People and Organisational Development

A New Agenda for Organisational Effectiveness

Helen Francis, Linda Holbeche, Martin Reddington

• Publisher: CIPD - Kogan Page
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781843983279
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Development
• Index: Business

People and Organisational Development is ideal for both practitioners and students alike. Setting out a new agenda for organisational effectiveness, this book not only covers emergent theories of organisational development and human resources management, it also gives practical examples for how these theories can be applied. Covering everything from how HR can support strategic change and how technology can be an agent of transformation to performance management, diversity, talent management and emotion at work, this book firmly places HR at the heart of a modern approach to OD. Crucially, People and Organisational Developmen t doesn't just examine successful change initiatives, it also covers the unsuccessful attempts at organisational change and what can be learnt from these. There is also invaluable discussion of the OD role of HRD in ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. Packed with international case studies and examples, this is essential reading for all those studying the CIPD Level 7 Advanced Organisation Design and Organisation Development module and everyone wanting to make a difference to the development of their people and their organisation. Online supporting resources include additional case studies and practical tools.

CHAPTER 1

Organisational Effectiveness: A New Agenda for Organisational Development and Human Resource Management

Helen Francis, Linda Holbeche and Martin Reddington

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

Welcome to People and Organisational Development: A new agenda for organisational effectiveness. In this chapter we set the scene for this book, provide a conceptual framework for a new form of organisational effectiveness, and present an overview of the chapters. We illustrate our themes with a couple of short case studies drawn from our consultancy practice.

Our account of this new approach is not just theoretically and methodologically grounded. It is also historically grounded, showing how the original emergence of human resource management (HRM) and organisation development (OD)1 have been inextricably linked to the changing social and industrialising world of which they are a part.

As HR functions undergo major reorganisations, more focus is being placed on their roles as change agents and business partners within the broader OD agenda. This is creating uneasy alliances between disciplines that have developed separately from each other and are shaped by competing philosophies about whose interests they serve: those of the organisation, of its employees – or perhaps of both.

New and flourishing debates are opening up as practitioners and academics make a more concerted effort to work together in ways that enhance policy and practice development in the field. There remain deep divisions, however, in professional orientations between academics and practitioners about areas of research interest and the ability of academic research to make a positive difference to organisational life. The contribution of this textbook is to provide illustrative examples of emergent theories in HRM and OD and the practicalities associated with their application at different levels of analysis (the individual, team and organisation).

Our focus is consistent with widespread debate about the need to address the increasing distance of research from its user base and the need for HR practitioners to develop their abilities as ‘thinking performers’ – a term launched by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in 2002. This book builds on this concept, and the more recent notion of ‘insight-driven HR’ published in the CIPD’s Next Generation HR Report (CIPD Report 2011a), encouraging students and practitioners to consider context-sensitive and evidence-based arguments to enhance their own HR practice and develop a better understanding of the relevance and usefulness of research to practitioners. In doing so, it aims at stretching current thinking and practice about the notions of organisational effectiveness and ‘added value’ typically framing prescriptions about how HR functions might contribute to organisational performance.

The concept of organisational effectiveness is difficult to pin down, not least because there are multiple opposing dimensions underlying thinking about effectiveness, suggested by various studies in the field such as those depicted by Quinn and Rohrbaugh’s ‘competing values framework’, and Evans and colleagues’ notion of ‘duality-based management’ (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983, cited by Ehnert, 2008: 140; Evans et al, 2002: 79; see also Chapter 14). Moreover, we argue that these largely derive from unitarist thinking which assumes that what is good for the organisation is good for employees, and vice versa.

While attracted to these various definitions, we believe that today’s turbulent social, economic and political context calls for more pluralist definitions of organisational effectiveness. For instance Richard et al (2009) define ‘organisational effectiveness’ as capturing organisational performance that includes usual external business indicators (whether by shareholders, managers or customers), broadening this to a corporate social responsibility. In addition they pay attention to internal performance outcomes normally associated with more efficient or effective operations. We go further, arguing that if these various good outcomes are to be achieved, there must be genuine common cause, benefit and risk shared between organisations and their employees. What we propose is a ‘New organisational effectiveness’ (New OE) concept and mindset. New OE takes as its desired end point sustainable, self-renewing outcomes. This, we argue, requires a shift in mindset and practice with respect to organisational change, towards one based on what we describe as authentic mutuality, noted in Table 1.3.

We recognise that what we propose challenges established ways of viewing power, status, leadership and management, the nature of employee relations and accountability, as well as the role of HR. We therefore draw on the familiar simile of a ‘journey’ to describe the movement for change that we hope this book will engender. We recognise that many organisations will be at the first stage of the journey, while others may be much further down the track. Our chapters therefore range in tone from the critical and theoretical to the more practice-based and prescriptive, which sits well with a critical realist lens. In all of them, we have included points of reflection to enable the reader to make sense of the content and to stimulate consideration of the insights contained within the book and the potential application to their own practice.

Evans and colleagues, writing from an international HRM perspective, use the metaphor of ‘navigator’ to describe an HR specialist able to steer through the tensions created by the paradoxical nature of organisational effectiveness, described in terms of dualities (see Table 1.1). Reflective activities provided throughout the textbook invite the reader to think about these kinds of contradictions and tensions arising within small to medium enterprises in addition to larger multinational enterprises.

We see very little discussion within the practitioner literature of these kinds of contradictory poles or forces which underlie our thinking about effectiveness, and much of the debate is located within scholarly articles cloaked in a jargon that practitioners find hard to relate to. A key aim of this textbook is to enable better problem diagnoses and interventions through the provision of a new lens that supports pragmatic but well-informed strategies for enhancing organisational effectiveness, recognising that paradoxical tensions are an inevitable and defining feature of organisations (Ehnert, 2008).

Table 1.1 The paradoxical nature of organisational effectiveness

Short-term	–	Long-term
Competition	–	Collaboration
Decentralisation	–	Centralisation
Entrepreneurship	–	Control/Accountablity
Taking risks	–	Avoiding failures
Flexibility	–	Efficiency
Task orientation	–	People orientation
Planned	–	Opportunist

Source: adapted from Evans, Pucik and Barsoux (2002)

Paradoxes are statements which appear incongruous or even unreasonable and include two or more dualities operating simultaneously. Our intention is to help demystify some of the emergent strands of thinking and practice which we believe will be key to sustainable effectiveness over the medium term, and to equip readers with a holistic lens through which to view, and potentially reconcile, seeming paradoxes. We aim to avoid being overly prescriptive and have therefore set out to provide a range of perspectives on some of the key aspects of organisational effectiveness, ranging from the critical realist to the practice-friendly. By interweaving academic with highly practical chapters we believe we have provided genuinely interesting, different ideas and perspectives, put together in an original way.

REFLECTIVE ACTIVITIES

• How do you define ‘organisational effectiveness’?

• How would you measure it?

We noted earlier that New OE challenges orthodox views and analytical frameworks about what makes for ‘effectiveness’ in work and employment practice. In doing so, it combines technologically enhanced methodologies with more standard HR/OD ‘tools’ and theories. The means and ends with which these are applied are framed by a shift in mindset that consciously seeks to enhance the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Authors’ biographies
• Foreword, by Professor Mick Marchington
• Walkthrough
• Chapter 1 Organisational Effectiveness: A New Agenda for Organisational Development and Human Resource Management
• Chapter 2 The Strategic Context for New OE
• Chapter 3 The Historical and Theoretical Background to Organisation Development
• Chapter 4 Developing an Organisational Development Strategy from an HR Perspective
• Chapter 5 Organisational Culture and Cultural Integration
• Chapter 6 An ER Perspective on Organisational Effectiveness
• Chapter 7 Transforming HR to Support Strategic Change
• Chapter 8 Technology as an Agent of Transformation
• Chapter 9 Critical HRD and Organisational Effectiveness
• Chapter 10 The Role of Line Managers in HRM, Learning and Innovation
• Chapter 11 Strategic Workforce Capability – Planning For a New Era
• Chapter 12 Performance Management and Reward
• Chapter 13 Inclusive Talent Management and Diversity
• Chapter 14 Employer Branding and Organisational Effectiveness
• Chapter 15 The OD Role of HRD in Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability
• Chapter 16 Emotion at Work
• Chapter 17 New OE: Future Prospects and Possibilities
• Index
• Contents