Managing people and learning in organisational change projects

Purpose: This article assesses 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. Method: Case studies of two organisational change projects undertaken by Arts Council England during 2006-07 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 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 article 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

Towards a further understanding of the relationship between job attitudes and employees’ responses:the case of Greek banks in recessionary times

The 2008 global financial crisis is described as the deepest the world has experienced since the stock market crash in 1930s. This has led to a liquidity shortfall and solvency problems for most banking systems across the globe (Otero-Iglesias 2015; Soriano 2011). The crisis has mostly been concentrated on the financial systems of US and Europe, and although it did not affect all EU countries with the same intensity, its aftermaths were almost identical to all EU member states, including Greece (EC 2012). Precisely for the Greek case, due to the unprecedented Greek debt crisis and the subsequent recession, the domestic economy has been struggling against bankruptcy. In response to the political pressures from the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, the Greek banking sector underwent a momentous structural transformation through tremendous business amalgamations, the rationalisation of most banks’ branch network, and extensive retrenchment implementations, all of which radically changed the domestic banking landscape. This paper examines the impact of employees work-related attitudes (namely their organisational commitment, job satisfaction and psychological contract breach) on their EVLN behavioural responses towards the organisational changes introduced in the Greek banking sector. The paper aims to advance our understanding on human behaviour within organisations operating under business and economic uncertainty and complexity. To serve its purpose, the study aims at addressing the following research question: What is the impact of work-related attitudes on employees’ EVLN behavioural responses? This paper adopts the positivism paradigm and a quantitative approach. A questionnaire survey distributed to 1,500 employees in Greek banks. Data collected from a sample of 1,259 responses returned, and data analysed by carrying out Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using the AMOS statistical software. Contrary to prior research examined the process of planning and implementating organisational change at organisational levels (Armenakis and Bedeian 1999; Weick and Quinn 1999), this study follows a more anthropocentric approach by focusing at a micro-level (individuals) within organisations to examine their attitudes, behaviours and cognitions (Vakola 2013; Oreg et al. 2011; Armenakis et al. 2007; Cunningham 2006; Rafferty and Griffin 2006;). The significance of understanding individuals’ responses to organisational change is of a great importance as their responses are determined by the extent to which they embrace organisational change, and therefore these behaviours could determine its smooth and successful implementation

Managing dualities in organizational change projects

When managers want to change their organisation they often set up a project to do it, in the belief that doing so simplifies and focuses the change initiative and brings greater assurance of success. Case studies of three organisational change projects undertaken by Arts Council England during 2006-2007 are used to examine the notion of project management and change management as a duality. It is argued that the structured, systematic approach associated with project management needs to be balanced with the recognition of the complexities and uncertainties of organisational change associated with change management. Evidence from the case studies suggests the usefulness of this perspective, and indicates three subsidiary dualities that underlie this overarching duality. The first of these is focus and engagement - focusing on project tasks free from the distractions of day-to-day business and engaging with stakeholders to secure adoption of project results in practice. The second is tight governance and wide-ranging change - exercising tight governance of all change projects commissioned and commissioning enough change projects to make a real difference. The third is project management success and project success - achieving project-specific objectives and securing the longer-term and wider benefits that are sought through project-based working

Managing eBusiness Change Within a Global eMarketplace: A Buyer\u27s Perspective

This paper presents the results of a case study into the management of change from e-business adoption by a globally distributed mining company. The case represents a large buyer organisation’s perspective on participation in an e-marketplace for the mining industry. Detailed case study analysis identified the facilitators of change essential in overcoming the barriers to B2B e-marketplace adoption. The case study used an established research framework for gathering evidence to examine the factors for success of e-business implementations for active trading partners. The research framework was chosen for its ability to explore the complex phenomena of B2B e-Marketplace activity. The findings suggest that e-business readiness and change management are essential facilitators for success and where the key issues remain as people oriented organisational issues

The role of organisational change management in offshore outsourcing of information technology services : qualitative case studies from a multinational pharmaceutical company

This research study seeks to understand the nature of organisational change with respect to offshore outsourcing of information technology services in a multinational pharmaceutical company, and to examine the effectiveness of approaches used to manage this change so that lessons may be drawn from these experiences. Despite the abundant literature on effective organisational change management, the key factors that need to be managed properly at different stages of the offshore outsourcing process are not well understood. The research adopts a processual view to paint a broad picture of the issues involved in these different stages. A generic process model of change, based on the review of the change literature, was first developed to represent how change was intended to occur. This model focuses on the following four stages in the change process: context, diagnosis and planning, implementation, and institutionalisation. The research employs an interpretive case study approach and draws on fieldwork from three independent information systems departments (cases) of the company, where offshore outsourcing programmes were implemented. Qualitative data from semi- structured interviews, direct observation and document analysis are analysed by applying the generic process model to produce a detailed account of the way in which change was managed in the case organisations. The findings reveal that a combination of contextual factors, both external and internal to the company, influenced the adoption and use of offshore outsourcing in the case organisations. Externally, the economic forces were found to be the main catalyst for the change, while internally the role of the executive leadership and the lack of internal resources further explain the motivations behind the adoption of offshore outsourcing. The study illustrates that achieving successful outcomes from offshore outsourcing activities critically depends on the organisation adequately addressing a number of factors, such as conveying a sense of urgency, developing and communicating the vision, identifying the benefits of change and how they will be delivered, generating short-term wins, providing education and training, developing a fit between the change and organisational culture, etc., throughout the change process. The findings also highlight the effects of offshore outsourcing on the case organisations, including change in job roles and responsibilities and organisational learning activities that enable corrective actions to improve change management efforts. An important contribution of this research is the development of a model providing a more comprehensive understanding of the change process associated with the implementation of offshore IT outsourcing. Recommendations for policy makers and change managers to improve change management practice based on the research findings, as well as recommendations for further research, form a significant part of the conclusions

Organisational Change and Performance: The Effect of Inertia, Extent of Niche Expansion and Organisational Characteristics

Organisational change is one of the most popular and interesting topics in business, among both academics and practitioners. However, from previous research development in organisational change, the limiting conditions that apply to the two competing paradigms call for more empirical investigations in different organisational contexts (Aldrich, 1979). Enough research has been conducted on organisational change to make it clear that both content and process dimensions of change should be evaluated, and their separate effects need to be distinguished (Barnett and Carroll, 1995). The previous theories and analyses often tend to only one dimension. Furthermore, previous researchers comment that the dynamic effect of change has been ignored in recent tests of structural inertia theory (Delacroix and Swaminathan, 1991; Haveman, 1992; Kelly and Amburgey, 1991). Very few empirical studies seek to link change action to organisational performance, and the destabilizing effects of change have been assumed more than tested in the previous organisational research studies (Barnett and Carroll, 1995, Carroll and Hannan, 2000). This thesis is one of the first studies to investigate the effects of both organisational change content and organisational change process outside Western countries. It seeks to escape from the binary distinction of adaption versus selection embraced by opposing theoretical camps, and looks for a more balanced stance. Drawing on the literature on organisational change in organisational ecology and associates the claims of managerial scholars, considers the above research suggestions, it directly examines the broader implications of inertia theory and recent developments in niche expansion theory relating with the measurement to dynamic performance consequences of organisational change. It integrates a number of important theoretical variables to address a variety of distinct theory fragments. These include expectation of firms’ on the survival threshold of change, regression toward the mean, time variance of the change effect, cascading change and the effect of organisational characteristics of opacity, asperity, intricacy and viscosity (Hannan, Polos and Carroll, 2007). It separately examines the effect of the change process on performance (Barrett and Carroll, 1995), empirically tests the effects of organisational characteristics on the change length and on the change process. Both the lack of studies outside Western countries and the lack of studies on the process of organisational change make this study a path-finding study. This thesis is applied to a case organisation in the safety and filtration industry in China. It aims to test the generalizability of organisational change theories in this specific context and the predictability of change theories. In order to achieve these aims, this thesis adopts an in-depth qualitative research strategy and a detailed operational design. The qualitative methods it used were interviews, observation and documentation. The findings were consistent with the theoretical predications. There was a positive relationship between the experience of previous change types and the likelihood to adopt the same type of change in the future. It also demonstrated that there was a significant relationship between the extent of niche expansion and the change effect on performance. The more extensive the organisational change, the more unrelated the niche expansion move, and the more organisational performance is likely to be negative. The results also gave support to the predication of this study that the instant effects of organisational changes were harmful, but declined over time; organisational change might improve performance in the long run in the context of environmental transformation in the safety and filtration industry of China. However, the role of the pre-change condition to initiation change and the relations of the pre-change condition and change consequences were not obviously observed from the results of the empirical data collected in this study, the measurement model was re-estimated and further study to verify the results was suggested. Moreover, the organisational characteristics of intricacy, viscosity, opacity and asperity extended the length of the organisational change process, and the length of the change process negatively affected performance. However, the result showed that opacity not only led to an under-estimation of the change length but also an over-estimation. It only happened in the change cases in which a similar type of change was previously implemented and the managers had relevant change experience with that change type. In order to demonstrate that the theories from the adaptation and selection camps are not mutually exclusively, this study examined the possibility of ambidexterity which is in the centre of the organisational adaptation camp (O’Reilly and Tushman, 2008). The results showed that a limited number of change cases conditionally supported the proposition’s predication in this study: it was possible to simultaneously achieve flexibility and efficiency in the organisational change process, with the condition that only if a similar type of change was implemented previously and the managers had previous experience. Finally, this thesis proposed that the theories of organisational adaptation and selection were complementary; some effects of change processes were interpreted better by one view than the other, and it suggested a possible way of disentangling the propositions to directly examine the elements influencing the change process and the consequences on performance functions by considering both theories. The findings of this paper have strong implications for future research into organisational change studies by several dimensions, and they shed light on several important practical issues in business

Digital Maturity and SMEs: evaluating the application of a digital maturity assessment tool

The challenges of undertaking digital transformation within Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are multiple. The constraints of limited resources and a lack of clear strategic purpose for the transformation are readily evident across many existing case studies. Underlying these evidenced challenges is the persistent issue of the digital maturity of an overall organisation and its people individually as key factors in the success or failure of these change projects. We examine the use of a digital maturity assessment tool within an established membership-based SME to understand these many challenges and the way they are revealed through tools of this kind. We utilise a reflective approach based on direct organisational observations to consider the veracity and value of these assessment tools in supporting the drive for positive organisational change. Our conclusions are loosely critical of the generalised nature of these tools but support their intended purpose through the benefits that they generate through a Hawthorne Effect

Strategic Change in Further Education

The research focus was to examine how organisations seek to respond to changes in their external environment through the development of strategies which matched organisational capability with external restraints. In April 1993 colleges of further education in England became incorporated bodies, responsible for their own management and their own strategic development under a new national funding framework. This provided an opportunity to research strategic change in these organisations, to investigate the effects on them of the changes in their environment, and to examine the strategies they had developed to enable them to cope with these changes. These strategies were compared with models of strategic change so that consideration could be given to the strategies colleges needed in order to be successful and to cope with future change. This research project covered the period from 1993 until 1999. Colleges were asked, in a national survey, what they considered to be the most important changes they faced at incorporation and in the years immediately after it and how they had coped with these changes. Key issues were identified from the results of this survey, which were followed up in case studies in order to consider the approaches to strategic change in a number of colleges. A conceptual model was developed in order to provide the theoretical foundation for the research and to provide a framework for the conclusions reached as a result. The findings of the research emphasised the importance of environmental assessment and organisational leadership in achieving effective strategic change

The Socio-Logic Of The IT Marketplace And Long-term Relationships Between Banks And IT Fims

The extension of IT-related change from particular organisational settings of user organisations to a broader, complex, multi-actor socio-economic environment, has shifted the attention of scholars studying IT in Organisations towards the study of the broader IT marketplace. There is however controversy on how choices on technology adoption and implementation as well as choices affecting the formulation of inter-organisational networks are made within such a complex, uncertain and challenging environment. What are the key relationships between players acting at various organisational echelons and in various parts of the networked enterprises? Are they based on formal, discursive criteria or are they a result of tacit knowledge, trust and ‘strong ties’? Also, what is the ‘logic’ or the driving force behind the formulation of such relationships? Is it a collaborative spirit or an antagonistic attitude based on opportunism? Based on the Agora of Techno-Organisational Change concept, which refers to the broader IT marketplace and the way it is shaped, we examine the case of a long-term relationship between an IT firm and a bank in Greece. This case provides some answers to the questions above. Findings suggest that the logic that drives the shaping of the IT marketplace lies with the actor and in that sense there are multiple logics expressed by different actors’ viewpoints, while relations of competition, collaboration, long-term or ad hoc are all existing possibilities within the broader IT marketplace. However, there can be shifting configurations of such viewpoints depending on the influence of critical factors shaping products, services, transactions and IS-development practices in the IT-marketplace. Such critical factors observed in the case studied are the tendency towards outsourcing / insourcing or the degree of customisation and/or in-house development as opposed to standardisation and package-oriented solution technologies

The impact of organisational change on the role of the systems analyst

A major theme in the IS literature in recent years has been the dramatic impact of changes in technology and the business environment on the roles and skills of IS professionals. The British Computer Society (BCS) and other authorities suggest that roles are becoming broader and that demand is growing for a new breed of hybrid managers who possess a wide range of technical, business and organisational competences. Although it is recognised that there are constraints on developing hybrids, little research has been carried out on the nature of these constraints or on the impact of organisational change on IS roles. It was to fill this gap in the literature, and provide data that would be of value to practising managers, that the research presented in this thesis was undertaken. The main aims of the research were: (i) To explore the impact of change on the roles of a group of systems analysts; (ii) to examine the systems analysts' perception of the effects of change on their role and (iii) to determine whether there were any factors impeding the hybridisation of the analyst's role. Analysts were selected as the focal group for many reasons but mainly that their role requires hybrid competences and they would therefore be a good group to examine the strength of the forces for / against change. The decision to focus on the analysts' perceptions was to gauge individual reactions to change. Since the individual's perception of events is likely to influence their behaviour, it was reasoned that if the analysts' perceived change to have negative consequences, their attitude may be a constraint on hybridisation and on organisational change. It would therefore be of practical value to gain a clearer understanding of the analysts' view of the change process. The case study approach was used to examine the impact of change on the analyst's role. Although other methods could have been used, the case study would permit detailed analysis of the process of organisational change and provide an effective means of accessing the analysts' perceptions of the impact of change. The research was carried out in five organisations: three in the financial services sector and two in the retail sector. The decision to base the research in a number of companies and different sectors was to examine differences between organisations and to illuminate the impact of contextual factors. Financial services and retail organisations were considered an appropriate choice for the research because they tend to rely heavily on IT and have been subject to very rapid sectoral change over the last few years. The BCS maintains that these are the conditions in which hybrid managers are most likely to emerge. If the organisations selected fulfilled the Society's criteria and the roles of the analysts were technically defined, this would point to constraints on hybridisation. To analyse the impact of organisational change on roles a theoretical framework was developed which identified the factors that influence roles and explained the dynamics of the change process. A distinction was drawn between factors in the outer context (macro-environmental, sectoral and occupational factors) and the inner context (the organisation and individual role encumbents). These factors were reconfigured in terms of Lewin's fields of force model to suggest how organisational change and change in roles may come about. Thirty-five systems analysts took part in the research. The impact of change was examined over a period of six years (1989-1995), the average length of the analysts' tenure in the participating companies. Data was collected using a variety of methods, including a self-administered questionnaire, interviews with analysts and their IS and Personnel Managers and examination of company documents. In spite of the dramatic changes that had taken place in the case study organisations, the findings reveal that three continued to define the analyst's role in technical terms. Two had broadened the roles of the analysts but there were still constraints on the extent of change. These constraints included the structure and culture of the organisation, the strategies for managing the IS department/division, the emergence of new occupational groups and the analyst's own orientation to their role. The research suggests that the impact of change on the analyst's role may vary between organisations and reflect the influence of contextual factors; that dramatic organisational change does not necessarily create conditions that are conducive to developing hybrids and that there may be significant constraints on bringing about change in the analyst's role. The thesis provides empirical data on the impact of change on roles and helps to explain some of the reasons companies may be experiencing difficulty developing hybrids. Although it helps to fill a gap in the IS literature, it is suggested that more contextual/interpretive studies are needed on the constraints on hybridisation in different organisations and on different occupational groups