3605 Posts Found

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

When growth slowed in Y2K, the computer maker’s leaders realized they needed to redesign their win-at-all-costs culture.

Content: Case Study | Author: Lawrence M. Fisher | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Organizational Behavior | Industry: Personal Computer | Company: Dell

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

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

Focus and attention convey genuine respect, which is the cornerstone of trust.

Content: Quotation | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Trust

Presents a participative, systems approach to corporate development, called Interactive Planning. Shows how to formulate the problems and opportunities of corporate growth, as well as presenting objectives and ideals to be pursued and the means toward those ends. Also stresses the implementation and control of the planning function.

Content: Book | Author: Russell L. Ackoff | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

The success stories I am familiar with have involved treating behavioral change as a marketing campaign. They shook the dust off their consumer marketing textbooks and used the classic techniques of brand management and communication and incentives to promote the hell out of the change to the people inside the organization.

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

“Change or die” has become the rallying cry of companies around the globe. But despite these brave words, actual, sustainable change often remains an elusive ideal as companies flounder around in a foaming sea of buzzwords, theories, and approaches. Leaders wonder: Should we downsize … or rightsize … bring in TQM … empower the workforce … maybe reengineer … or find our core competence? For … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Robert M. Tomasko | Subject: Organizational Behavior