Topic

Change
Interventions
II

LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.

Identify interpersonal
interventions;

process,

technostructural

and

strategic

2.

Explain the various change interventions at the group and

organisational levels;

3.

Explain the various change interventions dealing with technological

and structural issues; and

4.

Explain the various change interventions dealing with strategic

issues.

X INTRODUCTION
The previous topic describes several change interventions addressing human
resource issues at the individual level. Human resource issues deal with how to
set goals to increase job performance, how to solve personal problems, how to
train and develop individual employees for career growth, how to achieve better
work-life balance and how to enhance their well-being. This topic describes
change interventions dealing with interpersonal process, technological and
structural and strategic issues at the group and organisational levels.

112 X TOPIC 9 CHANGE INTERVENTIONS II

9.1

INTERPERSONAL PROCESS
INTERVENTIONS

Interpersonal process issues concern how to communicate, solve problems or

resolve conflicts between groups, how to make decisions in teams, how to
interact with others by improving interpersonal skills and how to lead groups of
employees. The interpersonal process interventions described in this section
include T-groups, process consultation, third-party intervention, team building
and intergroup relations. These interpersonal interventions were discussed by
Cummings and his colleagues (Cummings & Worley, 2005; Waddell, Cummings,
& Worley, 2004).
(a)

T-groups
T-group or sensitivity training, is designed to help individuals gain a better
understanding of themselves and of others. T-group techniques help
individuals improve personal functioning by understanding how their
behaviour affects others. They also help individuals develop more effective
ways of relating to other people by exploring member interactions and
relationships within a work group. A T-group typically consists of 10 to 15
people who meet with a professional trainer to learn about group
dynamics, leadership and interpersonal relations.
As stated by Waddell, Cummings, and Worley (2004), the overall objectives
common to most T-groups are to:
(i)

Increase awareness of ones own behaviour and understand the

impact of ones behaviour on others;

(ii)

Gain an understanding and sensitivity about the behaviour of others;

(iii) Better understand group dynamics and intergroup processes;

(iv) Increase diagnostic skills in interpersonal and intergroup situations;
(v)

Increase the ability to transform learning into action; and

(vi) Improve an individuals ability to analyse his or her own interpersonal

behaviour.

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(b)

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113

Process Consultation
Process consultation the creation of a helping relationship that helps
the client to perceive, understand, and act upon the process events that
occur in the clients environment with the aim to improve the situation
as defined by the client (Cummings and Worely, 2005, p. 220).

Process consultants help organisation members assess and improve human

processes such as communication, decision making, problem solving and
task performance. Effective consultants are good helpers, assisting others in
getting things done, in solving problems and in achieving the goals they
have set. Hence, process consultation is both a philosophy and a technique
aimed at performing this helping relationship. This philosophy makes it
clear that those who are receiving the help own their problems and that
they will learn how to analyse and resolve the problems. In brief, process
consultation is an approach to helping people help themselves. It does not
offer expert help in the form of solutions to problems.
Process consultation deals primarily with these five important group
processes:
(i)

Communications;

(ii)

The functional roles of group members;

(iii) The ways in which the group solves problems and makes decisions;
(iv) The development and growth of group norms; and
(v)

The use of leadership and authority.

When is process consultation appropriate? It is most applicable when:

(i)

The client has a problem but does not know the source of the problem
or how to resolve it.

(ii)

The client is uncertain about what kind of help or consultation is

available.

(iii) The nature of the problem is such that the client would benefit from
involvement in its diagnosis.
(iv) The consultant can accept the goals set by the client and has some
capacity to enter into a helping relationship.

114 X TOPIC 9 CHANGE INTERVENTIONS II

(v)

The client is capable of learning how to assess and resolve his own
problem.

(vi) The client ultimately knows what change interventions or options are
most applicable.
(c)

Third-party Intervention
Third-party interventions focus on conflicts arising between two
individuals or two groups of people. Conflict between individuals or
groups can arise from a variety of sources differences in perceptions and
personalities, conflicting task orientations and goals and competition for
scarce resources. Third-party interventions are used primarily in situations
in which conflict significantly disrupts task completion and work
relationships among employees.
The ability of the third-party consultants to facilitate conflict resolution is
the key. When conflict arises between individuals or groups, third-party
consultants must help the parties involved interact with each other directly
and facilitate the diagnosis of the conflict and its resolution. Third-party
consultants must be sensitive to the situation and be able to determine the
most appropriate strategy to resolve the conflict. Finally, the third-party
consultant must be seen by the parties involved as neutral and unbiased
regarding the issues and outcomes of the conflict resolution. (Cummings &
Worley, 2005; Waddell, Cummings, & Worley, 2004).
Conflict resolution strategies used by the third-party consultant may
include compromising and collaborating.
(i)

Compromising
Compromising involves each partys willingness to give up
something in order to resolve the conflict. This is the distinguishing
feature of the compromising strategy. When each party seeks to give
up something, sharing occurs, resulting in a compromised outcome.
There is a willingness to accept a solution that is satisfactory to both
parties involved. No clear winner or loser results from this strategy.

(ii)

Collaborating
Collaborating involves cooperation and the search for a mutually
beneficial outcome. The aim of this conflict resolution is to satisfy not
only a partys own goals but also the goals of the other party.
Information sharing is an important characteristic of this strategy
because all parties collaborate to identify the common ground and the

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potential solutions that satisfy all of them. This will result in a winwin situation where the goals of all parties are completely achieved.
(d)

Team Building
A team is a group of people working interdependently with a common
goal. They hold each other accountable for their own team performance.
Team building is any formal activity intended to improve the development
and functioning of a work team. McShane and Von Glinow (2009) described
the four main types of team building activities goal setting, role definition,
interpersonal processes and problem solving.
(i)

Goal Setting
This type of team building activity involves setting team performance
goals, maintaining the teams motivation to accomplish these goals
and establishing a feedback system on the achievement of the teams
goal.

(ii)

Role Definition
A role is an organised set of behaviour assigned to a particular
position. Role definition involves the understanding of the teams
roles, examining members perceptions of their own roles, as well as
clarifying the role expectations they have of other team members.
Various interventions to define and clarify roles may be applied,
ranging from open dialogue to structured analysis of the team work
process. Role definition clarifies team norms and standards, which
dictate how team members should behave and how they should work
together and function as a whole.

(iii) Interpersonal Processes

This category of team building covers a broad range of activities to
enhance interrelationships among the team members. Open
communication, building trust and conflict management fit under this
category. Open communication and building trust enhance interaction
and build relationships among the team members, while conflict
management aims to reduce or remove conflict to minimise its
dysfunctional consequences on the team performance.
(iv) Problem Solving
This type of team building activity aims to enhance problem-solving
and decision-making skills of the team members. Problem-solving
interventions include activities to improve members analytical and
reasoning skills. The aim is to increase their abilities to define the
problem, develop alternatives, analyse and evaluate alternatives and
select the best solution.

116 X TOPIC 9 CHANGE INTERVENTIONS II

(e)

Intergroup Relations
The ability to diagnose and undertand intergroup relations is important for
the organisation for at least three reasons:
(i)

Different groups in the organisation must often work together to

accomplish organisational goals.

(ii)

Groups within the organisation often create problems and demands

on each other.

(iii) The quality of the relationships between groups can affect

organisational effectiveness and efficiency.
Two common intergroup relations interventions are microcosm groups and
intergroup conflict resolution. These two interventions help improve
intergroup processes and enhance organisational performance.
(i)

Microcosm Groups
A microcosm group consists of a small number of individuals to
address a specific issue (Cummings & Worley, 2005; Waddell,
Cummings, & Worley, 2004). For example:
x

A group made up of organisation members from different ethnic

backgrounds, races and cultures created to address workforce
diversity issues in the organisation.

If the issue to be addressed is organisational communication, then

the group should consist of people from all hierarchical levels and
functions.

A cross-functional group made up of members from various

functions may be created to address coordination problems
among the functional departments within the organisation.

Microcosm group interventions are simple, flexible and versatile.

They can be formed and dissolved easily for a variety of purposes.
Microcosm groups have been used to diagnose many organisational
issue such as solving communication and coordination problems,
integrating two cultures during mergers and acquisitions, smoothing
the transition in a restructuring exercise and addressing dysfunctional
political processes.
(ii)

Intergroup Conflict Resolution

The intergroup conflict intervention is designed to resolve problems
and dysfunctional conflicts between two groups within an organisation.
Conflicts between groups or departments may arise due to different

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task orientations, conflicting goals and competing for limited budgets

and resources.
Approaches to resolving intergroup conflict form a continuum from
behavioural methods to attitudinal change methods (Cummings &
Worley, 2005; Waddell, Cummings, & Worley, 2004).
x

Behavioural Methods
Behavioural methods are oriented to keeping the relevant groups
physically apart and specifying the conditions under which
interaction between groups will occur. Little attempt is made to
understand or change how members of each group see the other.
Behavioural interventions seem most applicable in situations in
which task interdependence between the conflicting groups is
relatively low and predictable. For example, the task interaction
between the production and maintenance departments might be
limited to scheduled periodic maintenance on machinery. Here,
the upper management can physically separate the departments
and specify the limited conditions under which they should
interact.

Attitudinal Change Methods

Attitudinal change methods assume that perceptual distortions
and stereotyping underlie the conflict and need to be changed to
resolve it. These methods seem most appropriate when task
interdependence between the conflicting groups is high and
unpredictable. For example, the task interaction between the sales
and marketing groups is high. The two groups need to work
closely together to deal with unpredictable demands for products
and services. When conflicts arise due to misperceptions, the
conflicts must be resolved by changing the groups respective
attitudes or how members of each group perceive each other.

SELF-CHECK 9.1
1.

Name two interpersonal process interventions and briefly describe

them.

2.

What is team building? Describe some common types of team

building activities.

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9.2

TECHNOSTRUCTURAL INTERVENTIONS

This section describes the three technostructural interventions listed in Table 8.2
of Topic 8. They are work design, downsizing and reengineering. These
interventions focus on an organisations structure (such as division of labour and
hierarchy) and technology (such as work processes and job design). These change
methods intend to increase organisational competitiveness and performance. It is
expected that appropriate work designs and organisational structures will result
in organisational effectiveness (George & Jones, 2005).
(a)

Work Design
Work design concerns with creating jobs and work groups that generate
positive employee outcomes in employee motivation, satisfaction and
productivity.

This section examines two approaches to work design the motivational

approach and the sociotechnical systems approach.
(i)

The Motivational Approach

The motivational approach rests on motivational theories and
attempts to enrich employees work experience. Work experience can
be enriched by giving employees more responsibilities and autonomy
over their work and by providing opportunities for advancement and
growth. Job enrichment involves designing jobs with high levels of
meaning, responsibility and feedback. The Job Characteristics Model
proposed by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham in the 1970s is one
of the most popular approaches to job design for job enrichment
(George & Jones, 2005; Robbins, 2003). According to the job
characteristics model, any job which involves five core dimensions
would be intrinsically motivated to the employees. The five core job
dimensions are:
x

Skill Variety
The extent to which a job requires an employee to use a number of
different skills and abilities.

Task Identity
The extent to which a job requires the employee to perform a
whole piece of work from the beginning to the end of the work
process.

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Task Significance
The extent to which a job has an impact on the safety, lives, and
work of other people. It is about the importance of the job in terms
of its impact on others.

Autonomy
The degree to which a job allows employees the freedom and
independence to carry out their work. The employees have control
over how their job should be done.

Feedback
The extent to which the employees know about the results of their
work. The employees obtain clear information about their
effectiveness in performing the job.

Hackman and Oldham argued that these five core dimensions

determine how employees react to the design of their jobs.
Employees reaction to their jobs are reflected in three psychological
states, as follows:
x

Experienced Meaningfulness of the Work

The extent to which employees feel their jobs are significant,
meaningful and worthwhile. Employees experience meaningfulness
of their work when they perceive that their jobs are high in skill
variety, task identity and task significance.

Experienced Responsibility for Work Outcomes

The degree to which employees feel personally responsible for
their job performance. Employees feel responsible for their work
outcomes when they perceive autonomy in doing their jobs.

Knowledge of Results
The extent to which employees know how well they perform on
the jobs when feedback regarding their performance is provided.

Hackman and Oldham further argued that these three psychological

states would result in positive personal and work outcomes such as
high motivation, high job satisfaction, high job performance, low
absenteeism, and low employee turnover. Figure 9.1 summarises the
relationships among the five core dimensions, the three critical
psychological states, and the key outcomes for the organisation.

120 X TOPIC 9 CHANGE INTERVENTIONS II

Figure 9.1: The job characteristics model

Source: George & Jones (2005)

Table 9.1 presents various ways to redesign jobs to enrich employees job
experience based on the Job Characteristics Model.
Table 9.1: Ways to Redesign Jobs to Increase Job Enrichment
Change Made

Core Job Dimensions

Increased

Combine tasks so that an

employee is responsible for
doing a piece of work from
start to finish.

x Skill variety

Group tasks into natural

work units so that
employees are responsible
for performing an entire set
of important organisational
activities rather than just
part of them.

x Task identity

x Task identity

x Task significance

x Task significance

Example
A production worker is
responsible for assembling
a whole bicycle, not just
attaching handlebars.
A computer programmer
handles all programming
requests from one division
instead of one type of
request from several
different divisions.

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121

Allow employees to interact

with customers or clients
and make employees
responsible for managing
these relationships and
satisfying customers.

x Skill variety

Vertically load jobs so that

employees have more
control over their work
activities and higher levels
of responsibility.

x Autonomy

A corporate marketing
analyst not only prepares
marketing plans and
reports but also decides
when to update and revise
them, checks them for
errors and presents them to
upper management.

Open feedback channels so

that employees know how
they are performing their
jobs.

x Feedback

In addition to knowing how

many claims he handles per
month, an insurance
adjustor receives his clients
responses to follow-up
questionnaires that his
company uses to measure
client satisfaction.

x Autonomy

x Feedback

A truck driver who delivers

photocopiers not only sets
them up but also trains
customers in how to use
them, handles customer
billing and responds to
customer complaints.

Source: George & Jones (2005)

(ii)

The Sociotechnical Systems Approach

Cummings and Worley (2005) explained the concept of sociotechnical
systems. The sociotechnical systems approach indicates that whenever
employees are organised to perform tasks, a joint system is operating.
This system consists of two independent but related parts: (1) the
social part referring to the people performing the tasks and the interrelationships among them and (2) the technical part referring to the
work methods, tools and techniques used to perform the tasks. This
joint system is termed a sociotechnical system.
A sociotechnical system will produce two types of outcomes
products such as goods and services and social and psychological
consequences such as employee satisfaction and commitment. The
key issue of this approach is how to design the relationship between
these two parts so that both types of outcomes are maximised, that is,
producing high levels of both product and human satisfaction.

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The most common application of sociotechnical systems approach is

self-managed work teams. Self-managed work teams consist of
members performing interrelated tasks with a high degree of
autonomy. They are also referred to as autonomous, self-directed,
self-regulating, or high-performance work teams. Self-managed work
teams have the following characteristics:

(b)

Team members have the ability to lead and manage themselves.

They determine how the team will perform its tasks.

They plan, schedule and organise their task assignments and work
methods.

They collectively have control over their pace of work.

They may influence the selection and inclusion of new team

members.

They may also work with suppliers and customers directly.

Self-managed teams typically are responsible for a complete

product or service, or a major part of a larger production process.

The team may set its own production goals within the broader
organisational constraints.

Frequently they are paid on the basis of knowledge and skills

rather than seniority.

Pay is based on team rather than individual performance.

Downsizing
Downsizing refers to interventions aimed at reducing the size of the
organisation (Cummings & Worley, 1005, p. 287).

Downsizing reduces costs and bureaucracy by decreasing the number of

employees, reducing the layers of management, eliminating functions and
products and merging units or divisions. Reducing the size of the
organisation is typically accomplished by headcount reduction and
organisation redesign. Headcount reduction can be done through layoffs,
redeployment, early retirement, or attrition as a result of voluntary
resignation and death. Organisation redesign focuses on reducing the

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number of departmental units or managerial levels. This can be done

through restructuring, reorganisation, delayering, divestiture (sellingoff)
and outsourcing.
In practice, downsizing generally involves laying off redundant employees.
at the lower-level. However, it has now increasingly claimed the jobs of
employees at the upper level such as staff specialists, middle-level
managers, and senior executives.
(c)

Reengineering
Reengineering the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of
business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in performance
(Cummings & Worley, 2005, p.295).

The final restructuring intervention discussed here is reengineering.

Reengineering streamlines work processes and transform how organisations
traditionally produce and deliver their goods and services. This intervention
radically redesigns organisations core business processes to create tighter
linkage and coordination among different work activities. This streamlines
work processes and makes them faster and more responsive to changes in
customer demands and competitive environments. It also helps improve the
critical measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed.
Change resulting from reengineering requires an almost revolutionary
change (change that is rapid, dramatic and broadly focused) in how
organisations design their work, business processes and structures. It
results in radical changes in the way organisation members think and do.
Organisations involving in reengineering ignore the routines or the old way
of doing things. Instead, they require managers to dramatically redefine the
business processes in the organisation. They are required to analyse each
step in the business process to identify opportunities for improvement and
change. A business process is any activity that is vital to the speed delivery
of products and services to the customers; or a process that promotes high
quality in products and services or cost efficiency. Examples of business
process are order processing, product distribution, inventory control and
product design and development.

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Management starts the reengineering intervention with the customers in

mind. They ask such questions as How can we reorganise the way we do
our work to serve our customers better? and How do we improve our
business processes to provide the best quality and lowest cost products to
our customers? Very often, when organisations ponder these questions,
they discover better ways to organise their work activities.
Cummings and Worley (2005) described the following steps included in
most reengineering efforts:
(i)

Prepare the Organisation

Reengineering begins with the assessment of the organisations
context its internal and external environments. The assessment of the
organisations current situation and its competitive environment
establishes the need for reengineering efforts. The dynamic and
complex environment that the organisation is facing can signal a need
for radical change in how the organisation competes.

(ii)

Specify Organisation Stratey and Objectives

The business strategy and objectives determine what business
processes are critical for strategic success. They guide decisions about
the focus of reengineering efforts. In the absence of such information,
the organisation may focus on processes that are less important or
those that can be outsourced.

(iii) Fundamentally Rethink the Way Work Gets Done

This step lies at the heart of reengineering and involves the following
three main tasks:
x

Identify and Analyse Core Business Processes

Core processes are critical for strategic success. They include any
activities that contribute to the success of the organisation. Core
business processes can be assessed in terms of customer-focused
activites, costs, and value-added activities.

Define Performance Objectives

Performance goals are set in this step. The highest possible level of
performance for any core business process should be determined.
The performance goals can be measured in terms of speed,
quality, cost, flexibility, responsiveness, or other measures of
performance.

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125

Design New Processes

The last task in this step is to redesign current business processes
to achieve radical changes and breakthrough goals. Redesign of
processes may be done according to the following guidelines:


Begin and end the process with the customer as the focus.

Streamlining the process by eliminating or combining steps.

Attend to both the technical and social aspects of the process to

maximise both product and human satisfaction.

Do not be constrained by past practices or the old way of

doing things.

Identify the critical information required at each step of the

process.

Ensure that work gets done right the first time.

Listen to people who do the work as they know best.

(iv) Restructure the Organisation Around the New Business Processes

This last step in reengineering involves changing the organisations
structure to support the new designed business processes.
Restructuring the organisation may involve the following changes:
x

Functional departments to process teams.

Simple tasks to multidimensional work.

Controlling of employees to empowerment.

Activity-based performance measures and compensation to resultbased.

Hierarchical structure to flat organisation.

Managers from supervisors to coaches.

Executives from scorekeepers to leaders.

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SELF-CHECK 9.2
Explain the concept of sociotechnical system.

ACTIVITY 9.1
List the ways to enrich your current job.

9.3

STRATEGIC INTERVENTIONS

Strategic interventions discussed in this section include culture change,

stimulating innovation, total quality management and organisational learning
and knowledge management.
(a)

Culture Change
Organisational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by
organisation members that distinguishes the organisation from other
organisations (Robbins, 2003, p. 525). It is the set of values, beliefs, principles,
attitudes, norms and assumptions that are shared by organisation members.
It consists of a set of behaviours, perceptions, decisions and common
expectations that govern the ways in which organisation members think, feel,
behave and interact with each other and with people outside the
organisation.
The topic of organisational culture has become increasingly important to
American companies in the past 15 years. Culture change has become a
common form of OD intervention (Cummings & Worley, 2005). A growing
number of managers have recognised the power of organisational culture in
shaping employee values and actions. A well-managed organisational
culture can contribute to the success of the organisation. In fact, research
has shown that organisational culture has an impact on firms performance.
A culture which is consistent with the business strategy and external
environment enhances the firms ability to achieve a high level of
effectiveness.

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Culture change involves the diagnosis of existing culture and make

necessary changes in the basic values and beliefs underlying organisational
behaviour. The following describes how a customer-responsive culture can
be developed to illustrate the managerial actions needed to change an
organisation to a desired culture (Robbins, 2003).
A customer-responsive culture requires service-oriented employees with
good listening skills and the willingness to walk the extra mile to please the
customer. Service employees need to have the autonomy to meet changing
customer-service requirements. They should be provided with decision
discretion to do their jobs as they see fit. Robbins (2003) described several
managerial actions that can be taken to create a customer-responsive
culture. These actions are designed to create or change employees with the
competence, ability and willingness to serve customers efficiently.
(i)

Selection
The starting point to build a customer-responsive culture is hiring
service-oriented people with the right attitudes and personalities.
Studies show that friendliness, courtesy, helpfulness, patience,
attentiveness and listening skills are associated with customeroriented employees.

(ii)

Socialisation
New employees need to understand managements expectations.
Even if they possess a customer-friendly attitude, they still need to be
socialised into the organisations goals and values. Socialisation is the
process that adapts new employees to the organisations culture.

(iii) Training
Training is given to the existing employees to make them more
customer-focused. The content of the training programmes will vary
widely but should focus on improving customer service, active
listening, showing patience, displaying emotions and customer
problem-solving.
(iv) Sructural Design
Organisational structures should be more organic to give employees
more control over their jobs. This can be achieved by low formalisation,
i.e., reducing company rules and regulations. Employees are more
responsive to customers needs when they have some autonomy or
control over the service counter.

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(v)

Empowerment
Service employees should be empowered with autonomy to make dayto-day decisions about job-related activities. Empowerment is an
important element of a customer-focus culture. It allows employees to
make on-the-spot decisions to solve customers problems immediately.

(vi) Leadership
Top management plays an important role in cultivating or changing
organisational culture. Leaders in customer-responsive cultures need
to convey a customer-focus vision and show by examples that they
are committed to serving customers well.
(vii) Performance Evaluation
Performance evaluation should be behaviour-based. Behaviour-based
evaluations appraise employees on the basis of how they behave or
act towards the customers. It motivates employees to engage in
behaviour that is conducive to improved service quality.
(viii) Reward Systems
If employees are required to serve customers well, they should be
rewarded for their good service. Recognition, promotion and pay
increment should be contingent on outstanding customer service.
(b)

Stimulating Innovation
Innovation is a new idea applied to initiating or improving a product,
process or service. All innovations involve change, which can range from
small incremental changes to radical breakthroughs. Organisational
innovation includes product development and modification, new production
technologies, new organisational structures, new or revised administrative
systems, new plans or programmes for organisation members.
How can an organisation become more innovative? Innovative organisations
were found to exhibit certain characteristics. Change agents should consider
introducing these characteristics into the organisation if they want to develop
an innovative climate. Innovation can be stimulated or encouraged by the
following: (Cummings & Worley, 2005; Paton & McCalman, 2008; Waddell,
Cummings, & Worley, 2004).
(i)

Organic Structures
These are flexible, adaptive structures that make the adoption of
innovations easier and faster.

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129

Interunit Communication
Innovative organisations are high users of committees, task forces,
cross-functional teams and other mechanisms that facilitate
interaction across departmental units.

(iii) Organisational Culture

A culture that encourages risk taking, experimentation and creativity;
and that rewards both successes and failures. It also practises
participative management where employee involvement and
suggestions are highly encouraged.
(iv) Training and Development
Innovative organisations promote training and development to keep
organisation members current with updated knowledge and skills
and to facilitate idea generation.
(v)

Idea Champions
Individuals who actively promote the idea, build support, overcome
resistance and ensure that the innovation is implemented. Usually top
managers take up the role of idea champions.

(vi) Research and Development

A research and development department provides a platform to
conduct systematic research to come up with new products and
services. It is also a formal venue for the implementation of
innovations.
(c)

Total Quality Management

Total quality management (TQM) is a management philosophy and set of
practices developed to improve the quality and production efficiency of an
organisation with the customer in mind. It grew out of a manufacturing
emphasis on quality control and represents a long-term effort to orient all
employees and work activities around the concept of quality. The adoption
of TQM signals a radical change in the way they organise their activities
around their customers. It generally leads to continuous, incremental
change; and all functions are expected to work together to improve quality,
customer service, lower costs, and reduce wastes.

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According to Cummings and Worley (2005), TQM typically is implemented

in five major steps:
(i)

Obtain Long-term Senior Management Commitment

Commitment and support from the top management are needed
throughout the change process. Top executives must be willing to
allocate substantial resources to TQM implementation, particularly to
make large investments in training.

(ii)

Train Members in Quality Methods

TQM implementation requires extensive training and learning in the
principles and tools of quality improvement. Employees typically
learn problem-solving skills and simple statistical process control
techniques, usually referred to as the seven tools of quality.

(iii) Start Quality Improvement Interventions

In this implementation step, quality teams apply quality methods to
identify areas for improvement. They identify variations in
production processes and output, take actions to minimise deviations
from quality standards, monitor improvements, and repeat this
continuous improvement cycle indefinitely.
(iv) Measure Progress
This step involves measuring work processes, products, and services
against quality standards. Evaluation of TQM efforts is important
because they set the standards of quality and cost to ensure the
organisations competitive position.
(v)

(d)

Reward Quality Accomplishments

In this final step of TQM interventions, the organisation links rewards
to improvements in quality. Employees are rewarded for processoriented improvements such as increased on-time delivery,
improved responsiveness to customer complaints, gains in customers
perceived satisfaction with product performance, and reduction in
product development time. The linkage between rewards and
process-oriented improvements reinforces the concept of continuous
improvement, which is an important part of any TQM efforts.

Organisational Learning and Knowledge Management

Organisational learning and knowledge management refers to the capacity
of an organisation to learn, change and improve. This intervention aims to
help the organisation to gain the capability to improve continuously by
developing and sharing knowledge. It involves two interrelated change

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processes: (1) organisational learning, which refers to an organisations

capability to acquire and develop new knowledge, and (2) knowledge
management, which focuses on how the knowledge can be organised and
used to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
Knowledge management is a process of organising and distributing an
organisations collective wisdom so the right information gets to the right
people at the right time (Robbins, 2003, p. 575). These two change
processes can be a source of strategic renewal for sustained competitive
advantage in todays highly complex environment.
Organisational learning interventions focus on the learning capabilities of
the organisation. It is about how organisations can be designed to promote
effective learning processes, and how these learning processes can be
improved continuously. Knowledge management interventions address the
outcomes of the learning processes, that is, how the knowledge obtained
can be used strategically throughout the organisation (Cummings &
Worley, 2005; Waddell, Cummings, & Worley, 2004). Thus, the key
outcome of organisational learning processes is knowledge or intellectual
capital.
Organisation knowledge includes what employees know about work
processes, products and services, customers, competitors, and the industry
environment. Such knowledge may be explicit and documented in the form
of manuals, handbooks, research reports, documents, and databases. Or, it
may be tacit and reside in employees skills, memories, and intuitions.
Given the increasingly advanced information technologies, knowledge
management interventions have focused heavily on explicit, written
knowledge so it can be readily accessed and applied to organisational
processes.
How do managers change an organisation to make it into a learning
organisation? A learning organisation purposefully takes steps to maximise
the potential for organisational learning to take place. It is an organisation
with the capability to learn, adapt, and change. Cummings and Worley
(2005) described several organisation features found to promote effective
organisational learning and knowledge management. They are:
(i)

Structure
Learning organisations should have structures that emphasise on
flexibility, few layers, teamwork, strong interunit communication and
coordination, and networking across organisational boundaries. These

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structural features promote information sharing, involvement in

decision making, and system thinking.
(ii)

Information Systems
Learning organisations rely heavily on information and communication
technologies. Information technologies are needed to gather and
process a large amount of data. The information systems of
organisations provide the infrastructure for organisational learning and
knowledge management. These systems facilitate rapid acquisition,
processing, distributing, and sharing of rich, complex information and
enable organisations to manage knowledge strategically.

(iii) Human Resource (HR) Practices

HR practices should reinforce learning and the acquisition and
sharing of new skills and knowledge. Performance appraisal, reward
systems, and training and development should be designed to
account for knowledge development and long-term performance.
(iv) Organisational Culture
Learning organisations have strong cultures that promote openness,
employee participation, risk taking and experimentations. These
cultures nurture creativity and innovation; they provide employees
with the freedom to try new things and learn from mistakes.
(v)

Leadership
Organisational learning and knowledge management depend heavily
on learning leadership. The leaders of learning organisation build a
learning vision and provide the needed support to lead employees in
that direction. They actively play the role of learners and cultivate a
culture for learning.

SELF-CHECK 9.3
Name two strategic interventions and briefly describe them.

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ACTIVITY 9.2
1.

Organisational culture is difficult to change. Do you agree or

disagree with this statement? Defend your position.

2.

If you were the manager, how would you promote creativity and
innovation in your organisation?

The interpersonal process interventions being described in this chapter

include T-groups, process consultation, third-party intervention, team
building and intergroup relations.

T-group or sensitivity training helps individuals gain deeper personal

understanding and develop more effective ways of relating to other people.

Process consultation aims at developing a helping relationship to improve

human processes such as communication, interpersonal relations, decision
making, problem solving and task performance.

Third-party interventions focus on resolving conflicts arising between two

individuals or two groups of people.

Team building is any formal activity intended to improve the development

and functioning of a work group.

Intergroup conflict resolution helps two groups work out dysfunctional

relationships.

Work design concerns with creating jobs and work groups that generate high
levels of employee satisfaction and performance.

Downsizing involves reducing the size of the organisation through employee

layoffs, organisation restructuring and outsourcing.

Reengineering refers to the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of

business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in performance.

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Culture change involves the diagnosis of existing culture and make necessary
changes in the basic values and beliefs underlying organisational behaviour.

The concept of innovation encompasses product development and

modification, new production technologies, new structures and
administrative systems and new programmes for organisation members.

Total quality management is an ongoing and constant effort of an

organisation to find new ways to improve the quality of its goods and
services.

Organisational learning and knowledge management are two interrelated

interventions that can act as a source of strategic renewal for sustained
competitive advantage. A learning organisation purposefully takes steps to
maximise its learning capacity. It is an organisation with the capability to
learn, adapt and change.

Culture change

Process consultation

Downsizing

Reengineering

Innovation

Self-managed work teams

Intergroup relations

Sensitivity training

Job characteristics model

Team building

Job enrichment

T-groups

Knowledge management

Third-party interventions

Learning organisation

Total quality management

Organisational learning

Work design

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Cummings, T. G., and Worley, C. G. (2005). Organization development and

change (8th ed.). South-Western.
George, J. M., and Jones, G. R. (2005). Understanding and managing
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McShane S. L., and Von Glinow, M. A. (2009). Organizational behavior (4th ed.).
Mcgraw-Hill.
Paton, R. A., & McCalman, J. (2008). Change management: A guide to effective
implementation (3rd ed.). London: Sage Publications.
Robbins, S. P. (2003). Organizational Behavior (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Waddell, D. M., Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2004). Organisation
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