Context Of Organizational Change Research Articles

Understanding Social Workers' Sense of Competence Within the Context of Organizational Change

ABSTRACT As large health care systems rapidly evolve, social work administrators struggle to help practioners maintain a sense of competence during a state of flux and uncertainty. Using a sample of social workers (N = 135) from seven Veteran Hospitals and one state hospital, the present study investigated the relationship of job and workers characteristics, change schema, and organizational change to workers' perceived competence. Workers with more practice experience, fewer distacting outside responisibilities, and higher levels of job satisfaction had a higher sense of competence. Positive change schema and positive perceptions of organizational climate were also significant predictors of competence. Organizational climate had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between social workers' change schema and their sense of competence. The findings have implications for social services administrators who are seeking to promote competence among practioners within the context of organizational change.

Change requires informed judgement

Looks at alternative choices for change that managers may look to bring in. Asks various questions about change and whether organizations ate indeed ready for it. Uses a Figure of organizational change context to emphasize all the points within. Posits managers will have to understand the change context to avoid a simple choice between formulaic, recipe‐driven approaches to determine what really is best in their own case.

Job satisfaction and perceptions of health.

Workers' perceptions of health have become one focus of research on the costs of health care, yet little is understood about the relationship between perceptions of health and perceptions of work. An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted on a large southern university campus to determine if perceptions of select facets of work were related to perceptions of health. Results indicated that satisfactory perceptions of coworkers was the strongest predictor of current and future health perceptions, and the strongest predictor of perceptions of resistance to illness. Other significant job-facet predictors of health perceptions were autonomy, the work done on the present job, and pay. Satisfaction with supervision and opportunities for promotion were not predictive of health-perception measures. Implications for enhanced employee health include a greater emphasis on coworker relationships, especially in the current context of organizational change in business and industry.

The Implementation of Business Process Reengineering

As more organizations undertake business process reengineering (BPR), issues in implementing BPR projects become a major concern. This field research seeks empirically to explore the problems of implementing reengineering projects and how the severity of these problems relates to BPR project success. Based on past theories and research related to the implementation of organizational change as well as field experience of reengineering experts, a comprehensive list of sixty-four BPR implementation problems was identified. The severity of each problem was then rated by those who have participated in reengineering in 105 organizations. Analysis of the results clearly demonstrates the central importance of change management in BPR implementation success. Resolutions of problems in other areas such as technological competence and project planning were also determined to be necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for reengineering success. Further, problems that are more directly related to the conduct of a project such as process delineation, project management, and tactical planning were perceived as less difficult, yet highly related to project success. This situation was also true for human resource problems such as training personnel for the redesigned process. These findings suggest that reengineering project implementation is complex, involving many factors. To succeed, it is essential that change be managed and that balanced attention be paid to all identified factors, including those that are more contextual (e.g., management support and technological competence) as well as factors that pertain directly to the conduct of the project (e.g., project management and process delineation). As one of the first pieces of empirical evidence based on a field study, this research emphasizes the importance of addressing BPR implementation within the broader context of organizational change in a complex sociotechnical environment.