Free Business Dissertations - "there Is Evidence Available That The Conventional Wisdom, Explanations And
"There is evidence available that the conventional wisdom, explanations and prescriptions that encourage managers to focus on uniformity, stability and regularity, leads to failure rather than success in rapidly changing, highly competitive conditions" (Stacey R.D 1996)
This essay will discuss organisations in terms of systems and structures, focusing on employee commitment, conflict and loyalty. These are behaviours of employees, which organisation’s systems and environment has a direct effect on. From these areas of it can be ascertained whether the management practices are working, or if they are outdated. These three areas have been subjected to change; this is forced on the organisations, from the unstable environment. This essay will discuss traditional, post modern and chaos theory with the systems approach and compare this to the current environment.
All organisations have systems in place that are there to protect the organisation. The systems approach replaces the earlier work of the classical writers and the human relations approach. This focuses on the total work of the organisation and the interrelationship with the structure and the behaviour. This views the organisation as both a whole and in relation to the larger environment, and that part of the organisations activities affects all other parts. The organisations is an open system, there is continual interaction with the external environment. Changes in technical and social variables will affect other parts of the organisation (Mullins, L 2005).
The most prominent characteristic of twenty first century organisations is the continuous change. Unstable economic conditions, rapidly changing technologies, global competition, workforce diversity, and new organisational structures have all contributed to this age of discontinuity (Shelton, C and Darling, R 2004).
It is argued by chaos theorists that the world of the organisations is unstable and chaotic, making it impossible for them to foresee the future. Therefore traditional approaches to management decision making are no longer relevant (R Stacey (1989) cited in Johnson J & Scholes K 1997:78).
Increased competitiveness has raised the value of organisational strategy, for organisations to be competitive they must adapt faster to change. Therefore all organisations are subjected to the constant pressure of change. Managers require the skills and competencies and the ability to deal with forces that represent both threats and opportunities to the organisation (Mullins, L 2005). Strategy has to be managed in a different way. Managers should rely on their innate ability to draw on experiences, introducing flexibility into their role. Experiences should not be regarded as static and constrained, but regarded as a strategic tool, which involves all employees (Johnson J & Scholes K 1997).
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