Organizational strategy in permanence and newness

F. H. Ismadi

Parahyangan Catholic University, West Java, Indonesia

ABSTRACT: An organization is a group of multiple human beings that interact with each other and have a common purpose.

1 INTRODUCTION

The reality of a human being is in the present. In dif­ferent ways, the present contains all of a being’s past and its future. In its present, a human being is living together with other beings in the dialectic of perman­ence and newness.

Permanence and newness are concepts in philoso­phy that speak about the existence of human beings. To deepen the concept of these two themes, literature review was carried out using philosophical writings. These two themes are discussed in Human and Meta­physical Philosophy.

Meanwhile the organization is a concept of man­agement that refers to an entity consisting of beings that are men and women who interact with each other. The human interaction in the organization makes the organization develop itself; there is always newness but there are also permanent elem­ents.

In this dialectic between permanence and new­ness, each organization formulates its strategy that was aimed to maintain its life and to achieve its goals of being in the midst of competition with other organizations. To understand how to build a strategy, literature review was carried out from the writing of Henry Mintzberg and from two books recently pub­lished about disruption and blue ocean shift strategies.

It is supposed that an organization is a group of multiple beings which interact with each other and have a common purpose. Each of them establishes itself in the dialectic of permanence and newness which is done in interaction with other beings within the organization. As a whole, the organization is an entity that is independent, intact, and has a certainty. Therefore, the organization, in some sense, has the qualities contained in a being, causing the organiza­tion to thrive and to move in a similar framework to a being.

There is the dialectic in an organization between the past and the future. In previous literatures, there are some organizations that are satisfied with past performance and achievements, some are satisfied with managing loyal customers who are more profit­able than looking for new customers (Kasali 2017). Meanwhile, other organizations try to find a way to get new customers through innovation and technol­ogy, using ideas that were not thought of in the past (Kim & Mauborgne 2017).

In its present, the organization is shaped by its past and in the process of becoming its future. The past and the future of an organization are together in its present, in the atmosphere of competition with other organizations. The result of this process is an organization that is always new, but at the same time, is still old. Both permanence and newness are a part of the present of the organization.

This paper discusses how an organization builds a strategy considering the dialectic of permanence and newness in organization.

2 METHOD

A literature review was conducted to uncover the organizational strategy in the dialectic of perman­ence and newness. To understand how an organiza­tion builds a strategy, literature review was carried out to the writing of Henry Mintzberg and to two books about disruption and blue ocean shift strat­egies. To deepen the concept of permanence and newness, literature review was carried out using philosophical writings. These two themes were dis­cussed in Human and Metaphysical Philosophy.

3 LITERATURE REVIEW

3.1 The present is a summary of the past and the future

A being is a substance that is not a superficial fact, but a completely unique independent state. A being expresses what is real in “I” as reality (hey on - Greek). The word “being” is a classic term in various languages: to on (Greek), ens (Latin), das Seiende (German), un etre (French). In each of these “being” has an independent state, wholeness, and autonomy (Bakker 1992).

The being is with other beings. In being together with other beings, a being attains consciousness of himself. Therefore, the independent state of a being requires the existence of others (Bakker 1992).

“The present of a being” is the most central. A being has its past, but the past is only real because it is settled in its present/now. A being also has its future, but the future is only real as a project, hope, and desire contained within its present. All the past and the future are present and are summarized in the present. At every moment, a being becomes itself wholly. In its present, a being experiences a real identity (Bakker 1992).

The past is a fact that cannot be changed, making a being with a certain existence. All past facts together efficiently form a being. The relevance of each past value is structured according to a particular order or value scale. There is a continuity between the past and the present (Hadi 1996).

The future is always in touch with the present. The facts of the present contain the foundations to be developed in the future.

Newness is not the same as change. Newness is creation, bringing out something from nothing (Schulz 2001). People think about the future always as a continuation of the past. But the power of divine creation endowed with the gift enables a being, espe­cially human, to have ideas about new possibilities that were not thought of in the past (Hadi 1996, Hur- tubise 2003).

3.2 Thedynamicsofabeing

A being experiences itself in its present, but the pre­sent is not static. In each moment a being moves from one present to the next present. A being comes out of himself, but at the same time it remains itself completely. It is not the other being; it is permanent and at the same time continuous and new (Bakker 1992).

The dynamics of beings are in togetherness. A being experiences and manifests itself in correlation with all other beings (Bakker 1992). The presence of other beings helps to recognize the existence of a being, which is different from the presence of another. Each has its own, unique dynamics, but the personal dynamics are not separated or unrelated to others.

The dynamic unity between all comes in (happens in) the present. In togetherness, each being integrates its own present, so in this togetherness there are similarities and differences (Bakker 1992).

3.3 Organizational strategy in permanence and newness

An organization is an entity comprised of multiple people, such as institution or an association that has a collective goal and is linked to an external environ­ment (Chandra 2016). An organization is an aggre­gate of interacting and purpose-based beings. Each member establishes itself in permanence and new­ness, which is done in interaction with other mem­bers within the organization. As a whole, the organization is a being that is independent, intact, and has a certainty. Therefore, the organization in some sense has the qualities contained in a being, causing the organization to evolve and move in a similar framework to a being (Bakker 1992, Chandra 2016).

Organizations are in tension between the past and the future. In the present, the organization is shaped by its past and in the process of becoming its future (Bakker 1992, Hadi 1996). All of that is in the pre­sent of the organization dealing with the reality of the atmosphere of competition with other organiza­tions (Kasali 2017). The organizations in the com­petitive environment attempt to maximize their performance by improving their position in relation to other organizations. The attempt to maximize per­formance becomes more and more difficult as the level of competition continues to intensify (Feurer & Chaharbaghi 1995).

In togetherness and competition, the organization seeks to recognize and shape itself and find a unique position. An organization does not evolve to be a duplication of another organization, but remains itself. The organization is both the same and new. It is the same because the present state is the formation of the past. It is new because the creative ideas that manifest in innovation and technology make the organization a new one. Therefore, the past, the pre­sent, and the future of an organization as a being are related (Bakker 1992).

A different point of view is found in the research of Koeppen et al. (1995) with the background of health care organizations. According to this research, the vision set for the future of the organization is inde­pendent of past experience. The organization’s mis­sion is formulated based on the organization’s vision of the future. The strategy developed is to realize the mission of the organization. Nevertheless, she argued that the vision of the future cannot be generated from a vacuum and the implementation of an organizational strategy must be based on the current status of the organization in order to expand the future activities of the organization.

In organizations, strategies play a very important role. Strategy is a management process, the relation­ship between the organization and its environment, consisting of strategic planning, capability planning, and change management.

Strategies originate in patterns from the past, then become plans for the future, and ultimately become perspectives to guide overall behaviour. The com­plex and unpredictable nature of the organizational environment hinders a deliberate strategy (Mintzberg et al. 1998). Therefore, strategy making must take the form of the learning process from time to time, in the dialectic between permanence and newness.

In a saturated environment of competition between organizations, two organizational strategy models emerged, namely Disruption Strategy and Non Disruption Strategy called Blue Ocean Shift.

Some organizations that are satisfied with the per­formance and achievements of the past are satisfied with managing loyal customers who are more prof­itable than looking for new customers. When an organization talks about its market share, it is an evaluation of the performance it has made over a certain period in the past, not the current market situation (Kasali 2017). Kasali (2017) argued that in a highly saturated competitive environment, organ­izations must compete for market share that ensures the sustainability of the organization. To achieve this goal, an organization can conduct disruption, a strategy to gain a wider new market by undermin­ing consumers from other organizations. The bene­fits achieved are the effect of losses suffered by other organizations.

The romanticism of past success is often an excuse for not changing. Organizational reluctance to change in the middle of the technological era becomes an opportunity for competitors to disrupt, seize the consumer and ultimately lead to the destruction of the organization (Kasali 2017). If organizations or individuals within the organization are well-established with the situation, they will think that it is useless to change. Changes will only add work and there is no guarantee that it will benefit them. This group of like-minded organizations or individuals is called the inertia group (Battilana et al. 2009, Tuzlukaya & Kirkbesoglu 2015). Executives of most providers focus their planning on maintain­ing practices of the past (Koeppen et al. 1995).

Meanwhile, some organizations are trying to make a breakthrough to get new customers. The focus of organizational planning is on how an organ­ization should adapt to meet the changing needs of customers (Koeppen et al. 1995). Organizations that try to leave a market that is already saturated with competition and try to shift to another market are using a blue ocean strategy. This blue ocean is a non-disruption strategy in which organizational benefits do not come from losses to other organiza­tions (Kim & Mauborgne 2017). Innovations that power the shift to blue oceans are value innovation, innovation that ties in value to consumers (Kim & Mauborgne 2017).

In a blue ocean strategy, executives do not create a strategy to build competitive advantage, but to make the competition irrelevant. Organizations are secretly indifferent to what competitors do. They do not feel that they have to do what their competitors are doing. Their concern is focused on strategies to reach larger consumers (Kim & Mauborgne 2017).

Both of these strategy models place the organiza­tion in the dynamic between the past and the future that is presented in its present time. In today’s organ­ization, reviewing past performance and making leaps in innovation enable organizations to design more promising strategies in the future. In this frame of mind, analysis and evaluation of past performance get their meaning (Feurer & Chaharbaghi 1995). In the dynamics between the past and the future, the organization is in its present design of existence (Bakker 1992).

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Organizational strategies are made with attention to past performance, using creative ideas to help organizations leap forward to gain new and more promising markets. The dynamics between the past and the future are summarized in the present-day organization.

This leap does not make an organization a differ­ent being. It remains as the original because the cur­rent state is influenced by the past; however, it is at the same time new because it is also shaped by an unintelligible creative idea in the past.

This dynamic takes place in togetherness. The presence of other organizations, and the competition that is part of the dynamics of organizations, helps the organization recognize and shape itself, finding its unique position in togetherness.

Disruption and Blue Ocean Shift Strategies can be made by an organization dealing with the competi­tive environment with other organizations. Disrup­tion is taken when the organization intends to get a new market by grabbing another company’s con­sumer or while holding out from its competitors. Blue Ocean Shifts are pursued when organizations try to get out of the saturation of competition, to create new markets, and thus do not benefit from the loss of other organizations. Both of these strategies assume that in the present, the organization reflects on its past to create new markets in the future.

5 CONCLUSION

Strategies of an organization are built with attention to past performance, using creative ideas to help organizations to gain new and more promising mar­kets. The dynamic of the past and the future of the organization and the dynamic of permanence and newness take place in togetherness. The presence of other organizations and the competition that is part of the dynamics of organizations, help the organiza­tion recognize and shape itself, finding its unique position in togetherness.

The two strategies, Disruption and Blue Ocean Shift, assume that in the present, the organization reflects on its past to create new markets in the future.

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