Identity, Learning, and Decision Making in Changing Organizations

Citation

Xiao, L. (2002), "Identity, Learning, and Decision Making in Changing Organizations", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 540-542. https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm.2002.15.5.540.2

Schwenk analyzes organizational knowledge structures and decision‐making processes from a psychological perspective, and shows how personal and organizational identity affect decision making, learning, and adapting to change within organizations. He explains how our personal identities are central to our self‐schemas, the models we have of ourselves, and how self‐schema impoverishment can occur when a single organizational identity comes to dominate an individual. He describes an important process by which people attempt to make their identities appear enduring – autobiographical memory construction and how it affects decision making. Further, he talks about the role of polarizing conflict in solidifying identities and making them more distinctive. He discusses the ways the identity‐based conflicts can promote groupthink, escalating commitment, and the destruction of common resources. He explains organization knowledge structures and how individual identities relate to them. He describes how impoverished knowledge structures have the most negative effects. To deal with these problems, he describes methods for using dialogue and structured conflict within organizations as a way of broadening organizational knowledge structures, and techniques that promote wise use of self‐schema for crucial decision making.

Schwenk advocates that individual and organizational decisions are shaped by individual and organizational identities. By reflecting mindfully on their identities, those making crucial decisions can view them from multiple perspectives. Schwenk argues that our “selves” and “the organizations we identify with” are cognitive constructions. Our self‐schema and knowledge structure enrichment may be vital to the survival of individuals and organizations coping with change. By understanding that our selves are not fixed but changeable, it may be possible to use multiple identities in productive ways. The key to using multiple identities wisely is mindful integration of identities in decision making. Self and organizational enrichment through integration of identities will lead to better decisions for individuals, groups, and organizations.

The value of the book lies in the fact that it looks at the decision‐making process from the perspective of relationships among self‐concepts, identities, and decision making. It deals with a fundamental dilemma that has faced every individual, group, organization, and society throughout human history: how to conceptualize the self and manage individuals to achieve collective action in a changing environment. Due to fixed individual and organizational identities, we are not able to promote constructive conflicts. Using the methods and techniques proposed in this book, organizations might be able to enrich their knowledge structures by using the diversity of views that exist within them. By encouraging dialogue and conflict among those holding different views, organizations can avoid the problems associated with simplistic knowledge structures.

How can we apply Schwenk’s lessons on identities in evoking changes in organizations? By understanding the relationships among self‐concepts, identities, and decision making, we can use internal conflicts productively and expand our identities productively to adapt to change in the environment. Identity, Learning, and Decision Making in Changing Organizations holds important implications for executive decision makers and management consultants. Instead of helping the organization solve the problem at hand, we need to act as facilitators to facilitate the organization’s learning, so that members of our organizations can obtain skills in communication and conflict management. And we also need to act as coaches to inspire confidence in all members of our organizations and ensure diverse voices are heard in crucial decision making. Last but not least, we also need to be leaders to set examples for members of being open and creative in mindful integration of identities in decision making.

Identity, Learning, and Decision Making in Changing Organizations is an enlightening book for executive decision makers and other managers in the workplace to adapt to the radical changes sweeping through the entire world of today’s business. This book is very well written, with strong theoretical foundations, and includes a brilliant imaginary dialogue Schwenk constructed between the thirteenth Dalai Lama and Sherlock Holmes. Schwenk draws on research in management decision making and cognitive and social psychology such as identities, self‐schemas, autobiographical memory construction, and organizational knowledge structures, etc., which provided a solid academic foundation for this book. The methods and techniques discussed in the book are practical.