structure is implemented in the organization.
, ➔ Well-designed structure = a structure that ‘functions well’, that is a structure that can
realize the goal of the intervention.
The goals that should be realized in the intervention in order to increase the probability that a well-
designed structure is implemented are:
1. diagnosis – finding problems and their structural causes and formulating a solution space;
2. design – finding a structure that allows to deal with the problems and/or their causes;
3. implementation – making the designed structure into an organizational reality;
4. evaluation – assessing whether the problems are solved by means of the implemented
structure
1.2.2 The social dimension of the 3-D model
Social dimension: organizational structures are social phenomena (zie vorige stuk over interactions).
By means of the intervention, both the structure-related interaction premises and the interactions
based on these premises should be changed in such a way that the new structure is ‘integrated’ into
the interaction premises and interactions of organization members and thereby becomes the new
social reality
Goals that should be realized in the intervention in order to change the interaction premises and
interaction of organization members:
1. motivation – organization members develop the motivation to let go of current and move
to new interaction premises and interactions and adopt the episodic intervention as a
means to do this;
2. adoption – based on justifiable confidence, organization members willingly commit to
new helping interaction premises and interactions that can (re)produce an improved
organizational structure that allows for the realization of the goal of the intervention;
3. integration – organization members have irreversibly integrated new interactions and
interaction premises into their repertoires that both (re)produce the organization’s new
and improved structure and allow for the realization of the goal of the intervention
Note: The goals on both the functional and the social dimension should be realized.
- Only functional goals: would mean that the new structure is well designed; a design is made
of a structure that can realize the goal of the intervention. However, because this new
structure is not socially integrated into the interaction premises and interactions of
organization members, the well-designed structure only remains a plan; the structure does
not become a new organizational reality
- Only social goals: would mean that a new structure is integrated into the interaction
premises and interactions of organization members, i.e. the structure becomes a new
organizational reality. However, in this case, the structure may be badly designed,
undermining instead of enabling the realization of the goal of the intervention.
1.2.3 The infrastructural dimension of the 3-D model
if the episodic intervention is to be a success, i.e. if the goal of the intervention is to be realized, the
intervention organization needs to be designed in such a way that:
1. the ‘right’ human resources, with the ‘right’ knowledge, skills, and motivation (human
resources)
2. using the ‘right’ tools and techniques (intervention technology)
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