Companions Growing Apart: Exploring Actors’ Perceptions with Narratives and Masterplots in ERP Systems Development

Collaboration largely determines ERP development success but is fluid with difficulties. We propose them originating from collaborating actors’, such as developers’ and clients’, diverging perceptions. Identifying these perceptions is difficult as they often surface only when the perceptions contradict. In this paper, we utilize the narrative approach, arguing actors being storytellers sharing and living through narratives, to explore an ERP development project where a client and a vendor collaborate in a seeming well-defined manner. Interpreting the actors’ narratives and masterplots shows that they contradict each other. We argue this resulting from the parties’ different perceptions on collaboration, and their unaligned masterplots. This also explains severe problems in the project and illustrates narratives and masterplots as useful for uncovering the actors’ underlying perceptions, driving their actions

A study of the experiential service design process at a luxury hotel

This thesis explores the process of designing experiential services at a luxury hotel. These processes were surfaced by means of a methodology that used the principles of jazz improvisation. Due to similarities between experiential service design and elements in jazz improvisation, representing experiential service design through the jazz improvisation metaphor leads to a new framework for exploring the process of experiential service design that is iterative in nature. A gap in the service design literature is that experiential service design is not operationalized in organizational improvisation, and one contribution from this study will be to fill that gap. This study contributes to the field of knowledge by exposing a new perspective on how experiential services can be better designed by adapting some of the design tools from this luxury hotel; a second contribution is a recommendation for how the improvisational lens works as an investigative tool to research experiential organizations. In the process, some new dimensions to understanding complexity are contributed. The research process utilized qualitative research methods. Frank Barrett (1998) identified seven characteristics of jazz improvisation which I have used as a heuristic device: 1) provocative competence (i.e., deliberately creating disruption); 2) embracing errors as learning sources; 3) minimal structures that allow for maximum flexibility; 4) distributed task (i.e., an ongoing give and take); 5) reliance on retrospective sensemaking (organizational members as bricoleurs, making use of whatever is at hand); 6) hanging out (connecting through communities of practice); and 7) alternating between soloing and supporting. This research is grounded in the body of literature regarding complexity, organizational improvisation, service design and experience design. The role of heterogeneous minimal structures that are fluid and optimize uncertainty is central to this investigation. Themes such as sensemaking and the role of story, meaning-making, organizational actors' use of tangible and intangible design skills, and embracing ambiguity in efforts to design experiential services are explored throughout the dissertation. The anticipatory nature of experiential service design is a principle outcome from the data that is incorporated into the new conceptual framework highlighting a "posture of service"

Identifying management competencies of hotel owner-managers & general managers in the Republic of Ireland

The objective of this research was to investigate the concept of competencies, explore and identify the management competencies of hotel owner-managers and general managers in the hospitality industry in the Republic of Ireland. In other words, this research explored how hotel owner-managers and general managers identified, interpreted and made sense of their notion of managerial competencies in a complex work environment. The research was set within the context of the Irish hospitality and tourism industry, specifically within the hotel sector which has experienced a socio-economic crisis and periods of significant change. Hotels in the Republic of Ireland play a key role in its economic and cultural life, as Ireland has earned an international reputation for welcoming visitors from across the globe. This study drew on a social constructionism ontology: an interpretative epistemology with a theoretical perspective that framed the methodology using qualitative data analysis and interpretation. Qualitative data, with its emphasis on ‘people’s lived experience are well suited for locating the meanings they place on events, processes and structures of their lives, and for connecting these meanings to the social world around the’ (Miles & Huberman, 1994:10). The data was collected from interviews with twelve hotel owners and general managers in the Republic of Ireland. Three interdependent themes including managing hospitality services in hotels, staff, and language of emotion emerged. The thematic analysis was analysed using Weick’s sensemaking framework to garner meanings that are socially constructed through their lived experience of work. These three themes were woven together across two broad lines of enquiry: 1. How hotel owner-managers and general managers identified and used their qualities and the language of emotion together with skills and knowledge to manage employees to deliver hospitality services internally in hotels punctuated by a complex external business environment. 2. How hoteliers made sense of self-identity and occupational identities in their efforts to become competent hotel owner-managers and general managers in the hospitality industry in Ireland. The findings reveal evidence pointing towards a social constructionist process (Berger & Luckmann 1966) through which these hoteliers constructed their realities of clusters of management competencies using a combination of learned skills and knowledge underpinned by qualities and emotions. It examined these competency clusters of qualities such as honesty, integrity, respect, a positive attitude, intrinsic care, and intuition whilst the role of emotions such as care, empathy and support were used to build relationships as key skills in managing employees and customers alike. Alongside these, clusters of skills included communication, financial and cost management and technology and managing people as well as facilities management. Finally, it was argued that taken together in what constitutes competence these clusters of qualities, emotions, skills and knowledge were conceptualised that these are the building blocks for assembling a competent identity of self-fused into the occupational identity of an hotelier, be they an owner-manager or general manager

Employee reactions to management communication: a study of operations personnel in the oil industry.

Based on an intense small scale study which observed a small team of operations personnel who work in a telecommunications company within the oil industry, this thesis examined employee reactions to management communication. Employee interpretations and reactions after each communication from the management team were analysed as the organisational story unfolds from the other side (i.e. employee perspective) instead of the rather usual/dominant one (i.e. managerial perspective). Behaviour was observed from an interactionist, interpretive and critical perspective and analysed in the light of several managerial and communication theories with the aim of critically examining the claims of the post-modern organisation theory (i.e. humanisation of work) and certain communication theories. An ethnographic approach, which enabled the researcher/participant to conduct participant observation in a real setting, ensured deep understanding of social situations and human actions. The results of this study suggest that upward communication is problematic due to the power settings that exist in organisations. Based on Goffmans theory, it is suggested that employee performance is affected by certain rules and conventions which shape organisational psychology and interpersonal relations. Therefore, the utopian claims of the post-modern organisation theory along with the rather simplistic assumptions of some of the literature on communication need to be re-evaluated and re-defined in the search for a more critical understanding of communication. This thesis concludes that contrary to the utopia of the post-modern organisation, the reality of organisational life and communication reflects the persistence of the modern organisation and the power structures which dominate it

Sensemaking in a High-Risk Lifestyle: The Relationship Between Work and Family for Public Safety Families

Past research concerning work and family has largely been from traditional, white-collar settings and has only taken into consideration the perceptions of the employees' experiences with regard to the relationship between work and family. However, there is no doubt that employees' in non-traditional settings, particularly those employed in public safety professions (i.e. police and fire) experience the relationship between work and family differently than those in white-collar settings, especially since they put their lives on the line daily for the protection and betterment of the community, society and even the world. In addition, the experiences and perceptions of work and family will undoubtedly be different for the family members (i.e. children and spouses) of those employed in such "life-threatening" professions. This study sought to understand how public safety employees, as well as their families, make sense out of the relationship between work and family by first examining what metaphors they employ to articulate the relationship between work and family. In addition, this study sought to examine if male versus female public safety employees experience the relationship between work and family in similar or different ways, as well as if police officers and fire fighters experience the relationship similarly or differently. Using qualitative methods, the findings indicate that public safety employees and their families articulate and make sense of the relationship between work and family in both similar and different ways. Contrary to previous work-family research, dominant metaphors and constructs such as balance, conflict, segmentation, etc. did not appear at all within this study. Instead, participants likened the relationship between work and family to competition, nature, organism, change, integration, opposition, ambiguity, and destruction. Public safety employees and their families also experienced and made sense of the relationship between work and family through humor, emotion management, fear and risk assessment. Findings also indicate that both male and female public safety employees internalize risk in much the same way, as well as agree that parenthood in general, is devalued in the public safety profession. With regard to differences, findings indicate that females have a harder time negotiating a healthy relationship between work and family, have their competency levels always questioned by family or co-workers, and use different language and rhetoric from males when talking about work and family. Finally, results show that police officers and fire fighters make sense of work and family in much the same way with regard to "dirty work" and communication rules but differ in terms of coping mechanisms and job satisfaction. This study suggests a number of implications for both theory and practice. The findings also point to many necessary areas of future research which could further our understanding of the relationship between work and family, not only in professions characterized by high-risk, non-standard hours and stress, but also in standard white-collar professions as well