Different Paradigms for Analysing Organisation

Organisations that are increasingly becoming flatter owing to the growing popularity and importance of team work for effectiveness in performance and high performance goals to obtain competencies so as to meet challenges in the business environment. With the growth in complexity in the internal and external business environment, organisational structural changes have become highly complex as well. When it comes to analyzing organisations several complex issues and areas prevent an easy analysis to take place. Such complexities emerge from the multi—agent nature of the organisational activities, where several personnel belonging to different departments come to interact cross-sectional to perform activities therein producing the scope for team work (Scott, 2001). However, organisations at present, despite of the growth in the use of team work and the, at times, essential use of team work, still use conventional hierarchical structures which is another source complexity. Organisations in the midst of managerial and commercial challenges face structural complexities (Amiguet, et al. , 2002). The paper attempts to produce the insight into how the organizations can be analysed upon different basis so as to generate the implications and scope for the effective use of teamwork in the organisations for each of the element and basis used in the analysis. The theories that emerge from social sciences indicate graphical representation of organisations and are often termed as ‘informal’ (Morgan, 1996; Mintzberg, 2001). They are used in analyzing organizations widely but they fail to provide a very detailed structural view of the organisation and create an abstract level evaluation. The detailed dynamics that are found to exist, especially in the modern organisations that are equally important for the use of team work in organisations are largely left out and failed to be evaluated using the social sciences framework (Dastani, et al. , 2004). However, the models hailing from their background of social sciences the importance of explicit modelling of agents and their underlying interactions and coordination within the organisational work flow and lines of authority is recognized immensely (Lomi and Larsen, 2001; Ferber, et al. , 2003). This is so because the environment that includes the performance stimulating and performance deviating forces and factors and the role of agents functioning within the rganisation at an inter-departmental level, influence greatly the effective use of team work in organisations and the effective performance in general (Dastani, et al. , 2004). There are basically 4 key sociological perspectives introduced by Burrel and Morgan (1979) upon which organizations can be modeled and analyzed that form the fundamental element of the paper followed by a thorough discussion upon the key implications for the use of teamwork and how teamwork prevails under the operational system in the organisations base d on the modeling of organisations framed using the analysis. The framework created by Burrel and Morgan (1979), which is the prime focus of the paper, provides different ways of thinking based on both extreme points in theory of society: regulation – importance and effectiveness of order and consensus in the society; And Radical Change – significance of conflict and transformations in development, the importance of creating mobility. These paradigms are also assessed by the subjectivist and objectivist approach. Principles And Paradigms For Analysis Of Organisations The way that organisations are structured makes significant impact to the overall efficiency and effectiveness in performance targets of those organisations as the inter-departmental links and coordinates and the communication channels within the organisation, determines to a great extent the efficiency in the work flow and the execution of the several underlying business processes. As the organisations maintained significant structural changes in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, organizational networks of task-focused teams was created for leading to flatter organizational structure. Teamwork emerged as facilitators in achieving positive, cost-effective satisfaction and staff retention (Grif?n et al. 2001, Heywood & Jirjahn 2004 quoted in Xyrichisa & Reame; 2008). Modern organisations are seldom following well rounded use of technologically and mechanically operating systems in the work processes as dynamic and matrix systems hat combine the several process and departmental groups together for the execution of projects that break the traditional lines of authority and spans of control. Such modern organisations are termed as â€Å"non-linear† in their behavior and present complexity in analysis (Scott, 2001). Different paradigms provide range of different ways of understanding teams and efficiency of teamwork within an organisation such as, importance of stimulating the support and commitment of employees to team working and organizational objectives by providing them more autonomy, and unity in the workplace, creating opportunity and ‘desire for a more enriched work experience’. Knights and McCabe 2003) or defining team working as a tool or technology that makes individuals simply subjects that guarantee their sense of meaning and importance of working as a team. Currently, teamwork have become as a prominent specification of a broader management fashion â€Å"in the direction of decentralised, flexible networks† that allegedly promote â€Å"a culture of expression and involvement† (Reed, 1992: 227, 229; quoted in Ezzamel and Will mott 1998), claiming it to be â€Å"currently the most popular form of organizational restructuring† (Barker and Tompkins, 1994: 224; quoted in Ezzamel and Willmott 1998). Mueller (1994: 386) describes teamwork as a work coordination that provides â€Å"re-align individual motivation with organizational rationality†. Evaluating the beliefs in managerialist perspective, the dominant assumption about the teams is that, they are ‘’instruments for redesigning the job’’ through increasing commitment, that do not consider individual preferences, personalities, and behaviours. (Partington and Harris, 1999) Mainstream – Functionalist approach directly focuses on the importance of teams. In this perspective team work is assessed as one of the essential elements of creating efficient organisation. ‘’No distinction is made between the use of mechanisms of organization to coordinate complex divisions of labor and their use to control and legitimize structured social inequalities of wealth and status. ’’ (Ezzamel and Willmott, 1998) The management literature has been found a lot of assumptions and analysis about the teams and team work in organisation as being a source of motivation for employees and job satisfaction, therefore increased performance. Furthermore, it provides opportunities for employees in terms of learning and skill acquisition, as well as information sharing, which may be particularly important in conditions of growing economic uncertainty (Wagner et al. 1997; Wall et al. 2002; Vaskova 2007; quoted in SKOPE research paper 2009). Between the economic objectives of designing teamwork in organisations can be stated the incorporation of the management responsibility with the teamwork and removing the demarcation. Project teams get together number of employees rom completely different divisions and hierarchical levels of organisation for the particular objective. Increased job satisfaction, increased motivation between the employees, understanding around the meaningful work and its positive influence to the job performance are considered to be social or business objectives of the teamwork. Cultural objectives of teamwork refer to the rhetoric around understanding if the teams based on norms and values in organisation s, ‘’we’’ feeling – corporate vision, mission statement and the like. There is great attention to the increasing efficiency and importance of team work in the literature and many authors have undertaken several pieces of researches that aimed to identify the major elements of effective team in organisations. The efficiency of team working in different cultural and organizational settings, operations and achieving the objectives depends on a number of various factors, such as, specifications of task, group composition, organisational context and other contingencies. The advantages of teamwork are often represented to a greater extent as an empowerment for employees, as teams provides them a degree of supervisory and managerial responsibility for the organization of their work facilitated through â€Å"individual responsibility and team accountability† (Tjosvold, 1991: 35; quoted in Ezzamel and Willmott 1998) Contrary to the authors of functionalist accounts, some fundamental researches on the literature suggest that use of teamwork is merely is a modern continuation of the rationale of Taylorism. Dohse et al. 1985; Berggren 1992; Thompson and McHugh 1995; Vidal 2007) In humanistic perspective ideology of teamwork is gives an emphasis on autonomy of the employees in the work and the responsibility. ‘’ †¦ that the incorporation of managerial responsibilities within team working will be welcomed by employees as an unconditional bene?t and that its refusal is irrational because it violates their essential human needs. â€⠄¢Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Ezzamel and Willmott, 1998: 5) However, Knights and Knights and McCabe (2000) show that, team membership is not merely responsibility that brings autonomy, it also means pressure for the members in many cases. Different forms of team can be created by management directive. They can vary in terms of the outcomes that they are expected to achieve, the level of decision making responsibility as most of them have little autonomy for decision making, size of the teams, work cycle, degree of integration with other units and the like. One of the major problems with the assumptions about teams and teamwork is that, ‘’both advocates and critics of teams tend to present them as a ‘package’ in which task functions, value-orientations and capacity for self- governance are all mutually reinforcing’’ (Thompson and McHugh 2009) As it is emphasized by Thomson and Wallace (1996) teams can vary in the forms and sizes, as an implication of a range of factors and components in it.. Three dimensions of these factors can be identified for analysing the efficiency of teamwork. Multi – dimensional approach to the team working helps to identify and understand more clearly various types of managerial goals and configuration of their practices. These dimensions are related with the governance – in terms of devolve decision making, delegated powers, self – regulation. There are some researches in literature that states the importance of self- regulation in teamwork in terms of both in terms of increased productivity and employee welfare. High degree of control over the teams causes the discretion and prevents personal initiatives at work. Second dimension of the teamwork is concerned with the issues that related to normative motives – shared purpose within the teams, cultural cohesion and technical issues, in terms of flexibility, integration and the like. ‘’†¦ team working is a move away from the hierarchical command and control workplace, and the decisive means of empowering the employee [24, p. 30]. But most acknowledge that even in the more advanced initiatives, â€Å"there is seldom talk of democracy† [11, p. 25]. Expanded responsibilities and self-regulation, in whatever degree, is a functional requirement of the new production environments rather than a goal of participation and involvement. ‘’ (Thomson and Wallace; 1996) Knights and McCabe (2000) suggest critical approaches to the assumption on understanding and effectiveness of teamwork that is illustrated by mainstream perspective, criticizing autonomous team concept is not realized, it did not displaced the rigidity of bureaucratic system in organisations. Teamwork does not decrease the control over the employees, change in the direct control and managing through responsible autonomy does not mean less supervision, it cause a less visible but equally constraining form of normative control, that encourages employees to internalise managerial definitions of organisational goals (Grenier 1988; Barker 1993; Graham 1995; quoted in SKOPE research paper 2009). ‘’However, teams did not always have autonomy. In 83 per cent of the workplaces with team working, teams were given responsibility for specific products and services, and in 61 per cent they could jointly decide how work was done. However, in just 6 per cent they were allowed to appoint their own team leaders. ’’ (Kersley et al. , 2007; 17-18; quoted in Thompson and McHugh 2009) Furthermore, state that ideal model of teamwork is over simplistic and is assumed in isolation from very important contextual factors that in essence, shapes it. One of the most important points of the effectiveness of teamwork is about task discretion. Both perspectives have impressive range of evidences about the implications of task discretion to the employee motivation. Optimists suggest that, the task discretion is the sign of high employee commitment and high productivity. On the other hand, there are powerful criticisms about this approach, concerned that, the task discretion declines the autonomy of the employees at work and creates danger for their well-being. However, independent work groups, based on the concepts such as job enrichment and re-designing creates an opportunity for employees for decision making on operational issues and various levels of integrated organisational skills, and also more flexible working in more integrated divisions of labour.