Perspectives on people,
management, and organizations
Lecture and Article summary
Table of Contents
Lecture 1 – Introduction to PPMO.....................................................2
Paper - How to get radical creative ideas into a leader’s mind? Leader’s achievement
goals and subordinates’ voice of creative ideas.........................................................2
Paper - Pygmalion and Employee Learning: The Role of Leader Behaviors.................3
Lecture 2 – Management Consulting (GL dr. van Bommel)..................5
Paper - A general philosophy of helping: process consultation...................................5
Paper - Popular critiques of consultancy and a politics of management learning?......8
Chapter – Managers as Marionettes? Using Fashion Theories to Explain the Success
of Consultancies......................................................................................................... 9
Additional Information Guest Lecture.......................................................................13
Lecture 3 - Strategy.......................................................................14
Paper – What is strategy?.........................................................................................15
Paper – Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage...............................17
Paper – What is Strategic Management, Really?.......................................................20
Lecture 4.......................................................................................21
Paper - Personality, context, and resistance to organizational change (Oreg, 2006) 21
Paper - Successful Organizational Change: Integrating the Management Practice and
Scholarly Literatures (Stouten et al., 2018)..............................................................23
Chapter - Levels of Culture.......................................................................................29
Lecture 5 – Entrepreneurship.........................................................32
Paper – The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research..............................32
Guestlecture on Lean Startup...................................................................................33
Paper - Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Same, Different, or Both?...........34
Lecture 6.......................................................................................38
Paper - Why Diversity Programs Fail.........................................................................38
Paper - Inclusive workplaces: A review and model...................................................40
,Lecture 1 – Introduction to PPMO
Paper - How to get radical creative ideas into a leader’s mind? Leader’s
achievement goals and subordinates’ voice of creative ideas
Learning and innovation are intertwined. One does not go without the other and
both are needed to further develop a process. Together they are used to create a
competitive advantage by streamlining business processes.
In the present dynamic environment of global competition, creativity and
innovation have become more important for many organizations. As it is
individuals who generate creative ideas for innovation, the evaluation and
approval of bottom-up creativity can be regarded as one of the important
aspects that leaders need to handle in their complex tasks.
Leaders affect the initial selection of voiced creative ideas because they control
resources and have power to make these decisions. That is, their authority
position provides them with power to provide or withhold support to bottom-up
creativity and to control the transfer of subordinates’ creative input to higher-
level actors. As such, leaders fulfil a key role in the process of converting these
voiced creative ideas into new and improved ways of doing things.
Leaders have more power and easier access to (better) resources. Still, not all
leaders will implement (new) thriving business ideas from ‘lower level’
employees. Reasons – to not implement a business idea from a ‘lower’ level
employee - can be perspectives, hierarchy, authority, or goals. It may feel like
subordinates question the competency and skills of the leader, leading them to
possibly resent new ideas.
When leaders do not act upon changes in the market, their companies can fall
behind. Leading to market loss or even bankruptcy (Kodak). Openness to new
radical ideas is likely to lead to create competitive advantages.
Due to their key position in an established and proven organization, leaders tend
to operate as gatekeepers of the current status quo. As such, they may perceive
little need to adjust their current practices and ways of thinking, even not in the
face of very useful and valuable ideas. Reasons can be hierarchy or leaders
foster attachment to extant beliefs and practices.
Leaders play a key part in employee creativity, and their creativity management
may be highly influenced by their own achievement goals.
Achievement goal theory
What motivates people? Why people are motivated?
“Achievement goals represent competence‐relevant aims
that individuals adopt and pursue in achievement situations,
including the workplace.”
Performance goals (oppose challenges and new ideas;
hesitant to change inflicted by others)
• Focus on other-referenced competence issues.
• Relative competence may be an important and crucial factor.
• Leaders may feel threatened and criticized.
• Less likely to utilize creative input as they see little value in it.
,Mastery goals (open to new ideas, open for innovation, open to learn
new skills)
Develop and gain competence by acquiring new skills and mastering new
situation.
See creative input as a useful source of diagnostic information.
Subordinate creativity can facilitate their competence and performance as
leaders, even though it may challenge the content of the current state of
affairs.
More favorable responses to creative input.
Key Take Aways Paper 1
• Leaders play an important role for the fate of creative ideas
• Employees should voice ideas considerately
• Leaders should try to focus on content
• Organizations should stimulate a mastery climate (self-improvement and
self- referent performance standards)
Paper - Pygmalion and Employee Learning: The Role of Leader Behaviors
Employee engagement in learning activities was defined as discretionary
behaviors in ongoing learning activities to master new knowledge, skills, and
abilities. In a world of change, employee learning is increasingly important for
maintaining organizational effectiveness. Therefore, managing and supporting
these learning activities can be considered an essential part of leaders’
responsibilities.
Leader expectations: A leader’s assessment of an employee’s capability to
learn job- relevant knowledge and skills
Research indicates that leaders allocate and distribute
their investments in employees in accordance with
their expectations of each individual employee. This
implies that leader expectations may affect learning
behavior. These expectations may initiate a self-
fulfilling prophecy, also called the Pygmalion effect.
According to Pygmalion theory, leader expectations
activate certain leader behaviors, which in turn affect
employee attitudes and behaviors in the expected
direction (self-fulfilling prophecy).
By allocating incremental investments to employees in
accordance with their expectations leaders show certain
behaviors that promote performance.
Leader-member exchange relationship, leaders
devote more time for them to reach their goals.
Give increasingly difficult and specific goals.
Give greater opportunities for responding and
practice.
Provide more feedback as to how these students
have been performing and how they can improve.
, Although these leader behaviors are prominent for certain ‘special’ employees,
they do not always result in the employee engaging in certain learning activities.
Even in preferent situations created by the leader, an employee still might not
commit to further development.
Different mechanisms can stimulate the learning activities of employees
resulting in employee engagement in learning activities. All leader Expectations
are positively related to different all mechanisms. Even though, not all
‘mechanisms’ positively relate to the engagement.
Some might include ambiguity. For example, feedback can be interpreted as
negative while meant positive by the ‘leader’, the same theory applies to ‘leader-
member exchange relationship’, as leaders already rely on these employees
which possibly makes them more comfortable.
Together, these findings imply that the relationship between
leader expectations and engagement in learning activities was mediated by goal
specificity, goal difficulty, and providing learning opportunities. LMX relationships
and feedback are identified more as mediating functions to the employee
engaging in learning activities.
Key Take Aways Paper 2
Expectations lead to different behaviors which affect the outcome of the
correspondence.
(Leader) Expectations lead to employee engagement in learning activities.
Leaders should focus on behavior instead of expectations.
Leaders should aim to stimulate all employees in order to void
discrepancies.
