The role and ethics of professionals in business and economics have been questioned, especially after the financial crisis of 2008. Some suggest a reorientation using concepts such as craftsmanship. In this article, I will explore professional practices within the context of behavioural theory and business ethics. I suggest that scholars of behavioural theory need a strategy to deal with normative questions to meet their ambition of practical relevance. Evidence-based management (EBMgt), a recent behavioural approach, may assist business ethics scholars in understanding how professionals infer ‘evidence’ to make decisions. For a professional, ethical issues are an integral part of decision-making at critical moments. As reflective practitioners, they develop insights related to ethical concerns when collecting and assessing evidence within decision-making processes.
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
This proposal envisions a solution for organizations and their employees to keep each other resilient and healthy.We aim for proactive detection of stress at an early stage, so it can facilitate a safe and collaborative dialogue between employers and employees at a time that they are both still able to see their co-dependency and mutual interests, while acknowledging the possible tension of conflicting interests. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.We use an Impact Plan Approach in which a Theory of Change (the DESTRESS Strategy) directs research activities that identify problems and causse, determine the required change to overcome them, and adjust the DESTRESS strategy to make improvements that are necessary to invoke that change. Subsequently, the DESTRESS strategy will be translated into the DESTRESS solution, for which a strategy for implementation and evaluation will be devised.
Performance feedback is an important mechanism of adaptation in learning theories, as it provides one of the motivations for organizations to learn (Pettit, Crossan, and Vera 2017). Embedded in the behavioral theory of the firm, organizational learning from performance feedback predicts the probability for organizations to change with an emphasis on organizational aspirations, which serve as a threshold against which absolute performance is evaluated (Cyert and March 1963; Greve 2003). It postulates that performance becomes a ‘problem’, or the trigger to search for alternative procedures, strategies, products and behaviors, when performance is below that threshold. This search is known as problemistic search. Missing from this body of research, is empirically grounded understanding if the characteristics of performance feedback over time matter for the triggering function of the feedback. I explore this gap. This investigation adds temporality as a dimension of the performance feedback concept guided by a worldview of ongoing change and flux where conditions and choices are not given, but made relevant by actors and enacted upon (Tsoukas and Chia 2002). The general aim of the study is to complement the current knowledge of performance feedback as a trigger for problemistic search with an explicit process temporal approach. The main question guiding this project is how temporal patterns of performance feedback influence organizational change, which I answer in four chapters, each zooming into one sub-question.First, I focus on the temporal order of performance feedback by examining performance feedback and change sequences organizations go through. In this section time is under study and the goal is to explore how feedback patterns have evolved over time, just as the change states organizations pass through. Second, I focus on the plurality of performance feedback by investigating performance feedback from multiple aspiration levels (i.e. multiple qualitatively different metrics and multiple reference points) and how over time clusters of performance feedback sequences have evolved. Next, I look into the rate and scope of change relative to performance feedback sequences and add an element of signal strength to the feedback. In the last chapter, time is a predictor (in the sequences), and, it is under study (in the timing of responses). I focus on the timing of organizational responses in relation to performance feedback sequences of multiple metrics and reference points.In sum, all chapters are guided by the timing problem of performance feedback, meaning that performance feedback does not come ‘available’ at a single point in time. Similarly to stones with unequal weight dropped in the river, performance feedback with different strength comes available at multiple points in time and it is plausible that sometimes it is considered by decision-makers as problematic and sometimes it is not, because of the sequence it is part of. Overall, the investigation is grounded in the general principles of organizational learning from performance feedback, and the concept of time as duration, sequences and timing, with a focus on specification of when things happen. The context of the study is universities of applied sciences and hotels in The Netherlands. Project partner: Tilburg University, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Organization Studies
