Episodic Organizational Change and Social Drama – Liminality and Conflict in the Change Process

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Ingo Winkler ◽  
Mette Lund Kristensen
Author(s):  
Thomas Packard

This book presents an evidence-based conceptual framework for planning and implementing organizational change processes specifically focused on human service organizations (HSOs). After a brief discussion of relevant theory and a review of key challenges facing HSOs that create opportunities for organizational change, a detailed conceptual framework outlines an organizational change process. Two chapters are devoted to the essential role of an organization’s executive or other manager as a change leader. Five chapters cover the steps of the change process, beginning with identifying a problem or change opportunity; then defining a change goal; assessing the present state of the organization (the change problem and organizational readiness and capacity to engage in change); and determining an overall change strategy. Twenty-one evidence-based organizational change tactics are presented to guide implementation of the process. Tactics include communicating the urgency for change and the change vision; developing an action system that includes a change sponsor, a change champion, a change leadership team and action teams; providing support to staff; facilitating the development and approval of ideas to achieve the change goal; institutionalizing the changes within organizational systems; and evaluating the change process and outcomes. Four case examples from public and nonprofit HSOs are used to illustrate change tactics. Individual chapters cover change technologies and methods, including action research; team building; conflict management; quality improvement methods; organization redesign; organizational culture change; using consultants; advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice; capacity building; implementation science methods; specific models, including the ARC model; and staff-initiated organizational change.


Author(s):  
Aytaç Gökmen

Organizational change is to transfer the organization from its current position to the desired future state. This process involves the differentiation of the activities, processes, structure, and targets of the organization. It is significant for an organization to decide where it is supposed to be in the future and to comprehend how to get to that new status-quo. Increasing globalization, fast technological changes, necessity of a well-trained labor force, changing social and demographic structures have intensified the competition and organizational change has become inevitable. The elements of an effective change process are openness to change, willingness of the personnel, flexibility, adjustment capacity of the business, optimism, and effective planning of change. The change process affects the organizations at structural, managerial, and individual basis as a result of the success of the change process.


Author(s):  
John Baaki ◽  
Maria Cseh

This reflective case history illustrates the change process in a USA sports and entertainment's theatre organization led by its leader in consultation with a human resource development and organizational change professional. Evidence-based organizational change and development informed by the theoretical perspectives on shop floor management and action learning guided the change process conceptualized on the belief that frontline employees should play a major role in driving change in organizations, and their learning and reflection is crucial in this process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 1979-1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Naeem

PurposeThe failure rate of change is high amongst countries and cultures where collectivism, destructive politics and resistance are high. Therefore, change leaders are more focused on exploring how they can create networking and socialization amongst major organizational stakeholders that can minimize detrimental cynicism and lobbying during change implementation. This study is an attempt to shed light on how Social Networking Applications (henceforth SNAs) can facilitate change implementation processes in the insurance sector.Design/methodology/approachThe individual reaction and interaction realities during the change process cannot be discovered once and for all as there are varied perspectives on the same subjects. Therefore, a social constructionist position was used to understand the different realties of change managers and change recipients using the context of insurance sector.FindingsThe study documented how SNAs can play an active role in addressing the concerns of employees as well as managing and protecting knowledge sharing to facilitate the change implementation process. The collaborative and interactive nature of SNAs can enhance richness in knowledge sharing and can facilitate the participation of employees. Therefore, management should monitor these platforms as a means to improve the change process and to address the concerns of employees. These networking channels which include WhatsApp and Facebook can enhance social interactions, support and acceptance at individual and organizational levels.Research limitations/implicationsSocial media has become a familiar tool for employees to use to discuss internal changes and policies within their organizations. Social media enhances the richness, reach, knowledge exchange and effective internal communication potential amongst organizational change stakeholders. Using social media, change recipients are now more empowered and connected with their leadership that ever before. It is now easier to facilitate decision making during the change formulation and implementation process.Practical implicationsSocial media applications have become necessary to ensure incremental and radical changes to the survival of dynamic businesses. The findings of this study are beneficial for change leaders and recipients of change to implement successful organizational change using social media tools. The effective and efficient use of social media applications helps organizations to foster knowledge amongst employees and they can address various critical issues, that is resistance to change, lower levels of knowledge sharing and support for change acceptance and lack of employee participation in decision making.Originality/valueThere is an inadequate understanding regarding how SNAs play a role in facilitating the change process in both public and private sector organizations. This study offers a social mchange facilitation model with the help of social learning, social networking and social behaviourism theories.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Christoph Ertl ◽  
Alexander Herzfeldt ◽  
Helmut Krcmar

This paper develops a framework for analyzing organizational change in information technology (IT) departments of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and applies that framework to a case study of a German airport that is majority-owned by the German federal government. Specifically, we derive a framework from literature to systematically identify transformation barriers for introducing new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and business processes in IT departments of SOEs. This framework is based on the punctuated equilibrium model and considers dynamic process incorporation, explicit stakeholder integration, a detailed representation of the change process, and characteristics of public employees as main factors. We then apply the framework in a case study research approach and show how the framework allows identification of transformation barriers hidden to management but involved in the organizational change process (e.g., required change of organizational structures, required change of service-level-agreements). The framework can be a valuable tool for both researchers and practitioners to actively shape the effects of organizational transformation in SOEs and to identify factors that influence the change process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 120 (9) ◽  
pp. 1715-1731
Author(s):  
Mohsin Malik ◽  
Salam Abdallah

PurposePast studies of lean have failed to sufficiently address the importance of social factors for successful lean implementations. This paper aims to broaden and deepen the understanding of lean as a socio-technical paradigm by conceptualizing lean implementation as an organizational change process.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on the organizational sense-making literature to conceptualize and validate lean implementation as an organizational change process that necessitates a focus on the ability of organizational actors to construct a shared meaning of lean. This study posit that this shared understanding shapes the collective behaviour and attitudes of people towards a future desired organizational state such as a successful implementation of lean. Survey data were collected from various manufacturing and services firms to test the hypothesis derived from literature using a structural equation modelling approach.FindingsThe mutual social interactions of organizational actors contribute to an enabling lean organizational attitude that has a dominant effect on the lean practices of employee involvement, internal technical practices, supplier and customer management. This study also established boundary conditions for these relationships by identifying firm size as a moderating variable.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings establish a supportive organizational attitude as an antecedent for lean implementation, which goes beyond the current socio-technical characterization of lean management. This conceptualization draws the attention of researchers and practitioners towards the critical role of the cooperative behaviours of organizational actors in lean implementations.Originality/valueThe statistical results add a novel perspective to the discourse on the social dimension of lean implementation by conceptualizing and validating lean management as a combination of organizational attitude and the process facilitators comprising of employee empowerment, internal technical practices, supplier and customer management.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiano Ghiringhelli ◽  
Francesco Virili

PurposeImplementing automatic sorting operations in the parcel delivery industry can dramatically improve both capacity and service quality but demands radical and complex organizational change. The present in-depth grounded theory study examined a change process of this kind within one of the few global companies in the parcel delivery sector, focusing on three European hubs where automatic sorting had recently been introduced.Design/methodology/approachGrounded theory methodology, which facilitates the gradual emergence and dialogical interpretation of empirically grounded theoretical concepts, was particularly suited to the current project's open-ended research design and the hybrid (prescriptive but also constructive) nature of the change process under study. The investigation comprised iterative cycles of data collection, open coding, selective coding and theoretical coding over a three-year period.FindingsIn keeping with the dual nature of the change underway, a set of tensions were identified between pairs of opposite poles: manual vs automated, planned vs emergent and corporate vs site. The management of these tensions, which leveraged both prescriptive and sensemaking approaches, was found to trigger knowledge production, facilitating a gradual transition from high to low uncertainty and, consequently, progressive movement along the continuum between each pair of competing poles. Within this process, the industrial engineering function acted as an agent of change with a key orchestrating role.Originality/valueAs one of the first in-depth grounded theory analyses of tension management, this study contributes to the relatively recent debate on the recognition, analysis and handling of tensions and paradoxes in organizational change, suggesting innovative criteria for successful change management and identifying promising new avenues for research. From a managerial perspective, the study outcomes suggest that explicit recognition of uncertainty and tensions in organizational change can pave the way for solutions based on agility and continuous organizational learning.


2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef Fahlén ◽  
Cecilia Stenling ◽  
Ludvig Vestin

SummaryThe purpose of this study was to illustrate and analyze the organizational change the Swedish voluntary sports club IF Björklöven went through in connection with the corporation formation of its representative team. The study was made with institutional theory as a theoretical frame of reference. Particularly important for the shaping of the study was a theoretical model by Greenwood and Hinings (1996). The data was collected using semi-structured interviews with seven respondents representing different parts of the organization. The results show that the change process was driven and enabled for the most part by the offer of SEK 22.5 million from an external financier. The restructuring has brought about a change in the way Björklöven thinks about the outcome, purpose, structure and goals of the organization, now that the organization is moving towards a more market-oriented way of organizing.


2002 ◽  
Vol 06 (01) ◽  
pp. 27-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjula Gurtoo

The State Government of one of the largest states of India restructured its financially unviable electric utility - North Electricity Board (NEB) - into three independent corporations and announced its plans for subsequent privatization of NEB. The State Government argued for initiation of restructuring and privatization as a move to attract capital investments for meeting the growing demand and make the entire operations financially viable. An 11-day strike by the employees, which occurred as a response to the initiation of this radical organizational change, was the largest ever in the last 25 years of Indian labor history. The employees united under one umbrella employees association and negotiated with the government. Despite nation-wide support for the employees and the wholehearted unification of the employees, the strike ended with the acceptance of trifurcation by their union leaders. The dynamics involved in the process of restructuring and the employees' strike highlight the political and economic motivations of the various stakeholders in this organizational change process. In view of this, the issue facing the organization, post-strike, is how to get out of this current unpleasant situation and move forward.


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