3. About Firm A
Firm A was one of the leading department stores in mid Taiwan. However, from 2000 to 2004, Taiwan experienced economic depression, and at the same time, several other department stores opened in the same area as Firm A. Therefore, apart from adopting strategies such as differentiation, the company had to consider other types of strategic change that could increase their competitiveness more effectively than their rivals. Education, training, and cultural changes were methods they considered.
Firm A had market share in mid Taiwan of around 29.93 percent. In 2002, its top management team decided that the organizational culture needed to be changed; internal competition between departments and colleagues was apparently too high. Thus, aiming to gain better competitive advantage, the company started to work on transforming its culture. Through this transformation, the company tried to influence employees' behaviors and mental model.
Firm A was built in 1990. In terms of the developmental lifecycle of a company, Firm A was in the maturity stage. First, within this stage, many senior organizational members acted as leaders of groups or departments, but there were very few leading positions for new employees to fill. Second, as regards the compensation system, the payment level of Firm A was somewhat lower than the industrial average. These imbalances were not easy to adjust in the short term; therefore, Firm A aimed to start with the internal motivation of employees by means of study groups in order to improve problem phenomena such as poor communication and competitiveness between employees.
4. The introduction of a new intervening method
To ensure that the implementation of the planned cultural change could succeed, Firm A set the following compatible activities to support its transformation. The authors depict it in two ways: the practical phase and the theoretical phase.
4.1 The practical phase
Intending to develop a learning organization, Firm A re-constructed its learning organization by adding the more flexible adult learning theory and forming five study groups. Members of the five study groups were high- to low-level managers. These members committed to join the study group once a week (normally in the morning). Each group consisted of 20 to 30 people. Members of a similar managerial level were put into the same study group. Each member in turn took responsibility to lead the study each week. The study leader usually assigned one book that he or she felt interested in and hoped to share with other members. The learning contents were not limited to studying books; members were able to decide the style and content of learning themselves. Also, in the first hour of the meeting, people were encouraged to share their new experiences learned in the week. And in the final hour, they were encouraged to share what they had learned from the study session.
Firm A assigned employees to attend the studying group with the following rules:
- Make the study hour a weekly routine.
- Absence to be notified to departmental leaders.
- Full budget support.
- Full presidential support - the president himself also led one of the study groups.
- One position in HRM specifically assigned for regular preparation, programming, and controlling of these activities.
The study pattern was formed in accordance with the characteristics of adult learning and people's preferences: members of study groups from different departments were solidified in a social context instead of in formal occasions such as meetings. People were relaxed and encouraged to communicate with each other in an informal style[1] . Also, members decided the learning content and styles by themselves, and were encouraged to share their points of view and experiences with others freely. The study groups were held once a week so that people started getting used to sharing opinions, to communicate, and to chat with others on a routine basis.
Through weekly meetings with people of different departments, employees did not seem to work alone as they had before. People started to interconnect with those in the same study group, understood the employment role of study partners, and shared stress with others; hence thoughtful and sympathetic feelings arose between study colleagues. People also shared the problems and issues they had in their work and their lives. This had not happened before the establishment of the study groups.