Application of (dialectical) systems thinking to understand managerial problems in Yugoslavia today

Soon after its reestablishment in 1945, Yugoslavia saw no other official solution for its management and government modernization but self-management. This was underestimated by many influential people, so the Tayloristic model of the thinking and the working subsystems was not dissolved. It stresses specialization and reinforces one-sidedness. It also divides people into those who command and those who obey, leaving little room for wholism and creativity. New solutions are needed, and we see them in the transition toward the managerial style we all think, we all work, based on creative cooperation of the Many in constant search for change by innovation. This can also be a new partial system of self-management: the doers' innovation of the daily work processes.     

Effect of Supervision on Stress and Burnout in School Counsellors: A Case of Action Research

School counsellors are permanently in action, the success of which depends on their systemic approach to their action. Due to the difficulty, complexity and scope of their work, school counsellors are often under a lot of stress, which may eventually develop into occupational burnout. Thus, it is very important that school counsellors can use appropriate i.e. systemic, i.e. requisitely holistic ways of coping with stress and occupational burnout. Recently, after many years, supervision has been gaining importance as an action in the form of professional help to school counsellors to enable them to cope effectively with stress and to prevent occupational burnout. The primary purpose of the reported-about study is to determine how supervision, in accordance with the relational family model, affects the perception of stress and occupational burnout. The sample included 30 school counsellors in Slovenia. They were divided into an experimental group (with the presence of supervision) and a control group (without supervision). Results show a positive effect of supervision, in accordance with the relational family model, on the school counsellors’ perception of stress, since stress decreased after supervisory meetings, while the school counsellors’ perception of their professional burnout after supervisory meetings did not change significantly.     

The Influence of Employees’ Ethical Behavior on Enterprises’ Social Responsibility

The enterprises’ social responsibility (CSR) importantly depends upon behavior and its important factors like values, culture, ethics and norms. This article investigates how employees’ ethical behavior defines CSR. Article includes a comprehensive literature review, and empirical results of survey about employees’ perception of ethical behavior and relations between employees’ ethical attitudes and CSR. Sample consists of more than 900 employees in Slovenian enterprises, collected in last decade. Trends about employee’s perceptions of ethical, economic, environmental, and social attitudes, show increasing importance of ethical and environmental attitudes, and decreasing importance of striving for economic performance. Social attitudes remain unchanged over the entire decade. Employees’ ethical perceptions positively and significantly impact their attitudes toward social and environmental concerns. Their impact on attitudes toward giving priority to economic results is negative and significant. The considered relations were controlled by demographic variables mediating the relationship only for economic concern. Results of trends and relations confirm the significant influence of employees’ ethical behavior on CSR. The developed solution enables improvement of CSR considering importance of influences of employees’ ethical attitudes on aspects of CSR. The proposed solution reduces unexplained part of CSR related to ethical behavior and develops requisitely holistic methodological framework for future consideration of other behavior factors in enterprise.     

Ethics of a Sustainable Enterprise—and the Need for it

In the modern global economy, new criteria are needed to describe the most modern enterprises: Sustainable Enterprise (SE) and Sustainable Enterprise Ethics (SEE). Long-term existence and development of humans and organisations depend, largely, on application of the sustainable development (SD) concept. Already, some enterprises consider the modern conditions and apply the requisite synergy of economic, ecological, social and ethical aims. They can be called Sustainable Enterprises (SEs). Suitable activities of SEs depend on their ethics even more than on their knowledge—Sustainable Enterprise Ethics. Attainment of SEE demands innovation of values, culture and behaviour of all critical SEs’ participants for them to understand, achieve and use SEE as a more/requisitely holistic practice, based on ethics of interdependence (EI). We offer some new suggestions on why humans need SE and SEE and suggest ways to create and implement EI as SEE in and for SEs rather than the traditional one-sided business behaviour.

Social Responsibility: Measures and Measurement as a Basis for Organizational Systemic Action

European Union (2011) supports conditions favorable to sustainable growth, responsible business behavior and durable employment generation. Social responsibility (SR) supports this effort; hence EU urges its member states and big enterprises to promote SR to innovate habits of humans, societies and especially decision-makers-towards requisite holism, based on ethics of interdependence, i.e. systemic behavior. Related criteria for measurement of SR of organizations are drafted here. In Slovenia, the ‘Horus award’ promotes public awareness about meaning and importance of SR and encourages it in organizations.     

System-Organisational Aspect of a Learning Organisation in Companies

The objective of this article is to discuss the learning organisation (LO) concept in correlation with network organisation (NO), which is an indispensable element for the transition into the new era of management, i.e. knowledge networking. Business organisations (BO) rarely achieve innovativeness, and thus competitive advantage, without establishing NO/LO and knowledge management. Therefore, a suitable knowledge strategy must be developed that is related to BO's business strategy. The last two statements surface our main hypothesis, which is described in our general model on linking the elements of an LO and then tested by empirical research carried out in Slovenian BOs. Our original model of LO has proved helpful in understanding BOs as LOs in transitional economies, e.g. in Slovenia. In them an innovation-based business has not yet become the norm with BOs of all sizes, with success mainly enjoyed in larger BOs. However, NO can help the LO concept spread and support innovativeness rather quickly in all BOs.

On Requisitely Holistic Understanding of Sustainable Development from Business Viewpoints

In the new millennium, and in its global economy, everybody will have to be very competitive and hence innovative. For this reason most humans, economies, and businesses must innovate our understanding of economics in all areas and levels of human activity. The new challenges require a thorough innovation of work, including a requisitely³ holistic consideration of sustainable development (SD). In our contribution we would like to shift attention from a principle-based moralizing about relations between the sustainable development and enterprises to a very practical issue: how to support a more requisitely holistic understanding of SD from business viewpoints. The most important or most frequent issues of a new understanding and implementation of SD include the following: SD requires holism, hence professional and political aspects in synergy, hence systems thinking; SD requires linking of different approaches to problem solving; businesses should no longer forget about SD; ISO, etc., standards are not holistic enough concepts to solve all SD problems; A more requisitely holistic methodology is needed for implementation of SD in business. We offer some new suggestions.     

Social responsibility as a next step in development of systemic behavior toward systems solutions of systemic problems of today

Data are clear: humankind is facing a global socio-economic crisis. Global bodies search for solution in ending the neoliberal monopolistic, rather than free market, economy, and in introduction of systemic behavior under the label of social responsibility. To support this effort, the research that is reported about in this contribution, suggests systemic perception of social responsibility to cause the end of abuse, strategy of promotion of social responsibility, and of suitable economic preconditions, supported by several lines of action, which everybody can trigger.