Assignment 2: Discussion—Describing Organizational Behavior

A future for organisational behaviour?

Peter J. Hosie University of Wollongong in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates and

Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, and

Roger C. Smith Business School, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to raise and critically analyse controversial issues facing the future directions of the academic discipline organisational behaviour (OB).

Design/methodology/approach – Specifically, the commercial benefits for basic and applied OB research conducted by academics are considered. Arguments are advanced which cast doubt on the discipline’s current directions.

Findings – Proponents of traditional research in this field are accused of methodological myopia, inaccessibility, lack of relevance to practitioners and an inability to integrate research with successful practice. Such shortcomings have the potential to render OB theories, research and recommended practices irrelevant in many commercial environments.

Practical implications – Better integration is recommended between popularist management practices and ideas with traditional research techniques to produce more business focussed outcomes. New modes of investigation are proposed which adopt dynamic research methodologies based on “coarse grained theorising” using the “3p” test of performance, productivity and profitability. In this context, coarse grained theorising must be capable of verification in the field with tangible commercial benefits.

Originality/value – Narrowing the theory-practice gulf requires a more concerted effort to embrace practitioner generated ideas to develop these into theories closely related to organisational concerns rather than purely academic predilections. In this situation, only the most robust of existing theories, with utility for organisations, would survive and continue to be promulgated. A future scenario for OB is envisaged where hybridized theorizing and research are developed and communicated to a wider practitioner audience.

Keywords Organizational behaviour, General management, Action research

Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction In this critique, we argue that traditional organisational behaviour (OB) is rapidly becoming irrelevant to practitioners because it has developed in directions that are unrelated to the major challenges faced by organisations. By practical applications, we mean applied research which has utility and the capacity to create and contribute to an organisation’s competitive advantage and distinct competencies. The credibility of both OB researchers and the popular management writers to mainstream management depends on acceptance by management practitioners who are subject to the scrutiny of commercial performance. In addition, academic directions often clash, as illustrated by the work of Wilpert (1995), representing the European academic scientific-realism tradition and the contrasting view of Katzel (1994), representing North American

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0955-534X.htm

A future for organisational

behaviour?

215

Received October 2007 Revised October 2008

Accepted November 2008

European Business Review Vol. 21 No. 3, 2009

pp. 215-232 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0955-534X DOI 10.1108/09555340910956612

instrumentalist-empiricist academic conventions. Ideas promoted in this paper are unashamedly in the European tradition and tend to be more aligned with Wilpert’s scientific-realism academic direction than Katzel’s fixation with positivism. The conflict between these positions illustrates the difference between the scientific-realist and instrumentalist-empiricist approaches to research questions (Maxwell, 1996).

Wilpert’s review of OB acknowledges that the discipline of OB is generally an ill-defined field and is more likely to benefit from qualitative research techniques than the purely quantitative, positivist approach so often adopted. Thus, Wilpert reviews the macro traditions of OB by focusing on its systemic features. Katzel’s (1994) preoccupation with a micro, positivist approach to OB is a sharp contrast to Wilpert’s holistic perspective. Not surprisingly, Katzel is an avowed empiricist, whereas Wilpert is oriented towards a more inclusive blend of methodological perspectives. Katzel’s focus on positivism is indicative of the approach taken by Northern Americans, who strongly favour empirically based analysis, contrasting the more qualitative European approach – which is often more digestible, relevant and actually needed by practitioners. Notwithstanding these seminal differences, there is a lack of real progress in developing acceptable and applicable theories to inform practice. This remains a major issue for the discipline and academic researchers need to work towards its resolution.

In stark contrast, popularist management writers have been successful in proposing a different mindset. A well-known example is Semler (1989, 1993, 1994a, b, 2000, 2004). Others include McCormack (1994) and Tracey (2002), Covey (2004) and Collins, J. (2001, 2005). These works contrast strongly with the OB theoretical approaches and illustrate why popularist management literature has the potential to render OB theories and research irrelevant in many commercial environments. For this to be avoided it is necessary to narrow the theory-practice gulf through a concerted effort to embrace practitioner generated ideas and develop these into theories intimately related to real organisational issues instead of purely academic purposes. A tangible benefits measure based on performance, productivity and profitability – the “3p” test is proposed as being more appropriate for academic OB research and writing in the business environment. Adoption of “coarse grained theorising” is a potential alternative to traditional research approaches in OB.

“That’s all very well in practice, but how good is it in theory?” (Groucho Marx quip, anon) The theory-practice gap in OB, which is ever widening into a gulf, has been raised before by other commentators. For example, Thompson and McHugh (2002) criticize organisation analysts who develop hypotheses about organisations in general without recognizing that each organisation is unique. Casey (2002, 2004a, b) is another academic who raises questions about many of the commonly accepted theoretical positions put forward in the OB literature over the years. Casey also advocates that workplace participants are well equipped to be potential participants in shaping new organisational learning and practices.

A perennial problem exists – why are there so many different and contradictory explanations for what are, ostensibly, the same phenomena under investigation? This situation does not enhance the credibility of academic disciplines. There is a case for systematically testing and verifying the copious number of models and theories already

EBR 21,3

216

in existence and excluding those which do not have any utility. One way of attacking the problem is by adopting an analytical approach to developing inductive models and theories, as a way of discarding those that are not an adequate representation of the phenomena under investigation. Miner (1978) considered that, after reviewing the major theories in OB, only a minority could be rated highly with regard to their scientific or practical value. Ten years later, Webster and Starbuck (1988) also concluded that the field had not progressed very far. This is quite an astounding observation when one considers the proliferation of OB research within academia.

Perhaps, the most eloquent and reasoned argument in relation to the separation between research and practice in institutions of higher learning is Schon’s (1987) position on the reflective practitioner. Schon claims that the price the professions, including business people paid for entering the university arena was to accept the instrumentalist-empiricist academic conventions model of research as that of scientific method in the laboratory sense, where statistics are widely used to analyse and sometimes torture data. Schon called this approach to epistemology “technical rationality” – an approach which interprets professional knowledge as the application of science – where there is no room for uncertainty, messiness, and confusion. However, it is not clear where the real problems in business lie as these are usually messy, confused and not easily amenable to technical rationality.

There is a pressing need to anchor the problems of OB to reality. If there is nothing more “practical than a good theory”, as stated by Lewin (1951), then where are the good theories when you need them? If OB continues to focus on micro concepts and esoteric applications of statistical measures through survey-based research, the discipline will continue to implode. Easily remembered principles are generated which reflect research outcomes, and are presented in a readily memorable form, have vastly more utility than unrelated hypotheses with ambiguous or qualified outcomes. For example, take Tuckman’s (1965) explanation of group development – forming, storming, norming and performing. While Tuckman’s model can be modified to incorporate factors that play a significant role in development and performance of groups, subsequent researchers have failed to produce an alternative explanation with the same capacity to explain and inspire.

From a practitioner’s perspective, what the theorists produce needs to be capable of application in the field. Much of the academic writing in journals and books is relatively unintelligible to practitioners; it usually involves academics talking to other academics in jargon in order to establish prestige and credibility to the end result of the “publish or perish” syndrome. Ostensibly, the purpose of research is the full appreciation of organisational phenomena applicable to improving organizational effectiveness. Since OB research involves studying living, working organizations and the people in them there is a need for more than surface “understanding” as an outcome. Anecdotal evidence suggests that practical guides to action, based on a deep grasp of issues, is required by practitioners. Thus, it is reasonable to claim that OB research and thinking should provide penetrating analysis that is beyond superficial comprehension. This is not always the case.

In short, OB has a credibility problem. Both Katzel and Wilpert, as well as many of their like-minded colleagues, neglect to address this central issue of credibility, being content to compare, contrast and comment on a wide range of somewhat contrived trends in OB. Such commentary is intended for the sole consumption of academia.

A future for organisational

behaviour?

217

More recent work by Alvesson and Deetz (2000) argues the case against neo-positivism and bias towards quantitative research espoused by Katzel. Those of this ilk believe that OB is prone to standardisation and is method rather than outcome focused. Quantitative research is criticized for not fully addressing the critical issues in organisations and is therefore likely to be of little value to practitioners. At issue, however, is not so much which methodology is “superior” but which approach yields the most relevant and useful findings.

In the following discussion, we delve deeper into the issues introduced in the previous section and consider ideas relevant to our argument – value perceptions, methodological myopia, the case for irrationality, “OBSPEAK”, publish and perish, popularist management literature, quo vadis OB?, “coarse grained” theory and implications for European business.

Academic writers’ value perceptions The contribution of academic researchers in OB, writing about the results of their research can be judged based on the criteria used by writers such as Katzel and Wilpert to evaluate the worth of such results. The main criteria seem to be the importance to the science and practice of OB in advancing the field by an appreciable increment, or at least promising to do so. Such criteria need to be relevant and capable of being used in the workplace to evaluate the utility of OB research.

In some ways, the scientific means appears to be driving the application ends of OB. If science is the vehicle by which research about OB is advanced, then the virtues of the scientific method appear to have become ends in themselves. OB researchers would do well to heed the call from practitioners for a return to addressing major applied problems. Wilpert for example, in his discussion on “Muddles in Methodology” says that adoption of more appropriate methodologies may result in less dependence on empirical data for developing theories. These methodologies are not always best served by the positivist approach.

As Rist (1977, p. 42) observed, “no one methodology can answer all questions and provide insights on all issues”. Candy (1991, p. 1) argues in similar vein that there are:

[. . .] important divisions within the research community which affect such vital areas as what is considered worth knowing, how research ought to be conducted, and what is to count as evidence in supporting knowledge claims.

Such a division goes beyond ideological preferences and strikes at the very heart of the OB discipline and its value to organizations and to society in general.

Methodological myopia Like the academic study of management, OB is largely codependent (an extreme dependency by one person on another) on the positivist research paradigm. As with all communications, form and content are inextricably entwined. Hence, while Katzel (1994, p. 72) is prepared to acknowledge and treat nontraditional research methodologies “with sympathy” he hastens to remind us that “the success of our field has been generated by research in the more traditional scientific research mode”. In this frame of reference, the potential of nontraditional research methods for initial discovery of phenomena is only acknowledged if it is confirmed by the traditional scientific research methodologies. By failing to accept methodologies outside of the positivist tradition OB,

EBR 21,3

218

has effectively “othered”; a way of seeing that separates, marginalizes, and oppresses people (Foucault, 1980) research that is not in this vein. Furthermore, until we acknowledge and articulate the fundamental answers to the eternal organizational questions, we are not likely to progress very far, since “About that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent” (Wittgenstein, 1921). We need to find and articulate what has hitherto been unspeakable in OB.

Despite alternative research methods being widely adopted in related disciplines, such as education, anthropology, psychology and psychiatry, have not been firmly embraced by OB. Katzel locates OB in the positivist domain by referencing considerations of evaluations to the application of the scientific method. However, the strictures of this approach are ignored when it suits the desired ends. When discussing, the dynamic criterion concept (Katzel, p. 4) is satisfied to conclude that “retrospective explanations seem to make sense”. Yet at other times, when the methodology does not fit the outcomes, he is disdainful of the approaches taken, preferring to label the methodology as “merely descriptive.” Curiously, Katzel recognises the problem of too much research being merely an “add on” or “coupling”, yet is content to report these studies in preference to those attempting to undertake theory- or problem-driven research in the OB field. The promise may well be there but whether the field is advancing appreciably is debatable. Given the acceptance of these research traditions, break out findings are more likely to occur in European academic contexts than emanate from the North American tradition.

Despite Wilpert’s (1995, p. 61) bias towards qualitative research, he does articulate some of the difficulties of interpreting research in this mode which:

[. . .] includes the ephemeral and ambiguous while stressing the criterion of plausibility in understanding the result of the inquiry, which depends to a large extent on the researcher’s and reader’s personal and aesthetic experience.

Such criticism can, however, also be reasonably leveled at quantitative research where the myth of objectivity of such methods has been exposed. Essentially, quantitative research involving human subjects must, on some level, involve a qualitative aspect. While such criticism could be put down to professional quibbling, it is curious that authorities in the field often reach fundamentally different conclusions about the same phenomena being investigated, using what are ostensibly complementary methodologies.

OB researchers would do well to heed Rotham’s (1996, p. 39) warning:

[. . .] this misinterpretation, and a myriad others like it are the result of reliance on significance testing, a particularly modern affliction in science. We can and should avoid statistical significance testing.

If pure sciences like microbiology are disputing the reliability of using significance values, a linchpin of statistics, then social sciences like OB should be wary of findings which depend on these measures. Failure to acknowledge methodological problems inherent in mimicking scientific methods could be the most critical issue in the “bad sale” of OB research data and theories.

The case for irrationality Koestler (1957), arguably one of the greatest polymaths of the twentieth century, spent a major part of his life arguing that the bottom line for perceptive insight into the

A future for organisational

behaviour?

219

human condition is the irrationality of that condition. His critiques, in numerous writings, of the idea of “rational and reasonable man(sic)” lust for certainty, the overemphasis on quantitative research and reason’s dominance over intuition should be required reading for all OB theorists. In The Sleepwalkers, Koestler (1957, p. 534) makes a comment that resonates today in relation to the quality versus quantity issue:

[. . .] the reduction of quality to quantity (colour, sound radiation, etc. to vibrational frequencies and human values to raw scores) has meant that we can measure results but we do not know what is being measured. All we do know in fact is what we read our instruments – the number of clicks on a Geiger counter, the position of a pointer on a dial or the position of a tick on a Likert scale – and interpret the signs according to the rules of the game. These quantities have as much resemblance to qualities as a telephone number has to a subscriber.

Clearly, such quantitative approaches do not contribute to deep understanding of human behaviour in the workplace.

In particular, there is a need to more fully understand the nature of motivation in the workplace. Sometime ago, Weick (1979) urged researchers to focus on the emotional dimensions of worklife. Despite Weick’s advice, much of the research into management issues has continued on the assumption that people’s behaviour is rational, cognitive and stable. Yet, emotions have also been found to comprise aspects of reason, action and feelings, including decision making and a disposition to act (James et al., 2000). The same warning is implicit in this statement attributed to physics legend Albert Einstein – “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking” – should raise doubts in the mind of all positivist researchers. Rather than interfering with rationality, emotions may assist in wise decision making. Conversely, a lack of emotional expression has been shown to result in irrational behaviour (Damasio, 1994).

Furthermore, Phillips (1973) suggested that an abandonment of method may be a necessary condition for improving our knowledge of ourselves through insights generated from OB research. In the physical sciences research, it is enough that results “work”. In sociology, it is enormously hard to evaluate the results of various enquiries. Therefore, a heavy emphasis is given to the “correct” method as a form of collective protection – hopefully charlatans, madmen, fakirs and sophists are excluded from the ranks but this is not always the case. Thus, following positivist methodologies for research gives the scientific community loyalty and acceptance. Following the accepted methods tends to stultify individuality, dampens passions and moulds the researcher into the requirements for membership of the scientific community. The passage of time has not, in our view, diminished Phillips’ message.

An alternative to abandoning method may be the acceptance on an authentic “multimethod approach” advocated by Buchanan (1999). Drawing on data from multiple research methods cannot just corroborate findings as argued by supporters of “triangulation” approaches, but it can provide different types of insight and enhance the quality of data collected to ensure the better application of each method in its own right. That is, the synergy of methods needs to result in insights capable of being more than the sum of the multiple method parts.

OBSPEAK Since Katzel’s catch-cry is that his review is the integration of diverse aspects of the field, it seems important to integrate the theory base of other related disciplines into OB.

EBR 21,3

220

When assessing how Katzel’s analysis has contributed to OB research and theory it is important to consider the form as well as the content of the communication. Form does affect content and Shepherdson (1995) warns us that at the level of its language reconstituted, one of the elements of an experience [is] reduced to silence by positivism. As mentioned earlier, OB effectively others claims to knowledge that are not in the instrumentalist-empiricist tradition. Using exaggerated, jargon riddled language, in preference to clear expression, is a consistent weakness of the academic OB literature.

Katzel’s review is littered with malapropisms that often serve to confound rather than clarify. Many examples of this jargon are scattered throughout his review, such as “apperceptive mass” (p. 3); “veridical conception” (p. 8); “congeries of variables” (p. 27); “panoply of mediating processes” (p. 31); “firmament” (p. 36) and “bifurcation” (p. 62). Despite adopting a clearer mode of expression, other writers also indulge in OBSPEAK with Wilpert using “molar” (p. 59), “tendentially” (p. 59), “autopoeisis” (p. 68) and “situated cognitive anthropology” (p. 65). Such obscure language serves to confound and alienate the reader, to push the busy practitioner off to read something more palatable. Surely, the concerns of a wider audience in conveying theoretical ideas and research findings should also be considered.

Predictably, academic writers often follow the tradition of all researchers in recommending more of the same under the title, “future directions for research”. But, more research of the same vein into OB will not necessarily result in progress if the discipline’s theoretical platform is defective. This constant focus on the refinement of micro concepts is inappropriate when superior theory building and integration of existing research findings is required. Also, there is a need for more consideration of how information garnered by research can be translated into pragmatic solutions for improving the working life and performance of people in organisations.

Strategic directions in OB need to be expressed in clear intelligible forms, which is relevant and accessible to a wide audience; in stark contrast to the turgid style often preferred in academic literature. A relevant posit from communications theory is the need to remove superfluous information. Publications in OB suffer from a considerable amount of “noise” (unnecessary clutter) when attempting to convey clear principles, especially to those outside the discipline. There is a case for applying this kind of writing discipline to a wider range of publications about OB. Such shifts in emphasis will hopefully come about as a result of research funding bodies insisting that academic researchers become more relevant to their constituents.

As with OB research itself, synthesis as a result of analysis of OB literature is likely to produce variable results, although the essential problems in OB are clearly identified; the tendency towards over specialisation and towards fragmentation in research and theorising. While “centrifugal forces” may assist to counter these problems, a serious weakness inherent in the field is caused by focusing too much attention on micro analysis. Perhaps, some additional meta trends are required, such as, “Return to OB Roots” or “Back to OB Basics”. Particular attention needs to be focused on “Managing People Politics in Organisations.” There is a definite obsession in OB with developing models and the skeptic would say that a new meta trend, “Model Mania”, is emerging! While models can simplify concepts and assist to cull out the unnecessary noise, they can also result in an over simplification of complex relationships and become an end in themselves. Such models need to possess explanatory power to motivate reflective action.

A future for organisational

behaviour?

221

Publish and perish In the course of writing a critique for the Annual Review of Psychology, some 40 years ago, Tulving and Madigan (1970) formally rated 540 articles in terms of their contribution to knowledge and judged two-thirds as “utterly inconsequential” and only 10 per cent were judged worthwhile. As Aitkin (1991) observes most journals are hardly used outside the specialities that produce and sponsor them and on average most articles are only read once and most articles are never cited. Further, Garvey and Griffith (1963) estimated that 50 per cent of the scholarly articles published in APA journals are read by fewer than 200 people, and two-thirds of the articles are never cited by another author. They felt it was difficult to escape the conclusion that of all the research projects designed, the proportion that are actually supported, conducted, written up, published, and read by an appreciable number of people is very small. We suspect that a much worse result would be obtained from a similar analysis of contemporary publications in OB.

If Forster’s (2007) research is any indication there is no cause for optimism. He surveyed CEOs in a sample of Australia’s largest companies and public sector institutions on the extent of their reading of the academic journals in business and management. The result was that they read very few, if any, of the journals. Thus, the impact of the collective research in business and management is insignificant on practitioners. Forster suggests that this points to a need to develop a new paradigm for higher education business schools, one that moves away from a research-teaching orientation towards a more professional and business-industry orientation.

Is OBSPEAK an indictment on the performance of those working in OB, or symptomatic of deeper structural problems? Katzel for one does not think the research of OB academics is being ignored. He concludes that what has been learned from OB actually contributes substantially to the economic effectiveness of organisations and the quality of the worklife of employees. This, however, is a challengeable assertion since no supporting evidence is cited to establish how, or if, OB has contributed to the productivity of people and organisations.

Wilpert’s foray into the massive task of reviewing developments in OB examines looks at radical theoretical developments, such as Czarniawska-Joerges’s (1999) anthropological approach to analysing complex organisations. Perhaps, the time has come, as Czarniawska-Joerges’s (1999) suggests, to start treating writings about organization theory as a legitimate literary genre. When commenting on organisational climate and culture, Wilpert (1995, p. 62) alerts us to the fact that in spite of 25 years of “valiant attempts” there are still no “conceptually clear definitions of the constructs of organisation culture and climate. The field still lacks clarity.” This statement could also be applied to much of what is published under the banner of OB. The results do not match the amount of people’s time, energy and money spent on research into such phenomena.

Popularist management literature Both Wilpert’s and Katzel’s meta analyses and those of later writers in the field frustrate more from the point of view of what they exclude than what they include. The works of popularist management writers (or gurus as described by Huczynski, 1993) are largely ignored by academia. Whilst not conforming to the strict notion of scholarly research, this literature is a rich source of experiences. In essence, cases in these texts use a form of “commercial action research” and such literature is often highly accessible and inspiring.

EBR 21,3

222

This sharply contrasts with strictly academic literature, notable for its rigour but also for its inaccessible style and lack of direct relevance to practitioners.

Popularist management literature abounds with considerable insight and comment on OB. For example, Semler (1993) gives radical instances of how organisations can be made more humane and productive to increase the net benefit to all concerned. Despite Semler’s (1993) Maverick! being a large case history, it offers pragmatic and paradigmatic insights which, if widely applicable, renders theorising and research into many aspects of OB obsolete. Notwithstanding Semler’s account of how to manage people in this organisation being somewhat anecdotal, it is anchored to the reality of the day-to-day commercial milieu derived from humanist and organisational theory. Other examples of such literature include Slater’s (1999) view on the leadership and turnaround tactics of Lou Gerstner in IBM, O’Boyle’s (1998) description of General Electric’s CEO, Welch (2003), Welch and Welch (2005), Welch and Byrne (1998) and Branson’s (1998) inspiring story. These books tell compelling stories of exceptional business leaders and the reasons for their success in the world of business.

Popularist management literature will continue to thrive if the OB autocracy fails to deliver. Collins, D. (2001) suggests that academics need to take the “guru industry” seriously and that scholars will make more significant contributions, both practically and academically, when they seek more extensive engagements with the gurus of management and where they seek to articulate meaning in ways the so-called fads of management act to constitute realities. OB academics have not acknowledged the existence of such popularist management literature since it does not yet fit the esoteric OB mindset (either from a quantitative or qualitative perspective).

Perhaps, the consumers are already voting with their feet. For OB academics to become amongst the 5 per cent of people who make things happen, as opposed to the 15 per cent who watch it happen and the 80 per cent who wonder what happened (Rowland, 1993), they will need to increase the utility of their work so it is more relevant and accessible to practitioners. A particularly useful adjunct to the analysis of expert reviewers would be to progress to the next step and synthesize available information into a form suitable for wide dissemination and implementation.

Quo vadis OB? OB is a hybrid management discipline that borrows liberally from a range of theory bases across the spectrum of academic endeavours, such as psychology, social and political science, communications theory as well as biology, ecology, systems theory, and evolutionary theory. Some of the most persuasive management techniques or prescriptions of management gurus have intellectual origins outside the traditional OB literature, such as sociology and evolutionary biology. Certain principles of management practice have evolved through processes quite independent of formal investigations of organization and human phenomena, independent of the influence of traditional OB research.

There is value in continuing to seek ideas from a range of such sources. Theorists and researchers would do well to continue to look selectively at other disciplines for inspiration. One example is Gidden’s (1984, p. 376) structuration theory, a constructionist theory defined by him as “the structuring of social relations across time and space, in virtue of the duality of structure”. Structuration advocates greater integration of practice-based theory development by studying the ways that social systems are produced and reproduced in social interactions. Giddens uses conceptions

A future for organisational

behaviour?

223

of the nature of human social activity to illuminate the concrete processes that are relevant to modern societies.

In addition, Ilies et al. (2006) argue the case for OB to be influenced by Darwinian evolutionary processes and behavioural genetics although they do not imply that nature is more important than nurture in the development and behaviour of individuals. In the same vein, Griffith (2003), an evolutionary biologist, asks fundamental questions about the great paradoxes of human nature. Griffith asks why are modern civilization’s universally accepted ideals, such as to be cooperative, loving and selfless are played out in the contrasting human condition to be competitive, aggressive and selfish? Until humankind comes to terms with the conundrum of why we are the way we are, then it will not be possible to fully fathom human behaviour in organisations.

In despair, Wilpert notes that research on organisation culture continues the exponential trend towards using more and different quantitative methods in an attempt to clarify the field. Alternative methodological approaches, such as open interviews and computer simulations are considered by Wilpert to be making some headway in the field. For example, Calorie and Sarnin (1991) made progress towards finding out how the culture of organizations is linked to managerial practice and adds value to economic performance by collecting data which includes hard performance variables, which had not been incorporated in previous studies. The next logical step is to weave these and other statements into a cogent whole, either as statements of principles or integrated theories, or in 25 years’ time it is entirely possible that there may still be relatively minimal appreciable forward motion in the field. Such an approach would reduce the tendency to fragmentation thus increasing the utility of OB to more systematically verifying OB theories and research findings.

It is curious that there has been no large-scale needs analysis research conducted to establish the priorities of OB practitioners. These priorities need not drive the entire research focus of OB but could be an important reference point. Another area worth investigating is the different emphasis OB researchers place on behaviour and performance. Academics with a penchant for either quantitative or qualitative research seem to focus disproportionately on the affective areas of people’s behaviour in the workplace, whereas practitioners are more likely to be concerned with improving performance. How peoples’ affective predispositions impact on their personal and organisational performance is of more consequence than their affective concerns per se (Hosie et al., 2006). Perhaps, another emerging meta-trend could be the “Pragmatics of Human Performance”. One example of this trend is shown by the research undertaken at Sheffield University on empowerment and employee performance and human resource management and organisational performance (Mullarkey, 1996).

There are many indirect paths through which OB theory and research may influence organisational phenomena and the writings of popular management writers. To wit, some popularist prescriptions and techniques, may and often are, derived from academia. For example, Collin’s, J. (2001, 2005) research is methodologically rigorous but is also highly accessible. The research challenge is to produce evidence to demonstrate how some more persuasive management techniques have their origins in the traditional OB literature and which principles of management practice have evolved through processes that are independent of traditional OB research.

OB could contribute more fully to related disciplines. The contributions of OB to related disciplines can be discerned by the extent to which other disciplines adopt

EBR 21,3

224

theories and concepts from OB to explain their own phenomenon. For example, strikes in industrial relations, psychological processes such as perception bias and escalation of commitment are well recognised pitfalls that effective negotiators are trained to avoid, and are important reasons why third party processes such as mediation can help conclude negotiations short of costly strike actions.

As Blain and Plowman (1987, p. 303) assert:

Although there has been a proliferation of literature on the broad topic of management, particularly organisational behaviour, little of this relates specifically to the management of industrial relations.

Specifically, there is a lack of attention to conflict theory’s capacity to explain the reason for strikes. OB could make important contributions to related disciplines, such as industrial relations, if it adopted a more relational approach to research and theorising. OB has erected artificial territorial barriers between other disciplines such as human resources, safety and training and development for example, that add another level of myopia to the methodological one noted earlier and has encouraged the pursuit of minutia (Cooper and Robertson, 1995) at the expense of the broad, integrative scholarship that is so sorely needed.

Perspectives from other disciplines which have the potential to impact on OB, such as Foucaultian genealogies and Derridian deconstructivism (Calas and Smircich, 1991) could be integrated into OB schema’s. For example, Chan (2000) have developed an agenda for innovation and change in organizational analytical practices through creative self-representation. As Chan (2000, p. 1) explains:

In each of these realms, Foucault has studied the different modes in which people participate in their own subjectivation by tying themselves to moral or scientific definitions of who they might be. For example, power/knowledge in discourses like organizational culture and leadership invests in organizational actors with what I call “culturated subjectivity” that creates correlative agents who are interpolated (Althusser 1971; Butler 1997) or “made up” (Hacking 1986) to believe in their own subject specific competency in managing organizational culture.

Foucault’s ideas have been the subject of extensive debate in academia and even satire in the Williamson’s (1995) play Dead White Males, who aptly described academics making inappropriate use of such ideas as pretentious “wankers”. Despite the excesses of Foucault’s machinations as being criticised as overly esoteric, the concept has, as with deconstructivism, provides an identifiable vibrant alternative to academic orthodoxy. Foucault’s (1980) ideas have changed the landscape of post-modernist influence across most disciplines and OB has only just started to acknowledge the existence of these seminal ideas decades after they have been proposed. In the sense of modern capitalism, academics and religion have something in common. Dominant popularist management writers are represented as heathens – inferior and unworthy (Foucault, 1980). A thorough deconstruction of OB academic power politics might reach similar conclusions.

“Coarse grained theory” and “3ps” Would it be sensible, perhaps, to propose a “coarse grained theory” approach to OB research? Coarse grained in the sense that a recognition of the ambiguities, uncertainties and dilemmas of organizational life means that OB “scientific theories” will never be applicable in the same way as they can be in the hard sciences. Such coarse grained theories could accurately reflect how people survive and prosper in the

A future for organisational

behaviour?

225

context of organisational dynamics. These could be based on commercial reality, rather than contrived studies conducted within the confines of experimental laboratories – often carried out using captive MBA students or limited field studies. Surely, a coarse grained theory based on business success, has more widespread appeal than an elegant model with minimal utility. Such an approach may assist to reduce the intuition lag inherent in the over reliance on positivist research methodologies.

Whether Semler’s machinations, taking one business case, are ultimately relegated to the bookstore bargain bins will not depend on obfuscate reviews in academic literature but credibility with practitioners and investors. These ideas are subjected to the acid test of commercial success or failure. A demonstration of tangible benefits is more appropriate validation for OB research in the business milieu. Such benefit criteria might be performance, productivity and profitability (as a percentage of equity of shareholders funds) which may be termed the “3p” test. A defensible measure of “3p” would avoid the mistake of Peters and Waterman (1982), who possibly spawned the guru industry using an approach akin to coarse grained theory but failed to determine defensible and enduring measures of companies’ commercial successes. Coarse-grained theorising means new theories steeped in successful commercial practice but requiring referencing through verification in dynamic environments. In establishing the utility of the 3ps measure, it would be useful to identify incisive examples of how well they would allow a good theory to survive and be promulgated and defective theories to be expunged.

Many of Semler’s innovations (such as democratization of the workplace, self managing teams) have been broadly debated in the OB literature but have rarely been adopted on such an integrated or large-scale manner by committed company. If Semler’s approach can be replicated in other environments, then much of what passes for OB (such as, organisation theory, industrial relations, remuneration/reward systems and work environment) is largely redundant. For example, Semler (1993: foreword) claims to have created a “more humane, trusting, productive, exhilarating, and in every sense, rewarding way.” Rather than expending years mulling over the myriad of possible cause and effect relationships responsible for Semler’s success, it would be more productive to compose a coarse grained theory to explain these successes in a form that is suitable for replication, modification and adoption.

Maybe, the answers OBs plight lie outside the disciplines present frame of reference and this may explain why so many successful managers have never heard of OB, let alone gone to business school. A well-developed intuitive comprehension of how to deal with people derives from a more flexible personal framework (Griffith, 2003). By its very nature, intuition cannot be learned but it can be recognised and valued. The consideration of the ability to empathise with another originated in Roger’s work in the 1950s and 1960s (Rogers, 1951, 1961). Extending on this work Pink (2006) argues for a case for humanity moving into the Conceptual Age where the future belongs to the “empathisers”, “creators”, “pattern recognisers” and “meaning makers”. According to Pink a huge, but largely undetected shift is underway, where left brain linear, analytical thinking is being replaced by right brain empathy, inventiveness, and big picture analysis – all the key capabilities now required by business leaders of the future, as opposed to managers of the past.

If Pink is right, then the forthcoming Conceptual Age will be ruled by those versed in artistry, empathy, and emotion. At the crux of Pink’s argument is the assertion that:

EBR 21,3

226

[. . .] we’ve progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we’re progressing yet again – to a society of creators and empathizers, of pattern recognizers and meaning makers.

But there is a real danger this shift will be suppressed or not even acknowledged by social institutions. How will we detect and capitalize on using personality traits such as intuition as an effective way of assisting employees to work together? Part of the answer lies in fully appreciating the reciprocal relationship between intuition and empathy. As Rogers observed, and Goffman (1961) confirmed, a real lack of empathy can create pathology in organisations. On a global scale, a lack of empathy with other human beings is likely to lead to dysfunctional relationships with international trading partners on a grand scale. In this abundant age, how can the demand for emotion, spirituality and aesthetics be nurtured and developed on such a magnitude?

Implications for European business Foucault (1980) has been taken to task over his “quietism” in the face of the omnipotent forces of network power in modern society. Said (1986) tackles him for only describing the “actual realisation” of political and cultural power found in the “official discourse” instead of opposing the destruction of social dominations, a theme echoed by Said (1986, p. 222):

Much of what he [Foucault] has studied in his work makes greatest sense not as an ethnocentric code of how power is exercised in modern society, but as part of a much larger picture involving, for example, the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world. He seems unaware of the extent to which the ideas of discourse and discipline are assertively European and how, along with the use of discipline to employ masses of detail (and human beings), discipline was used also to administer, study, and reconstruct – then subsequently to occupy, rule, and exploit – almost the whole of the non-European world.

One purpose of the preceding arguments is to create interest in the implications for business and research in Europe. Perhaps, contemporary power shifts such as the emergence of the EU will provide a stimulus for Europe’s scholars to recognise this problem of such “silence”. A counter balance could be created in the ill-defined field of OB which is more likely to succumb to qualitative research techniques than the quantitative, positivist approach favoured by Northern Americans. Europeans could more vigorously pursue a “Eurocentric” research agenda oriented towards a more inclusive blend of methodological perspectives. A more qualitative and distinctively “European approach” could produce theory which is less dependence on empirical data for developing theories that are more palatable, relevant and desired by practitioners. By applauding a hybrid but dualistic approach, the gulf between research-praxis could be reduced by European academics.

In conclusion: survival of the fittest The world of organisations and their management is indeed complex. It is logical then to try and make sense of this world so that the phenomena can be clearly explained to neophytes and the old hands can operate in the comfort zone of relative certainty of what they do and how they do it will produce the best results. Thus, academics as well as reflective practitioners spend much time and effort in reducing the complexity of management into some semblance of order and certainty. A good start would be to

A future for organisational

behaviour?

227

systematically exclude the defective theories rattling around OB closets. Given the huge amount of research that has been carried out on management and organisations, the mountain of books on the subject area and the wealth of experience available through practitioners, we have to ask questions about relevance, applicability and deep knowledge.

Over 30 years ago, Mant (1977, p. 204) wrote “We do not need to spend one more penny on fundamental research into the ‘unknown’ but to recognize why we are so bad at putting to use what we already know.”

Since then, research and experience have added immeasurably to our store of organisational knowledge but this statement is as true today as it was then. Mant suggests that a return to the basic verities would be a good start. Thus, he argues for tough but fair leadership, for structures that clarify roles and allow people a say in things and for business to take back to itself some of the intellectual subtlety, wit and compassion of the wider commercial culture.

Aside from crass politics and ambition, Smith (2004) asks why is it that so many managers and their organisations ignore most of this information? Why is it necessary to be skeptical when told that a manager is practicing participative management or empowering employees or instituting quality management or using transformational leadership or encouraging autonomous work groups or writing a policy manual? Former Harvard Business Review Editor, Stone (1999) claims it is because business is utilitarian while academe is focused on credentialism and methodology. She argues the reason that consulting is growing rapidly is because it is better at providing the interface between knowledge, ideas and their application. Since consultants aim at improving performance via action and thus are seen by organization members as having a legitimate and practical role in their affairs.

In contrast, many academics operate at a distance and are seen as being locked in an “ivory tower” well away from the daily cut and thrust of commercial life. However, if Micklethwaite and Woolridge (1997) are to be believed some consultants are no better than witch doctors! Both groups have a key role to play but the problem is that they do not work closely enough together so that the surface understandings and possible applications produced by the researchers are often misinterpreted by consultants. The application of misunderstood and misinterpreted theories by consultants causes confusion, mistrust and frustration amongst all the players – academics, consultants and practitioners alike. In a similar vein, the same could be said of a proportion of the writers of popular management literature. Despite these problems, popularist writers have the advantage of actually being read by practicing managers. If academics remain silent about important issues they are liable to be further marginalised by mainstream business. As such, there is place for a future where hybridized theorizing and research are developed for, and intended to be communicated to, a wider practitioner audience.

In the final analysis, whatever improvements are to be made have to be made at the individual manager and individual organisational level. Examining the information that has been generated over the past 100 years or so is a beginning. However, individual managers have to apply their knowledge and skills in their particular circumstances and develop and implement the attitudes and practices that work best for them and create the best outcomes for the organisation. Evidence is needed to support the proposition that people do what they say they do and it works, because things are running properly and the desired outcomes are being achieved.

EBR 21,3

228

A five-year study of Good to Great (Collins, J., 2001) companies started with researching the elements consistent in taking a company from good to great, with most findings contradicting much of the prevailing OB research. In these companies, there was an absence of vision statements, motivation theory and charismatic pop star leadership. It was more a case of humble leaders, great people, confronting brutal facts, knowing what you are good at (the Hedgehog Principle), discipline and a long, hard push towards greatness (the Flywheel Concept). Apparently, the most effective managers are doing what comes naturally and what works in the organisation, as we might expect, without much recourse to what they learn in the typical academic OB course – as McCormack (1994) suggests.

The challenge is to develop ways to scrutinise research for tangible benefits, possibly through coarse grained theorizing, using the 3p measures of performance, productivity and profit. Coarse-grained theorising is proposed as a high-potential alternative to traditional research approaches in OB. A clean out of the OB closet will permit the fittest theories to survive and be promulgated and defective theory to be expunged. Like successful business, OB needs a clear sense of where it is and where it is going and an injection of urgency and vitality. Compelling and verifiable theories with the capacity to inspire and guide successful practice are required. If this cannot be achieved and Foucault is right, then the marginalization of OB will be relatively painless since “Classical discourse is invisible as long as it functions; it only shows itself in its demise to retrospection” (Shepherdson, 1995).

References

Aitkin, D. (1991), “How research came to dominate higher education and what ought to be done about it”, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 235-47.

Alvesson, M. and Deetz, S.A. (2000), Doing Critical Management Research, Sage Series in Management Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Blain, N. and Plowman, D. (1987), “The Australian industrial relations literature 1970-1986”, The Journal of Industrial Relations, September, p. 303.

Branson, R. (1998), Losing My Virginity – The Autobiography, Virgin Group, London.

Buchanan, J. (1999), “The multi method approach”, in Kelly, D. (Ed.), Researching Industrial Relations, 2nd ed., Federation Press, Sydney.

Calas, M. and Smircich, L. (1991), “Voicing seduction to silence leadership”, Organization Studies, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 567-602.

Calorie, R. and Sarnin, P. (1991), “Corporate culture and economic performance: a French study”, Organisation Studies, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 49-73.

Candy, P.C. (1991), Self Direction for Lifelong Learning, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Casey, C. (2002), Critical Analysis of Organisations: Theory, Practice, Revitalisation, Sage, London.

Casey, C. (2004a), “Bureaucracy re-enchanted? Spirit, experts and authority in organizations”, Organization, Vol. 11, pp. 61-79.

Casey, C. (2004b), “Knowledge based economies, organisations and the sociocultural regulation of work”, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 607-27.

Chan, A. (2000), “Redirecting critique in postmodern organization studies: the perspective of Foucault”, Organization Studies, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 567-702.

Collins, D. (2001), “The fad motif in management scholarship”, Employee Relations, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 26-33.

A future for organisational

behaviour?

229

Collins, J. (2001), Good to Great, HarperCollins, New York, NY.

Collins, J. (2005), Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Cooper, C.L. and Robertson, I.T. (Eds) (1995), International Review of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, Vol. 10, Wiley, Chichester.

Covey, S.R. (2004), The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon and Schuster Adult Publishing Group, New York, NY.

Czarniawska-Joerges, B. (1999), Writing Management: Organization Theory as Literary Genre, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Damasio, A.R. (1994), Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Grosset/Putnam, New York, NY.

Forster, N. (2007), “CEO’s readership of business and management journals in Australia: implications for research and teaching”, Journal of Management and Organisation, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 24-41.

Foucault, M. (1980), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77, Pantheon, New York, NY (edited and translated by Colin Gordon).

Garvey, W.D. and Griffith, B.C. (1963), The American Psychological Association’s Project on Scientific Information Exchange in Psychology, Report No. 9, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

Giddens, A. (1984), The Constitution of Society, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Goffman, E. (1961), Asylums. Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Griffith, J. (2003), A Species in Denial, Peribo, Sydney.

Hosie, P., Sevastos, P. and Cooper, C.L. (2006), Happy-performing Managers: The Impact of Affective Wellbeing and Intrinsic Job Satisfaction in the Workplace, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

Huczynski, A.A. (1993), Management Gurus: What Makes Them and How to Become One, Routledge, London.

Ilies, R., Arvey, R.D. and Bouchard, T. Jr (2006), “Darwinism, behavioural genetics, and organizational behavior: a review and agenda for future research”, Journal of Organisational Behavior, Vol. 27, pp. 121-41.

James, R., Milton, J. and Gibb, R. (2000), “Emotion in learning – a neglected dynamic”, Research and Development in Higher Education, Vol. 22, p. 87.

Katzel, R. (1994), “Contemporary meta-trends in industrial and organisational psychology”, in Dunnette, M.D. (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Rand McNally College Publishing, Chicago, IL, pp. 1-93.

Koestler, A. (1957), The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe, Hutchinson, London.

Lewin, K. (1951), Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers, Harper and Row, New York, NY.

McCormack, M. (1994), What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School. Profile Business, Profile Business, London.

Mant, A. (1977), The Rise and Fall of the British Manager, Pan Books, London.

Maxwell, J.A. (1996), Qualitative Research Design. An Interactive Approach, Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol. 41, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

EBR 21,3

230

Micklethwaite, J. and Woolridge, A. (1997), The Witch Doctors: What the Management Gurus Are Saying, Why It Matters and How to Make Sense of It, Mandarin, London.

Miner, J.B. (1978), “Twenty years of research on role motivation theory of managerial effectiveness”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 31, pp. 739-60.

Mullarkey, S. (1996), The Institute of Work Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield.

O’Boyle, T.F. (1998), At Any Cost: Jack Welch, General Electric and the Pursuit of Profit, Knopf, New York, NY.

Peters, T. and Waterman, R. (1982), In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-run Companies, Warner, New York, NY.

Phillips, D. (1973), Abandoning Method, Jossey Bass, London.

Pink, D.H. (2006), A Whole New Mind: How to Thrive in the New Conceptual Age, Riverhead Trade, New York, NY.

Rist, R. (1977), “On the relations among educational research paradigms: from disdain to détente”, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Vol. 8 No. 92, pp. 42-9.

Rogers, C. (1951), Client-centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications and Theory, Constable, London.

Rogers, C. (1961), On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy, Constable, London.

Rotham, K. (1996), “Lessons from John Gaunt”, The Lancet, Vol. 347, p. 39.

Rowland, D. (1993), Absolute Happiness, Self Communications, Sydney.

Said, E. (1986), “Foucault and the imagination of power”, in Roy, D.C. (Ed.), Foucault: A Critical Reader, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 150–51, 153.

Schon, D. (1987), “Educating the reflective practitioner”, paper presented at the Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC.

Semler, R. (1989), “Managing without manager’s”, Harvard Business Review, September/October, pp. 76-84.

Semler, R. (1993), Maverick! The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual WorkPlace, Warner Books, New York, NY.

Semler, R. (1994a), “‘Who needs bosses?’ A Brazilian firm’s daring adventure with participative management”, Across the Board, February, p. 23.

Semler, R. (1994b), “Why my former employees still work for me”, Harvard Business Review, January/February.

Semler, R. (2000), “How we went digital without a strategy”, Harvard Business Review, September/October, pp. 51-8.

Semler, R. (2004), The Seven-day Weekend: A Manifesto for Radical Workplace Change, Portfolio, The Woodlands, TX.

Shepherdson, C. (1995), “History and the real: Foucault with Lacan”, Postmodern Culture, Vol. 5 No. 2, available at: www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.195/shepherd.195 (accessed 1 October 2007).

Slater, R. (1999), Saving Big Blue. Leadership Lessons and Turnaround Tactics of IBM’s Lou Gerstner, McGraw Hill, New York, NY.

Smith, R.C. (2004), “The application dilemma – a sceptic’s view”, Management Decision, Vol. 42 Nos 3/4, pp. 541-51.

Stone, N. (1999), “Management theory and practice”, Key note address to Curtin University Management Conference, Duxton Hotel, Perth, 14 October.

Thompson, P. and McHugh, D. (2002), Work Organisations, 3rd ed., Palgrave, London.

A future for organisational

behaviour?

231

Tracey, B. (2002), The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA.

Tuckman, B.W. (1965), “Developmental sequence in small groups”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 63, pp. 384-99.

Tulving, E. and Madigan, S.A. (1970), “Memory and verbal learning”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 24, pp. 437-84.

Webster, J. and Starbuck, W. (1988), “Theory building in industrial and organisational psychology”, in Cooper, C.L. and Robertson, I.T. (Eds), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 3, Wiley, New York, NY, pp. 93-138.

Weick, K.E. (1979), The Social Psychology of Organisations, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.

Welch, J. (2003), Jack: Straight from the Gut, Warner Brooks, New York, NY.

Welch, J. and Byrne, J.A. (1998), At Any Cost: Jack Welch, General Electric, and the Pursuit of Profit, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.

Welch, J. and Welch, S. (2005), Winning, Harper Business, New York, NY.

Williamson, D. (1995), Dead White Males, Play, Sydney.

Wilpert, B. (1995), “Organisational behaviour”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 46, pp. 59-90.

Wittgenstein, L. (1921), Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

About the authors Peter J. Hosie is an Associate Professor of Management with the University of Wollongong in Dubai and Chair of the Research Committee. Previously, he was a CBS Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Curtin Business School, Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia where he is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow. He has taught human resource management and development in Dubai, Perth, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Austria. He has published over 70 articles and reports which have been widely cited in international articles, papers and reports. His primary research interests include the relationships between managers’ job-related affective wellbeing, intrinsic job satisfaction and performance, and crisis and security management. He is the lead Author (with Peter P. Sevastos and Cary L. Cooper) for the book, Happy-Performing Managers: The Impact of Affective Wellbeing and Intrinsic Job Satisfaction in the Workplace, 2006. A peer review process selected it as one of the “most promising management books of the future” for an invited keynote presentation in the high profile book track at the 2006 European Academy of Management conference. Peter J. Hosie is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Roger C. Smith is a Senior Research Fellow in the Business School at The University of Western Australia. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an international consultant, primarily in the Asian region. His research interest relates to the implications of the interaction between an organisation’s official work system and its unofficial work system. He also had responsibility for administration of the School’s Singapore, Manila and Jakarta programmes and his teaching specialities are international management and management and consulting. He has presented numerous management based papers at conferences and also published a number of articles in management and consulting journals. His books on consulting, Mind for Hire and Maxims for Managers followed two co-authored books, The Jindalee Factor and From Black Hole to Blue Sky which dealt with entrepreneurship in Western Australia.

EBR 21,3

232

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.