Form Of Organizational Change Research Articles

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN THE SERVICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES

The complex and dynamic environment in which modern companies operate requires frequent organizational changes that are used as a mechanism for adapting the company's business to market requirements, in order to improve or maintain a competitive advantage. Mergers and acquisitions, as a complex form of organizational change of companies, represent a relevant problem area of ​​research. Since the success of organizational change depends on two important factors, leaders and employees, the aim of this research is to identify the interdependence of transformational leadership, job satisfaction and commitment to organizational change by employees in the post-acquisition period. The research results show that there is interdependence between transformational leadership, job satisfaction and commitment to organizational change in the post-acquisition period. The empirical research was conducted in 2021, using a survey method. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation and single as well as multiple regression method. A sample of 129 respondents was taken into accounts, who are employed in companies in the Republic of Serbia that have gone through the acquisition process in the last five years.

A Temporal View of the Interplay between Continuous and Episodic Change

Although continuous and episodic change are recognised as salient forms of organizational change, their interplay has so far received little systematic attention. Taking a temporal view, our main c...

The Use of Social Media in Supporting the Development of Open Organizations for Innovation

Open systems theory purports to offer many benefits related to developing an innovative and sustainable organization. In this paper, we examine if collaborative tools afford a move towards a more open‐orientated organizational form that can support innovation capability and the issues that need to be managed in the process. Constructs that characterize open systems are identified from the literature, and these are used to frame the case analyses on the nature of collaborative tools and changing organizational forms. The validity of the open systems concept is explored through an examination of three case studies. Although collaborative tools offer potential organizational benefits, issues exist in relation to its management and use that can circumscribe its impact. Collaborative tools were used in contexts where there was a weak understanding of open systems concepts, and this resulted in a weak conceptual strategy. The lack of methodological guidance on how to use collaborative tools to become more open was a significant issue. The combination of these two issues created a number of implementation problems including lack of widespread participation and an inability to obtain and leverage knowledge via collaborative tools to improve innovation. The paper highlights that a tool‐focused collaborative systems approach produces less effective integration of collaborative tools and creates problems in moving to a more open organizational form. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Procedural justice as a moderator of the relationship between organizational change intensity and commitment to organizational change

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why different forms of organizational change have different levels of organizational intensity, which in turn differentiate its impact on commitment to organizational change (COC). Its purpose is to also identify how procedural justice can reduce change-related stress and buffer the strain inducing effects of job demands.Design/methodology/approachThe authors tested the hypotheses using data collected from two sources in Korea. First, the authors conducted a survey in several organizations to identify employees’ attitudes and stress during organizational change. Second, the author surveyed MBA students to evaluate the degree of organizational change intensity (severity) across the types of change.FindingsThere is a hierarchy of the severity of organizational change and the most severe forms of change are the ones that impact employees’ job security and organizational identity. The influence of job demands (represented as organizational change intensity-severity) on COC can depend on the nature of COC. Procedural justice not only facilitates employees to accept values and goals pertaining to organizational change but also adapt themselves to pressures of external change. Buffering effects of job resources (represented as job resources) had significant impacts only on normative commitment to organizational change (NCOC).Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributes to the job demands-resources model by considering organizational change intensity as job demands and procedural justice as job resources and showing the relationships among them. Future studies can further extend the model by identifying other variables related to job demands and resources during organizational change and extending the nomological networks of NCOC and continuance commitment to organizational change.Practical implicationsThe results of this study provide important insights for human resource managers who plan and implement organizational changes. Procedural justice and organizational change intensity-severity should be considered to increase commitment to change.Originality/valueThis study is one of the few studies to identify the different types of organizational change and quantify them to measure organizational change intensity-severity. A new finding is that the buffering role of job resources (procedural justice in this study) can be marginal when the influence of job demands on employees’ attitudes is strong.

New sources of military change – armed forces as normal organizations

The literature on how European states have adapted to the post-cold war security environment ffocuses invariably on different understandings of military transformation, a process which is seen as inherently different from other forms of organizational change. However, as this paper argues, new management practices, going back to the introduction of so-called New Public Management (NPM) reforms throughout Europe in the 1980s, have eventually penetrated also the last bastion of the old state – the defense sector. Taking a critical approach to the idea of military transformation and existing theories of military change, the paper demonstrates how other international developments have pushed towards what may be seen as a “normalization” of Europe’s defense sectors. This has important implications for how we approach and understand change in contemporary defense organizations.

Reacting and managing: an exploratory study of how middle managers perceive an offshoring decision and implementation program

The paper aims to study the implementation of an offshoring to captive centres initiative from an organisational change and middle management perspective. Middle managers' views are explored in relation to six dimensions of organisational change, summarised on the basis of the change management literature. The study was carried out at the IT Department of a multinational bank in a Nordic country. The findings show that practices within all dimensions were perceived as highly relevant, showing that implementation of an offshoring initiative may be approached in the same manner as other forms of organisational change. Generally, the practices were perceived to be less-than-well executed, and middle managers felt the need to take on some of the practices typically referred to top management. In sum, when middle managers need to give sense to and implement decisions they are struggling to make sense of themselves, this hampers the possibility for a successful implementation.

Learning Is Change: Creating an Environment for Sustainable Organizational Change in Continuing and Higher Education

This article explores the ways in which learning itself is a form of organizational change and, as such, supports organizational readiness for change. The study considers a continuing education unit within a major Canadian university that managed to transform its decentralized and independent student records and administration system (student registration, student financials, student academic records) by merging into the university’s central student management system.The technological implementation and transformation took place over 18 months and was enabled by a series of formal committees and working groups, involving a wide range of members across the university’s communities and within the continuing education unit. The empirical data consist of responses given during in-depth interviews with a set of participants involved in the change initiative and technology implementation. Managers’ reactions to and reflections on organizational change figure prominently in the research findings and discussion.The article aims to show that creating an environment for sustainable organizational change in higher education, and perhaps more generally, is supported by recognizing that learning itself is change, and that workplace learning may therefore help to create organizational readiness for change.

Routine and change: the role of management accounting and control

PurposeThe authors aim to present an overview of the papers in this special issue on the theme of the role of management accounting and control in routine and change in organizations, which arose from the Management Control Association Conference at the University of Greenwich, London, UK in September 2010.Design/methodology/approachThe authors place the research undertaken and the interpretations offered by the authors in the context of ongoing developments in new institutionalism in sociology.FindingsThe authors' review shows that researchers are now exploring routine and change in the context of competitive environments in both the private and the public sector.Originality/valueThe review brings attention to emerging work in the area of management accounting and control that explores change in changing organizational forms.

Creative Projects: A Less Routine Approach Toward Getting New Things Done

This paper presents a framework for action that accounts for both how organizations get routine things done and how they pursue markedly new things through “creative projects.” Based on this framework, organizational routines and creative projects are viewed as two types of action trajectories differing with respect to their repetitiveness. An ethnographic case study of an automotive prototype-purchasing process and two initiatives to redesign that process is used to compare an organizational routine with creative projects occurring within the same organizational setting and to further explicate the framework. Case analysis reveals how projection and planning, as well as combinatorial action, knowledge articulation, and contingency management, unfold differentially in organizational routines and creative projects. This paper contributes to our understanding of different forms of organizational change and innovation. It also provides a framework to examine the role of nonroutine organizing at several levels of organizational analysis and its relationship to more routine forms of organizing.

Post‐merger integration the art and science way

PurposeThis article intends to provide guidance to HR professionals and others involved in the planning and implementation of post‐merger integrations. It seeks to argue that successful integration requires an “art and science” based approach to organizational change, and to illustrate the importance of this approach by drawing on a case study project from the financial services sector.Design/methodology/approachUsing a case study approach, the article describes key learnings from a financial services sector post‐merger integration project in which the author was directly involved. The problems and challenges that arose in the case study organization are described, and it is shown how these were addressed using the “Art and Science of Transformation”TM conceptual approach to achieve a successful integration.FindingsIn the case study project, a lack of detailed integration plans and the absence of integration performance metrics, as well as inadequate understanding of the likely impact of cultural incompatibilities, were identified as representing risks to successful merger. To mitigate these risks, an art‐ and science‐based approach was implemented. This included the development of an integration performance measurement system and a communications strategy, while a phased approach was taken to the integration. Use of the art and science approach to post‐merger integration helped contribute to a financially and operationally successful merger, despite the early risks and the contrasting corporate cultures involved.Research limitations/implicationsThe article is based on a single case study from the Canadian financial services sector, and is written from the perspective of the author, who worked on this project as an external consultant. The specific types of problems and challenges relating to post‐merger integration will vary between organizations and sectors, but the examples discussed in this article are believed to be typical, and of value in demonstrating the importance of an art and science approach to post‐merger integration.Practical implicationsPost‐merger integration represents just one form of organizational change, and the “Art and Science of Transformation” approach is equally relevant and valuable to other types of projects. The evidence from previous research is that a high percentage of organizational transformations fail to meet their objectives or are abandoned before completion, with project failures most often due to a lack of attention to people‐related factors. By adopting the approach discussed in this article, organizations can help to reduce the risk of failure by achieving a good balance between the art and the science of change.Social implicationsUnsuccessful organizational change initiatives are wasteful of financial and human capital resources, and may result in demoralized employees – especially if they feel that their experience and skills are not being effectively utilized in the change initiative. The Art and Science of Transformation approach helps ensure that organizational change initiatives build efficiently and effectively on available human and other organizational resources to achieve positive outcomes.Originality/valueThe Art and Science of Transformation framework was developed by Schroeder & Schroeder Inc. on the basis of its experience of helping organizations achieve successful change. Although other studies have examined the factors associated with successful post‐merger integration using a case study approach, the application of this framework to the post‐merger integration context is unique.

Reconciling Alchian and Penrose: Competitive Strategy, Organizational Capabilities and Firm Performance as Evolutionary Learning

Strategy research has often – though not always – focused on the connections between the elements of strategy, structure, conduct and performance (e.g. Chandler 1962, Rumelt 1974). However, issues in competitive strategy research are how to link individual-level perceptions and actions to firm-level strategic actions and these with the resulting effects on firm performance. These are usually empirically analyzed using statistical methods relating firm-level, business unit and (top-)management characteristics as proxies for effects and inferred causal relations on performance. However, the link remains weak in that the myriad of actions taken by actors in companies is usually not linked to performance effects either on the company or business unit level even today, even decades after criticizing this approach (e.g. Miller 1979). We require a genetic framework for a causal theory of the interactions between actors' mental representations and their actions that is measurable - as demanded by Low and Macmillan (1988) and reiterated about a decade later by Aldrich and Martinez (2001). The interactions of social actors and events in and outside of organizations play a crucial role in this. For instance, Mintzberg (1994) has argued that a companies´ realized strategy is the outcome of the interaction between the intended and an emergent strategy resulting from the tension between deliberate (planned) strategy and the impact of environmental forces. This process results in evolutionary paths of strategy-making behaviour and resultant outcomes, following patterns developed in the past, getting stuck in dead ends or exploring new domains or forms of organizational change (Meyer, Gaba and Colwell 2005). While it may be desirable to disentangle myriads of individual actions and link them to their performance effects, e.g. via approaches such as strategy-as-practice (Whittington 1996, Hendry 2000) in the long run, on a shorter time horizon, it may be helpful to focus on the observation of meso-level interactions between individual strategic actions and performance outcomes using constructs such as ‘routines’ and ‘dynamic capabilities’. Thus for instance, Rumelt (1991) has called for an evolutionary approach to the analysis of the development of industries, Teece (1994), and Teece, Pisano and Shuen (1997) have argued for the existence of dynamic capabilities affecting firm performance and linking these to evolutionary ideas (Teece 2007). Likewise, Winter and Nelson's (1982) routines have been used to explain the stability in firm behavior affecting performance. And indeed, on the macro-level of observed outcomes, an evolutionary approach to strategy can build on the knowledge developed in ecology and evolutionary theory (e.g. Hannan and Freeman 1989, Nelson and Winter 1982), as well as linking routines to to dynamic capabilities (Zollo and Winter 2002) on an explanatory meso-level. Thus, while it is usually argued that evolutionary approaches to social phenomena on the aggregate level can be useful to get to grips with change and development processes, here it is argued that an evolutionary approach to social phenomena is particularly useful on a micro-level. This approach allows to counter criticisms of the application of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary concepts that neglect intentionality and complexity of social interactions.

The Role of “Hybrid” NGOs in the Conservation and Development of Palawan Island, The Philippines

The rapid rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines has reflected a regional trend toward the “democratization” of conservation and development on behalf of the rural poor when the state falls short. This article examines how this trend has manifested itself among the indigenous peoples of Palawan Island and how, despite best intentions, project delivery by “hybrid” NGOs—changing organizational forms with multiple objectives and functions—has often yielded unsustainable and culturally damaging outcomes. We draw on ethnographic research among the Tagbanua and Batak peoples to examine recent claims of broad NGO success in achieving community empowerment and forest conservation on Palawan. We support our argument by examining case studies in which NGOs and state failures to properly engage traditional livelihoods have reinforced outsider control over indigenous needs and aspirations.

Professional competition and modernizing the clinical workforce in the NHS

Located within a debate about changing organizational forms and new workforce roles this article provides an analysis of policy attempts to modernize the healthcare workforce. Theoretically, the article draws upon sociology of professions literature to focus upon competition within and between professions that impacts upon new roles in the NHS for doctors, designed to combine specialist and generalist knowledge and cross organizational and professional boundaries. The article highlights that attempts by policy-makers to reconfigure the clinical workforce may be constrained due to attempts at occupational closure by more powerful professional groups and by associated concerns about professional identities.

An organisational behaviour perspective: current issues in the organisation, management and politics of primary care.

An organisational behaviour perspective: current issues in the organisation, management and politics of primary care.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Social Movements in Organizations

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Social Movements in Organizations

On virtual communities: individual motivations, reciprocity and we-rationality

Within knowledge-based economies, one of the major forms of organisational change concerns the impact of the introduction and dissemination of information and communication technologies on markets, consumers and firms. The existence of virtual or ‘electronic’ communities is one of the main consequences of this impact. In this context, the main purpose of this article is to answer the following questions: Why do firms and consumers take part in these communities? Are they driven by the usual or by more specific motivations based on reciprocity or we-rationality? Do these potentially new types of organisation and interaction, and new motivations change the working and the dynamics of our economic systems?

Active on the Job—Proactive in Change

Two separate samples of a hospital's employees ( N = 166 and 133) obtained at different points in time are used to test a structural equation model of the developmental and socializing effects autonomy at work has on employees' proactivity and its resultant impact on their support for organizational change. In both samples, autonomy positively affected employee role breadth self-efficacy and personal initiative, which in turn had positive though differential relationships with employee responses to change. The model fitting each cross-sectional sample is supported in a third separate, longitudinal sample ( N = 74) of participants in both surveys. Results indicate that the proactivity characteristic of workers enjoying on-the-job autonomy promotes their positive responses to structural change. Promoting worker autonomy itself can be a critical precursor to successful implementation of certain forms of organizational change.

A case study of a merger in Chinese higher education: The motives, processes, and outcomes

This paper examines an institutional merger taking place in Chinese higher education beginning from 1994. Using the case study method, the paper examines the pre-merger planning, the post-merger integration process, and the outcomes of the merger. The paper argues that a number of major external and internal factors have led to the decision to merge. The planning and implementation of the merger was largely a top-down process and subject to political intervention. One of the most prominent issues identified in this case is the difficulty of building a unified identity for the new institution as was reflected in the controversies and fights about the name of the new institution. The case studied provides a good example and valuable lessons to higher education institutions considering merger or other forms of organizational change.

The Fragmentation of a Railway: A Study of Organizational Change

abstract This paper considers pathways of organizational change within British Rail (BR) during its long period of commercialization culminating in privatization. TheLaughlin (1991) andParker (1995a) frameworks are used to demonstrate how a new interpretative scheme supplanted the previous interpretative scheme within BR between the 1970s and privatization in the mid‐1990s, leading to a fragmented organization. BR did not survive and privatization of Britain's railways remains controversial. The study demonstrates that without the earlier changes in interpretive scheme from ‘social railway’ to ‘business railway’ to ‘profitable business’, and the associated changes in design archetypes and sub‐systems, privatization would have been both less tempting and less feasible. It is intended that the approach developed here to analyse organizational change in BR should be applicable to the study of other privatizations and to other forms of organizational change in both the public and private sectors.

The impact of organizational change on the perceptions of UK managers

Redundancy, delayering, downsizing, and various other forms of organizational change have become increasingly prevalent. This article focuses on the impact of different forms of organizational change on managers' perceptions of the organizations they work within and the comparison between changes that involve redundancy and/or delayering and those that do not involve such changes. The literature has many accounts of the negative effects associated with redundancy and delayering, but are these effects unique to these types of change or are they a consequence of negative experiences of a range of organizational changes? Hypotheses were tested to assess, first, whether there are differences between different levels of management, notably between directors and nondirectors in the way they perceive organizational change, second, to assess how change has affected managers' perceptions of their organizations and their working lives, and third, to explore if different forms of change are associated with differences in managers' perceptions of their organizations “as a place to work”. Hypotheses were tested with data from a cross-sectional survey with 830 managers from the UK. Organizational changes include cost reduction and culture change programmes, delayering, mergers/demergers, outsourcing, redundancy programmes, and contract/ temporary workers. The analyses reported here indicate clearly that specific forms of change are associated with managers' reports of their experiences at work; some forms of change (notably redundancy and delayering) seem to have particularly damaging implications for managers' experiences in the workplace. The analyses also show that there is a difference in the way directors and nondirectors perceive the changes. Finally, the article considers strategies for ameliorating the effects of change including the role of HR.