Creating the Functionally Competent Organization: An Open Systems Approach

(Hardback)

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Provides an integrated, understandable way to analyze, assess, and improve organizational performance, with special value for management in rapid response settings. Writing from an open systems perspective--one that views organizations as adaptive structures seeking to cope with turbulent, uncertain business environments quickly--Dr. Olmstead presents an integrated, understandable way to examine how organizations work and how to make them work more efficiently and effectively. He sees organizations as problem-solving, decision-making, action-taking systems and defines organizational competence as the ability of an organization to perform its critical functions, that is, to achieve mastery over its environment. His book is based on an extensive analysis of the literature and empirical field research and provides a complete model to use in assessing and enhancing your own organization's functioning. Designed with practitioners clearly in mind and built upon concepts that have already proved themselves in the workplace, Dr. Olmstead's model will help specialists in organizational development and behavior identify obstacles that stand in the way of organizational high performance, then overcome them with a minimum of strain. Upper-level students, teachers, and researchers will find this book a valuable addition to their academic reading. For executives at all levels, particularly in rapid response organizations, it will be an essential aid in the struggle to keep their organizations up to date and abreast of the competition. Olmstead starts from the belief that the best way to survive in today's uncertain and fluctuating business world is by creating competencies - the things that give organizations the ability to perform their critical functions. He defines and describes these skills and capabilities in clearly presented detail, beginning with a careful review of the theoretical foundations underlying his approach. He provides a chapter on empirical research and another on tests of his conceptual framework. He then develops his competence model and its various applications, moving on to a discussion of the many invevitable, adversely impacting variables that are sure to arise. He closes with a description of how to implement the procedures defined and explained earlier, providing further evidence that his book is soldly grounded in the real world and has things of practical value to say to executives at all levels.

Author Bio

JOSEPH A. OLMSTEAD is Vice President, Product Development, The Vanguard Research Group, West Columbia, S.C.