Tesi sul tema "Organizational change"

In both academic and management literature it has been often stated that 70% of change efforts are not successful (Kotter, 1995; Smith, 2002). And while this failure rate may not be empirically tested, it points to a reality that most change efforts are not only difficult, but they are often unsuccessful (Hughes, 2011). When an organization undergoes a major organizational change process, the expected impacts include increased employee stress and overall productivity dips in the midst of the change (Dahl, 2011; Elrod II & Tippett, 2002). Measuring the impacts of change on employees and on organizational effectiveness during the change can add value and help increase the chances for change initiative success by allowing necessary adjustments and identifying and leveraging additional business improvement predictors along the way.

In this dissertation, I answer the question “What is the impact of going through a major organizational change on business outcomes and employee and organizational health?” My results suggest that an organization can transform the expected negative effects of a major change effort to positive effects by focusing on three things: 1) Improving employee mental health; 2) Increasing positive practices, including leadership’s impact on the organization; and 3) Improving employee involvement, communication, and teamwork. Finally, the results also show that improved employee mental health and improved positive practices are significantly related to improved business outcomes. Organizational change outcomes can be successfully informed by linking business outcomes with change impact measures.

The field of Organizational Change has seen a proliferation of publications of all sorts over the past two decades. In view of the emerging breadth of the field, it is becoming increasingly difficult for practitioners and researchers alike to separate the wheat from the chaff. At the same time, research suggests the majority of Organizational Change efforts are not successful. It is therefore my intent to map the nomological structure of the field of Organizational Change, determine the most dominating concepts, and identify any patterns or trends.

For that purpose I have collected bibliometric data from 1948 to 2016 and conduct a network analysis based on co-occurrence of keywords of Organizational Change.

My network analysis suggests five major findings. First, the field of Organizational Change has reached a level of maturity, which reduces the likelihood of breakthrough innovations. Second, only five concepts are dominating the field of Organizational Change today, which I label the “Top Five”: Change management, leadership, organizational culture, organizational learning, and innovation. Third, we are barking up the wrong tree, which means there is an inherent inconsistency between the topicality of the field, i.e. the dominance of very few topics, and the low success rate of Organizational Change projects. Fourth, it is still unclear how to exactly define and reliably measure change. Finally fifth, there seems to be too much focus on the paradigm that change is always preferably over an equilibrium.

I therefore propose three suggestions for further research. First, look beyond the Top Five concepts and create more dissonant discussion within the field, including a critical review of established paradigms. Second, revisit the established definitions and measurements of change, which includes questioning the widespread assumption that the majority of change efforts are failing. Finally third, conduct a network analysis based on a network of social actors of the field of organizational change, i.e. authors of organizational change.

Leaders are frequently required to lead change due to mergers, expansions into new markets, and new initiatives to enter global markets compounding the need for change leadership. Frequent change is more the rule rather than the exception. Change is more needed today yet a poor result from leading change can adversely impact a leader's influence. How does a leader know when to lead a change initiative or when to take the easier route and simply stay with the status quo?

An in depth study of what appeared to be a very risky and highly successful organizational change initiative was thought to possibly shed light on answering these difficult leadership questions. This inductive qualitative case study discovered a university that achieved a successful, sustainable organizational change. The leader overcame the organizational change odds of one-third to two-thirds of the outcomes are often unsuccessful (Beer & Nohria; Bibler; as cited in Gilley, Dixon, & Gilley, 2008). "The rate of failure to deliver sustainable change at times reaches 80–90%" (Cope as cited in Gilley, Dixon, & Gilley, 2008, p. 153).

The leader in the private university organization in the Midwest that led the successful organizational change was inspired by his personal vision. He did not lead change using a theoretical framework. He was successful in persuading the board to authorize implementation of his vision. The president established goals to lead the way for workers to help achieve the organizational change. He effectively communicated his vision and goals and met resistance due to the status quo. The president overcame the challenges of status quo, and the successful organizational change resulted in an effervescent campus environment with record breaking-fundraising. Regardless of the type or size of the major change, organizations that seek to make change may glean insights from this study of how leaders of one organization approached significant change.

Ensuring all residents in Southern California have access to healthy food is one of many examples of an issue too complex and challenging for any one organization to change on its own. More and more, organizations work in collaboration and designate individuals to manage these collaborative change initiatives. This research uncovers the specific influence managers of collaborative change initiatives have in shaping positive outcomes for the collaborations they serve. Based on interviewing 11 managers and funders from six leading collaborative change initiatives, there are two contextual ways in which managers influence collaboration: their position itself carries influence and their ability to navigate the collaborative context they operate in. The main findings of this research share five key ways in which managers influence the collaborations they serve: their own personal characteristics and skills, the relationships they cultivate, the membership they support and empower, the processes they manage, and the culture they shape.

After 12 years of negotiation, Saudi Arabia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2005. The impact of joining the WTO has caused many Saudi organizations to change some of their old ways to keep up with competition from all around the world. Foreign investments created a healthy competition that encouraged Saudi Arabian organizations to change, adapt, and thrive in the market. With the need for change, Saudi Arabian organizations are facing employees’ resistance for unknown reasons. The purpose of this study was to analyze the reasons behind resistance to change in Saudi Arabian organizations and suggest approaches to minimize resistance and facilitate successful organizational change. Many researchers have found a relationship between organizational justice and employees’ behavior, especially during organizational change. Additionally, Saudi Arabian culture influences employees’ behavior towards change. Therefore, this correlational study examine the relationship between resistance to change and organizational justice, as well as the relationship between resistance to change and demographic measures in one Saudi Arabian organization. The scales that were used in this study are pre-existing and have been tested for validity and reliability. To measure resistance to change, the researcher used Oreg’s (2003) Resistance to Change Scale, which divides resistance to change into four factors (routine seeking, emotional reaction, short-term focus, and cognitive rigidity), and Colquitt’s (2001) Organizational Justice Scale, which divides organizational into four dimensions (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational). A total of 55 completed surveys were collected with 76.4% male respondents, and 85.5% under the age of 40 years old, which showed how young and male dominant the workforce is in Saudi Arabia. The study concluded that the organizational justice dimensions of procedural and interpersonal justice have a negative significant relationship with employees’ resistance, especially the short-term focus factor. Moreover, from the demographic measures, the age factor also had a significant negative relationship with resistance to change, mostly with the short-term focus factor.

Much has been written in academic and popular publications about organizational change. Topics have ranged from case studies to anecdotal stories of how leaders can change an organization. There is little written on changing the culture and vision of a profession at the macro level.

This dissertation shows that one key to effecting change within a profession is to educate those at the entrant level and thereby effect change with the profession. Over time, these new entrants to the profession will rise to senior positions and be able to effect greater change through the hiring, training, and mentoring processes inherent in the professions and the organizations for which they work. One way to effect change in these entrants is through education in college and professional schools. This study is specifically focused on effecting change in the interdisciplinary field of engineering and public policy. Public policy involves countless infrastructure issues at all levels of government. Engineers are well-versed in dealing with the technical issues of infrastructure but their voice is often lacking at the policy level. Similarly, political scientists are well-versed in policy but are often lacking in a thorough understanding of the technical aspects of the policy.

Through an introductory course in engineering and public policy, undergraduate students from the seemingly disparate fields of engineering and political science were placed in a common classroom and through lectures, writings, presentations, and guided discussions their attitudes on key areas were changed. Areas studied were professional interest, legitimacy, deference, the public policy process, and education outside of a specific field. Through the process of education, changes in each of these areas was possible. Further, the movement was towards making students in each discipline more open to the input, opinions, and attitudes of others, and specifically in shifting engineers toward a more positive view of the public policy process. Being exposed to these topics and to each other’s thought processes, changes in professional attitudes were made.

While there is not a specific profession for which any research has been done, the military is used, in places, as an analog to the profession of engineering.

Organizational agility represents a new field of organizational study that is not well examined. In the past organizations had an unmatched competitive advantage due to low competition and higher barriers to entry into their markets. As a result, many organizations dominated their industries. However, in the era of globalization, individuals with an internet connection and the right skills can start new organizations that can compete on a global level. Consequently, organizations now are facing more competition that they experienced in the past. Another reason for increase competition is new technology. Technology is improving increasingly faster than any time in history. Therefore, organizations that are not agile could not survive in the current environment.

Agile entities realize that they have to become flexible and nimble to withstand competition. Accordingly, the researcher in this study proposes an organizational agility model and this proposed model is the focus of the study. The proposed model significant arises from the fact that currently there are limited numbers of models that help organizations in becoming agile entities. The characteristics in this study were based on Worley and Lawler (2010) “Agility and Organization Design: A Diagnostic Framework”. The study conducted a survey utilizing an instrument developed by Dr. Worley and Dr. Lawler that contains 15 agility characteristics. The survey uses all 15 characteristics to determine if the organization is agile. In addition, the study utilizes three of the 15 agility characteristics to determent if a relationship occurs between the study variables.

This quantitative study examined the relationship between change capability, learning capability, shared leadership and organizational agility. Moreover, understanding these relationships could assist scholars and practitioners in producing change programs that emphasize certain behaviors that make an organization agile. The study surveyed 116 participants and found that focusing on change capability, learning capability and shared leadership could contribute in creating agile organizations. Consequently, after evaluating the study results, a new agility model emerged. This model shows that organizations can achieve agility by developing change capability, learning capability, shared leadership, shared purpose and flexible resources. Ultimately, achieving agility could help organizations compete and endure now and the future.

All over the globe, nonprofit organizations aim to strengthen communities while struggling with the restraints of limited resources. This research study involved Participatory Action Research (PAR) to examine how to build internal capacity in one such organization in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. This study was a partnership between me (the academic researcher) and organizational members and stakeholders of the Baobab Home. Through interviews and meetings, the project focus involved creating written contracts. Over the course of five meetings, contracts were researched, policies and procedures were discussed, and formal contracts were created in Swahili. Findings include a discussion of the role of the outside researcher in the PAR process, as well as the value of partnering with a cultural guide. This study also provides a look at how to use PAR to build capacity within organizations. Finally, there is a review of the project itself, its successes, and its lessons learned.

This study examined the relationships between affective commitment to change (desire), normative commitment to change (obligation), and continuance commitment to change (cost), as predictors of behavioral support for change. Affective commitment to change and normative commitment to change both demonstrated curvilinear relationships with behavioral support. Continuance commitment to change did not. This study also used residualized relative importance analyses, techniques for a full decomposition of the variance in nonlinear regression models. The nonlinear models accounted for more of a change in variance than did the linear regression models. The discussion section includes a scatterplot diagram intended to bridge the gap between scholars and practitioners in that the figure illustrates a range of resistant to commitment behaviors that cause organizational change initiatives to fail. The conclusion provides recommendations for researchers regarding the inclusion of a nonlinear frame when designing organizational change studies, and recommendations for practitioners regarding the damage that compliance is responsible for in organizational change initiatives.

Keywords: commitment to change, resistance to change, organizational change

Leadership found the best form of communication and behaviors challenging and elusive during all phases of Merger and Acquisitions, (M&A). The majority of M&A resulted in lower than expected shareholder value as measured by yearly profits. A qualitative Delphi design was used to identify the key descriptors of leadership communication and behaviors witnessed that influenced motivation, morale, and productivity during mergers and acquisitions. The participants engaged by email in two rounds of behavior and communication key descriptor creation, and a telephonic interview that presented the witnessed M&A. The 25 participants were experts because of their knowledge of the PLM and software industry, knowledge of the industry’s history of mergers and acquisitions, and witnessed leadership communication and behavior during merger and acquisitions. In addition, the majority of the participants experienced multiple mergers and acquisitions under change leaders. This positioned the participants as experts that identified the successful leadership communication and behavior in a merger and acquisition. The Delphi results introduced the criticality in regard to knowledge in the art of leadership regarding adaptability to change and appropriate application of communication and behaviors during M&A. NVivo 10 a qualitative analysis tool helped produce organization, and broader meaning to the key descriptors. Once the key descriptors were categorized as leadership qualities, behaviors, and processes themes were extracted from the collected data that produced consensus in regard to best communication and behaviors, which positively influenced motivation, morale, and productivity of employees.

      Organizational change and game theory were separately investigated over time. Due to lack of scientific research on the relationships of those two fields of knowledge, an investigation of the game theoretic applications in managing change was performed in this research. Game theoretic applications were structured concerning the analytical use of game theory, strategic formulation with game theory and equilibrium analysis. By a qualitative flexible research method, main problematic areas of organizational change were identified with suitable game theoretic applications. Those problem areas are: making cooperation and coalition in change, group dynamic difficulties and the problem of incentive rewards. In each problem area, game theoretic solutions were discussed to help managers to make better decisions. Four mechanisms were inferred to support the game theoretic analysis of change management problems. Those mechanisms are: sub games, practical games, specific modeling and behavioral studies of games. Finally, an instructional framework was developed to conclude findings and illuminate the game theoretic approach in organizational change.