Organizational Change Theory Research Articles

Development and Validation of the International Extension Network Advocacy Capacity Scale

Extension is sometimes viewed globally as less important than academic research and innovation, even though these networks are crucial to agricultural development. Using Lewin’s (1947) organizational change theory as a conceptual background, an instrument to measure advocacy capacity within international extension networks was developed. The resulting scale was analyzed for content validity, response process validity, internal structure validity, and consequential validity. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on the proposed scale. The underlying structure of the scale was found to load onto five factors. The five extracted factors were labelled: 1) network support of advocacy, 2) network integration of advocacy, 3) network influence in advocacy, 4) network visibility in advocacy, and 5) network advocacy performance. The overall International Extension Network Advocacy Capacity (IENAC) scale, and associated subscales were all found to have acceptable levels of validity.

Developing and Leading Ambidextrous Teams: A Team-Centric Framework of Ambidexterity in Volatile Environments

ABSTRACT To meet the adaptive challenges of rapidly changing environments, leaders of organizational teams and team-based entities can leverage the powerful dynamic capabilities of ambidexterity to achieve sustainable innovation and longterm adaptation. This conceptual inquiry focuses on the special characteristics of teams and teamwork, and how those can afford dynamic potential for achieving ambidexterity. Teams intrinsically function dynamically as integrative adaptive systems. Teams hold unique advantages for sensing and seizing new opportunities, and for reallocating taskwork and reconfiguring resources. Such advantages enable teams to more effectively align and balance exploration and exploitation for sustained innovation and successful adaptation. This inquiry draws from existing studies of dynamic capabilities and ambidexterity, and integrates that research with the well-established literature on teams and teamwork. This study examines the key processes and dynamics of team ambidexterity. The study synthesizes, and proposes a systems model that indicates team-centric mechanisms and dynamic linkages by which ambidexterity can operate as dynamic capabilities within teams. The analysis and model add to the development of organizational change theory and orients future studies of ambidexterity at meso level. This inquiry also benefits organizational leaders by providing valuable insights and practical tools for developing, leading, and supporting teams that can perform effectively under turbulent conditions.

Issues and Implications of Readiness to Change

In light of readiness to change, organizational readiness has received little attention with the extensive assessment of individual readiness to change. (1) Background: Therefore, this conceptual paper aims to address the need for change at the organizational level through the lenses of Lewin theory, organizational change theory, and social exchange theory. It will identify issues and implications in readiness to change at the organizational level; (2) Methods: The primary method used in the study was mainly a literature review to add neglected factors driving change such as contextual factors and technology. (3) Results: The paper shows how various players and other determinants of successful change implementation can derail the organization’s readiness to embrace change. (4) Conclusions: The paper adds to the available knowledge on how technology is likely to affect organizational willingness to change. The study suggests various solutions that seek to address the issues on organizational readiness to change. Hence, this study may provide organizational managers with takeaway implications on change management for policymakers and practitioners to improve an organization’s preparedness towards change implementation.

Reflections on change theory and community-based participatory action research: Congruent, similar or different?

While change is acknowledged as integral to all action research, literature linking the theories of change theoretically merits exploration. Are some theories of change more congruent to principles of action research than others? Does congruence depend on which type of action research and which change theory are being compared? During the implementation of a four-cycle community-based participatory action research (CBPR) project in nursing education in Ghana, such questions arose. This paper is an attempt to grapple with those questions. While Kotter’s eight-step theory of organizational change was chosen to guide this study, it became obvious that various elements of change theories were integrated in the study as it progressed. For Kotter’s organizational change theory to serve as an effective guide for the implementation cycles in the CBPR project, it must be conducted through the lens of critical social theory and a perspective on social and cultural change.

The Natural Science Collections Facility: Building community with South African museums and herbaria

The Natural Science Collections Facility (NSCF) is a South African initiative to develop a network of museum and herbarium institutions, to secure the collections under their care, and to ensure collections are used for research that is relevant to local and global priorities. A key component of the NSCF work is community building. In the past, institutions have operated independently and fall under a range of national, provincial, and local governance structures. Many collections are understaffed and resources for collections care are limited. Differing organizational cultures, histories, and sometimes individual personalities, present significant obstacles to transformation, network building and progress. In 2018, shortly after its inauguration, transformation consultants joined the NSCF to facilitate the community building process. Emphasis shifted away from a purely business-oriented focus to a ‘softer’, people-centric orientation. The consultants introduced a wide range of social technologies such as meeting check-ins, active listening, rich pictures and a range of tools from the Liberating Structures framework, as well as new leadership paradigms and a new theory of organizational change to catalyze transformation from the bottom up. Importantly, the change paradigm is non-deterministic, and removes any requirements for goals, objectives, and timelines. Instead it prioritizes change that arises organically and spontaneously as a result of greater interpersonal engagement, breaking down barriers imposed by traditional hierarchy, bringing previously unheard voices to the fore, and engaging deeply with difficult, uncomfortable problems. Given South Africa’s socio-political history, race is one such difficult problem and remains a central topic in this transformation journey. Race-related problems are still deeply entrenched within South African institutions and often reflect historical privilege of whites over people of colour despite extensive equity target-based efforts to address them. The NSCF transformation process has highlighted the importance of confronting these issues, which are often opaque to historically privileged groups within organizations. Given the sensitivity of such issues, processes of engaging with them are deep, must be appropriately contained, and focus on uncovering new insights and illuminating new information or points of view. The community building process has in many ways been successful. A sense of community and camaraderie has developed amongst a significant portion of staff members in participating institutions and has been evidenced through the support provided to each other during the COVID19 pandemic, extent of engagement in NSCF social media platforms, and the general tone and atmosphere of meetings and workshops. There are still challenges though and some members and sectors in the community remain disengaged. Key lessons have been the importance of having professional consultants to lead community building and transformation initiatives of this scale; the need for people to open their minds and hearts to a transformation process and to expect to have their assumptions, prejudices and standpoints challenged despite the discomfort they may feel; and new understanding of the time and investment needed to truly improve and integrate existing communities and networks. A key component of the NSCF process has been engaging on matters relating to specimen data, and particularly data sharing. Perspectives within the community vary widely, from those who believe data should be published openly as a matter of obligation, to those who believe that protecting their data is necessary to maintain their competitive advantage within the wider scientific community. It is apparent that many of the concerns around data sharing relate to the lack of skills in museum staff to clean, prepare, and publish their data. Since open data publication is one of the central goals of the NSCF, these are key topics that we return to repeatedly during the transformation process. This presentation will showcase some of the methodologies, highlights, and challenges of the NSCF community building journey thus far, focusing on issues around data sharing and building the skills needed within the community to manage and publish specimen data effectively. The NSCF initiative is part of the National Research Infrastructure Roadmap funded by the Department of Science and Innovation.

Local governments' decade of organisational change to promote child health and wellbeing: a Western Australian qualitative study

ObjectiveWe aim to reflect on the introduction of risk‐based approaches to public health, driven by legislation outlining the expected local government public health functions and roles by identifying factors that most influenced organisational change within the Western Australia local government sector when developing and submitting child and young people's health and social policy to an annual Awards program. MethodsThis paper uses 10 years of data from a WA‐based Local Government Policy Awards scheme to identify planned organisational change within the local government sector by applying a tangible organisational change model to develop a change narrative to describe factors that influenced local governments to address public health. Semi‐structured interviews of 83 local government officers over the 10 years since implementation were used to create the narrative and identify factors that strengthened or hindered policy development and implementation at the local organisational level. ResultsParticipant interviews highlighted that the Policy Award Scheme contributed to steps outlined in the Pettigrew et al. (1992) stepped model of organisational change theory to support policy development. Implications for public healthFew studies have explored these elements in their own right. We argue that advocacy for structured policy development is continually needed to support and promote internal policy prioritisation and implementation in practice.

Applying Organizational Change Theory to Address the Long-Standing Problem of Harassment in Medical Education

Issue: Harassment is a common experience for medical and healthcare trainees. Experiencing harassment can have significant consequences for trainees in multiple domains, including mental, physical, social, and occupational well-being. Harassment remains entrenched in medical education despite efforts to address it. Evidence: Many articles have documented the prevalence of harassment in medical education. Likewise, articles have provided recommendations for how individuals or hospitals can attempt to reduce harassment. However, despite calls for reform, harassment persists, largely due to the hierarchical, paternalistic, high-pressure, and evaluative nature of medical culture. Most literature has emphasized the need for policies and reporting structures, yet such top-down initiatives have not had a sufficient impact on the attitudes and beliefs that drive culture change. Instead, change requires intervention at every level of an organization. Little, if any, literature has proposed applying a change management model to change the culture of medical training and therefore decrease harassment. Implications: This paper applies principles of organizational change theory, and in particular, the ADKAR model, in conjunction with a summary of the existing harassment literature, to propose a framework for addressing harassment by facilitating organizational culture change. Intervention is needed at all levels of the medical education system (the healthcare system, the supervisor or training program, and the individual), and the ADKAR framework can guide what interventions are offered and when to capitalize on the current level of change readiness. Recommendations go beyond the typical focus on formalized policies and procedures, which are necessary, but not sufficient, components of culture change. Implementation of these practices, as well as ongoing evaluation and refinement through research, should foster cultural change in medical education to address harassment.

University Students' Perceptions of Curriculum Content Delivery During COVID-19 New Normal in South Africa

Observation and experience exist among university students during COVID-19 new normal; the quality and the process of academic activities have been compromised. This study, therefore, examines the lacuna on whether the new normal is more productive by ensuring that the intention of the curriculum towards students' content knowledge is met or not. Organisational change theory was used to theorise the study within the transformative paradigm (TP) and participatory Rresearch (PR) lenses as a research design. The study was conducted in one of the universities in South Africa. Ten students were selected using the convenience sampling technique because the students were not fully on campus as of the time of this study. The online interview was adopted to collect data because of social distancing rules across the country. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data. The findings revealed that the COVID-19 new normal does not affect students’ academic performance negatively even though the quality of content delivery is low. The channels of teaching-learning and the Internet of Things are deduced to be unpleasant for the students with recommendations that there is a need to provide the internet-or-things alongside training and retraining for students and lecturers.

Design of an Online Initiative to Promote Water Consumption in Mexican Adolescents

Abstract Objectives To describe the development of an initiative for water consumption in Mexican adolescents of public secondary schools. Methods Based on a diagnosis in adolescents 11 to 16 years from public secondary schools we developed an initiative following the Intervention Mapping protocol: (1) Logic model of the problem, (2) Logic model of change, (3) Program design, (4) Program production, (5) Program implementation plan, and (6) Evaluation plan. We established behavioral outcomes for the next levels: Intrapersonal (adolescents), Interpersonal (mothers and fathers), Organizational (principals and teachers) and Social (authorities of the respective Ministries of Education and Health). At Intrapersonal and Interpersonal levels, we based on the Health Belief Model and the Social Cognitive Theory. For Organizational and Social levels, we considered the Stage Theory of Organizational Change. Results We developed a comprehensive initiative with a gender perspective entitled EPCA (for its acronym in Spanish of Schools Promoting Water Consumption). It includes an online course for adolescents, which shows the benefits of water and the health risks of sugary drinks, it guides adolescents to identify their water requirement and gives them tips to achieve it. The course presents funny challenges and healthy advices in audiovisual materials. For principals, teachers, mothers, and fathers there are digital resources available on the Facebook page of the EPCA initiative, which aim to help adults guide adolescents to take the course online, in addition, the resources motivate them to consume water. For the implementation of the EPCA initiative we developed a manual and planned online workshops with authorities of the Ministries of Education and Health, principals, and parents. We developed a process and impact evaluation plan, in which we considered to make a randomized controlled trial. Conclusions The EPCA initiative is a multilevel online intervention that was developed in accordance with a systematic protocol grounded in theory and scientific evidence, which will be implemented in a pilot manner in a random sample of Mexican adolescents to evaluate their impact on water consumption. Funding Sources This study was financed by the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF-Mexico.

Shock Troops and Shock Absorbers: IT Support and Emotional Labor in the Rationalizing University

Drawing on 200 hours of observation at The Help Desk, an IT Support (ITS) unit at a medical school, and interviews with 30 ITS workers from across the university, this article shows how organizational-level IT rationalization was affected at the microlevel through ITS workers’ extensive emotional labor and involvement in meaning-making projects. Successful implementation required ITS workers to function as shock troops, introducing and enforcing new policies, and shock absorbers, encouraging compliance and insulating administrators from discontent about those changes. This article contributes to inhabited institutions theories of organizational change by demonstrating the importance of service workers’ interactive and emotional labor to the coupling of institutional myth, organizational policy, and the interactions and practices of constituent members.

A conceptual model of Lean culture adoption in healthcare

PurposeThis work seeks to offer a greater understanding of Lean healthcare implementation challenges conceptually taking a situated cultural organizational change perspective.Design/methodology/approachA descriptive model of healthcare organizations’ Lean adoption trajectories is built using ripple and bridging modelization strategies from elements of three classic organizational change theories and knowledge from Lean, organizational culture, healthcare and operations management literature.FindingsThe “contingent Lean culture adoption” (CLCA) model suggests five theoretical trajectories the healthcare organizations may experience when conducting a Lean transformation. These trajectories evolve from a new concept of Lean cultural friction (LCF) which represents cultural friction that a healthcare organization encounters toward an ultimate Lean culture proficiency state through time. From high to low initial LCF, a healthcare organization may in its Lean proficiency course end up in three states: lower, similar or higher LCF situation.Research limitations/implicationsThe CLCA model demonstrates the potential to be developed into a framework and possibly a Lean cultural friction theory pending further qualitative and quantitative validation.Practical implicationsThe CLCA model may help healthcare managers to use more appropriate cultural change strategies during their organization’s Lean journey.Originality/valueThis work enriches the concept of Lean cultural change which may apply not only to healthcare organizations but also to other ones. It suggests the existence of a healthcare organization Lean culture proficiency archetype and introduces the notion of Lean cultural friction.

WHY IS THE INFLUENCE OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP ON ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS FOR CHANGE INSIGNIFICANT? THE MEDIATING ROLE OF WORKPLACE SPIRITUALITY

The COVID-19 pandemic has exponentially accelerated the rate of change. Organizational readiness for change has become the mandatory requirement for most organizations to survive in this highly disrupted era. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of servant leadership and the mediating role of workplace spirituality on organizational readiness for change. Offices within a private university in Indonesia were used as the population for this research. 80 respondents from 40 offices participated in this research by filling online questionnaires. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Square–Structural Equation Modelling software. The results show that servant leadership does not influence organizational readiness for change directly butis fully mediated through workplace spirituality. This paper contributes to the organizational change theory by providing insight into what aspect of servant leadership may be lacking for an extreme organizational change process. It is the first study that validates the role of workplace spirituality as the mediator of the relationship between servant leadership and organizational readiness for change.

Management Innovation: A Critical Review

Management innovation is one of the most important innovations that help organizations to overcome their performance threshold in the last century (Hamel, 2006). However, the failure rate of management innovation is as high as 70%. This study investigates how management innovation is conceptualized in the literature and proposes a more comprehensive framework for analyzing management innovation. Through an integrative literature review and critical analyses of each approach to management innovation, the paper demonstrates three approaches to management innovation and its philosophical assumptions. Drawing from social constructionism and organisational change theory, it proposes a conceptual model for analyzing and leading management innovation via three mechanisms of social constructionism i.e. externalization, objectification, and internationalization. Each mechanism is described and discussed for research and practical implications.

Modifying Tradition: Understanding Organizational Change in Chinese Elite Sport Training at the Grassroots Level

This research examines the organizational change in Chinese elite sport training at the grassroots level, which is perceived as foundational to and crucial for the development of sustainable competitive advantage at the Olympics. Predicted on an in-depth single case study design linked to qualitative research, this study pursued a “thick description” of the process of change in Shanghai elite sport training by identifying the impetus for change and factors moderating the change process. All qualitative data were sourced from semi-structured interviews and official and semi-official documents. Participants included current sport leaders; officials/administrators; senior, including head and non-head, coaches; and renowned Chinese social science scholars who either specialize in or are familiar with the elite sport training scene in general and the landscape at the grassroots level. The key findings, on the basis of organizational change theory, were that the internal and external political pressures are strongly linked to the growing concern about athlete performance management, the alignment of elite sport training with the sport service industry, and limited financial resources; the functional pressures emerge from the broadening of the talent pool of money-consuming sports and newly added Olympic sports; and other fields’ successful practices, the unlimited registration rule, and a virtuous cycle of training contribute to organizational change.

Turnaround Prediction Model with Content Dimension on Financial Distressed Firms

Objectives - This article aims to examine the influence of content dimensions of Organization Change Theory, such as CEO Expertise, Free Assets, Debt to Equity Ratio and Growth of Sales, on a company’s turnaround ability when it is experiencing financial distress. The companies examined are listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX). Methodology/Technique - The population used in this study is companies from sectors excluding the finance sector that were listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange between 2013 and 2018. The sample size was determined using purposive sampling method. From the 109 companies that experienced financial distress, 57 have successfully turned their business around. The research data was collected from the ICMD (Indonesian Capital Market Directory), which was then analysed using multi regression technique analysis, using SPSS software to examine the determinants of company turnaround ability. Finding - The results indicate that CEO Expertise, Debt to Equity Ratio and Growth of Sales have a negative relationship on a company’s turnaround ability. Meanwhile, Free Assets has a positive and significant relationship on a company’s turnaround ability. Novelty - Previous studies have been conducted in many western countries, giving rise to researchers' doubts about the generalizability of research based on previous research findings when applied in developing countries such as Indonesia, particularly due to differences in regulations, conditions of distress, culture, financial systems and strategies used in overcoming distress. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: B26, G15, P34. Keywords: Financial Distress; Turnaround Model; CEO Expertise; Free Assets; Debt to Equity Ratio; Growth of Sales Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Giriati, S.E, M.E. (2021). Turnaround Prediction Model with Content Dimension on Financial Distressed Firms, Journal of Finance and Banking Review, 5 (4): 36 – 42. https://doi.org/10.35609/jfbr.2021.5.4(4)

From Theory to Practice and Back: How the Concept of Implicit Bias was Implemented in Academe, and What this Means for Gender Theories of Organizational Change

Implicit bias is one of the most successful cases in recent memory of an academic concept being translated into practice. Its use in the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program—which seeks to promote gender equality in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) careers through institutional transformation—has raised fundamental questions about organizational change. How do advocates translate theories into practice? What makes some concepts more tractable than others? What happens to theories through this translation process? We explore these questions using the ADVANCE program as a case study. Using an inductive, theory-building approach and combination of computational and qualitative methods, we investigate how the concept of implicit bias was translated into practice through the ADVANCE program and identify five key features that made implicit bias useful as a change framework in the academic STEM setting. We find that the concept of implicit bias works programmatically because it is (1) demonstrable, (2) relatable, (3) versatile, (4) actionable, and (5) impartial. While enabling the concept’s diffusion, these characteristics also limit its scope. We reflect on implications for gender theories of organizational change and for practitioners.

The Influence of Organizational Culture and the External and Internal Factors on Performance Measurement System Adoption: A Conceptual Framework

Researchers have perceived the advantages of performance measurement systems for public and private institutions. Besides, they asserted that the failure or the success during the adoption process depends on various external and internal factors. Furthermore, organizational culture is a fundamental pillar of any institutional development or adoption of any modern management system. Neglecting studying the effects of this factor on adopting modern management systems before starting the implementation stages may lead to failure to adopt these systems. Responding to this issue is crucial to understand the adoption practices of performance measurement system in the organizations and to explore the mutual influence between the forces that lead to the institutions adopt this system. This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework by reviewing previous literature and exploring the relationships among organizational culture, internal and external influences, and performance measurement system’s adoption. It also aims to integrate the organizational change, contingency, and institutional theories to come up with a more reliable and robust framework.

Presidential youth fitness program implementation: An antecedent to organizational change

IntroductionGrounded in organizational change theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of the Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) and its association with healthy cultures within schools. MethodsUsing a qualitative approach, data were collected through interviews, site visits and artifacts across 374 schools. An explanatory collective case study approach was used to identify key events related to implementation. ResultsPivotal antecedents to organizational change included prolonged, continual PD, direct support of PYFP implementation, and recognition. Further, three key themes of leveling of the playing field, strategically overcoming barriers, and recruiting teacher fitness champions were identified. ConclusionsCreating a healthy school culture was an unexpected, but feasible outcome stemming from the implementation of the PYFP. A collective effort, led by physical education teachers and fitness champions and embraced by the administration, faculty, and community, is necessary for the school culture to unfreeze from its present status.

What Influences Bureaucrats’ Support for Red Tape Reduction Reform in Taipei City Government?

ABSTRACT Resistance from bureaucrats affected by the reforms is an often-cited challenge and it is important to know what influences their support for reform. Based on theories of organizational change, this paper examines how bureaucrats’ perceptions of reform benefits and risks, process and context influence their support for a structural reform in Taipei city government. Interviews of key informants were conducted to identify potential risks and benefits involved in the reform. An online survey was used to collect data to test the relationship between reform benefits, risks, process, context and reform support. The analysis confirms a positive relationship between individual efficiency gains and reform support, and of a negative relationship between risk of decision-making quality and reform support. The context of reform, demonstrated by the level of red tape, also enhances bureaucrats’ support for reform. This study provides important evidence of public sector reform beyond the U.S. context. Implications for future practices and research are provided.

Organizational Innovation in Times of Crises: The Case of Extension and Advisory Services

Since it formally began, extension institutions have been innovating in response to the changing environment. Past crises have induced organizational innovation in limited ways. The COVID19 crisis appears to have brought about more radical change in extension organizations. In this manuscript, we apply organizational change theory including insights from recent research on adaptive management in international development to examine how extension organizations innovated during the COVID-19 crisis. We explore how extension organizations modified inputs such as human capital, technology, and equipment; outputs such as services; and organizational components, such as social structures, participants, and goals. We review previous crises to learn how global extension adapted and then examine contemporary experiences of organizational change during COVID-19. This allows us to provide suggestions for future directions for implementers on how to strengthen extension services to respond in times of crisis and continue to support clientele in varying circumstances. We suggest that extension organizations embrace inclusive technology cautiously, provide staff with skills to adapt and problem solve, and ensure flexible structures that allow for collaboration. Keywords: extension; innovation; managing change; organizations