Large-scale Organizational Change Research Articles

EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: NEW INSIGHTS FROM MULTI-LEVEL ANALYSIS OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE PROCESS.

Existing organizational change models have not fully explained the organizational change process, or the relationship between the organizational change process and the inherent individual level and team/group level change processes (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999). Yet, large-scale organizational change does not occur without widespread individual change; that is, employees use different work routines and employ different mental models or values, such as quality or customer service as opposed to efficiency, to guide their actions and behavior. In addition, a given organizational change often has different implications when considered for different groups, departments, or locations. This paper explores the implications of level of analysis for change by addressing three questions: (1) How does the change process vary when considered across levels of analysis? (2) What happens in actual change implementation as change initiatives move across levels of analysis? and (3) What does analysis of the change process across levels of analysis add to our understanding of how to successfully implement change? This study answers these questions by presenting and analyzing a case study and related data from a major organizational change effort involving four separate but intertwined change initiatives in the corporate audit department of one of the twenty largest U.S. banks. The paper discusses three aspects of the organizational change process which need to be more fully understood: the group level and individual level change processes inherent within organizational change, how change initiatives move from one level to another, and change process steps specific to a single level of analysis.

Permissiveness in the learning and development of song syntax in swamp sparrows

Vocal learning in swamp sparrows, Melospiza georgiana , is subject to a host of sensory and motor limitations. One such limitation is that young swamp sparrows almost invariably crystallize their songs with a simple trilled syntax, irrespective of the syntax of vocal models from which they learn. A striking exception to this pattern was recently identified by Podos (1996, Animal Behaviour , 51 , 1061–1070), who found that large-scale organizational changes in vocal syntax, including the production of an intermittent or ‘broken’ syntax, were produced when birds faced limits on vocal performance capacities during motor ontogeny. Our goal in the present study was to determine whether song models with broken syntax could serve as suitable training models for young swamp sparrows, and, if so, if broken syntax could be faithfully reproduced. We hand-reared 10 male swamp sparrows and exposed them to control, rapid and broken song models. Control song models were copied with a high degree of accuracy, as in previous studies. Rapid song models were copied with deficiencies that suggested performance limits on vocal production; such deficiencies included the production of songs with broken syntax and the production of songs in which notes were dropped out as songs progressed. Broken songs proved suitable as training models. Furthermore, copies of broken song models were crystallized either with normal or with broken syntax. These data identify an unexpected direction of permissiveness in the types of songs swamp sparrows will memorize and accurately reproduce, and also point to a possible proximate basis for syntactical changes in the evolution of sparrow songs.

Understanding and Leading Large-Scale Change at the Kennedy Space Center

The paper contributes an alignment framework for understanding and leading a large-scale organizational change or transformation. Engineering managers and change agents can use this framework to engineer a transformation such as downsizing or change in an organization's mission or role. We developed the framework using an applied, action research approach involving interviews with senior management and employee groups from the Kennedy Space Center and organization leaders who have undergone change. A fundamental problem an organization undergoing a transformation deals with is defining and executing the right work the right way with the right people at the right time. We define six high-level steps: develop strategic direction, determine roles, align processes, align resources, align the workforce, and lead the change. We describe potential strategies for accomplishing these steps based on actions the Kennedy Space Center is taking.

Turning a system loose with empowerment: reflections on an intervention in South Africa

Empowerment is a term most misused in today′s business world. This article shows how a firm in South Africa used empowerment to build coherence, clarity, clear direction and identified perimeter′s identified by an executive or leadership team through the use of the 2,000 people in the organization in four weeks. It discusses the use of large scale organizational change initiatives and their use in building empowered systems.

Employee adjustment to large-scale organisational change

The present study was designed to test the utility of a stress-coping model of employee adjustment to organisational change. Specifically, it was proposed that employee adjustment to this type of work stress would be influenced by the characteristics of the change situation, employees' appraisals of the situation, their coping strategies, and the extent of their personal resources. Data were collected from 140 middle managers and supervisors involved in a large-scale public sector integration. The results of the research provided some support for the proposed model: high levels of psychological distress were related to a reliance on informal sources of information, high appraised stress, low appraised certainty, and the use of avoidant rather than problem-focused strategies, whereas poor social functioning was associated with low self-esteem, high levels of disruption across the period of change, a reliance on informal sources of information, and the use of avoidant coping strategies. There was no evidence that coping strategies mediated the effects of the event characteristics, situational appraisals, and personal resources on adjustment; however, there was some evidence linking these variables to coping strategies, in particular, problem-focused coping. There was also some evidence to indicate that the experience of organisational change was different for managers and supervisors: levels of threat were higher for the managers than the supervisors, but there was no difference between the groups of employees in terms of adjustment.

Planning for Complex Change: Insights from the Metro Toronto District Health Council Hospital Restructuring Project

Restructuring and large-scale organizational change have become facts of life in Ontario's health care sector in recent years. Nearly every jurisdiction in Ontario has undergone systemwide hospital restructuring studies, and individual hospitals have increasingly turned to large scale re-engineering processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness. One example of planning for significant change was a hospital restructuring study undertaken by the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council between 1993 and 1995. This article provides an overview of key insights gleaned from the project, including an analysis of the effectiveness and utility of some of the major planning strategies and tactics employed to realize project objectives. Given the organizational, process and communications issues faced by the study, many of the insights provided will be relevant to other groups engaged in planning for large-scale change processes, who face tough decision making in similarly complex environments.

Large-scale organizational and managerial change in health care: a review of the literature.

This paper takes an overview of the organizational and managerial literature on recent large-scale change efforts within health care organizations. Such literature refers to issues of enhanced policy significance, as a succession of such changes has swept through health care, at an international level. Interpretive and case study method have been widely employed in this field. While the literature is emergent, key empirical concerns can be identified: (1) Changing roles and relationships, with the rise of management and the challenge to clinical domination; some argue that radical deprofessionalization now is evident, while others take a more nuanced view. (2) The impact of marketization, with health care becoming more of a commodity; various models of a health care 'quasi market' have been formulated. (3) Understanding the process of change in health care organizations, such as the development of a management of change literature. New theoretical frameworks have been developed, notably 'the reform cycle' as a way of understanding progressive cycles of organizational reform, the impact on health care of the rise of the new public management, and examining the demedicalization thesis through the more generic literature on professions. The paper concludes with a discussion of what this research base could contribute to policy-making.

Impact of organizational redesign.

Little in-depth objective information is available about the outcomes of restructuring or reengineering. One reason for this is the difficulty of conducting traditional research within the context of dynamic organizational development activities. The authors describe an alternative program evaluation approach that proved successful for assessing and enhancing large-scale organizational change in an acute-care medical center. Sample results are presented and recommendations made for increasing an evaluation's usefulness by tailoring reports to the user.

How Departments Change: Windows of Opportunity and Critical Junctures in Three Departments

Despite the difficulty of large-scale organisational change, it is clear that the last 18 years of Conservative government has seen some major changes in both the structures and cultures of government department. This paper examines why and how departments change when they do. Although ministers frequently have explicit intentions to change the cultures of departments, the often fail. The paper suggests that major, cultural reorientations of departments occur at moments when external and internal pressure combine to create ‘windows of opportunity’. Such circumstances enable ministers, with strategic intentions, to impose a new direction on the department. Therefore, their departure from office does not signal the restoration of the old departmental line. This process we call a critical juncture.

Second Nature once Removed

Taking the example of large-scale technological and organizational change in the nineteenth century, it is argued that time and space are reconfigured socially by infrastructural change, and that these reconfigurations are then mirrored in cultural and scientific texts. The key claim is that organization and technology need to be looked at together: dropping out one or the other prevents the uncovering of causal links.

Self-Design for High Involvement: A Large-Scale Organizational Change

We present a case study of a 5-year action research project in a 12-plant division of a multi-billion dollar firm. The division is attempting to design new plants and re-design all established plants as high involvement, high performance work systems (Lawler, 1986). The design process is based on a self-design learning model (Mohrman & Cummings, 1989). The history of the change process and data about its effects are reported. We review in detail how the self-design learning system is shaped by the nature of change in a large, multi-level, multi-site organization. We also consider the unusual role of the action researcher in large-scale change.

Organizational change from the "mom and pop" perspective.

Can hospitals successfully embark on large-scale organizational change without using outside consultants? Nursing administrators have an intense interest in the answer to this question. If change can be designed from inside the organization, the chances are greater that the change will fit better with the organization as a whole, and that buy-in by staff will be significant. The authors review the elements that need to be in place to conduct a successful change process internally, and support their concepts with a case study.

High Performance Work Systems -- The Digital Experience

Part I: Back to the future 1. Buried in the '70s 2. Surfaced in the '80s 3. Managing Change Part II: The Digital Experience 4. Digital's achievement culture 5. Stuffing modules 6. Competitive Organizational Design 7. Pain and rewards 8. Transient structures 9. The high performance experience Part III: The wider relevance 10. The consequences 11. Large scale organizational change 12. The management lessons.

Large-Scale Organizational ChangeLarge-Scale Organizational Change, by MohrmanAllan M.Jr.MohrmanSusan AlbersLedfordGerald E.Jr.CummingsThomas G.LawlerEdward E.IIIand Associates. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989, 314 pp., $28.95, hardcover.

The article reviews the book “Large-Scale Organizational Change,” by Allan M. Mohrman, Susan Albers Mohrman, Gerald E. Ledford, Thomas G. Cummings and Edward E. Lawler.

Large-scale organizational change

Large-scale organizational change

Winning and Losing: Understanding Managers' Reactions to Strategic Change

Managers' interpretation of and reactions to large-scale organizational change that resulted in a new business unit strategy are examined in one firm. We find differences in the configuration of attitudes that predict support for the strategy, depending upon whether the employees gained or lost power and opportunity as a result of the change. Among “winners,” the strongest predictor of support for the new strategy was positive career expectations and current career satisfaction. Among “losers,” the strongest predictor was belief that people had been treated fairly during the change process.

Managing large-scale organizational change

~-.Joday'S business organizations face an era of turbulent change, the sources of which are varied, often unpredictable, and difficult to understand. In the last decade, companies have had to deal with such traumas as dramatic technological shifts (for example, the explosion in electronic capabilities); deregulation in such industries as banking, telecommunications, the airlines, and energy; economic uncertainty; fast growth; increased global competition; and major shifts in demography and values. In his article Lear's Fool: Coping with Change Beyond Future Shock (New Management, Vol. 2, No.2, 1984), D. Verne Morland summarizes the impact of rapid change on organizations:

The Dean's Grant: A Means of Changing Teacher Education Programs

In recent years many teacher education institutions have received federal funds through what has become known as Grants. These grants were intended to foster changes in the preparation of regular class room teachers in order to enhance their ability to work with special needs learners. It is clear that those who conceived of the Dean's Grant program believed there was a need for large scale organizational change in teacher educational institu tions. PL 94-142 had brought a new type of learner into the regular classroom: learners with special needs who had previously been excluded. Many regular classroom teachers lacked the preparation that would help them re spond to these special learners. To change this, it was necessary to influence the college and university teacher education programs (7). Thus we have an externally ini tiated plan for change placed on institutions that tradi tionally consider themselves self-governing.

Reorganization of the National Health Service: Background and Issues in England's Quest for a Comprehensive-Integrated Planning and Delivery System

are involved: the consolidation of the tripartite structure into a single unified system, the strengthening of management processes, and the expansion of machinery for making health services more responsive to local needs. While generally supportive of the reorganization, this assessment of the changes in policy and structure identifies a number of constraints in the form of political realities and organizational-administrative capabilities which may limit the attainment of objectives. In particular, the bias in modern medicine for hospital-based specialization, the uneven power relationships among competing professional interests, and the continued separation of health from social services are seen as restricting policy aimed at altering the balance between primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of care and between curative and carative services. Since the pressures underlying the reorganization of the National Health Service (NHS) reflect the broad changes accompanying social and economic development, such as the aging of the population, the shift from acute to chronic patterns of illness, and the decline in the marginal social benefit of capital-intensive medical technology, England's experience may be relevant to other highly developed countries, both as a field laboratory for the elucidation of alternatives and as a case study of the complexities inherent in any attempt to carry out large-scale organizational change. With the possible exception of Sweden's, the reorganization represents the most ambitious attempt to institute comprehensive health services planning and integrated delivery among Western capitalist countries.