Toward a Rational Business Organization - Perspective of Changing Management Applying Jürgen Habermas’Social Critical Theory

• Main Authors: Chen, Chih-Hsiao, 陳致曉
• Other Authors: Wen, Chao-Tung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/14766735038609786956

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 經營管理碩士學程 === 94 === Organizational change is essential for the modern business entities to survive in the dynamic economical environment. However, many companies, which are successful in day-to-day operation, cannot accomplish the organizational change process, and result in fading out in the new competition environment. During organizational change processes, authority swinging and uncertainty about future make rumors prosperous; new rules and tactics have not been proved and are doubted; mutual trust between staffs and organization is shaky; and staffs become difficult to identify themselves with the organization. The above challenges are related to the dynamic management of information sharing, knowledge creating, staffs’ cognition, emotional consideration, mutual trust, and common consensus about new rules and the business entity’s future. The above conditions make changing management to be fundamentally different from the routine operational management. Strategic science and science management principles, which are generally adopted by companies to increase competition advantages and operational efficiency in the routine management, do not take account for the information and knowledge management, and cannot deal with the values and belief issues. Companies cannot just rely on the above two management principles to face challenges of the organizational change. The thesis analyzes the failure factors of changing management, which are disclosed by scholars like John P. Kotter and Peter M. Senge etc. The author correlates them with “meaning reproduction of living situation”, which was introduced by social critical philosopher Jürgen Habermas. Habermas believes efficient communication and true common consensus are essential to revive the meaning reproduction and to coordinate the social operation. The author inspects the “social”, ”subjective”, and “objective” aspects of the “living situation” of companies’ change phases, which were inferred from the eight steps of successful organizational changing addressed by John P. Kotter. The author elucidates that efficient communication and true common consensus are requisite for organization changing management. Habermas based on the two human basic actions, “labor” and “communication”, to categorizes rational into “instrumental rational” and “practical rational”. Instrumental rational aims at environment control and material productivity. Practical rational endeavors mutual understanding and common consensus. Habermas argued that the power developed by instrumental rational should be balanced by the values generated by practical rational; otherwise the power will oppress human society. The thesis criticizes that companies’ hierarchical power obstructs organizational operation, policy execution, information sharing and knowledge creation, as organizational instrumental rational is not tempered by corresponding practical rational. The irreplaceable values of organizational practical rational are further illustrated. To illuminate practical rational, it is necessary to eliminate the intimidation and temptation, which are induced by hierarchical power, from the communication actions. Habermas believes that comprehensive speech, true statement, right position and sincere attitude are the four valid assertions for the communication actions. If only all communicating participants have equal opportunities to partake, declare, interrogate, and explain, authorities and ideologies can be excluded from the communication actions. Habermas defined the above circumstances as the “idea speech situation”. The thesis argues that organizational activities can be categorized into the “execution” and “communication” dimensions, which correspond to the organizational “instrumental rational” and “practical rational”. Communication actions should not be interrupted by the hierarchy power of execution dimension. Rules and tactics should be supported by common consensus and thorough communication. Staffs should apply instrumental rational to execute the rules and tactics without objection. If only the organizational culture and merit system can ensure the above working principles, the business entity can achieve the advantages of both instrumental and practical rational. In additional to the theoretical elaboration, the thesis proposes manners to establish organizational ideal speech situation from “managers’ attitude”, “staffs’ consensus”, and “discussion processes” aspects. The author applies the above ideal speech situation exposition to different organizational changing management phases. The thesis constructs the organizational changing wheel to illustrate the key executive points to successfully drive continuous organizational evolution. Furthermore, the author integrates the above argumentation with the “organizational knowledge creating theory”, which was proposed by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi. The “meaning reproduction” flow of the organizational changing wheel is constructed by investigating the internalization, externalization, universalization, and integration processes of meanings, which include information, knowledge, interests, intuition, values, belief, cognition, emotion, identification, obedience, and consensus etc. If the communication processes of the organizational change follow practical rational, and the organizational changing is successfully accomplished, staffs will received positive feedback from the intrinsic meanings they generated. The author expounds that the “positive meaning feedback loop” will accelerate the iteration of meaning reproduction cycles. The dynamic stability, supported by the “positive meaning feedback loop”, will ensure the business entity to continuously adjust itself to conquer new competition circumstances. To exam the above theorem, the author adopts Intel’s strategic transition in 1985 as an example. The case is interpreted fro