Since 2013, over 500 senior professionals and managers from 95 countries have been exposed to this research through the content of the university’s Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) programme. Their application of this research to their management practice impacts their organisation performance, brings benefits to clients, customers and partners, informs changes in organisation policy and enriches other organisation members’ leadership capacity.
Background
ULMS research on integrated application of collaborative working, critical reflection and enquiry to address complex, ill-defined work problems is presented to managers on the DBA programme as key readings and module content. These managers introduce the research insights into their own organisations through implementing a two to three year change initiative as the doctoral thesis. They establish collaborative enquiry groups that draw multiple stakeholders together in cycles of problem exploration, action and reflexive practice.
Research
It has been known for some time that the efficacy of a directive, command-and-control approach to leadership and management is limited in more ill-defined work scenarios with complex stakeholder relationships. A body of research developed since 2003 at ULMS shows that leaders exercise better judgement and demonstrate greater ability to influence change in complex, multi-party contexts, when they apply what is termed a practice and processual approach to leadership. This means fostering critically reflective enquiry, and practicing with a relational orientation characterized by collaboration and dialogue.
Professor Lisa Anderson undertook research into managers’ abilities to display critical awareness in their practice through engagement in dialogue and further research, conducted with Dr Paul Ellwood, finds that managers improve their practice when they create space to reflexively and collaboratively question issues. Prof Elena Antonacopoulou researched the relationship between managers’ reflexivity and organizational change and in further research funded by AIM (Advanced Institute of Management), she studied how managers develop a heightened sense of ethical practice, and show improved ability to navigate workplace tensions with judgement, when they engage in reflexive critique as they practice. Finally, Dr Clare Rigg adopts a discourse approach to researching managers' practice, finding they develop enhanced capability to influence the power and emotional dynamics of their situation, when they integrate collaboration, critical reflection and enquiry to the way they lead change. She is currently collaborating with Lisa Anderson and Paul Ellwood to evaluate the impact on an organisation’s accumulation of leadership capacity of a relational leadership approach.
Impact
Through applying the ULMS research, DBA managers have effected wide-ranging improvements to their organisational leadership processes and practices. Examples include the implementation of a more customer-centric ethos in a Kenyan bank with nearly 2000 staff and 1.5 million customers. The outcomes included the growth of the customer based and expansion of branches; extension of the model into a major organizational change programme at the bank and the subsequent expansion of the model to two further banks. Another manager implemented a ‘test and learn’ approach in a struggling US retail company. Here the outcomes include the improvement of customer satisfaction, increased sales conversion rates and other improvements leading to 7% growth in profit and the adoption of the model to operation for major projects across the company. A third example involves the adoption of ULMS research to design a collaborative ‘shaping and adaptation’ model for knowledge transfer, involving African rice farmers and Chinese technology suppliers and investors, in Mozambique. Outcomes include an 11% increase in rice yield as a result of farmers’ upskilling; extension of the collaborative ‘shaping and adaptation’ model to other areas in agriculture with PPP (public/private/community partnership); and the subsequent expansion of the model to other Mozambique agriculture projects in collaboration with new investors from Italy and India. A fourth example concerns the use of ULMS research to bring about changes to leadership practice and culture at NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT), where it had been recognised that an increasingly complex external geopolitical environment and workforce required different leadership practice across the organisation. Outcomes include the development of a cultural change heatmap embedded in an annual employee survey at NATO and influence on wider policy on culture change at NATO.
Ongoing research
As DBA candidates develop their interventions, further cases are added.
Dr Clare Rigg
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