An insight into management of organisational change projects

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Cicmil
Keyword(s):  
Organisational Change ◽  
Change Projects ◽  
Insight Into

scholarly journals Project managers’ and change managers’ contribution to success

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 451-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Pollack ◽  
Chivonne Algeo
Keyword(s):  
Critical Success Factors ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Success Factors ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Project Managers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Success ◽  
Project Risks ◽  
Change Projects ◽  
Specific Project

Purpose – Many projects involve an organisational change component. Project management (PM) and change management (CM) have the potential to jointly contribute to the delivery of organisational changes. However, there is a lack of clarity in the literature about the boundary and relationship between these disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution these disciplines make to a set of project critical success factors, to understand the ways that these disciplines can most effectively work together. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses data collected through an online survey, examining project managers’ and change managers’ perception of each disciplines’ contribution to critical success factors. The survey received 455 responses. Findings – This paper identifies the success factors that are most clearly influenced by PM and CM, and areas where practitioners of these disciplines hold significantly different perceptions of their contributions. The results have been used to rank and categorise success factors based on the influence of each discipline. This has been used to develop a risk-based questionnaire to guide the contribution of PM and CM to the mitigation of specific project risks. Originality/value – These findings will be of use to practitioners managing organisational change projects, or projects with a significant change component. The findings will be of assistance in determining the ways in which these disciplines should work together to mitigate risks associated with specific critical success factors.

scholarly journals Managing people and learning in organisational change projects

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 923-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Organisational Learning ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Project Outcomes ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Change Projects ◽  
Internal Sense

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence of people management practices on the outcomes of organisational change projects through their contributions to organisational learning. The contributions to their outcomes of particular corporate and project-specific people management practices are considered. Design/methodology/approach Case studies of two organisational change projects undertaken by Arts Council England during 2006-2007 are used to examine how far and in what ways people management practices influence the outcomes of such projects. Organisational change is considered as an instance of organisational learning, which in turn is examined in relation to the twin activities of developing new ideas and internal sense-making. Findings Evidence is presented that certain people management practices, individually and in combination, influence the outcomes of organisational change projects significantly through their contributions to organisational learning. Research limitations/implications Research into the influence of particular people management practices, and the contexts and processes through which it is exerted, is necessary to develop more generalisable conclusions. This influence is liable to be invisible to less granular research into people management as a general construct. Originality/value Research into the use of project management methods specifically to implement organisational change is sparse. The findings of this paper contradict findings from research into the influence of people management on project outcomes in general, which suggest that it does not have a significant effect.

scholarly journals The Effect of Leadership Behaviours on the Change Process in Healthcare Organisations in Saudi Arabia

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alharbi
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Change Process ◽  
Leadership Behaviors ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Self Administered Questionnaire ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Profound Insight

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this empirical study was to explore and determine the influence of leadership behaviors on the organisational change process in healthcare organisations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.METHODS: Primary data were collected from a sample of 272 employees in hospitals in the Al-Qassim region. The study used a self-administered questionnaire to examine the role of leadership behaviors (task-, relations-, and change-oriented leadership behaviors) on the organisational change process in healthcare organisations. Cross-sectional data were analyzed using SPSS.RESULTS: Positive and significant relations were found between leadership behaviors and the organisational change process contributed 54% of the variation in the dependent variable (R2 = 0.54).CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this research are highly significant, as they can give managers and organisational leaders a more profound insight into the behaviors and practices required to improve healthcare organisations’ performance during implementation of the change process.

scholarly journals Sensitivity to situated positionings: Generating insight into organizational change

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sierk Ybema ◽  
Frans Kamsteeg ◽  
Karlien Veldhuizen
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Data Interpretation ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Change Initiatives ◽  
Management Literature ◽  
Organisational Research ◽  
Insight Into

Within ethnographic forms of organisational research, sensitivity to context is generally acknowledged as a critical ingredient for analysing processes and practices. When conducting such research, however, researchers typically privilege one particular research context for generating knowledge: although some ethnographic scholars underscore the importance of adopting a diversity of both insider and outsider roles, ethnographic research is usually equated with gaining a deep familiarity with the field of study through immersion. First, we argue that, although immersion elicits valuable knowledge ‘from within’, its prioritisation inevitably blinds the researcher’s eye to equally interesting insights stemming from alternative – and often unintended – positionings. Testifying to the significance of researchers’ relational reflexivity for data interpretation, we show how a variety of researcher’ positionings vis-à-vis the researched generated a variety of insights. Critical sensitivity to fieldworker identities in an ethnographic study of planned organisational change within a police organisation allowed us, second, to criticise the change management literature for routinely building on a fixed dichotomy between ‘change agents’ and ‘change recipients’ and to empirically demonstrate a wider variety of police officers’ positionings in relation to change initiatives (i.e. countering, complying with and co-opting) and its initiators (i.e. engaging in other-depreciating, self-questioning or self-affirming identity work).

scholarly journals Social Accounting and Organisational Change:  An Exploration of the Sustainability Assessment Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael D. Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Cost Calculation ◽  
Social Accounting ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Insight Into

<p>There is increasing recognition that social and ecological challenges necessitate societal change. In responding to these challenges a number of tools have been mooted as having the potential to facilitate change at the organisational level. Accounting is one such tool which is implicated in changing the mental models of those making decisions in organisations (Bebbington, 2007a). However, the role that accounting performs is uncertain and calls have been made to extend our understanding by exploring further empirical cases (Bebbington, 2007a, 2007b; Bebbington, Brown and Frame, 2007a; Bebbington, Brown, Frame and Thomson, 2007b; Tilt, 2006) in a way which can make explicit a priori assumptions of change (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2005). Experimenting with social accounting technologies may provide greater insight into their limiting and enabling aspects. Examples of such technologies include full cost accounting (FCA), the sustainable cost calculation (SCC) and, most recently, the sustainable assessment model (SAM). The SAM is an accounting technology developed to incorporate sustainability considerations into organisational decisionmaking and, potentially, accountability processes. In constructing and implementing new accounting technologies such as the SAM, researchers are confronted with two key challenges: first, a lack of empirical exploration within field studies means the impact a new technology may have is not well documented (Gray, 2002); second, the extant theorisation with which to evaluate 'successful' implementations remains underdeveloped (Gray, 2002). For example, use of non-explicit evaluative criteria glosses over the necessary aspects by which people can facilitate and evaluate change (Thomson and Bebbington, 2004, 2005; Dillard, 2007). This thesis explores the potential of the SAM to foster more critically reflective organisational accounts in the pursuit of sustainability, and involved the application of the SAM in two New Zealand case-study sites. In total, forty-seven individual and group semi-structured interviews were conducted over a three-year period. The resulting empirics provided the basis of an organisational narrative, structured according to Laughlin's (1991) organisational change framework, and evaluated using a Freirian heuristic. Laughlin (1991) provides a framework that sensitises the researcher to identify facets of change considered salient in the application of the SAM. His framework provides a structure for the organisational narrative (that is, both a 'technical' account on how the SAM was applied and a descriptive account on what specific change may have occurred in the organisation). However, drawing on Laughlin's (1991) framework presented two key challenges: first, the SAM requires a critical evaluation framework that makes explicit a priori assumptions of change that are not evident using Laughlin's (1991) 'real' and 'superficial' change categorisation; second, the skeletal nature of the framework focuses insufficient attention on how change occurs (Laughlin, 1991, p.229). To address the above challenges and to evaluate the effectiveness of the SAM, a Freirian dialogic heuristic framework (DHF) is applied to the organisational narrative. The human agency focus of Freire's work makes the evaluative framework complementary to Laughlin's (1991) framework by providing greater insight into how change occurs. To date, the application of a Freirian lens in social accounting literature has been restricted to papers theorising the engagement of the SAM (Bebbington et al., 2007b), generic samples of social accounting reports (Thomson and Bebbington, 2005), accounting education (Coulson and Thomson, 2006; Thomson and Bebbington, 2004), and calls to extend stakeholder engagement (O'Dwyer, 2004a). In this thesis the SAM is explored in an empirical organisational setting and evaluated using the DHF. Findings indicate that the SAM did promote more critically reflective organisational accounts. The SAM created a space which amplified the agency of operational managers and researchers to challenge dominant organisational beliefs held typically by senior staff. Beliefs, such as the organisational commitment to sustainability, were exposed, interrogated, and challenged. The process of applying the SAM fostered the problematisation of organisational issues, broadened the perspectives of participants involved in decision-making, and challenged existing notions of who might have legitimate, 'expert' knowledge. It also made visible differences among viewpoints, highlighted the socially constructed nature of accounting technologies, made visible the interrelationships among different elements in an account, and changed project decisions. However, on several occasions the use of SAM was challenged and in one instance resulted in termination of the SAM application. Findings from this thesis contribute to social accounting and organisational change literature by exploring one form of engagement and extending organisational change frameworks. These two contributions provide possibilities for future research and have implications for those involved in policy and practice.</p>

scholarly journals Partners and plagiarisers: dualities in consultants’ influence on organisational change projects

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Change Management ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Strategic Partnerships ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Consultants ◽  
The Past ◽  
Management Consultancy ◽  
Change Projects

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay between the requirements for successful organisational change and the imperatives faced by management consultancy firms in running successful businesses, and how this interplay affects the ways in which management consultants influence organisational change projects. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews literature on management consultancy and organisational change over the past 30 years to identify insights into this issue. Findings The paper shows that business imperatives faced by management consultancy firms affect the ways in which consultants influence organisational change projects. It shows how management consultants aspire to form strategic partnerships with their clients in order to win profitable business, and to plagiarise established organising practices and change management methods in defining their services in order to manage their costs. It illustrates how these aspirations give rise to a number of dualities that consultants face in undertaking organisational change projects. Originality/value Only limited research has been carried out into the ways in which the business imperatives of management consultancy firms interact with the requirements for successful organisational change in shaping the influence that management consultants have on organisational change projects. This paper demonstrates the significance of this issue and suggests directions for future research into it.

scholarly journals Ambiguous workarounds in policy piloting in the NHS: Tensions, trade‐offs and legacies of organisational change projects

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mhorag Goff ◽  
Damian Hodgson ◽  
Simon Bailey ◽  
Michael Bresnen ◽  
Rebecca Elvey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organisational Change ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Change Projects

Sustainability and Small to Medium Sized Enterprises - How to Engage Them

2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Condon
Keyword(s):  
Service Industry ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Sustainable Practices ◽  
Industry Research ◽  
National Centre ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Additional Burden ◽  
Industry Associations ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractSmall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have a major advantage over larger organisations in regard to addressing sustainability issues – their size means they are able to react very quickly to changes in the business environment. They are disadvantaged, however, by lack of information on marketplace changes that make sustainability an opportunity to innovate, and to inspire employees. While some SMEs are leaders in sustainable practices, others lack the sort of strategic mindset which views changes in the business environment as opportunities – seeing the tasks which require more change as an additional burden, rather than a source of potential advantage.The National Centre for Sustainability has worked with a group of SMEs (with sponsorship through a Research Agreement with Sensis) in a series of workshop environments. Through this work a set of indicators was developed to measure their progress towards more sustainable practices. Key members of industry associations and government agencies were engaged in an advisory capacity to ensure that the work undertaken was relevant and innovative.In addition, a comprehensive industry research study was undertaken to determine the key priorities for business and government relating to sustainability. This work provided insight into the needs and trends in sustainable practices in various sectors including manufacturing, service industry, education and government. The outcomes of the research have determined the need to develop flexible, adult centric and work-based learning models to educate for sustainability and create organisational change.This paper explores the value of innovative and engaging educational practices to create an environment which is most conducive to facilitating the implementation of economic, environmental and social aspects ofwork practices.

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