What lies beneath organisational behaviour : the role of hidden and unconscious processes at work

There is much controversy about the value that psychoanalytic theory can add to the study of organisational behaviour, which goes beyond the rational and technological explanations offered by orthodox management perspectives. A key tenet of psychoanalytic theory is that mental processes that are "hidden" and operate at an "unconscious" level can impact employee behaviour, outside of their awareness (Kets de Vries, 2009). (In this thesis such processes are referred to as "below-the-surface" motivation.) Given the value of this knowledge to organisational leaders, it is surprising that so little is known about the potential impact of "below-the-surface" motivation on employee attitude, engagement and performance. This four-study thesis investigates the role of "below-the-surface" motivation in employees' "propensity to resist change", "avoid conflict" and "show less commitment to the organisation", which are implicit processes referred to in this thesis as "below-the-surface" motivation. It does so firstly by describing the researcher’s positioning and philosophical approach, and the theoretical and practical objectives of the thesis. The researcher was guided by the belief that organisations exist as concrete entities, which prompt employees to react to them in psychological ways (Durkheim, 1895). Having adopted a combination of positivist and post-positivist approaches, the process of "operationalising" was used in an attempt to measure "below-the-surface" motivation in a standardised way (Arnaud, 2012). Opportunity sampling was used to select participants from three public-sector organisations in the UK and the Middle East region. Study 1 reviewed two psychoanalytic-informed coaching methods and found evidence of their usefulness for improving self-awareness of implicit processes, and for working/consulting at a "below-the-surface" level. Study 2 examined the relationships between employees' use of "immature psychological defence mechanisms" and their propensity to resist organisational change, finding evidence that employees' level of "core self-evaluation" played a mediating role in this. Study 3 found evidence to suggest that adopting a systems-psychodynamic coaching approach was useful for helping leaders from the Middle East region to develop awareness of their conflict avoidance behaviour. Study 4 applied Winnicott's (1952) "good-enough" care theory and found evidence to suggest that it could further understanding of the relationship between employees' perception of organisational support (POS) and affective commitment (AC) in the context of organisational change. The thesis concludes with a reflective account of the overall findings, which suggest that "below-the-surface" motivation can impact employee behaviour in the workplace. The implications of these findings for the occupational psychology community are that psychoanalysis can offer an alternative and critical perspective of organisational behaviour, which has wide explanatory power. Reflective and reflexive statements are offered throughout to highlight some of the challenges that the researcher encountered during this doctoral journey. For example, despite the philosophical choices made, due to the researcher’s involvement in the process, at first it was a struggle to "step back" from defending the theory, attending to the limitations, partialities and flaws in the evidence base. The underlying reasons for the researcher’s appeal for positivist and post-positivist approaches are also reflected on. Recommendations are made for the design and delivery of development interventions to raise awareness of "below-the-surface" motivation within organisations, and suggestions made around possible areas of future investigations. The thesis adds nuance to our understanding of organisational behaviour, and it evaluates the value and contribution of psychoanalytic thinking to the practice of occupational psychology

Explaining and trusting expert evidence: What is a ‘sufficiently reliable scientific basis’?

Through a series of judicial decisions and Practice Directions, the English courts have developed a rule that expert evidence must have ‘a sufficiently reliable scientific basis to be admitted’. There is a dearth of case-law as to what degree of reliability is ‘sufficient’. This article argues that the test should be interpreted as analogous to one developed in the law of hearsay: expert evidence (scientific or otherwise) must be ‘potentially safely reliable’ in the context of the evidence as a whole. The implications of this test will vary according to the relationship between the expert evidence and the other evidence in the case. The article identifies three main patterns into which this relationship falls. Whether the jury relies upon the evidence will depend upon what they regard as the best explanation of the evidence and how far they trust the expert. Whether their reliance is safe (as a basis for conviction) depends on whether they could rationally rule out explanations consistent with innocence, and whether the degree to which they take the expert’s evidence on trust is consistent with prosecution’s burden of proving the essential elements of its case, including the reliability of any scientific techniques on which it relies

APS200 project – the place of science in policy development in the public service

The report aims to achieve better government outcomes through facilitating the effective use of scientific input in policy development in the public service. The Australian Public Service (APS) is increasingly tasked with solving complex policy problems that require significant input from science in order to address them fully and appropriately. Policy making within the APS needs to be based on a rigorous, evidence‐based approach that routinely and systematically draws upon science as a key element. The Australian Government’s investment in science, research and innovation capacity supports a long‐term vision to address national challenges and open up new opportunities. This investment is also significant, with the Commonwealth providing $8.9 billion to support science, research and innovation in 2012‐13. There is an opportunity to harness this investment to address complex societal challenges, by ensuring that scientific research and advice is more effectively incorporated in the development of evidence‐based policy. There is an opportunity for policy makers to make better use of the science capacity provided by our science institutions, including publicly funded research agencies and other science agencies, universities, Cooperative Research Centres and Medical Research Institutes. There is also an opportunity to capitalise on the willingness of scientists to contribute their research results to the policy making process

Mitigating Circumstances in Cybercrime: a Position Paper

This paper argues the need for considering mitigating circumstances in cybercrime. Mitigating circumstances are conditions which moderate the culpability of an offender of a committed offence. Our argument is based on several observations. The cyberspace introduces a new family of communication and interaction styles and designs which could facilitate, make available, deceive, and in some cases persuade, a user to commit an offence. User’s lack of awareness could be a valid mitigation when using software features introduced without a proper management of change and enough precautionary mechanisms, e.g. warning messages. The cyber behaviour of users may not be necessarily a reflection of their real character and intention. Their irrational and unconscious actions may result from their immersed and prolonged presence in a particular cyber context. Hence, the consideration of the cyberspace design, the “cyber psychological” status of an offender and their inter-relation could form a new family of mitigating circumstances inherent and unique to cybercrime. This paper elaborates on this initial argument from different perspectives including software engineering, cyber psychology, digital forensics, social responsibility and law

A Defence of Sexual Inclusion

This article argues that access to meaningful sexual experience should be included within the set of the goods that are subject to principles of distributive justice. It argues that some people are currently unjustly excluded from meaningful sexual experience and it is not implausible to suggest that they might thereby have certain claim rights to sexual inclusion. This does not entail that anyone has a right to sex with another person, but it does entail that duties may be imposed on society to foster greater sexual inclusion. This is a controversial thesis and this article addresses this controversy by engaging with four major objections to it: the misogyny objection; the impossibility objection; the stigmatisation objection; and the unjust social engineering objection

Optimising cost and availability estimates at the bidding stage of performance-based contracting

Performance-Based Contracting (PBC), e.g. Contracting for Availability (CfA), has been extensively applied in many industry sectors such as defence, aerospace and railway. Under PBC, complex support activities (e.g. maintenance, training, etc.) are outsourced, under mid to long term contracting arrangements, to maintain certain level of systems’ performance (e.g. availability). However, building robust cost and availability estimates is particularly challenging at the bidding stage because therei is lack of methods and limited availability of data for analysis. Driven by this contextual challenge this PhD aims to develop a process to simulate and optimise cost and availability estimates at the bidding stage of CfA. The research methodology follows a human-centred design approach, focusing on the end-user stakeholders. An interaction with seven manufacturing organisations involved in the bidding process of CfA enabled to identify the state-of-practice and the industry needs, and a review of literature in PBC and cost estimation enabled to identify the research gaps. A simulation model for cost and availability trade-off and estimation (CATECAB) has been developed, to support cost engineers during the bidding preparation. Also, a multi-objective genetic algorithm (EMOGA) has been developed to combine with the CATECAB and build a cost and availability estimation and optimisation model (CAEOCAB). Techniques such as Monte-Carlo simulation, bootstrapping resampling, multi-regression analysis and genetic algorithms have been applied. This model is able to estimate the optimal investment in the attributes that impact the availability of the systems, according to total contract cost, availability and duration targets. The validation of the models is performed by means of four case studies with twenty-one CfA scenarios, in the maritime and air domains. The outcomes indicate a representable accuracy for the estimates produced by the models, which has been considered suitable for the early stages of the bidding process

Main competencies to manage complex defence projects

This research adds a comprehensive way of assessing competencies, contrasting with the usual reductionist approach that uses off-the-shelf instruments. The study reveals 27 competencies to manage complex projects based upon a comprehensive analysis of 22 interviews with senior practitioners associated with the most strategic projects from the Brazilian Army. These competencies were divided into 10 groups, namely influencing, communication, team working, cognitive, management, contextual skills, professionalism, project management knowledge, and personal skills and attributes. Surprisingly, both emotional skills and social competencies were not prominent. The results contribute to advance our knowledge by revealing that practitioners involved in complex defence projects value more technical and individual competencies. This study analyses competencies across several complex projects in the defence sector, providing insights to practitioners and expanding the academic debate focused on other industries and single cases. Organisations might use the competencies to recruit, select, and develop human resources involved in complex defence initiatives

NEC themes: a conceptual analysis and applied principles

This paper deals with essential principles of Interoperability, Agility, Collaboration and Knowledge applied in the context of Network Enabled Capability Through Innovative Systems Engineering (NECTISE). Using empirical investigations these concepts have been identified as NEC-readiness themes and they contribute significantly to the realisation of NEC. Based on a systemic analysis and application of theoretical principles, the approach described in this paper contributes towards the demonstration of NEC as well as the identification of a limited set of critical features for capability planning and systems design. Some research questions are derived and discussed and a gap analysis strategy is proposed. These themes also defined as critical features have been investigated in a variety of contexts The main contributions of this paper are related to the mapping the themes to the military capability model and formalisation of the relationships. The purpose of such an exercise is to exploit learning from other (mainly civil) domains in the military context, with regard to the readiness themes which overlap with a limited set of critical features for design within a NEC context