Park Yonggwan Moses

To compete in the era of globalization through emergent innovation, we must consider associate-centered leadership, which is fundamentally different from the current leader-centered power model. The roles of leaders in an associate-centered leadership model are vision-making, wisdom creation, serving, facilitating, moderating, peace-making, and thanks-giving.

First, this study established that managers focused on purposes are not drivers of emergent innovation, which requires leaders who awaken associates’ spontaneity, creativity, and passion. Second, this study has shown that insights allowing implementation of effective organizational operations and associate-centered leadership is required in changing times. Third, this study has called for redefining organizations, both profit-driven and nonprofit, as collaborative communities. This study also has offered insights into the importance of emergent innovation and effective organizations and indicated why emergent innovation and new organizational operations are paramount in changing times. This study also has suggested that Japan’s economy must evolve beyond traditional systems, practices, and customs that once were successful in an industrial society.

Although there are some problems in the book by Hughes et al., I can say this book is an excellent text book for leadership because it is comprehensive, scholarly, stimulating, entertaining, and relevant for anyone who wishes to better understands the dynamics of leadership, and to improve her or his own personal performance. And it is because this book describes and critically evaluates a number of leadership theories and research articles, and also offers practical advice on about improving leadership and effective leadership.

In her book, Kathleen Brush argues that being an effective leader today requires hard or functional and soft or behavioral skills. Such skills will equip leaders for the challenges of achieving continuous improvements in innovation and productivity in a fast paced, employee-centered, complex environment saturated with global issues. This book is very useful for anyone interested in a serious engagement about growth by tackling innovation and increasing productivity among the latest global challenges.

This book review is about the book, Network Organizations: New Vision from Social Network Perspective by Naoki Wakabayashi (Yuhikaku, 2009). This review describes the book’s arguments and some issues towards the further development of networked organizational theory.

Emergent innovation is required to respond to the instability and discontinuity of environmental changes. Emergent innovation and new operations of organization in changing times are paramount to address the challenges using new thinking and new invention. The wisdom, insight, discretion, and understanding that implement appropriate organizational operation are required in these new times. This approach is necessary to avoid being trapped by the remains of old successful experiences. We need to explore new divisions of work and adjustment, new organizational structures, new motivation and new leadership, new relationships and new communication, and new values in the organization. These changes are also necessary to redefine an organization from a cooperative system to a collaborative community.

In the time of a change, it is desirable to follow a servant leader. It is because servant-leaders do not use organizational change as the excuse for building their own power and position. They do not make changes based on personalities, factional politics, and competition between rivals. Instead, servant-leaders focus on meeting the needs of the organization and those it serves. Servant-leaders listen, consult, and analyze information so that the organization can adopt and remain relevant to changing needs. Hard decisions may have to be made, but if so, they will be made by giving priority to the needs of employees, customers, business partners, and the communities in which the servant-leaders operate.

Some consider bureaucracies-in their most and technically efficient form-as an ideal type of organization. However, many unforeseen dysfunctions are embedded in bureaucratic structures. Many researchers of bureaucracies study these dysfunctions in terms of system integration theories that emphasize the goal-oriented activities of organizations. In contrast, researchers such P. M. Blau argue that it is necessary to use organizational structures that match the needs of various types of human relations. Adherents of "anti-bureaucracy theory" favor the making of radical corrections to common bureaucracies. For instance, W. G. Bennis argued that in favor of changing many organizational structures from hierarchical to organic-adaptive. Bennis also assumed that human-oriented systems are based on values of trust, consensus, and communication among members of any organization, and that the best collaborations are among the members specialists who are given maximum selfautonomy. He also believed that leaders should not be too focused on managing or controlling their subordinates, but instead on coordinating the actions of coworkers and their projects. He took into consideration the communicative rationality required for greater understanding among the members of organizations. F.C. Thayer presented a clear picture of "non-hierarchical society" when arguing for the abolition of the hierarchy principle. He imagined a society made up of small-groups would naturally be uncertain because they would be opened to members and non-members alike to participate in more than one organization at the same time. Interpersonal relationships would be formed on the basis of peer respect and partnerships, in which individuals would not submit to one another, but reach agreement and understanding through communication. Such a system would neither disempowers members nor concentrate power in the hands of a small group of managers. In short, the emphasis of bureaucracy theory needs to be placed not on goal-oriented activities alone, but also on the communicative actions of an organization's members. In this paper, I will search for signs of change from goal-achievement to communicative theory in several bureaucratic organizations.

Japanese-style management has been praised over the world as an ideal model of management. However, it has been facing a deadlock since the late 1980s, and nowadays it is suffering of a deep crisis. Some enterprises make their efforts to overcome the crisis. This paper aims to discuss the essence and possibilities of the self-managing system through a case study on Misumi corporation. Misumi has been aiming at self-managing organization under the catchphrase saying that "freedom and self-responsibility". At Misumi, the managers have not emphasized their positions and status through those symbols such as job titles, departments and sections, uniform, commodious office, and parking zone only for directors' use. As an organization Misumi is not centralized but decentralized. Therefore, there are little explicit order and oppressive controls from the management at Misumi. On the other hand, the legitimacy of decision-making system within Misumi corporation is still sought from the ground of economic rationality. The self-responsibility which is given to employees is nothing but the self-responsibility that is expressed through those codes such as annual salary, profits sharing, stock options and so on. Misumi has been self-organized by pragmatic codes referring to rationality and efficiency. Misumi is neither centralized system nor managed system. However, it is difficult to say that Misumi is self-managing organization in the exact sense of the term. It can be pointed out that Misumi is a quasi-self-managing organization. In point of fact, if a social system is "explosive production" which seeks to maximize exchangeable values and profits, it cannot be self-managing system in the true sense of Jacques Attali's definition. There was not true self-managing system even in a socialist society in which private ownership of capitals is allowed, and such a system may not exist or appear from now on, either. If so, why should we argue on such self-managing system that may not be able to be ever realized? Which implications can be discovered in the contemporary Japanese-style management in crisis? It is meaningful to discuss these questions, because to explore the model of self-managing system will help to develop a theoretical and practical alternative to convert present crisis to a more desirable new social system. To study the possibilities of the self-managing system can be useful for making such a model that promotes internal communications within an organization and leap decentralized and self-managing system. Network organization is an organizational pattern to increase the possibility. The crisis can be a generator of urging a corporation to convert its bureaucracy with a centralized and managed system to network organization with a decentralized self-managing system.