Implications For Organizational Change Research Articles

Managing public value conflicts – Institutional strategies and the greening of public pension funds

Greening public organizations demands the acknowledgment and reconciliation of tensions and conflicts between core values. This is a challenge that public pension funds have come to face as the call for sustainability has reached the finance sector. Building on the value pluralism debate and institutional theory this article provides a theoretical elaboration of strategies for managing value conflict in public organizations, discussing how value conflict management may promote or inhibit institutional change. The empirical analysis explores how sustainability-related value conflicts are managed within Swedish public pension funds. Political goals and ideals of sustainable finance are pushing funds to promote sustainability through their investments, thus, to consider and promote further values than financial return. Previous research has mainly focused on the financial profitability of sustainability concerns. This study shows that economic value calculation remains the dominant approach within funds, downplaying any conflict between environmental and financial goals. However, to maintain institutional legitimacy under increasing external pressure, the funds have implemented complementary strategies, such as organizational separation of value-related tasks, and different principles for prioritizing value-based actions. The funds thereby avoid ethical reasoning which they fear would lead to subjectivity. In conclusion, the implications for organizational change are discussed.

The Influential Synergy of Social Network Architectural Components on Employees Positivity: A Conceptual Discourse and Implications for Organizational Change

The Influential Synergy of Social Network Architectural Components on Employees Positivity: A Conceptual Discourse and Implications for Organizational Change

Faculty subcultures in engineering and their implications for organizational change

AbstractBackgroundPrior efforts to understand faculty culture have largely described monoliths where individuals are differentiated by their productivity. Little prior work provides rich faculty subcultural descriptions and their connections to specific activities, including disposition to change.Purpose/HypothesisThis article describes the goals, assumptions, methods, and inferences made about faculty culture within an engineering department at a large university with very high research activity, with the potential to enrich future discussions about change among the target audience of engineering faculty, administrators, and researchers.Design/MethodWe employ cultural consensus theory (CCT) to characterize faculty culture, based upon a detailed survey, analysis, and member checking. We use the academic ratchet—as a theoretical framework to interpret CCT results, and extend our understanding using previously published change theories.ResultsWe discovered two faculty subcultures of roughly equal membership: (a) change‐oriented and (b) continuity‐embracing. Members of each subculture agree on the primacy of research but differ in their views of change, leadership, and trust. Members of the change‐oriented subculture seek large‐scale changes but feel disempowered to pursue them, while members of the continuity‐embracing subculture seek modest changes and feel empowered to enact them.ConclusionsWe introduce a scalable, person‐centered culture characterization approach (CCT) to the engineering education research community. This approach deepens our understanding of faculty culture, and our results reinforce the central role of the academic ratchet in shaping faculty activities. This analysis illustrates the potential roles of each subculture in enacting change of various types and magnitudes.

Point: How Family Involvement Influences Organizational Change

ABSTRACTFamily firms tend to exhibit substantial differences in their goals, governance, and resources in comparison to those of non-family firms. In this article, we briefly discuss these differences and their implications for organizational change and change management. We then summarize key findings in the literature pertaining to innovation and succession, two topics that have been extensively investigated and are closely allied to the topics of change and change management in family firms.

Counterpoint: How Heterogeneity Among Family Firms Influences Organizational Change

ABSTRACTKotlar and Chrisman (2018) examine how family involvement influences organizational change resulting in change behaviour distinctive from that of non-family firms. Family firms, however, are heterogeneous in terms of their goals, governance, and resources; therefore, the behavioural distinctions proposed by Kotlar and Chrisman are not common to all family firms. In this article, we briefly discuss these sources of heterogeneity and their implications for organizational change and change management in family firms.

The Cultural Cover-Up of College Athletics: How Organizational Culture Perpetuates an Unrealistic and Idealized Balancing Act

Using a combined grounded theory and case study methodology, Jayakumar and Comeaux examined the role of organizational culture in shaping the lives of college athletes, particularly related to negotiating dual roles as both student and athlete. Data collection involved 20 interviews with athletes and stakeholders in the affairs of intercollegiate athletics at a Division I public university, as well as field observations and document analysis. The story that emerged from this breadth of data corroborates with and is largely told through the powerful counternarrative of one key informant who is a former Division I college athlete. Findings reveal a cultural-cover up imposed by an idealized image of achieving excellence in academics and athletics, that masks inadequate organizational support toward academic success. While academics are espoused as a priority at the university and within an athletic department that features an academic support system (e.g., tutors, computer center), and although the importance of balancing a dual student/athlete role is constantly reinforced verbally, underlying messages and structures push college athletes toward a greater focus on athletics at the expense of their academic futures. Implications for organizational change are discussed.

The Formative Context of Organizational Hierarchies and Discourse: Implications for Organizational Change and Gender Relations

Society as artifact, meaning society as a thing that is made and imagined, is a central aspect of Roberto Unger's constructive social theory. This article develops Unger's social theory, specifically his notions of organizational hierarchy, discourse, and organizational change, and applies it to an understanding of gender relations at work. Constructive social theory is defined with a focus on the instrumental concept of formative context. A critical perspective of Unger's constructive social theory is also presented to illustrate its strengths, challenges and limitations. Drawing on literature from a variety of sources and perspectives, organizational hierarchy, organizational discourse, organizational change and gender relations are viewed through a formative context lens. The concept is then applied as a framework for organizational change through change in organizational discourse, specifically language. Change in organizational discourse through language is utilized as a means of improving gender relations: in particular, the advancement of women in organizations.

Examining Conflict Behaviors among Six Hierarchical Levels: Implications for Organizational Change

Examining Conflict Behaviors among Six Hierarchical Levels: Implications for Organizational Change

Student Entrepreneurs as Agents of Organizational Change and Social Transformation: a Grassroots Leadership Perspective

The purpose of this article is to illustrate organizational change that is created through the grassroots leadership of socially-oriented student entrepreneurs. The implications of organizational change created by such student entrepreneurs who act as bottom-up leaders are explored at the institutional level (single university) and at the field level (higher education sector). The empirical point of analysis is the student-led emergence and establishment of the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) in the Haas School of Business at the University of California – Berkeley. This competition has led to organizational change not only within the university, but also across the global higher education sector through contributions made to a larger student-led movement to influence social change and the betterment of society through entrepreneurship. Student entrepreneurship is explored in the context of a grassroots student movement that sometimes leverages the market and market-like conditions of colleges and universities to create both organizational change and social transformation. This study is particularly relevant to scholars interested in organizational change within contemporary market-oriented environments of higher education and in social movements that involve student leadership.

When craving goodness becomes bad: a critical conception of ethics and aesthetics in organizations

Using critical aesthetics, this paper shows the essential ideological and control linkages between ethics and aesthetics in organizations. Using Kateb's concept of aesthetic cravings, the paper explores the role of emotional and psychological attachments in organizational reality construction and their implications for organizational change and organizational control.

Implementation Of Strategic Management: The Challenges And Implications For Organizational Change

Creativity and innovation is the new game plan inherent in strategic management. Only the discerning organizations can manage the changes and vagaries through the implementation of effective strategic management. This article examines the concept of strategic management and its implication for organizational effectiveness in line with the trend of globalization. African Research Review Vol. 1 (1) 2007: pp. 95-110

A New Curriculum for Surgical Training within the United Kingdom: The First Stages of Implementation

This is the second of 2 articles on the UK’s new surgical curriculum. The first article described the UK curriculum initiative first in terms of the political and professional context for curriculum reform, and second in terms of the development of the curriculum model itself. This article concerns the implementation stage, focusing on evaluation and the implications for organizational change. The article concludes with some lessons that have been learned en route.

A New Curriculum for Surgical Training within the United Kingdom: Context and Model

This is the first of 2 articles on the United Kingdom’s new surgical curriculum. In this article, the UK curriculum initiative is described first in terms of the political and the professional context for curriculum reform, and second in terms of the development of the curriculum model itself. The second article concerns the implementation stage, focusing on evaluation and the implications for organizational change. The article concludes with some lessons that have been learned en route.

Complexidade e seleção: considerações a respeito das implicações para mudança organizacional

Algumas considerações sobre o artigo “Complexidade e seleção: implicações para mudança organizacional” de Sigrid Glenn e Maria Malott são realizadas. Ressalta-se a importância de estabelecer os limites de uma organização, assim como de descrever e classificar contingências complexas envolvidas numa organização. A importância de um enfoque selecionista é ressaltada afirmando a utilidade do conceito de metacontingências. Discute-se também o papel da propaganda na sobrevivência de organizações.

Complexity theories and organizational change

Complexity theory or, more appropriately, theories, serves as an umbrella term for a number of theories, ideas and research programmes that are derived from scientific disciplines such as meteorology, biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Complexity theories are increasingly being seen by academics and practitioners as a way of understanding and changing organizations. The aim of this paper is to review the nature of complexity theories and their importance and implications for organizations and organizational change. It begins by showing how perspectives on organizational change have altered over the last 20 years. This is followed by an examination of complexity theories and their implications for organizational change. The paper concludes by arguing that, even in the natural sciences, the complexity approach is not fully developed or unchallenged, and that, as yet, organization theorists do not appear to have moved beyond the stage of using it as metaphor rather than as a mathematical way of analysing and managing organizations.

Complexity and Selection: Implications for Organizational Change

In this paper, we argue that numerous dynamic entities make up organizations and that their complexity can be described systematically. We identify three types of organizational complexity: environmental, component and hierarchical. We define the elements of the contingencies of cultural selection as they apply to organizations and propose that organizational change can be understood in terms of selection processes that are analogous to those of behavioral and natural selection.

Organizational Commitment and Job Insecurity in a Changing Public Service Organization

This article presents a case study of a large establishment (employing over 600 staff), which had undertaken a planned programme of organizational change. The establishment itself was a particular subunit of a national, public service organization. The case study and related research are used to explore relationships between attitudes to change, organizational commitment, and job insecurity about six months after the initial consultation process had started. Unlike most previous research, which tends to focus on the magnitude of commitment, the interviews and survey were used in part to examine the qualitative nature of commitment. Commitment was found to focus on immediate colleagues, with interviews showing that commitment was seen by staff as being expressed through behavioural indicators such as dependability and enthusiasm. In the survey of 167 employees, it was hypothesized that employees with particularly high or low organizational commitment would express the least need for change (due to either very optimistic or very disillusioned views about the organization). However, those employees with moderate organizational commitment expressed the least need for change in the organization. Reasons for this finding are examined in the article. In addition, it was found that “them and us” attitudes were negatively correlated with organization commitment and with subjective involvement in change. Job insecurity was associated with a greater felt need for change, but also with lower organizational commitment. Implications for organizational change and development are discussed.

Constructing the Green Manager

This article applies a social constructionist approach to senior managers' `green' selves and roles. In a qualitative, empirical study of the UK automotive industry, the social/political contexts of managers' organizational lives are explored as they interact with, and define, the green corporate agenda. Ethical dimensions of environmentalism are stressed – particularly the distinctions and tensions between private moral positions, enacted morality, and the conventional morality as disseminated by the corporation. The study reveals the way different stakeholders are construed, and how `green' territories are contested. The implications for organizational change and strategic formulation are discussed, especially the strengths and limitations of approaching corporate greening from enacted/normative moralities, or from a vision of a substantive transformation of values.

Alternative Workplace Bargaining Frameworks within the Western Australian Public Sector: Implications for Organizational Change

Alternative Workplace Bargaining Frameworks within the Western Australian Public Sector: Implications for Organizational Change

Implementing managed care in a state mental health authority: Implications for organizational change

Abstract Organizational change is a significant challenge facing providers of health services in a rapidly shifting managed care environment. Market forces have driven a massive restructuring of the health care system despite the recent failure of federal reforms. In a highly competitive environment, health care organizations have been forced to develop new techniques and technologies in order to survive. In particular, the advent of managed care has been the catalyst for remarkable changes in the system. While the private sector is not immune to these pressures, managers in the public arena face daunting service, political, and fiscal challenges as they grapple to manage organizational change. What challenges do health care managers face in restructuring a system of care? What key issues must be addressed? What are helpful strategies? What are the pitfalls? How can change be accomplished most effectively? This article addresses these questions by describing the common challenges managers face in the change process, how these key issues were approached strategically by a state mental health authority and the critical role of leadership in producing positive reform. For clarification, case examples are cited. While the restructuring principles and associated steps described occurred within a public mental health department, the central themes are applicable to other organizational settings.