Concept and Importance of Organizational Intelligence
Dear Laureate Folks,
Good Day everyone!
Today,
we will discuss the concept and importance of "Organizational Intelligence
and its key indicators" that are considered to be very important for an
organization to survive and sustain.
The initial idea of organizational
intelligence (OI) has been addressed by most of the researchers over the past few
decades in various research disciplines (Albrecht, 2003; Travica, 2014;
Wassermann, 2001; Cronin & Davenport, 1991; Argyris & Schön, 1978;
Wilensky, 1967). Few researchers argued that an intelligent organization can make
the right decisions (March, 1999; Quinn 1992; Wilensky, 1967) while others feel
that it is up to the organization that how to fit into the environment for its
survival and growth (Thannhuber, 2005; Gupta & Sharma, 2004). Argyris and
Schön (1978) approached the different levels of learning that was encouraging
in achieving a better fit with the environment of the organization.
According to Albrecht 2003,
organizational intelligence (OI) is the ability of an organization to
effectively utilize all of its brainpower in achieving its mission. It is
further encompasses the procedural activities to support all the business
operations effectively and efficiently specifically in planning, controlling,
leading, and organizing a business organization (Jung, 2009). Further to this the assumption, a firm must have to continuously modify all of its resources and
business operations so that it could be able to achieve sustainable
innovation in achieving organizational success as a whole (Teece, 2007).
According to the ideas of Echoing March’s (1999), OI is capable enough to bring
about the desired outcomes both internally and externally for an organization.
These desirable outcomes are further processed in the organization’s mission
and vision statements, innovative products, strategic plans, and in sustained
competitive intelligence. But the firm should not always rely on the deliberate
strategizing the desirable outcomes rather focus on the merging strategies as
well (Mintzberg, 1978).
The early concept of OI came into the
academic setting in the 1980s. However, later on, some of the authors believe
that it was Michel Porter who first introduced the concepts of organizational
intelligence and competitive intelligence. On the other hand, it is firmly
believed that Karl Albrecht (2003) has been considered as the pioneers in
introducing the concept and real model of OI. He has argued that human
resources are one of the very intelligent and competent in performing all the
organizational tasks but on the other hand, he has highlighted the competitive
abilities of collective mental power in doing great jobs (Bakhshian; Hamidi and
Ezati, 2011). An intelligent person is one who can resolve the problems, learn
from his experience, should have abstract thought, and can easily adapt and
manipulate himself into the given business environment (Britannica, 2015;
Webster, 2015).
Albrecht (2003) says that intelligent
human resources when assembled together in a business organization will tend
towards a collective stupidity. But this is optional to the extent that leaders
(intelligent people) are shown by their behavior whatever they accept and
condone it within the organization.
Key Indicators of Organizational Intelligence:
Albrecht (2003) has highlighted the
seven key indicators of organizational intelligence and demonstrated a complete
and a comprehensive model. These include strategic vision, shared fate, appetite
for change, heart, alignment, performance pressure, and knowledge deployment.
Albrecht (2003, 2009) defined: “strategic
vision as a common destiny which all the employees should try to seek”;
“shared
fate denotes that most of the human resources have a complete sense
about what the mission is and identify their individual role to achieve it”; “appetite
for change represents a challenging new opportunity to reinvent the
business model through new ways of succeeding in the direction of strategic
vision”; “heart describes that through the discretionary effort of leaders,
every employee should have to willingly contribute something more than
organizational expectations and consider their individual success factor with
the success of the enterprise”; “alignment refers to the concept that
the systems of an intelligent organization should be broadly defined so that
the leaders and designers can easily align the energy of each individual
towards the common purpose/mission of the organization”; “knowledge deployment
demonstrates that OI must ensure that there is a free flow of knowledge within
the organization’s culture except for the sensitive information that should be set
aside in key central minds and there should be a culture to promote new ideas,
inventions and open-minded questions”; “performance pressure indicates that
OI must have to promote the same performance culture especially when everyone is
held accountable for their contributions in achieving the mission through
shared sense”.
References:
Albrecht, K. (2003). The power of minds at work: Organizational intelligence in action. Amacom/American Management Association.
Albrecht, K. (2009). Organizational intelligence & Knowledge Management: thinking outside the silos.
K. Albrecht, The power of minds at work: Organizational intelligence in action, New York: American Management Association (AMACOM), (2003).
Argyris, C., and Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of perspective. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Britannica, Encyclopedia. (2015). Available: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/289766/human-intelligence.
Bakhshian, A.; Hamidi, F. and Ezati, M. (2011). Relationship between organizational intelligence and entrepreneurship among university educational managers. The Journal of Mathematics and Computer Science, 3(4), 413 – 421.
Cronin, B., and Davenport, E. (1991). Elements of information management. Metuchen, NJ S: Scarecrow Press.
Gupta, J., and Sharma, S. (2004). Creating knowledge-based organizations. Hershey, PA: Idea Group.
Jung, Y. (2009). An approach to organizational intelligence management (a framework for analyzing organizational intelligence within the construction process), Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Public University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Environmental Design and Planning, Copyright 2009.
March, J. (1999). The Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence. Blackwell: Oxford.
Mintzberg, H. (1978). Patterns in strategy formation. Management Science, 24(9), 934–948.
Thannhuber, M. (2005). The intelligent enterprise: Theoretical concepts and practical implications. Berlin: Springer.
Teece, D. (2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: The nature and micro foundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28, 1319–1350.
Wassermann, O. (2001). The intelligent organization: Winning the global competition with the supply chain idea. Berlin: Springer.
Wilensky, H. (1967). Organizational intelligence: Knowledge and policy in government and industry. New York: Basic Books.
That,s all.
Please feel free to ask if there are any queries related to this concept.
Stay Tuned, Stay Blessed!
Regards,
Muhammad Naeem
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