Individuals contributing to the organization are not only limited to employees alone. The short-term contractors, vendors and free-lance workers all contribute and their contribution is highly influenced by their interactions with other coworkers and supervisors. As resources keep working in their individual or group environments, organizations need to optimize their use of valuable resources and be able to extract best. Biazzi states that “individuals need to be managed respecting their competence and motivations”. He introduces to an important concept called as “Triple Scull Framework” (Biazzi 2012). The framework helps to understand the interrelation and overall mechanics of individual and organization level oars for creating “sustainable competitive advantage”. The oars of scull focus on
· Competence and Motivation describe the individual based elements which are first oars of scull: Competence is skill or proficiency which is very essential for complex jobs or during uncertain conditions or “operating conditions”. Competence must be developed with the help of effective participation practices. A better skills match with the organizational vision and capabilities will provide higher motivation to the employees.
· Technology and Culture are the organization level influences forming the last oars: Technology has atomized the manufacturing and service activities significantly which requires highly skilled individuals. The automation also allows organization to focus more on research based projects or other growth opportunities while exploiting the present capabilities. Culture plays a pivotal role in the organization and defines the approach of organization to operate and create advantage.
· Work & Participation practices and Human Resource Policies are bridge between individual and organizational level forming second line of oars:
Human resource policies are essential to support the culture and diversity which in turn help to create environment to competency development and motivation.
A very important concept developed in the literature is Work & Participation Practices. It “encompass the organizational arrangements and solutions that allow individuals – to some extent – to contribute and influence in a discretionary and critical way, using their intellectual capacities, relationship skills, and experience toward innovation, problem-solving and decision making” (Biazzi 2012). There are different participation practices adopted and the differences of these were explained with the help of “Locus of Knowledge” and “Locus of Power”. The locus of knowledge comes from the way organization adopt the technology as it impacts the automation and way individuals contribute. Locus of Power relates to the decision power of individuals in the organization. It can be described with “consultative” and “submissive” participation as developed by (Levine & Tyson, 1990). The practices and participations are explained by a “Dril Matrix” which helps to explain the “taxonomy of Work & Participation Practices” (Biazzi 2012). It focuses on practices developed based on extent of Locus of Knowledge and Locus of Power in Diffuse, Redundancy, Improvement and Listening practices.
The balance and perfect coordination of these oars is very important to create “consistent, coherent and dynamically adjusted set of elements” (Biazzi 2012).
By providing the insight of the triple scull framework, author tried to explain the importance of each oar for an individual contributing significantly in the organization’s capabilities. It explains importance of creating “harmonized” environment to create opportunities for creating significant competitive advantage and support organizational renewal.
I enjoyed reading this paper as it has helped to form an overall picture of different elements of oar individually and cohesively. The mechanics of culture, technology, competencies, motivation with effective coordination from participative practices and HR helped understand causal relationship as how organizations can create a value and “sustainable competitive advantage”. Author ends the paper with some examples how the elements are used in different industry sectors which help to create the causal link between elements.
References:
- Intellectual Capital and Organizational Renewal: Building Dynamic Capabilities through People - Fabio de Biazzi
- Levine, D. I., & Tyson, L. D. (1990). Participation, productivity and the firm’s environment. In A. S. Blinder (Ed.), Brookings Institution.Paying for productivity: a look at the evidence (pp. 183-236). Washington: The
This is an article which truly sheds light on how important even the free-lance workers are to the firm. It has been the case that at times, firms do not put as much value as needed to their freelance workers. I have personally seen firms that view freelance workers as cheap labor.A firm must always value all their contractors because due to the dynamic enviroment, a contractor may become a vital part to the firm's competitive advantage. I also liked how it brings in human resource policies as part of creating an enviroment for development and motivation. It shows that every department must work together to create a culture where development can be achieved at a faster rate.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article. I have never heard of the "triple scull framework." I think this article is good for understanding the importance that each employee gives to the firm. In many companies you have marketing against sales or sales against back office. This article shows that corporate synergy can give a company an advantage over its rivals. I believe a couple of weeks ago we read an article that stated that companies need not look outside of the firm in order to find a competitive advantage. This article states that theory very well as long as the firm believes employees to be valuable assets or even resources.
ReplyDeleteGreat article Sameer! I agree that competence, motivation, technology and culture, and human resource policies play an important role to create value. Rest other factors being good except culture can also harm company. For example, people working in big research institutes are capable of doing research due to their qualities and skills. Hostile culture in institutes can lead to good research but not an innovative research because managers or supervisors working in such institutes don’t accept ideas from their coworkers or their subordinates. Therefore every component of this “Triple scull framework” is important.
ReplyDeleteI agree Triple Scull Framework is helpful for understanding the interrelation of individual and organizational level oars on how organizations can create a value and “sustainable competitive advantage”. This framework gives us good pictures in mind, as mentioned in the article: Competence and Motivation, the first oars of scull (individual level); Technology and Culture, the last oars (organization level); Work & Participation practices and Human Resource Policies, the second line of oars (the bridge between individual and organizational level). I believe the practicing managers really need to learn how to balance well these oars in the journey of management.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read all of our posts and comments, it is very interesting how casually we derive the links in all readings we have done this semester. Lot making sense now.... Starting from what organizational strategy should be to how it should implemented and "lived" in the organization. Amazing transition from where we had started.... :-)
ReplyDeleteInteresting topic. This is the first time that I have heard the use of this "Triple Skull Framework". I find it very interesting how they compiled the information in a way to show that competence, motivation, tech, HR and culture have an impact on value. I agree with Mark's comment about the fact that firms should look internally to find their competitive advantage.
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