3590 Posts Found

Growing attention has been focused on top people’s rewards, notably on so-called ‘rewards for failure’. But rewards systems remain a difficult challenge at every level of the organisation.
* Are we any nearer to agreement on what constitutes fairness?
* What is the next generation of employees looking for?
* What balance in work/life issues?
* How does the collapse of the pension promise in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Ethics

“I never wanted to work in business,” writes Heffernan. Twenty years after expressing that sentiment, as CEO of a technology company, she found herself “having the time of my life” and wondered whether she had “completely lost my mind? Or sold my soul?” Heffernan sees “women creating a new business order that places values at the heart of business, takes sustainability seriously, and recognizes that … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Margaret A. Heffernan | Subject: Women in Business

This article is a summary sketch of the structural and cultural downsides of matriced relationships. It is an outgrowth of the author’s organization development (OD) consulting experiences. It draws on a great many group interviews and workshop observations. It encompasses the (remarkably consistent) views of both managerial and non-managerial personnel within those matrix organizations.

Content: Article | Author: Charles Albano | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Traditional approaches to addressing organizational behavior problems always focus on changing shared values. They always try to change motivators. It’s the only approach most senior managers can take because they’re using models of the problem that have no cause-and-effect built into them.

So they try to “teach teamwork,” “encourage quality,” and “inspire customer service.” But they are trying to change the symptom without changing the factors … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Peter B. Scott-Morgan | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Any firm is a bundle of interlocking business processes overlaid by organization policies, permeated by unwritten rules of behavior, and constrained by its resource structures.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

We live a hypocrisy when we pursue democracy in the public sphere but accept autocracy, often fascistic, in our corporations.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Organizational Behavior

Most corporate structures use inappropriately sized building blocks: jobs. Most work is either too small or too big for one job. Jobs are also very static entities – dangerous in the long run to the health of both the jobholders and the companies they work for. In many companies, jobs need to be eliminated completely – while retaining the workers.

In cases where the work … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Our initial work in exploring these questions suggests that leadership impacts on meaning in several ways. First, leaders make architectural choices-how to structure the organization, design jobs, and allocate roles and responsibilities-that shape how people who work in the organization experience their jobs. Second, leaders engage in symbolic actions-through the stories they tell, the symbols and rituals they create, and other highly visible actions. The … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

Among the many functions of organizational leadership, one of the most important is the development of a worldview for participants. Organizations, like individuals, search for stability and meaning. This search often ends when organizations identify a set of morally sustaining ideals. Ideals animate and help direct decision making in an organization or a society. These ideals are never fully realized. We all recognize that compromise … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

A new study by Teresa Amabile (HBS) will change how you generate ideas and decide who’s really creative in your company.

Content: Article | Author: Bill Breen | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Empowerment and compliance are crucial: the former, to unlock value, and the latter to avoid scandals which can destroy the business. But these two imperatives yield an apparent paradox. On the one hand, organisations are trying to devolve responsibility away from the corporate centre, putting power into the hands of those best placed to use it. On the other, they need to become more accountable … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

All individuals, communities, systems, and other business assets are massively interconnected in an evolving economic ecosystem. In such a connected system we can no longer focus on the performance of individual actors — we must manage connected assets.

Content: Article | Author: Valdis Krebs | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

At the heart of Western thinking is the notion that the individual, rather than the group, is the fundamental moral and ethical unit. Companies have rights accorded them by law, systems have functions, but individuals have the responsibility to determine right from wrong.

Since systems are really only groups of people tasked to do certain things in certain ways, they can be subverted. And, while individuals … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Ethics, Organizational Behavior

When placed in the same system, people, however different, tend to produce similar results.

Content: Quotation | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subject: Organizational Behavior

It requires a lot of courage to buck so much conventional management wisdom and practices… Everyone wants to earn exceptional returns but to do it by doing what everyone else does.

Content: Quotation | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Testifying in a Delaware court last month, Stanley P. Gold, a former Walt Disney Co. director, joined a long list of company executives who had dirty laundry to air regarding the 1995 hiring of Michael Ovitz as Disney’s president and his subsequent firing in 1996. “This was two big volatile egos banging against each other and they just didn’t get along,” Gold testified, referring to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Rosabeth Moss Kanter will convince you that the goal of winning is not losing two times in a row. In her view, success and failure are not events, they are self-fulfilling tendencies. “Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair–consisting of positive expectations for favorable outcomes.” says Kanter, a Harvard Business School Professor and author of The Change Masters.

She applies the literature of cognitive … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Rosabeth Moss Kanter | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

We have investigated several organizational development concepts to get a better understanding of which Performance Management approach delivers the best return for different kinds of organizations. One of the most promising models has been developed by Dr. Clare Graves, which is explored in this article.

Content: Article | Author: Stefan Gössler | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Diverse workplaces require emotional maturity, and that means confronting “rankism.”

Content: Article | Author: Art Kleiner | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Organizational Behavior