Understanding the process of strategic change from a structurational and cognitive perspective : case study of the users of a new technology

How does strategic change happen, and how is it understood around technology? This ethnographic research has sought to better understand this process, from a structurational, cognitive and practice perspective. Researchers have shown that change is a continuous and ongoing process (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002; Weick and Quinn, 1999), while others have shown that change, while not determinate, can be intentional and directed to a large extent by change agents in practice (Balogun and Johnson, 2004; Whittington, 1992, 2006; Pettigrew, 1992; Johnson, 1990; Jarzabkowski, 2003). On a more macro level, Giddens has shown that the process of social organising, or structuration, happens through iterative and recursive production and reproduction of structure through communicated action (Giddens, 1979, 1984) which many authors have gone on to research in relation to technological change (Orlikowski, 1992, 1996, 2000; Barley, 1986; Pozzebon and Pinsonneault, 2002; Walsham, 2002, Heracleous and Barrett, 2001). However, it is also known that much to do with change happens cognitively, where the participants in change must reinterpret and adapt their mental frameworks to adjust to something new. (Huff and Huff, 2000; Davidson, 2006; Kaplan and Tripsas, 2005; Balogun and Johnson, 2004). This research seeks to align these concepts, by starting from the notion that continuous, iterative and recursive change in practice can be intentionally directed on a cognitive level. It then further explores the role that the cognitive activities of change recipients, and organisational structures such as technology, play in this process. Specifically, this research has explored a case where strategic change was made to occur in the context of a new technology implementation. It is grounded in a longitudinal, qualitative, practice based case study which followed the implementation of a Sales Force Automation system. Change was examined under a structurational lens and then operationalised through the identification of schemata. The study looks at how the new technology was perceived and used over time by participants in the change programme as it progressed. It is presented in narrative form, where a Literature Review and Methodology comprise Project I of the DBA, and the First and Second Order Analyses comprise Projects II and III. Data have been based principally upon 42 recorded interviews with 14 people gathered over 2½ years during 4 different time periods. The analysis is also supplemented with information from surveys, statistics on the technology and its usage, and contextual information that was collected by the author, who was employed at the company during the period studied and managed the global technology project. All of the change recipients interviewed were sales people with separate sales territories—they interacted more with the technology, with customers, and with other parts of the business, than with each other, and they were given relative flexibility regarding whether, when and where to use the new system. This study has explored the notion that schemata can consist of both perceived structures and mental actions, implying that they are structurational dualities held cognitively. It is then argued that the dualities held by the change recipients, over time, were themselves juxtaposed, and that it was this iterative and recursive mental juxtaposition that was a fundamental step in creating a strategic change process. Additionally, the analysis proposes that there were some basic measures taken in the course of strategically changing the individual and group schemata in Logico that can be seen differently under a cognitive and structurational lens, including the definition of time and episodes and the manner in which attention was focused on the new system. Finally, the study explores the phenomena in this case from a perspective of Strategy as Practice, by taking a holistic view of some of the practices, praxis, and practitioners involved in this strategic change. Understanding this cognitive and recursive process better can help organisations to manage strategic change in a way that works with changing mental frameworks and contextual situations over time. It also contributes to our knowledge of how strategic outcomes are iteratively shaped by the adopters of new technology when deliberate strategising initiatives take the form of technological innovation.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Context and how it matters: Mobilizing spaces for organization-community sustainable change

There are growing expectations that organizations should contribute to the sustainability of our planet. These have increased recognition of relationships between organizations and their external communities and what they might accomplish together. However, such recognition does not extend to appreciation of the contextual dynamics inherent in organization–community relationships that affect their ability to reach common ground in their joint efforts. In this essay we explore how interpretive, relational, and spatial contextual features previously addressed within organizations play roles in joint organization–community sustainability efforts. We present an example of the multi-decade development of a local foods economy in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, that has been spearheaded by multiple communities and organizations. We show how an Appreciative Inquiry Summit, one of a set of large group interventions developed by Organization Development consultants, made use of the contextual characteristics we discuss to foster shared overarching logics that enabled collaboration. We conclude with a research agenda designed to explore how relational, interpretative, and spatial contexts affect organization–community initiatives to accomplish sustainability, how planned change interventions might affect these contexts, and how such initiatives and their contexts unfold over time. </jats:p

Strategic formulation processes : an institutional perspective

My research addresses the question of 'how does the institutional context impact on the individual framing of strategic issues'. These early stages of decision making represent an important area of study, setting the foundations for the latter stages of decision-making. I show that although both the problem formulation and strategic issue diagnosis literatures have increased our understanding of these formative stages, neither has adequately addressed how 'institutional forces' impact on the individual framing of strategic issues. My research applies an institutional perspective, drawing on Barley ;Tolbert (1997) and their work on 'scripted behaviours' to address this. Institutionalists highlight the institutional context, represented by powerful social and symbolic forces that influence organisations, their practices and behaviours of individual actors through the enactment of scripts. A naturalistic approach, incorporating the use of semi-structured interviews was applied. Respondents were drawn from two universities: Alpha ;Beta, possessing membership of multiple institutions: academia and law, academia and accountancy. So, the research sought to understand the role of multiple institutions on the framing of strategic issues. It was established that scripts are widely shared within the institutional settings, playing a pivotal role in the framing of strategic issues (representative of top-down institutional processes being at play) but do not operate in isolation. I draw on the work of Bartunek (1984) to further ground the second inter-related concept described in my thesis as 'meanings'. These enable respondents to interpret institutionally defined scripts, indicative of bottom-up institutional processes also being at play. Several contributions are made, firstly to the strategic issue and problem formulation literatures and secondly to the institutional literature by focusing on micro-institutional processes.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Selling the object of strategy:How frontline workers realize strategy through their daily work

This paper explores how frontline workers contribute to an organization’s realized strategy. Using a workplace studies approach, we analyse the work of museum tour guides as a salient example of workers engaged in frontline work. Our findings demonstrate the subtle and intricate nature of the embodied work of frontline workers as they ‘bring into being’ the strategic aims of an organization. We identified five elements as central to this process: (1) the situated physical context; (2) audience composition; (3) the moral order; (4) the talk, actions and gestures of the guide; and (5) the corresponding talk, actions and gestures of the audience. Drawing on these categories, we find frontline workers to demonstrate ‘interactional competence’: assessing and making use of the physical, spatial and material specifics of the context and those they are interacting with, and enlisting interactional resources to uphold a moral order that brings these others in as a working audience, encouraging them to respond in particular ways. Frontline workers thus skilfully combine language, material and bodily expressions in the flow of their work. Demonstrating these dynamics gives a more central role to material in the realization of strategy than previously recognized; demonstrates that ‘outsiders’ have an important part to play in realizing strategy; and highlights the importance of frontline workers and their skilled work in bringing strategy into being

Transforming visions into actions: Strategic change as a future-making process

Abstract This paper draws on a longitudinal, qualitative study to develop an empirically grounded model of strategic change as a future-making process. We provide an alternative to linear models of strategic change and illustrate how, through iterative future-making cycles, an abstract vision for the future transforms into action. Our study exposes how shifts in the locus of situated actions and movement of people and ideas between organizational spaces widens participation and transforms an imagined future into the everyday ways of working across an organization. We highlight the inclusionary affordances of bounded spaces as sites for interactions where movement of ideas and participants designing a desired future ‘give form’ and ‘make’ the future in the present. </jats:p

The Power of the Platform: Place and Employee Responses to Organizational Change

This inductive study explores how place influences collective sensemaking and employee responses during organizational change. The empirical setting of our study is an offshore oil platform undergoing changes that involve standardizing operational practices and relocating personnel as two organizations merge. We analyze the narratives of two employee groups and show how employees located onshore construct progressive change narratives, enabling them to adapt to change, while employees located on the offshore oil platform construct regressive narratives leaving them romanticizing the past and struggling to accept change. Our findings illustrate how the manipulation, reconfiguration, and exploitation of place has implications for employees’ capacities to accept and adapt to change. </jats:p

Senior managers’ sensemaking and responses to strategic change

Our longitudinal study of the sensemaking and responses to strategic change of the senior management team of a UK multinational subsidiary provides unusual data that enable us to explore the complexity of senior team change related sensemaking. We show senior teams to be distinct interpretive communities rather than one homogeneous category of change agents, as typically portrayed in change literature, who at times of center-led strategic change occupy a complex dual recipient/change agent role. By adopting a narrative approach, we show the shared sensemaking of such a team to be impacted by the locally differentiated nature of its interpretive and relational contexts, leading to context specific interpretations of center-led change and locally distinct responses, with consequences for change outcomes. We found that because of their dual role, senior managers construct two sets of interwoven and interacting change narratives which mediate the relationship between the wider organizational change and local change actions. Our analysis reveals how these evaluations of change, accompanied by affect, evolve over time and how they impact action. These findings contribute to existing theories of sensemaking and change by addressing the previously undertheorized relationship between senior management teams’ sensemaking and their responses to strategic change

The social practice of co-evolving strategy and structure to realize mandated radical change

Our paper shows how actions by senior, middle and frontline managers co-evolve strategy and structure in order to realize a mandated radical change. Alignment between strategy and structure has been considered critical since Chandler’s (1962) study showing that a divisional structure enabled firms with a diversification strategy to dominate the competitive environment. Radical change, a rapid and simultaneous, discontinuous shift in the firm’s strategic orientation, such as its products, markets, and ways of competing, and in its associated organizational activities (Tushman & Romanelli 1985), is a particularly critical point in the alignment of strategy and structure. It is a time when the two move together rapidly and simultaneously (Mintzberg, 1990), disrupting the existing strategy-structure alignment (e.g. Amis et al, 2004; Tushman & Romanelli, 1985), with potentially damaging implications for organizational performance (Gulati & Puranam, 2009). Yet few studies discuss how strategy and structure change together over time (Mintzberg, 1990). Rather, most studies examine the unintended consequences of radical change, such as lags between strategic and structural change (Amburgey & Dacin, 1994; Greenwood & Hinings, 1988), oscillations of strategy and structure (Amis et al, 2004; Greenwood & Hinings, 1993), and structural reversals of strategic change (Mantere et al, 2012)

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London