On September 4 at 10:00 Veiko Valkiainen will defend his doctoral thesis “Enabling human flourishing and organizational antifragility through unlearning the learned helplessness in self-managing organizations”
Supervisor:
Associate Professor Krista Jaakson, University of Tartu
Opponents:
Associate Professor Hélène Picard, Grenoble Ecole de Management, France
Associate Professor Frank Martela, Aalto University, Finland
Summary
As work becomes increasingly knowledge-intensive, the amount of information continues to grow, and the pace of change becomes almost dizzying, many organizations are looking for ways to become more flexible, more human-centered, and less dependent on traditional chains of command. One possible path is the transition toward self-managing organizations, where decision-making authority is no longer concentrated only in the hands of managers but distributed across clearly defined roles throughout the organization. This dissertation examines how such distributed authority can become a genuinely functioning organizational practice.
The dissertation studies Holacracy as a constitution-based governance framework that seeks to replace the traditional manager-subordinate relationship with role-based authority, clear accountabilities, and regular processes for working through tensions. The first two studies theoretically develop two important potentials of Holacracy. First, this governance architecture may help organizations adapt more effectively, because the noticing of problems and opportunities is moved to the level of local units and decisions are no longer dependent only on managers. Second, the implementation of such a governance architecture may create a work environment that supports people’s autonomy, competence, and relatedness, thereby fostering autonomous motivation and optimal human functioning.
At the same time, the dissertation also clearly shows that these potentials do not materialize automatically. The third, empirical study demonstrates that even when people are formally given more decision-making authority, they may continue to act as if decisions should still come from a manager or be approved by one. This pattern can be understood as learned helplessness carried over from hierarchical work environments.
The central conclusion of the dissertation is that implementing a self-managing organizational framework does not happen merely through structural change. For it to become real, people must learn to psychologically internalize the role-based authority they have been given and apply it in their everyday work. Only then can the potential of Holacracy to support organizational adaptation and optimal human functioning actually become realized in practice.
