Organizational Development & Workplace Reconfiguration

Industrial, Organisational and Labour Studies 3A (i)

THE SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY AND PRACTICES OF CHANGING ORGANISATIONS 2007

University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College, Durban

Lecturer: Adarsh Maharaj & Kibbie Naidoo

Telephone: 031-2603148 or 031-2601097

THE SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY AND PRACTICES OF CHANGING ORGANISATIONS
Lecturers: Adarsh Maharaj & Kibbie Naidoo

Introduction:

The world of work is changing and with it the modem organisations that co-ordinated human effort to produce commodities and services are being reconfigured. You have already travelled past issues of globalisation, economic policy, technology and the changing workplace. This course focuses on the way this “reconfiguration” is occurring, what managerial strategies and practises are ‘thrown away’, what new experiments are happening and how uncertainty is managed in the service of profitability. The course also examines various approaches to understanding organisational change.

Outcomes:

At the end of this module you should be able to:

Outline some of the recent changes that have occurred in organisations and explain why these occur.

• Discuss how organisations’ function and how organisation networks arise through reconfiguration.
• Explain the key issues and underlying social mechanisms related to the dynamics of an organisation and the organisation of work.
• Explain the impact of organizational change on social relations at work
• Discuss how different categories of workers respond to the organisation and the organisation of work
• Explain organisational design and the processes or organisational change.
• Discuss the role of processes like teamwork in the reconfiguring of organisations
• Apply theoretical insights in the practical context of project design – planning and implementing a project

Assessment:

30% Long Essay

10% Teamwork Project

5% Teamwork Project Presentation

15% Tutorial Based Tasks

40% Examination
Timetable
Monday: Period 7: Organisational Theory Lectures

Tuesday: Period 2 & 3: Tutorial

Wednesday: Period 8 & 9: Organisational Restructuring Lectures

Friday: Period 4: Organisational Theory lectures

Deadlines: Diarise Immediately!!!!!

1. Essay 23rd March 2007
2. Teamwork Projects: 20 March 2007
3. Teamwork Project Presentation 17 March 2007
4. Tutorial-based Tasks 21 February/ 7 March / 22 March 2007
5. Examination: End of the semester Refer to Examination timetable

Tutorial-based tasks and DP requirements

There will be five tutorials for this module. Attendance at all tutorials is compulsory and a DP requirement. The topics for these tutorial tasks will be distributed to you before the tutorial. Only three written tutorial pieces will be assessed for marks. Submission of the written tutorial will be the day after the scheduled tutorial, to be handed in at 12h00 in the allocated tutorial boxes outside the department.

NB:Another DP requirement is 70% attendance of lectures

Tutorial Questions

Tutorial Task 1

Select a recent newspaper article (refer to the Business Day or Mail and Guardian or Business Times) that you think illustrates organisational change and address the following questions:

1. Outline the change discussed in the article
2. What impact will this change have on the organisation and why?

Tutorial Task 2

Castells raises a pertinent issue relating to the labour force. With the inception of informationalism, he asks, ”Is there a Global Labour Force?” Read Castells (1996), The Rise of the Network Society: Ch 3-4 and answer the following questions:

1. What is Castells (1996) main argument?
2. Based on your reading discuss the impact of global labour trade on employment in South Africa.

Tutorial Task 3

Identify the main elements of managerial ”continuous improvement” philosophy.

In order to answer this question you will have to focus on organisational restructuring and the theory of the learning organisation as proposed by Senge.

ESSAY TOPIC

Advanced Board Games (ABG) is a division of Just Toys, a South African based toy manufacturing company and is involved in the production of board games. The division employed 1000 permanent and temporary staff. With technological advances in the toy industry ABG’s sales have dropped to less than one percent of toy sales in Just Toys. To avoid closure of the ABG section Just Toy’s needs to restructure in order to make board games more attractive to consumers who have been accustomed to digitized electronic games. In an essay, drawing on theoretical insights developed in the course critically discuss, how you would restructure the organisation to meet the challenge facing ABG and Just Toys.

PROJECT TOPICS

The South African cricket team is going to be playing in the World Cup in March 2007. There is a concern based on previous experience that the South African team will not have the support of all South Africans. Despite more than 10 years transformation in cricket and other sports, there is a perception amongst many South African cricket fans that transformation of the cricket team and it management is superficial and that racist behaviour is still prevalent within the organisation. Using Peter Senges’ theory of learning organisations design an organisational strategy that the United Cricket Board of South Africa can implement that will enable it to engage the hearts and minds of all South African cricket fans.

OR

Despite the talent of local musicians many South African musicians have complained of the lack of acclaim locally and abroad. Despite the fact that many radio stations have slots allocated for the airing locally produced music this is not sufficient for the development and sustained success of local artists. You have been tasked with developing an organisation and designing a strategy for raising the profile of South African artists both locally and internationally.

Examination:

75% of the exam paper is concerned with the themes of the main curriculum outlined below. 25% of the exam paper is concerned with the themes introduced around organisational restructuring.

Curriculum:

1. During the first week of the course we examine the concept of organisational change and explore factors that cause organisational change.
2.  In the second week we explore the original idea of the Organisation as it was developed in Europe, and, perfected in the USA, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. 
    The concept of bureaucracy will be explored and conceptualised within the above organisational framework 
           • During week three we will focus on the people-side of organisational life pointing to crucial failures and successes in the hierarchical corporations that emerged in the 20th century
           • In week four we look at the fundamental changes that started occurring in the 1980s, exploring the ideas of sociologists like Castells, managerial theorists like Senge and Peters. 
           • During the fifth week we will be focusing on efforts by social scientists like Zuboff and Clegg to make sense of the challenges to our understanding. 
           • During the sixth weeks we will be exploring these themes in the context of South African organisations

Reading Guide:

A good conceptual overview is to be found in ch4 of Keith Grint’s (1998) The Sociology of Work London: Polity Press.

Week One:

• Martin Albrow (1970) Bureaucracy, chs 2-5, London: Macmillan
• Stewart R. Clegg (1980) Modern Organisations, Chs 2-3, London: Sage

(And for the brave reader there is the historical work of Alfred D. Chandler (1977) The Visible Hand: the Managerial Revolution in American Business
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press)

Week Two:

• Charles B. Handy (1985) Understanding Organisations, chs 8-12, Harmondsworth: Penguin
• Keith Grint (1998) ch 4 op cit.
• Michael Burawoy , first part,( 1985) The Politics of Production, London: Verso

Week Four:

• Stewart R Clegg chs 7 and 12, op cit
• Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine, Harvard: the University Press
• Tom Peters, Afterword, in op cit

Week Five and Six: 

• Manuel Castells, “The Digital Divide” in the Internet Galaxy, Oxford: the University Press.
• Wwebster & Von Holdt (eds) (2005). Beyond the Apartheid Workplace. Studies in Transition, Pietermaritzburg, UKZN Press

ORGANISATIONAL RETSRUCTURING AND CHANGE

The Sociological Theory and Practices of Changing Organisations

Worksheet 1

• What is an organisation?
• From your everyday experiences and from discussions you may have had with your parents how do you think organisations have changed over the last 20 years?
• How would you explain these changes in organisations?