Learning from the radical change initiative in British aerospace military aircraft

Academic researchers and practitioners are always keen to know more aboutorganizational practices. Some experts even claim that academic researchers areignorant about organizational knowledge. Given that the study is an attempt toprovide an exemplar from real life in order to increase the organizationalawareness of the academic community and practitioners. The objective of the studyis to understand and learn the experience of a radical change initiative that tookplace within the Military Aircraft division of British Aerospace over the period1993-98. The emphasis is on the effectiveness of the change methodology appliedin the process of change.Open-ended interviews and documents were the major sources of the data used inthe case study. The interviews reflected the actual experiences of those who wereinvolved, while the documents provided contextual data and information on thekey themes of the change. Nine change projects were examined which wereintroduced during five-year period. Analysis showed that there was a huge gapbetween the organization's practices and those of the benchmark companies. Thisgap is what BAe sought to lessen/remove through radical change initiative. Thestudy postulates that the qualitative paradigm can shape the analysis of such achange initiative by contextualizing the phenomenon. Pettigrew et al's (1989)framework has beena pplied to assessth e change,w hich consistso f the context, thecontent and the process.The change programme was a successful attempt to increase internal efficiency,developing business partnerships and strengthening customer satisfaction. Thestudy concludes that there is a strong relationship between the extent of managementsponsorship, employees involvement, a flatter organizational structure, efficient use oftechnology, an effective change methodology and the success of such radical changeinitiatives. The experience of this company can be used in other organizations providedthat their drivers for change are similar to those of the company investigated