Chapter 3: Strategic Development of Competence Networks to Implement Adaptation

How can new game-changing organizations be constructed using the latest research and theory in organizational change? Although it is understood that the “baby boomer” generation internalized the old stable engineering process designs for organizations, and this worked well until now, our hope is that we can persuade the younger generation that they must drastically change their external adaptations to their new environment. They need to internalize more flexible open designs by capitalizing on the new technology of both engineering and organizational psychology. New competence network designs engage both human needs and social networks. What are social networks? Network is defined as an arrangement of objects tied together as in a net (Webster's New World , 2002). In the case of human networks, people are linked together in expected flows of energy such as a communications problem solving, or design implementation in which information or enactment proceeds from one person in the network to or through others. Such networks may be formally prescribed by the organizational designers (engineering) or emerge informally (competence networks). Those networks that emerge informally are of special interest here, because they are found to be critical for satisfying participant's needs and may contribute to overcoming the human factors of resistance to change.