Innovation and knowledge somehow go hand in hand for example the experience of an older employee and the creative ability of a younger employee can lead to creating new products and services. In order to measure creativity and innovation, the organisation must come up with effective ways to measure them. As the author had stated that there is a great dilemma for many experts is that placing value on talent and genius is seen as a very imprecise science, and many of the measures and indicators are seen as unreliable. Some of the intangible assets that can help improve traditional measures are: customer capital, human capital, intellectual capital, relationship capital, systems performance. Thus it is very unclear on how to measure each of these assets effectively as organisation differ so do their perceptions. Managers need to find out what knowledge is vital and why, then stimulate methods, tools and systems to make it easier to succeed (pg 224).

Organisations need to focus more on intangibles assets rather than tangible assets. Managers also need to realise how these intangible assets create value for the organisation. In order to do so, the manager must first realise how differently each of the intangible assets add value. Then only can they be able to measure it.

Managing change is one of the most demanding responsibilities that a manager faces. Change is one of the tasks that most organisations face over a period of time. When an organisation relocates its services or changes key operating features the hesitation among employees and interference to services can be brutal. Top management is generally the source of the change, it is the leaders and employees in the organisation who actually makes change happen. This article has demonstrated that change agents play a key role in managing chaos in a change process. As the author had stated that these consultants should not try to reduce chaos for their clients but rather they accept and embrace the chaos of change processes and base their consultancy practice on it.

How a manager faces chaos is ideal and important. When an external change agent is hired by the organisation, it is very crucial for the agent to gain trust with the management and the employees as change is possible if everyone is committed towards it. Change agents and managers need to work together as it is the managers who make a difference by creating a vision, making plans and implementing them where as the consultants make a difference, in the modernist view, if they can contribute to the change process. According to the author there are different typologies in the way consultants work. Enlightened modern consultants, ironic consultants and postmodern consultants are apparently able to create added value for their clients. They have different ways of working, based on different assumptions, think differently about the status of their opinions and judgements, and expect different types of credit for their work.

This article has enabled one to understand on how different consultants work. How their assumptions and notions can affect a change process.

This paper looks at how small or medium sized companies can move from traditional measures to a creative and innovative one. With the increase in markets, companies need to change rapidly by being creative and innovative. As the author stated ‘SME learning and competitiveness will be increased through defining creativity and innovation more consistently and applying supportive measures’. These innovative efforts are not limited to the introduction of new products, services or procedures. Increasingly, firms must develop internal mechanisms which will foster technological awareness through systematic scanning of technical and commercial developments.
Given the important role competitive environment plays in defining a firm’s actions, the company must chose to conduct a study of the innovative efforts of small and medium – sized enterprises (SMEs). The author believes that there are numerous reasons as to why SME’s are unable to address the concept of innovation correctly because of inadequate training and development, shortages of skills, belief in innovating as being solely innate rather than socially constructed, leadership influence, for example: the behaviour of the owner or manager or a general failure to recognise the broad basis of innovation and associated learning approaches.
Therefore it is very difficult to develop creative and innovative measures in SME’s.
Thus, according to the author a simplified set of the guidelines for the measurement of the process of creativity and innovation are as follows: a) Performance measures should be derived from the company’s strategy, b) The purpose of each performance measure should be made explicit, c) There should be clear data-collection methods, d) All stakeholders should be involved in the selection of the measures, e) The measures should be changeable based on organisational and environmental dynamics. But some who, the organisation needs to understand the concept of being creative and innovative. Innovating doesn’t only mean creating new products but also processes and services.
This article has helped to understand why it is important for companies to be creative and innovative in this ever changing environment. It also gives good insight into the working of SME. As these companies face a lot of challenges, it is very important for them to change.

This article deals with transformational leadership and how it affects the change process. Organisations, where the leaders are transformational seem to have a positive effect on the employees thus in turn leads to success. The author had stated in the article that “transformational leadership behaviour operates by the higher needs of employees and including them to transcend self – interests for the organisation’s sake”. Each and every employee has to be committed to the organisation for it to be successful. In order to do so the organisation must build good communication and trust among the employees and to see that their needs are met.

Good leadership helps to create change. Transformational leaders are often charismatic, develop a vision and create followers by trust, pride and integrity. These leaders put passion and energy into work. They inspire their followers by motivation, creating high expectations, changing attitudes and behaviour. Transformational leaders are able to give personal attention to their followers by respecting them and giving them responsibility. They also intellectually stimulate their followers by consistently challenging them with new ideas and approaches. They are people orientated and believe that success comes first. The fundamental transformation leadership behaviour is treating individuals as important contributors to the work place.

Having good leadership is essential to the organisation. According to the authors transformational leadership, as stated above has had a positive effecting. People are always resisting change; therefore it is the top management’s responsibility to take on the role of a leader who is able to communicate openly with the employees. This article shows insight on how transformational leadership is effective to bring organisational change. It could be said that without leadership, change can be difficult. But there can be circumstances where leaders might misuse their roles, which could have a negative impact on the employees and the organisation.

This article was chosen because communicating with the employees is very for implementing change. Therefore it is important for mangers and leaders need to communicate with the employees about the reason and need for change. Open and honest communication will have a positive impact on the employees about change. Organisational change will be successful when each and every member is ready for change and is committed.
Communication is a must; if there is none then the employees feel left out and develop a negative attitude towards change. The authors had mentioned that there are three communication strategies that can be used to generate readiness for change, a) persuasive communication, b) active communication and managing, or c) sharing information about the change. How these communication strategies are used depends on the context of change. The managers and leaders need to be aware about the amount of information should be shared with the employees. However, it could be said that the employees have a right to know about the change process and how this change is going to affect them. Communication is essential to gain employees trust and commitment, overcome resistance and increase the change process.
This article has helped to understand the nature of the change process and how communicated plays a big factor for change to be effective. The organisation as a whole needs the commitment of each and every employee for change to be effective. The managers and leaders of the organisation are somehow seen as a role model; therefore it is vital for them to have proper and timely interacting with the employees for them to feel that they are also an important member of the organisation.

This article gives an in-depth explanation of how power and authority is used in an organisation. Who has the power and authority in the organisation and how it is used by people who have the power and authority.
What is power? Power is most often defined as the potential ability of one person to influence other people to carry out orders or to do something they would not otherwise have done (pg 488). Power in organisations are based on five personal sources; which are (1) Reward power is the ability to give positive consequences, (2) Coercive power is the perceived ability to punish those who will not conform to one’s demands, (3) Legitimate power is based on the perception that someone has the right to impose behaviour due to appointment to a position of responsibility, (4) Referent power is potential power obtained through association with others who possess power, (5) Expert power is based on having distinctive knowledge, expertness, ability or skills. Power can be used for positive as well as negative purposes. While authority is also an ability used for achieving desired outcomes. People who have higher positions in the organisation can use authority to get work done. Authority is often linked with subordination. The idea of subordination is thought to be voluntary as a subordinate will allow his or her judgment to be shaped by someone else.
Politics also plays an important role in the organisation. Politics is the use of power to influence decisions in order to achieve certain outcome. Therefore it can be said that politics is the activities that take place in an organisation to expand and use power to achieve outcomes. This paper has given valuable insight on how the organisation uses power and authority to achieve certain outcomes. It is important to used power and authority but in limits. Over use of power and authority can create an unhealthy work environment which could have a negative impact on the organisation.

This case study gives an in-depth understanding of the topic change management. Change can be difficult to implement in an organisation. Thus it is very essential for the management to recognise what type of change the organisation needs and how it can be managed. It is clear from the case study the purpose of managing change is to effectively implement new approaches, systems and solutions in an ongoing and working organisation. The forces for change can be internal and external. Change cannot take place immediately; there is a lot of thinking involved to bring change and implementing it.

For organisational change to happen, the management needs to take certain factors into consideration and look at why there is resistance to change. Resistance to change can be from the individual or the organisation as a whole. There are several reasons for resistance to change from employees for example, fear of the unknown, job security, lack of resources, no personal gain, conflicting goals. There can be resistance from the customers as they might not know the reason for change and are worried if this change is going to increase the price of the product or if it is going to affect the quality and the quantity of the product. In order for change to be successful, the whole organisation should be involved in the change process and the reasons for change should be communicated clearly to the employees by the management. Leadership also plays an important role in bring out change. Trust plays an important role in times like this. In order to gain trust, the leaders of the organisation need to communicate with the employees and have to establish the reasons for change and help the employees understand why change is necessary and they also need to establish a healthy relationship with the employees.

This case study has helped to understand why change management is important and how an organisation takes necessary steps to make change successful.

Debowski, S, 2006, Learning and development in a knowledge setting, in Knowledge management, John Wiley & Sons Australia, Milton, Qld

Organisational knowledge is very necessary for organisations in the present situation. The ability of an organisation to harness, foster and resourcefully use the knowledge of the workers can prove to be the competitive strategy for any organisation. Knowledge management has been around for a very long time. A learning organisation is not just an organisation which carries out widespread training but also an organisation which facilitates the learning of all its members and incessantly grows itself, thus creating a competitive advantage. Like the author stated “effective knowledge organisation recognises the need to build many different mechanisms to encourage a learning culture in the knowledge community”(2006, pg 245). However, the driving force behind any organisation must be the information and knowledge it possesses in regards to the industry within which it functions.

In order for an organisation to be a learning organisation, it needs to first look as factors that could affect learning, such as individual factors, organisational factors and operational factors. One of the many challenges managers may face is: how to encourage and motivate the workforce to learn. The organisation should build a culture that promotes learning by openly communicating with the employees. The other factor that can have a positive effect on organisational learning is leadership. Leadership can be an important aspect, as leaders have the ability to influence the employees.

Thus for an organisation to continue learning, it needs to understand its employees needs and to communicate with them openly by creating a work culture that encourages and motivated them to share knowledge with others. As knowledge management involves gathering information from experience (experience others may have gained) or from a written foundation and the experience of the employees.

This research paper looks at the role of strategic human resource management in small and medium enterprises (SME) and its contribution to the organisation. Human resource management is important for both small and large organisations. What is strategic human resource management? One of the important aspects of strategic human resource management is employee development. It can be said that strategic human resource management develops a work culture that encourages flexibility and innovation and increases the organisations performance. Strategic HR is a worldwide approach to viewing the function of human resource management in the larger organisation and differentiates it from traditional human resource management.
Linking strategic management and human resource management is a good way to increase the performance and the work environment of the organisation. Employees need to be carefully chosen, well trained and content with their jobs and benefits, provide better product and services rather than employees who are dissatisfied and unhappy with their situation. It is vital for human resource managers to understand the many elements of employee retention and satisfaction.
The authors: Karami, Jones and Kakabadse came to the conclusion that the human resource capability of the firm is a substantial resource that helps determine the competitive advantage of the firm. This research paper has indicated that organisations that allow managers to be strategic in their decision making. As stated in the paper “ any investment in increasing the human resource capabilities should be considered as a crucial factor which in turn will increase the organisations performance” (Karama, Jones and Kakabadse, 2008, pg 14).

Chapter 2, ‘Enhancing creativity at work’ in King and Anderson, 2003, Managing innovation and change: a critical guide for organizations, 2^nd edn, Thomson, London.

The article chosen discusses the use of creativity to enhance the work place. This paper helps to understand the broad concept of creativity and how different researchers define creativity and how it’s useful to bring uniqueness to a work place. Creativity can be defined as “a mental process that leads to solutions, ideas, conceptualizations, artistic forms, theories or products that are unique and novel” (King and Anderson, 2003, pg 14). Creativity can be measured by focusing on characteristics of the person, process and product by using personality and creativity ability tests on the person, product based measures and process based measures.

In the article the authors mentioned three strategies to enhance creativity:  a) idea elicitation techniques, b) creativity training and c) selection for creativity.  The first strategy ‘ideal elicitation techniques’ is connected with the psychological study of creativity as it’s best known for ‘brainstorming and synectics’.  Brainstorming was illustrated by Alex Osborn and is based on two principles: deferment of judgement and quantity breeds quality. The foundation of brainstorming is to generate ideas in a group situation based. The rules here are  not to cancel out  or evaluate any idea coming from others, encourage people to let their imagination run as free as possible but not too wild, to come up with as many ideas as possible and are encouraged to build on, and better some ones idea. The ideas generated are evaluated and the ideal solution is approved. This method is ideal for a group session where the members involved take responsibility. Electronic brainstorming has been found to be effective in generating good quality ideas with the rise of technology. This has enabled people to work together despite being at different locations. Brainstorming is seen as a favourable technique used by organizations around the world.

This article had given insight on the measures that are taken in the work place to be creative and innovative. Organizations now days look to be creative not only in terms of producing new products but also by hiring creative people that will enhance the organization. In order to do so organizations are training employees to be more creative and by building a work culture and climate that will induce and favour creativity.