Chapter 2Environment, Diversity and Competitive
Advantage
Planning Ahead What is the environment of organization? What are the challenges of managing
diversity? What is a customer-driven organization? How is information technology changing
the workplace? Why is organizational learning
important?
External Environments of Organizations
What is Competitive Advantage? Utilization of a core competency that
clearly sets an organization apart from its competitors and gives it an advantage over them in the marketplace
External Environments of Organizations
What is Competitive Advantage? Companies may achieve it in many ways
including products pricing customer service cost efficiency quality
External Environments of Organizations
The General Environment - all of the background conditions of the organization including: Economic Social-cultural Legal-political Technological Natural environment
External Environments of Organizations
The Specific Environment - actual organizations, groups, persons with whom an organization must interact in order to survive and prosper stakeholders
customers suppliers competitors regulators
How is diversity managed in a multicultural organization
Characteristics of multicultural organizations: Pluralism Structural integration Information network integration Absence of prejudice and discrimination Minimum intergroup conflict
How is diversity managed in a multicultural organization? Organizational subcultures
Cultures based on shared work responsibilities and/or personal characteristics
Common subcultures include: Occupational Functional Ethnic Racial Generational Gender
How is diversity managed in a multicultural organization?
Diversity can be a source of competitive advantage.
Diversity leadership approaches: Affirmative action Valuing diversity Managing diversity
How is diversity managed in a multicultural organization?
Personal challenge of managing diversity: Accepting the goal of diversity maturity
Organizational challenge of managing diversity: Changing organizational culture Changing organizational mission
practices
Customer-Driven Organizations
Customers and Operations Management Operations
activities and decisions through which organizations transform resource inputs into product outputs product output can be goods or
services
Customer-Driven Organizations
Customer and Quality Operations International Standards
Organizations (ISO), Geneva Switzerland ISO 9000 certification
provides customers with assurance that a set of solid quality standards and processes are in place
increasingly necessary to compete internationally
Customer-Driven Organizations
Total Quality Management Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award
established in the U.S. benchmark of excellence in quality
achievements criteria include
quality values are incorporated into day-to-day management
workers are trained in quality techniques products are as good as or better than its
competitor
Customer-Driven Organizations
Quality and Continuous Improvement Continuous
Improvement Always looking
for new ways to improve upon current performance
Information Technology Utilization
Information Needs of Organizations Information
data made useful for decision making intelligence public
Information Technology Utilization
Information Systems and Networks technology to collect, organize, and
distribute data in such a way that they become meaningful as information
Information Technology Utilization
Information Systems and Networks Management Information Systems
(MIS) specifically designed to use IT to
meet the information needs of managers in daily decision-making
Information Technology Utilization
Chief Information Officer (CIO) oversees all aspects of computer,
information and telecommunications systems
central role in strategic decision-making
Information Technology Utilization
Intranets networks of computers that use special
software to allow persons working in various locations of the same organization to share databases and communicate electronically
Enterprisewide networks move information quickly and accurately
from one point to another within an organization
Information Technology Utilization
Extranets networks that use the public Internet to
allow communication between the organization and elements in its external environment
electronic data interchange (EDI) allows companies to communicate electronically with one another
Information Technology Utilization
What is a Learning Organization? a company that is able to
continuously change and improve based on the lessons of experience
able to change due to the people, values and systems
Information Technology Utilization
Organizational Learning mental models personal mastery systems thinking shared vision team learning
Information Technology Utilization
Knowledge Management processes through which
organizations develop, organize and share knowledge to achieve competitive advantage Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)
energizes learning processes manages organizations intellectual
assets
The five learning disciplines
Mental Models Building Shared Vision Team Learning Personal Mastery Systems Thinking
The Fifth Discipline
“It is vital that the five disciplines develop as an ensemble”
The 5th discipline is systems thinking.Systems thinking integrates the
disciplines.Metanoia--A shift of the mind:
seeing interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect chains, and
seeing processes of change rather than snapshots.
Systems Diagram“Seeing circles of influence”
WaterFlow
CurrentWaterLevel
PerceivedGap
FaucetPosition
DesiredWaterLevel
The Five Learning Disciplines
•Systems Thinking
•Personal Mastery
•Mental Models
•Building Shared Vision
•Team Learning
Three Levels of the five learning disciplines
Practices
Principles
Essences
The state of being of those with high levels of mastery
in the discipline.
Guiding ideas and insights.
What you do.
Three-stage Continuum
Stage One: New cognitive, linguistic capacities.
Stage two: New Action Rules
Stage Three: New values and Assumptions
The Five Learning DisciplinesThree Levels
Practices: What you do Principles: Guiding ideas and
insights Essences: The state of being of
those with high levels of mastery in the discipline.
Mental Models
Essences
Principles
Practices
*Love of truth
*Openness
*Espoused Theoryvs. Theory-in-use
*Ladder of Inference*Balance Inquiry and Advocacy
*Distinguishing “Data” fromabstractions based on data
*Testing assumptions*”Left-Hand
Building Shared Vision
Essences
Principles
Practices
*Common-ality of Purpose
*Partnership
*Shared Vision as a “Hologram”
*Commitment vs.Compliance
*Visioning Process--Sharing Personal Visions--Listening to Others--Allowing Freedom of Choice
*Acknowledging Current Reality
Team Learning
Essences
Principles
Practices
*CollectiveIntelligence*Alignment
*Dia Logos*Integrate dialogue
and discussion*Defensive routines
*Suspending assumptions*Acting as colleagues*Surfacing own defensive nests*Practicing
Personal Mastery
Essences
Principles
Practices
*Being*Generativeness*Connectedness
*Vision*Creative Tension
vs. Emotional Tension*Subconscious
*Clarifying Personal Vision*“Holding” Creative Tension
--focusing in the result--seeing current reality
*Making Choices
Systems Thinking
Essences
Principles
Practices
*Holism*Interconnectedness
*Structure influencesBehavior
*Policy resistance*Leverage
*System Archetypes
*Simulation
Systems Thinking Skills
Recognizing jumps from observations to generalizations
Articulating mental models of past and present realities (mind-mapping)
Balancing inquiry and advocacy Seeing differences in what is said and
what is done Recognizing the unintended
consequences of certain actions (causal loops)
Source: Porter O’Grady & Wilson
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