Writing by Leila Summa on Sunday, 27 of January , 2008 at 11:05 pm
- Definition /Origins: The original meaning refers to an act of coming upon, or of being taking, unawares; the act of seizing unexpectedly. The person may be taken unawares only by that which they do not know. Organizationally, surprise accompanies a lack of attention rather than a lack of knowledge per se. Some may have known what to expect but not have been in a position to be heard. In such a case, the organization would not know, in the sense of not attending to, what some of its members might know, in the sense of being aware of the possibility of some such phenomenon.
- The tendency to overestimate control has led to ignorance about surprises (Weick, 2003). It is an ignorance reinforced by the fact that many surprises are negligible and have no real impact on organizational activity
- Some surprises preannounce themselves in the form of warning signals that for one reason or another may be ignored (Wissema, 2002), while others apparently come without warning (Levy, 1994).
- Some surprises are sometimes taken as inevitable (as in the case of normal accidents, Perrow, 1984), while others should have been avoided – at least in retrospect (Watkins & Bazerman, 2003).
- Some surprises are rapidly neutralized while others escalate (Staw, 1976).
Quelle: UNPACKING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATIONAL SURPRISE1
MIGUEL PINA E CUNHA
Category: Organisational Behavior
Writing by Leila Summa on Friday, 25 of January , 2008 at 7:23 am
Auszug aus: Removing Barriers to Change: The Unwritten Rules of the Game, Peter B. Scott-Morgan
“In every realm of our lives, whether we’re at work or play, there are Rules of the Game. And these rules always
come in two forms – written rules and unwritten rules.”
(Read more…)
Category: Corporate Culture, Organisational Behavior
Writing by Leila Summa on Sunday, 13 of January , 2008 at 4:36 pm
Und hier nochmals ein Buchtipp für alle, die auf der Suche nach sinnvollen Einsatzzwecken sind. Die Zusammenstellung der Fallbeispiele stimmt mich zuversichtlich, dass das Potential von Web 2.0 und Social Media dennoch nicht ganz unerkannt bliebt:
Enterprise 2.0, Planung, Einführung und Einsatz von Social Media im Unternehmen
Von Michael Koch & Alexander Richter, Universität der Bundeswehr München
Oldenbourg Verlag München Wien
Mehr
Auf Seite 103/104 findet sich auch eine kurze Fallstudie zum Intranet 2.0 der cablecom GmbH .
Category: Social Media, Enterprise 2.0
Writing by Leila Summa on Tuesday, 8 of January , 2008 at 3:37 pm
Der Schlüssel zum Erfolg klingt so einfach: Gianxi. Was so viel bedeutet wie: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” . Guanxi steht in China laut Wikipedia für “guanxi describes a personal connection between two people in which one is able to prevail upon another to perform a favor or service, or be prevailed upon. The two people need not be of equal social status. Guanxi can also be used to describe be a network of contacts, which an individual can call upon when something needs to be done, and through which he or she can exert influence on behalf of another. In addition, guanxi can describe a state of general understanding between two people: “he/she is aware of my wants/needs and will take them into account when deciding her/his course of future actions which concern or could concern me without any specific discussion or request”.
Irgendwie bringe ich den Eindruck nicht los, dass die Ähnlichkeit zwischen Guanxi und Xing.com nicht zufällig ist. Die Networking-Plattform in China heisst übrigens so: guanxi.com.
Falls du demnächst eine Geschäftsreise nach China planst? Dann unbedingt lesen…:
Zusammenfassung des Buches “Geschäfte machen mit Chinesen” gestossen: “Rollen, Regeln und Gesichter in der chinesischen Gesellschaft“.
Und, “guanxi” wird sicherlich auf meiner Buzzword-Liste fürs 2008 stehen :).
Category: Social Media
Writing by Leila Summa on Tuesday, 8 of January , 2008 at 2:14 am
ohne Worte….
“The social psychologist Eliot Aronson observed that people are not rational beings so much as they are rationalizing beings.”
Category: Organisational Behavior, Employee 2.0, Psychology
Writing by Leila Summa on Friday, 4 of January , 2008 at 11:14 pm
Zusammen mit Prof. Dr. Michael Koch habe ich den IntraWeb 2.0-Case als Fallstudie in das folgende bald erscheinende Buch einfliessen lassen. Also nicht nur - aber natürlich auch ;) deshalb - ist das Buch empfehlenswert. Erscheint demnächst.
Hier einige Informationen:
Grundlagen, Fallstudien und Trends zum Einsatz von Social Software
Andrea Back u.a. (Hrsg.)
2008. ca. 350 S., br.
ca. € 44,80
ISBN 978-3-486-58579-7
“Social Software Anwendungen wie Wikis, Weblogs oder Social-Networking-Plattformen sind ein integraler Bestandteil der Weiterentwicklungen des Internets. Zur Nutzung kommen diese Anwendungen aus dem Bedürfnis heraus, Wissen zu sammeln, bereitzustellen und zu verteilen bzw. Communities aufzubauen und ihnen Raum zum Austausch zu geben.
Worin liegt nun aber der Nutzen des Web 2.0 für Unternehmen?
Im Rahmen dieses Buches werden von rund 30 Autoren aus Wissenschaft und Praxis vier große Themenbereiche behandelt, um sich der Beantwortung dieser Frage zu nähern. ….”
weiter
Category: Social Media, Enterprise 2.0
Writing by Leila Summa on Wednesday, 2 of January , 2008 at 12:15 pm
Reading his predictions for 2008 and this inspired me also to think about my expectation of 2008 –especially regarding to my my favourite topic: how to tap the full advantage of web 2.0 in the enterprise and how to “model” the employee 2.0. I didn’t dare to write my web predictions for 2008 (because the first of my predictions then would be, that I will need to adapt my predictions in march or April at the latest..). Therefore I decided to collect my personal over- & ab-used buzzwords of 2007.
I think the problem with all this terms is: a lot of people – once heard one of these buzzwords - use it in different contexts and different meanings. By simplifying their world they don’t look at the deeper sense of it, and this superficial understanding of the world (term) can viraly build a collective misunderstanding of really important things. And this misunderstanding provokes sometimes a lot of prejudice, which are very difficult to correct afterwards (I could mention here some examples of – how people reacted on the launch of our bliki (blog/wiki) based IntraWeb 2.0…). Another problem seems to be, that only talking about e.g. “dialogue” doesn’t mean, that you already have implemented successfully the strategy behind:).
Overused and abused buzzwords of 2007 (from an internal relation perspective):
2.0-itis
Needs no explanation, right?
Dialogue
There are also people who don’t share the same ideas – but don’t be afraid - transparency and criticism will help you improve the world – if you listen to them and react.
Simplicity
Don’t forget the complexity behind and don’t over-simplify …”as simple as possible, as complex as needed”…
Competitive advantage
Yes, survival of the fittest… but how does is really work? How can you influence the competitive advantage of your company? Yes, the whole is more than the sum of its parts…
Participation & Collaboration
Participation and better collaboration, that’s what we really want: consider it as a long- and not short-term strategy and as one of the main goals of how the employee 2.0 will have to work: intrinsically motivated ;)….
Proactive
When do we stop talking about and start to live it?
Swarm intelligence
Using the intelligence of the mass is one of the most difficult thing to identify: because once it happens – people do not obviously see it as a result of the “swarm”. Kind of “intelligence of the mass” effects happens all the time and are hidden, but very important part of our lives - even we don’t realize it. Often - unfortunately - we see ideas more as a result of the persons who delivers and presents it. And “to enrich one’s own by giving and receiving parts to and from others”, do you remember the new approaches for sharing in the 2.0-age?
Emergent systems & self organization
To be concise: When does a system start to be “emergent” or “self organized”? How could we identify the point when the system changes, when can we start to name it an “emergent system”? And to be honest: how much self organization do we really want or do we “allow”?
Digital natives – immigrants (or millennials or generation c or y)
Once again: Being a digital natives, millennial or whatever is not a question of age, but of openness and digital literacy. I Therefore I prefer to use – even if it sounds very technical and supports the 2.0-itis 
- the term “employee 2.0”
Change Management
Wikipedia: “is a structured approach to change in individuals, teams, organizations and societies that enables the transition from a current state to a desired future state.“. Sounds nice: my problem is: How can we manage change and follow a structured approach if we often don’t know how the desired future state will be?
Category: Social Media, Enterprise 2.0, Internal Relations
