Browsing by Supervisor "Lekkerkerk, L.J."
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Item Agility at Company X. A diagnosis of leadership behavior and team design within the IT Scrum teams of Company X.(2017-11-23) Baekers, MilouProblem One and a half years ago, the Company X introduced Scrum to their IT department consisting of 150 employees. The Scrum teams work on innovative software features, creating and optimizing them in two-week sprints. While the teams made great progress applying the rituals and rules related to Scrum, great strides can still be made regarding the soft skills of the employees and leaders working together in the Scrum teams. The question from Company X in short is how to influence their employees’ behavior in a way that not only the rituals, but also the agile philosophy will be reflected in their behavior. This includes taking on whole-team responsibility and accountability, addressing each other when unwanted behavior occurs, sharing knowledge within and between teams continuously, and focusing on the creation of business value by realizing products more result oriented. Research design In order to provide Company X with practical recommendations, the researcher decided to focus her research on diagnosing operational leadership behavior of agile leaders who are in direct contact with the IT teams regarding their day-to-day activities. The researcher decided to additionally focus on the design of the teams and their tasks. The main part of the research is conducted by interviewing the Scrum Masters, Product Owners and team members from two teams, in order to obtain an image of the situation that is substantiated from multiple perspectives. Conclusion During the interviews, it became clear that both teams and their tasks did not meet the ideal structural conditions for an agile team. Because of their multiple-item portfolio, individuals mostly work parallel on independent tasks. Furthermore, the teams work on both user stories (innovations) and incidents (support tasks) during the same sprint. Finally, inherent to the nature of their tasks, the teams deal with a large number of external dependencies. The Company X IT teams work according to the Scrum method: they are guided by a Scrum Master and Product Owner and they work with two-week long sprints. As a consequence, behavior in line with this method is expected from the team members: bearing whole-team responsibility and accountability, and sharing knowledge continuously. However, in light of the facts stated above, it is not self-evident for the teams to fully benefit from working with an agile method, and thus to display the desired behavior. Therefore, as a final conclusion for (agile) leaders it is most important to always adjust one’s leadership style and practices to the specifics of an individual team and its context. Holding on to agile leadership practices when the design conditions and context are not optimal for working with an agile method, will not make team members display behavior that is desired in an agile context. In line with this conclusion, practical recommendations are made directed at the Scrum Masters and Product Owners in the agile framework, the management of Company X, and with regard to follow-up research.Item Ideal structure design for primary school SamSam(2020-12-16) Verheggen, IrisThe range of tasks of primary school teachers is increasing and the expectations of the children’s parents are increasing. Teachers experience a lot of work-related stress and do not feel sufficiently supported by the government. Unfortunately, this is not a new problem. Teachers experience little autonomy in their work and feel more concerned with administrative work than with teaching. This is unfortunate because many have become teachers for the sake of teaching and not for administrative work, in this way the passion for the subject disappears. These circumstances make it interesting to take a different perspective on this problem: a structural perspective. A large part of work-related stress can be caused by how the organization is structured. This research took a structural perspective on the basis of De Sitter's theory as described by Achterbergh & Vriens and Kuipers, Amelsvoort & Kramer. On the basis of the works of these authors, I carried out a diagnosis at three different schools to find out how their structure works and what consequences this has for the work of the teachers. These diagnoses showed that a difference in structure can have an effect on the perceived autonomy and work related stress of teachers. Therefore, these diagnoses laid the foundation for the final new design for primary school SamSamItem Informal learning among accountants in a Dutch accounting firm; Factors on informal learning in a Coordinated-Market Economy Accounting Firm(2018-06-18) Baidjnath-Panday, KeshiniMore and more professions require constant learning from their practitioners, as does accountancy from accountants. As such accounting firms need to think of how to organize their organization that it can support learning. Research has shown that informal learning makes a greater contribution to learning among professionals than formal learning. This thesis aims to understand how informal learning can occur within a firm in a Coordinated-Market Economy Country like the Netherlands. To do this, the following research question has been answered: How do workplace learning related factors found within an accounting firm in a Coordinated-Market Economy enable informal learning? To answer the research question interviews have been conducted with associates within a Dutch accounting firm. The interviews showed that factors that enable informal learning to occur are strongly related to a culture conducive to learning which leads to a greater willingness among colleagues to help each other. Based on the results accounting firms are recommended to create a culture supportive of learning and to provide opportunities for colleagues of all levels to get to know each other, either through work related events or through social events.Item "Innovation using both hands. Ambidexterity at Fresh Forces "(2017-08-24) Kruyt, OlafThis research diagnoses to what degree the organizational structure and context of Fresh Forces simultaneously enable to achieve the desired degree of organizational ambidexterity. The organizational structure is seen from a socio-technical system design approach (STSD), using the design parameters of De Sitter (1997) and the Model Innovation and Organizational Structure (Lekkerkerk, 2012) for describing and diagnosing. The organizational context is based on two contextual mechanisms: the social support context and the performance management context. According to literature, the desired degree of ambidexterity is reached when parallel structures are combined with contextual ambidexterity. A single outcome study is chosen as a research design. The unit of analysis is Fresh Forces (FF); a medium sized enterprise with fifty-eight employees, providing insights in processes of other organizations in order to innovate, accelerate and rejuvenate processes. FF is diagnosed on two different levels: the organizational level and the business unit level. The business unit level is diagnosed by comparing two business units, Fresh Experiences (FE) and Fresh Analytics (FA). Based on the diagnosis, it can be concluded that the organizational structure and context of FF enables FF to achieve ambidexterity by parallel structures and contextual ambidexterity. Although FF is able to be ambidextrous, the balance between both is not always correct. This indicates that current setup does not achieve the desired degree of ambidexterity.Item Interventions for redesign. Is it time to move up a gear? A systematic analysis of the applicability of the QRM and L-STSD theories to diagnose, design and change organisational structures(2018-02-06) Nijhoff, ManoukAdopting design related theories to be able to cope with the changing business requirements of the 21st Century requires most of the time interventions for redesign. This research examines to what extent the theories of Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) and Lowlands’ Sociotechnical System Design (L-STSD) are applicable to diagnose, design and change organisational structures. Results show that the QRM theory contains theoretical gaps regarding the design activity of organisational structures, whereas the L-STSD theory contains theoretical gaps regarding the actual change of organisational structures. The study shows that the similarities between both theories provide a rationale to mutually learn from each other’s principles. The second part of this research aims to advance our knowledge about the pragmatic challenges when implementing QRM. Despite the fact that the QRM professionals confirmed the identified gaps within the theory of QRM, they typically find ways to deal with these in practice. Their opinions differ about the practical impact of these gaps and whether it is desirable and possible to fill these gaps. However, from a scientific perspective, it is desirable to provide clear, essential criteria to support the design activity and to provide guidelines for practical implementation.Item Manufacturing organizations transforming into service providers: Discovering and relating changes in business model and organizational structure(2017-01-27) Ven, Martijn van deThis research aims to 1) describe what kind of changes in business model and organizational structure appear when traditional manufacturing organizations adopt a servitization-strategy and 2) describe how these changes in business model and organizational structure relate to each other. To do this we first build a theoretical framework in which the concept of servitization, the concept of a business model and the concept of organizational design are explained and related to each other. This research is theory-oriented, qualitative in nature and includes descriptive knowledge. Results were derived from the analyses of interviews held with several organizations engaged in the servitization trend. With regard to business model changes the following was found: An increased focus on 1) creating customer intimacy, 2) offering more complete packages and 3) unburdening the customer, an increased importance of the dealer, a different and stronger customer, a more intense relationship with both customers and dealers, a revenue model directed at service fees rather than product sales, software becoming a key resource, a changed role of human capital, the offering of more advanced services, a larger need for collaboration and finally a more value driven cost structure. With regard to changes in organizational structure the following changes were identified: A growth of the service (units), an increased integration of the service departments into product development processes, growth by acquisitions, centralization and geographical dispersion. With regard to the relationship between these changes the following was found: The changes in business model and the changes in organizational structure are very much interrelated and complement each other. Customer driven changes in the value propositions of organizations are central here as they shape both other changes in the business model as well as changes in the organizational structure. The above described findings contribute to the academic field by 1) describing what kind of changes occur after the adoption of a servitization strategy and 2) by showing how these changes relate to each other.Item Raise the (tow)bar! A structure diagnosis and preliminary redesign of Brink Towing Systems(2018-04-11) Wijgers, ThomasItem Self-managing in a merry-go-round: diagnosing structural conditions for self-managing teams(2017-07-12) Voppel, MarlonSince granting additional authority to employees and teams is a contemporary trend in many organizations, this study attempted to create a designer tool with which to discern the most important structural conditions for self-managing teams in organizations. The tool was created after studying literature about self-managing teams and combining it with the modern socio technical design theory. This tool was then applied on a case study in the IT department of the Rabobank, a Dutch bank, which was in the process of a reorganization with the aim of introducing self-managing teams. The tool proved useful in determining whether the self-managing teams could be implemented in the organization and which pitfalls might occur. The tool can be utilized by other designers and managers to map whether their organization can utilize self-managing teams.Item A systematic comparison of three organizational design theories(2018-01-26) Aouadi, HoussainOrganizational design theories claim to be genuinely relevant and useful for the design of the organizational structure. This study sets out to analyse the usefulness of three organizational design theories, by reviewing the useful insights they might have to offer toward the purpose of designing organizational structures. In order to be able to critically assess these theories, a framework is needed by which the theories can be analysed. This study starts by developing a theoretical framework, which includes the necessary requirements to critically assess organizational design theories. The study is then followed with a thorough assessment, by systematically reviewing three pre-selected organizational design theories, using the theoretical framework. The three selected theories have a different organizational design approach. The findings of the analysis of the theories does not only result in an overview of the organizational design theories, it also results in some interesting comparative results. The overview and results are not only beneficial for academic scholars, but also for managers or designers in practice, who may not easily find and select the most useful guidelines these design theories offer to support the task of designing organizational structures.