Understanding the Interactions between Stakeholders and Entrepreneurs in Organizations - Assignment Example

Name Tutor Course Date MM320 Assignment 1 Organizational vision can be defined as the projection of the future state of an organization. The organization sets its motives and standards to motivate its actions in relation to its vision (Baitsch, Christof and Frank Heideloff 218). Vision provides guidance to an organization by stating what it wishes to achieve. There is a connection between organizational vision and social construction of change achieved from narration and story telling. Organization’s vision is created and expressed in creative ways that offer new intelligibilities and construct new realities. Various accounts of learning, vision building, and innovation and business models have acknowledged social dimension to development of businesses and inaction (Baitsch, Christof and Frank Heideloff 219). Reaction to organizational change is one aspect that social construction may have an impact on. Organizational change takes place when an organization transitions from the state it is at currently, to a desired future state. This essay explains the concept of social construction of realities of change and resistance, in relation to organizational vision and helps to improve one's understanding about interactions between stakeholders and entrepreneurs in organizations. The essay also describes the ways in which individual notions and collective identity and organization are produced over time through background conversations. Finally, the essay discusses process such as dialogical conversations that organizational leaders and managers can use when implementing change. Social construction of reality or social constructionism is a theory that offers a framework, which focuses on the process that can be used to understand and address social change in a postmodern society or organization (Downing, 185). Social construction of reality theory, states that meaning, significance and understanding are developed in collaboration with other human beings, rather than within an individual (Downing 185). One of the elements of social construction is that human beings rationalize their experiences by creating perceptions of models of the social world, and how they function. The second element is that human beings construct reality through the use of language (Jabri 213). Knowledge production is, therefore, assumed to be from individual rationality, empirical evaluation, presentation using language and narrative of progress. In an organization, the connection between construction of reality and organizational vision as offered by the constructionist review of modern assumptions has crucial consequences for the production of knowledge. First, a constructionist review favors deconstruction processes, by creating and stimulating a reflexive stand, whereby the production of knowledge allows traditional practices in the organization to be criticized (Jabri 213). Consequently, criticism of the traditional methods has cultural implications in the organization. The second consequence is that a constructionist review promotes practical and theoretical reconstructions through generative theories that make contributions to social transformations and approaches used by organization (Downing 185). It also supports openness in having alternative ways of organizing, and presenting knowledge in organizations that go beyond traditional methods, to more lively ways that allow people to be imaginative (Camargo-Borges, Celiane, and Emerson 432). In knowledge production and presentation, there is room for the use of social poetics, narratives, images and videos which enhance intelligibility of an organization’s vision, hence creating new realities. According to Jabri (32), an organization has a set of norms that are centered on unique and socially significant values. The values are the beliefs that members of the organization have to endure because they guide the organizations attitudes and actions. Values, therefore, influence the way people think, feel and behave, making them a criterion, which an organization uses to determine a course of action (Camargo-Borges, Celiane and Emerson Rasera 123). The members of an organization have to understand, commit and apply the values enormously, in varied situations that may surface in the daily work routines. Values are learned and developed through experience. It is important for members to have a shared understanding of the organizations values. People in an organization need opportunities to share experiences, and to develop a shared understanding. Social construction of reality allows people to view themselves according to the ways they relate to others, and control the relations when developing shared futures (Ran, Bing and Timothy 23). The way people choose to construct and present dialog is important because language has an impact in the circumstances it occurs, and contexts affects the produced language. Language is important in organizations because it helps the organization and the members to signify what is important, develop relationships and build shared identities that guide actions. For an organization seeking to design opportunities of engagement around its values, the power of language is useful in its construction of meaning (Caldwell 285). Organizational discourse that occurs in the form of face-to-face communication is important because it is a creation and expression of organizational structure. In addition, it creates a platform that members of the organization create coherent social realities that frames their sense of who they are (Caldwell 285). Social construction of reality is imperative in organizational changes when generating new practices and behaviors in accordance to organizational vision. According to Caldwell (285), realities such as organizational vision, change and resistance are brought into existence through the process of conversations and discussions that constitute the realities. The most fundamental level of definition of conversation is what people say and listen to (Burr 243). There is, however, a broader view of conversations, which defines it as a complex mix, rich in information of visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory events (Ran, Bing and Timothy 453). There is a connection between organization vision and the way it is constructed socially through conversations. Conversations bring both background and history into the present utterances by responding to the past conversations and shaping subsequent ones (Camargo-Borges, Celiane and Emerson 23). Change is one of the realities brought into existence through the process of conversations and discourses. Organizations implement changes when they are transitioning from their current states to future states that are desired. According to social construction theory, the shared understanding of central, enduring and distinctive characteristics and collective perceptions of members of an organization results to organizational identity (Jabri 187). External and internal changes in an organization cause members of the organization to update or change their opinions about the identity of the organization. In today’s business environment, organizations have to undergo constant changes to remain competitive. When trying to implement changes, managers should expect some forms of resistance, no matter how small. Resistance to change is believed to be as a result of personal experiences, and assessments of reliabilities of others (Baitsch, Christof and Frank 219). Resistance to change in organizations is a socially constructed reality where people respond more to the background conversations where the change is being initiated, than to the change itself. One of the reasons why people resist change in organizations is because of the perception that the change threatens their status quo (Ford, Jeffrey, Laurie and Randall 105). In addition, people resist change because there is increased fear and anxiety of real and imagined consequences. People may resist change because they lack confidence of their ability to perform under the new circumstances, and threats to personal security (Ford, Jeffrey, Laurie and Randall 108). The form that resistance to change takes is determined by the background conversations constructed from histories of success and failure, and the characteristics of the causes of the success or failure. Different resistive conversations, behaviors, and actions are obtained from different backgrounds. While the background of complacent conversations constructs the reality of complacency, a background of resigned conversations leads to resigned reality (Ford, Jeffrey, Laurie and Randall 115). A complacent reality results to responding to change with complacent resistance, such as denial for the need of change leading to avoidance, procrastination and finally withdrawal. A resigned reality results to a resigned response to change characterized by lack of attention when proposal for change is done, non-participation and reduced morale (Ford, Jeffrey, Laurie and Randall 120). On the other hand, the background of cynical conversations will lead to a cynical reality, which will cause a cynical resistance or total rejection to the proposal for change (Ford, Jeffrey, Laurie and Randall 112). In most cases, initiatives for organizational change are as a result of problems that an organization faces. Organizations are in some cases encouraged to undergo significant changes in order for them to develop (Johansson 339). To avoid failures in efforts to change, organizational leaders have to apply professional practices and concepts provided by social construction. Group leaders, managers and consultants, being resources for organizational interventions, need to employ concepts such as imagination, co-creation, dialog and meaning making. Dialog, according to constructionist perspective, is an interactive process that happens during conversations whereby, multiple local realities can be shared. When introducing change in an organization, dialog is critical because different understandings are offered (Caldwell 286). Dialog allows the leadership and their people to find the best opinion, or best solution through a dynamic process that considers the historical and cultural aspects available in the organization. Dialog allows participants to share their views, therefore, creating new realities. The use of dialogue in organizational transformational is applied by allowing as many people as possible to address the issue, and give various ways of handling the situation (Caldwell 286). Due to different vocalizations of understanding, fresh new realities are generated. According to constructionist view, co-creation can be put into practice by asking open and imaginative questions, which trigger the imagination of people (Caldwell 286). Asking questions that allow creative thinking enable dialog, imagination and co-creation to be integrated, with the purpose of organizational development. Old patterns of thinking in an organization are deconstructed, new meanings are co-created, and transformation within an organization is opened up (Johansson 339). Management consulting focuses on storytelling whereby, the consultant acts as the impression manager, by telling strong stories that have a convincing power. Storytelling is, therefore, a way of making experience visible and applicable during the consultancy process by involving both the consultant and the client (Johansson 340). According to social constructionism, allowing the use of dialogical conversations through the use of imagination increases the efficiency of the process of change by co-creating new possibilities. In conclusion, any organizational changes should be aligned with the organizational values and visions, developed from input from stakeholders, based on proven methodology and inclusive of methods and strategies that can be generalized. Organizations need to create a shared sense of value and vision based on the set values. As a generation evolves, an organization needs to come up with effective ways of sharing the values and visions across generations. While the values remain consistent, the language the organization uses to describe the values changes over time. To remain competitive and maintain impact over time, organizations have to come up with methods that enable their values to be relevant. To maintain relevance, an organization has to work on creating an environment that supports its primary vision. The organizational environment also has to allow members of the organization to co-create a sense of meaning that assists them to link the values to their individual understanding. Works Cited Baitsch, Christof, and Frank Heideloff. "Collective construction changes organizational reality: An illustration of the relative influence of both consultants and organizations." Journal of Organizational Change Management 10.3 (1997): 217-234. Burr, Vivien. Social constructionism. Psychology Press, 2003. Caldwell, Raymond. "Change leaders and change managers: different or complementary?." Leadership & Organization Development Journal 24.5 (2003): 285-293. Camargo-Borges, Celiane, and Emerson F. Rasera. "Social Constructionism in the Context of Organization Development Dialogue, Imagination, and Co-Creation as Resources of Change." SAGE Open 3.2 (2013): 2158244013487540. Derue, D. Scott, and Susan J. Ashford. "Who will lead and who will follow? 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