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Paradigms
Yonatan
Reshef
School of Business
University of Alberta
Paradigms
are interconnected webs of basic assumptions about how the organization
should be run both economically and socially, and about roles assigned to
each party.
Because of their systematic character, paradigms exert a
powerful inertial influence over the collectivities governed by them.
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Paradigms are generalized cognitive structures, or frameworks, that people
use to impose structures on and impart meanings to particular events. |
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Paradigms are self inflicted rules or regulations that set an emotional
and cognitive boundary to our thinking and abilities to be creative. |
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In summary, paradigms are mental models, or
filters of information, that
condition our behaviors and institutionalize them. As a result, our
behaviors are often taken for granted, and we hardly ever explore their sources.
They are hard to change because we don't recognize the assumptions which
underlie them. In other words, we are prisoners of existing values, norms,
and practices that strongly condition our search to understanding new problems
-- such as quality -- and their solutions.
Paradigms are theories of life that
at one point may become unconscious and taken-for-granted convictions
of how the world works. We use them to get on efficiently with
our daily lives. We can have such theories about family life,
teaching, dating, and friendship. They enable us to perform
roles without knowing how we know the script.
Holding the right/left set of assumptions about students:
How does an instructor react to a student's complaint?
How does an instructor run a class?
A
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B
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ONLY WANT TO PASS
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KEEN
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APATHETIC
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ENGAGED
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CHEATERS
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HONEST
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DULL
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ORIGINAL
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BURDEN
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BLESSING
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| LAZY |
HARD WORKING
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QUESTION RE PARADIGM A AND B
How are students likely to respond if the instructor tells them one day that:
a) We are one big happy family.
b) You give me a reason to get out of bed.
c) Every class I learn something new from you.
e) I am interested in your opinions on:
- Whether students can wear baseball caps in class
- The seating arrangement
- The use of light
- The room temperature
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