Managing Understanding in Organizations

Bringing a fresh perspective to the evaluation of management problems, this book scrutinizes the influence managers have on employees' understanding. It considers how managers use ideas and visions to frame their employees' internalized understanding of the external rules and instructions that govern their work. The book brings an interpretative perspective to the question of individual and group competence and looks at how this is linked with understanding. The book refers throughout to international case studies and considers the cross-cultural impact on management and understanding at work.

Jorgen Sandberg is Reader in Organization and Management at the University of Queensland, Australia Axel Targama is Associate Professor in the Department of Business Administration at Goteborg University, Sweden

Understanding becomes a key issue	p. 1
A paradigm shift is taking place in management	p. 1
Socio-economic forces behind the paradigm shift	p. 2
Research emphasizes understanding as the basis of human action	p. 10
The paradigm shift: from instruction to vision	p. 11
How this book is organized	p. 18
Summary	p. 20
The rise of an interpretative perspective on management	p. 21
Management has been dominated by a rationalistic perspective	p. 21
The alternative: the interpretative perspective	p. 26
What is the practical relevance of having one perspective or the other?	p. 31
A gradual shift of perspective in management research	p. 33
Research paradigms control the content of knowledge	p. 49
Human competence at work: a question of understanding	p. 51
Human competence: the basis for all enterprises	p. 52
Rationalistic approaches to competence	p. 54
Towards an interpretative approach to competence	p. 58
A practical example: competence in engine optimization	p. 62
Understanding: the basis for human competence at work	p. 71
Concluding remarks	p. 73
Understanding: the basis for competence development	p. 75
Understanding as the basis for what competence we develop at work	p. 76
Understanding as the basis for how we develop competence at work	p. 78
How does understanding operate?	p. 80
Reflection: a basic condition for developing competence	p. 86
Shared understanding: the basis for collective competence and its development	p. 89
Collective versus individual competence	p. 89
The social nature of understanding	p. 91
Shared understanding of flute manufacturing	p. 94
Collective competence as culture	p. 97
Developing collective competence by changing shared understanding	p. 104
Understanding and its transformation	p. 109
Once again - what is understanding?	p. 109
Issues involved in transforming understanding	p. 112
Concluding remarks	p. 123
Methods and principles for managing understanding	p. 125
Possible methods for managing understanding	p. 125
Language-driven methods	p. 126
Action-driven methods	p. 139
Guiding principles for managing understanding	p. 154
Concluding remark	p. 158
Management: a question of managing understanding	p. 159
Shift in focus and new priorities in management practice	p. 160
The paradigm shift reshapes the point of leadership	p. 170
Avoiding the rationalistic trap	p. 180
Some problematic power issues in managing understanding	p. 188
Conclusion	p. 191
References	p. 193
Index	p. 205
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Managing Understanding in Organizations

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials