Week/block 1 à module 1-4 à World of contemporary organizations
Module 1
Major societal shifts that are affecting cotemporary organizations
à social inequality
Pro inequality:
- Inequality serves to motivate entrepreneurial action à inequality not bad, drive for
innovation
- Reducing inequality decreases economic efficiency à keep some inequality, less
motivation when there is no inequality
- Trickle-down economics reduces inequality quasi-naturally à big organizations bring
knowledge to a country and spread this (rich get richer, spend this money and with
this trickle down their wealth to the lower classes)
Con inequality:
- Inequality reduces trust
- Inequality increases social unrest à protests
- Inequality reduces political consensus/conformity à big difference in needs
- Inequality is self-reinforcing à rich get richer and the poor poorer
à Grand challenges
Massive social and environmental issues that have potential or actual negative effects on
large numbers of people, communities and the planet à ending poverty and hunger, reduce
climate change.
Profit organizations are increasingly held accountable à have to do, CSR programs, diversity
programs etc.
à Hyper competition
Environment characterized by intense and rapid competitive moves; competitors must move
quickly to build advantages. à organizations have to adapt quickly, and it becomes less
relevant to have a well-thought-out plan. Because the world changes so fast the thought-out
plan is not relevant anymore when it is finishes.
à millennials & zoomers rising (1980-1995 and 1995-2010)
They have characteristic needs and wants à tech-savy, work-life balance is important, many
job changes, assertive
They are in short supply (ageing population). So, this means that contemporary organizations
have to win the war for talent and provide jobs that fulfill the needs and wants of these
generations.
Try to answer these questions:
- What are the main challenges that managers of contemporary organizations face
today?
- How do grand challenges affect the management of contemporary organizations?
, - Why is it important for contemporary organizations to cater the needs of millennials
and zoomers?
Module 2
How does digital technology change organizations?
à platform-based business models p.13
- Definition: a business model that creates value by facilitating exchanges between two
or more interdependent groups, usually consumers and producers. It creates a
connection
- Digital technologies can often help to reduce transaction costs (you don’t have to go
physically to look for a buyer this reduces costs), thereby allowing for platform-based
business models.
- To be successful with this business model organizations need to become more open
and accessible, drive a more collaborative vision, and create an attractive ecosystem
à successfulness depends on the traffic
à open innovation
Digital technology has reduced costs and complexity of developing new products and
services, this results in increased pressure to remain innovative.
One solution for organizations is to open up their innovation process to new groups, in the
hopes of accelerating their innovation process.
Transaction costs: bringing buyers and sellers together, export costs
à the gig economy p.14
Labor market defined by the preference for short-term contracts or freelance work. à digital
technology enables broad recourse to spot contracts between platform owners and service
providers.
This new, looser relationship between platform owners and their workers makes
organizational boundaries more diffuse and this new relationship requires new HR and
management practices
How does digital technology change management practices?
à the rise of self-management
Digital technology is in this case used to empower and to design and change the rules à
digital technology makes it possible to keep everyone informed about the changes
Giving the right to change the rules of the organization back to the people who are most
affected by these rules
à BPM (business process management)
,BMP methods use digital tools on the work that is accomplished in the organization in order
to discover, analyze, measure, improve, optimize and automate business processes. (digital
technology)
Successful BPM implementations can lead to efficiency or core processes in the organization
(more informed and therefore more efficient work)
Resolving bottlenecks (A bottleneck is a situation that stops a process or activity from
progressing.)
Try to answer these questions:
- What are platform-based business models?
- Think about the ethical implications of the gig economy for employment relations.
What role does digital technology play in this?
- How does digital technology enable open innovation?
Module 3
Economic globalization: the process of economic integration or countries, through the
increasing flow of goods, services, capital and labor. P. 26-29
Global production à shifting production to low wage countries, longer supply chain.
When there are factories that operate in different countries this means that managers need to
know what the legal requirements in these countries are, for instance in terms of Labor law
environmental laws trade agreements between these different countries.
Some people say that globalization leads to:
- Equal distribution of wealth and knowledge
- Increase in life expectancy
- Decrease of infant mortality rate
- Increased in productivity
But others question if globalization really realize its potential:
- Some benefits: free flow of capital, goods, technology and knowledge
- But, majority of this wealth go to rich countries and the poor do not profit from this
wealth.
Global production does not take place in a vacuum à not take place in a neutral world where
everyone has the same opportunities. Power and wealth are unequally distributed.
Why is this the case? à the poorer countries are dependent on the garment industry with
more than 80% of the foreign exports in clothes, because of this it would be catastrophic for
this country to lose western interest. The western countries do the other way around not
depend on the lower wage countries. They could move to other countries that have garment
factories as well. This asymmetry in power between European brands and Asian countries
makes it very difficult for this country to demand a higher share and their profits arising from
the global industry or treasuring western brands into commitments.
, Consequences of globalization for western organizations:
- Shift in tasks and required skills (knowledge work, technology)
- Shifts in working relationships (global)
- Shifts in composition of workforce (cultural diversity)
- Shifts in means of communication (digital or face-to-face)
- Shifts in management (managing diversity, managing CSR globally)
Try to answer these questions:
- What is economic globalization?
- Name some of the implications that globalizations has for organizations in western
and Asian countries (global south)
- Why is it that different countries benefit differently from globalization?
Module 4
Perception at work p. 41-52
Perception is the process of receiving, attending to, processing and using stimuli to
understand and make sense of our world
Filtering is a form of selective perception
Stimuli à attention and filtering à organize à interpretation à storage and retrieval
Person schemas are structures of meaning that affect thinking, planning and behavior
concerning others à these are idealized that serves as prototypes with which we compare all
other persons.
Other relevant schemas:
- Self-schemas (self-conception)
- Script schemas (how to behave)
- Social schemas
- Role schemas à about appropriate or inappropriate behavior regarding an
environment
Perception errors
- Stereotyping à process of grouping objects into simplistic categories based on one’s
generalized perception of those objects à prevent: seeking more information,
discussion and open communication
- Self-fulfilling prophecy à refers to the process by which a person who holds a belief
or expectation, irrespective of its validity, causes it to come true because they behave
and act as if it is true
- Halo effect à refers to the process by which, if we ascribe certain characteristics to a
person in one situation bases on one trait, we tend to apply those characteristics to that
person in other situation and to other traits (is attractive, so is smart)