Theories Being the Framework

Introduction

The selection of theories within the general framework follows a methodology begun in phase 1 and continued through phases 2 and 3. During the exploratory step, which accompanied the development of the general question in phase 1, the theories included psychometrics, psychology, general semantics, recruitment techniques, management, leadership, research methods, and epistemology.

Once the initial specific question was established, the focus shifted to semiotics, linguistics, sociology, and theories of complex organizations. Adopting an inductive approach, no theories were chosen at this stage to reduce restrictions on the development of concepts and variables. Only the constructivist paradigm was retained as a guiding framework, supporting an iterative process between theory and practice.

Generalities

The reference theories were gradually developed as the study hypotheses and the concept of performance became clearer through causal analyses during phase 1. These theories support and enrich the explanations in response to the specific question. They always retain some element of indeterminacy and must be viewed as approximations. As Merton specifies, theories also help in drafting, aid explicit formulation, deepen theoretical interpretations, and facilitate analysis and codification. In short, theories provide coherence and a foundation for research findings.

From this perspective, the project’s phase 1 was built on four distinct theoretical frameworks. The first relates to designing a social system, its organizational performance, indicators, and success. The second focuses on understanding individuals through concepts of social behavior, personality, and their measurement. In step 3, aspects of neuroscience were added, which complement the understanding of human adaptation. The third involves leadership, which plays a central role in the project and was also the focus of the specific question and framework designed in phase 1. Lastly, the fourth framework concerns semiotics and language, which gradually emerged as critical. These four theoretical frameworks are introduced below.

Social System

The organization’s social aspects used in the project are grounded in Talcott Parsons' general theory of action. Building on the work of Durkheim and Weber, Parsons' structural functionalist approach offers a comprehensive framework for analyzing social and economic interactions in action. The functional classification of social systems identifies four categories:

• (A) Adaptation to the environment: the system's ability to cope with its external environment.
• (G) Goals attainment: the capacity to achieve collective goals.
• (I) Integration: the coordination and regulation of a system's internal components.
• (L) latent maintenance: the preservation of a system's cultural patterns, values, and norms.

A social system is conceived as open, involved in complex processes of exchange with the surrounding systems. This open system involves boundaries and their maintenance; a boundary means that there is, in theory and practice, a significant difference between the structures and processes internal to social systems and those external to them. An interdependent set of phenomena needs to be isolated as a system. These aspects are essential to identify the challenges in moving from one action system to another, and the incompatibilities or complementarities between systems. This view has been reinforced in organizations with the competing values framework. This was fundamental in the current project for being able to devise and measure the indicators of performance for systems and subsystems.

Individual and group action orientations must be understood through three fundamental processes.

• The first are the cathartic aspects, which imply the internalization in everyone of what is happening outside, which are of an emotional nature.
• The cognitive and rational aspects constitute the second action orientation process.
• Finally, the third evaluation process is a combination of the first two.

These processes apply to individual performance measures of social behavior as they emerged in phase 1, continued to be tested in phase 2, and were refined in phase 3 with the adaptive profiles. These processes also apply to any individual characteristic other than social behavior and the techniques being used in organizations. Four components, role, collectivity, norm, and values, ​​play an important role in the social theory of action.

• Roles play a central role in individual interactions. They express what the community expects from each of its actors.
• Collectivities also define the values, norms, goals, and role hierarchies for a system of interaction of specific people.
• Norms define the performance expectations for distinct units of the system.
• Values ​​define the desirable forms of orientation for the system in universal terms, independent of particular situations or functions within it. Values ​​evolve but are persistent in the culture of the social system; that is to say that within this system, they survive the presence of the actors.

Finally, at a cultural level, beliefs and symbols are constitutive of the maintenance over time of the social structure’s functioning. These different elements of the Parsonian theory make it possible to coherently integrate the adaptive profiles and the use of symbols for analyzing social performance.

Adaptive Social Behaviors

Over time, personality research has progressed toward analyzing people’s “normal," rather than “abnormal" pathological characteristics, away from its original focus in psychiatry and clinical psychology. While some definitions of "personality" refer to a person’s entire character, its assessment usually focuses on social behaviors that do not include intelligence, and other individual characteristics like values, competencies, and skills.

The concept of personality has been the topic of intense research that culminated in the 1990s with a broad consensus on a limited number of factors that are universal and relatively stable. The theory known as the Five Factor Model (FFM) has since helped replace most of the personality assessments previously used in research. However, from Lewis Golberg himself, who was instrumental in this work, the FFM is a "waiting" theory that allows researchers to find common ground at a certain point in the history of psychology. As the discussion continued to progress since then, and the FFM by design includes factors beyond the concern of our project, it nevertheless helps point to the four factors used for representing work-related performance from a social behavior standpoint.

Additionally, people become energized, engaged, or not, depending on the context. Although it can be evidenced that people express relatively predictable patterns of social behaviors, they do adapt. With the four factors, when appropriately designed, assessment can reveal the emotional and cognitive challenges in keeping behaviors too distant, too long, from a relatively stable flow state, which is unique to everyone. Those conceptualizations concur with the dynamic model of personality from Mischel and Shoda and works on self-efficacy from Bandura. They also concur with neuroscience findings that distinguish two systems operating together in humans: system 1, which is slow, automatic, quick, and requires no effort, and system 2, which demands attention, mental effort, concentration, and reasoning. Switching from system 1 to 2 involves mental and physical effects. These factors are incorporated into the adaptive profiles that measure and represent the efforts needed to adapt, including emotional ones.

The position adopted in this project, which also comes along with the functional understanding of the organization, considers individuals from the angle of the processes that bind them to the social environment. The aspects of social dynamics that relate to individuals, of a micro nature, come along with other aspects related to the organization, of a macro nature.

Our framework recognizes people’s identities based on characteristics other than social behavior, such as gender, age, cultural background, social heritage, intelligence, experience, values, and other traits. The significance of these traits depends on their malleability, intensity, and the context.

Leadership

The specific question in phase 1 was centered on the use of personality assessment by leaders. The scope of the specific question was extended in phase 3 to include other users and techniques, but leadership nevertheless remained a central focus in the framework. Theories have analyzed leadership from various angles. The role and responsibilities of leaders continue to attract numerous studies, books, and executives’ testimonials. The seminal work of Bass is essential for understanding the potential attributes of leaders and the perspective on transformational leadership styles. Other styles have been studied, though, which are also successful in different contexts: democratic, servant, authoritative, or charismatic styles are all styles that perform well, too, as a myriad of techniques on the market have evidenced. Since early writings from the 1930s and 1960s, the understanding of leadership has evolved with diverse views on organizations and their leaders, including Pfeffer’s rather cynical view that “leaders fail their people, their organizations, the larger society, and even themselves with unacceptable frequency.”

Amid this range of perspectives, Kouzes and Posner’s work stands out as the most rigorous and generalizable, providing an answer to what leadership can stand for. In short, a leadership role requires the ability to:

• Model the way. Leaders clarify values by finding their voice and affirming shared values. They set the example by aligning actions with shared values.
• Inspire a shared vision. Leaders envision the Future by imagining exciting and ennobling possibilities. They enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations.
• Challenge the process. Leaders search for opportunities by seizing the initiative and looking outward for innovative ways to inspire. They experiment and take risks by consistently generating small wins and learning from experience.
• Enable Others to act. Leaders foster collaboration by building trust and facilitating relationships. They strengthen others by increasing self-determination and developing competence.
• Encourage the heart. Leaders recognize contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence. They celebrate the values and victories by creating a spirit of community.

Kouzes and Posner's model highlights the widespread and crucial role of people skills in leadership. Leadership involves understanding oneself—finding one's voice, purpose, and strengths. It also involves caring for others who are being led and their organization. The importance of a leader’s need to consider the organization is emphasized in other works, like that of Heifetz where the leader must diagnose and act on the system as well as themselves. Better managing their organization’s performance over time, avoiding human underperformance, and controlling how work gets done efficiently through people are the leader’s responsibilities. Ultimate accountability lies with the organization and its people, communication, and the time spent on human matters, not their administration.

In the framework, this distinction has emphasized the importance of a leader’s relearning about people and their organization based on the adaptive profiles' symbolic capabilities, rather than relying on the production of reports.

Semiotics and Language

The linguistic and semiotic aspects of the framework, though somewhat more abstract, are essential to the project. Using typology assessments in organizations, the semiotic elements have become increasingly important. People speak the language of the system implemented in their organization. The quality of this language, as shown in the assessment, and its impact on decision-making and communication have gained attention, especially when managers use these techniques for selection and management. The language and semiotics were already prominent in the first round of analysis in phase 1. For these reasons, they are becoming even more significant today.

Symbols hold a significant role in sociological works, such as those by Habermas, Berger & Luckmann, or Parsons. Mead’s work forms the foundation of an approach that emphasizes the importance of signs in constructing the person and their connection to the system. Furthermore, signs are best analyzed in their functional aspect through the work of Charles Pierce. Unlike Mead's work or other thinkers like Cassirer, Pierce's work allows focus on the symbol itself and its role in the inference process. Besides the structural functionalist approach, it was also beneficial to include Pierce's writings in this project, as they offer a comprehensive view of signs, their meaning construction, and the beliefs that influence their action.

Despite its age and the controversies surrounding it, Peirce's substantial body of work appears to withstand criticism and the test of time, while continuing to provide analytical opportunities. The focus on the practical effects of signs allows for a combination of the pragmatic approach with structural functionalist approaches in an analysis that considers two levels: individuals and organizations. . The utilization of Peirce's arguments, which Eco references almost exclusively in his functional analysis, along with the richness of Peirce's analysis of signs and his prominence in all other works—including those of Mead—therefore emphasizes the importance of original works rather than their reinterpretations by others.

Additionally, studies on personality have prompted research into the lexicons of adjectives across various languages. Work on personality, as highlighted by Goldberg, can be regarded as a significant effort to organize and define the factors and concepts that describe our social behaviors. These approaches identify behavior dimensions that are limited in number and universal. They open up valuable opportunities to create new symbols for better understanding human behaviors and social systems. That’s the approach we undertook during phases 1 and 2, and continued to enhance in phase 3 at GRI with the adaptive profiles.