Tharsi Taillieu

Social Learning and Water Resources Management

Natural resources management in general, and water resources management in particular, are currently undergoing a major paradigm shift. Management practices have largely been developed and implemented by experts using technical means based on designing systems that can be predicted and controlled. In recent years, stakeholder involvement has gained increasing importance. Collaborative governance is considered to be more appropriate for integrated and adaptive management regimes needed to cope with the complexity of social-ecological systems. The paper presents a concept for social learning and collaborative governance developed in the European project HarmoniCOP (Harmonizing COllaborative Planning). The concept is rooted in the more interpretive strands of the social sciences emphasizing the context dependence of knowledge. The role of frames and boundary management in processes of learning at different levels and time scales is investigated. The foundation of social learning as investigated in the HarmoniCOP project is multiparty collaboration processes that are perceived to be the nuclei of learning processes. Such processes take place in networks or “communities of practice” and are influenced by the governance structure in which they are embedded. Requirements for social learning include institutional settings that guarantee some degree of stability and certainty without being rigid and inflexible. Our analyses, which are based on conceptual considerations and empirical insights, suggest that the development of such institutional settings involves continued processes of social learning. In these processes, stakeholders at different scales are connected in flexible networks that allow them to develop the capacity and trust they need to collaborate in a wide range of formal and informal relationships ranging from formal legal structures and contracts to informal, voluntary agreements.

Trust within teams: The relation with performance effectiveness

The acknowledgement that trust is important for the functioning of organizations has increased the demand for research showing how this importance is reflected on the behaviour of its members. In this article we focus on trust within teams and explore the relation with performance effectiveness. A model was tested relating trust with perceived task performance, team satisfaction, relationship commitment, and stress. In this model trust is presented as a multi-component variable with distinct but related dimensions. These include propensity to trust, perceived trustworthiness, cooperative and monitoring behaviours. Data from 112 teams collected in three social care institutions in The Netherlands were analysed with structural equation modelling to test the model. The results are supportive of the multi-component structure of trust and confirmed the importance of trust for the functioning of teams in organizations. The results suggest that trust is positively related with perceived task performance, team satisfaction, and relationship commitment, and negatively related with stress. In addition, perceived task performance was positively related with team satisfaction.

Toward a Relational Concept of Uncertainty: about Knowing Too Little, Knowing Too Differently, and Accepting Not to Know

Uncertainty of late has become an increasingly important and controversial topic in water resource management, and natural resources management in general. Diverse managing goals, changing environmental conditions, conflicting interests, and lack of predictability are some of the characteristics that decision makers have to face. This has resulted in the application and development of strategies such as adaptive management, which proposes flexibility and capability to adapt to unknown conditions as a way of dealing with uncertainties. However, this shift in ideas about managing has not always been accompanied by a general shift in the way uncertainties are understood and handled. To improve this situation, we believe it is necessary to recontextualize uncertainty in a broader way?relative to its role, meaning, and relationship with participants in decision making?because it is from this understanding that problems and solutions emerge. Under this view, solutions do not exclusively consist of eliminating or reducing uncertainty, but of reframing the problems as such so that they convey a different meaning. To this end, we propose a relational approach to uncertainty analysis. Here, we elaborate on this new conceptualization of uncertainty, and indicate some implications of this view for strategies for dealing with uncertainty in water management. We present an example as an illustration of these concepts. Key words: adaptive management; ambiguity; frames; framing; knowledge relationship; multiple knowledge frames; natural resource management; negotiation; participation; social learning; uncertainty; water management

Need for Supervision: Its Impact on Leadership Effectiveness

This article argues that the need for supervision among subordinates is a concept that can help to differentiate between circumstances in which leaders do and do not affect subordinate behavior. Need for supervision is defined as a contextual need, the salience of which depends on situational factors. A theoretical model is presented in which need for supervision depends on situational factors known from situational leadership theories and moderates the relationship between leadership styles and outcome variables. Two studies of insurance agents provide evidence for the reliability and construct validity of a scale designed to measure need for supervision. Moderated regression analysis shows that need for supervision moderates the relationship between task-oriented leadership and work stress, but not between task-oriented leadership and job satisfaction. A robust relationship between human-oriented leadership and job satisfaction is found, not affected by the need for supervision. Need for supervision seems to be a fruitful concept that deserves further research.

Colruyt: an organization committed to communication

The perception that organizations are developing very different organizational structures from those identified by Mintzberg (1979) has been steadily gaining ground. For example, the Colruyt Company has been developing a new organizational form since its start‐up in 1965, which was distinctly different from any of the five basic forms identified by Mintzberg (1970) a decade later. This article shows how the Colruyt Company differs from its counterparts in terms of corporate core beliefs and values, employee involvement, managerial strategy and the application of information technology. The outcome of our research will be of value to other companies that desire to pursue innovative approaches similar to those followed by the Colruyt Company.

Learning to Work with Interdependencies Effectively: The Case of the HRM Forum of the Suppliers Teams at Volvo Cars Gent

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to profile the way that Volvo Cars Gent (VCG) Belgium and its suppliers succeed in managing their interdependencies on HRM issues through a shared HRM collaborative, called the Suppliers Team Volvo Cars HRM forum (STVC-HRM). Design/methodology/approach – The case study approach is used to develop understanding of the critical factors that contribute to the forum’s success. Findings – It was found that the critical success factors concern the way STVC-HRM members enacted trust, common ground, leadership, shared responsibility, and representative-constituency dynamics. Research limitations/implications – To understand the Toyota system of successful collaboration and learning with suppliers, it is necessary to look into the actual assembler-suppliers relationships and practices developed.Practical implications – Building lasting manufacturer-supplier relationships is considered to be one of the elements that contribute to Toyota’s competitive advantage in supply chain management. However, other organizations struggle to improve manufacturer-suppliers relationships despite applying seemingly similar principles. This paper helps in recognizing and managing the main collaboration issues at hand. Originality/value – Our work informs how to build and maintain deep mutually beneficial manufacturer-suppliers relationships through the VCG-suppliers case. Other organizations that want to develop those much-needed relationships may learn from the successful VCG-suppliers way of doing things.

In-depth joint supply chain learning: towards a framework

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to build a conceptual framework for understanding how in-depth joint supply chain learning can be successfully developed. This kind of learning is becoming increasingly important in highly turbulent and uncertain economic environments of new and growing interdependencies and complexities. Design/methodology/approach – Using a “synthesizing” or “bricolage” approach, key insights, now dispersed over a variety of literatures and disciplines, are integrated to develop the framework. Findings – The leading facilitative actor’s orientations, competencies and behavior play a significant role in enhancing the relationships between the supply chain actors shaping in-depth joint learning. Starting with establishing interaction boundary conditions by the leading actor, this process is likely to lead to system-level generative outcomes. These outcomes, in turn, serve the process cycle of in-depth joint learning as inputs for the relationship building process among all the actors. Research limitations/implications – By centering on the actual shaping of in-depth joint learning, and the concrete enactment of roles by protagonists enhancing this process, the paper has opened the black box. Future research should refine the framework. Practical implications – Apart from giving insight into the repertoire of relational competencies and behaviors needed to enhance the relationship building process conducive to in-depth joint learning, the paper addresses how these skills can be developed in practice and education. Originality/value – The paper identifies several implications for research, practice, and education. Instead of focusing predominantly on the content, procedure, levers, or outcomes of learning, the relational construction of the learning process itself is clarified.

A Gaming Exercise to Explore Problem-Solving Versus Relational Activities for River Floodplain Management

This paper describes a new gaming tool that allows players (e.g. water managers and farmers) to explore the consequences of their interactions in managing river-floodplains. To facilitate the process of creating and testing new policies that would help to accommodate disordering events, e.g. floods, we developed a system dynamics model of floodplain agriculture that drives an interactive game. The Floodplain Management Game can be used as an educational resource, knowledge elicitation technique or transition management tool concerning agriculture and river management. The key feature of this game is that it unites technical (problem-solving) and relational issues in one game. Without exception, in multiple venues it has proven a useful tool for participants to experience the challenges of policy-making for managing rivers as well as for floodplain agriculture and for scientists to examine how stakeholders make decisions about such options.

Exploring a chairman of the board's construction of organizational reality: the Colruyt case

A qualitative exploration of Colruyt, a Belgian company that evolved from a one-store enterprise into Belgium’s third largest food retail chain comprising some 120 stores, is presented. The company is unique on several dimensions: its managerial structures and business processes, its use of information technology, and its views of company rights, duties, and obligations concerning customers, employees, creditors, and government. During this interview, Mr. Colruyt,1 Chairman of Colruyt’s Supervisory Board, returns time and again to a single dominant idea: the use of information technology based communication to create new possibilities, organizational structures, and relationships among the firm and its employees, worker unions, customers, and suppliers. The qualitative exploration clarifies how societal, religious, historical, and linguistic beliefs unite to form a unique corporate environment. Because the contact time with the Chair of the Supervisory Board was limited to three hours, a qualitative approach was key to the success of an in-depth exploration of the company. Our analysis should be of interest to managers and academics who practice or study global business and business process reengineering.