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The aim of this case study is to explore what actors in a Swedish municipality expect from a new administrative reform (i.e., an attempt to implement the Balanced Scorecard). The findings show that the expectations on changes are highest among the politicians, moderate among the administrators, and lowest among the operative employees. The differences can be explained by the way the reform is anticipated to favor or disfavor the actors, who in turn are influenced by the actors' past experiences. Most of the expressed expectations concern expectations of the outcome of the administrative reform, but some concern expectations on the reform itself.

CASE DESCRIPTION This case can be seen from many different angles--pure strategy, small business management (including financing and cost accounting), family owned businesses, succession planning, international operations, leadership, entrepreneurship, or [...]

A fictitious chief executive officer selection scenario is presented, with contributors providing advice on whether human resources should advocate organizational change with such an appointment. Advice includes gathering sufficient evidence indicating the need for change, obtaining consulting from a disinterested party, and examining whether the need for change indicates larger problems within the firm.

CASE DESCRIPTION This case concerns the arrival of a Chief Executive in a small private company and his need to take stock of the company, and with the information that [...]

An analysis of Linux and Wikipedia revealed that an incomplete design will enable firms to adapt to continually changing environments. A pragmatic approach in design uses incompleteness in a generative manner. It is suggested that the word 'design' be redefined as both the process and outcome of action.

Abstract This qualitative study explored the experiences of employees exposed to extensive change within a regionally-based, state-owned corporation in relation to the Effort-Reward Imbalance at Work (ERI) model, a major [...]

A study on the effect of institutional change on the disposition of organizations to change, in order to grow, is presented. This examination is based on the data accumulated in the Major League Baseball during 1920-2001, to identify the drivers of change and their performance implications.

The case study reported here challenges conventional wisdom about the feasibility of implementing responsibility budgeting and accounting practices in U.S. government. A variant of this practice took root and operated effectively in a large federal agencyuthe Air Force Materiel Commanduduring the period of study. Contrary to conventional wisdom, implementing a meaningful form of responsibility budgeting and accounting does not require changes in public management policies or systemic institutional reform. However, the evidence shows that instituting practices of responsibility budgeting and accounting may require considerable administrative ingenuity in adapting the generic practice to the situation at hand.

The amazing success of Kodak at the transformation of photography from an elite activity which demands expertise to a part and parcel of routine life is explored. The role played by entrepreneurs in effecting institutional alterations is also examined by the detailed analysis of the aforesaid instance.

This article analyzes recent empirical studies of welfare-to-work programs implemented by nonprofit organizations as a first step in understanding potential shifts in the political, social, and economic environments of nonprofit organizations in a post-welfare era. Using the political economy as a conceptual framework, the literature review suggests that nonprofits are experiencing organizational change--and frequent turbulence--on four key dimensions: interorganizational relationships, mission and philosophy, resource dependencies, and target populations. The article first analyzes each dimension, then draws implications of the changes for social work managers, practitioners, educators, and researchers. Findings suggest that emergence of new organizational and interorganizational forms may require nonprofit managers to focus increased attention on external relations in order to build new collaborations and partnerships, and to develop innovative outcome measures as tools to capture program success in complex organizational arrangements. KEYWORDS. Nonprofit management, organizational change, welfare-to-work, social policy implementation, social environment

The underlying attribution process for cynicism about organizational change is examined with six samples from four different organizations. The samples include hourly (n = 777) and salaried employees (n = 155) from a manufacturing plant, faculty (n = 293) and staff (n=302) from a large university, managers from a utility company (n = 97), and young managers (n = 65) from various organizations who were attending an evening MBA program. This form of cynicism is defined as the combination of Pessimism (about future change efforts) and a Dispositional attribution (why past efforts to change failed). Three analyses support this definition. First, an exploratory factor analysis (from the largest sample) produced two factors, one composed of Pessimism and the Dispositional attribution items and the second of the Situational attribution items. Second, the average correlation (across several samples) between Pessimism and Dispositional attribution is much higher (.59) than the average correlation between Pessimism and Situational attribution (.17). Third, scores on two different trait-based measures of cynicism correlate highest with the Dispositional attribution component of cynicism. A practical implication is that organizational leaders may minimize cynicism by managing both employees' pessimism about organizational change and employees' attributions about it. Specific suggestions for how this might be done are offered.

Organizational change implementation at Monsanto's foreign operations is discussed.

A case study of organizational transformation is used to illustrate how concepts from knowledge generation can be used to reframe some of the typical issues that arise, and make suggestions for practice. For organizational transformation to occur, an organization's members need to evolve new tacit knowledge about the way they interact with each other and external stakeholders, and how they coordinate their activities.

This article addresses mergers in a nonprofit setting through a case study and a discussion of the literature. It addresses some commonly overlooked, though highly essential components of successful mergers: people. Nonprofit human service agencies are fundamentally changing the way they do business. The environment on which they depend is evolving rapidly, forcing many organizational and cultural changes. Mergers of non-profit organizations operate similarly to those in proprietary settings, particularly around employee issues. Oftentimes the beginning phase of mergers creates workplace ambiguities for workers. In a merger, the culture of each organization must advance a deeper understanding and respect for the other's differences before the staff of each organization can build trust and communicate effectively as one team and create its own new culture. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: KEYWORDS. Nonprofit, human service, mergers, organizational culture, Employees

This article deals with a transition process from a professional engineering archetype to a modernizing managerialist archetype in a British electricity utility. This took place in the context of the substantially changing utility sector characterized by privatization, the introduction of efficiency targets, the introduction of a regulatory system, the prospect of mergers and predatory takeovers. The high-flying rhetoric of modernizing managerialists needs to be seen in the context of institutional templates, which carried substantial mimetic legitimacy, in particular programmes such as total quality management, teamworking and job redesign. The provided a basis to displace entrenched engineering rituals, and establish a new 'dominant rhetoric.' An alternative reading is one that problematizes such an understanding by instead drawing attention to the largely ceremonial and rhetoric intensive nature of modernizing managerialism - the critics' rhetoric. A third perspective is provided by engineers who were fighting a largely rearguard action, as professional expectations emphasizing engineering safety were gradually losing force, but remained in sedimented form. The rhetoric intensive practice of talking 'spin' and engaging in elaborate rituals may well, whether in political or in organizational life, lead to critical, and sometimes cynical responses. In this article we highlight the way in which the scripts of ceremonialism, reformism and cynicism have played out among managerial and professional groups in the organization.

This paper uses a longitudinal case study of the mutual fund provider, The Vanguard Group, to understand the developmental processes that lead to organizational configurations and fit. A new method for determining an organization's core elements is developed, and four processes are identified that describe the creation and subsequent elaboration of these core elements: thickening (reinforcement of an existing core element by new elaborating elements), patching (creation of a new core element and its reinforcement by new elaborating elements), coasting (no further elaboration of a new core element in a given period), and trimming (deletion of a core element and its elaborating elements). The four processes are used to describe organizations' development paths toward configurations and their transitions between configurations, including two new ideal types, termed thin-to-thick and patch-by-patch, as well as two known paths between configurations, the punctuated equilibrium path and reorientation through linear progression. *, Scholars in a variety of literatures have conceptualized firms as systems of highly interdependent elements (e.g., Miller, 1981; Milgrom and Roberts, 1990; Porter, 1996; Levinthal, 1997; Whittington et al., 1999). [...]

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began reform procedures in 1995. The agency must continue to decrease its caseload and introduce a performance appraisal program

Byline: gaylord GEORGE Candler (1) Keywords: Amnesty International; capital punishment; nonprofit organizations; non-governmental organizations; accountability; legitimacy Abstract: This paper looks at organizational change in voluntary nonprofit organizations. Their 'purposive' nature makes voluntary organizations difficult to change while their tendency to oligarchic control results in this change often being imposed from the top. Amnesty International's death penalty work demonstrates the complexity of organizational change, as well as the accountability for and the legitimacy of change in nonprofits. Legitimacy should not be equated with organizational strength, and will remain subject to shifting, contested social norms concerning standards of behavior. Author Affiliation: (1) MPA Program, University of Vermont, 500 Old Mill, Burlington, VT, 05405 Article History: Registration Date: 13/10/2004

Organizational change that decentralized the management of a business brings new challenged to strategic decision making. The reorganization of Northern Ireland Electricity is offer as an example.

Change management at Air Products and Chemicals is evaluated. The change was effected through the use of a shared services business model.

The management and product development changes that were exhibited by Polaroid during the evolution from analog to digital imaging are discussed.

The ability of organizations to learn is critical for success. Implementing organizational learning in engineering cultures can be difficult due to a focus on technology instead of people and imbalances among cultures within an organization. A project to transform a medium-sized engineering organization into a learning organization is reported, and the degree, nature, and causes of its success are evaluated. An implementation team developed skills in five disciplines of a learning organization. However the underlying organizational learning concepts were not embraced by the organization at large or incorporated into regular operations. Success was constrained by the organization's ability to share and utilize the knowledge acquired by the implementation team to generate organizationwide commitment to organizational learning. The dominance of the engineering culture and the lack of organizational learning infrastructures and development process experimentation suggest that organizations with a balance among cultures may be more likely to succeed than those dominated by a single culture.

A case study of organizational change as initiated by consultants in a firm that was a market leader showed that paying attention to strategy, culture and top team dynamics is not enough to ensure full success in this management goal. What is needed is a focus on systemic obstacles and positive factors to help in the more effective diagnosis of problems. Furthermore, both process and content have to be dealt with. A continuing dialogue has to take place between effectors of change and those affected by it is also necessary.

Byline: Hasan Simsek* (1), Dilkan Aytemiz (1) Abstract: This paper analyzes an institutional change in a large, Turkish public university, the Middle East Technical University (METU), by using an anomaly-based change model. The model explains change as an organizational response to anomalies caused by internal and external organizational conditions. The study used a qualitative case study design that included interviews with 51 individuals, and, analysis of institution-specific documents. Anomalies derived from the interview findings compared with a separate set of anomalies, devised from the document study, that are attributed to the strategic change agenda developed by the current president of the institution. The paper argues that human thinking and problem solving as well as organizational cognition and problem solving do proceed through existence and recognition of a problematic situation. So, anomalies are the ID cards of any major change in organizations in that they carry important information about where the organization comes from and where it should proceed to. Implications for the nature and management of change in higher education organizations are discussed. Author Affiliation: (1) Faculty of Education, Middle East Technical University, 06531, Ankara, Turkey (*Corresponding author: Phone Article History: Registration Date: 03/10/2004

Total quality management has been a central element in many efforts directed towards organizational change. Theories tend to fall into two extreme camps, which hold either that TQM transforms attitudes and behaviour or that it is nothing but a means to intensify work and tighten managerial control. More recent analysis is more balanced, but lacks quantitative data on employee responses and also neglects the varying contexts in which TQM exists. This study addresses these issues by taking six named organizations from different sectors of the UK economy and by blending qualitative interviewing with a survey of 280 employees. Findings show a wide acceptance of quality principles but (in contrast to the transformation view) little evidence of substantial empowerment of workers. Compared with the intensification view, growing work effort was not widely disliked, and, crucially, favourable views of quality were strongest, not weakest, where the monitoring of workers was most intense. Multivariate analysis supports the 'disciplined worker' thesis, that quality is most accepted where there is a controlled work environment. Case material indicates that the conditions for success in quality programmes are notably high job security and a co-operative relationship with trade unions. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.), Introduction Total Quality Management is one of the leading management issues of the 1980s and 1990s. Stimulated by the work of quality consultants, the term gained rapid acceptance in North [...]

This article examines the transformation of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as a regulatory institution caught in the midst of massive technological change in the converging broadcasting and telecommunications industry. Focusing on the last decade, the article assesses institutional change in relation to five aspects central to current regulatory institutional analysis: (1) the contemporary nature of an independent regulator in relation to ministers, regulated interests and the public; (2) the characteristics of both quasi-judicial and quasi-political regulatory functions; (3) changing views of regulatory compliance; (4) changing relations between competition and other framework regulators; and (5) internationalization of regulation both through international trade regimes and through the effects of globalization on regulated industries. The analysis shows that the CRTC is being transformed as a regulatory institution but that it has not been as pared back as have some other federal regulators, nor have the changes gone as far or as fast as the telecommunications revolution would lead one to expect. Each of the five institutional features examined conveys part of the reasons for change, but they also show how institutional directions and trade-offs for the CRTC do not all pull in the direction of deregulation and contraction. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Leading social change in organizations is a difficult and politically dangerous balancing act. These risks increase if the social change in question directly challenges accepted societal and organizational norms. This article examines the racial integration of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team as an example of a successful social change that challenged organizational and societal norms. The seven-step method used by Dodgers general manager, Branch Rickey, was guided by an understanding of the social implications of integration. Rickey's method also relied on an awareness of the differing perspectives of important stakeholders. This article pays particular attention to the linking and sequencing of action learning strategies used during the change. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

What are the variety and scope of administrative challenges faced by large bureaucratic structures when they implement system-wide change? Specifically, when decision making about priorities for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [...]

Since the late 1970s, firms in most American industries have experienced increasing pressure from domestic and foreign competition. This pressure has generated changes in product markets, which, in combination with [...]

A case study followed the transformation of the belief system in two Canadian aboriginal organizations for the purpose of making their groups operate within the parameters of traditional beliefs, values and customs. Of the two, only one succeeded. Its transformation process concentrated mainly on the connection between the aboriginally based interpretive scheme and actions. During the early part of the process, the organization embraced both the old and new interpretative schemes. Eventually, the leaders forged the way for the emergence of a new interpretative scheme shared by a critical mass of members. The process was incremental, iterative, multidimensional and lengthy. On the other hand, the other group abandoned the change process after two years of being launched. The process related the structure with the interpretative scheme.

Business process reengineering (BPR), a recently popularized management change strategy, promises radical improvements in the business processes of an organization. This article describes and analyzes one of Pacific Bell's successful reengineering initiatives, the Centrex reengineering project. It suggests that successful reengineering implementation does not necessarily meet the popular assumptions underlying BPR. Reengineering designs tend to be radical and assume change to be clean slate, process-based, top-down directed, and information technology enabled. By contrast, reengineering implementation tends to involve improvements that are incremental, rather than radical. The key to implementation appears to be a continual involvement of front-line employees and managers. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Little attention has been given in the literature to the effects of corporate restructuring on the career mobility and career perceptions of organizational 'survivors.' Employees remaining with the firm typically exhibit career mobility concerns since they anticipate that fewer job opportunities will exist, particularly within the managerial tier. Past research has neither compared actual career moves with employee perceptions of those moves, nor adequately emphasized perceptions of career mobility. This report examines the effects of a mid 1980s downsizing on sales and service employees in one General Motors division. Our results suggest that employee perceptions were rooted in past career path patterns. Because of this reliance on past behavior and the accuracy of their perceptions of past career movement, the majority continued to believe that they would advance in their careers. We discovered the longer an employee was associated with any given position, the less likely he/she was to anticipate future career movement (p Key words: organizational change, career advancement, career perceptions, General Motors; USA

Teams tasked to carry out business process reengineering succeed when they are free to take risks and experiment with different approaches to work. This is exemplified in two case studies. The first concerns an electronics firm which saw its capital equipment requisition process minimized from one year to 24 hrs. The second concerns a packaging company which set up the goals of improving the average response time for new and repeat customers., According to the business press, most business process improvement efforts fail to live up to the expectations of those implementing them. For example, a 1994 study by CSC Index showed [...]