In Pursuit of the Re‐Engineering Agenda in Public Administration

Abstract

The article examines the findings from longitudinal case study work conducted in the 1992‐96 period in two organizations in the United Kingdom health care and post office sectors. The study highlights the many cultural, political and technical issues that emerge in the strategy and implementation of IT‐enabled re‐engineering projects. The radical re‐engineering perspective and model for change presented by Hammer and Champy (1993) are compared against empirical findings. These suggest that the Hammer and Champy advice contains many limitations. The cases show the specific circumstances in which radical re‐engineering can be effective, in managerial terms, but also point to conditions under which a unitary perspective on the organization often cannot address adequately many critical political and cultural issues. Moreover, the case histories point to the dangers of an over reliance on a methodological holism that can rarely be delivered in complex large‐scale organizations, given the scale of change envisaged; and the difficulties engendered by over‐emphasizing the need for transformation, and ‘starting again’, and downplaying the role of history and continuity in both the study and management of organizational change.