Abstract
Spiral management and its principles are based on the long-term successful existence of living systems. The principles can be applied to the enterprise and organization management. Living systems manage long-term success by acquiring energy from their surroundings (through nutrition), while enterprises acquire customers and employees' energy in order to eliminate entropy (in enterprises manifested as economic losses). Spiral management is based on the synergy of living systems. It describes behavior patterns in the cyclical development of enterprises as well as the ability of the latter to diagnose their own strategic decisions, including the instructions of how to drive an enterprise towards a long-term success. The chapter describes theoretical basis of spiral management while providing a novel insight into this unique managerial approach and emphasizing its importance for the human resources management. Also introduced are the elements of spiral management applied in the enterprises that want to be competitive and survive turbulent periods.
TopIntroduction
The world of the 21st century is characterized by dynamism, turbulence and uncertainty. There is a need for change of the complex paradigm of thinking in society and humanity, as well as in organizations and enterprises at every market level. The current crisis differs from the previous ones; it is a crisis of consciousness, a crisis of paradigm, when the commonly accepted rules and procedures stop working. Companies are struggling with fluctuation, disproportionate cost of production quality, increasing pressure on growth and expansion versus social responsibility, or traditionalism versus multiculturalism etc.
In order to survive, companies need to address the issue of changing their own management paradigm. Otherwise, they are likely to fail. Over the past two hundred years, industrial system had built the basis of economy and society throughout the periods of birth, boom and gradual exhaust of their development potential up to the phase of decline. As early as in the first half of the 20th century, the first symptoms of the industrial system depletion appeared, invoking the need to find an alternative to the existing system, i.e. possibilities of its rectification. Gravity center of technology growth between the years 1792 and 1989 ended up with the excess of the technology growth potential. (Polakovič & Krempaský, 2012)
Modern society faces numerous questions: Is today's society in crisis? Is the contemporary society, with consumption dominating, sustainable? What is the impact of globalisation on the stability of society? Is there another, a real alternative for the current society? Regarding the current state, can another type of society be considered? Facing the abysmal difference between the rich and the poor, is the current society sustainable? Are there consistent political elites able to navigate the current society in solving topical problems? What are the societal limits and prospects? Is it possible to reform society, or is the humanity condemned to extinction?
The above-mentioned problems have been investigated by the authors considering the collapse of the society (Tainter, 2009) and seeking new scientific paradigms for theoretical reflection of the changing world. (Bachelard, 1981) In the first half of the 20th century, Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West, Pitrim Sorokin in The Crisis of our Age, Julien Benda in The Betrayal of the Intellectuals and Arnold Toynbee in A Study of History pointed out the emergence of the elements of crisis related to the industrial system. In the mid-sixties, the industrial system began to change gradually; its development triggered certain internal impulses acting towards transformation of the system (Staněk, 2010). The emerging system was initially called a post-industrial society or a service society. Later, as information started playing the decisive role in the economy and society, the first concepts of the information society or the Third Wave or, as Alvin Toffler the American futurologist called it, a civilisation transformation. Daniel Bell described the emerging transformation in his books The Coming of Post-Industrial Society and Cultural Controversies of Capitalism. Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era, Yoneji Masuda in his book The Information Society as Post-Industrial Society, Alvin Toffler in his trilogy Future Shock, The Third Wave and Powershift, John Naisbitt in Megatrends, Reinventing the Corporation, and Global Paradox, Peter Drucker in The Age of Discontinuity and Post-Capitalist Society, or Francis Fukuyama in his trilogy (The End of History, Trust and The Great Disruption), they all describe the continual decay of the industrial society/the industrial system, trying to identify the potential trends in the future development of society and civilisation. (Klinec, 2005)
A new direction within the economy and society will require a change. The change of society and economy will inevitably necessitate the change at all the levels of enterprise, family and an individual.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Human resource management: Includes conducting job analyses, planning personnel needs, recruiting the right people for the job, orienting and training, providing benefits and incentives, evaluating performance, resolving disputes, and communicating with all employees at all levels. Examples of core qualities of HR management are extensive knowledge of the industry, leadership, and effective negotiation skills.
Entropy: In the physics – rate of system´s messiness or disorder in a physical system. In the social systems theory – social entropy is a sociological theory that evaluates social behaviors using a method based on the second law of thermodynamics.
Complex Systems Theory: Is a new and rapidly developing field. The ideas and principles that have already been proposed must be studied in a multitude of actual examples. And new principles must be sought. Complex systems theory cuts across the boundaries between conventional scientific disciplines. It makes use of ideas, methods and examples from many disparate fields. And its results should be widely applicable to a great variety of scientific and engineering problems.
Spiral Management: The theory of social systems management based by Czech scientist and manager Andrej Kopcaj. Spiral management follows the complex systems theory and Prigogine laws.
Social System: Is a complex set of human relationships interacting in many ways. Two points stand out in the complex interactions among people in a social system. 1) The behavior of any one member can have an impact, directly or indirectly, on the behavior of any other. 2) Any social system engages in exchanges with its environment, receiving input from it and providing output to it.
Corporate Culture: Is the set of assumptions, beliefs, values, and norms shared by an organization's members.
EEE (Ego-Evaluation Energy): Of the individual. It is the rate of the energy (characterized by engagement, motivation, passion, etc.) that is the employee willing to invest into general good of the enterprise.
Holistic Approach: Is the idea that systems (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic) and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of the parts.