BUSM2301-Assignment 2-Le An-s3880884 PDF

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Assignment 2Organizational analysis reportLê An: SCourse: BUSM2301-GLecturer: Duy Dang PhamWord Count: 2199 words15 August 2021I. Lessons learned from the process improvement pilot: a critical functionalistperspectiveThere are several potential strengths that the functionalism approach of the consul...

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Assignment 2 Organizational analysis report

Lê An: S3880884 Course: BUSM2301-G2 Lecturer: Duy Dang Pham Word Count: 2199 words

15 August 2021 I.

Lessons learned from the process improvement pilot: a critical functionalist perspective

There are several potential strengths that the functionalism approach of the consultant of Toyota Production System. To be specific, functionalism is an imperative and capable tool to cope with the extension of complexity and adaptation to extra-systemic alternations (Berghe 1963). By adopting the functionalism enhancement measures, the hospital is prospected to efficiently allocate the tasks to pursue with appropriate staff. This could alleviate the high density of waiting patients and tension from the hospital staff. According to Burrell & Morgan (1979), the functionalism approach is a very pragmatic approach, involved in understanding society in a way that provides information that can be utilized. Besides, it is also a problem-oriented approach, intending to propose proper measures to actual problems. It is also dedicated as a foundation for social change and highlights the necessity of understanding order and stability in society, as well as effective regulations and management. Kanban visual management is an explicit example to illustrate the importance of order, information, and timing process in management. With the Kanban management system, the hospital is capable to monitor and manage the workflows, reduction of multitasking, giving fundamental feedback, manipulating the order of tasks, and continuously enhance(Alqudah & Razali 2018). Moreover, the functionalism paradigm would be able to generate some unexpected outcomes such as General Satisfaction, Job Satisfaction, and Internal Work Motivation if the manager could implement it properly (Hassard 1991). However, the application of the predecessors’ approach contains some critical limitations. Indeed, The flaw of functionalism is from seeing social structure as a "backbone" of society. In short, because of its insufficient emancipation, functionalism has deliberately missed one of the most main factors of endogenous change (Berghe 1963). This means that the manager could dismiss some internal problems from the variant perspectives of workers due to the lack of discussion. It is also stated that functionalism hasn't been an effective model for comprehending organizational and societal functioning. Consequently, people could perceive the plan of study and oppose it (Hirschheim & Klein 1989). In this case, the improvement method fails to detect problems that individuals are facing. Hence, doctors and nurses refuse to implement the methods and protest against the new process. Furthermore, the functionalist paradigm is better at finding and describing certain patterns and structures than articulating their importance and how they can contribute, for example, to the development of an organization. As a result, it misses a detailed description of the importance of each function and member of a structural system ( Salihu, Ramadneh & Rashid 2020). Nurses and doctors can not understand their roles and significance independently. Thus, staffs feel overwhelmed and complex to recognize the function of their roles in the process. Individual value cannot be grasped independently from a large system (Holmwood 2005). Finally, the power relations are concealed due to hierarchical control and insufficient emancipations (Hartley 2010). Relating to the case, nurses do not have the confidence to advise doctors and doctors do not listen to their subordinates.

II.

Social relativism into the design of a new process improvement project

According to Burrell & Morgan (1979), social relativism views the social environment as an emerging social process generated by the individuals engaged. It underlines that the social world is a subjective fabrication of individuals. Through the formation and use of common language and the interactions of everyday life, may build and preserve a social world of shared meaning. In addition, interpretivism is the perspective that reality varies from person to person. It is independently

constructed through language and features of the social world (Scotland 2012). The objective of an interpretative paradigm is to create descriptions, insights, and explanations of occurrences to expose the system of interpretations and meaning, as well as the structuring and organizing processes (Gioia & Pitre 1990). Therefore, social relativism promotes the diversification of knowledge which is gathered through communication and interaction among participants. There are many potential reasons why the Emergency Department of the hospital should consider the interpretivism approach as the efficient way to handle their current circumstance. First of all, the social relativism method could allow managers to explore the different problems from different perspectives by interpreting the understanding of individuals. The interpretive paradigm frequently finds answers by creating and supporting various understandings of personal views (Thanh 2015). The commitment of multiple perspectives frequently leads to a comprehensive way to understand the issues (Klein & Myers 1999). Secondly, data collection is one of the imperative elements of social relativism. Some fundamental ways to capture data are interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, and role-playing. These methods also play a vital role in acquiring qualitative data (Scotland 2012). With these precious data and information from variant perspectives, the manager could gain substantial “insight” to undertake and modify further action (Pham 2018). Besides, the application of the interpretivism paradigm may give an in-depth understanding of specific scenarios, such as variables driving specific growth, through the gathering and interpreting of qualitative data, leading to profound insight and opinions that may differ from others (Alharahsheh & Pius 2020). Thirdly, the critical discussion among participants is indispensable to open the eyelid. Discussion is one of the prominent advantages of social relativism (Pham 2018). Additionally, Hassard (1991) proved that by conversations, job descriptions, and attentive analysis while performing tasks, individuals could accomplish complex tasks more efficiently and fluently without any temporal errors. Thus, communication at the workplace does not only help people to increase the workflows but also make sense of complicated works. Finally, the interpretive method could avoid bias and against the hierarchical models owing to emancipation and equivalent significance. According to Morgan & Burrel, there is no place for domination in the social relativism framework. Furthermore, the interpretive methods give insight and understanding of the social structure, explain tasks from the participants' perspectives, and do not constrain them (Scotland 2012). In this case, nurses are reluctant to give recommendations for doctors because of the hierarchy of roles. In short, the interpretative paradigm would allow managers to examine many elements such as behavioral attributes that relied on individual experiences. Moreover, the interpretive approach would also allow managers to approach the social context and its scenario as distinctive in terms of problems that participants are facing.

III.

Proposed consultation process, informed by interpretivism / social relativism

The consultation process for Emergency Department

Legend :

The structure is that of a social relativism structure where participants have the emancipation of

giving variant perspectives and support each other through collaboration and discussion. The prominent product of an emergency department is constant care and treatment. If the hospital fails to deliver an emergency service for customers, tension from patients, their families, and staff will be manifested. Therefore, this consultation process is designed to relieve tension for doctors, highlight communication at the workplace, and collecting fundamental feedback from various stakeholders. The data collection process involved document study, surveillance, semi-structured interview, face-toface interview, focus group, and collecting feedback from customers. To elaborate, the manager should implement the document study as an initial step to find out errors, anomalies, or uncertainties that might create delays and other issues. Next, observations are crucial to understanding the practical problems. This information should be carefully analyzed and compared with the findings of the research paper, particularly unusual contradictions. After that, interviews which are open-ended questions, face-to-face, couple interviews could help to gain a deeper “insight” into the discrepancies and allowing for the exploration of subjects related to that specific applicant on the spur of the moment. Focus group is also important to underline discussion and emancipation to examine the discrepancies. This kind of discussion would respond to problems between nurses and physicians. Also, managers must ensure a safe feeling for participants to express their opinions and not be dominated by any others. Subsequently, collecting fundamental feedback from the customer is beneficial to develop a subjective view of the problems. Moving to the data analysis process, all the information and data should be recorded, transcribed, examined, and stored in a meticulous manner. The transcripts and protocol would be categorized and outlined by some data management instruments such as computing programs, qualitative and quantitative data controlling. Depending on these data, the manager will draw conclusions and implementations to counter these problems. Furthermore, the conclusions and measures are possible to evaluate and modify due to the comparison with the previous problems. The process will be circulated since the effectiveness of solutions is invisible.

IV.

Proposed consultation process: challenges and limitations

Despite the substantial benefits of the consultation process, there are also some limitations and challenges of this method. The initial limitation of the interpretivism approach is the quality levels of knowledge. Because the interpretivism approach admits the view that knowledge is socially constructed and can be understood through the interpretation process. Consequently, it may be complicated to examine the legitimacy of knowledge since these notions may not be witnessed or quantified with sensory experience or without a proof (Pham 2018). For example, the data collection of nurses is vital to evaluate the condition of patients. Hence, nurses should be trained and oriented in a professional way to avoid unfortunate incidents. For this reason, it is essential to established educational environments surrounding human relationships (Pham 2018). Interpretive research denies a foundational basis for knowledge, putting its authenticity into doubt. Legitimacy and reliability must be established by asserting significant evidence (Scotland 2012). Another prominent problem that the process would tackle is the validity of the information. Indeed, the interpretivism approach tends to utilize the “sensitizing device” to interpret the world in different ways ( Goldkuhl 2012). This means that participants would rather use their own emotions and sensations than carefully analyze the information. For instance, a displeased customer could leave a negative impression and feedback based on a bad day that they have suffered. Hence, the credibility of information should be meticulously analyzed. The inconsistency of empirical data obtained under this paradigm should be

carefully examined, since in certain instances, respondents may pick random answers rather than real comments, or they may provide answers that are more relevant to their cases (Pham 2018). Moreover, Thanh (2015) also declares that interpretivism methods usually neglect the accuracy of information. Finally, owing to the theory that social relativism perceives the world through a “ combination of individual views” and selects individuals who "have their conceptions of reality" in embracing the worldview (Mc Queen 2002), it is difficult to bridge variant perspectives to generate solidarity. Rolfe (2006) acknowledged that it is challenging to attain a consensus. If reality is subjective and varies from person to person, respondents cannot be expected to reach similar conclusions as researchers.

V.

Reflections on consultancy assumptions and their strengths and limitations

In terms of the “order/regulation-conflict/radical change,” axis of Burrell & Morgan (1979)Existing shared beliefs, values, and standards are something to be preserved from one perspective; from another, they constitute a system of dominance from which individuals must be liberated. To underline its fundamental unity and cohesiveness, we came up with the term "sociology of regulation." By adopting this consultation process, different perspectives will be gathered, analyzed, and understood during the progress of interviewing, conducting focus groups, and feedback sessions. Moreover, the equal importance of ideas from variant participants will eliminate the hierarchical model and dominance. Burrell & Morgan (1979) also explained that sociology is primarily concerned with the need for regulation in human activities; the fundamental issues it poses tend to be focused on the need to understand why society exists as an entity. It tries to explain why societies tend to stick together rather than falling apart. Durkheim's work, in particular, with its concentration on the nature of social cohesiveness and unity, gives a clear and detailed demonstration of regulation sociology (Besnard 2003). Therefore, regulation plays an imperative role in generating and retaining cohesion and solidarity in society. According to Hartley (2010), social regulation seeks to maintain the status quo, concern with consensus, focus on integration, and engage with the existing reality of organizations. Because the attribute of the emergency department is constant and immediate. Hence, it required collaboration, solidarity, and minimize possible changes to cut out the redundant part and not to exacerbate the complexity. The order perspective stresses a social world defined by order, consistency, unification, cohesion, and functional coordination (Hirschheim & Klein 1989). On the order hand, the order and regulation views also witnessed some limitations. In contrast with regulation, radical change is primarily concerned with man's emancipation from systems that restrict and hinder his potential for growth. The goal of radical change is to reveal an organization's potential. (Burrell& Morgan 1979). As a result, participants were unable to perform their potential and strengths for development. In addition, a problematic matter that order/regulation views are opposing is when transformational change is a concern (Gioia & Pitre 1990). This means that whenever a sudden change occurs, the organization would be hesitant to develop an initiative to handle the change efficiently. Besides, the radical change views focus on modes of dominance concentrate on studying the forces of dominance in a society that they feel is in danger of breakdown (Milamm 1991). The radical change would be able to predict and modify to adapt the future changes. It is also proposed contradiction to tackles the social world's variety, imbalance, hostile, and divergent social forces (Milam 1991).

V. References

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