The Cultural Web

Stories and myths

Rituals and routines

Control systems

THE PARADIGM Symbols

Power structures

Organisational structures

Fig 2: Demands of a paradigm shift (Cultural web complexity)

The theoretical considerations here are that if the paradigm is to be shifted or changed, then multiple levels of change must take place concurrently within the organisation. An immediate issue is that political (resistance to change) as opposed to business issues arise and the change process becomes a risk management issue.

Johnson makes the statement ‘even when managers intellectually recognise the cultural constraints under which they are labouring, the political and ritualized behaviour, controls on cost, hierarchical organisation, managerial inbreeding and symbolic connections with hierarchy and the past, mitigate against questioning behaviour or significant changes’ (Johnson 2004, 283).

This has particular significance in South Africa given the radical political and subsequent socio-economic and business change that has occurred.

From a research perspective the interrogation of the research problem using the model yields a number of questions such as what levels of change have been initiated, what structures and systems have succumbed to change and what still needs to be changed?

It can be argued that without the unravelling of the complexity through the application of the model, valid research question may not have been forthcoming. What has been suggested here is that the unravelling of the underlying complexity of the business issues using appropriate business management models, informs the research data collection instrument. Once the research results are available the model can again be interrogated and the research results positioned in the model will offer a realistic view of the business status. It thus serves to enhance the business value of the research.

Johnson (2004) has also developed a model that opens up an understanding of the underlying complexity and related dynamics around a paradigm shift change (Fig 2).