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The role of middle managers in building
organisational learning capacity in strategy-as-
practice: A construction industry case Subtitle
Presented to
The Graduate School of Business University of Cape Town
In partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Business Administration specialising in Executive Management
Submitted by: Dave Bennett
Supervisors: Kosheek Sewchurran Jenny McDonogh
December 2017
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DECLARATION
1. I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and pretend that it
is your own.
2. I have used the APA convention for citation and referencing. Each significant
contribution and quotation from the works of other people has been attributed, cited and
referenced where appropriate.
3. I certify that this submission is all my own work.
4. I have not allowed and will not allow anyone to copy this assignment with the intention
of passing it off as his or her own work.
Signed: Date: December 2017
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ABSTRACT
The role of middle managers in building organisational learning capacity in strategy-as-practice:
A construction industry case
Improving company performance and maintaining strategic competitive advantage is a common goal
most organisations wish to attain. This can be difficult to achieve in an organisation where middle
managers are unable to create learning capacity and annual strategy sessions become nothing more
than a “rinse, wash and repeat” of the previous year, offering little innovation.
This study investigates the persistent and relevant problem of how to build organisational learning
capacity through middle manager’s strategy-as-practice, in a complex problem situation that cannot be
solved by any one stakeholder in the organisation.
The study combines a pragmatic research philosophy with “Soft Systems Methodology in Action” to
conduct an inquiry into the human activity system of strategy practice within an organisation. The
research effort aims to develop a purposeful activity model, which is tested via a single case study that
includes both qualitative and quantitative reasoning. This model is inductively developed through an
interpretive process that includes a framework of ideas from Soft Systems Methodology, as well as
systems dynamics (causal loop modelling), learning organisations, sense-making/sense-giving and
strategy as practice concepts.
Through data collection and analysis, this study explores why the process of organisational learning to
facilitate strategy as practice is so perplexing. The study culminates in findings that refine the
purposeful activity model in its final research cycle and offer insights for future research efforts.
Key words: Systems Dynamics. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). Complex Systems. Purposeful
Activity Modelling, Action Research, Learning Organisation, Sense-making, Sense-giving, Strategy-
As-Practice, Knowing Organisations, DLOQ, Strategic Leadership.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................... ix
Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1
1.1: Introduction and Contextual Background to the Situation of Concern ........................ 1
1.1.1: Contextual background to study ......................................................................... 2
1.2: Situation of concern in my organisation ..................................................................... 6
1.3: Research goals ......................................................................................................... 8
1.4: Focusing questions ................................................................................................... 9
1.5: Research approach ................................................................................................... 9
1.6: Research methodology ............................................................................................ 10
1.7: Data gathering and analysis .................................................................................... 12
1.8: Ethical considerations .............................................................................................. 12
1.9: Outline of the paper ................................................................................................. 13
Chapter 2: Research Methodology .................................................................................. 15
2.1: Introduction ............................................................................................................. 15
2.2: Research philosophy: Pragmatism ......................................................................... 15
2.3: Research approach: Soft Systems Methodology ..................................................... 18
2.3.1: SSM and Action Research (AR) ....................................................................... 18
2.3.2: SSM as a methodology ..................................................................................... 23
2.3.3: Rationale for selecting of action research in an SSM way as a methodology .... 25
2.4: Data collection and data analysis ............................................................................ 27
2.4.1: Sampling strategy and data collection .............................................................. 27
2.4.2: Data analysis .................................................................................................... 33
2.5: Ethical considerations .............................................................................................. 35
2.6: Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 37
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Chapter 3: Literature review ............................................................................................ 38
3.1: Introduction ............................................................................................................. 38
3.2: Strategy as practice and the role of middle managers ............................................. 39
3.2.1: Definition of s-a-p ............................................................................................. 39
3.2.2: Key components of s-a-p .................................................................................. 39
3.2.3: Different views of “practice/s” in s-a-p ............................................................... 40
3.2.4: The role of middle managers as s-a-p actors .................................................... 41
3.2.5: The effect of organisational structuring on middle managers’ practice as knowledge 42
3.2.6: Middle managers’ role in knowledge creation through s-a-p ............................. 43
3.2.7: Middle managers as sense-makers .................................................................. 44
3.2.8: Inhibitors – Possible barriers to s-a-p ................................................................ 45
3.2.9: Learnings synopsis for s-a-p ............................................................................. 46
3.3: Sense Making and Sense-Giving............................................................................. 47
3.3.1: Learnings synopsis for sense-making and sense-giving ................................... 50
3.4: Learning Organisations ........................................................................................... 51
3.4.1: Learning organisation and structure .................................................................. 52
3.4.2: Learning organisation and strategy ................................................................... 53
3.4.3: Learning organisation and environment ............................................................ 54
3.4.4: Learning organisation and culture ..................................................................... 55
3.4.5: Learning organisation interaction with contextual factors .................................. 58
3.4.6: Learning organisation capacity building through middle managers’ role in knowledge
development through s-a-p .......................................................................................... 59
3.4.7: Dimensions of a learning organisation .............................................................. 63
3.5: Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 65
Chapter 4: AR1 - Theory development: A Purposeful Activity Model using SSM ............. 69
4.1: Introduction ............................................................................................................. 69
4.2: Learning cycles and SSM’s 7 steps ......................................................................... 70
4.3: Analysis 1, 2 and 3 .................................................................................................. 70
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4.4: CATWOE analysis ................................................................................................... 78
4.5: Task or issues-based transformation discussion ..................................................... 82
4.6: ROOT definition ....................................................................................................... 82
4.7: Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 83
Chapter 5: AR2 – Insights and Learnings from Organisational data gathering and analysis87
5.1: Introduction ............................................................................................................. 87
5.2: Learnings and Insights generated from Interviews and Questionnaires and analysed
qualitatively ..................................................................................................................... 87
5.2.1: Contextual emergence ...................................................................................... 94
5.2.2: Power dynamics and organisational identity ..................................................... 94
5.2.3: Risk aversion .................................................................................................... 95
5.2.4: Measures of performance (MoP) ...................................................................... 96
5.3: Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 96
Chapter 6: AR3 – Learning generation and insights from data gathering and analysis using the
Dimensions of a Learning Organisation Questionnaire (DLOQ) .......................................... 97
6.1.1: Learning and Insights from comparison to DLOQ benchmark ........................... 99
6.2: Testing the DLOQ against the Purposeful Activity Model ....................................... 104
6.3: Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 107
Chapter 7: The Learning Journey, Conclusions and Future Study recommendations .... 109
7.1: Introduction ........................................................................................................... 109
7.2: My Learning Journey ............................................................................................. 110
7.3: Conclusions and recommendations for future studies ............................................ 111
7.4: References ............................................................................................................ 112
Appendix A. Company Permission for the study .............................................................. 116
Appendix B. DLOQ plus developers permission grant as well as frequently asked questions around
the DLOQ 117
Appendix C. DLOQ Send Out Email ................................................................................ 118
Appendix D. Questionnaire Send Out .............................................................................. 119
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Tensions stemming from middle management ................................................................... 7
Figure 2: SSM Learning Cycle (Checkland 1985) ........................................................................... 19
Figure 3: SSM process of inquiry interpretation through an action cycle (Checkland, 2000) ........... 20
Figure 4: SSM as AR ...................................................................................................................... 21
Figure 5: Action research as SSM................................................................................................... 21
Figure 6: Researcher’s interpretation of Checkland’s (2000) 7-step learning cycle ......................... 24
Figure 7: Gioia Method Indicative Illustration (Gioia et al., 2012) .................................................... 35
Figure 8: Authors interpretation of Fiol and Lyles (1985) contextual factors influencing a learning
organisation .................................................................................................................................... 59
Figure 9: Knowledge flow (Adapted from (Choo, 1996)) .................................................................. 63
Figure 10: Link between s-a-p, sense-making and a learning organisation from a middle manager’s
perspective ..................................................................................................................................... 67
Figure 11: SSM Analysis 1 (Checkland & Poulter, 2010) ................................................................ 71
Figure 12: Rich Picture interpretation of Analysis 2 summary giving cultural flavour of the
organisation .................................................................................................................................... 75
Figure 13: Analysis 3 summary detailing political commoditization insights in my organisation ....... 77
Figure 14: CATWOE Model ............................................................................................................ 79
Figure 15: Purposeful activity model of what "should be" concluded in AR1 ................................... 85
Figure 16: (i) of (iv) ....................................................................................................................... 89
Figure 17: (ii) of (iv) ...................................................................................................................... 90
Figure 18: (iii) of (iv)...................................................................................................................... 91
Figure 19: (iv) of (iv)...................................................................................................................... 92
Figure 20: Purposeful Activity Model overlain with research findings from previous interviews and
questionnaires ................................................................................................................................ 93
Figure 21: DLOQ results (GREY) vs. benchmark (ORANGE) - Manufacturing cluster .................. 100
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Figure 22: DLOQ results (GREY) vs. benchmark (ORANGE) - Construction cluster ..................... 101
Figure 23: DLOQ results (GREY – Senior Manager and BLUE – Middle Manager) vs. benchmark
(ORANGE) – Senior management in construction cluster ............................................................. 102
Figure 24: DLOQ results (GREY) vs. benchmark (ORANGE) – Business Services ...................... 103
Figure 25: Final Purposeful Activity Model .................................................................................... 107
Figure 26: Summary of the Purposeful Activity Model ............................................................ 110
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Declared F and M for this research effort's AR cycles ....................................................... 22
Table 2: Interview Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 28
Table 3: Details of interviewees and questionnaire respondents for Phases 1 and 2 ...................... 30
Table 4: Practice Views (Rouleau, 2013) ........................................................................................ 40
Table 5: Watkins and Marsick’s Dimensions of a Learning Organization (Marsick & Watkins, 2003)
....................................................................................................................................................... 64
Table 6: CATWOE element definitions (Checkland & Poulter, 2010) .............................................. 79
Table 7: Definitional questions of the three "E's" ............................................................................. 80
Table 8: Summary of my three ”E’s” analysis – Monitoring criteria of the transformation process ... 81
Table 9: Benchmarking from Marsick and Watkins (2003) .............................................................. 98
Table 10: Critical Learning Dimension in the context of the developed Purposeful Activity Model . 104
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AR Action Research
CATWOE Customers, Actors, Transformation, World View, Owners, Environment
CIDB Construction Industry Development Board
DLOQ Dimension of a Learning Organization Questionnaire
EXCO Executive Committee
GSB Graduate School of Business
I&C Investments and Concessions
MoP Measures of Performance
PWC Price Waterhouse Coopers
R&D Research and Development
s-a-p Strategy as practice
SSM Soft System Methodology
STF Safe-To-Fail
VRP Voluntary Rebuild Programme
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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1: Introduction and Contextual Background to the Situation of Concern
I have been working in the construction industry in South Africa for some 20 years now, the
last eight of which have seen me involved as a middle manager in practicing strategy within
my organisation, a listed South African construction company with a number of subsidiary
companies. Over the years, the construction-related organisations I have worked with have,
from my perspective, adopted tactics that they have mistaken for strategies, rather than
developing bespoke and innovative strategies to differentiate them from their competitors. Bust
periods are ridden out in anticipation of boom periods, and boom periods are seen as being
there to be enjoyed, without too much thought given to the long term strategic future of the
company.
The construction industry as a whole is not perceived as strategically effective, and my
organisation’s response to industry related risk is to continuously add hurdles that weigh it
down with systems and procedures, rather than enabling more adaptability to change. In this
regard, Arif, Azhar and Bayraktar (2012, p. 1531) note that “construction firms only consider
project performance as the parameter to measure success, neglecting the importance of strategic
planning and management for higher profitability and quality business operations”.
In my organisation, performance over the past 3 years has been in decline with consecutive
losses of ever increasing proportion posted. Performance measures set by the organisation’s
senior management are purely financial and ignore strategic planning and management, opting
only for a return on equity interest from EXCO when evaluating the success of businesses in
the group. Performance measurement is also done based on historic performance, without any
forward looking measures to see if the business unit has considered its strategic future and
without interrogating its validity. The response to poor performance has not been to change
direction strategically, but rather to try to take operational decisions away from the coalface
and push them up to management. This further impacts future ability to secure the order book.
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The middle managers in my organisation are expected to assist with the development, adoption,
practice and diffusion of strategy. The organisation struggles to be able to pre-emptively
anticipate strategic windfalls and develop strategic plans through our Strategy-as-Practice (s-
a-p), resulting in a perceived inability to keep strategically ahead of our competition.
1.1.1: Contextual background to study
The strategic world that construction middle managers operate in is immensely complex.
Numerous factors simultaneously affect strategic choice, adoption and diffusion.
Notwithstanding the complexity there is a paradox – there is very little strategic difference
between competitors in the sector. During the boom period between 2004 and 2010 this was
of little consequence as profit taking was far easier. Since 2010 there has been a steady decline
of work coupled with exponential growth in the number of competitors, which has seen the
industry brought to its knees. According to the Construction Industry Development Board
(Construction Industry Development Board, 2010), the number of direct competitors grew
from 46 to 83 registered contractors between 2010 and 2016 – an increase of 80% .
Given that most construction companies in South Africa compete on a price basis, they tend to
be organisationally bound to similar strategies. (Dikmen, Birgonul, & Budayan, 2009, p. 288)
call this ‘strategic grouping’, where comparable strategic decisions are made based on the
general mode of competition in the industry, which in the case of the South African
construction industry, is an open tender system for government work. To change to other more
strategically advantageous markets is expensive, and this mobility barrier keeps organisations
in a strategic rut within which making a decision to change market positioning becomes very
difficult (Budayan, 2008, p. 10). Arguably, most listed construction companies have similar
strategies, and as Collis and Rukstad (2008, p. 86) note, “if your firm’s strategy can be applied
to any other firm, you don’t have a very good one”.
The Company under study is listed on the JSE and is involved in construction, development,
operations and maintenance of various kinds of infrastructure for both government and private
clients. It operates mainly on the African continent, but has substantial operations and
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maintenance annuity income streams from Eastern Europe and the United Kingdom. In
addition, it owns manufacturing capacity in terms of construction building materials offered to
the market.
The company is split into three business units: Construction, Manufacturing, Investments and
Concessions (I&C). In general, the construction business is underperforming, whilst the I&C
and Manufacturing clusters enjoy sustained performance that meets or exceeds expectations. I
resided under the construction division up until half way through this research effort before
leaving to join another company in October 2017.
The company analysed in this research effort has been in the ‘strategic grouping’ trap for so
long without forcing change that it has no real strategic advantage over its rivals, i.e. “the
business [has lost] its competitive advantage over competitors” (Strümpfer, 2005, p. 1). The
only perceived option is to compete on price and tactically attempt to reduce costs.
Unfortunately, this cycle has left the organisation to struggle along in an overtraded market
that is hypercompetitive, with little room for execution error and little hope for mobility into
different markets. This is not helped by other trends in the construction sector, particularly “the
changing needs of clients, [which] complicate functions of projects, [and] highlight the
pressing need for contractors to enhance competitiveness continuously” (Lu, 2006, p. 2).
In addition, the construction industry is facing the following major contextual issues:
(i) Corruption at multiple levels in the private and public sectors.
(ii) Labour unrest. “Strikes have reached a new level in terms of number, duration and
violence and have inflicted significant damage to the economy in both the short and
medium terms” (PWC, 2015, p. 13).
(iii) A lack of government spending (due to global economics as well as their own internal
technical inabilities), resulting in a decline in construction sector performance. “The
turnover in the construction industry is highly sensitive to government spending as the
government is the industry’s largest client (Windapo & Cattell, 2011; (Hove, 2015, p.
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8). According to PWC (PWC, 2015, p. 6), “since September 2009, when reaching its
high point, the construction sector has decreased by 68%”.
(iv) High levels of competition in the country and on the continent. Hove (2015, p. 9) notes
that, “There is fierce competition and low margins in the industry which generate loss
of knowledge and concomitant enterprise failure”, while (Anugwo & Shakantu, 2015,
p. 290) commented that “construction industry companies are amongst the highest of
failing business (Round & Segner, 2011). This is due to the competitive nature of the
industry”.
(v) Climate change. (World Economic Forum, 2016, p. 2) warned that, “After its presence
in the top five most impactful risks for the past three years, the failure of climate change
mitigation and adaptation has risen to the top and is perceived in 2016 as the most
impactful risk for the years to come”.
(vi) The South African Government’s drive for ‘Radical Economic Transformation’,
proposes to give more work to emerging and medium sized companies rather than large
companies. There has been a marked decrease in Construction Industry Development
Board category nine (CIDB 9) projects coming to market over the last two years. These
are the largest project types that we as an organisation are licenced to execute.
(vii) Continued policy inconsistency at government level around what they expect from the
contractors. This is not yet clear and the ambiguity from government has resulted in a
construction industry that at present remains “…highly variable and inconsistent across
a broad range of issues and policies such as the Government Preferential Procurement
Policy Framework Act” (Atkinson, et al. 2012).
(viii) The Voluntary Rebuild Programme (VRP). The SA construction industry was found
guilty of collusion following a Competition Commission investigation into work fixing
on some 140 construction projects. These projects maximised company profits at the
expense of the taxpayer in most instances. The government required more to be done
than just the paying of fines (over R1.4 billion), and negotiated that companies found
guilty of collusion had to either sell a 40% equity stake to Black Owned Entities, or
take 3 to 4 smaller black-owned companies and organically grow them to 25% of their
organisation’s own turnover. This alternative developmental role needs to be achieved
while the companies still maintain their own growth to keep shareholders happy. Many
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of the affected construction companies are still considering how to proceed, as this issue
has not been considered in strategy development. “With signing the Voluntary Rebuild
Programme, the large listed companies have committed to act as catalysts to transform
the industry. However, if we only address transformation from an ownership and
development viewpoint, the bad habits of the past will continue” (Milne, 2016, p. 2).
(ix) Government mistrust of the big six contractors that were involved in the collusion
scandal will be a difficult relationship dynamic to factor into strategies and practice
moving forward.
(x) Inability to attract talent due to the industry’s current poor reputation because of factors
like the Competition Commission investigation. “The brand damage to the industry is
difficult to gauge, but it certainly has a felt effect” (Milne, 2016).
(xi) The cash flow constraints of clients in both the public and private sectors. “Construction
finds itself in something of a perfect storm, buffeted on the one side by a weaker
economy and on the other by diminishing margins and labour strikes that have delayed
project completions and therefore revenue collections. Government’s vaunted
infrastructure programme has been slow in coming” (Pauwels, 2016).
(xii) A lack of private market work because of a commodity slump and government policy
uncertainty around mining resulting in unwillingness from foreign investors to invest
in South African mines. According to (PWC, 2015, p. 9), “Due to difficulties
experienced in the sector, mining companies have reduced their capital expenditure by
R22 billion (31%) over the past three years. The 2016 mining capital expenditure was
the lowest since 2007”.
(xiii) “A lack of R&D or technology advancements in the construction sector due to financial
constraints and general apathy in the industry in this regard” (Milne, 2016).
Unfortunately, there has been a lack of solid strategic practice to ensure improved market
positioning and performance in this environment. Most of the major listed companies have as
a result, seen their poor results translate into massive erosion of market capitalisation. My
organisation has not adjusted strategically, and continues on a similar path in the blind hope
that the market conditions will improve and solve the crisis. As a result, as Pauwel (2017)
notes, “the Big Five of the construction industry have fallen from their high-rise status… From
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2007, the Big Five has lost 79% of its value. This represents the complete destruction of
shareholder wealth – a total loss of R60 billion in value and the equivalent of a whole Capitec!”
(Pauwels, 2017). These factors all point to “perhaps (the) ultimate failure – [...] a tendency for
management to maintain the organization's current strategy-structure relationship despite
overwhelming changes in environmental conditions” (Miles, Snow, Meyer, & Coleman Henry
J., 1978, p. 558).
The balance of this chapter highlights the situation of concern within my organisation, the goals
of this research effort, and how these are intended to be achieved in terms of methods and
ethical considerations.
1.2: Situation of concern in my organisation
Currently there exists a pervasive tension between the EXCO and middle management. The
EXCO wants to see “out of the box” strategic thinking that exponentially improves the business
performance, but expects this at zero risk, without budget, and without any tolerance for
mistakes.
This unintended “standoff” between middle management and the EXCO has resulted in the
business unit managers becoming disenfranchised and middle managers acting recursively,
which leads to little or no learning. The middle managers succumb to profit and performance
pressures, with the tensions between management levels blocking relevant and productive
discourse, resulting in few strategic learnings. This in turn constrains strategic change
behaviour, limiting innovation resulting in a continuous ‘washing cycle’ of the same ideas and
strategies that are ‘reinvented’ under different guises. Figure 1 below depicts these reflections
in a rich picture format.
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Figure 1: Tensions stemming from middle management
The main situation of concern is then how the organisation can overcome this lack of
innovation in the human activity system involved in strategic practice within it.
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The following sub-section will elaborate on this in terms of flushing out more exact research
goals to guide the study to valuable and focussed findings that will enable improvement of the
situational concern within the organisation.
1.3: Research goals
The primary research goal of this study is to ascertain the role of middle managers in
interpreting, devising, diffusing, adopting and practicing strategy within the case study
organisation. A further goal is to assess what role middle managers play in pushing the values
of a learning organisation culture in the organisation. I want to gain insight into how middle
managers can build learning capacity in strategy-as-practice (s-a-p), from the perspective of
my experience within the construction industry.
My personal goals are to increase my own intellectual knowledge in s-a-p, sense-making and
Learning Organisation Theory, and to observe and gain insights into the level at which middle
managers in my organisation use the principles of s-a-p and organisational learning as a tool to
achieve strategic differentiation. This is important to me because, as a middle manager , I
struggle to understand the role played by middle managers in building a learning capacity
through s-a-p in an organisation. Löwstedt (2016, p. 11) stated that “s-a-p recommends a shift
in attention, from strategy as something a company has (possesses), i.e., which exists per se, to
something that people do”. If I can gain personal intellectual knowledge, I will better be able
to implement strategy, as a middle manager, offering my organisation and those within it a
greater opportunity to operationalise strategic learnings for the benefit of the organisation in
terms of future performance enhancement.
My goal is also to purposefully adopt a personal phronetic stance of value rational thinking,
during the research effort, in a conscious determination to combat a self-perceived industry
bias towards instrumental thinking driven to achieve the ‘most effective, most efficient’ single
solution. Given my engineering training and career over the last two decades, instrumental
thinking is a difficult bias for me to overcome. By remaining continually conscious of it during
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the research, I hope it will allow me greater headspace to be more creative and innovative in
my approach.
1.4: Focusing questions
Given the study’s concern with a human activity system of strategy practice within an
organisation, the key focusing questions are as follows:
(i) How do middle managers improve organisational capacity to learn and practice
strategy?
(ii) What sense-making and sense-giving (and sense-censoring) practices do middle
managers use to facilitate strategic learning?
(iii) What practices of middle managers facilitate the adoption or rejection of learning
organisation principles?
(iv) What role do middle managers play in enabling or disabling the diffusion of strategy
through the organisation?
(v) Are the s-a-p and Learning Organisation principles synergistic with the expected role
of a middle manager in an organisation?
(vi) What is the role of middle managers in diffusing and improving the adoption of a
developed strategy within the organisation? Likewise, what are the barriers?
(vii) Can the role of middle management in s-a-p possibly improve the organisation’s
strategic differentiation?
1.5: Research approach
This study will draw on Pragmatism as its core ontology and epistemology.
This is due to the following reasons (elaborated upon in Chapter 3.2):
1. In pragmatism, truth is developed through discourse (language), which results in
actions.
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2. Pragmatism offers the researcher an opportunity to learn cyclically without over-
reliance on what others perceive the truth to be.
3. It aligns well with a soft systems approach because it supports the idea that truth can be
constructs of what the perceived reality is by the researcher, and can then be tested and
explored through these constructs to allow greater insight and deeper, richer clarity of
the problematic situation.
4. Each learning cycle or iteration can eliminate “truths” which lack muster, efficiently
improving the accuracy of the researcher’s perceived knowledge around the system of
concern.
5. It allows the identification of potential triggers, which can offer practical routes to
improving a problematic situation.
6. Finally, Pragmatism allows reflective learnings to be incorporated by feedback looping
it into developed models and assessing the outcomes (both good and bad) for future
cycles of learning.
Adopting a Pragmatist approach is thus appropriate as it allows the researcher to:
(i) Question and probe the middle manager’s role in developing learning capacity
through s-a-p;
(ii) Find practical learnings that can challenge the status quo; and
(iii) Question current and absent practices/behaviours, to enable learning through deep
and rich insight into how the future state can be improved.
1.6: Research methodology
This predominantly qualitative effort involves studying a human activity system (of strategy
practice) in the form of a specific group of actors (middle managers) and their social
interactions within an organisation. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) in an Action Research
(AR) fashion seemed the best fit to make sense of the system as a whole. Although the research
methodology will be explained in greater detail under Chapter 2, it must be highlighted at this
point that the key rationale for selecting action research done in an SSM way is as follows:
(i) SSM is well suited to complex human activity systems;
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(ii) SSM is an inquiring approach well suited to learning and undertaking action to improve
a situation; and
(iii) SSM allows the use of a framework of ideas as lenses on the situation of concern.
According to Checkland & Holwell (1998), research using SSM in an AR way means the
researcher must proclaim his or her framework of ideas (F) that informs the enquiry upfront,
this will then be applied to the area of concern (A) through the methodological approach to
the enquiry (M), in order to generate learnings (L).
This effort had three AR cycles within its methodological approach (M) that informed its
conclusions. These are explained in detail under Chapter 2 and summarised below:
AR1. Involved using a framework of idea’s (F) using a literature review (Chapter 3)
as well as data analysis findings from an SSM exercise (Chapter 4) that resulted
in the development of a theoretical purposeful model describing the area of
concern (A) as well as generate learnings (L)
AR2. Took the learnings from AR-1 and compared these to insights or learnings (L)
that were generated from a methodological qualitative analysis (M) of data
generated from semi structured interviews and questionnaires done within my
organisation around s-a-p. These learnings (L) developed in Chapter 5,
iteratively informed and improved on the validity of the first model developed
describing the area of concern (A) in Chapter 4.
AR3. Lastly a third action research cycle allowed further learnings applied to the
purposeful model describing and modelling (A) through the data collection and
analysis (qualitative and quantitative) using a standardised questionnaire on
organisational learning (Dimensions of a Learning Organisation Questionnaire
– DLOQ – Marick and Watkins (2013)) . This was carried out in Chapter 6.
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1.7: Data gathering and analysis
Data collection is through semi structured interviews; questionnaires around s-a-p; and
questionnaires relating to evaluating the learning capacity of the organisation. These essentially
formed two of the eventual three AR cycles of this research effort each resulting, through their
detailed analysis, in learnings that would inform and improve upon a developed purposeful
activity model.
The analysis of data collected during AR-2 are purely qualitative whilst AR-3 involved both
qualitative and quantitative analysis, as elaborated on under Chapters 5 and 6 respectively.
1.8: Ethical considerations
Chapter 2.4.3 covers the ethical considerations of this paper in detail. This section is to
highlight the key ethical issues of the paper.
Essentially this research does not provide any confidential information that is not already in
the public domain. It in no way, shape or form contravenes any legal acts of our country’s
Competition laws in terms of divulging financial and strategic information of the company that
could offer a competitor an unfair market advantage.
The research did not burden anyone in the organisation unfairly, other than the time needed to
undergo an interview or complete a questionnaire, both being voluntary and as such posed no
ethical concerns.
All data collection has been sanitised for privacy. As a director of the company, I understand
my fiduciary duties and have ensured that the paper does not in any way compromise these
duties.
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No data was collected under any duress and all participants were offered full anonymity in their
responses.
1.9: Outline of the paper
This paper is organised into seven chapters. The remaining six chapters will cover the
following:
Chapter 2 details the research methodology adopted and applied in this study. It further
discusses the importance of a pragmatic approach that provides practical and implementable
outcomes through the adoption of the SSM chosen for this research effort. It also details how
the data were gathered and analysed. Normally the Chapter 2 of a dissertation goes directly
into the paper’s literature review, but in this case, I have purposefully chosen to rather elaborate
on the research methodology instead. This is primarily because SSM Research Methodology
requires that I elaborate on and describe my methodology and framework of ideas upfront or
risk invalidating the research effort.
Chapter 3 provides a detailed outline of the theoretical frameworks used (s-a-p, Learning
Organisation, Sense-making / Sense-giving) through a detailed literature review that is relevant
to the research area of concern. These insights developed will be used in the development of
the preliminary purposeful activity model in Chapter 4.7 under the first AR cycle.
Chapter 4 takes SSM and develops a purposeful activity model of “what should be” in the area
of concern (A) in terms of insights gained through this exercise as well as the literature review
covered in Chapter 3. This establishes the benchmark through theoretical idea frameworks (F)
of how middle managers can develop organisational learning capacity in strategy-as-practice
in my organisation.
Chapter 5 presents the qualitative data analysis learnings through the study’s findings from the
second of the three Action Research cycles (AR2) and is the core of the paper. It details
learnings stemming from data collected through interactions with various stakeholders at
different levels of the organisation, as well as a review of certain relevant company artefacts,
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gathered, synthesised and analysed to form an informed model of middle management abilities
in building learning capacity through s-a-p. It gives the initial picture of the area of concern
(A) demonstrated as “what should be” in a purposeful activity model from which core insights
are drawn before moving into the second Action research cycle covered in Chapter 6.
Chapter 6 details the last of the three Action Learning Cycles (AR3). This generates a final
model through iterative learnings generated through the qualitative and quantitative data
analysis of data collected through the DLOQ sent out in my organisation.
Chapter 7 concludes the research findings, offering reflections on the learning journey and
possible improvement opportunities for middle managers to ensure a greater capacity for
driving organisational learning through s-a-p. Possible future research efforts are examined,
and suggestions for potential research made.
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Chapter 2: Research Methodology
2.1: Introduction
This research project’s objective is to understand how middle managers build learning capacity
through strategy-as-practice. This chapter details the research methodology adopted during this
research effort in order to support this.
The chapter discusses the underpinning methodological paradigms of the SSM approach and
the pragmatic style of research adopted. It also details the methodological frameworks adopted
in terms of Soft Systems Methodology, its background, the rationale behind its selection, and
how it has been used as a methodology for this research effort. Data collection and analysis is
then discussed, detailing the sampling strategy for data collection, data collection itself and
finally the data analysis methods adopted. Before concluding, the Chapter will also cover the
ethical considerations of this paper and those stakeholders involved in making the research
effort possible.
2.2: Research philosophy: Pragmatism
The study adopts a research philosophy of Pragmatism. The rationale for the choice of
Pragmatism as the underlying philosophy of this research study can be explicitly stated as
follows:
First, “for pragmatism truth is linguistically mediated, which means that what is true is decided
upon within the communication between people as they attempt to engage with the world (Ray,
2004) … true propositions are those that have stood up over time to the scrutiny of individual
use” (Baker & Schaltegger, 2015, p. 268). I have purposefully accentuated “linguistically
mediated” as appreciating that strategy happens in and through language, and language is the
key to understanding the underlying principles of a pragmatic approach. In pragmatism, truth
is developed through discourse (language), which results in actions.
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Second, the philosophy of pragmatism is one that “emphasizes the practical application of ideas
by acting on them to actually test them in human experiences” (Gutek, 2014, p. 76; 100). In
this study, the undertaken action is done in the real world in order to test the validity of a
developed model of what the researcher perceives the truth to be and what the researcher
perceives should be done iteratively to ensure it passes muster over time. Pragmatism offers
the researcher the means to create and test your own truths and undertake a continuous and
never-ending cyclical learning without over-reliance on what other theorists believe the truth
should be.
Third, Pragmatism aligns well with a soft systems approach because it supports the idea that
truth is a deeper understanding of the system you are exploring, and helps you understand
system dynamics and relationships (Baker & Schaltegger, 2015). Combining a Pragmatism
approach with SSM allows the researcher to ignore the “real world” and develop constructs of
what the perceived reality is that they wish to test and explore. This allows the researcher to
explore the human activity system of concern to find truths through an iterative and practical
learning process of continual sense-making where I hope that each iteration provides greater
insight and deeper, richer clarity.
Fourth, within a Pragmatism approach, in each iteration in learning, one can remove “truths”
that do not stand the test of time (or lack muster or are found to be ‘fallible’). In so doing the
researcher can pragmatically cycle through effective learning progressions and feedback loops
of these learnings/insights and feed them back into conceptual model; thus automatically and
very efficiently improving the accuracy of the researcher’s perceived knowledge around the
system of concern. This possibly allows the researcher to gain deeper insights into improving
its future state into a more desired one (Cavaleri, 2008).
Fifth, knowledge is only useful if used practically to improve organisations and their
performance (Fendt, Kaminska-Labbé, & Sachs, 2008). It is my hope that this research and its
pragmatic approach will facilitate organisational learning through identifying triggers for
middle managers to enhance “learning capacity in strategy-as-practice”.
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Finally, Pragmatism considers reflection to be a valid source of insight. For Pragmatist Charles
Saunders Pierce, a pragmatic style is one which considers “…confrontation with reality through
action as the principal source of doubt, which in turn feeds scientific curiosity and becomes the
driving force to inquire to settle that doubt. Thus, action and the interrogations stemming from
it are what drive the agenda of science” (Pierce, cited by Fendt et al., 2008, p. 480). A
pragmatist is a “practising reflector” as opposed to a “reflective practitioner” (Kelemen &
Rumens, 2012, p. 482). This aligns well with Action Research done in an SSM way, as it is
acceptable to use continuous and unabated iterative cycles of practical action and then learn
from this action by feedback looping it into developed models and assessing the outcomes
(both good and bad) for future cycles of learning.
Adopting a Pragmatist approach is thus appropriate as it allows the researcher to (i) question
and probe the middle manager’s role in developing learning capacity through s-a-p; (ii) find
practical learnings that can challenge the status quo; and (iii) question current and absent
practices/behaviours, to enable learning through deep and rich insight into how the future state
can be improved.
The possible downside of a pragmatic approach, in my opinion, is the fact that it is susceptible
to subjectivity. Since the experimentation and research will be carried out by myself, the
findings are potentially subject to my own inherent cognitive bias and mindset. Therefore, I
stressed in Chapter 1 that I also intend to purposefully adopt a phronetic stance of value rational
thinking in a conscious effort to combat an industry bias towards instrumental thinking. From
university and throughout my entire career I have been disciplining my mind into a goal seeking
type thinking which is in line with hard systems thinking. In order that I fulfil my own given
mandate of a soft system thinking approach and methodology, I need to remind myself during
the research to fight the urge to “solve” the problem I am researching. As described in Chapter
3, SSM is more to do with a perpetual cycle of learning around the process and system than it
is about engineering it.
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2.3: Research approach: Soft Systems Methodology
This study uses Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) as its research approach. The following is
a detailed account of the background to SSM, the rationale for choosing it as the research
methodology focussing on Action Research cycles, and then concluding with how SSM is
used as a research methodology.
2.3.1: SSM and Action Research (AR)
“Hard” systems thinking, which was used effectively in the 1950s and 1960s, is grounded in
the premise that “problems” can be “engineered”, in a goal seeking style, to a conclusive
solution that eliminates the problem. Checkland (1985), realised in the early 80’s that a lot of
the “problems” we deal with are “soft” rather than “hard” in that they relate to social interaction
and human behaviour that creates “un-engineerable” complex system requiring a “soft
systems” approach. Checkland (2000) developed SSM over the last 40 or so years to be a
methodology premised on Soft Systems Thinking. Checkland (1985) defines SSM as "a
methodology for rational intervention in human affairs” that is exploratory in nature as opposed
to goal orientated. Thus, SSM is well suited for sense-making and learning of a messy complex
problem phenomenon in a never-ending way to continually improve its outcome.
SSM encourages the development of models that describe the way the world works as a
construct of theories of how the world is perceived to work, rather than how it works in reality.
Hard systems thinking is purported to build real models of the world (ie. How it really works
as opposed to how it is perceived to work). SSM requires model development that embodies a
particular way of viewing the world that is explicitly stated upfront before model development.
The model should then be true to this stated view which would form one of the Measures of
Performance of the developed model (Checkland, 1985).
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SSM promotes a way of thinking focused on perpetual learning about an area of concern, in
order to test and probe with various interventions, in an effort to iteratively improve the state
of the concerned area for the better in a cyclical fashion (Checkland, 2000). The end of the
learning is essentially an arbitrary one, declared at a certain point in time. As a result, SSM is
well suited to action research. Checkland and Holwell (1998) developed an action research
methodology using SSM. This process is illustrated below in figure 2.
Figure 2: SSM Learning Cycle (Checkland 1985)
As shown below in figure 3, SSM done in these learning cycles will lead to the development
of a purposeful activity model based on the declared perspective and perceived contexts and
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interrelationships of variables in a human system. Rather than trying to map its real world
causal interactions, it encourages us to generate as much insight as possible into the underlying
mechanism driving the perceived system causality through adopting multiple perspectives. One
can then propose an action for improvement intervention, using these mechanisms and insights
gained during the SSM process.
Figure 3: SSM process of inquiry interpretation through an action cycle (Checkland, 2000)
Essentially the researcher is also a participant in the problem situation. Being so involved in
the problem the researcher risks being unable to retain his intellectual bearings during the
research and as such should declare upfront the framework of ideas to be implemented during
the research.
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Before this is declared, it is important to note that to fully develop a final purposeful activity
model, three such action cycles shown above in Figure 3 were done during the research project.
Figure 4 below illustrates how, in principle, this research methodology adopts SSM as AR
where, in each instance, the researcher is required to declare framework (F) in the adopted
methodology (M) of Action Research (AR). This would then be applied to the area of concern
(A) yielding learnings (L) that can be iteratively reflected upon in terms of the researcher’s
lived experiences and recording the learnings throughout this research journey.
Figure 4: SSM as AR
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This project would involve three such action cycles which will be referred to as AR1, 2 and 3
respectively.
The following table shows these upfront declarations for this research effort.
Table 1: Declared F and M for this research effort's AR cycles
Action
Research
Cycle
F M A L Outcome
AR1 SSM Tools and
Literature review.
SSM Organisational
learning capacity
through strategy-
as-practice
From
qualitative
data analysis
Purposeful
Activity Model
(PAM) of the
Area of concern.
AR2 L from AR1 plus
semi structured
interviews and
questionnaires
SSM as
AR
Organisational
learning capacity
through strategy-
as-practice
From
qualitative
data analysis
Improved
accuracy PAM
AR3 L from AR2 and
the DLOQ
SSM as
AR
Organisational
learning capacity
through strategy-
as-practice
From
qualitative
and
quantitative
data analysis
Final PAM
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2.3.2: SSM as a methodology
I have encapsulated my version of Checkland’s (2000) seven step learning cycle model in my
own interpretation shown here below in Figure 6. This SSM learning cycle links to ideas that
learning takes place in both the exploratory phase (where little is known about the problematic
situation) and the exploitation phase of found interventions. The problem is never solved, but
is continually improved upon through running exploration that leads to ideas for change. The
ideas and learnings can be converted into explicit knowledge that can be exploited to the
organisation’s strategic benefit. This allows an iteratively applied learning process to the
problem situation, which hones the exploitation over time. In so doing, it has the effect of
perpetually improving the situation of most concern in an organisation until it is in a
satisfactory state, where after efforts can shift and be applied in a similar manner to the next
crucial situational concern in an explorative way.
My model details the same seven steps as Checkland’s model. SSM is underpinned by
considering conflicting worldviews about a problem situation, and human nature’s desire to
improve it through purposeful action. My interpretation adds the iterative looping through
feedback channels from learnings achieved during the SSM process steps, and highlights the
view that the beginning of the process is exploratory. Cyclical arrows in steps two and three
highlight the most exploratory phases. In trying to understand the problem situation, I feel that
given that there is flux in any situation over time, and the relationship between understanding
a problem and where you are in the continuum of time relative to the flux experienced will
influence the problem area you have. A key step modified to some extent in this model is the
cyclical looping arrows shown between steps five and six. Checkland (2000) seems to move
directly from five to six, whereas I believe that this would be iterative until all debates have
rationalised which actions are feasible and desirable. As the inquiry method unfolds and
insights emerge from the chosen actions through a few iterations of exploration, one naturally
tends towards a state where exploitation can happen from the learnings gained, until you have
honed the improvements to such a stage that you are satisfied you have sufficiently improved
the area of concern. The flux over time would change and may result in a new problem area,
where the process can then begin again.
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Figure 6: Researcher’s interpretation of Checkland’s (2000) 7-step learning cycle
To augment the insights gained from the literature review, I performed the following exercises
prior to constructing the Purposeful Activity Model required of this sub-chapter, in line with
Checkland and Poulter’s guidelines for SSM practices (2010, pp. 208–225):
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(i) Analysis 1, 2, 3.
To complete the Purposeful Activity Model, I:
(ii) Performed a CATWOE analysis to identify conflicting worldviews to inform the ROOT
definition under item (vi);
(iii) Discussed and decided whether the model will be a “Primary Task” or “Issue Based”
model to inform the ROOT definition under item (vi); and finally
(iv) Developed a suitable ROOT definition to inform the Purposeful Activity Model
development.
In Chapter 4, I will apply all these steps in detail in the first AR cycle (AR1), explaining what
they entail, as they are covered, for ease of reference to the reader.
2.3.3: Rationale for selecting of action research in an SSM way as a methodology
The key rationale for selecting action research done in an SSM way is that:
(i) SSM is well suited to complex human activity systems;
(ii) SSM is an inquiring approach well suited to learning and undertaking action to
improve a situation; and
(iii) SSM allows the use of a framework of ideas as lenses on the situation of concern.
These three reasons are elaborated upon in more detail below.
SSM is well suited to complex human activity systems
This study deals with a situation of concern of repeated poor strategic performance within an
organisation that is embedded in a complex human activity system that requires a learning and
inquiring approach to introduce improvements to the system (rather than use a hard systems
efficiency improvement approach). In trying to demystify how middle managers build learning
capacity through strategy-as-practice, I need to consider a research approach methodology that
allows me to make sense of a very complex world.
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Action research done in an SSM way (using the LUMAS action research cycle) has been
selected because SSM is suited to studying human activity systems. As a result, it should then
enable me to gain sufficient deep and rich insights that could help suggest possible
interventions to alter the area of concerns’ future state for the better.
SSM is an inquiring approach and thus suited to learning
The study focuses on systems that are complex as opposed to linear in nature and as such, they
cannot be “solved” but rather must be continually explored and better understood. This allows
for iteratively improving understanding and intervention cycles that lead towards improved
prospects.
The construction world involves various systems that interact holistically through the people
in the organisation, and in the ways they perceive and make sense of the world. All of this leads
to actions and interactions, which in turn lead to further complexities requiring even further
actions and interactions in a cyclical exploratory and experimental inquisitiveness, to
continually improve its outlook and future state. Soft Systems Thinking, where learning as
opposed to optimising is the key focus, is thus more appropriate for this study.
SSM is also more suited for messy complex problems where there can be no defined goal (or
end) but rather a push to improve the problem area iteratively through a methodology of
imposing a framed theory to assist the problem to improve through learning.
SSM enables the use of a framework of ideas
Through an SSM approach, theory and practice go hand in hand in trying to make sense of and
improve on an area of concern. As shown in Figure 3, this research study should result in a
theory that can be applied and tested in practice, in order to then feedback-loop and hone and
improve the theory to iteratively improve the practice in a self-generative fashion. It is an
intertwined relationship if it is to offer any form of pragmatic value (Checkland, 1985, p. 757).
SSM supports this ideal and this, in my view, is its biggest advantage.
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It allows employees to be continuously experimenting and engaging with their world, in a
positive way, that allows (and in fact promotes) iterative change management with feedback
loop learning to drive the organisation perpetually to an improved state.
2.4: Data collection and data analysis
2.4.1: Sampling strategy and data collection
The sampling strategy is to use purposeful sampling to select information rich cases. Criterion
sampling is used – individuals who play a pivotal role in the organisation at all levels of
management will be selected, but with a particular focus on middle management with
experience in strategy practice. The sampling emphasis is thus within a single organisation
involved in construction but with diversified business units.
Data collection is through a simultaneous strategy that incorporates three phases, namely
(i) Semi structured interviews;
(ii) Questionnaires around s-a-p; and
(iii) Questionnaires relating to evaluating the learning capacity of the organisation.
Each phase is outlined below:
Action Research Cycle 1 (AR1): Inquiry phase - Qualitative analysis
The first action research cycle (which is covered in Chapter 4 but considers the literature review
insights from chapter 3also) is a qualitative inquiry to gain insights into the current state of how
the “world should be” to allow me to diagnose and interrogate the “world as it is” in terms of
my own organisation. The literature review informs this process.
I also used the Checkland SSM steps shown in Figure 6 above to generate insights to combine
with those from the literature review in order to generate the first purposeful activity model.
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Action Research Cycle 2 (AR2): Semi structured interviews and questionnaires around
s-a-p using qualitative analysis
I interviewed senior EXCO management as well as several middle management at MD level
in various businesses within the group. In this phase, six executive committee members
including the group CEO, along with eight managing directors of varying business units within
the group (more senior middle management), were interviewed. In total, there were 14
interviewed. All interviews were conducted during one hour in a one on one session where I
questioned the individuals personally and recorded their responses myself in writing. Overall,
I covered the responses to the following 25 questions around strategy and its practice within
the organisation (refer to Table 2 below):
Table 2: Interview Questionnaire
1. Define what strategy does in your words
2. How do you see your role in strategy development?
3. On a scale of 1 to 10 what is your perception of Group Fives strategic abilities?
4. On a scale of 1 to 10, rate the effectiveness of the strategies implemented in the last period.
5. Given boom and bust periods, how do you modify your strategy-in-practise?
6. What tools do you employ in strategic discussions?
7. How do you create the conversation space that ensures maximum opportunity to pull in as many
multiple perspectives during strategic conversations as possible?
8. What practically impacts the development of strategy?
a. Drivers?
b. Restraints?
9. What do you consider as key performance measures post strategy development?
10. To what level of the organisation should be included in the strategy development? At what point should
it become purely instruction on the strategy to be carried out?
11. What factors influence the active, adoption, diffusion and belief in the developed strategy?
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12. What factors influence strategic tactical changes necessary to modify the route to the ultimate strategy?
13. What duration do you see a strategy as relevant for?
14. What frameworks or tools do you use to track strategy Measures of Performance? (Not ROE and WACC
– but rather how much of a strategic advantage the plan has given, how well it was diffused into the business
etc.)
15. How important are breakaways to the process and why?
16. How important are facilitators in the process and why?
17. In five to seven steps, describe the key strategic concepts that in your opinion are required for success?
18. What is your highest level of education?
19. How aware are you of inherent internal bias and how do you overcome it during strategic conversations
to ensure all concepts are explored for merit?
20. How do you translate strategic conversations into actionable items to ensure their implementation and
be able to track the progress thereof?
21. Name four strategic tools at your disposal that you feel comfortable to use?
22. How do you decide on which tools suit which strategic period?
23. How often should the strategy be interrogated for decisions to change or enhance to keep on track?
24. How often do you read around strategy in practice?
25. How often in a year do you discuss strategy?
I wanted to get a snapshot of how middle management within the operations of a single business
unit perceived their role in s-a-p, so I sent out the same interview questionnaire to seven
additional middle managers at head office within my business unit and twelve additional
middle managers in operations at site level, also within my business unit.
This data was very voluminous and rich in detail and as such offered massive value when re-
interrogated for this research effort through a different set of lenses. The lenses I used this time
round was s-a-p along with “learning organisation” and “sense-making/sense-giving”.
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As part of AR2, I used this reinterpreted data to gain insight into s-a-p but focussed on the unit
of measure (that of the middle manager). In other words, when looking at the senior
management and EXCO interviews I extracted the role of the manager in their eyes. I looked
at how they feel middle managers can add value through learning organisation principles
invoked during s-a-p that allows for performance enhancement as an organisation.
From the middle manager’s perspectives, I extracted their key insights into s-a-p, capacity to
learn as an organisation, how they feel they are able to sense-make, and give through these two
previously mentioned principles.
I extracted voluminous propositions from these re-interrogations and reflections on the
interviews and questionaries’ and used the Gioia method described in Chapter 2.4.2 to filter
this into succinct and valuable insights that would be used to inform the purposeful activity
model development under Chapter 4
Table 3 below details the Interviewees and questionnaire candidates used for the data
collection.
Table 3: Details of interviewees and questionnaire respondents for Phases 1 and 2
Number Interview /
Questionnaire
on s-a-p
Title Level
1 Interview Chief Executive Officer Executive Group Level
2 Interview Group Executive – Risk Executive Group Level
3 Interview Group Executive: Manufacturing Executive Group Level
4 Interview Executive Human Resources
Group
Executive Group Level
5 Interview Group Executive – Engineering
and Construction Cluster
Executive Group Level
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6 Interview Group Executive – Engineering
and Construction Cluster
Executive Group Level
7 Interview Managing Director of the Civils
Business Unit
Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
8 Interview Managing Director – Oil and Gas
Business Unit
Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
9 Interview General Manager – Projects
Business Unit
Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
10 Interview Managing Director Power
Business Unit
Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
11 Interview Managing Director Engineering Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
12 Interview Managing Director Housing Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
13 Interview Managing Director Coastal Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
14 Interview Managing Director Building
Business Unit
Senior Middle Manager
Business Unit Level
15 Questionnaire Finance Director Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
16 Questionnaire Commercial Director Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
17 Questionnaire General Manager - Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
18 Questionnaire Financial Manager Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
19 Questionnaire Director Commercial Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
20 Questionnaire Contracts Director Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
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21 Questionnaire Commercial Manager - Full Time
Site Based
Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
22 Questionnaire Site Agent - Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
23 Questionnaire Alternate Director Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
24 Questionnaire Contracts Director Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
25 Questionnaire Contracts Director Civils Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
26 Questionnaire Alternate Director Estimating in
Civils
Middle Management at
Business Unit Level
With one of the focal lenses of this research being learning capacity generation of middle
managers through s-a-p, I felt it important to augment Phase 1 and 2 with a third phase that
would evaluate how organisational employees view the learning capacity of the group. This is
covered below in Phase 3.
Action Research Cycle 3 (AR3): The Dimension of a Learning Organisation
Questionnaire (DLOQ) questionnaire – Qualitative and quantitative analysis
It is important to be able to measure where the organisation currently sits in terms of aspirations
to be a learning organisation. To this end, I will adopt an additional grounded theoretical
questionnaire developed by Marsick and Watkins (Marsick & Watkins, 2003) over a decade.
This questionnaire was selected because of the grounded theory rigour it offered given its
existence and testing over the last decade and more. The research method needed a baseline
measure of my organisation in terms of being a learning organisation and using an established
method made academic sense.
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The DLOQ measures seven principles that are required to be in place for a learning origination
to be realised. Positive permission to use their Dimension of a Learning Organisation
Questionnaire (DLOQ) was given by both Victoria Marsick and Karen Watkins as per
Appendix 1.
Thereafter I will do my own interpretation of the data and confirm/enhance the insights gained
through collaboration with Karen Watkins directly (again with Victoria Marswick’s
permission). Even though my interpretation was qualitative, Watkins offered to run a
regression analysis on the data I had gathered (which was 54 returned questionnaires of 129
sent out to middle managers across the organisation) and I thus emailed the insights to her. This
was generous on her side as this was not my original intention when starting this research given
the time constraints and the inherent complexity of running a qualitative and quantitative
methodology. Watkins’ email response and correlations found are discussed in Chapter 6.
2.4.2: Data analysis
The Gioia method
I will use the Gioia method to re-interrogate the data looking for insights into not only s-a-p
but also in terms of learnings, learning organisation principles, sense-making and sense-giving
and any links between all of them.
The Gioia method (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2012) will be used for synthesis and analysis.
I will use the Gioia method using a 1st, 2nd and 3rd order of categorisation to distil and crystallise
possible model variables and contextual influencers.
Gioia et al (2012) described their process on page 20 of their paper, which I have paraphrased
in the following paragraph.
• The 1st-order analysis adheres strictly to informant terms, with easily 50 to 100, 1st-order
emergent categories.
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• In a 2nd order analysis I will seek similarities and differences among the many 1st order
categories to reduce the relevant categories to a more manageable number of 25 to 30.
These are termed 2nd order themes. Gioia et al.(2012, p. 20) noted that “in this 2nd-order
analysis, we are now firmly in the theoretical realm, asking whether the emerging themes
suggest concepts that might help us describe and explain the phenomena we are observing.”
• From here we use the 2nd order themes and aggregate them further still to what Gioia et al
call 2nd-order ‘‘aggregate dimensions.’” Once all three have been determined a data
structure is drawn up as a “sensible visual aid” (Gioia et al., 2012, p. 20) to help the model
development and data analysis process where “…after the initial stages of analysis, we also
begin cycling between emergent data, themes, concepts, and dimensions and the relevant
literature, not only to see whether what we are finding has precedents, but also whether we
have discovered new concepts” (Gioia et al., 2012, p. 21).
The following diagram illustrates the proposed Gioia method to data analysis that will be
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Figure 7: Gioia Method Indicative Illustration (Gioia et al., 2012)
Using these developed insights from the data collection and analysis, I will develop a
conceptual model through a grounded method for both my “should be” and “as is” models that
explains the phenomenon of interest and its core concepts dynamic relationships in a rigorous
and ordered way.
2.5: Ethical considerations
All questionnaires were collected anonymously and permission to solicit the manager’s help in
filling in the questionnaire was obtained by the group CEO prior to sending it out. No staff
member was under any obligation to return the questionnaire and this was made clear when
sending out the request to assist in this study. (See appendix 2 copy of this)
In any data gathering and analysis process, especially as an employee of the same organisation,
a major risk for the researcher is ‘‘going native’’ (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2012, p. 19). The
risk lies in essentially adopting the informant’s view and losing objective higher-level
perspective necessary for informed theorizing. To combat this and in terms of the Gioia
method, I will ensure that my dissertation supervisor act as a “devil’s advocate” (Gioia et al.,
2012, p. 19) to continually question and critique my data interpretations to push me beyond the
obvious and linear rational thinking.
Ethically, this paper offers immense value not only for my personal growth, but also to the
organisation as a whole. It is an attempt to find a way to influence social behaviour in the
company through key role players, who can hopefully influence the organisation’s future
performance and improve our strategic competitiveness and thus sustainability (viability). In
this way it helps to secure the future of the company and in so doing the employees, their
livelihoods and their families’ well-being. A more sustainable and strategically differentiated
company is potentially more profitable, and thus offers shareholders better returns.
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This research does not provide any confidential information that is not already in the public
domain, since the organisation is a listed entity. It does not divulge the company’s future
strategy, nor does it compromise the company or its employees in any way; it is simply research
to find ways to improve how middle managers can build the learning capacity of the
organisation, to practice strategy, to better our future business relevance, and to allow a learning
ability as an organisation.
The research did not burden anyone in the organisation unfairly, other than taking the time
needed to undergo an interview or complete a questionnaire. Both were voluntary and as such
posed no ethical concerns.
Any data that was perceived as sensitive was sanitised, including if it could have been
detrimental to an employee if it were shared with EXCO members and/or other employees.
Another ethical concern involved potentially private matters (both personal and company
related), however all discussions fell under Chatham House Rules1. As a director of the
company, I understand my fiduciary duties as well as the unwritten cultural rules about what
should and should not leave the interview room. I was also cautious when conducting the
interviews and queried from time to time, whether the information being shared was sensitive.
Further, it was made clear at the outset of each interview that the interviewees were not required
to answer any uncomfortable questions.
In the interviews and questionnaires, anonymity will be key to ensure truthful answers that
would provide valid and robust data with rich meaning. UCT’s Code of Research Ethics has
been and will be followed.
1 The Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs developed the world famous Chatham House Rule which may be invoked to encourage openness and the sharing of information. The rule is as follows from their official website (www.chathamhouse.org) : “When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”
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I will also be aware to not use my authority in an unethical manner to extract data from an
unwilling subject or subordinate, and any information received from others in the industry will
be assessed in terms of the Competition Act.
In summary, although there are some privacy concerns, efforts have been made to address them
by using simple countermeasures that protect the integrity of the research and its potential
outcomes.
2.6: Conclusion
Pragmatism is chosen as the overarching research style in order to provide practical
implementable interventions that will advance the middle manager’s role in driving
organisational learning through s-a-p in my organisation. This gives the research purposeful
intent, which adds significant value by removing error and honing the business model towards
an improved system (heuristic).
Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) as Action Research (AR) will be adopted as the primary
research methodology to develop deep and rich understanding of the phenomenon of interest
without attempting to “solve” it in a goal seeking mentality. Instead, the promotion of continual
learning through developing and testing a model around the system of interest will direct the
research effort. It is the most suited to inquiry of human systems.
Chapter 3 focuses on the literature review in order to gain insights for AR1 (covered in chapter
4). I need to develop a deeper understanding of s-a-p, sense-making/sense-giving and learning
organisation. Each of these will be unpacked in detail to offer propositions on how they play a
role for middle managers to develop organisational learning capacity through s-a-p within my
organisation.
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Chapter 3: Literature review
3.1: Introduction
The literature review will cover strategy-as-practice (s-a-p), with a specific focus on knowledge
as practice and the role of the middle manager. Insights will be gathered by investigating the
literature to try to ascertain what middle managers’ role is in s-a-p, how they influence
diffusion, their ability to use s-a-p to sense-make, and how this influences organisational
adaptability. It is also hoped that insights into possible barriers or inhibitors (as well as any
catalysts) that middle managers may experience through s-a-p would be gained.
Literature was also examined to gain insights into what a learning organisation is, as well as
how it influences s-a-p and a middle manager’s capacity to utilise these learnings as knowledge,
which in turn influences the organisation’s performance, strategy and potentially its culture.
This literature review portion should also give insight into how learnings are used
organisationally and at middle manager level to sense make and sense give, both of which are
critical in s-a-p.
Lastly, academic research into sense-making and sense-giving, focussing on the middle
manager as a unit of analysis, is examined, with the intent to gain insight into the influence of
sense-making and sense-giving on s-a-p and the ability of middle managers to use these to
influence organisational learning for strategic benefit and hopefully organisational
performance enhancement.
The ultimate intention of this literature review is to develop a foundation upon which to build
a purposeful activity model (in Chapter 4) of how middle managers learn, accumulate and use
strategic practice as knowledge, and undertake strategic sense-making and sense-giving, in
order to influence the development of a learning organisation.
This literature review begins with a discussion of Strategy-as-Practice that covers its definition,
key components, different s-a-p practices and most critically the role that middle managers
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play. More specifically the s-a-p literature review focusses on how organisational structuring
in terms of their practice as knowledge influences middle managers and how they create
knowledge and use it in sense-making. The subsection then concludes with possible inhibitors
and barriers to s-a-p before moving into literature reviews on sense-making/sense-giving and
lastly Learning Organisations
3.2: Strategy as practice and the role of middle managers
3.2.1: Definition of s-a-p
Strategy as practice is concerned with understanding how people perform work in
organisations. Jarzabkowski & Spee (2009, p. 69) define Strategy-as-practice (s-as-p) as a
“research topic…concerned with the doing of strategy; who does it, what they do, how they
do it, what they use, and what implications this has for shaping strategy".
3.2.2: Key components of s-a-p
There are three key components of s-a-p: Practitioners, Praxis and Practices, defined as follows:
Practitioners are the actors who drive strategy development in organisations through direct
and indirect influence. They can be internal or external to an organisation and can be at a
number of levels in terms of hierarchy (Whittington, 2007, p. 1579). This research effort
focuses on the practitioners who have direct influence at organisational level internally
(specifically the middle manager as a meso-level aggregate level as the unit of analysis), as
opposed to extra-organisational practitioners who have indirect influence at the macro level
(such as government policies, business schools etc.).
Praxis refers to the flow of strategy “practices, decisions and events” over time, where the time
element is the key differentiator (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009, p. 73). Praxis refers to the way
strategic decision making is done through the various practices by the various actors, and how
these actors try and influence or sell certain strategic ideas and plans to the rest of the
organisation in the name of strategic advancement (Whittington, 2007, p. 1578).
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Practices are the “traditions, norms, rules and routines through which the work of strategy is
constructed” (Whittington, 2002, cited in Jarzabkowski, (2004, p. 20). According to
Whittington (2007), praxis, practices and practitioners “offer a sense of definition that was
earlier missing from Strategy-as-Practice research”. Although there is an overlap between
praxis and the process of strategy, a more specific focus on practice, practitioners and
profession allows the researcher to drill down deeper to offer a richer and more complex
understanding of the whole system and its importance to an organisation’s performance over
time (Whittington, 2007, p. 1578).
Now that the components of s-a-p are defined, it is important to highlight that literature on
practices have been significantly enhanced since 2007. In 3.2.3 below I elaborate on this using
Rouleau (2013) to give a deeper appreciation of the differing views on practices within the
literature.
3.2.3: Different views of “practice/s” in s-a-p
According to Rouleau (2013), s-a-p focuses on five forms of practices, which are summarised
in Table 4 below:
Table 4: Practice Views (Rouleau, 2013)
Practice View What it focuses on Research Purpose / Contribution
Practice as
managerial
action
How managers and
others strategize
A deeper comprehension of managerial
roles, skills and abilities related to
strategizing activities
Practices as a
set of tools
How managers and
others use the tools of
strategy
A stronger comprehension of the informal
procedures of strategic planning, tools and
meetings
Practice as
knowledge
How managers and
others perform strategy
A better interpretation of contextual and
hidden characteristics of strategizing
routines, conversations and interactions
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Practices as
organisational
resources
How organisational
practices shape strategic
competitive advantage
A renewed understanding of the
organisational level routines, capabilities
and processes
Practice as
global
discourse
How strategy discourse
produces managers and
organisations
A critical understanding of the institutional
and disciplinary role of strategy through
extra-organisational discourses
This research study will primarily consider strategy practice as knowledge as well as practice
as managerial action. This will inform the research as to how middle managers interact and
discuss strategy-developing routines that reinforce institutionalised knowledge in strategy
development. By understanding these routines and interactions, the researcher hopes to get a
sense of the strategic tone which is set culturally for the organisation.
3.2.4: The role of middle managers as s-a-p actors
As actors in s-a-p, middle managers play a critical social and political role that influences power
dynamics, social interaction and “routinisation” of practice. The knock-on effects of this
influence are informal power distribution and knowledge capacity development.
The role of middle manager as actor, in the context of s-a-p, links to organisational strategic
performance. In my experience, the middle manager either blocks or perpetuates the group’s
strategic intent and culture. Löwstedt (2016, p. 11) supports this assertation, arguing that “s-a-
p recommends a shift in attention, from strategy as something a company has (possesses), i.e.,
which exists per se, to something that people do”. The “people” he refers to are the middle
managers who are the focus of this study.
Practices of middle managers in an organisation influence middle managers and vice versa in
terms of learning, sense-making and sense-giving. This is due to the fact that strategy is
“socially constructed” (Jarzabkowski, 2004, p. 2) through practice by individual actors (middle
managers), which aggregates to form how a company or organisation practices it. Strategic
success relies on middle managers and their practices, given that they influence strategic
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“adoption and “routinisation” in organisational practice”, as well as strategy diffusion
(Jarzabkowski & Kaplan, 2015, p. 546).
How middle managers “interact with the social and physical features of context in the everyday
activities that constitute practice” (Jarzabkowski, 2004, p. 2) through the lenses of sense-
making and Learning Organisation, highlights the role middle managers can play in developing
knowledge through s-a-p. This can be used to enhance organisation learning capacity to
improve sustainability and long term perpetual strategic differentiation advantage.
How middle managers in an organisation develop and diffuse strategy (or practice) within
surrounding contextual issues gives direct insight into the challenges in strategy practice. The
where, how and when of strategy practice, in the context of power and social dynamics,
determines where best to influence strategic effectiveness in order to drive competitive
advantage (Rouleau et al., 2010).
3.2.5: The effect of organisational structuring on middle managers’ practice as
knowledge
The organisational structure within which middle managers are contextualised also has
research merit. Whether a business is more centralised or decentralised, bureaucratic or not,
divisional or flat in structure, has a bearing on middle management agency, and recursively
influences their forms of practice. In other words, it directly influences their resistance levels
to devolving, adopting and diffusing strategic change (Jarzabkowski, 2004, p. 539).
Middle managers’ structuring position within the organisation can also play a role in how
adaptive an organisation is, and hence how much of a learning organisation it is. This is turn
directly influences who participates in the strategy development and practices. As
Jarzabkowski (2004) notes:
“Culturally adaptive organizations are characterized by decentralization, with the role of senior
management being to support and align strategic initiatives arising at other levels of the firm
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(Bartlett and Ghoshal 1993). When strategy participation is more widespread, with
decentralized decision-making, cultures are more predisposed to creativity (Garud and Karnoe
2001; Shaw et al. 1998) and broader learning attitudes to risk-taking (Easterby-Smith 1990;
Eisenhardt and Sull 2001)” (Jarzabkowski, 2004, p. 539).
3.2.6: Middle managers’ role in knowledge creation through s-a-p
S-a-p as knowledge practice also ties directly to the frameworks of knowledge creation and
learning organisation theory.
Learning organisations (discussed in Chapter 3.4) require people who “continually expand their
capacity to create results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are
nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to
learn together” (Senge, 2006, p. 3). This requires middle managers who practice and encompass
this paradigm.
Popova-Nowak and Cseh (2015, p. 316) define organisational learning as a “social process of
individuals participating in collective situated practices and discourses that reproduce and
simultaneously expand organizational knowledge structures and link at multiple levels in the
organisation". Again, this talks to middle manager practices (in particular knowledge as
practice), and how this influences strategic learning and its diffusion throughout the rest of the
organisation.
Middle managers can be seen as a “micro-community” within the organisation, who, should
they possess the ability to hold “multiple interpretations simultaneously” and be able to bring
them into the strategy practices, effectively create a knowledge fashioning system within the
organisation that facilitates the strategic process (Jarzabkowski, 2004, p. 538).
The tacit knowledge that middle managers possess can also be seen as critical knowledge,
which, if effectively recognised, can aid greatly in the implementation of strategic change
(Rouleau, 2005, p. 1439) through middle management s-a-p.
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In s-a-p, middle managers play a pivotal role in knowledge creation and the strategic action
stemming from it; they are key to how strategy and strategic knowledge (tacit and explicit) are
diffused within the organisation. Moreover, the way they are treated by senior management
and the organisational structure impacts directly on their effectiveness in s-a-p processes, as it
determines their agency and feel. For example, in an organisation where creativity and flair are
expected by middle managers, they need to be supported by managers who do not punish, but
rather encourage experimentation and learning from failures. With this dynamic, s-a-p would
be augmented rather than stifled. Thus the relationship between top management role
expectations (and how they support this) determine the agency afforded to middle management,
enabling a more successful s-a-p (Mantere, 2008). This speaks directly to the learning
organisational theory, where structuring is a key contextual factor in determining middle
management’s and an organisation’s ability to create and act on knowledge creation and
learnings from that knowledge (Fiol & Lyles, 1985).
3.2.7: Middle managers as sense-makers
How different levels of management in the organisation adopt s-a-p, in order to fulfil their
strategic duty, is heavily dependent on how middle management are able to influence those
above and below themselves (through sense-making and sense-giving, discussed in Chapter
3.3) across a number of levels. To do this they engage in strategy as knowledge, which if
analysed for certain parameters may help us understand the efficacy of strategy action in an
organisation (Rouleau & Balogun, 2011). Rouleau and Balogun (2011) continue that one
should specifically look at the parameters of ‘performing the conversation’ and ‘setting the
scene’, which are critical to s-a-p in terms of sense-making. This is also influenced by a middle
managers’ “ability to draw on symbolic and verbal representations” (Rouleau & Balogun,
2011, p. 954)in order to get a message across that is strategically relevant, eloquent and
convincing, resulting in change adoption and diffusion for the improvement of the
organisation’s strategic practices.
“Symbolic and verbal representations” also speak heavily to the principles of a Learning
Organisation through the theory of the Knowledge Creating Company (Nonaka, 1991), where
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the use of symbolic metaphors and analogies, along with modelling positively, influence
Strategy as Knowledge. It does this by taking tacit strategic knowledge and putting it into a
model form that makes it explicit for everyone in the organisation.
The middle manager’s ability to set the scene and conduct the actual conversation is key to his
or her sense-making within an organisation’s subtle cultural and social systems. If a middle
manager can navigate this then it allows effective spreading of the correct strategic message,
augmenting strategy diffusion in the organisation. This would obviously, only be possible if
the knowledge passed down by more senior management has been translated effectively in a
similar fashion. This also talks to the ‘agency’ argument, and its influence on how a middle
manager will interact with those above, below and around themselves (Rouleau & Balogun,
2011).
3.2.8: Inhibitors – Possible barriers to s-a-p
As part of this framework, we need to understand not only s-a-p drivers, but also inhibitors and
potential barriers. As Jarzabkowski (2004) notes:
“At the organisational level, the problem of recursion is illustrated in path dependence,
persistent organisational routines, and organisational memory. The strategic and operational
routines of an organisation have genetic properties that predispose it to act in certain ways and,
more importantly, define the possible options that it may take (Nelson and Winter 1982).
Routines are socially complex, embedded, and interlocked. They comprise a social architecture
that penetrates a firm’s communication channels, information filters and problem-solving
strategies making it difficult for the firm to absorb new technologies (Henderson and Clark
1990)” (Jarzabkowski, 2004, p. 6).
This means that company culture and socialisation may inhibit a middle manager’s ability to
build organisation learning capacity through s-a-p given that he or she may run the risk of being
socialised into that organisation’s specific routines and practices, which over time lead to a
resistance to any form of change - strategic or otherwise. Löwstedt (2016) agrees that culture
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and people who are ‘set in their ways’ (collective identification) can kill strategic change
initiatives and lead to bias.
Middle management may also be biased due to contextual issues such as cost cutting or contract
losses, which result in decisions being made based on preconceived perceptions of these
circumstances, rather than the current reality. This influences the strategic practice and decision
making, leading to possibly worse performances. This is also known as “superstitious learning”
(Hardcopf, Goncalves, Linderman, & Bendoly, 2015, p. 19).
Another factor to remember about s-a-p with middle managers, is that in construction most
promotion has not occurred through performance in s-a-p and strategic development and
decision making, but rather from what was learnt and proven over time to work in the site
production environment. Again, this culture and socialisation will only reinforce “superstitious
learning”.
Most companies are driven by bottom line results, and “cost out” initiatives often dominate
overarching strategies. The result can be substantial in terms of longer term performance
(Hardcopf et al., 2015, p. 15). The reasoning for this is that a culture of this nature socialises
middle managers into s-a-p that considers only short-term cost cutting tactics, resulting in a
misalignment with the organisation’s strategy.
3.2.9: Learnings synopsis for s-a-p
Middle managers play a critical social and political role that influences power dynamics, social
interaction and “routinisation” of practice. Their practice influences the organisation and vice
versa especially in terms of sense-making, sense-giving and the ability to generate learning
from this.
A middle managers’ given hierarchical “power” and social influence from company
structuring, as well as an organisation’s business structuring (centralised or decentralised),
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plays a role in a middle managers’ s-a-p and their ability to influence others in the organisation
around s-a-p.
In s-a-p, a middle manager’s role in knowledge creation and the strategic action stemming from
it are key to how strategy and strategic knowledge (tacit and explicit) are diffused within the
organisation. How different levels of management in the organisation adopt s-a-p, in order to
fulfil their strategic duty, is heavily dependent on how middle management, are able to
influence those above and below themselves (through sense-making and sense-giving) across
a number of levels.
The following section (3.3) therefore looks at literature around middle managers and their
ability for sense-making and sense-giving and its influence on the organisation’s s-a-p.
3.3: Sense Making and Sense-Giving
According to (Rouleau, 2005, p. 1415) “sense-making has to do with the way managers
understand, interpret, and create sense for themselves based on the information surrounding
the strategic change. Sense-giving is concerned with their attempts to influence the outcome,
to communicate their thoughts about the change to others, and to gain their support”.
Both concepts (sense-making and sense-giving) are crucial to middle managers and how they
influence their own (and their organisation’s) ability to create learning capacity though s-a-p.
These concepts depend on how informed a middle manager is, what his/her social standing is,
how he/she interacts socially, and how in tune the organisation is to learning principles. These
dependencies are in turn influenced by the organisational culture, how this culture influences
mental models and then lastly, how in the context of formal and informal power, the manager
is able to use his discursive ability to influence, communicate, gain favour and influence those
around them. Through this a middle manager is able to create capacity to learn and importantly
use these learnings and communicate them so that the knowledge is transformed into actionable
knowledge from an informed standpoint which allows an organisation to improve its future
performance.
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According to Maitlis and Lawrence (2007), sense-making is not something that stems from
mental models (although a circular influence would also exist between a manager’s mental
model and the way he makes sense and gives sense). Instead, sense-making is a ‘living thing’
that evolves and emerges amongst middle managers as they engage in s-a-p, and is particularly
sensitive to the discursive ability of a middle manager. In other words, sense-making and sense-
giving are inextricably linked in an almost symbiotic relationship; the more sense a manager is
able to make, the better their understanding (perceived or otherwise) and the greater their ability
to discuss and debate with others. This leads to further learnings and potential knowledge
creation, which enriches and deepens their understanding, all of which enhances a middle
manager to sense-make.
This is reinforced by the finding of Rouleau and Balogun (2011, p. 955), who conclude that:
“…strategic sense-making does not exist just in cognitive structures or in routines and systems,
it is constituted and reconstituted in ongoing discursive activities of middle managers (Taylor
and Robichaud, 2004). In other words, strategic sense-making is accomplished through the
ability of middle managers to craft and share a message by referring to a complex mosaic of
underlying knowledge (Samra-Fredericks, 2005) that is subtly invoked in order to make that
message meaningful within the context.”
If an organisation strives towards becoming a learning organisation, then the role of middle
managers is crucial, given its interdependence with sense-making and sense-giving. Rouleau
states that sense-making and sense-giving are “in a permanent flux and constantly being
reconstituted in daily experiences of agents” (2005, p. 1437). This means that s-a-p
(specifically Knowledge as Practice) at the aggregated level of the middle manager is critical
to this process, as it influences these routines and the accumulation knowledge (particularly
tacit knowledge) developed over time through experience. If this is reinforced positively in
middle managers, then it stands to reason that this knowledge can be made explicit to others
throughout the organisation far more effectively, allowing for better strategic diffusion and the
adoption of any required strategic change initiative, leading to improved performance. This
speaks to learning organisation principles.
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In terms of a learning organisation and s-a-p (in particular s-a-p as a knowledge practice),
sense-making is a key link. It determines how information is perceived, construed,
contextualised, internalised, externalised, what knowledge could be created, and how the
knowledge is created. Sense-making influences how this information and knowledge would be
diffused or blocked in an organisational setting, and informs adaptive or recursive behaviour
as explained under the s-a-p discussion in Chapter 3.
The advantage for middle managers, who can perpetually learn through their everyday
practices and experiences with strategy, is that they can augment their ability to sense-make
and sense-give in a manner that allows the implementation of strategic change. Through this
evolving s-a-p, one hopes to improve the strategic future of the organisation by developing
strategic differentiation and thus competitive advantage. S-a-p allows sense-making through
practices, praxis and practitioners to understand what mechanisms within the organisation and
its impacting environment “underlie resources and capabilities that maintain competitive
advantage” (Rouleau et al., 2010, p. 17).
Given the varying backgrounds of managers, their contextualised interpretation (sense-making)
of the strategy will affect the way they translate (sense-giving) it to others. Strategy as practice
is critical to the diffusion of strategy throughout an organisation. This is strongly influenced by
a manager’s tacit knowledge, as well as the organisational culture they drive. Managers are
also key to adopting, dispersing and/or influencing change ideas to stakeholders within and
external to the organisation, in their own way; they tend to bend the facts of the strategy slightly
to suit the audience they have. In other words, the interpretation of the strategy will be
explained slightly differently to different levels of the organisation and outside the organisation
(Rouleau, 2005).
Middle managers help stakeholders (including each other) make sense of their strategic realities
through social interaction in s-a-p, which develops knowledge and creates actionable learnings.
Arguably, this only works if those influencing the sense-making, through sense-giving, are
motivated to do so. Middle managers need to feel that the issue is important, that they have the
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requisite knowledge, that their social standing in their organisation legitimises them. Above all
they must exist in a social structure which is conducive to them being able to conduct sense-
giving (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2007).
Rouleau and Balogun (2011) note that power also influences a middle manager’s ability to
sense-make, and thereby sense-give, which is developed over time through a deeper
understanding of his or her contextual influences. This requires ongoing knowledge
accumulation through continual learning. It can also be inferred that learning and sense-making
are intertwined in how knowledge is accumulated, assimilated, understood and acted upon
strategically in s-a-p, primarily through interactions in conversations. This means that a middle
manager’s sense-making and sense-giving ability would be primarily influenced by their ability
to “draw on symbolic and verbal representation and the sociocultural systems they belong to”
(Rouleau & Balogun, 2011, pp. 971–972).
Common and varying worldviews can influence how middle managers organise culturally to
form similar micro-practices of strategic sense-making and sense-giving, which may then
influence everyday routines and conversations. Rouleau (2013) observes that middle managers
are only human and subject to their own biases and mental models created through everyday
s-a-p and knowledge assimilation. This would have an influence on sense-making and
interpretation of the “contextual and hidden characteristics of strategizing” (Rouleau, 2013, p.
549) (i.e. their Knowledge as Practice).
3.3.1: Learnings synopsis for sense-making and sense-giving
Sense-making and sense-giving are the means by which middle managers can influence their
organisation’s ability to create learning capacity though s-a-p. The reason for this is due to the
fact that that middle managers help stakeholders (including each other) make sense of their
strategic realities through social interaction in s-a-p, and this develops knowledge and creates
actionable learnings.
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Social interaction is however influenced by culture and power, and these impact on how middle
managers organise culturally to form similar micro-practices of strategic sense-making and
sense-giving, which may then influence everyday routines and conversations. Conversation is
a key lever to allow for sense-making and sense-giving in that learning, sense-making and
sense-giving are intertwined in how knowledge is accumulated, assimilated, understood and
acted upon strategically in s-a-p, primarily through interactions during these conversations.
The efficacy of these conversations is influenced by the s-a-p “routinisation” of middle
managers, which in turn is influenced by an organisation’s culture. The more open the culture
to learning the more positive the socialisation, the greater the aggregated level of the middle
manager influences on these routines, enhancing the accumulation knowledge (particularly
tacit knowledge) developed over time.
The next section will focus on the Learning Organisation, its interactions with the environment
(both external and internal), and its impact on organisational culture (as well as micro cultures
within the organisation), organisational structure and strategy.
3.4: Learning Organisations
Learning organisations are essential in competitive industries. Dekoulou and Trivellas (2015)
assert that:
“Fierce competition, rapid evolution of information technology, economic uncertainty and
ceaselessly shifting consumer trends, have brought about for contemporary business world a
new era where the major source of competitiveness lies in a company’s ability to transform into
a learning organization, an organization which constantly generates, diffuses and integrates new
knowledge" (Dekoulou & Trivellas, 2015).
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Senge (2006, p4) agrees in his observation that:
“As the world becomes more interconnected and business becomes more complex and
dynamic, work must become more meaningful…it’s just not possible any longer to figure it out
from the top and have everyone else following the orders of the grand “strategist”. The
organisations that will truly excel in the future will be the organisations that discover how to
tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in the organisation” (2006, p. 4).
In other words, organisations must become learning organisations. Dekoulou & Trivellas,
(2015) show their agreement by quoting Fang and Yang (2006) that "in order to deal with this
business volatility, to achieve superior organizational performance and sustainable
competitiveness, organizations imperatively need to base their action on regular creation and
integration of new knowledge, and thus, to adopt the model of learning organization for their
daily operation”.
Senge describes a learning organisation as one “where people continually expand their capacity
to create results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured,
where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn
together” (2006, p. 3).
Within this context, I reviewed other relevant literature pertaining to learning organisations and
their principles of development and implementation. The following four sub-sections detail my
findings, starting with organisational structuring and its influence on the ability of an
organisation to learn.
3.4.1: Learning organisation and structure
A company’s structure influences its s-a-p, and in so doing limits or acts as a catalyst in terms
of its ability to learn. The structure also determines how much formal power (versus socially
given informal power) is given to certain levels within the organisation. Power in an
organisation determines agency, with which comes strategic flexibility and adaptability.
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Fiol and Lyle (1985) state that being centralised in structure limits flexibility, because
concentrated power bases that socialise employees into recursive strategic behaviour, results
in limited learning that only reinforces past behaviour. They found that “an organic, more
decentralized structure tends to allow shifts of beliefs and actions" (p. 805), which means that
learnings can be used to action strategic changes that drive the business towards an improved
future strategic state.
Power distribution is thus crucial in any organisation, which in turn influences its strategy
practices. It also affects an organisation’s ability to learn from its strategic successes and
failures, which it needs to do in order to adapt to the ever-changing internal and external
environments impacting it. The following sub-section explores this influence on strategy and
its effect on becoming a learning organisation.
3.4.2: Learning organisation and strategy
Garvin (2013) argued that in order to develop a learning organisation, the organisation first
needs to develop skills in “creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge and modifying its
behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights” (p. 3). He adds that if knowledge were not
converted into action, there would be no strategic improvement. He believes that there are
various ways in which to develop a learning organisation, but the one that I feel is most relevant
is learning from strategic successes and failures. These learnings should be codified and
documented in a way that is easily accessible for employees, if one wants to learn from history.
This is in line with Weinzimmer and Esken (2017), who took the idea further by splitting
knowledge creation and use into two categories, namely: strategic exploration and strategic
exploitation. Weinzimmer and Esken (2017) contend that companies should have a balance of
both an explorative and exploitative strategy, but that the weighting should be on exploration
within an organisation. They argue that a company must push itself to become purposefully
“mistake tolerant”.
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A mistake-tolerant strategy within an organisation encourages knowledge creation that limits
future risk and creates new and innovative solutions. Weinzimmer and Esken (2017) cite Gatti,
Volpe and Vagnani (2015) to illustrate that this would allow “organizations to reduce their
dependence on the currently deployed combination of solutions which, at best, produce
decreasing marginal benefit to the organization over time” (p. 7). Ultimately, unless new
knowledge is generated, your competitors will overcome your initial strategic differentiation
advantage and overtake your company.
To adopt an exploitative/explorative balanced strategy, the internal and external environmental
impacts and contextual influencers (on becoming a learning organisation) are critical to review.
This is explored in the next sub-section.
3.4.3: Learning organisation and environment
To enhance an organisation’s ability to generate learning capacity through s-a-p,
Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer (2014, p. 6), emphasise that organizations must “adapt to frequent
environmental changes and refrain from repeating errors, to assimilate processes of learning
and draw lessons from the experiences they encounter if they are to cope with uncertainty.”
An organisation that promotes learning through being mistake tolerant stimulates an
environment that is conducive to innovation and advancement through knowledge creation,
leading to strategic advantage and potentially strategic differentiation. Key to this is the ability
to take this knowledge and integrate it into the existing business systems and procedures in an
exploitative way to generate action. Exploitative knowledge creation and its efficient use is
also a key component of the organisational learning cycle.
As leaders, middle managers are crucial for organisational communication. They drive
organisational resilience and adaptability through their promulgation and diffusion of
knowledge, which can help protect organisations from negative changes in their operating
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environment. This will also enhance positive change responses to improve the company’s
performance (Waddell & Pio, 2015).
The extent to which culture influences the learning organisational model will now be explored,
as it is crucial to enabling an organisation to become a learning one.
3.4.4: Learning organisation and culture
Senge (2006, p.3) described a learning organisation as one “where people continually expand
their capacity to create results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking
are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning
to learn together”. This is reinforced by organisational learning, which Popova-Nowak and
Cseh (2016, p.316) explained as a “social process of individuals participating in collective
situated practices and discourses that reproduce and simultaneously expand organizational
knowledge structures and link at multiple levels in the organisation”.
Senge (2006) laid out five key disciplines for establishing a learning organisation or promoting
organisational learning, namely: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building
a shared vision, and team learning.
Culture plays a crucial role in establishing a learning organisation, not only at the organisational
level, but also at the micro and meso levels as well. Kofman and Senge (1994, p. 20) describe
the foundational values of a learning organisation as “love, humility, wonder (continuous
inquiry into the effects and consequences of actions on the system), empathy and compassion
utilising a set of practices for generative conversation and coordinated action through a work
and life flow that is holistically interconnected”. These are important concepts, but can be
difficult to put into practice. Marsick and Watkins (2010a) observe that “people have found the
idea of a learning organization to be inspiring, yet difficult to implement. It frequently involves
deep change in the mind sets of people as well as the culture of organizations and societies”.
This speaks to the organisation culture, how mental models stem from this culture, making
learning within an organisation difficult to implement.
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This is confirmed by the view of Kofman and Senge (1994) on the organisational challenges
of fragmentation, competition and reactiveness, which also speak to the organisational culture
and that of those who work within its structures. Fragmentation talks to our education and
socialisation into a world that requires “problem solving”, and the notion that each problem
can be separately addressed by breaking it down to its simplest state to find the underlying
cause. Given the complexity of the environments we operate in, it is impossible to simplify in
this manner; a holistic consideration rather than linear and analytical approaches is needed.
This talks to a systems thinking approach and the mental models required to help develop a
learning organisation.
Kofman and Senge (1994, p. 10) make a distinction between the problem solver who tries to
make something go away, and a creator who tries to bring something new into being. For this
reason, middle managers need to focus on becoming creators rather than problem solvers if
they wish to advance the learning organisation model.
Competition is also a mental model that challenges a learning organisation model. Irrelevant
competition between divisions is commonplace, and while healthy competition is invaluable
to an organisation’s development and growth, organisations “have lost the balance between
competition and co-operation precisely at the time when we most need to work together”
(Kofman & Senge, 1994, p. 7).
To strive to be a learning organisation, the organisation needs to overcome the fear of not
looking good based on short term competitive incentive schemes. Irrelevant competition
between management teams, divisions and management levels means that shared knowledge
is blocked, and the co-operation that is required to become a learning organisation is missing.
Reactiveness is a mental model that blocks the development of a learning organisation. The
organisation chooses to exercise authority through bureaucratic systems and procedures that
stifle creative, imaginative and experimental behaviour from employees; we do not try to break
the mental models created our whole lives as we have been socialised to “carry out orders”
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(Kofman & Senge, 1994, p. 9). Our organisational management mentality is socialised to be
one of problem solving rather than being a creator of new opportunities in a pre-emptive way.
If we want to strive towards being a learning organisation we need to create an environment
that has the requisite controls required in today’s working environments, while allowing
management to be creative and facilitate “practice” without the risk of negative consequence
in an environment that helps us learn pre-emptively for future real-world applications.
Nonaka (1991) views middle management as the aggregate layer that is able to synthesise tacit
knowledge from all levels and re-diffuse it, that is, middle managers are the “true ‘knowledge
engineers’ of the knowledge creating company”.
Waddell and Pio (2015, p. 473)’s perspective is that leaders (in this case middle managers) are
pivotal in creating a learning organisation through their use of a combination of leadership
styles. Through explorative leadership, they can foster relationships to create trust that allows
open and honest communication that stimulates learning through exploration and the open
sharing of learnings. Middle managers can also harness exploitative leadership styles to ensure
sufficient organisational controls and monitoring of organisational knowledge development, as
well as the actions leading from it.
Vera and Crossan (2012) argue that organisations that are “experiencing major difficulties and
disappointments” are more likely to culturally push the learning organisation initiative, in the
hope of transforming the organisation through challenging current assumptions and mental
models. They will culturally push for new ways of doing things and ways of communicating
this through feedback to the entire organisation.
Fiol and Lyle (1985) illustrate why the concept of a learning organisation may be of importance
to the organisation’s strategic practice of middle managers, arguing that “learning necessitates
experimentation, unlearning of past methods, and encouraging multiple viewpoints and debate
(Nystrom & Starbuck, 1984). The guidance of this process is an essential element of the
executive function (Andrews, 1980) - to ensure that learning is occurring and to assure the
organization's long-term survival” (p. 811). Again, there is this focus on culturally embedded
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experimentation or explorative learning to assist in the overcoming of mental blocks by
“unlearning” past methods of doing things.
3.4.5: Learning organisation interaction with contextual factors
Fiol & Lyles (1985) argue that there is a cyclical causal relationship between learning
contextual factors, which would reinforce the development of a learning organisation.
Figure 8 illustrates the authors’ interpretation of contextual factors that affect learning
probability by developing a corporate culture that is conducive to learning, combined with a
strategy that allows flexibility of the boundaries in which knowledge can be interpreted through
action to promote improved strategic performance.
Organisational structure is influenced by, and influences, culture, strategy and environment, by
providing both innovativeness and new insights through decentralising where possible. The
complexity of the environment impacts on the other three contextual factors and influences the
degree of learning possible, as well as action stemming from these learnings, the strategy
developed to leverage these learnings, and the structure adopted to execute on this developed
strategy.
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Figure 8: Authors’ interpretation of Fiol and Lyles (1985) contextual factors influencing a
learning organisation
3.4.6: Learning organisation capacity building through middle managers’ role in
knowledge development through s-a-p
So far, we have explored the learning organisation, how it works and what influences it. We
are yet to understand why the learning organisation is critical to organisational strategic
improvement, performance improvement, and the role of a middle manager in developing
knowledge through s-a-p.
Choo (1996, p. 340) purports that middle managers can make the difference by “attending to
and making sense of signals from its environment. By mobilizing the knowledge and expertise
of its members, the organization is constantly learning and innovating. By designing action and
decision routines based on what its members know and believe, the organization is able to
choose and commit itself to courses of action". The role that middle management plays in
developing this organisational learning ability is then central to unlocking the strategic
potential a company has to facilitate greater viability and sustainability.
• Strategy "determines thegoals and objectives and thebreadth of actions availablefor carrying out the strategy"(Fiol & Lyles, 1985, p. 805).
• "A centralized, mechanisticstructure tends to reinforcepast behaviors, whereas anorganic, more decentralizedstructure tends to allow shiftsof beliefs and actions" (Fiol &Lyles, 1985, p. 805).
• "Ideologies, establishedpatterns of behavior, sharedbeliefs and norms allinfluence action takingincluding strategic posture.To learn or become alearning organisation youneed to learn how to breakbad culture and developgood learning culture" (Fiol &Lyles, 1985, p. 805).
• "If either the internal orexternal environment is toocomplex and dynamic for theorganization to handle, anoverload may occur, andlearning will not take place(Lawrence & Dyer, 1983).Hedberg (1981, p.5) suggeststhat "learning requires bothchange and stability betweenlearners and theirenvironments" (Fiol & Lyles,1985, p. 805). Environment Culture
StrategyStructure
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Nonaka (1991) recognises the prevalence of a belief that measures performance against
financial achievement or return on investment, and acknowledges that little has been done to
measure this empirically. According to Ellinger, Ellinger, Yang, & Howton (2002, p. 6), Smith
and Tosey (1999, p. 70) acknowledge that ‘evidence is even harder to come by of organizations
linking learning to ROI [return on investment] and to the kinds of results that might convince
hard-headed business people to risk their money on a learning organization journey”.
Despite this, Ellinger et al (2006) conducted empirical research that concluded that a positive
relationship exists between a learning organisation and financial performance. However,
financial performance alone cannot result in long-term sustainability. Nonaka (1991) suggests
that knowledge creation in a learning organisation should be its way of “being”; it should not
be a separate thing that is there only to generate profits. A business needs to move to a level
where learning is inherent and natural, leading to emergent strategies that sustain perpetual
strategic advantage through continuous innovation and creativity. Organisations need to run
through cycles of exploration, transformation and exploitation, going back into exploration, in
an almost seamless way.
The two key findings from the literature review are thus as follows:
(i) Knowledge creation, sense-making and decision-making are interconnected and
“energise each other” (Choo, 1996, p. 338) and that notwithstanding this,
(ii) Often the middle manager or leader fails to see these links, resulting in
information and knowledge being created without ever being used for strategic
learning and decision making that could potentially improve the organisation’s
future state.
Choo’s (1996) study found that:
“People gather information ostensibly for decisions but do not use it. They ask for reports but
do not read them. Individuals fight for the right to take part in decision processes, but then do
not exercise that right. Policies are vigorously debated but their implementation is met with
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indifference. Managers observed in situ seemed to spend little time in making decisions, but
are instead most often engaged in meetings and conversations” (Choo, 1996).
Understanding a learning organisation and the role middle managers play is thus essential in
the effectiveness in improving an organisation’s performance. Choo (1996) saw organisational
knowledge as critical in three areas:
1. Making important decisions – to commit an organisation to action, be it strategic or
otherwise. Decision making options can only be generated through knowledge creation
and accumulation that is then utilised for the greater good of the organisation.
2. Sense-making – where strategic information can be used by the organisation to
understand and make sense of changes and jolting events in its external and/or internal
environment.
3. Organisational Learning - strategic information used to generate new knowledge
through Organisational Learning creates decision options for strategic initiatives.
Choo (1996) observed that the biggest obstacle is that “…organizations find it difficult to
unlearn their past--to question inherited assumptions and beliefs, to reject existing practices as
the only viable alternative” In other words, organisations battle to overcome their entrenched
mental models.
Organisational Learning is thus critical for a number of reasons including, but not limited to
the following:
1. Organisational learning enhances financial performance.
2. It helps organisations and the individuals within the organisations make sense of their
environment, aiding better strategic decision making.
3. It assists at all levels of decision making in the organisation.
4. It promotes innovation and creativity to allow a better strategic differentiation ability
through continual development of new ideas and processes.
5. It helps both exploration of new ideas and improved exploitation of current ones.
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6. It helps break bad cultures and develop good ones.
7. It allows companies to maintain relevance over time.
8. It allows knowledge conversion from:
a. Tacit to Tacit (socialised through something like an apprentice),
b. Tacit to Explicit (individuals’ knowledge is externalised in a fashion to be made
available to all),
c. Explicit to Explicit (through a combination of socialisation and externalisation),
and back from,
d. Explicit to Tacit (through internalising learnings and improving them through
experience), all in terms of company learning cycles (see Figure 9).
Nonaka (1991) acknowledges “…knowledge is transformed into organizational knowledge
valuable to the company as a whole. Making personal knowledge available to others is the
central activity of the knowledge creating company. It takes place continuously and at all
levels of the organization” (p. 3), all of which promotes the viability and sustainability of
an organisation over time.
Figure 9 illustrates a knowledge flow adapted from Choo (1996):
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Figure 9: Knowledge flow (Adapted from (Choo, 1996))
3.4.7: Dimensions of a learning organisation
How can one check if an organisation is transforming knowledge to create a learning
organisation? Moreover, if it is, then how can one assess whether it is gaining traction and
paying dividends for the greater good of the company?
Watkins and Marsick (2003, p.142) argue that a learning organisation “learns continuously and
transforms itself. Learning is a continuous, strategically used process—integrated with and
running parallel to work”. Their work resulted in the development of a set of seven principles
that influence an organisation’s ability to be a learning organisation. Table 5 shows the seven
parameters or dimensions of a learning organisation that are measured in the Dimension of a
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Learning Organisation Questionnaire (DLOQ), which is a diagnostic tool developed to measure
the status of and changes in organizational learning practices and culture.
Table 5: Watkins and Marsick’s Dimensions of a Learning Organization (Marsick & Watkins,
2003)
Action imperative (dimension) Definition
1. Create continuous learning opportunities
(CL)
Learning is built into work so people can
learn on the job; opportunities are provided
for ongoing education and growth.
2. Promote inquiry and dialogue (DI) People express their views, listen and
inquire into the views of others;
questioning, feedback, and
experimentation are supported.
3. Encourage collaboration and team
learning (TL)
Work is designed to encourage groups to
access different modes of thinking, groups
learn and work together, and collaboration
is valued and rewarded.
4. Establish systems to capture and share
learning (ES)
Both high- and low-technology systems to
share learning are created and integrated
with work, access is provided, and systems
are maintained.
5. Empower people toward a collective
vision (EP)
People are involved in setting, owning, and
implementing joint visions; responsibility
is distributed close to decision making so
people are motivated to learn what they are
held accountable for.
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6. Connect the organization to its
environment (SC)
People are helped to see the impact of their
work on the entire enterprise, to think
systemically; people scan the environment
and use information to adjust work
practices; and the organisation is linked to
its community.
7. Provide strategic leadership for learning
(SL)
Leaders model, champion, and support
learning; leadership uses learning
strategically for business results.
The DLOQ is a measure of these key dimensions and an indicator of performance against them.
It can assist in developing correlations to diagnose possible improvement areas and track
overall progress of an organisation over time. The questionnaire includes measures of financial
and knowledge performance, that are used to assess factors that influence the organization’s
overall ability to adapt. The DLOQ has been extensively tested for validity and reliability and
found both valid and reliable (Yang, Watkins, & Marsick, 2004; Marsick, 2013, p. 129).
Results of the DLOQ measurement run in my organisation will be discussed in Chapter 5.
3.5: Conclusion
S-a-p, the principles of a learning organisation, and sense-making (sense-giving) are
inextricably linked in the literature. My insights from the literature review led me to conclude
that the middle manager must use his or her role to generate information and learnings through
s-a-p. This must then be converted into useful knowledge using the principles of a learning
organisation and then developed as a cultural element of the organisation’s DNA. If the
learning organisation principles are not lived, then knowledge is wasted and the potential to
improve a strategic situation will be lost.
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Key to tying this together is the strategic leadership that ensures learning principles are driven
from the top, strategy is in line with wanting to learn and improve through a balance of
exploration and exploitation, and middle managers are given the agency through company
structure and developing a learning culture. This enables middle managers to sense-make well,
and gives them diverse decision options that allow solid decision making and strategic diffusion
through relevant and clear sense-giving discursive practices.
Based on the literature, it is argued that if the company could harness the s-a-p ideology and
engrain it in the learning culture, the strategy would become an everyday consideration in
formal as well as informal situations. In so doing, the middle managers could help the
organisation to continuously evaluate its strategic learning on a regular basis, enabling them to
better navigate the ever-increasing complexity of the construction landscape, and perpetually
improve the organisation’s performance.
S-a-p can be used as part of the growth path to a learning organisation that allows strategic
differentiation, which may provide a competitive advantage over rivals and drive viability.
Löwstedt (2016, p. 12) cites Johnson et al. (2003) and Jarzabkowski et al. (2007) around s-a-p
and describes strategy as “…being a situated and socially accomplished activity, which is
consequential for the outcomes, survival and competitive advantages of an organization”.
To ensure it becomes ingrained in a company’s DNA, s-a-p must become a habit through
practice, which “implies repetitive performance; that is, to attain recurrent, habitual, or
routinized accomplishment of particular actions. Practice is thus a particular type of self-
reinforcing learning akin to single-loop or exploitative learning theories” (Jarzabkowski, 2004,
p. 531). No one is better positioned to drive this than middle managers, who have the crucial
role of translating and implementing strategic initiatives to those below them, as well as
reporting strategic progress to those above them.
S-a-p is essentially routinized practice that ensures solid strategic decision making that
improves company performance. Choo (1996) reinforces this when he states that organisations
must become learning organisations and utilise s-a-p as the source of generative strategic in-
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formation that can be used for sense-making and important decision making (strategic or
otherwise). All information created must be organised and processed to generate new
knowledge in a learning organisation, which then drives the decisions that commit the
organisation to action, which in turn perpetuates competitive advantage.
The diagram below illustrates my final interpretation of Choo (1996)’s use of information in
an organisation, using a middle manager as the unit of measurement and showing the link
between s-a-p (practice as knowledge), organisational learning and sense-making.
Figure 10: Link between s-a-p, sense-making and a learning organisation from a middle
manager’s perspective
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Findings and insights from this literature review will now be taken into the next chapter along
with an SSM action exercise in order to run the first Action Research cycle (AR1). This chapter
will then use this to develop the first theoretical “how the world should be” purposeful activity
model relating to how middle managers can develop learning capacity within an organisation
using s-a-p.
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Chapter 4: AR1 - Theory development: A Purposeful Activity Model
using SSM
4.1: Introduction
The theory development in this chapter begins with Soft Systems Methodology (SSM).
According to Checkland & Poulter (2010):
“SSM is an action-oriented process of inquiry into problematical situations in the everyday world; users
learn their way from finding out about the situation to defining/taking action to improve it. The learning
emerges via an organized process in which the real situation is explored, using as intellectual devices -
which serve to provide structure to discussion - models of purposeful activity built to encapsulate pure,
stated worldviews” (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 199).
The objective of this chapter is to develop and build, through the first action research cycle
(AR1), a purposeful model. Using the stated unit of analysis (of the middle manager), I will
first use the SSM tools outlined under Chapter 2.3.2 to make sense of and gain insight into the
‘messy’ complexity that is the situation of concern. I will use various SSM recommended
sense-making tools to explore how middle managers can build organisational learning capacity
in strategy-as-practice..
Second, the purposeful models that are developed are then used to debate and rationalise new
learnings and ideas in order to sense-make in a way that allows action generation to improve
the situation through possible change initiatives. This rationalisation process allows a debate
to facilitate a meeting of the minds, in terms of “what can be lived with” by all the variant
perspectives at play in the organisation. The rationalisation process ensures a procedural rigour
that improves the chances of the intervention being a success. It further allows the choice which
is most “feasible and desirable” to arise. Underlying this is the messy situation that is created
from the daily intentioned interactive flux over time of ideas and events that involve human
worldviews and their need for purposeful action (Checkland & Poulter, 2010).
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The development of the purposeful activity model is central to the research because it will
allow the researcher to test and probe the situation of concern in iterative action research cycles
in order to find actionable ways to improve its future state. In order that the development has
rigour, it is essential that the development steps are detailed and followed meticulously to
achieve an outcome that has substance and meaning.
This chapter presents the steps involved in the development of the first action cycle of
purposeful activity model building, starting with the build-up of the researcher’s interpretation
of the framework used and the model that will guide the structure and sequencing of the chapter
in order to stay focused on the research outcome.
4.2: Learning cycles and SSM’s 7 steps
As discussed in Chapter 2, following an SSM-based research approach in practice enables the
researcher to structure a socially interactive and learning generative structure through action
research cycles that generate different learnings. This leads to iterative action to continuously
feed back into the problematic systems purposeful activity model, in order to develop new
learnings and refine the purposeful activity model with each action research cycle.
This first cycle (AR1) will take the key learnings already concluded in Chapter 3 and combine
them with insights and learnings gained from following the SSM methodological steps. This
will enable the generation of a purposeful activity model that makes these learnings explicit.
In doing so, the researcher hopes to generate further learning, debate and feedback amongst the
stakeholders involved in the problematic situation during further action research cycles.
According to Checkland and Poulter (2010) this is called “social learning” and this is essential
to the rigour of the process if one wants to produce valid pragmatic models.
Three SSM tools are outlined in the following sections: Analysis 1, 2 and 3 of worldviews,
cultural analysis and political analysis of our organisation (covered in sub-section 4.3),
CATWOE (in 4.4) and Root Definition (in 4.5).
4.3: Analysis 1, 2 and 3
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Analysis 1 identifies the worldview perspectives that should be considered in the CATWOE
analyses and guides suggestions on Activity Models that have relevance and can provide
maximum insights. Simply put, the method, practitioner, methodology application and the
situation are inextricably linked. The practitioner who wishes to find improvement
interventions for the problem situation, manipulates the inquiry method. As such, it makes
sense that understanding the perspectives to be considered is important, and one should define
and identify certain roles upfront, i.e. the client(s), the practitioner(s) and the issue owner(s).
(Checkland & Poulter, 2010). This process is shown below in Figure 11.
Figure 11: SSM Analysis 1 (Checkland & Poulter, 2010)
In this research effort, intervention is required by a practitioner in a problematic situation to
improve the situation’s future state. The researcher is the practitioner and the problematic
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situation is how to empower middle managers so that they can build organisational learning
capacity through their s-a-p.
The client is myself as the researcher as well as middle management as a group, with the
support of the organisation’s EXCO. The client’s aspirations may differ slightly in terms of
their various worldviews, but to keep the ideas all-encompassing I would summarise these
aspirations as perpetually improved performance, catalysed through enhanced s-a-p and
underpinned by middle management’s ability to build organisational learning capacity.
The list of issue owners creating the problematic situation could be summed up as
encompassing the following groups:
• The researcher
• Middle managers
• Senior managers
• EXCO
• C-Suite
• Board
• External clients
• External competitors
The most important worldviews are those of middle management (including the researcher),
EXCO and the Board. This is because they are the ones responsible for s-a-p in the business as
well as the strategic direction the organisation wishes to take. They are also the ones who drive
the company culture and organisational structuring of the business which, according to the
literature review, plays a big role in how empowered a middle manager is in terms of building
organisational learning capacity through s-a-p.
Analysis 2 is the cultural analysis of the social reality of the organisation within which the
problematic situation being investigated resides. It informs the feasibility of future developed
interventions, and how at a more micro level, culture would influence the implementation of
these potential change interventions (Checkland & Poulter, 2010). Under SSM we do not
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attempt to investigate and understand the true academic definition of culture, but understand
that there are ways to get a practical “sense of feel or flavour, of the situation and its social
texture” (p. 214). To do so one uses a tool that offers useful insights proven over time to hold
muster under both large and smaller organisational investigations, albeit theoretically
ungrounded (Checkland & Poulter, 2010).
When applying Analysis 2, I kept a diary that recorded the events that triggered insightful
propositions surrounding the interactions of the key elements influencing the culture (roles,
norms and values) that characterise certain socially textural insights of a group within the
problematic situation. Given the time constraints of this project it was not feasible to maintain
a researcher diary for an extended period sufficient to offer rigour to this effort, thus I relied on
Checkland and Poulter’s (Checkland & Poulter, 2010) statement that if you are familiar with
the organisation, you should have a good feel or sense of what the culture is like. Given the
almost three years I have been involved in this organisation, I felt I could offer important
insights from my reflections around the social texture to provide the requisite flavour that
Analysis 2 aims to provide to the study.
The Cultural Analysis can be explained as follows: Within our organisation, there is a sense
that strategy sits at the higher levels, which creates the norm that middle managers’ strategic
behaviour is to execute operationally only. The values or standards by which this behaviour is
judged seems to be purely economic. Being very hierarchical, the organisation is inflexible
and governed by systems and procedures that few challenge. Although s-a-p (in terms of
strategy practices and praxis of middle managers) is considered a waste of time, it is repeated
regardless. This norm results in a disconnect between what the middle managers want to do to
add value to the organisation in terms of s-a-p (and their learnings from experience) and what
is expected of them, or what they get socialised to do out of either fear or conformism.
Sometimes the values themselves are to blame, as certain roles in the organisation value pure
financial performance measurements in the short term only. Every year, middle management
presents plans to meet the shorter term financial goals, rather than addressing the longer term
strategic vision of the group or for that matter, addressing items from prior learnings.
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In terms of s-a-p, the culture is one of the organisation being more important than its clients
are. We often try to force our terms and conditions on the clients instead of trying to breed a
behaviour of flexibility and adaptability to work within the client’s requirements. This is seen
in the market as us being “difficult”. This same self-importance is also pushed onto
subcontractors and suppliers, which defines us as being adversarial as opposed to collaborating
for the betterment of everyone.
I reflected on incidents in the organisation where the strategy was developed by a certain social
level in the organisation, but was not supported with the correct risk approach, effectively
undermining themselves and others through s-a-p that at times works completely against the
strategy. The resulting values of measurement then never stack up.
Lastly, the single most important reflection was around communication; no matter the issue,
there are continual complaints that senior management keeps information to themselves that
others feel should be communicated, including individual BU strategies. Communication is top
down only (apart from reporting), which breeds this type of culture throughout the organisation.
Everyone then starts communicating downwards and very rarely requests or considers upward
communication. No organisation can hope to improve or become more of a learning
organisation in a communication void. In addition, while there have been times of great
strategic effort and pockets of excellence in areas of the business, the roles, norms and values
which should normally change dynamically over time seem to be stagnating.
Figure 12 provides a rich picture illustration of the cultural analysis:
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Figure 12: Rich Picture interpretation of Analysis 2 summary giving cultural flavour of the
organisation
Analysis 3 is a political analysis that gives insights into the politics of the organisation and its
power structures. What is done, and sometimes more critically what is not done, relies heavily
on these various organisational politics and power structures. Sometimes this power has
nothing to do with official organisational structuring, but is due to the internal politics
(Checkland & Poulter, 2010). In SSM, the model developed by Checkland and Poulter
(Checkland & Poulter, 2010) shows that to gain insights, one should keep a researcher diary
on the commodities of power and the processes associated with how these are “obtained, used,
protected, defended, passed on and relinquished” (p. 217). They also noted that culture and
politics are linked, thus it makes sense that Analysis 2 links to Analysis 3 and vice versa.
Again, given the time constraints, a diary was not practical; however, my time within the group
has provided important insights into the Analysis 3 type of politics currently at play that could
affect the problem situation: Deniability, communication and commoditisation.
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One political commodity I would define as critical in the organisation’s s-a-p process is
deniability; the company has undergone a number of right sizing (retrenchment) initiatives
due to a combination of poor decision making, poor performance and horrific market
conditions. This results in fear of failing to deliver, which of course is driven through s-a-p.
Given that the strategy is currently seen as residing with EXCO, this gives middle managers
deniability for failures that are seen as strategic, negatively affecting the quality, reliability
and robustness of s-a-p at middle manager level.
Another political commodity is communication, which links to Analysis 2. This can be seen
as part of the culture driven by senior management; however information is power, and
sometimes using this can put you in a better light with a manager. This speaks directly to sense-
making and sense-giving as per Chapter 3.3 where the key finding was around this only being
possible through conversation and communication.
Politically there is also commoditisation in terms of which divisional entity you are from. I
have seen the propensity for favouritism from senior management towards certain entities in
the organisation, which is mainly based on historical performance. This affects the ability of
senior management to overcome their bias when it comes to making some strategic decisions.
It also offers those who are in favour a strategic advantage to improve their s-a-p, given the
agency and autonomy advantage they may gain.
My observation is that there is little respect between ‘production’ and ‘support’ services.
Each apportions its worldview in terms of who is to blame for the current strategic bankruptcy,
which has resulted in very poor company performance the last three years or so. This
entitlement commodity has resulted in a substantial cultural rift in the organisation, where the
politics dictates an ‘us versus them’ scenario. Again, my view is that this is used for
deniability or an easier escape from responsibilities and accountability. In my opinion, it is
protected at the highest level, i.e. EXCO, who are unknowing enforcers of this culture.
Figure 13 illustrates the political analysis in a rich picture:
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Figure 13: Analysis 3 summary detailing political commoditization insights in my organisation
To conclude then, Analysis 1 has detailed the stakeholders and the criticality of the middle
manager’s worldview for the purposeful activity model. Analysis 2 showed that the cultural
flavour of the organisation currently is one that is bureaucratic, hierarchical, strategically
apathetic, risk averse and light on communication flow. Analysis 3 highlighted the fact that
political commodities of divisional mentalities, deniability mindsets, and information flow
(communication) can disrupt the ability of middle managers’ organisational learning capacity
through their s-a-p. These insights allow the researcher to iteratively improve the purposeful
activity model providing further comprehension into how to improve the future state of the area
of concern.
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It follows from Analysis 1,2,3 that a CATWOE analysis using the middle manager perspective
should be generated which is done in the following sub-section 4.4.
4.4: CATWOE analysis
According to Poulter and Checkland (Checkland & Poulter, 2010), CATWOE is a mnemonic
for the elements of the purposeful activity of interest which undergoes a transformation process
(T) towards becoming a learning organisation. This is informed by the chosen worldview (W),
which in this case is the middle manager as the unit of measure. This is chosen first before
detailing the balance of the CATWOE to generate insights for the root definition. In order to
achieve this there are certain actors (A) who are responsible for the activities that will result in
the transformation of the activity (T). In this research, these actors are primarily middle
managers, senior managers (EXCO) and the board. This research aims to understand the role
that middle managers play, as they are the crucial buffer between the board, senior management
and the rest of the organisation.
Any transformative process will have beneficiaries or victims, who in this case are what
Checkland and Poulter called customers (C). Should the transformation be strived for or
achieved, the clear beneficiaries will be the shareholders, EXCO, staff, suppliers,
subcontractors and clients, with the victims potentially being the staff and EXCO who would
bear the brunt of the workload in the efforts to make the unit a success.
Within the system there are individuals and aggregate groupings who have the ability to stop
the process (T), which are represented by the ‘O’ in CATWOE, which stands for owners. From
a middle manager’s worldview, these would be the same as the actors in this case. Lastly, the
environment (E) that interacts with the system is very important, as this governs the constraints
within which the transformation can take place. This, along with all the other CATWOE
elements, are detailed in Table 6 below.
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Table 6: CATWOE element definitions (Checkland & Poulter, 2010)
C Customers affected by the transformative process
A Actors required to enact the transformation
T Transformation process required to improve the situation of concern
W Worldview stated upfront
O Owners that either block or change the purposeful activity transformation
E External environmental constraints to the transformation
Using these defined elements, I took the worldview of the middle manager, with the
transformation being becoming a learning organisation, and detailed the elements of this
CATWOE below in Figure 14.
Figure 14: CATWOE Model
MIDDLE MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE
CUSTOMER
TRANSFORMATION
ENVIRONMENT
WORLDVIEW
ACTORS
OWNER
Middle Managers, Senior Managers (EXCO), Board Members
Shareholders, EXCO, Staff, Suppliers, Subcontractors, Clients
Non-learning organisation to building organisational learning capacity through s-a-p
Need autonomy and agency to execute works with the least red tape possible, Have been promoted on operation excellence not strategic ability. Corporate governance is seen as tick box means to an ends –works security. Have been socialised over time that production and discipline will deliver good results. Technically proficient and trained to solve problems but breaking down into the smallest components rather than looking at holistic systems.
Corporate climate, heavy on compliance and light on practicality. Mistrust in performance from senior management, frantic environment where balls are constantly being dropped is the order of the day. Highly corrupt contracting environment, hyper competitive, lack of liquidity in treasury to fund new infrastructure, lack of investor confidence in the country. Pressure to find profitable work to stop cash outflows and stem human capital losses through retrenchments. Fearful environment in terms of rife job loss with a lot of corporate governance steps. Cash flow and budgetary constraints play a major role as well.
Middle Managers, Senior Managers (EXCO), Board Members
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It is important that any transformation process is measurable to assess performance. For this,
Poulter and Checkland (Checkland & Poulter, 2010) suggested doing a three “E’s” analysis of
relevant criteria, in order to “sharpen thinking about the purposeful activity being modelled”.
“E1” is efficacy, which tests whether the transformation is actually having an effect; “E2” is
efficiency, which determines whether the resource allocation to achieve the transformation is
optimal, and “E3” is the effectiveness of the transformation on the longer-term goal at higher
levels of recursion, which would be the strategic differentiation of the organisation as a whole.
This is summarised in the Table 7 below:
Table 7: Definitional questions of the three "E's"
E1 Efficacy Does the transformation produce the intended outcome?
E2 EfficiencyHave optimal resources been allocated to the transformation to
achieve the intended outcome?
E3 EffectivenessDoes the transformation achieve a great good or higher aim than
the intended outcome?
I have detailed my three “E’s” analysis below in Table 8 which gives a firm methodoly and
performance measures that will be utiliused to moitor the efficacy, efficiency and
effectiveness of any inetreventions decided on to improve the situation of concern using the
purposeful activity model developed in this research effort through 3 activity research cycles.
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Table 8: Summary of my three ”E’s” analysis – Monitoring criteria of the transformation
process
The CATWOE gives rich insight that the middle manager in our organisation is in an
environment where short term financial returns are very important to stakeholders. This
means the perspective of middle managers can be culturally socialised to have a very narrow
non-strategic view that leans heavily to technical proficiency. Communication may be stifled
in a heavily systems orientated and bureaucratic organisation. Finally the middle manager
would want agency to make decisions and generate learnings from his daily interaction with
others and s-a-p. The environment must thus be conducive to promote this.
Following on from this then the key measures of whether or not a system is facilitating better
performance through middle managers building organisational learning through their s-a-p
would be as per those tabled in in Table 7 above.
Now that the worldview, its insights and measures of performance for a purposeful activity
based model has been concluded, the researcher needs to understand, in terms of the SSM
process steps, whether or not the model will be issues or task based. This discussion follows
below.
Efficacy
Utilise Dimension of a Learning Organisation Questionnaire (DLOQ) as
the annual test for a sense of progress towards becoming a learning
organisation and the middle managers’ role.
Efficiency
ROE and cash flow analysis monthly and over the financial year to
determine whether optimal resourcing in terms of capital expenditure
and resource allocations has been achieved or not, and link to a feedback
system to correct as required.
Effectiveness
Guideline shareholder returns stabilised consistently to within target
ranges year on year will illustrate whether or not the ultimate goal is
being achieved over a longer- term duration.
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4.5: Task or issues-based transformation discussion
It is important to note that this transformation from a non learning to a learning oragisation
through capacity building using middle management s-a-p, does not talk to a single task within
a single internal organisational entity, but rather speaks to a purposeful activity that is
unbounded by organisational structures. The transformations basis hinges around the issue of
organisational learning and the middle managers’ role in building capacity in this regard
through s-a-p. As such, my purposeful activity model can be described as ‘issues-based’.
Poulter and Checkland (2010) found identifiying if the transformation discussion is task or
issues-based is useful in stimulating the thinking of those involved in the transformation to go
beyond the organisational politics and socialised organisational silos, and be creative in finding
helpful mechanisms to improve the situation.
4.6: ROOT definition
My declared unit of analysis in this study is middle management, and this focus informed the
key perspective that I sought to understand in terms of worldview before attempting to build a
Purposeful Activity Model of how middle managers should build organisation capacity through
learning.
The PQR method developed by Checkland is helpful in formulating a root definition that will
inform the purposeful model development. The root definition is one perspective of the
definition from the worldview of the middle manager, which must include the what (P), how
(Q) and why (R), amongst other things (Checkland & Poulter, 2010). The PQR method
describes what the purposeful activity model of the system does (P), how it does it (Q), and
why it does it (why is it purposeful?) (R). This then forms the basis or shape of the root
definition.
Using the PQR and CATWOE, the following root definition was developed to focus the human
activity system around which the purposeful activity model is built:
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This study is thus an inquiry into: A system which develops organisational learning as a
strategic differentiator (P), using the middle managers’ role in s-a-p (Q), in order to
improve the future state of strategic advantage (R).
4.7: Conclusion
This chapter outlined the first action research cycle (AR1) which was carried out to answer
how to best create a system that develops organisational learning as a strategic differentiator
(P), using the middle managers’ role in s-a-p (Q), in order to improve the future state of
strategic advantage (R).
AR1 develops a purposeful activity model outlined below in Figure 15, that draws from
learnings (L) generated through the literature review in Chapter 3 as well as the SSM tools
applied in AR1 in this chapter.
A synopsis of learning from the literature review and the SSM steps followed in this chapter,
led to insights incorporated in the purposeful activity model shown in Figure 15. I have
intertwined the learnings to give the flow of learnings that talks to the sequencing of the
purposeful activity model concluded below in Figure 15. The logic of this model is summarised
below.
The root definition makes it clear that the purposeful activity of creating knowledge through
organisational learning is driven through strategy-as-practice by middle managers. This
knowledge as practice is primarily influenced by four critical factors, these being structure,
environmental complexity, social dynamics (including power dynamics) and the dominant
organisational strategy. This was determined through insights gained during the data analysis
in Chapter 2.4 which developed the literature review of learning organisations and summarised
its findings in Figure 8.
To recap, this structure affects autonomy and to some extent the micro-culture of the middle
managers, and their practice as knowledge. Social dynamics and power distribution influence
the real agency of middle managers, affecting strategic development and practice through
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ability interaction and allowing adoption and diffusion of strategy for learning. The overall
organisational strategy also provides boundaries within which middle management practice
can take place within the external and internal complexities that exist, and which impact on
their practice as knowledge. It is key to note that organisation structuring affects social
dynamics and power distribution, which in turn affects internal environmental complexity.
All the interactions and discussions take place through practice and “routinisation” to allow
middle managers to make strategic sense of a situation, then assess and analyse it. In this way
they can sense-give their created knowledge to others in the organisation at all levels. This is
heavily influenced by superstitious learning (decision making under the contextual influence
of heavy loss making) and socialisation of routines that become so entrenched they actually
block the ability of a manager to pursue a change initiative or make him miss learnings,
resulting in recursive behaviour that blocks strategic learning and diffusion. The better the
manager’s sense-making ability, the more he can resist superstitious learning to offer clear,
concise and available knowledge to others in the organisation. This can help to break down the
mental barriers that lead to the socialisation of routines and recursive behaviours in s-a-p. This
is especially true if the knowledge created is codified, and explicitly made to be shared across
all levels in the organisation.
Superstitous learning pattrens and trends should be monitored and analysed through various
mechanisms culminating in feedback learnings that are used to optimise and adjust the
organisational strategy, and iteratively improve the middle managers’ practice and capacity to
build knowledge in a cyclically reinforcing way. This would be influenced by an organisation’s
tolerance for mistakes and its strategic balance between exploitation and exploration using
knowledge created through s-a-p.
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Figure 15: Purposeful activity model of what "should be" concluded in AR1
The purposeful activity model in Figure 15 concludes the chapter and highlights the insight
that middle managers can improve organisational capacity to learn and practice strategy
through using created knowledge in the sense-making and giving process. This allows middle
managers to sense-make more effectively, which leads to improved strategic action and
decision making.
The link between performance and the ability of a company and its actors to learn, is
demonstrated in the purposeful activity model. The middle manager is the key actor and has
the discursive ability to take created learnings and use them to make explicit knowledge that
drives the organisation’s learning.
InstitulionalisedKnowledge Creation
KonwledgeConversion into
InformedStrategic Action
Middle Manager Practice asKnowledge - Strategic Developmentand Practice through Interaction and
Discusion Routinisation)
MiddleManager
Sensemaking
Middle ManagerSensegiving
Socialisation /Recursiveness
SuperstitiousLearning
Social Dynamics and resultingPower Distribution
Organisational Structuring
OrganisationStrategic Adaptivity
ImprovedOrganisationalPerformance
Balance ofexploration and
exploitation
Mistaketolerance
Environmental complexity bothinternal and external
Organisational Strategy
Continuousiterative
feedback forstrategic
adustments orredirectioning
Codify and makeexplicit for all in the
organisation
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This assists strategic decision making and action taking in an iteratively accumulating way by
creating institutional agility for potentially perpetual strategic advantage.
The following chapter starts a second action research cycle (AR2) which will investigate the
case organisation relevant to the research and use these insights and learnings gained to iterate
the purposeful activity model and improve its validity and pragmatic use to generate
improvement options.
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Chapter 5: AR2 – Insights and Learnings from Organisational data
gathering and analysis
5.1: Introduction
In the conclusion of Chapter 4, a conceptual model that highlights how to improve the future
state of organisational learning through middle managers’ abilities to use s-a-p, was developed.
The objective of Chapter 5 is to run a secondary action research cycle (AR2) to investigate how
this purposeful activity model holds muster in my organisation and iterate any learnings from
this comparison to improve on the validity of the activity model.
This chapter will highlight the insights and learnings on s-a-p, learning organisation and sense-
making/giving that are analysed using the Gioia method.
As a reminder to the reader, the case company relevant to this research effort is split into three
business units: Construction, Manufacturing and Investments/Concessions (I&C). In general,
the Construction business is underperforming whilst the I&C and Manufacturing clusters enjoy
sustained performance that meets or exceeds expectations.
5.2: Learnings and Insights generated from Interviews and Questionnaires and
analysed qualitatively
As stated in Chapter 1 (subsections 1.6 and 1.7), I re-examined previously collected raw data
with new lenses (of s-a-p; organisational learning and sense-making/giving) for this research
effort, to gain insight into the ability to build learning capacity through middle managers’ s-a-
p. (As noted, I left the organisation midway through the research study necessitating this
revisting of data collected across previous assignments).
To remind the reader, I interviewed all divisional business unit MDs and the majority of EXCO
members. I also sent self-prepared questionnaires to lower levels of management (below
middle managers) for their perspectives, and re-examined all the notes and raw materials from
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the interviews conducted (and questionnaires collected), and extracted newly developed
propositions around the three themes of this study, namely s-a-p, learning organisation and
sense-making/giving.
I employed the Gioia method (Gioia et al., 2012) to synthesise and extract the key salient
variables that influence a middle manager’s role in developing learning capacity through s-a-p
within an organisation. The required grounded theory steps were as follows:
(i) Firstly, 1st order codification was done leading to minimal distillation and providing
a flavour only of the data at high level
(ii) Secondly, I reviewed the 1st order codification to reduce the codes to a manageable
number looking for commonality in theme, to allow initial sense-making.
(iii) Thirdly, I reduced this to overarching 2nd order themes (Deeper structure to the
larger narrative in the 1st order coding. In other words, a further level of abstraction)
(iv) Finally, this was crystallised through further focussed codification to synthesise
observations into 2nd order aggregate dimensions to explain the phenomenon in
question.
Figures 16 to 19 show the resulting data structure.
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Figure 16: (i) of (iv)
1st Order Coding (Concepts) 2nd Order Themes2nd Order Aggregate
Dimensions
First Order Coding Second Order ThemeSecond Order Aggregate
DimensionS-a-p boundaries defined by vision
Common vision gives boundaries for
learningTime and frequency is critical to value
add form s-a-p
Time and frequency determining learning richness
Leadership drives culture Leadership style
Internal circumstance can hinder learning
Goals clash (Strategic vs Annual Financial)
External factors play a big role
S-a-p and environment inextricably linked
Finance can constrain s-a-p action decisions
Environmental influence
Time and frequency is critical to value add form s-a-p
Time and frequency
Discursive ability
Language facilitates learningDiscussion is how learning happensSometimes the "sense" you give isn't
the "sense" that made
Ability to get your message acrossAbility to get your message across
Elevating the importance of the social
aspect key to sensemakingSocial interaction key to create opportunities to communicate
Known boundaries
Time and frequency
Environment internal and external
Communication skills
Social process
Discursion
Contextual emergence
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Figure 17: (ii) of (iv)
1st Order Coding (Concepts) 2nd Order Themes2nd Order Aggregate
Dimensions
First Order Coding Second Order ThemeSecond Order Aggregate
DimensionS-a-p purpose is to improve
performance through strategic
differentiation
Strategic differentiation
S-a-p leads to action for
operationalisationAction for operationalisation
Speed of decision making critical Decision making
S-a-p is not only development of strategy
Strategic differentiation
S-a-p must operationalise strategy
through actionAction is the key s-a-p outcome
Knowledge and practice linkedLearning from success and failure
Feedback allows iterative action and
learning cyclesDisconfirming data to overcome bias
Resist learning from the pastExploration of the future rather than
studying the past for answers
Diversity aids learningInclusion of perceptions - diversity
Knowledge generative processLearning must lead to action
Facts and data overcome bias -
Disconfirming dataDisconforming data
Pitch at the right level of your audience Social process
Ability to get your message across Communication SkillsMetaphors and analogies help make
senseUnderstanding
Reactive culture Culture
Strategy understanding underpins s-a-p
Metaphors and analogies help make
sense
Lack of rich understandingUse of external facilitators Communication skills
Time and frequency issues Time and frequencyUnderstanding from considering diverse
perspectivesPerspectives
Exploration of the future rather than studying the past for answers
Creation versus blind trust execution
Understanding
Learning capacity
Creation versus blind trust
execution
Perspectives
Knowledge generation
Knowledge beneficiation
Action for operationalisation
Learnt lessons value
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Figure 18: (iii) of (iv)
1st Order Coding (Concepts) 2nd Order Themes2nd Order Aggregate
Dimensions
First Order Coding Second Order ThemeSecond Order Aggregate
Dimension
S-a-p is a social process
Measurement is a primary learning tool
Lack of rich understanding
S-a-p can be formal and informal
Homophile affects value of s-a-p
Culture influences s-a-pMicro cultures block learning
Socialisation in a culture can cause
change resistance
Understanding affects culture
Bias, socialisation and culture
Reactive rather than pre-emptiveCreation versus blind trust
executionPerformance enhancement
Structuring of a company influences s-a-
p
S-a-p can happen at any organisational
level
Structuring of a company influences s-a-p
Management level
Centralised structuring
Feedback blockage / Centralised
structuring
Structuring affects learningClash between strategy and short term
results pressure
Goals clash (Strategic vs
Annual Financial)
Discussion and debate drives s-a-p
valuePerspectives
Trust and mutual respect is critical for strategic buy in
Trust and respect
Power affects knowledge transfer
"Clay layer" due to socialisation -
recursive behaviour
Tolerance for explorationSocialisation in a culture can cause
change resistance
Power affects knowledge transfer
Social issues create blockages to
sensemakingPower play and politics in the
organisation
Social Process
Culture
Organisational identity
Company Structuring
Trust and Respect
Culture
Power
Power dynamics
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Figure 19: (iv) of (iv)
Looking at the resulting aggregate dimensions and overlaying these on the purposeful model
created, I have been able to clearly indicate where these items have been catered for, or to
highlight their importance in the real world. This is shown in Figure 20 below, which indicates
that no changes to the purposeful activity model (of Figure 15) are required from these findings.
Instead the coding process reinforces the robustness of the model. The additional 2nd order
themes are all shown in blue on the originally produced purposeful activity model in Figure
20.
1st Order Coding (Concepts) 2nd Order Themes2nd Order Aggregate
Dimensions
First Order Coding Second Order ThemeSecond Order Aggregate
Dimension
Risk appetite influences s-a-p Risk Appetite
Leadership and boldness influences s-a-
p and its value addLeadership style
Tolerance for exploration CultureRisk appetite mismatch to group
strategy
Goals clash (Strategic vs
Annual Financial)
Measurement is critical to adjust s-a-p
Time and frequency issues
Measurement is a primary learning tool
Risk appetite
Measurement of performance
enhancementMoP
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Figure 20: Purposeful Activity Model overlain with research findings from previous interviews
and questionnaires
To clarify what this model highlights in terms of learnings and insights the following sub-
section details the second order themes shown in blue on the purposeful activity model along
with how these reinforce the purposeful activity model rather than change it, and under which
items the researcher feels they augment the model’s robustness.
InstitutionalisedKnowledge Creation
KnowledgeConversion into
InformedStrategic Action
Middle Manager Practice asKnowledge - Strategic Developmentand Practice through Interaction and
Discussion Routinisation)
MiddleManager
Sensemaking
Middle ManagerSensegiving
Socialisation /Recursiveness
SuperstitiousLearning
Social Dynamics and resultingPower Distribution
Organisational Structuring
OrganisationStrategic Adaptivity
ImprovedOrganisationalPerformance
Balance ofexploration and
exploitation
Mistaketolerance
Environmental complexity bothinternal and external
Organisational Strategy
Continuousiterative
feedback forstrategic
adustments orredirectioning
Codify and makeexplicit for all in the
organisation
Contextual Emergence
Discursion
KnowledgeBeneficiation
Learning Capacity
Organisational Identity
PerformanceEnhancement
Power Dynamics
Risk Appetite
MoP
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5.2.1: Contextual emergence
“Contextual Emergence” is encapsulated in the “Environmental Complexity” variable of the
model. Working from the top of the model down, the external environment plays a critical role
in that there are certain contextual influencers that influence an organisation in an emergent
fashion rather than being predetermined; hence, the only defence against this is a learning
organisation that is flexible and can adapt to context through cyclical feedback through middle
management. In analysing the data, financial constraints and time, were identified as
environmental factors that had a great impact. In addition, the key importance of the company’s
vision was found to be providing contextual boundaries within the external and internal
environments. This is a key learning as they have a bearing on practice for middle managers as
they make sense of their strategic environment.
5.2.2: Power dynamics and organisational identity
“Power Dynamics” and “Organisational Identity” are intertwined second order themes found
that could be captured within the model variable of “Social Dynamics and resulting Power
Distribution”. It was noted that the company’s vision and its overarching strategy are the two
most critical business-focussing tools, and yet they are paradoxically at continuous odds with
the short term financial returns wanted by shareholders that seem to always come out on top.
This aligns with the type of reasoning by middle managers: In their interviews and
questionnaires, I noted that they were being tactical. I interpret this as indicating that perhaps
they are essentially making decisions under the duress of financial pressure, which is exerted
by EXCO in the operational financial year, as opposed to sticking to the company’s vision and
strategy that has a longer-term view. My interpretation is that middle managers are falling foul
of superstitious learning based on signals they feel they are getting from EXCO. In other
words, EXCO is unknowingly failing to project to middle managers a message to balance
exploration and exploitation and be tolerant of mistakes, which is key to a learning
organisation. Instead, there is genuine fear of retribution among middle managers of criticism
from EXCO based on short term results, and these limit the strategic “risk” middle managers
are willing to take. This might explain how the cycle of “rinse, wash and repeat” perpetuates.
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The study also found a disconnect between the financial and production teams, where the goals
appear to be misaligned. EXCO has come out strongly on ROE, whereas the middle managers
feel this cannot be the only measure. The middle managers also feel they are blocked by the
financial teams from executing their mandate, and that there is not a sufficient level of service
and support from the financial side of the business. Middle managers view the finance team as
‘opposition’ to some extent, as well as a unit that holds all the power.
The current power dynamic limits the speed of decision making, and blurs the lines of middle
management strategic boundaries and agency. Of concern is the seemingly different strategic
views between middle management and the EXCO team. This suggests that there is an
imbalance in informal power distribution that blocks EXCO’s (or middle managers) own
strategic intent, particularly with respect to the financial side of the business.
5.2.3: Risk aversion
The data revealed frustration with an organisational culture that is driven by senior
management’s risk aversion and its clash with the group’s vision and strategy. “Risk Aversion”
as a second order aggregate dimension can then be seen as part of the model dimension of
“Organisational Strategy”. Few want to take the risk of exploration because of limited budgets
and fear of senior management resistance. Drawing from the interviews, one MD stated that no
one in the strategic senior leadership (EXCO) has the “kahoonas” to pick a direction and back
it, no matter what the resistance is from the Board. Whilst there is a strong drive to improve
shareholder returns in a very risky business, the findings suggest that we are extremely risk
averse. Our systems and procedures to manage risk end up with us avoiding risk rather than
managing it. By the time we have finished exhausting the risk process for a potential project,
we either decide to drop the project, or are no longer competitive due to the excessive risk
premiums priced into the works.
The specific organisation’s risk aversion also means it is the proverbial boiling frog (Senge,
2006, p. 22). We have refused to leave the South African market with its more mature clients
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as these pose the “least risk”, yet the margin erosion and losses in the market have become so
severe that we have had to retrench our organisational capacity to the extent that when we pick
up work, there are insufficient employees to do it. Despite this, we continue to hope that at
some stage the market will turn around and save us.
5.2.4: Measures of performance (MoP)
The data produced learnings that highlighted a key issue working against becoming a learning
organisation. This was the organisation’s “obsession” (as one interviewee put it) with historical
performance and the thinking that this will generate our future performance. In the interviews,
there was a strong sentiment expressed that those business units making money want to be left
alone, and that this attitude is justified by profits they have made in previous financial years.
Whilst there may be some truth to history partially being able to assist future strategic planning,
the approach should rather be one of iterative learning feedback into the system to improve it.
This is the reasoning behind the researcher situating “MoP” under the variable of “Continuous
and iterative feedback”.
5.3: Conclusion
The aggregate dimensions of “Contextual Emergence”, “Power Dynamics”, “Organisational
Identity”, “Risk Aversion” and “MoPs”, have allowed a richer, deeper learning and
understanding of how middle managers are able to build learning capacity through s-a-p within
my organisation. Through AR2, learnings have been fed back into the model to test and debate
the legitimacy and robustness of the model and it has held muster.
The following chapter covers the third and final action research cycle (AR3). This cycle used
a standardised questionnaire to look into the organisation’s learning ability through “testing”
seven core dimensions of being a learning organisation. The intention is that this cycle offers
still deeper and richer understanding of the underlying causal mechanism that, if leveraged
correctly, will allow a middle manager to improve on building learning capacity through
improved s-a-p, in the hope of ultimately enhancing the performance of the organisation.
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Chapter 6: AR3 – Learning generation and insights from data
gathering and analysis using the Dimensions of a Learning
Organisation Questionnaire (DLOQ)
The previous chapter covered AR2 and offered five core aggregate themes interpreted from the
data using the qualitative Gioia method. These dimensions are “Contextual Emergence”,
“Power Dynamics”, “Organisational Identity”, “Risk Aversion” and “MoPs”. They were added
to the purposeful activity model built at the end of AR1, to augment the model’s validity and
robustness in modelling how middle managers can augment their ability to build organisational
learning capacity through s-a-p.
The purpose of this chapter is to get a baseline idea of where the case study organisation
perceives itself to be in terms of a learning organisation. The researcher’s view is that it is
difficult to improve on something if you do not have an idea of the starting point or baseline
for improvement. Without this, your MoP’s are impotent, as one would have nothing to
measure performance against.
With this in mind, I took the Dimensions of a Learning Organisation Questionnaire (DLOQ)
developed by Marsick and Watkins (2003) and sent it out to all 154 of the middle managers,
senior managers and EXCO members our organisation. I did not modify any key content of the
original DLOQ, but did ask for additional information that would offer insight into some of the
managers’ s-a-p, as well as information relating to the respondents’ departments. It is noted
that I gained permission from the DLOQ developers (Marsick and Watkins) prior to its use.
The questionnaire and data is not included in the appendices but is available on request of the
examiner. The findings and insights generated from this will also be discussed in this chapter
with respect to its impact on any required modifications to the developed purposeful activity
model.
Watkins and Marsick (2003)’s DLOQ organisational questionnaire interprets (from
respondents) the level of organisational achievement across seven critical principle indicators
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of learning organisations, namely: create continuous learning opportunities (CL); promote
inquiry and dialogue (DI); encourage collaboration and team learning (TL); establish systems
to capture and share learning (ES); empower people toward a collective vision (EP); connect
the organization to its environment (SC); and provide strategic leadership for learning (SL).
In all, 139 Participants were asked to voluntarily (and anonymously) fill out the questionnaire
that I placed on an online platform. In response, 54 full responses were received (28 senior
managers and 26 middle managers).
I then analysed the data qualitatively against the averaged benchmark that Marsick and Watkins
(2003) have found during their own research efforts on companies around the world. I wanted
to use data comparison that was relevant to our environment and type of business, so I extracted
and averaged the data from Marsick and Watkins for national type businesses based in major
cities and only “for profit” businesses. This is demonstrated in Table 9 below.
Table 9: Benchmarking from Marsick and Watkins (2003)
Author Hernandez Elinger Average score (of a
possible score of 6 on the
Likert Scale)
Research case study
organisations score
Dimension
Continuous Learning A 3.9 4.1 4.0 3.6
Inquiry and Dialogue B 4.2 4.0 4.1 3.3
Collaboration and Team Learning C 4.0 4.1 4.1 3.5
Create Systems D 4.1 3.7 3.9 3.4
Empower People E 4.2 3.9 4.1 3.4
Connect the Organisation F 4.0 4.2 4.1 3.5
Strategic Leadership G 4.3 4.3 4.3 3.6
Financial Performance H N/A 4.3 4.3 3.2
Knowledge Performance I 4.3 4.2 4.2 3.0
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The findings from within my organisation were then collated and analysed. In the next sub-
section the results of this are represented graphically, each with a summary observation of
learnings drawn from it. The graphs show the relevant DLOQ calculated benchmark plotted in
orange against the measured criteria (in grey) for the business clusters tested and analysed by
the researcher.
In order to try to understand whether poor performing divisions had differing results from solid
performing divisions, the data analysis results were between senior and middle management.
This was done to offer insight into potentially differing mental models between middle and
senior management. I also chose to sample my own operating division (construction) which
has consistently poor performance as well as the manufacturing division, which consistently
improves and betters its performance. This was in order to provide contrasts and see whether
results differed between a poorly performing and solidly performing division. Aside from this,
I also sampled the business services division which operates across both the construction and
manufacturing divisions to see what insights and learnings this may offer.
6.1.1: Learning and Insights from comparison to DLOQ benchmark
In examining analysed data, the first insight was how close the Manufacturing Cluster is to the
norm developed by Marsick and Watkins, whilst the construction division and business
services results fell well below the norm. This links to financial performance and knowledge
management, which correlate well in Manufacturing to the high level of scoring on all seven
learning organisation dimensions. Manufacturing is a highly profitable business that prides
itself on being a strategic hub. It continually proves itself as it outperforms the market on an
annual basis.
In looking at the Manufacturing Cluster (in Figure 21), one can see that most indicators exceed
the benchmark, not least of which is strategic leadership. This should lead to empowered
people who, through dialogue and inquiry, push the boundaries of collaboration and learning
to continually improve and enhance company performance through feedback into the created
systems, which allows improved knowledge performance and ultimately improved financial
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results. However, it could be argued that strategic leadership is where it all starts and without
strategic leadership the organisation is strategically bankrupt and unable to drive the learning
organisation principles in a business. What is concerning is that this may start to unravel if
inadequate attention is paid to dialogue and inquiry, which is a potential Achilles heel to an
otherwise impressive business. The drop in knowledge performance may be related to this,
which in turn reduces the financial performance.
Figure 21: DLOQ results (GREY) vs. benchmark (ORANGE) - Manufacturing cluster
By contrast, the findings for the Construction Cluster (Figure 22) shows that poor financial
performance and knowledge management within this division correlates to the Construction
sector’s poor performance on the seven DLOQ dimensions, compared to the benchmark.
The construction result is that it is very flat. This is potentially influenced by possible non-
truthful answers given the environment of ongoing retrenchments and business rightsizing. The
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scores show that the staff are not happy, but perhaps they are not fully truthful about how
unhappy they are, perhaps in order to make themselves feel better about the situation, or for
fear of what management would say about the results during these turbulent times. It must be
reiterated that ethically I had no idea of the name of any respondent. All were clearly told in
the email sent out that is was completely optional and totally anonymous survey.
Figure 22: DLOQ results (GREY) vs. benchmark (ORANGE) - Construction cluster
Within the construction results, one can see items such as Knowledge Performance, Financial
Performance, and Empowering People scoring particularly low. What is more concerning
was that when broken down into senior and middle management responses (Figure 23), neither
senior nor middle managers were particularly confident in their strategic leadership ability,
as is illustrated by the poor scoring in this area. An underperforming business lacking strategic
leadership has little chance of righting itself, especially if it is unable to learn as an organisation;
this will only perpetuate a vicious reinforcing cycle of diminishing performance over time.
Senior management seem to be closer to the benchmark than middle managers except on
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financial performance. This tells the researchcer that senior management think that the
organisation is a learning one yet those required to build that capacity (middle managers) don’t.
That is a massive disconnect which would require to be addressed in interventions proposed to
improve the system.
Figure 23: DLOQ results (GREY – Senior Manager and BLUE – Middle Manager) vs.
benchmark (ORANGE) – Senior management in construction cluster
By comparison, the data analysis of the Business Services division (Figure 24) indicate that
they feel the group is not tracking well against learning organisation principles, regardless of
division. Although not a profit centre, Business Services provides centralised support for the
whole business. Their perception is untainted by any production team bias and is a good
independent indicator of the learning state of the group. Their analysed data shows their feeling
2,5
2,7
2,9
3,1
3,3
3,5
3,7
3,9
4,1
4,3
4,5
Co
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ou
s Le
arn
ing
Inq
uir
y an
d D
ialo
gue
Co
llab
ora
tio
n a
nd
Te
am L
earn
ing
Cre
ate
Syst
ems
Emp
ow
er P
eo
ple
Co
nn
ect
th
e O
rgan
isat
ion
Stra
tegi
c Le
ader
ship
Fin
anci
al P
erf
orm
ance
Kn
ow
led
ge P
erfo
rman
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Middle vs Senior Management Construction
Middle Manager Senior Manager DLOQ Interpretation Averages
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that the state of continuous learning and knowledge performance is particularly low relative
to the benchmark, and that strategic leadership is lacking.
Figure 24: DLOQ results (GREY) vs. benchmark (ORANGE) – Business Services
Another anomaly was identified in looking at the business services’ response to connecting the
organisation. Generally, this group was the most pessimistic in their responses, but within these
lower scores, the uptick on connecting the organisation seems out of place. This organisational
connection relates to seeing your work effects in the bigger picture, holistic decision making
through systemic thinking and adjusting work practice accordingly. I feel that this anomaly is
because the business services are not in touch with what happens at the coalface, which would
make learning and sense-making difficult for this group.They fail to link the holistic picture of
the system as a whole and consider on the internal encvironemnt and being required to be
connected as opposed to consideraing both internal and extrenal environments.
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6.2: Testing the DLOQ against the Purposeful Activity Model
Finally, having analysed the data in the various divisional groupings and extracted insights and
learnings, we can use this data to complete AR3, improve the purposeful activity model through
comparison against the DLOQ, and identify any possible gaps.
Looking at Marsick and Watkins (2003)’s dimensions of a learning organisation, I needed to
assess whether or not these critical dimensions were firstly catered for in the Purposeful
Activity Model before any comparison could take place. Anything not catered for would need
to be added either as a direct variable or as an influencing contextual issue. The table below
summarises this process.
Table 10: Critical Learning Dimension in the context of the developed Purposeful Activity
Model
Dimension of the
DLOQ
Definition of the dimension Associated Purposeful Model Attribute or
Variable
1. Create continuous
learning opportunities
(CL)
Learning is designed into
work so people can learn on
the job; opportunities are
provided for ongoing
education and growth.
Codification of learning to make it explicit to
all would mean that learning is designed into
work.
Feedback looping through discursive
practice and routines promotes dialogue,
whilst mistake tolerance and the balance
between exploration and exploitation caters
sufficiently for promoting inquiry.
Encouraging collaboration would be part of the
social dynamics and power distribution.
2. Promote inquiry
and dialogue (DI)
People express their views,
listen and inquire into the
views of others; questioning,
feedback, and
experimentation are
supported.
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3. Encourage
collaboration and
team learning (TL)
Work is designed to
encourage groups to access
different modes of thinking,
groups learn and work
together, and collaboration is
valued and rewarded.
4. Establish systems to
capture and share
learning (ES)
Both high- and low-
technology systems to share
learning are created and
integrated with work, access
is provided, and systems are
maintained.
In the model, the ability to codify knowledge
and make it explicit for all is central. This
requires systems to capture creative ways to
make learnings explicit so that it can be shared.
5. Empower people
toward a collective
vision (EP)
People are involved in
setting, owning, and
implementing joint visions;
responsibility is distributed
close to decision making so
people are motivated to learn
what they are held
accountable for.
Organisational structuring and
organisational strategy will determine how
close decision making is to distributed
responsibility. One needs to be careful that
informal power distribution and social
dynamics do not outweigh this; for me this
would sit squarely under strategic leadership,
which is not explicitly shown in the model.
6. Connect the
organisation to its
environment (SC)
People are helped to see the
impact of their work on the
entire enterprise and to think
systemically; people scan the
environment and use
information to adjust work
practices; and the
organisation is linked to its
community.
The model caters sufficiently for this through
the influence of internal and external
environment. The feedback for iterative
learning once this is codified and put into
strategic action to improve the situation would
allow work practices to be adaptable enough to
give the organisation a buffering resilience.
Again, the common factor here would be the
strategic leadership in place to drive it.
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7. Provide strategic
leadership for learning
(SL)
Leaders model, champion,
and support learning;
leadership uses learning
strategically for business
results.
This is the epicentre of all the dimensions in
my view. Without this, you cannot have the
other six dimensions in any purposeful form.
This is the pivotal dimension that is not
explicitly shown in the model.
From the above it can be seen that the purposeful activity model developed in AR1 and
expanded in AR2, needs to be further adjusted to incorporate the need for strong strategic
leadership. To keep this in line with having empowered people who have decision making
power and are motivated to align to a strategy they helped develop, one must have strategic
leadership at more than one level. Line management must arguably be fully responsible for the
strategy of their level, as opposed to being centrally controlled. All the business units must be
aligned to the group’s vision; however the strategy to get there should be developed and owned
by the business unit leadership best positioned to manage the associated strategic risks and best
positioned to learn from the strategic dynamics at play in the environment they understand best.
I have illustrated these insights by adding them in green to the developing Purposeful Activity
Model, as shown below in Figure 25. The blue text represents contextual issues influencing the
model, and the purple box is the key variable to unlocking an improvement cycle, as long as
the feedback looping moves from organisational strategy to the strategic leader who is integral
to the development of the organisational strategy.
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Figure 25: Final Purposeful Activity Model
6.3: Conclusion
This chapter synthesised the learnings from the data collection and analysis and applied it to
the purposeful activity model, to add robustness prior to considering possible interventions to
improve the system’s future state.
It was found was that strategic leadership is a key variable that is missing in my model, along
with some contextual items picked up through the aggregate dimensions found through
applying the Gioia method to interviews and questionnaires on s-a-p done at various levels of
InstitulionalisedKnowledge Creation
KnowledgeConversion into
InformedStrategic Action
Middle Manager Practice asKnowledge - Strategic Developmentand Practice through Interaction and
Discussion Routinisation)
MiddleManager
Sensemaking
Middle ManagerSensegiving
Socialisation /Recursiveness
SuperstitiousLearning
Social Dynamics and resultingPower Distribution
Organisational Structuring
OrganisationStrategic Adaptivity
ImprovedOrganisationalPerformance
Balance ofexploration and
exploitation
Mistaketolerance
Environmental complexity bothinternal and external
Organisational Strategy
Continuousiterative
feedback forstrategic
adustments orredirectioning
Codify and makeexplicit for all in the
organisation
Contextual Emergence
Discursion
KnowledgeBeneficiation
Learning Capacity
Organisational Identity
PerformanceEnhancement
Power Dynamics
Risk Appetite
MoP
Strategic Leadership
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the organisation. These suggest that leadership must use the learning capacity built up by
middle managers strategically, through practice as knowledge, to improve business
performance and results.
Another notable insight was that the power dynamics are independent of the organisation
structuring (or power given through position). The power ‘earned’ through social dynamics can
block or augment strategic learning initiatives depending on the strength of the power dynamics
in play and the middle managers’ resilience to it.
Knowledge beneficiation also came out very strongly as a key finding; without it there is only
the potential to change something rather than the ability to do so. This finding suggests that
knowledge alone cannot action change, but must be beneficiated into change action. This
change action will also not materialise if strategy is stifled through insufficient or inappropriate
risk appetite. The two go hand in hand, and if not aligned will result in efforts to create a
learning organisation being negated.
Chapter 7 will conclude the study by exploring possible ways to influence contextual areas and
variables of the model, to try to find possibilities to improve the ability of middle managers to
create learning capacity through s-a-p.
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Chapter 7: The Learning Journey, Conclusions and Future
Study recommendations
7.1: Introduction
This research effort set out to explore how middle managers could build organisational learning
capacity through their s-a-p. Findings were generated using three action research cycles based
on SSM principles that offered a surprising key finding in the prior chapter – namely that
strategic leadership is the key. As shown in the final summarised model below in Figure 26,
strategic leadership is the start and the end of everything this inquiry has been about.
Strategic leadership drives strategy development at the organisational level, which is enacted
through s-a-p at multiple levels (key of which is middle management). This allows for the
development of strategic decision options for action through institutionalising knowledge that
becomes explicit for all in the organisation to use. The strategic action can then be evaluated
through real life testing from which extracted insights and learnings can be fed back to the
organisation’s strategic leadership for adjustments. The strategic leadership, with the obvious
exception of the environment, influences any external contextual influencers on s-a-p,
stemming from the four summary topics of structure, culture, power dynamics and
environment. Middle managers are hence impotent without strategic leadership - from above
as well as amongst themselves.
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Figure 26: Summary of the Purposeful Activity Model
The balance of this chapter speaks to my learning journey throughout this research effort and
outlines final conclusions and recommendations for future research projects.
7.2: My Learning Journey
During the research, I was able to control my engineering bias to “solve the problem” and
rather let the data collection and analysis guide the process of iteratively investigating the area
of concern and looking for vantage points that could be used to improve the situation.
This is evidenced by the findings and outcomes of the three action research cycles which show
the power that qualitative research (using SSM) has in contributing to academic research. I
started the project with a feeling that I already knew the answer, only to find that by putting
aside my own bias I could unlock the power to generate authoritative learnings that have the
ability to improve the future state of something very close to my heart, and hopefully also
contribute to the field of s-a-p.
InstitutionalisedKnowledge Creation Strategic ActionOrganisational StrategyStrategic Leadership Strategy-As-Practice
Continuousiterative
feedback forstrategic
adustments orredirectioning
Structure
Power Dynamics
Culture
Environment
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7.3: Conclusions and recommendations for future studies
The conclusion of the paper is that a middle manager is impotent to improve the future state of
organisational performance through building learning capacity through s-a-p unless there is
strong strategic leadership in the organisation. The results were surprising in that strategic
leadership was not a considered concept at the start of this research effort. It emerged as the
central theme through rigour of the data collection and analysis.
What amazed me most during the process is the power of research using AR in SSM. No person
interviewed spoke to strategic leadership, regardless of his or her formal or informal standing
and power within the organisation. Yet when the collective answered the questionnaires, the
outcome was unanimous in terms of finding the strategic leadership of the organisation lacking.
Only through AR use in SSM was this possible.
Although other factors influencing the purposeful activity model proved correct in the DLOQ,
the strongest correlation to performance was strategic leadership. Future research within an
organisation struggling to build capacity for learning to drive strategy as practice to improve
performance, should focus on the building of strategic leadership as a focus and identify where
this influences middle managers and their practice as knowledge.
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7.4: References
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Appendix A. Company Permission for the study
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Appendix B. DLOQ plus developers permission grant as well as
frequently asked questions around the DLOQ
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Dave Bennett
From: Karen Watkins <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, 24 August 2017 16:24
To: David Bennett; [email protected]
Cc: Marsick, Victoria
Subject: Re: Executive MBA
Attachments: non-techmanualADHR copy.pdf
Hi David, That sounds like a very interesting study! We are happy to grant permission with appropriate citation of our work both in the instrument used and in any subsequent publications including your dissertation. Good luck on the study, Karen
-- Karen E. Watkins, Professor Learning, Leadership & Organization Development Department of Lifelong Education, Administration & Policy The University of Georgia 850 College Station Road 406 River’s Crossing Athens, GA 30602 0: 706-542-2214 [to leave msg only] C: 706-340-6791
From: David Bennett <[email protected]> Date: Thursday, August 24, 2017 at 2:50 AM To: Victoria Marsick <[email protected]>, karen watkins <[email protected]> Cc: "Marsick, Victoria" <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Executive MBA
Hi Vicoria/Karen
Trust you are well. Was hoping for some feedback on my previous mail below.
Regards,Dave Bennett General Manager Roads, Earthworks and Pipelines Group Five Civil Engineering (Pty) Ltd
Tel +27 10 060 1555 | Dir +27 10 060 2463 | Vax +27 86 609 9095 | Cell +27 82 578 9311 Address 9 Country Estate Drive, Waterfall Business Estate, Jukskei View, 1662, South Africa Email [email protected]
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From: David Bennett Sent: 21 August 2017 16:39 To: 'Marsick, Victoria' Cc: [email protected]; Karen Watkins Subject: RE: Executive MBA
Hi Victoria
Thanks for the quick response
My research question is what role middle managers play in building learning capacity through strategy as practice? I am reviewing three academic areas to research this; the learning organisation, sensemaking and strategy as practice (SAP). My unit of measure is middle management as an aggregate organisational level.
For the learning organisation portion, I am trying to get a baseline for whether or not we are a learning organisation. My feeling is that we are not close. We are in a terrible recession in the country and the complexity in the construction industry is immense. The organisation I work for, in my view, does not use its experience to create knowledge that helps us make smarter strategic decisions. Instead we repeat the same mistakes. In my dissertation I speak about a “rinse, wash and repeat” cycle that we run annually in terms of the strategic plans we produce through our strategy as practice.
The idea would be to develop a theoretical model of how middle managers SAP works through building learning capacity. This would be purely based on a literature review that I am currently busy with (when I came across a few of your papers that peaked my interest). I would then take the results from the DLOQ (also note that I am focussing the study on middle managers so I would limit the respondents within the organisation to Patterson levels of D3 and up) and see if this ties to the theoretical model in terms of the 7 critical dimensions. The fact that the DLOQ is split into these dimensions would help me narrow in on the area requiring the greatest of focus initially. Using a Soft Systems Methodology approach I would then holistically diagnose improvement areas that would modify the model or identify levers that could be triggered through safe to fail experimentation that could improve the organisations future strategic state. Using this the research would make recommendations.
I have developed an online questionnaire using an exact replica of yours using Google and would run it anonymously so that the respondents don’t feel restricted in their responses and I hopefully get truthful data returned that adds greater meaning to the research.
I would like to use this research also as a baseline of my organisation before any interventions. After the dissertation I could check on an annual basis how our initiates (recommended from my research) are faring if EXCO decide to proceed with them based on my research findings.
Warm Regards,Dave Bennett General Manager Roads, Earthworks and Pipelines Group Five Civil Engineering (Pty) Ltd
Tel +27 10 060 1555 | Dir +27 10 060 2463 | Vax +27 86 609 9095 | Cell +27 82 578 9311 Address 9 Country Estate Drive, Waterfall Business Estate, Jukskei View, 1662, South Africa Email [email protected]
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From: Marsick, Victoria [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 21 August 2017 15:57 To: David Bennett Cc: [email protected]; Karen Watkins Subject: Re: Executive MBA
Hi David
Sorry I did not check my linked in or research gate recently. Thanks for your email and interest in our DLOQ.
I am copying my co-author, Dr. Watkins. Could you send us more information about how you will use the DLOQ as part of the design? What are your research questions and how will this information fit with the design?
Thanks, Victoria Marsick
On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 9:08 AM, David Bennett <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi There
I have tried connecting on LinkedIn and via Researchgate but without success. I would like permission to use your DLOQ in my organisation as part of my dissertation research data collection process. I was hoping to get your written permission or discuss any queries/requirements you may have first.
I am studying my Executive MBA through the Graduate School of Business (University of Cape Town) in South Africa and dissertation topic is the role of middle managers in building learning capacity through strategy as practice.
Regards,
Dave Bennett General Manager Roads, Earthworks and Pipelines Group Five Civil Engineering (Pty) Ltd
Tel +27 10 060 1555 | Dir +27 10 060 2463 | Vax +27 86 609 9095 | Cell +27 82 578 9311Address 9 Country Estate Drive, Waterfall Business Estate, Jukskei View, 1662, South Africa Email [email protected]
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Frequently asked questions about the Dimensions of the Learning Organization
Questionnaire (the DLOQ): A non-technical manual
!
Karen E. Watkins
The University of Georgia
Judy A. O’Neil
Partners for Learning and Leadership
The Problem
Many people seek to use the DLOQ in research and practice with a host of
questions about its construction, utility, and reliability. To date, there has been no readily
accessible source of information about this.
The Solution
This article traces the development of the theoretical constructs which undergird
the survey, outlines the steps of survey construction, and responds to frequently asked
questions about the questionnaire.
The Stakeholders
Human!resource!and!organization!development!scholars!who!would!use!the
DLOQ in studies of organizational culture have a need for accurate information about the
instrument. HROD practitioners who plan to use the instrument as part of ongoing
organization development initiatives also need information about the utility and reliability
of the instrument to share with their stakeholders and to ensure high quality data will
inform their interventions.!
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Introduction
We!begin!by!tracing!the!evolution!of!the!construct!of!the!learning!
organization!by!Watkins!and!Marsick!as!it!has!evolved!in!their!writing!and!practice!
as!well!as!the!theoretical!origins!of!their!ideas.!We!then!discuss!the!construct!
validity!and!reliability!of!the!questionnaire.!Finally,!the!article!concludes!with!how!
the!instrument!has!been!used!to!guide!human!resource!and!organization!
development!research!and!practice.!
Where did the DLOQ come from?
In this section, we trace the evolution of our theory of a learning culture and its
assessment through the development of a questionnaire.
Theory Development.
In 1990, Marsick and Watkins collaborated on a book focused on the notion that
most of the learning in organizations occurs spontaneously and organically, evolving
from the work itself: Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace (1990). The
book drew from their research to demonstrate the nature of this learning. As they and
their grounding in the works of Polanyi, Dewey, Schon, and Lewin. Specifically, their
theory of informal and incidental learning included the ideas of making the tacit explicit
(Polanyi, 1966), experiential learning (Dewey, 1938), framing and reflection (Schon,
1983), and on Lewin’s field theory of learning particularly the influence of the social
context on learning (Lewin, 1951). Marsick and Watkins concluded the book, the authors
offeredwith a vision of a broadened conception of the field of human resource
development that involved a capacity to help individuals, groups, organizations and even
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the profession itself to create structures and cultures where learning is continuous,
ubiquitous, embedded in the context of the work itself, that draws on the strategies most
effective for informal and incidental learning—self- direction, proactivity, creativity, and
critical reflection.
This vision inspired an extensive review of the literature of organizational
learning, the learning organization, self- authoring and self- organizing organizations, and
related research over almost fifty years of writing on these and related ideas beginning
with Lewin (1948). At the same time, they examined organizational examples of
promising experiments in creating the capacities that allow the organization to learn.
Watkins began a long-term project with Argyris and Schon and colleagues to develop
understanding and capacities in implementing action science and Marsick began a similar
learning and development effort implementing action reflection learning as described
originally by Revans and reinterpreted by Lennart Rohlin and colleagues of the
Management Institute of Lund1.!!
As their concept of the nature of organizational learning and its embodiment in
organizations that called themselves learning organizations evolved, they began to
crystallize their thinking in a book entitled Sculpting the learning organization: Lessons
in the art and science of systemic change (Watkins and Marsick, 1993). In Sculpting the
Learning Organization, they described promising experiments to create a learning culture
along six action imperatives and concluded with changes needed at four levels of a
learning organization [individual, team, organizational, and societal]. Watkins and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 See Argyris, Putnam, and Smith (1985), Argyris and Schon (1978, 1996) and Revans (1980
1982), Rohlin (1984).
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Marsick began by noting how the metaphor of sculpting uniquely fits the learning
organization -- because it is more of a concept, uniquely shaped to fit the context, using
raw materials at hand. Watkins and Marsick (1993) said,
Our purpose in writing this book is to help you see clearly in your mind’s
eye the as yet nonexistent sculpture—the learning organization—and to
show how some forward-looking organizations have begun to transform
themselves into learning organizations. Ours is not a book of strategies but
rather an analysis of the characteristics, qualities, and efforts of emerging
learning organizations that will help you set a course and develop practices
to create your own learning organization. (p. xv)
They emphasize learning that transforms. Six action imperatives are essential
building blocks of a culture that transforms. The six action imperatives were:
• Create continuous learning opportunities
• Promote inquiry and dialogue
• Encourage collaboration and team learning
• Establish systems to capture and share learning
• Empower people toward a collective vision
• Connect the organization to its environment.
One can readily see the seeds of the DLOQ in the action imperatives. Indeed,
Watkins and Marsick (1993) noted that to begin to build a learning organization, one
must first audit the organization’s present capacity to learn and to change (Ibid., p. 262).
The four levels spoke to four capacities:
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1. Change in individual’s behavior, knowledge, motivation and capacity to learn
2. Change in a group’s capacity to innovate and generate new knowledge
3. Change in organizational capacity for innovation and new knowledge
production
4. Change in overall capacity of community and society through quality of work
life and other means.
They concluded with seven attributes or seven C’s of a learning organization:
continuous, collaborative, creative, captured and codified, connected, collective, and
capacity-building. These attributes evolve from the people themselves: “The learning
organization grows organically out of the drive of the people themselves to learn and
grow. . . . While changes explode around the organization, the learning organization is
created by implosion (Ibid., p. 279).
Following the publication of this book, the American Society for Training and
Development asked them to collect case studies of learning organizations. Watkins and
Marsick, through ASTD, solicited case studies from over 8500 individuals. From this
broad request, seventy individuals responded and thirty-two submitted cases. We selected
nineteen case examples of promising experiments across our action imperatives, and
three integrated systemic approaches whose organization-wide activities made the
cultural shifts we deemed essential to creating a learning organization. In action:
Creating the learning organization (Watkins & Marsick, 1996) gives the selected cases.
Watkins and Marsick concluded with their lessons learned. The learning organization
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is not a destination, but a journey; it is not a formula, but it does involve
some key principles that can be used to tailor a flexible structure to one’s
unique needs. A learning organization must do the following:
• Embed a learning infrastructure—not a training department, but a
widespread means of creating, capturing and disseminating
knowledge . ..
• Cultivate a learning habit in people and in the culture so that a spirit
of inquiry, initiative, and experimental thinking predominates
• Regularly audit the knowledge capital in the organization and
progress toward eliminating barriers to learning. (Watkins and
Marsick, 1996, pp. 282-283)
The theory was almost complete. In 1999, Marsick and Watkins collaborated on
another book, Facilitating learning organizations: Making learning count. Figure 1.1, (p.
11) of this book depicts the final model and includes the seventh and last action
imperative: provide strategic leadership for learning. The authors assert that their former
definition of a learning organization, “one that is characterized by continuous learning for
continuous improvement and by the capacity to transform itself” (p. 10) was no longer
adequate because it was more a principle than an operational definition. The model, then,
embodies their theory- seven action imperatives create conditions at four systemic levels
that produce valued outcomes thus: “(1) systems-level, continuous learning; (2) that is
created in order to create and manage knowledge outcomes; (3) which lead to
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improvement in the organization’s performance, and ultimately its value, as measured
through both financial assets and non-financial intellectual capital” (pp. 10-11).
This book focused primarily on strategies to create a learning organization and
introduced the DLOQ in Chapter Four: Charting the Journey (Marsick and Watkins,
1999). This chapter briefly described early use of the questionnaire in research and
consultation. The authors quoted their conclusions from the 1996 book that leaders
emerged as primary gatekeepers of change and those who must transform themselves to
model a learning process. They state:
The first step towards becoming a learning organization seems to be
changing leaders’ roles. Even though leadership for learning is often distributed, it
is also true that people cannot step out and change the way things are done unless
they are supported from the top. Leaders must provide a safe space in which
people can take on new behaviours and realize that it is expected that they
challenge the status quo. The ideal situation is one in which leaders themselves
model learning. (Ibid., p. 159)
The authors were influenced by Ellinger (1997) who studied managers as
facilitators of learning in learning organizations and found different outcomes with
different patterns and levels of personal transformation of leaders’ practice. The essential
role of leaders was affirmed as they looked across the book as a whole. They examined
each of the case studies in the book and noted,
In each case, there has been one or more individuals driving the vision,
believing that learning can make a difference. A sidekick, a person with
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knowledge of the change process, has helped to bring the vision to life and
to move people and systems without harming them. There has not always
been a clear diagnosis of how things are or a map of where the organization
is headed. Sometimes, the map changed mid-stream. Leaders were able to
admit that they were wrong and to redirect the change effort. They did this
in conversation with their employees. They listened, they talked, they
persisted. They saw a future that they could hardly describe but worked
creatively and collaboratively to tease that future out of the stubborn
marble of the organization as it was. And most of all, they realized that
becoming a learning organization is in the details of daily life--- how they
interact with their people. (p. 204)
Though the authors continued to conduct research on the learning organization and
to explore ways to create a learning culture, the essential model as presented in this book
has not changed and established the substantive component of construct validation
(Benson, .1998). Work with Yang established structural and external construct validity of
the model.
Questionnaire Development.
During the same decade, the authors gave a number of workshops with
individuals from numerous organizations. As they interacted with corporate trainers and
leaders, a consistent question was how to operationalize their model. What changes must
be made to change an organization from where they are now to where they would like to
be? As Marsick and Watkins and their workshop participants struggled to figure this out,
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the idea germinated of a questionnaire that might give individuals a baseline to determine
where they are now against the cultural action imperatives they’d identified.
Watkins and Marsick developed and refined numerous iterations of a
questionnaire with help from a survey research methodologist [Dr. Tom Valentine,
University of Georgia] and a statistician [Dr. Baiyin Yang, then also at the University of
Georgia, now Tsinghua University in Beijing]. They created items to capture the
indicators they had seen in learning organizations they looked for in those organizations
who would become learning organizations.
The template for the questionnaire included a consistent item format, visual
analog responses, and a six point Likert scale. The item format is designed to maintain a
focus on the organization, each item beginning with “In my organization, …” A visual
analog response scale was used to give a free range of responses along a continuum with
anchors on each end (Clark and Watson, 1995). The authors were influenced by Kelly’s
personal construct theory and scaling approach that argued that meaning is personally
constructed – and can be discerned by asking individuals to place themselves along a
dichotomous continuum, of responses. The authors anchored only the two poles of the
response scale with “almost never” and “almost always,” indicating how often the
statement is true for their organization. They used a six-point scale to distribute responses
and to avoid a clustering of responses at the mean, requiring; and asked respondents to
make a choice toward one side of the continuum or the other.
The pool of items were vetted with expert and student panels to ensure the
language was simple, straightforward, and at an appropriate reading level for a largely
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professional audience. The student panel hand-sorted items on index cards to verify the
fit of the item within each dimension. From early pilot tests, a dataset was created and
Cronbach’s (1951) coefficient alpha reliabilities and factor analyses conducted to identify
poorly worded and weak loading items. These items were revised or eliminated.
Through this iterative process, the questionnaire was completed and used in
workshops with the Columbia Business School and in other contexts. Students at UGA
used the survey in research in family businesses (Selden, 1998), non-profit organizations
(McHargue, 1999), government (Sta Maria, 2000), and South American for-profit
corporations (Hernandez, 2000) and at Teacher’s College in small businesses (Kim,
2007) and banking (Murugiah, 2008). Their cumulative work further demonstrated the
validity and reliability of different versions of the DLOQ by context and culture.
Dr. Baiyin Yang worked with the authors to complete the validation of the
instrument. Using a cumulative database of responses from multiple studies and
organizations (N = 836), they conducted reliability analyses, exploratory and
confirmatory factor analyses as well as structural equation modeling to test the construct
validity of the dimensions and the overarching theory behind the model—that
organizational knowledge and financial [and mission in non-profit organizations]
performance are related to the overall health of the organization’s learning culture.
Reliability results indicated high levels of reliability [.80 to .87] (Yang, Watkins, and
Marsick, 2004). The authors report the results of this work, verifying the structural
dimension of construct validity (Benson, 1998) of the model –
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The present study showed strong evidence of construct validity for the
scale measuring dimensions of a learning organization. . . .A nomological
network between dimensions of the learning organization and performance
outcomes was identified and empirically tested as an additional step toward
construct validation. Support for nomological validity was found from the
significant relations between dimensions of the learning organization and
performance outcomes and the model-data fit. (p. 50)
The external dimension of construct validity (Benson, 1998) was demonstrated
when the model generated showed the relative impact of different dimensions of the
learning organization on performance. In these analyses, individual and team level
dimensions had indirect significant effects on organizational outcomes, and
organizational level variables served as mediators of the relationship between individual
and team level dimensions and organizational outcomes. Interestingly, only “provide
strategic leadership for learning” had a significant direct effect on financial performance.
The other organizational level dimensions, “embedded systems to capture and share
learning” and “systemic connections,” affected financial performance indirectly through
knowledge performance (p. 49).
In 2003, we shared the work of several of our colleagues in a special issue of
Advances in Developing Human Resources. Studies using the DLOQ in different contexts
illustrated the value of the questionnaire, and the authors invited others to use the
questionnaire, including the questionnaire itself in the special issue. Since that time, over
70 published articles using the DLOQ demonstrate its usefulness in many contexts and
cultures.
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Frequently Asked Questions
As the DLOQ has been used in studies in multiple disciplines, multiple languages
and organizational contexts, a number of questions have recurred. Some of these follow.
Can I Adapt The DLOQ For My Organization?
The DLOQ is a copyrighted instrument which means that the items, the format,
the scoring, etc. may not be used without the express permission of the authors. If
adaptation is needed, the authors must approve that adaptation. Simple adaptations such
as saying the name of the organization in lieu of “In my organization” are readily
approved. Because it affects reliability, any change of language of the items to better fit a
context [e.g. public health, government, military, schools, etc.] have generally been co-
developed with the authors to maintain the integrity of the different constructs and to
ensure any new language maintains the spirit of the dimensions.
Other changes [e.g. eliminating some items in a dimension] change the reliability
of that dimension and are discouraged. Yang developed a 21 item short form of the
instrument that has acceptable reliability and thus offers a better alternative to a more
random elimination of items. Many who seek to use the instrument are familiar with 5
point Likert scales and thus want to change the scoring to a 5 point scale from the current
6-point scale. This adaptation we also discourage because it again decreases reliability of
the dimensions and causes regression to the mean.
Can I Translate The Questionnaire?
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Absolutely. We ask only that you follow the guidelines for validating your
translation, e.g. using back translation, expert review, and then use Chronbach’s (1951)
coeffiecient alpha to again ensure the reliability of each dimension is not significantly
lower from those obtained in our validation work. We also invite translators to share a
copy of the translated DLOQ with us for future scholars who also need that specific
language. Currently, it has been translated into 14 languages other than English that we
are aware of.
Can I Use Parts Of The DLOQ In Another Questionnaire?
Indeed, we have given permission to use shorter versions of the questionnaire or
all of it as part of larger questionnaires that measure additional variables. As long as the
DLOQ is appropriately cited, this is acceptable. Appropriate citation for the instrument is:
Watkins, K., & Marsick, V. (1997). Dimensions of the learning organization
questionnaire. Warwick, RI: Partners for the Learning Organization. and Marsick,
V., & Watkins, K. (2003). Demonstrating the value of an organization’s learning
culture: The dimensions of the learning organization questionnaire. Advances in
Developing Human Resources, 5 (2), 132-151.
Can I Use The DLOQ In A Study Looking At Individual Behavior?
This is another complicated question we frequently receive. The dilemma here is
we are asking for individual perceptions of organizational phenomena in the DLOQ. We
do not necessarily use the organization as the unit of analysis in our work, but we are
hoping to determine patterns that tell us something about differences across organizations
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and organization units regarding their learning culture. A study that then compares the
DLOQ scores to an individual construct such as emotional intelligence becomes hard to
interpret. So if the learning culture of the organizations responding is high in strategic
leadership for learning, and respondents scored low in intrapersonal behavior on the EQI,
what does this really mean? Do we argue that less reflective people perceive the leaders
in their organization are providing excellent leadership for learning? There are many
similar examples of logical conundrums.
We created two organizational performance measures – knowledge and financial
performance-- as part of the DLOQ and with McHargue (1999) a third – mission
performance. Others have used an array of organizational performance measures both
hard and soft to develop correlations between a given culture and its outcomes. This kind
of comparison is more fruitful since it fits with our theory of the learning organization as
a driver of organizational innovation and performance. It is also consistent with all
measures yielding individual perceptions of organizational attributes.
What Are Limitations Of The DLOQ?
All instruments are limited in utility. The best use of the DLOQ is to provide a
diagnostic of where an organization or a group of organizations falls relative to each
other and to others who have taken the DLOQ. It is not a measure of all that a learning
organization is, but rather an indicator that suggests that if these characteristics are
present, others equally essential to creating a learning culture are probably also present
and thus the organization may be understood to have a high or low learning culture.
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The instrument is a self-report measure and shares the limitations of all self-
report questionnaires. Individuals may not be truthful, may answer capriciously, in a
socially desirable way, or may lack information to answer accurately. We look at
responses in the aggregate, expecting that much of this potential bias will be addressed –
and even more will be identified statistically particularly through tests of internal
reliability. Razavi (2001) reviewing the concerns and limitations of self-report measures
concludes these issues must be taken into account in the design of the questionnaire, but
in regard to the purpose and theoretical considerations. Moreover, taken collectively,
individual perceptions of the learning culture are the strongest measure available of an
elusive and abstract construct.
Items in the DLOQ are positively worded- and a positive response set is possible.
On the other hand, we look at overall profiles- highs and lows rather than overall means.
Thus, an individual organization may appear to score much higher than our global mean,
yet the general pattern of responses is similar to the pattern of high and low dimensions
we’ve observed across many organizations.
The dimensions are highly inter-correlated. This multi-co-linearity makes
statistical analyses more difficult2, yet since the constructs operationalized with this
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!2!Naes!and!Mevik!(2001)!suggest!the!use!principal!component!regression!(PCR)!for!handling!the!
multiIcollinearity!problem!in!regression!and!discriminant!analysis.!See!also!Adnan,!Ahmad,!and!
Adnan!(2006)!who!compare!the!performances!of!ridge!regression!(RR),!principal!component!
regression!(PCR)!and!partial!least!squares!regression!(PLSR)!in!handling!the!multiIcollinearity!
problem!in!simulated!data!sets.!Ridge!regression!produced!a!more!precise!result.!
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instrument are all dimensions of a learning culture, it is intuitively reasonable for the
dimensions to be inter-related. Indeed, we conceptualized the learning culture as a
collective result of these seven dimensions. Of more concern to us are what dimensions
of a learning culture have we not captured in this instrument? Future scholars will need to
address this question.
What Forms Of The Instrument Are Available?
The authors worked with colleagues to develop a number of versions including
the original for profit instrument, a non-profit version, higher education and K-12
versions, government, and military versions. An on-line version is available and a self-
scoring version is available from the authors. Copies of translated versions may also be
available depending on the language requested.
Why Use The DLOQ In Practice?
Much has been written about why an organization might strive to become a
learning organization based on theory, research, and practice (Senge, 1990; Watkins &
Marsick, 1993; Marsick & Watkins, 2003). Since these earlier writings, both researchers
and practitioners have been using the DLOQ to attempt to provide more specific
examples from practice to make the case that learning in an organization can have a
positive impact on organizational outcomes. The following is a look at the areas most
examined in order to provide practitioners insight into where they might find available
data and ideas for their own exploration.
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Organizational performance. Early on in learning organization research,
Ellinger, Ellinger, Yang and Howton (1993) recognized the need to begin to build a
business case for the relationship between learning organization dimensions and an
organization’s performance. Their early research focused on financial performance and a
number of other studies continued that focus. Ellinger, Ellinger, Yang and Howton’s
(1993) study used four measures of financial performance including return on equity
(ROE), return on assets (ROA), Tobin’s q, and market value added (MVA). Davis &
Daley (2008) added to the data verifying the relationship of the learning culture to
financial performance by examining return on investment (ROI), earnings per share
(EPS), net income per employee, percentage of sales from new products, as well as ROE.
Fuentes (2008) looked at the link between Balanced Scorecard results and the presence of
a learning culture in US-based, for-profit corporations. The relationship between learning
organization dimensions and financial performance was also examined in Malaysia and
Sri Lanka (Kumar, 2005; Weerakkody, 2011).
Organizational impact. The concept of organizational commitment has long
been known to be of importance to the success of organizations (Brewer & Hensher,
1998; Leiriao, 2003). There is more renewed interest in understanding what might
contribute to engaging employees’ commitment based on the differing attitudes of newer
employees and the ongoing recession (Bourke, 2009; Solnet & Kralj, 2010). Researchers
and practitioners around the globe have looked at the relationship and impact of learning
organization dimensions on the possible various dimensions of organizational
commitment such as job satisfaction, interpersonal trust, and organizational culture
(Dirani, 2009; Song, Kim & Kolb, 2009; Salehi, 2005; Wang, 2007).
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“Innovation—the ability to define and develop new products and services and
deliver them to market—is the fundamental source of value creation in companies and an
important enabler of competitive advantage” (Bordia, Konenberg & Neely, 2005, p. 1).
Many researchers and practitioners agree on the importance of innovation to
organizations and have looked into the relationship between learning organization
dimensions and innovative behavior. Much of the research has been done with companies
in Malaysia (Ismail, 2005; Sta Maria, 2003) and China (Xiaojun, 2010) and has examined
the relationships in both individual innovative behavior and overall organizational
innovation.
A final area at the organizational level that has been of interest to researchers and
practitioners is the area of readiness for organizational change. The idea of organizational
change, and what might support and promote it, has been studied by many (Beckhard &
Pritchard, 1992; Burke, 2010), so those interested in learning organization impacts have
also looked at the relationship both in the US and internationally (Haque, 2008;
Mohammad & Gholamreza, 2011; Noubar, Rose, Kumar & Salleh, 2011).
Employee impact. There has also been research conducted on the connections
between learning organization dimensions and employees at various levels in an
organization. Marsick and Watkins (1999) emphasized the role of leaders and how they
“must transform their work in order to support the learning organization” (p. 159).
Researchers have continued to study leaders to better understand how leaders’ actions or
inactions impact employees in a company as the learning organization dimensions are
developed (Hawkins, 2005; Lu, 2010; Pimapunsri, 2008).
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The other area of interest for research has been at the employee level in the
organization. Historically, an employee’s career was developed in relationship with
his/her employer. Significant changes such as globalization and the increased use of
temporary and part-time employees has changed this relationship (Sullivan & Baruch,
2009). So researchers and practitioners have become interested in looking at the affects of
a learning organization on the employee’s ability to have a self-managed career (Berg &
Chyung, 2008; Park, 2009).
Over 70 research studies have been undertaken using the DLOQ. While this
synopsis provides some of the main research areas that might be of interest to
organizational practitioners, there has been research using the DLOQ to investigate the
relationship between learning organization dimensions and many other areas, some of
which are described in earlier chapters. Other research included the areas of knowledge
creation (Song, 2008), collaborative capacity (Getha-Taylor, 2008), adoption of
evidence-based practices (Bridges, Bierema & Valentine, 2007), and peer relationships
(Peroune, 2007).
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Author’s Bios:
Karen&E.&Watkins.&Karen!is!Professor!of!Human!Resource!and!Organizational!
Development!in!the!College!of!Education!at!The!University!of!Georgia.!Watkins!is!the!
author!or!coIauthor!of!over!100!articles!and!chapters,!and!6!books.!Watkins!and!
Marsick!developed!and!validated!the!Dimensions(of(the(Learning(Organization(
Questionnaire.!
Judy O’Neil, Ed.D. - President of Partners for Learning and Leadership, Inc., and
adjunct faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University. She holds an Ed.D. and M.A.
in Adult Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. Prior to her
work with Partners, Dr. O’Neil was managing partner of her own consulting firm. In her
25 years at AT&T, she held a variety of roles in human resource development and
organizational change.
!
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Appendix C. DLOQ Send Out Email
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Dave Bennett
From: David Bennett <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, 28 August 2017 16:07
To: Abel Mudau; Ajit Maharaj; Alton Jooste; Andre De Wet; Andy Stott; Annish
Doorgapersad; Arie Nijhuis; Bruce Chiang; Carl-James Van Rooyen; Carmen Larsen;
Cedomir Djordjevic; Charles Cormack; Charles Mossop; Chris Agar; Chrisjan Willemse;
Cindy Smit; Clancinah Baloyi; Clerk Hill; Clinton Wade Van Der Merwe; Colin Campbell;
Craig Cronje; Craig Gainsford; Cristina Freitas Teixeira; Dallas Thackeray; Daniel Maritz;
Daniel Ranoko; Dave Morgan; David Bennett; David Blain; Des Muller; Devi Pertab;
Dineo Sekwele; Donovan Carroll; Dorita Smit; Eduan Van Rooyen; Edward Williams;
Enzo Ermacora; Ezmare Clifford; Filipe Marques; Fiona Park; Flynn Bedworth; Franco
Ermacora; Francois Stock; Frank Enslin; Frikkie Weeks; Gary Elliott; George Hammond;
Gerry Henny; Gert Botha; Glen Hockly; Gregory Skeen; Guy Mottram; Hans Van Der
Waal; Hendrik Eksteen; Hennie Davel; Honest Nyilika; Howard Wakefield; Humphrey
Makoe; Ian Theron; Igor Kruger; Isabella Makuta; Jacques Le Roux; Jacques Robbertze;
Jake Friis; Jennifer Taylor; Jerilyn Richards; Johan Nortier; John Wallace; Jonathan Ely;
Joseph Dickson; Joseph Khoza; Julio Cerqueira; Jurgen Stragier; Keith Pillay; Keri O'Brien;
Kevin Burnard; Kevin Strydom; Kishore Sewchurran; Kushil Maharaj; Laura Frittella;
Laurent Bouchacourt; Leslie Bosma; Louis Makumbila; Luckie Molubi; Magugu Mvula;
Mannie Kistnasamy; Mark Harris; Mark Humphreys; Mark Jones; Matuloe Masemola;
Michael Bolleurs; Michael Davison; Michael Hanna; Monty Soobramoney; Neelan
Govender; Neshan Sukdeo; Neville Gezwint; Nic Fee; Nick Everts; Nico Drotskie; Paul
Thiel; Peet Herbst; Peri Zagaretos; Peter De Vries; Petrus Erasmus; Phil Coleman; Pieter
Van Der Poll; Pravin Laljit; Quinton Warmback; Ray Govender; Retha Kriek; Richard
Adams; Richard Simpson; Richard Van Den Barg; Romay Rundgren; Ronnie Murugan;
Ross Scullard; Roy Thomson; Roy Von Pannier; Russell Deenik; Sashnee Naidoo;
Sechaba Moru; Stephen Trickett; Steve Ryninks; Themba Mosai; Themba Mthethwa;
Theresa Burdett; Thomas Moolman; Tienie Kruger; Timothy Nicholls; Tom Collins; Tony
Ruskovich; Ursula Mclaren; Wayne Dos Santos Niz; Wim Fourie; Wolfgang Kleer;
Wynand Adlem; Yusuf Chothia; Zander Van Lingen; Zo Hlongwane
Subject: Questionnaire
Hi everyone
Please could you kindly use the link below and take 15 minutes to complete this questionnaire by Friday 1 September 2015. By filling in the questionnaire indicates obvious consent to do so. You are under no obligation and I am unable to know from where the information has come – in other words it is completely anonymous. Thanks you in advance for your assistance.
https://goo.gl/forms/eacWKHJ1W2g1GpNm1
REQUEST FOR AN INTERVIEW/QUESTIONNAIRE AS PART OF A RESEARCH STUDY
In partial fulfilment of a Master’s degree in Business Administration specialising in Executive Management
(EMBA), I am conducting research that seeks to research the “role of middle managers in building organisational
learning capacity in strategy-as-practice”. Currently I feel that construction companies struggle to develop and
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execute relevant strategy and that middle managers play a crucial role in this. It is my hope that this study will
reveal practical insights into developing a a plausible theory on how the middle managers role can help diffuse
an organisational culture of learning that could rid organisations of layers of systems and procedure which limit
strategic adaptability.
There are no known risks or dangers to you associated with this study. The researchers will not attempt to
identify you with the responses to your questionnaire, or to name you as a participant in the study except with
your permission, nor will they facilitate anyone else's doing so.
Ethical consent for the study has been obtained from the UCT Commerce Faculty Ethics in Research Committee.
UCT requires that in agreeing to participate you acknowledge that you are participating in this study of your
own free will; you understand that you may refuse to participate or stop participating at any time without
penalty. Permission for the study has been obtained from Group Five Ltd CEO, Themba Mosai.
If you have any questions about this project or your participation, you can email the researcher
[email protected] or call on 0825789311 (alternatively email the researcher’s supervisor, Jennifer
McDonogh on [email protected]).
Thank you for supporting this initiative.
Kind regards,
Regards, Dave Bennett General Manager Roads, Earthworks and Pipelines Group Five Civil Engineering (Pty) Ltd
Tel +27 10 060 1555 | Dir +27 10 060 2463 | Vax +27 86 609 9095 | Cell +27 82 578 9311 Address 9 Country Estate Drive, Waterfall Business Estate, Jukskei View, 1662, South Africa Email [email protected]
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The role of middle managers in building organisational learning capacity in strategy-as-practice: A construction industry case
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Appendix D. DLOQ Send Out
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