Online Lightning Talks
Responsible Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility in Luxembourg
Virtual Lightning Talk Ursula Schinzel
The aims of the present study are to determine first if there is a link between responsible leadership and CSR in Luxembourg, and second Luxembourg’s specifics in the field of CSR. This study is the combination of research about responsible leadership and CSR in Luxembourg in connection with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: high Long-Term Orientation (LTO), high Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), and high Collectivism (low Individualism). This is a qualitative study. 64 semi-structured interviews were conducted from January to August 2017 using four culturally different samples, namely: Luxembourgers with Luxembourgish Nationality (Lux.Nat.), foreigners who reside in Luxembourg (Lux.Foreigner), cross-borderers, and the rest of the world (World). Results were formed in three groups: Euphoric respondents who said it is the authenticity of the leader and his modelling role in lived CSR, second, moderate respondents, and, third, critical respondents, denying any link and claiming for change and innovation accusing the high Uncertainty Avoidance Index. In their opinion, there is an urgent need for managers to learn responsible leadership and CSR. Research implications are that this article contributes to the discussion on change and innovation in the field of leadership theory, first with particular emphasis on responsible leadership following Michael Maccoby, second on multilingual and multicultural Luxembourg in the middle of Europe, following Geert Hofstede and Edgar Schein, and third on CSR following Thomas Maak and Nicole Pless.
Evaluating the Tacit: Measuring Changes in Thinking Following Training and Change Initiatives
Virtual Lightning Talk Scott Frasard
More than ever, organizations place emphasis on and dedicate resources to evaluating the impact of training and other change initiatives. Often, evaluations to understand how initiatives changed on-the-job behaviors, impacted business metrics, and to determine return on investment. While meaningful, demonstrated changes following initiatives are the result of something more profound – a change in how individuals, groups, and the organization THINKS, yet no evaluation approach targets this aspect. I am forwarding a new evaluation strategy, which can be used in conjunction with current practices, but has the explicit purpose of assessing changes in the ways people, groups, and organizations process information following interventions, which in turn drives behaviors. Many evaluation approaches rely on evaluation “levels” to build establish direct impact; however, this approach uses five focus area “clusters” to refine evaluation data collection and analyses to isolate thinking changes. Reflection assesses individuals’ reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action efforts. Capability assesses individuals’ learning during and immediately following an initiative. Learning loops focuses on how individuals process feedback into future actions. Philosophies assesses individuals’ and groups’ views on the initiative subject. Culture assesses how the organizations’ values following an initiative. The results of such an evaluation provide insights on how the initiative influenced thinking, which is a more impactful and sustainable proposition. This strategy is drawn from the literature and practical implementations are addressed in this talk.
Mobilizing Project Knowledge in Temporary Organizations
Virtual Lightning Talk Chivonne T Algeo, Robert Moehler
Project managers need to effectively mobilize their knowledge to meet time-driven demands in temporary organizations created to successfully deliver projects. Our research shows that using stories and/or storytellers significantly reduces the time required to share relevant knowledge. The storyteller's role is to share context-specific information to "…extend the organization’s capability to make informed, rational decisions" (Dalkir, 2005, p. 60). This paper reviews current publications on storytelling to mobilize knowledge. Mobilized knowledge is "… often transferred between people by stories, gossip, and by watching one another work" (Pfeffer & Sutton, 1999, p. 90). Laufer and Hoffman (2000) suggest that "…the study of success stories told by [project] practitioners is unique in its capabilities to generate and disseminate knowledge"(2000, p. xvi). Storytelling can also be characterised as "narrative inquiry" where "…stories are driven forward by a detailed explanation of the cause-and-effect relationship between an action and its consequence" (Denning, 2006, p. 45). We suggest that "narrative inquiry" may be an effective way to generate and disseminate knowledge when managing temporary organizations e.g. projects. The findings of our literature review suggest that social exchange, or narrative, can successfully mobilize knowledge between people with the intention of eliciting an outcome. We found that the literature also identified that informal relationships that develop within formal systems are the predominant form of explicit knowledge mobilization in project management. These informal knowledge mobilization systems underpin how project managers mobilize knowledge in a social context to make informed decisions, highlighting the value of relationships in an organization.
Regulatory Challenges on Organizational Development in Enterprises Providing Public Services Based on the Example of Transmission System Operators in Germany
Virtual Lightning Talk Dominik Halstrup, Marlene Schriever
Transmission system operators (TSOs) plan and maintain the high-voltage grid, regulate grid operations and guarantee the safe operation of the high-voltage grid operation. Although TSOs are privately managed in Germany, they operate in a regulated environment because they provide a public service. A major task in recent years for the TSOs was to incorporate the increasing requirements of public participation within the context of transmission network expansion. In order to meet these regulatory challenges, the TSO needed to rethink their organizational structure and faced change. The presented study therefore sheds light on how the TSOs respond to these requirements on an organizational level. Based on qualitative interviews with the German TSOs, this article provides first empirical results in relation to the question of the influence of external stimuli on and reaction patterns of organizational change in companies operating in a regulated environment. The results show that the TSOs followed different pathways in the way they react to the exogenous impulse, even though they do provide similar services. With regard to the empirical data, it can be seen that the willingness to change appears to be increasing in the investigated companies providing public services, the more open the corporate culture is. In addition, it appears that corporate transparency and flatter hierarchical structures also facilitate the establishment of transparent communication with the public. All in all, the results thus confirm the influence of corporate culture on the ability to transform, as described in the scientific literature, also for companies providing public services.
