External Drivers Of Change Research Articles

Change competence: An integrative literature review.

Organizations are in a state of continual evolution, driven by the relentless shifts in their external environments. Numerous theories have been proposed to understand the essential skills and capabilities for successful organizational change. Yet, there remains a gap in capturing a holistic view necessary to fully comprehend the dynamics of competence in today's rapidly changing landscape. This research aims to explore and consolidate the concept of 'competence' in the context of organizational change processes. Employing an integrative literature review approach, a total of 3,230 studies were screened. Out of these, 32 studies were selected based on strict relevance and quality criteria, providing a robust foundation for the analysis. The findings reveal a multi-layered nature of organizational change, highlighting that the nature and prerequisites of change vary significantly across different organizational levels. By applying a competence lens, we discern how required competence during change are not uniform but rather vary depending on whether they are applied in an operational or strategic context. This demonstrates a nuanced, level-dependent variability in change competence across the organizational hierarchy. We conceptualize 'change competence' as a dual-faceted construct. It encompasses both the capacity to leverage existing organizational competence and the adeptness to develop new competence, thereby meeting the evolving demands imposed by both internal and external drivers of change. This comprehensive understanding paves the way for more effective strategies in managing organizational change.

The implementation of the reporting radiographer role in Saudi Arabia to facilitate the reporting service: a plan for change

The reporting radiographer role was initially developed to support the more timely provision of imaging reports to optimize the diagnosis and management of diseases and conditions and to protect patient safety by minimizing the risk of adverse events associated with delays in treatment. There have been reported deficiencies in timely image interpretation in Saudi Arabia, primarily due to insufficient numbers of trained radiologists and other image interpretation specialists, which may negatively affect patient care. The present review aimed at providing the background rationale for an area of practice change in Saudi Arabia, which is the implementation of a reporting radiographer role. An electronic literature search was conducted from 2005 to 2021 on the MEDLINE database for relevant research discovered using keywords such as Implementation, Reporting, Radiographer, Role, reporting service, and Saudi Arabia. On Google Scholar, similar keywords were used to search for and discover comparable papers. The articles were picked using specific inclusion criteria. The studies in this review were published between 2002 and 2022. This work has provided an overview of the evidence base about the utility of reporting radiographers as a rationale for the discussed change process - to implement a reporting radiographer role in Saudi Arabian hospitals. Several change management considerations have been discussed to affect this process, including the internal and external drivers of change, stakeholder and force field analysis, and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, supported by Lewin's change model and the National Health Service Sustainability model. Finally, the reflective component identified the key learning points for planning and implementing change, which will be used in the authors' future practice to support other change initiatives.

‘The ghost of environmental history’: Analysing the evolving governance of communal rangeland resources in Machubeni, South Africa

AbstractThe need to effectively govern and manage communal rangeland resources has become more important over the past two decades, given the extent of biodiversity loss caused by a myriad of drivers interacting at different scales.Using in‐depth interviews, participant observations and historical information from organisational records, we analysed the application of governance objectives between 1947 and 2017 and their corresponding rangeland condition outcome in Machubeni (South Africa) communal lands.The results show that while the application of governance objectives varied through time, there has been a steady degradation of local rangeland resources since apartheid, due to internal and external drivers of change. This reveals a disconnection between management and resource conditions, suggesting that a return to effective governance alone will not necessarily result in improved rangeland condition in Machubeni, but that more radical steps such as prolonged periods of resting, reseeding and building individual and group agency, are needed. These findings can help practitioners working in post‐colonial territories to design effective rangeland management models.Read the freePlain Language Summaryfor this article on the Journal blog.

A comprehensive assessment framework for attributing trends in streamflow and groundwater storage to climatic and anthropogenic changes: A case study in the typical semi‐arid catchments of southern India

AbstractThe clearest signs of hydrologic change can be observed from the trends in streamflow and groundwater levels in a catchment. During 1980–2007, significant declines in streamflow (−3.03 mm/year) and groundwater levels (−0.22 m/year) were observed in Himayat Sagar (HS) catchment, India. We examined the degree to which hydrologic changes observed in the HS catchment can be attributed to various internal and external drivers of change (climatic and anthropogenic changes). This study used an investigative approach to attribute hydrologic changes. First, it involves to develop a model and test its ability to predict hydrologic trends in a catchment that has undergone significant changes. Second, it examines the relative importance of different causes of change on the hydrologic response. The analysis was carried out using Modified Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), a semi‐distributed rainfall‐runoff model coupled with a lumped groundwater model for each sub‐ catchment. The model results indicated that the decline in potential evapotranspiration (PET) appears to be partially offset by a significant response to changes in rainfall. Measures that enhance recharge, such as watershed hydrological structures, have had limited success in terms of reducing impacts on the catchment‐scale water balance. Groundwater storage has declined at a rate of 5 mm/y due to impact of land use changes and this was replaced by a net addition of 2 mm/y by hydrological structures. The impact of land use change on streamflow is an order of magnitude larger than the impact of hydrological structures and about is 2.5 times higher in terms of groundwater impact. Model results indicate that both exogenous and endogenous changes can have large impacts on catchment hydrology and should be considered together. The proposed comprehensive framework and approach demonstrated here is valuable in attributing trends in streamflow and groundwater levels to catchment climatic and anthropogenic changes.

Understanding the professional identities of PVCs education from academic development backgrounds

ABSTRACT Over the past two years, four research-intensive universities in the UK have appointed senior academic leaders from academic development backgrounds, a new phenomenon in this sector of UK higher education that may suggest a changing pattern. This study interviewed these four leaders to explore what the appointment means for their academic identity. The interviewees identified internal and external drivers for change and noted their backgrounds as academic developers made their routes into these senior roles different from their peers. For this reason, their ‘academic credibility’ was critical in order to implement culture change effectively.

Contextualizing Scenarios to Explore Social-Ecological Futures: A Three Step Participatory Case Study for the Humboldt Current Upwelling System

In the face of global change, the exploration of possible futures of marine social-ecological systems (MSES) becomes increasingly important. A variety of models aims at improving our understanding of ecosystem dynamics and complexities by assessing how systems react to internal and external drivers of change. However, these models are often built from a natural-science perspective through a reductionist and top-down knowledge production process that does not engage with the interests, concerns and knowledge of stakeholders. Our work explores different futures of the Peruvian MSES tied to the Humboldt Current Upwelling System (HCUS) through a sequential integrative participatory scenario process. The methodology used opens novel ways to explore, at different contextual levels, the uncertainties of the future and, in doing so, to include diverging world views of different actors. This approach implies a broader social processing of scientific projections about the future and encourages the articulation of different notions of sustainability. We thereby contribute to current scientific discussions on scenario planning in MSES by exploring potential futures through the analysis of narratives, a process that helps to identify plausible future development pathways that can inform different types of ecosystem modelling or policy making.

A Dynamic Change Perspective on how Employees Make Sense of Technology-driven Organizational Change

This paper aims to explore the dynamics of the emerging employee perception and response to the process of technology-driven organizational change. The study follows a grounded theory approach, and uses Critical Incident Technique to capture the recollection of events over time within the process of business transformation. Findings suggest a ten-stage change process in the development of emerging and changing employee perceptions and responses. Moreover, a particularly salient focus on internal changes emerged in the perspective of employees, whereas management focuses on external drivers of change, which effectively created two separate realities, hampering the success of the change processes. Furthermore, we see that employees start off organizational change with a positive change perception, which then seems to shift at the start of the actual implementation of change with the process ending on strong negative perception and responses during the evaluation phase. This study contributes to the body of organizational change literature by taking an intra-individual dynamic approach to studying employee perceptions, and responses to, change using a process-perspective. Second, by collecting data in a highly volatile, digitalizing environment which is exemplary for contemporary global business developments, the findings add to the understanding of change-related employee behavior.

Australasian Forensic Science Summit 2016: external environments towards 2030

The Australasian Forensic Science Summit was held in Canberra on 7–8 December 2016 to discuss the future challenges, changes and developments for forensic science. Practitioners, academics and stakeholders gathered to discuss the various issues within one of five working groups. The External Environments working group discussed the external drivers for change, impacts of legislation and policy and the relationship between forensic science, policing and the courts. This article presents the outcomes of the discussions, which culminated in the development of statements designed to direct and stimulate further discussions and work in the development of forensic science in Australia and New Zealand towards 2030.

Quality and future of clinical laboratories: the Vico's whole cyclical theory of the recurring cycles.

In the last few decades, laboratory medicine has undergone monumental changes, and laboratory technology, which has made enormous advances, now has new clinical applications thanks to the identification of a growing number of biomarkers and risk factors conducive to the promotion of predictive and preventive interventions that have enhanced the role of laboratory medicine in health care delivering. However, the paradigm shift in the past 50 years has led to a gap between laboratory and clinic, with an increased risk of inappropriateness in test request and interpretation, as well as the consolidation of analytical work in focused factories and megastructurers oriented only toward achieving greater volumes, decreasing cost per test and generating a vision of laboratory services as simple commodities. A careful historical revision of the changing models for delivering laboratory services in the United States leads to the prediction that there are several reasons for counteracting the vision of clinical laboratory as a commodity, and restoring the true nature of laboratory services as an integral part of the diagnosis and therapy process. The present study, which reports on internal and external drivers for change, proposes an integrated vision of quality in laboratory medicine.

The Italian Welfare State in the Crisis: Learning to Adjust?

After a decade of inertia, that left it unprepared to withstand the blow of the great recession, the Italian welfare state has witnessed significant changes since 2012. Externally driven consolidation in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis spurred yet another wave of social policy reforms after that of the 1990s. These reforms did not however invariably entail retrenchment. Both the Monti and the Renzi governments combined liberalisation with expansion of social rights, particularly in income support. As a result, the Italian welfare state looks more comprehensive than it was before the crisis. At the same time, there was no overall strategy of welfare modernisation based on coordinated social investment measures. The changes in Italian social policy since the outburst of the great recession highlight the importance of domestic politics interacting with external drivers of change. They also facilitate an assessment of the opportunity structures for further reforms in a political system that appears to be veering again towards consensus democracy.

On the Frontlines: Perspectives of Providers Working With Homeless Women.

Homeless service providers (HSPs) are on the frontlines of caring for the most vulnerable populations to help them navigate out of homelessness and access health and social services. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand, from the perspectives of HSPs ( N = 19; age range, 27-58 years; SD = 10.37), their account and experiences in working with homeless women (HW), and opportunities for intervention development and integration. Five focus groups were conducted with HSPs in Central City East, Los Angeles. Five main themes emerged which included (a) seeking to establish a therapeutic relationship, (b) internal and external drivers of change, (c) navigating systems, (d) targeted outreach, and (e) program design recommendations. Within these themes, individual- and structural-level characteristics emerged. To better equip HW, HSPs' perspectives need to be considered in future interventions to aid women traverse homelessness.

A human rights foundation for ethical mental health practice

There are close links between clinical ethics, human rights and the lived experience of mental illness and mental health care. Principles of professional ethics, national mental health legislation and international human rights conventions all address these themes in various ways. Even so, there are substantial deviations from acceptable standards at certain times, resulting in significant violations of rights in the developing and developed worlds. An explicitly human rights-based approach has improved matters in, for example, Scotland. External drivers of change, such as legislation, standards, codes of practice, inspections and sanctions for violations, are all needed. Attitudes and culture are also critical drivers of change. Most importantly, the principles and values of ethical, human rights-based professional practice need be taught and modelled throughout professional careers. Ongoing training in this area should form a central element of programmes of continuing professional development, delivered by people with expertise and understanding, including service users.

Contribution of Subsidies and Participatory Governance to Fishers' Adaptive Capacity

The need for strengthening fishers' adaptive capacity has been proposed in the literature as an important component of effective fisheries governance arrangements in the presence of rising numbers of external drivers of change. Within the context of small-scale fisheries, government subsidies have been the main tool used for increasing adaptive capacity. We examine the relationship among adaptive capacity, subsidy programs, and fishers' participation in fisheries management, as a potentially important mediating factor affecting outcomes using a data set from two periods of a fishing community in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our results show a correlation between those fishers with access to decision-making venues and their reception of subsidies, yet the effect of participation and subsidies on fishers' adaptive capacity is limited. This appears to be due to the authorities' lack of commitment to strengthening fishers' adaptive capacity through subsidies programs, and fishers' lack of trust in the governance processes.

Following Doctors’ Orders: Organizational Change as a Response to Human Capital Bargaining Power

Organizational change is facilitated by both internal and external factors, yet little is known about how they might be linked. Through a case study of one hospital’s change from a nonprofit to a nonprofit/for-profit organizational structure, we find that human capital bargaining power is a key mechanism that integrates internal and external drivers of change. However, a paradox surfaces whereby the strength of the bargaining power can force structural changes that may be counterproductive. Our results show that human capital bargaining power is a “double-edged sword,” shifting the governance structure to benefit those with power by providing additional rents, but creating challenges for the ongoing management and retention of such valuable human capital. Our findings have implications for the long-term survival of talent-intensive organizations where human capital bargaining power is strong.

How Colleges Change: Understanding, Leading, and Enacting Change by Adrianna Kezar (review)

Reviewed by: How Colleges Change: Understanding, Leading, and Enacting Change by Adrianna Kezar Chris Mayer, Ph.D. Adrianna Kezar. How Colleges Change: Understanding, Leading, and Enacting Change. New York, NY: Routledge, 2014. 257 pp. Paper: $47.45. ISBN 978-0-415-53206-8. Internal and external forces continue to push for change in higher education. Political leaders, the public, and foundations advocate for lower tuition and higher quality; boards of trustees and accreditors also serve as catalysts for change. Additionally, administrators, faculty, and staff seek better ways to promote student learning and more effectively accomplish their institution’s missions. Yet, despite all of this desire for change and, ultimately, improvement, enacting change is extremely difficult. Many proposed initiatives are not implemented. Even when they are implemented, many initiatives fail to achieve their desired results. Adrianna Kezar highlights this reality when she notes that there are “high failure rates (upward of 70 percent in most studies) of change initiatives” (p. xvi); this is one of the reasons her book, How Colleges Change: Understanding, Leading, and Enacting Change, is a must read for practitioners, policy makers, and scholars. Kezar is a Professor of Higher Education at the University of Southern California and Co-Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education, who has been a prolific contributor to the scholarship on change in higher education. In discussing why she wrote the book, Kezar notes that while there are numerous books addressing the topic of change, a good deal of them focus on business or other areas rather than higher education. She also notes that practical works on change are often too simplistic and not grounded in scholarship; they often rely too much on anecdotes (xv). On the other hand, scholarly work is often too complex or abstract to be used by practitioners and policy makers; it is not comprehensible by those who lack a solid grounding in the scholarship of change. Recognizing this gap, Kezar writes that “few books are able to successfully join theory with practice and make concepts accessible to policymakers and practitioners, yet still complex enough for scholars. I hope this book achieves that level of blended theory and practice” (p. xi). Kezar, for the most part, achieves this goal. In the Preface, Kezar explains what she means by change by distinguishing it from adaption, isomorphism, organizational change, innovation, and reform. She defines change as “those intentional acts where a particular leader drives or implements a new direction” (p. xii). It is important to note that later in the Preface she shifts to the term “change agent,” rather than leader, “to signal that anyone can create change” (p. xvii). After she defines change, she presents four mistakes leaders make that result in failed change efforts and discusses the outline of a framework for a more effectively means of implementing change at higher education institutions. Chapter 1 identifies internal and external drivers of change in higher education. These eight forces range from the importance of higher education to the global economy to the increasing diversity of the student bodies on campuses. This discussion, while certainly not inclusive of all of the drivers of change and not an in-depth discussion of each, provides the reader insight as to why the ability to effectively implement change is essential for higher education institutions. Kezar presents six theories of change in Chapter 2. This twenty-page chapter provides a brief [End Page 167] description of each theory and includes numerous citations that provide the opportunity for readers to explore those theories in greater depth. Recognizing that many readers will be unfamiliar with these theories, Kezar provides a helpful table that highlights essential characteristics of each of the six theories related to questions such as why change occurs, the type of change that the theory addresses, and strengths and weaknesses associated with each theory. Arguing that that change agents often make the mistake of treating all change initiatives the same, Kezar identifies different types of change in Chapter 3. The chapter includes discussions on the content, scope, levels, focus, forces, and sources of change. Change agents are urged to analyze proposed changes using these categories to determine which theories apply to a specific initiative...

Beyond the Metropolis—Regional Globalisation and Town Development in India: An Introduction

Despite the rapid transformation of India over the past 25 years and a swathe of publications dealing with the impact of globalisation on the culture and economy of the subcontinent, and on its large metropolitan cities, we contend that relatively far less is known about the regional impacts of globalisation and the localised impacts of neo-liberal development policies. Significantly, we seek to understand and analyse how globalisation is transforming smaller, regional towns in India. Based on social scientific research exploring the development and changes taking place in two distinctive, middle towns—Anand, Gujarat and Darjeeling, West Bengal—we highlight the social and political forces at work that are re-making these towns, the local issues residents contend with, and the external drivers of change that influence the unique growth and development of these towns.

Organizational Studies in Higher Education: A Reflection on Historical Themes and Prospective Trends

Drawing from a seminal article by Burton Clark that appeared in 2004 in Higher Education Policy, this paper examines the influence of organization studies in higher education policy research over the last 25 years and highlights the potential contributions for future inquiry. It argues that analysis has mainly tackled policy reforms and their impact on universities and colleges. In so doing scholars have focused on external drivers of change, specifically on policy change, and on their structural impact. Hence research in higher education has somewhat neglected the complex reality of the university as an organization possessing its own structures, cultures and practices. This implies that national policy agendas have dominated organizational research in higher education, while the views of practitioners such as institutional managers and administrators have not been sufficiently addressed. By calling for an increased focus on the university as an organization, the article discusses the need to systematize organizational research around distinctive analytical dimensions. It finally proposes a research agenda tackling various aspects of organizational change in higher education.

Producing nature and enacting difference in ecosystem-based fisheries management: An example from the Northeastern US

The science and management of marine resources is increasingly grappling with the use of ecosystem-based fisheries management. Though ecosystem-based fisheries management seeks to unite biological and sociocultural concerns into a holistic framework, people are often seen simply as external drivers of change. The technical questions that are often posed, such as the delineation of boundaries or the strategies of governance, are however more broadly questions concerning the social production of nature. This paper explores these issues by analyzing both the spatial fishing practices of different fishermen and the results of a series of workshops held in New England to solicit opinions about ecosystem-based fisheries management. The paper emphasizes teasing apart the human dimensions of fishing embedded in predominant notions such as fishing effort through more explicit consideration of spatially based resource dependencies and mutual constitution of society-nature.

Industrial information programs in Korea: an overview

PurposeThis paper seeks to provide an overview of industrial information programs in Korea and to describe the databases, service contexts, document supply services and issues in the field.Design/methodology/approachPresents the current status, practical issues and vision for the development and access to industrial information programs. Focuses on the external drivers of change and the strategic issues, in particular for industrial information and document supply services.FindingsRecognizes the problem of access, the need for a long‐term strategy and cooperation, an effective document supply service and makes proposals for the future of industrial information programs in Korea.Originality/valueOffers a practical source of information and issues. Advises any organization to design an extensible, collaborative and integrated industrial information program.

The British Library and Document Supply

This paper summarizes the history of the development of the British Library's document supply services, a function for which Dr Maurice Line was responsible as a Director General in the British Library from 1974 to 1988. During its 45–year history, the service has fulfilled over 100 million requests and has responded to over 20,000 customers in 130 countries. While demand has slowed in recent years due to major changes in the way information is disseminated and accessed, in terms of both volume and revenue the British Library remains the world's largest document supplier, and the centralized service remains an invaluable underpin to the UK information infrastructure and retains widespread support from customers and stakeholders, invaluable and essential in terms of sustaining the breadth of access to journal articles. The paper also focuses on the external drivers of change and current developments in the service.