Trends in Organisational Development

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – Trends in Organisational Development

In this episode, Dr Russell Thackeray talks to Dr Jonathan Westover who is based in Utah and describes himself as a scholar/practioner. He has been an Associate Professor at Utah Valley University for 11 years and leads the Organisational Leadership Department which focuses on organisational development and change, human resource management, organisational behaviour and leadership. He also undertakes research on global comparisons in worker engagement and satisfaction, and the drivers of worker motivation across the world. Through his consultancy, Human Capital Innovations, Dr Westover helps organisational leaders better manage their people, improve leadership their skills and ultimately have high functioning organisations and teams that maximise the potential of their people.

There seems to have been a trend in the academic world over the last 20 years or so to stretch boundaries and come with new and interesting ideas to push forward organisational design and leadership. There have been academic and practioner fronts but academia has always tried to push the edge of knowledge. Although there have been major advancements in statistical methodologies that provide more insight into the theoretical world, the major principles and theories of organisational behaviour have been in place for decades. There have been tweaks and relabeling but no major advancements.

Dr Westover feels that this is because when organisational behaviour emerged as a stand-alone discipline originally it was an amalgamation of different social sciences and their take on organisations. Over time it became one discipline and it started to uncover the drivers for organisational human behaviour, group behaviour and effective leadership. These are in the main very down-to-earth, common sense ideas that sometimes get lost when fire fighting or in the day-to day grind. There is an ongoing need to remind people of the basic principles so they can be effective and drive innovative cultures but the major aspects have always been in place.

As a leading expert in global comparative studies as it relates to organisations, Dr Westover has studied the complexity of global systems as they influence organisational dynamics and the motivation of employees. One of the major things to come out of this is the recognition that a theory cannot be applied in the same way to every country and context throughout the world. Their needs to be a contextulisation of theories and their applications because they do not work in the same way in every country so generalised models break down.

Many countries still default to the west for ideas and best practice but although the principles can be similar there can be major differences. These need to be taken into any models or false conclusions about human capital, the workforce and skills emerge.  Ideas then emerge that there are problems with the workforce whilst the issue has more to do with the management structure, organisational style and work allocation.

Whilst leaders like predictability and consistency and would like to see generic policies and procedures across all their sites, if you’re a multinational based in 50 different countries it simply will not work.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Dr Westover here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available. a

You can get in touch with Dr Westover at innovativehumancapital.com