This chapter makes a contribution to talent management literature by investigating the construction of a high-performance organization applying the structuration proposition. People remain as the source of value in all companies and increasingly the human factor is critical in making the difference. The structuration approach make it possible to include the collective experience of the people doing the work to leverage each employee's unique talents to boost productivity. The structuration ontology is applied to create structure and agency useful in making the competitive advantage real. The analysis of both structure and agency can lead to a reproduction of the competences that undergird high performance organization.
TopIntroduction
The epistemology to effectively construct high performance organization is drawn from Giddens (1984; 2012), Berger & Luckmann (1966), Mupepi (2016, 2017), Contu & Willmott (2005), Mole & Mole (2010), Hansen (2006), Kuratko & Hodgetts (2004), Mupepi & Mupepi (2014, 2015, & 2016), Porter (1985), Prahalad & Hamel (1990), Sacab (2015).
The structuration theory was developed by Anthony Giddens in 1984 to explore the connection between individuals and social systems. This holistic view of modern societies has earned Giddens a reputation for restructuring fledgling organizations around the world. Giddens & Sutton (2012) alluded to the demolition of apartheid in South Africa where racism and discrimination had been institutionalized. Since the ending of the apartheid regime the country implemented one of the most liberal constitutions in the world. In this consultation Giddens & Sutton applied the structuration approach to understand race and ethnicity, discrimination and prejudice, and ethnic conflicts in South Africa. Race is a widely-used term, often used in everyday language to describe biological differences. Racism is often blind of talent or it jibs what talent is. However, there is no scientific basis for the concept to be used within social science. Race is sociologically important because of racialization: the process by which race is used to classify individuals or groups of people within societies.
Ethnicity refers to the cultural practices and outlooks of a community, which identifies them as a distinctive social group. Ethnicity is a social phenomenon, which has no basis in human biology. However, ethnicity can also be problematic if it implies a contrast with some non-ethnic norm, or if ethnic groups are taken to be fixed and predetermined.
In South Africa organizations had to restructure to create enterprises that are functional in a new constitution. Organizations such the Vehicle Inspection Department (VID), Central Mechanical and Electrical Department (CMED), Public Works Department (PWD), had to be restructure and evaluated to allow the employment of a diverse workforce on equitable conditions of service. The Structuration approach deals with the evolution and development of groups and organizations. Giddens viewed groups and organizations as systems with observable patterns of relationships and communicative interaction among people creating the structures. Systems are produced by actions of people creating structures sets of rules and resources. The new organizations were designed and structured to provide services to the state in the form of contractors for specific jobs such as janitorial and building maintenance, the local car dealership took over the role of the CMED in procurement state vehicles and vehicle maintenance. Local building organizations such as construction engineers took over the PWD. These new organizations operate on a set of rules that acknowledge competition, equality, and talent in employment. The systems and structures now exist in a dual relationship with other civil service structures and have continued to reproduce each other in an on-going cycle, referred to as the structuration process (Giddens, 1984, p. 3).