A Developmental Work Research (DWR) Study of Team and Organisational Learning at DHL Worldwide Express

Abstract

The environment in which New Zealand businesses and public agencies operate is volatile, complex and uncertain. Organisations face a wide and competing range of demands. Managers and employees need to collaborate across functions, business units and teams. Practical research approaches are needed to help support them.This paper illustrates how a developmental work research (DWR) approach can support business process improvements and organisational/earning in continuously-changing, complex environments. We present findings from a PGSF study of cross-functional team problem-solving and learning at DHL Worldwide Express in Christchurch between April1997 and June 1998. The study used DWR methods, including analysis of videotaped meetings, developed at the University of Helsinki and the University of California San Diego by Engestrom and his colleagues (1996b).We describe how DWR was used to: analyse a process improvement initiative, or 'problem-trajectory', and how disturbances and tensions within this work activity reveal the underlying contradictions in DHL's operational and training systems; and identify opportunities for comprehensive system innovations that have a marked impact on productivity, efficiency and customer service.

Engeström’s version of activity theory: a conservative praxis?

“…For whilst his underpinning Marxism holds progressive possibilities it is nevertheless limited through the enactment of developmental work research, which is no more than a form of consultancy aiming to improve work practices (see e.g. Engeström, 1990Engeström, , 2001Hill et al, 1998;Foot, 2002;Guy, 2003;Warmington et al, 2005;Williams, n.d.). The way in which contradiction is mobilised can be used to interrogate this claim.…”