Organisational Flexibility is lauded in Strategic Management and in Diversity / Inclusion Management, albeit for different reasons, how can both research streams be alinged to gain organisational effectiveness and social innovation?
The Culture of Inclusive Organizations displays flexibility, through reducing organisational barriers to allow a broader demographic to enter their confines (Schur et al., 2005).
The purpose of this question is to theoretically and empirically grasp the issue, how organizations become inclusive – with special regard to persons with disabilities (PWD) – and the potential limits to inclusion.
Theodorakopoulos and Budhwar (2015: 181, DOI: 10.1002/hrm) review prior work on disability diversity which suggested that 'organizational flexibility is an important factor in the successful inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace (Kulkarni and Lengnick-Hall, 2011; Wooten, 2008)',
Corporate Leadership and culture already had been identified as crucial factors in this regard (Schur et al., 2005). Also in strategic management, culture has been discussed as a source of organisational flexibility for some time. For example, Organisational effectiveness has been mapped using the exploitation/exploration dichotomy (March, 1991), relating it to learning (Crossan et al., 1999) and dimensions of organisational culture (Freiling and Fichtner, 2010).
A well-known definition of organisational culture regards it as a solution to the challenges of external adaptation and internal integration. An ethnographic study of an organisation (Svenson, 2014) mapped how organisational effectiveness was realized through practising flexibility, which pertained only to the external adaptation, thus securing competitive advantage. In internal integration there was rigidity with a culture of a revealed dogma (Schein, 2010).
With the challenges to become an inclusive organisation, there remains the question, how can be flexibility be introduced to the culture's internal Integration?
Article Organizational Culture as the Glue between People and Organi...
Hi, Frithiof:
Perhaps the solution is to have a parallel organization! For example, a recent research study (Hawk, & Zand, 2014) argued that a parallel organization improves problem solving and decision making by liberating creative, rigorous inquiry blocked or unavailable in the formal organization.
A parallel organization perhaps is unusual for its structure, size, and duration. Its outputs significantly affected a wide range of organizational policies in manufacturing, strategic planning, and human resources. Its structure, staffing, and process improved organizational practices, relationships, learning, and communication!
- Hawk, T. F., & Zand, D. E. (2014). Parallel Organization: Policy Formulation, Learning, and Interdivision Integration. Journal Of Applied Behavioral Science, 50(3), 307-336
Hope this helps!
Nadeem
A Primer on Organizational Learning, available at http://www.adb.org/publications/primer-organizational-learning, covers related ground. Figure 2 therein articulates numerous reasons why one would want to create a learning organization. Sparking Social Innovations, available at http://www.adb.org/publications/sparking-social-innovations, could be of interest too.
Organizational agility makes the organizations flexible and adaptable to changes. Agile organizations are innovative and effective organizations, that respond effectively to business environmental changes, in order to remain competitive. Organization is an entity, that carries out business within the social frame work, remaining within society and works for fulfillment of all the stake holders' expectations. Organizational sustainability, demands that organizational innovation must eventually be part of social innovation that will do good to the organization as well as larger good to the society. This way organizational effectiveness may be aligned with social innovation.
Cajaiba-Santana, G. (2014). Social innovation: Moving the field forward. A conceptual framework. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 82, 42-51.
Nyssens, M. (2014). Social innovation and social enterprise: what does the European debate tell us?. In International Conference on Social Enterprise in Asia.