Dear all,
For better read our final assignment, we decided to use google docs for alternative way for read it, please see the link below, many thanks!
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5tjmSxzEpScMjJjYjMwZDctYWNiNy00N2Q1LTg3OWYtM2RiZmRjMTlhYTk0&hl=en&authkey=COPK-IQG
Mainland4
Apr 14, 2011
MITE6328 Group final assignment
THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Master of Science in Information Technology in Education
University number: | 2009875238(Yan Dujuan), 2010884909(Yang Ye), 20108849972(Fu Xuanqing , 2008880614 (Li Ximeng) |
Admission: | 11 January |
Module code and title: | MITE 6328 Organizational Learning |
Term: | 11 January Term |
Module tutor: | Dr. FOX Bob |
Topic of assignment: | Group Assignment: What strategies does your organization have in place to encourage development, change and innovation? |
Assignment due date: | 14th April,2011 |
I declare that
i) this assignment does not contain plagiarised materials.
iii) the contents of both submitted versions (electronic and hard copy) of this assignment are the same.
Signature: | Yan Dujuan(Azalea), Yang Ye, Fu Xuanqing(Angie), Li Ximeng(Simon) |
Date of submission: | 14th April,2011 |
Introduction
1. General Information
Our group is consisted of four members, Jacqueline (Yang Ye), Angie (Fu Xuanqing), Azalea (Yan Dujuan) and Simon (Li Ximeng).
In this article, we will first introduce the basic information about our four organizations, and then use four models to explain current change and innovations and make comparison. At last, we will give a conclusion about these four models.
Following is the four models we selected:
Ø Diffusion of Innovations from Rogers
Ø Fullen’s Framework for leadership
Ø Senge and the five principles of learning organization
Ø The model about managing change
2. Background Information
In general, except Jacqueline’s company which is a listed company, the rest three organizations are all related to local government.
Table 1 A summary about our organizations
Jacqueline Yang Ye | Angie Fu Xuanqing | Azalea Yan Dujuan | Simon Li Ximeng | |
Name of the organization | New Oriental Education & Technology Group | Association of Private Enterprises | Shanghai Securities News (SSN) | Jingdezhen municipal government |
History | -founded in 1993 - listed in the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. | - founded in 1993 - a sub-department of Hangzhou Administration for Industry & Commerce. | - established in 1st July, 1991 | - Jingdezhen City as a municipality under the direct jurisdiction of Jiangxi Province in June 1953 |
Culture | “Hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope and you can make your life a splendid one” | “Being a service-oriented, rule-based, and efficient industrial and commercial culture” | “Being a leading financial news platform, and providing complete, accurate, and real time financial information” | the better service |
Staff | - Ten thousand for teaching - Eleven thousand for administrative | - Fifty staffs - Comparatively elder - the similar treatment to the local bureau’s civil servants | - Total number of staff is over 300 | - 1000 civil servants - 5000 non- organization staffs |
Current Planning | - to set up more branch schools across mainland China - to increase the business lines to attract customers with different demands | - introducing an on-line system and popularize the digital yearly-check; - modifying the performance evaluation | - build a closed linkage with resources in the society | - political reform as the government 12th five-year plan |
2.1 History
Case1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
Mr. YU Minghong, the current CEO of the company, founded New Oriental Education & Technology Group in 1993. In 2006, New Oriental Education & Technology Group became the first educational enterprise listed in the New York Stock Exchange. Today, the company has more than 40 branch schools and 21 thousands staff across mainland China. There are more than 11 million students taking courses here and New Oriental Education & Technology Group has developed into the most famous and influential training organization in mainland China.
Case2: Association of Private Enterprises
I was once as an intern in an organization, called the Association of Private Enterprises, which was founded in 1993. It is regarded as a sub-department of Hangzhou Administration for Industry & Commerce. From the 1990th, the number of private enterprises quickly grew. At first, in order to supervise and manage these local private enterprises, local government authorized Administration for Industry & Commerce to establish this association. As the market economy steadily develops in China, the duty of the association has transferred from a supervisor to a consultant.
Case3：Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
Shanghai Securities News (SSN), which is owned by Xinhua News Agency, was established in 1st July, 1991. It is China's leading financial newspaper and the China Securities Regulatory Commission's government designated channel for disclosure of Chinese-listed companies. Daily coverage of SSN focuses on the securities markets and company news, but also covers banking, insurance, foreign exchange, futures and real estate.
Case4：Jingdezhen municipal government
As the world-famed ceramic capital, Jingdezhen City has a long history of ceramics making and a rich cultural heritage. In accordance with the historical records, “Xinping (as the city was known as then) began to make pottery in Han Dynasty”. It is evident that pottery was first made in Jingdezhen in Han Dynasty. In the first year in Jingde Reign of Song Dynasty (1004), the royal court decreed the city made porcelain wares for imperial use with the wording “Made during the Jingde Reign” printed on the bottom of every piece. Hence the city got its name “Jingdezhen”. From Yuan Dynasty to Ming and Qing Dynasty, emperors sent their officials to Jingdezhen to supervise the manufacture of royal porcelain. In June 1953, Chinese Administration approved Jingdezhen City as a municipality under the direct jurisdiction of Jiangxi Province.
2. 2 Culture
Case1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
The motto of the company is “Hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope and you can make your life a splendid one”. Since there are no lack of useful resources and method to learn language, what most people lack is the wiling and determination to learn it well. Therefore, the core value of the school is that not only knowledge but also the interests and motivation of learning and the faith of life should be acquired in the courses.
Case2: Association of Private Enterprises
In the past years, there was not a concrete culture. In fact, as a subsidiary organization of government-department, there is a set of standard to manage its affiliated organizations, which leads to a government-centered working style, namely finishing all tasks what was directed and allocated by government. However, as the government requested, the organization provided its purpose, to being a service-oriented, rule-based, and efficient industrial and commercial culture.
Case3：Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
Shanghai Securities News is a traditional Chinese company which is subsidized by Chinese government so that it becomes a communication platform to deliver the financial message from government and communist. Its objective is to promote the right mindset of investment to investors and consistently develop the health securities market in China. Being a leading financial news platform, it provides complete, accurate, and real time financial information. In addition, it will keep its best performance and have continual improvement.
Case4：Jingdezhen municipal government
Jingdezhen municipal government main concern was service culture for civilians, which main point is organizational culture that is a government organization shared by all members of the service values and the sum of the common behaviors. After a period of time, the public cultural service system as a cultural construction of the new target to get involved in China at all aspects of cultural development strategies and planning, and we listed service culture as our key interest. Government cultural departments in the process of turning to the better service to be significant, the work also indicates that the purpose of cultural systems, the nature of the task will have a new positioning.
2. 3 Staff
Case1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
Totally, there are 21 thousand staff in New Oriental Education & Technology Group, among which, 10 thousand are teachers belonging to various teaching apartments such as North American Exams Department, Middle School English Department, listening and oral English Department, etc. The rest 11 thousand belong to administrative departments such as Human resources department, marketing department and finance department. The obvious differences between two types of staff is that teachers can only give courses according to the teaching timetable while others should work in the office for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Case2: Association of Private Enterprises
In this association, there are about fifty staffs that are comparatively elder, and the majority of employees are demobilized soldiers. Although the establishment of staffs is not the administrative establishment, the employees of this association enjoy the similar treatment to the bureau’s civil servants. Apparently, they have a respectable salary, welfare, and benefits.
Case3：Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
Shanghai Securities News has a team of strong, professional and young editors and reporters to form a leading financial platform. The total number of staff is over 300. Our department, which has around 20 staff, is responsible for TV news. It includes 1 department head, 2 project supervisors, 8 editors, 3 compere, 2 back-end support staff, 2 technical staff, and 2 photographers.
Case4：Jingdezhen municipal government
In Jingdezhen municipal government, we has about 1000 civil servants in thirty divisions, and also has almost 5000 non- organization staffs.
2. 4 Current Planning
Case1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
In order to meet the requirements of investors as a listed company, the current plans focus on expanding markets in two aspects. The first one is to set up more branch schools across mainland China and the second one is to increase the business lines to attract customers with different demands.
In New Oriental Education & Technology Group, strategies to encourage changing are as followers:
1. More training courses are offered to staff, including the skills of teaching and the skills of using ICT in pedagogy.
2. Teachers are encouraged to write articles on the recent trend of exams and to share them with each other.
3. Teachers who can quickly meet the changing demands of students are rewarded. Also, they are encouraged to share their opinions with other colleagues.
4. Staff are organized to take more outdoor activities together, such as climbing mountains and hiking.
Case2: Association of Private Enterprises
In order to improve the performance of yearly-check and keep it fair and efficient, the authority provided two reasonable proposals: firstly, introducing an on-line system and popularize the digital yearly-check; secondly, modifying the performance evaluation system, and increase individual-assessment proportion, and raise differentials in salary.
Now, in order adapt the change and reform, the Association of Private Enterprises adjusts the performance index. Generally speaking, the wage is constituted by basic salary, performance-related pay, and allowance. In the past, staffs have the same performance-related pay. Thus, performance-related pay did not play a positive motivation. At present, the new compensation management said that the proportion of basic salary in the gross wages would reduce, while the performance-related percentage would increase, to motivate individual performance. In fact, the majority of staffs receive the innovation and change in order to get a high income. In the short term, the matter inspiring really plays a positive role for improving the performance to some extent.
Case3：Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
In order to maintain the position of leading financial newspaper, Shanghai Securities News has developed a multimedia platform to deliver the financial information to the investors and has affiliated with a group of volunteers and organizations that provide the professional financial analysis regarding to recent economy in China. Also, it plans to have a closed linkage with resources in the society to have a better interactive with the public.
Furthermore, in order to be a leading financial newspaper in China, SSN has to catch today’s change, new technology and changing business environment. Therefore, it is applied the strategy of “Ready-to-Change” and “Performance-link-Incentive” (RC-PI strategy) to all departments in all of its development projects. All leaders in SSN are rotated to be person-in-charge in different departments to implement their innovative plans with all-rounded knowledge about the organizations.
Case4：Jingdezhen municipal government
Our Government recently released next 12th five-year plan, with key targets related to national life in china, generally speaking, our concerns that Economic restructuring, innovation enhancement and environment & clean energy development, livelihood, social management, agriculture, and most importantly, is reform, especially political reform would be next five year main issue need to be done.
In addition, change or transformation efforts will continue to be of vital importance to organizations in the government. Indeed, our government culture almost demands a crisis of some sort to consider the need for change. The tendency to be change avoidant to the point of precipitating crises almost precludes second changes to successfully initiate organizational change. The consequences of failure on government change efforts often being catastrophic, the need to learn from successful public and private programs of organizational change and innovation is critical. Organizational learning is related to the strategy of an organization from future government perspective; we have to critical thinking how to make our government change and innovation.
3.1 Diffusion of Innovations from Rogers
Rogers (1995) model has become the major reference on diffusion studies. Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. Given that decisions are not authoritative or collective, each member of the social system faces his/her own innovation decision that follows a 5-step process:
1) Knowledge – person becomes aware of an innovation and has some idea of how it functions,
2) Persuasion – person forms a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the innovation,
3) Decision – person engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the innovation,
4) Implementation – person puts an innovation into use,
5) Confirmation – person evaluates the results of an innovation-decision already made.
Early adopters use the data provided by the innovators’ implementation and confirmation of the innovation to make their own adoption decisions. If the opinion leaders observe that the innovation has been effective for the innovators, then they will be encouraged to adopt.
The last adopters, laggards, can either be very traditional or be isolates in their social system. If they are traditional, they are suspicious of innovations and often interact with others who also have traditional values. If they are isolates, their lack of social interaction decreases their awareness of an innovation’s demonstrated benefits. It takes much longer than average for laggards to adopt innovations.
So we have seen potential adopters’ uncertainty about an innovation is assuaged through a stepwise social process. The tipping point is marked by opinion leader adoption. Well-informed opinion leaders communicate their approval or disapproval of an innovation, based on the innovators’ experiences, to the rest of the social system. The majority responds by rapidly adopting. This analysis suggests that the spread of an innovation hinges on a surprisingly small point: namely, whether or not opinion leaders vouch for it.
Case study 1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
Developing from a small training school to the first quoted educational company in mainland China, our school has to expand in a high speed to meet the request of investors. Expanding the market becomes more important than improving the quality of courses and teachers. Therefore, A great number of teachers feel that they are no longer valued or even respected. How to face the change? It’s a big problem for both teachers and the organization.
According to the model we learnt, the change is an Authority Innovation-Decision because the leaders in this organization determined the developing direction of the company. The innovators are the leaders of the organization who can get most benefit from the new model. The early adopters are those who have relatively high positions in the organization and they are following the decisions of the leaders quickly. But the early majority seemed hard to form and lots of teachers choose to leave rather than accepting the new model. Some of the new teachers recognized by the organization recently are gradually accepting the new model on the condition that they know little about the past of this organization. Perhaps they may become the early majority.
Nevertheless, for the company, the quality of the courses may be badly influenced by the loss of a great number of outstanding teachers who have already worked for other competitive training schools or have begun their own career in this field.
Though the change continues, it remains uncertain whether the company will survive or develop through the change.
In my opinion, during the process, the feelings of the old teachers are omitted to such an extent that great resistance brought by the change may stop the company from developing fast.
Case study 2: Association of Private Enterprises
The total number of the association is about fifty. As a subsidiary department of industrial and commercial administrative authority, the personnel allocation is irrational. Leaders aim to improve the performance, and promote organizational innovation. However, when the innovation really happened, the effect is not as ideal as the leaders imagined. In fact, there present a clear categories of adopters based on Roger’s model about “Diffusion of Innovation” at the first few months. The concrete distribution is as followings:
1. Innovators
The innovator includes the director and some regional managers who firstly accepted this new system. In fact, these people are in a high status, their social status decide that they must receive this innovation instantly, because they need to play a leading role. Besides, the director had an overseas educational background and he is open-minded and willing to embrace the innovation and challenge. In a word, these people meet the requirements according to Roger’s statement, who “have more years of education, higher social status” (Clarke, 1997).
2. Early adopters
There is an example to explain the situation of “early adopters” in the association. It is a woman that had a good education background and was the deputy manager in the association. However, the reason why she firstly adopted and actively learned this new system is that she wanted to get a better performance and then got a higher income. In this case, economic factor became the main impact factors, rather than educational background and social status. In fact, the early adopters in my association are mainly for the economic reasons.
3. Early majority
After witnessed the advantages by using new system, more staffs began to receive this innovation. In this period, they knew that they can get support from the “early adopters”, and only tolerated a lower risk.
4. Late majority
In this stage, some people were reluctant to receive the new system, for the economic interests and promotion chance. However, they always presented the dissatisfactory and complained about this system when they faced some problems.
5. Laggards
In my association, there is an elder man who still resisted this new system. Because he would retire in that year, he thought that it was not necessary to him to learn it. In addition, because he would retire soon, the leaders maintained an indulgent attitude, which indirectly acquiesce his non-cooperative attitude.
Case study 3: Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
Shanghai Securities News is almost implemented all stages of Roger’s model. According to the model, interpersonal channels are relatively important at persuasion stage. SSN usually spends a lot of time on implementation stage. Since the top and senior management have already passed through the first 3 stages (knowledge, persuasion, and decision), the most important of the change of technological innovations is how to put it to use. As the decision had already made by senior management, all department heads have to follow and react this change to the result.
During the change of technological innovations, there are difference adopter categories in SSN. As SSN is a traditional Chinese company, only top or senior management can be innovators. Even though the junior staff or people in middle management have tried to make some change, they would not make them successfully because of lack of authority. Therefore, if people from senior management have no intention to make any innovative change, it is hard to make any change in traditional Chinese company. Also, the pattern of adoption is not at normal distribution. The percentage of late majority and laggards are almost over 60% or even higher. It means that only less than 40% of people are early adaptors and early majority. This phenomenon is not strange in Chinese companies in China, especially in traditional or government sectors.
Last, even though the innovators in my organization may not know about Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) model when they implement any change in technological innovation projects, they can still success in the change process. Actually, the technological innovative plans are changed from time to time in SSN. Ready-to-adopt the change is one of the company policies as well as the requirement of staff performance for their promotion and salary adjustment. Therefore, people in SSN are ready-to-change but just the old staff (late majority) need more time to make the change. DOI model is a good tool for guidance as how to increase the rate of adoption and to speed up the process of adoption in many technological innovative projects in SSN.
Case study 4: Jingdezhen municipal government
Since I’m working as IT specialist in Jingdezhen municipal government, I intend to focus on technological innovations and dynamics of social factors in my organization. There is a need for a more complete framework that is grounded in the principle of social heterogeneity. Meanwhile, linking personal constructs to attitudes towards risk provides a useful structure for the adopters categories identified by research on the diffusion of innovation. The underlying assumption of diffusion research is that a radical technology is absorbed into a population in stages, corresponding to the psychological and social profiles of various segments within that population. There are three types of heterogeneity in an organization: personal constructs, different organization segments which value different functionalities, and also the adoption decision criteria for different adopters categories. Obviously those are interrelated. We discuss how a shifting focus from technological considerations to the perceived risk of adoption and the need for credible references makes it difficult for a change agent to “cross the chasm,” i.e., to move from a few lead users to the mainstream.
Comparison and Reflection
Nowadays, ICT implementation into teaching and learning process are challenging us, somehow has barrier in our dairy work, in our group we have four diversity organization: private enterprise, state-owned companies and government related organization, so from our own case studies mentioned, we can see yangye’s organization, which named New Oriental Education & Technology Group, that innovation diffuses through the employees regarding their keen at IT technology, or possessing the sound technical skills to embrace innovation using ICT throughout their teaching and self-directed learning stage. But meanwhile, in Angie and Ximeng’ government case, blind to technology and being lack of technical skills would be late majority and laggard, and their staff were haven't strong motivation to learning new stuff since their work were not challenging and pushing them to do so. Azalea’s private enterprise case was the only case from business domain, she also stated that the innovation has the percentage of late majority and laggards are almost over 60% or even higher and the diffusion process is more relevant to time consuming and multiple levels in her organization. This is quite coincidence and also meeting the similarity as comparing with government and educational institution in our group, no one could guarantee the quality of adopting and implementing the innovation at different organization in mainland China because it’s not only the problem of organizational structure but also the problem of external influencing forces behind the diffusion. That’s our group cases experienced the innovation for organization, concluded that innovation should be more enhanced and still have a long way to change.
3.2 Fullan’s Framework Introduction
Fullan’s framework for leadership are included five components to effective leadership and the additional three elements to give people confidence to face their challenges. The followings are five components.
1) “Moral Purpose” is the act with intention of making a positive difference in the organization. It is importance to both short-term and long-term success of all organizations.
2) “Understanding Change” is that leaders have to understand the culture of change and the change process.
3) “Relationship, Relationship, Relationship” which is to build good relationship among diverse people and groups by effective leaders to achieve the successful change.
4) “Knowledge Building” is to generate and increase knowledge inside and outside as well as being shared with others within the organization.
5) “Coherence Making” is to concern the new patterns of relationship and actions during setting up the process.
1) “Moral Purpose” is the act with intention of making a positive difference in the organization. It is importance to both short-term and long-term success of all organizations.
2) “Understanding Change” is that leaders have to understand the culture of change and the change process.
3) “Relationship, Relationship, Relationship” which is to build good relationship among diverse people and groups by effective leaders to achieve the successful change.
4) “Knowledge Building” is to generate and increase knowledge inside and outside as well as being shared with others within the organization.
5) “Coherence Making” is to concern the new patterns of relationship and actions during setting up the process.
Last but not least, leaders with effective leadership skills should have energy, enthusiasm and hopefulness, to influence and reinforce the others to make the positive change.
Case study 1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
Moral purpose:
18 years ago, when Yu Minghong，the organizer and president of our company began his classes in Beijing. Yu who was humorous and inspiring achieved great success for the reason that he could not only give the knowledge and exam skills to English learners，but also pass the faith to students that “To hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope will finally make your life splendid” in a dramatic way，which acts as the motto of the company. A great number of students enjoy the courses offered by the school which focus on the ways and methods to help students improve their marks in different exams, such as TOEFL, GRE. Also, they are motivated to try their best since the faith has been established that they can achieve whatever they want in lives as long as they are willing to try.
18 years ago, when Yu Minghong，the organizer and president of our company began his classes in Beijing. Yu who was humorous and inspiring achieved great success for the reason that he could not only give the knowledge and exam skills to English learners，but also pass the faith to students that “To hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope will finally make your life splendid” in a dramatic way，which acts as the motto of the company. A great number of students enjoy the courses offered by the school which focus on the ways and methods to help students improve their marks in different exams, such as TOEFL, GRE. Also, they are motivated to try their best since the faith has been established that they can achieve whatever they want in lives as long as they are willing to try.
Understanding change:
As I mentioned before, after becoming a quoted company, new oriental school is under high pressure exerted by the investors, which demands it keep a high speed growth rate and offer satisfactory profit each year. The leaders deeply understand the changes and the process goes well although there exist many unavoidable struggles such as the feelings of teachers may be hurt.
As I mentioned before, after becoming a quoted company, new oriental school is under high pressure exerted by the investors, which demands it keep a high speed growth rate and offer satisfactory profit each year. The leaders deeply understand the changes and the process goes well although there exist many unavoidable struggles such as the feelings of teachers may be hurt.
Relationship building:
At first, it is not necessary for the teachers to communicate with each other because they only need to be responsible of their own class. To save the cost, our school does not required teachers to work in offices unless they have classes. Therefore, you can imagine that the relationship between colleagues here is quite strange, unlike most normal companies. But in the highly competitive market, the situation has to be changed. Nowadays, new teachers are required to work in office even if they have no classes from Monday to Friday, which enables them to work together and cooperate with each other. What we want to achieve nowadays is not the best individuals but the best group.
Knowledge creation and sharing:
In this part, our school did a fantastic job for a long period. Not only do we have text books edited or introduced by the department, we also have numerous resources online which are always used to improve the quality of our courses. On the other hand, there exist some problems too. Teachers may concern about the problem that their own materials and hard working will easily be copied and used by others without any limitation and protection, which is unfair to those who work hard. An even worse situation is that some teachers copies the excellent part of other teachers’ courses, which will improve his own mark but do harm to his colleagues. Therefore, while we encourage the knowledge creation and sharing, how to keep a fair environment is also an important problem.
Coherence making:
The former aspects are actually conflicting in our company because to keep the traditional style of our school or to follow the trend of the changes is a difficult problem. Of course, the ideal situation is that the advantages can be kept while we can also adapt to the changes. Therefore, the most effort we should make is the coherence making. Even in this situation today, we may also keep the humorous and inspiring style of teaching with fewer students and less income. It is not easy to accept but it is necessary for the future development of the company.
In this part, our school did a fantastic job for a long period. Not only do we have text books edited or introduced by the department, we also have numerous resources online which are always used to improve the quality of our courses. On the other hand, there exist some problems too. Teachers may concern about the problem that their own materials and hard working will easily be copied and used by others without any limitation and protection, which is unfair to those who work hard. An even worse situation is that some teachers copies the excellent part of other teachers’ courses, which will improve his own mark but do harm to his colleagues. Therefore, while we encourage the knowledge creation and sharing, how to keep a fair environment is also an important problem.
Coherence making:
The former aspects are actually conflicting in our company because to keep the traditional style of our school or to follow the trend of the changes is a difficult problem. Of course, the ideal situation is that the advantages can be kept while we can also adapt to the changes. Therefore, the most effort we should make is the coherence making. Even in this situation today, we may also keep the humorous and inspiring style of teaching with fewer students and less income. It is not easy to accept but it is necessary for the future development of the company.
Case study 2: Association of Private Enterprises
At first, as Fullan’s framework, the “Moral Purpose” is based on the assumption of that all effective leaders are driven by both egoistic and altruistic (2001). In fact, leaders actively implement reform, organize training courses, not only for the association developing, but also for their personal interests-promotion or a raise in salary. On the other hand, staffs are more willing to regard it as a self-improvement channel, and leaders’ respect. It seems that the organization discovered an emotional connection with their employees. Although “most people want to be part of their organization; they want to know the organization’s purpose” (Fullan, 2001, p8), the fact is serious. Indeed, fewer leaders would communicate with their subordinates in the association. Thus, employees always felt that they could not get respect from leaders and organization. However, “the most effective leaders are not the smartest in an IQ sense” (Fullan, 2001, p8), and they always show arrogant superiority, which make a tense atmosphere. Therefore, after leaders discarded their official airs, staffs felt that they were respected. In fact, the communication channel is not only in the meetings, leaders need to adopt more diversified communication channels. In addition, the reason why people fear of change is because they “lack of technical know how or skills to make the change work” (Fullan, 2001, p6). When the staffs got the enough confidence from these training courses and have adequate time to adapt change, the situation was changed. As a consequence, the staff worked more actively.
Case study 3: Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
Fullan’s framework can apply to Shanghai Securities News. As the traditional Chinese company, the change is frequently promoted from time to time by senior management. The leaders have strong intention to make the positive change in the organization because they understand the change how important to make SSN to catch today’s business world. In order to build up the culture of change, they understand they have to get the support from top management as well as all related parties by building up the relationship among them.
However, it is hard to get the commitment from all related members in traditional Chinese company. Therefore, the leaders have to have the power and authority to enforce the change process by doing the necessary actions such as individual’s performance and knowledge building during the change process will be evaluated in staff personal appraisal for their year-end bonus.
Of course, energy, enthusiasm and hopefulness are also essential to make the successful change in the organization. The leaders in SSN usually cohere between the performance of change process and the employee’s performance to ensure to have the successful change. Indeed, it is a very effective way in SSN.
Case study 4: Jingdezhen municipal government
The Fullan framework is applied for Effective leaders are key to large-scale, sustainable reform. Our civilians expected and needed for sustained innovation throughout government.
1) Moral PurposeWe focus on social responsibility to others and the environment. Our leaders with moral purpose seek to make a difference among all civil servants. They are concerned about closing the relationships between high performing and lower performing staffs and raising the achievement of the relationships between us. If the goal is systemic improvement, the change would be explicit, deep and comprehensive moral purpose.
2) Understanding Change
Our leaders know the difference between being an expert in a given content innovation and being an expert in managing the process of change. This leader does not make the mistake of assuming that the best ideas will carry the day. Instead, the change provides opportunities for people to visit sites that are using new ideas, invites questions and even dissent, and expects the change process to proceed in fits and starts during the first few months of implementation. Nevertheless, such a division forges ahead and expects progress within a year because he or she has nurtured the conditions that yield results sooner rather than later.
3) Improving RelationshipsOur leaders know that building relationships and teams is the most difficult skill for political leaders. This leader works hard to develop the full range of emotional intelligence domains, especially self-management of emotions and empathy toward others (Goleman et al., 2002). The leaders' efforts to motivate and energize disaffected staffs and forge relationships among otherwise disconnected staffs can have a profound effect on the overall climate of the organization. Well-established relationships are the resource that keeps on giving.
4) Knowledge Creation and Sharing
Creating and sharing knowledge is central to effective leadership. For this reason, relationships and professional learning communities are essential. Organizations must foster knowledge giving as well as knowledge seeking. We endorse continual learning when we say that individuals should constantly add to their knowledge base — but there will be little to add if people are not sharing. A norm of sharing one's knowledge with others is the key to continual growth for all.
Creating and sharing knowledge is central to effective leadership. For this reason, relationships and professional learning communities are essential. Organizations must foster knowledge giving as well as knowledge seeking. We endorse continual learning when we say that individuals should constantly add to their knowledge base — but there will be little to add if people are not sharing. A norm of sharing one's knowledge with others is the key to continual growth for all.
5) Coherence Making
Because complex societies inherently generate overload and fragmentation, effective leaders must be coherence-makers (Fullan, 1999, 2001). The other characteristics of the change leader — moral purpose, an understanding of the change process, the ability to build relationships, and the creation and sharing of knowledge — help forge coherence through the checks and balances embedded in their interaction. Leaders with deep moral purpose provide guidance, but they can also have blinders if their ideas are not challenged through the dynamics of change, the give-and-take of relationships, and the ideas generated by new knowledge. Coherence is an essential component of complexity and yet can never be completely achieved. Leaders won’t attune to leading in a change make the mistake of seeking external innovations and taking on too many projects. In the social and moral environment of the government, we need the resources to close the achievement gap between high and low performers and to connect divisions to the Strength of democracy in society. Further, if leaders do not concern themselves with the development of the social and moral environment of the entire district (in addition to the development of the environment within their own charge), then not only will the system deteriorate, but eventually their own power will also step down.
Because complex societies inherently generate overload and fragmentation, effective leaders must be coherence-makers (Fullan, 1999, 2001). The other characteristics of the change leader — moral purpose, an understanding of the change process, the ability to build relationships, and the creation and sharing of knowledge — help forge coherence through the checks and balances embedded in their interaction. Leaders with deep moral purpose provide guidance, but they can also have blinders if their ideas are not challenged through the dynamics of change, the give-and-take of relationships, and the ideas generated by new knowledge. Coherence is an essential component of complexity and yet can never be completely achieved. Leaders won’t attune to leading in a change make the mistake of seeking external innovations and taking on too many projects. In the social and moral environment of the government, we need the resources to close the achievement gap between high and low performers and to connect divisions to the Strength of democracy in society. Further, if leaders do not concern themselves with the development of the social and moral environment of the entire district (in addition to the development of the environment within their own charge), then not only will the system deteriorate, but eventually their own power will also step down.
Comparison and Reflection
According to Fallan’s framework, it is included five components to effective leadership. In Moral Purpose component, the leaders in all above cases have intention of making change in their organizations. However, in Understanding Change component, there are Azalea’s organization - Shanghai Securities News (SSN) and Simon’s organization - Jingdezhen municipal government that their leaders understand how importance of the culture of change and the change process. In Relationship, Relationship, Relationship component, there is only Angie’s organization - Association of Private Enterprises which is lack of relationship building during the change process. The worst situation in her organizations is the employees always felt that they could not get respect from the leaders and organization. In the components of Knowledge Building and Coherence Making, only Angie’s organization - Association of Private Enterprises cannot be found those components. Indeed, Angie’s organization - Association of Private Enterprises only fulfill one of component in Fallan’s framework. The rest of cases contain most of Fallan’s components. Of course, the leaders should have effective leadership skills. It is a good example in Jacqueline’s organization - New Oriental Education & Technology Group. The leader in her organization has passed his vision that “To hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope will finally make your life splendid” to the students as well as to his employees. It acts as the motto of Jacqueline’s company which influence and reinforce the others to make the positive change.
3.3 Senge and the five principles of learning organization
1) Personal Mastery:
Personal mastery is a set of practices that support people—children and adults---in keeping their dreams whole while cultivating an awareness of the current reality around them. (Senge, 2000, P.59)
2) Mental models:
Our behavior and our attitudes are shaped by the images, assumptions, and stories that we carry in our minds of ourselves, other people, institutions, and every aspect of the world. The core task of the discipline of mental models is bringing tacit assumptions and attitudes to the surface so people can explore and talk about their differences and misunderstandings with minimal defensiveness. (Senge, 2000, P.67)
3) Shared Vision:
The discipline of shared vision is the set of tools and techniques for bringing all of these disparate aspirations into alignment around the things people have in common. In building a shared vision, a group of people build a sense of commitment together.(Senge,2000, P.72)
4) Team learning:
Team learning is a discipline of practices designed, over time, to get the people of team thinking and acting together. (Senge, 2000,P. 73)
5) Systems Thinking:
The discipline of systems thinking provides a different way of looking at problems and goals--- not as isolated events but as components of larger structures. (Senge, 2000, P.78)
Case study 1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
In my company，the most outstanding part is personal mastery, which is also the key to the great success of it. Since there is no lack of excellent personal mastery of teachers, courses offered by our company is always thought highly of by customers.
However, when it comes to mental models and shared vision, the problem becomes quite complex. The double identities of the company---an educational organization and a profitable listed company make it difficult to “bringing tacit assumptions and attitudes to the surface”. The reason is obvious that the assumptions are actually conflicting. More importantly, shared vision is not easily achieved here. Although almost everyone in the company understands that making profit is the main target for a listed enterprise, when it comes to how to achieve the target, opinions are divided. Some staff insist that improving the quality of courses is the foundation while others tend to expand markets quickly to meet the requirements of investors without paying too much attention to the quality. Most importantly, as an educational organization, the cultivation of a qualified teacher is actually a long process for the reason that teachers are totally different from other products, such as a table or a computer. Obviously, to keep a long-term competitiveness, the quality should be guaranteed, but how to deal with the high pressure from investors is an essential and difficult problem for the leaders. In conclusion, although it is not difficult to make an analysis of the situation, shared vision should be rethought and stated clearly by our leaders. Otherwise, once the problem that what we are pursuing cannot be made clear, there will be great threats to our company.
As for the team learning, our company makes great progress in recent years. For a relatively long time, our company mainly depended on “star-teachers” who enjoyed tremendous popularity among students. Their personal performance and ability made great contribution to the good reputation of our company. However, when students’ requirements are changed, it is impossible for one or two star teachers to support all the organization. For example, parents and students tend to pay more money and receive more attention from teachers, which leads to the situation that more courses should be offered with fewer students in each course. Therefore, more qualified teachers should be hired to meet the demand of market. In other words, several excellent teachers were needed before while an excellent group consisting of a great number of qualified teachers is in need now. Hence, a lot of group training and discussion are offered in my company, which provides more chances for us to communicate with each other and motivate the potential of the group.
The last point is systems thinking. One of the most interesting phenomena is that teachers who are not required in office know little about how the company is running. When a teacher is chosen as a leader of a certain department, the first challenge of him is the change of thinking model since he cannot only focus on one of two separated points and systems thinking is essential for the development of the department. There are successful examples, as well as losing ones. How to improve leaders’ ability of systems thinking is our first consideration while whether it is necessary for every staff to develop the habit of systems thinking is another point since not all the leaders expect their subordinates know too much about the organization.
Case study 2: Association of Private Enterprises
“Personal mastery” (Senge, 1990)emphasizes personal vision and awareness which could build a creative atmosphere to embrace innovation. While, in my association, due to the status of civil servants, staffs seldom consider their visions. In fact, they have a stable and respectable income, and enjoy a leisure work life. Thus, they much enjoy their working style and current situation. Consequently, they lack a collective future vision. Besides, “team learning” focuses on organizational communication, and its detail presentation is dialogue. However, it is a quite difficult problem in my association. It seems that meeting is the major communication channel. In addition, “systems thinking” do not be identified by leaders and staffs. They are used to divide problems into different aspects, and apportion blame. As a result, the problems are not solved, the relationship between leaders and employees become quite poor. Therefore, the leaders need to recognize that any problem would not isolated appear. As employees, they also should understand they are the part of whole organizations, so their daily activities have a significant impact on organizations. Only all of them realize and accept that all changes are not isolated and as a part of whole, the “system thinking” can be put into practice.
Case study 3: Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
Shanghai Securities News provides an online platform which allows all staff to attend the regular specific learning sessions and discuss those sessions together thru internet. As Senge mentioned, SSN fulfills at least 3 principles of learning organization including shared vision, team learning and systems thinking.
In Personal mastery, it is hard to describe the gap between personal visions of personal reality. Since staff in SSN has been ordered to make the change by their leaders.
In Mental models, Ready-to-adopt the change is one of the company policies as well as culture. Also, the result of change will be measured to each individual’s performance for their year-end bonus, so that most of staff in SSN behaves very positive to the change.
In Shared vision, the leaders (innovators) in SSN often share the picture of futures after change and get the commitment from all related parties who involved in the change.
In Team learning, as government subsidized organization, SSN has plenty of resources for any change. Therefore, the leaders in SSH are easily to develop the strong capacities of the teams and the staff also believe the change will success at the end. As the result of the change will be reward to the related staff, the staff in SSN desires the success of the change.
In Systems thinking, the leaders’ sharing vision and reward motivation are the strong linkage and relationship between the individual and the organization in SSN. The online platform also provides the way to the staff create feedback and resolve problems between them. Thus, they do not feel alone or isolated.
In many cases in traditional Chinese companies, it is difficult to make the change because of the structure of the company. As a traditional Chinese company, SSN has many different management layers. Even though the innovative leaders would like to provide the learning opportunities for providing the learning opportunities about the most updated market knowledge to their staff, they still need to face the complicated internal bureaucratically process.
Case study 4: Jingdezhen municipal government
According to Peter Senge (1990) there are five influencing factors in organizational learning. Comparisons and analysis were made based on this model. In our government which is designing more effective performance measurement system for civilians under our enhancement and reform. Recent attempts to develop management strategies that address the problems associated with the increasing complexity of government have focused on creating mechanisms which allow for organization learning. This outgrowth of the system thinking way has emphasized performance measurement as a way to help organizations better understand their process and outcomes and to allow for a holistic, integrated analysis of the organization’s vision, mission, goals and objectives in relation to its current performance in the context of other internal and external conditioning factors, such as developing personal mastery is the way to empower personal vision of its reality. And using mental models refer to our Chinese government culture, and perceptive every staff in this circle how they inform the way an organization behaviors. Team learning also was important for increasing government performance and satisfied from civilians. So reflection from this model concept emphasis on organizational learning has been integrating for our government as an improvement tools and methods. While our leaders doing decision making process, bureaucracy spreading all level of administration and the solution would be decentralization of decision making processes, not only make decision by leaders themselves, rethinking the systems would be bright way for our government.
Comparison and Reflection
Personal Mastery: In all organizations，personal mastery depends on everyone’s understanding of his vision and reality. However， there is an obvious phenomenon in Chinese companies， especially in government departments. People tend to follow leaders and the dominant values in society, which means their personal mastery is deeply influenced by others.
Mental models: When evaluation method is made clear, it is easy to share mental models. In SSN, the motivation to staff is profit, which means tacit assumptions have been offered. Thus, mental models depend on attitudes toward. However, in NOS，since the tacit assumptions are not made clear because of its double identities, it is difficult to share opinions further.
Shared Vision: In most Chinese companies and government departments, staff are forced to accept leader’s vision， which does not lead to shared vision since everyone has his own values and purpose. Therefore, on surface, there is a vision in each organization but whether it is admitted and shared by all staff is dubious.
Team learning: When it comes to team learning， there are actually two problems. The first one is whether learning is encouraged and motivated in these organizations and the second one is whether staff can learn as a team rather than as individuals. In two government departments, Association of Private Enterprises and Jingdezhen municipal government, it is not encouraged to learn and to make a change. In SSN, as the learning ability is linked with salary, staff are encourage to learn and as enough resources are offered, a good platform for team learning is established. In NOS, there is a change from individual learning to team learning， but during the process， problems still exist since not all staff accept the new model easily.
Systems Thinking: Leaders in these organizations have already recognized the importance of systems thinking while most staff consider themselves as “small potatoes” and focus on individual work. The reason is obvious that the vision only belongs to leaders rather than all the staff.
3.4 The model about managing change
The model is about managing change. It totally states six different situations in an organization which is caused by six factors. At first, it points that vision is ‘the big picture’ that people need (Shortland-Jones, Alderson Baker). It further indicates that a shared vision is the key in managing change; otherwise the employees would feel confused. If the participants have not the necessary skills to undertake the change, they would be anxiety. If there is lack of incentive, staffs would be resistant to change. Resources are an important component, which assist employees to handle change. If resource that employees needed can not be provided, they would feel frustrated. If action plan can not be implemented, staffs would feel that it is a treadmill. People should foster a notion of collegiality, otherwise they would be isolated, and the desire of building a “community of learners” can not succeed. (Shortland-Jones et al., 2000).
Case study 1: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
As for the first change I mentioned before that technology is gradually introduced to our classes, I think we have already reached the second stage: utilization, which means basic technologies such as ppt, video and online test system have been widely used by a great number of teachers while there are still teachers who refuse to use technologies for their own reasons. Then I will discuss the situation from 6 aspects.
1. Vision（confusion）：Teachers who are positive to use the new technology share similar vision that technology will make the pedagogy process more effective while those who refuse the change claim that teachers’ excellent performance is the key point in class. In addition, an interesting phenomena in our school is that those who has no vision about their classes or the development of the school are easily influenced by both sides, which means they may use technology in some occasions while they may give up it easily in others for the reason that whether technology is useful in class has never been considered seriously by them.
2. Skills（anxiety）: For those who do not use computers and multimedia frequently, anxiety is a common feeling among them. However, once they are familiar with the skills and the equipments, anxiety will disappear automatically.
1. Vision（confusion）：Teachers who are positive to use the new technology share similar vision that technology will make the pedagogy process more effective while those who refuse the change claim that teachers’ excellent performance is the key point in class. In addition, an interesting phenomena in our school is that those who has no vision about their classes or the development of the school are easily influenced by both sides, which means they may use technology in some occasions while they may give up it easily in others for the reason that whether technology is useful in class has never been considered seriously by them.
2. Skills（anxiety）: For those who do not use computers and multimedia frequently, anxiety is a common feeling among them. However, once they are familiar with the skills and the equipments, anxiety will disappear automatically.
3. Incentive（resistance）: Before using the technology， teachers may have a question that why we should give up the traditional way of teaching and make a change. I think the incentives may come from two aspects. The first one is the curiosity of trying something new. The second one is imitation, which is the real incentive of most followers.
4. Resources（frustration）: In our school, most resources related to courses and exams are easily found. However, when the exams are changed, our courses should be changed too. Then it is not quite easy for us to get useful materials. For example, in 2011, English oral exam will be introduced to college entrance exam; therefore, we begin to collect relative materials. But there are few resources online and the feeling of frustration is spread in our organization.
5. Action plan（treadmill）：When the director makes a plan and forced teachers to finish certain assignments before a due date, the outcome will be obvious. Also, if the teacher determines to use technology to make his classes better and made a plan for himself, he is more likely to use them in a better way than others complaining that technology is boring.
6. Collegiality（isolation）Since our courses are always given individually, there are not too many chances for teachers to cooperate, compare and communicate with each other. If some activities can be held to enable teachers to share their experiences of using technology, as well as other experiences in teaching, the quality of courses will be improved.
Case study 2: Association of Private Enterprises
As a governmental department, the association has not a clear vision. In fact, all standards and guidelines are top-down control. Thus, no matter leaders or staffs, they seldom consider their vision; even more build a shared vision. At the first few months, due to lack of a concrete action plan to implement change, staffs worked on a treadmill. Moreover, the sudden reform in performance management do not motivate employees’ enthusiasm, but lead to resistance. In fact, the performance change can not attract the intrinsic incentives. In addition, there lack effective training, which represents a strong anxiety and irritation. Due to lack of adequate knowledge and technology support, staffs always feel frustrated, which is another reason they show resistance to the change. When leaders recognized its seriousness, they organized a series of training courses, which indicates that leaders have identified the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic support, and they also begin to formulate specific plan and strategies, and continual readjust in the implement process.
Case study 3: Shanghai Securities News (SSN)
In Newhouse model, Shanghai Securities News almost fulfills all criteria in this model except Action plan.
Vision | Skills | Incentives | Resources | Action Plan | Collegiality | Change |
Vision | Skills | Incentives | Resources | *** | Collegiality | Treadmill |
As mentioned in shared vision in Senge model, the leaders in SSN often share the vision and the benefit after the change to the staff, thus, the related staff will not feel confused. Since most of staff in SSN are professional or experts in their fields, they have strong skills to take on any change projects. Thus, staff seldom experience anxiety. But, the leaders often change their plans because they may not have enough knowledge about how to make the successful change. Due to having sufficient resources from the government support and the skillful staff, the leaders in SSN seldom feel anxiety and frustrated. They will keep trying the new ways and different strategies until the result of change is satisfied. Too frequent changing the action plans; as a result, the staff always has the feeling of Treadmill. Other than that, the staff in SSN has strong bonding and motivation in any change projects. Perhaps, almost all change projects are implemented as a group or a team of professional from different departments. Also, all related staff will enjoy and reward the benefit of successful change.
Case study 4: Jingdezhen municipal government
According to this model, firstly we have to consider Chinese government’s vision, which seems to have encountered a period of indecisiveness that is hurting its ability to confront such pressing issues as high unemployment, urban unrest and foreign policy challenges and political reform what civilian needs. Since our future vision intends to meet these issues, however, there is still long way to go. At the meantime, our government strengthening Governance and public sector reform in China, improving government staffs skills for governance capability, for these purposes, our government released several key projects for developing a monitoring and evaluation system for us self-learning and improving method. After that, some staffs may felt anxiety when they couldn’t follow this skill enhance program due to lack of sound background and sufficient time for learning new skills. For incentive aspect, I think most incentive for government staff is get promotion; to become a leader would be one of our career plans. Collegiality is not applicable for Chinese government since we’re one party has power, in all, change in government would be treadmill so far, more improvement for political change is an indeed. During post-1978 transition from ‘socialist plan’ to ‘market socialism’ has also been accompanied by significant shifts in how the practice and objects of government are understood and acted upon. But change is our civilian demand for our country prosperity afterwards.
Comparison and Reflection
At first, action plan is a common problem that these four organizations all faced recently. In fact, the current phenomenon is that leaders would force to a specific plan, while there are lack of concrete implement step. In other words, the staff is only forced to conduct.
Secondly, except for Azalea’s organization-Shanghai Securities News, other organizations all faced other limitations. One of obvious limitation is the shared vision. However, there still have some differences. In Jacqueline’s limited company, there is a collective vision, but this vision is not accepted by every colleague. On the other hand, like the organizations of Simon and Angie, they are all sub-department of local government. Thus, staffs merely regard this vision as a top-down policy. Besides, adequate training is lacked. Certainly, majority of staff all wants to self-improve in their organizations. But, organizations can not provide appropriate training chances for them.
There another distinct difference in governmental organizations is about collegiality. In fact, the attribute of governmental departments result in its impossibility. Thus, this is a quite tough problem to governmental departments.
It is clear presented that Azalea’s organization is much good learning organization. There provide sufficient resources, promotion chance, self-improvement opportunities, attracting incentives and motivations. Therefore, it is a good example for other government to learn.
4. Conclusion
The result summary of the survey from four organizations are Azalea’s organization - Shanghai Securities News (SSN), Simon’s organization - Jingdezhen municipal government, Angie’s organization - Association of Private Enterprises and Jacqueline’s organization - New Oriental Education & Technology Group. We can see how well organizations meet the criteria for being a learning organization which are limited and measured by the users’ perceptions of their organization’s learning environment, processes and leadership in their survey.
Comparing the result from Learning Organization Scores Summary among four organizations, Azalea’s organization is the highest scores in learning organization survey. All of building blocks are fallen into second quartile. The opposite one is Angie’s organization. Its building blocks are all fallen into bottom quartile. The organizations from Simon and Jacqueline have different result of their building blocks. Although there is no organizations or building blocks which have scores in top quartile, Azalea’s organization has consistent scores in all building blocks to be a learning organizations among all organizations.
In the result of Concrete Learning Processes and Practices, three of organizations are fallen into second quartile of Experimentation except Angie’s organizations which is very close to second quartile. On the other hand, three of organizations are fallen into bottom quartile of Educations and training except Simon’s organization. Since all organizations are traditional Chinese style organizations, the result of above figure represents that they are strong at Experimentation and weak at Education and Training. Separately, Angie’s organization is still lowest scores in all subcomponents but Simon’s organization has almost all highest scores in all subcomponents which are fallen into third quartile.
In the result of Supportive Learning Environment, except Azalea’s organization which has first three subcomponents fallen into second quartiles, the rest of organizations are almost all fallen into bottom quartile. Angie’s organization even has lowest score in Openness to new ideas which is out of all quartile. Strangely, except Angie’s organization which is fallen into second quartile in Time for reflection, all other organizations have similar scores in Time for reflection. Jacqueline’s organization has highest scores in Time for reflection and is also fallen into top quartile.
In conclusion, Azalea’s organization is relatively good as a learning organization among all other organizations. The other hand, Angie’s organization is relatively low as a learning organization. Surprisingly, almost all are low at Education and training and high at Experimentation in Concrete Learning Processes and Practices. Also, almost all have low scores in Psychological safety, Appreciation of differences and Openness to new ideas but better scores in Time for reflections in Supportive Learning Environment. Indeed, all organizations in our team are traditional Chinese organizations in mainland China. Comparing the result of all surveys shows that all organizations have some similar characteristics of learning organization in China.
After data analysis from our group members, we draw a conclusion that achievement and challenges would be meet.
Achievements：
1. Desire：developing in an era changing at a tremendous speed， the four organizations share the desire to make a change as well.
2. Financial management: the four organizations are well supported by financial management in general, which means fund is not the major barrier to changes.
3. Incentive: rewards are offered to those who are willing to make a change first, which is used to encourage professional development in each organization.
4. Global communication: with the increase of global communication, a great number of new management ideas and high-tech are introduced to mainland China and the four organizations benefit a lot from the process.
Challenges and difficulties：
1 .Shared vision: the most obvious problem in the four organizations is the lack of shared vision since the change are always forced by leaders, it is difficult for staff to accept it. Also，it is uneasy for staff to state their opinions because of the character of Chinese culture.
2. Leadership: leaders have a strong will to make a change, but it seems that leadership to support and accelerate the changes is insufficient in the four organizations.
3. Technical skills: in each group, there are parts of staff refusing to use any new technology and insist the way they are familiar with. Also, those who are willing to use ICT may face some technical problems and once the problems cannot be solved immediately, they may feel frustrated and refuse to use the technology in the future.
4. Structure：too many layers in the four organizations slow down the efficiency, as well as the speed of professional development.
5. Plan and action: leaders in four organizations are good at making plans, but the problem is few actions are taken according to the plan. Some staff also hold the idea that plans and actions are naturally separated.
6. The influence of local culture: every organization is deeply influenced by culture. In mainland China, people tend to follow leaders or the dominant values and conceal their own opinions. The result is that on the surface, the change is successful while actually, the change itself is easily changed.
5. Reference
Clarke, R. (1997). A Primer in Diffusion of Innovations Theory. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), Albuquerque, New Mexico. Retrieved 15 September, 2004 from http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/SOS/InnDiff.html
Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations. (Fifth Edition). New York: Free Press.
Senge, P. (1990), The fifth discipline: The art and practice of organizational learning. Milsons Point, NSW: Radom House.
Shortland-Jones, Bruce., Alderson, A., & Baker, G. R. (2000). Leadership for Cultural Change: Developing a Community of Learners in Teacher Education. University of Calgary. Retrieved Vol 5(10), 2000, from
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)