Mixed Results, Lousy Process: the Management Experience of Organizational Change

This paper reports the findings of a survey of 92 managers, from 14 public and 14 private-sector organizations. The aim was to explore the experience of change, extending the findings of a previous study (Buchanan, Claydon and Doyle, 1999). The survey addressed six themes: communication, evaluation, learning, attitudes and relationships, implementation and change and continuity. Overall, the results present a bleak picture of the process and outcomes of contemporary change. Most managers claim that change responsibility affords valuable personal learning. However, recent change has also been accompanied by stress, work intensification, command and control and management–employee distrust. A comparison of public and private–sector responses suggests that the experience of change in the public sector has been more pressured than in the private sector. Comparison of responses by management level indicates that senior managers are more likely to hold positive views of the change process and its outcomes. Explanations for these differences in experience and perception are considered, along with the implications. It is concluded that an adequate theory of organizational change must address the contradictions and tensions in the lived experience of those implicated, and that effective practice should consider the linkage of change implementation with organizational learning mechanisms which, on this evidence, are absent.     

组织文化友好性对员工变革态度影响的实证研究

在回顾相关研究文献的基础上建立了假设的理论模型,并以高级管理人员培训班学员为研究对象进行了实证分析,得出有关具有审慎普适性的结论:组织文化友好性的价值层面、事实层面,以及二者之间差异分别对组织变革中员工的认知反应有正面影响;事实层面的文化友好性对组织变革中员工的行为反应具有较强的正面影响,价值层面的影响则不显著,而二者之间差异则对其具有负面影响.研究结果为组织变革中员工的态度提供了组织文化方面的解释,对于指导变革实践具有较好的参考价值.     

Organizational Behavior Management

ABSTRACT

Organizational behavior management (OBM) is an effective strategy for managing staff in developmental disabilities. Most studies in OBM involve individual or small groups of direct-service staff and their performance with clients in a variety of applied settings. By contrast, few studies focus on the use of OBM with professional staff. This papeT reviews investigations conducted with professional staff, reveals gaps that exist in the current research, and discusses future directions that need further study. The paper concludes with case illustrations of system-wide OBM applications that produced performance improvements by professional staff and meaningful gains for clients.     

组织能力构建过程中学习代理人的作用

技术型组织越来越重视能力概念,并且许多组织已经完成了能力识别和分析过程.但是,在未来保持竞争优势不仅依赖于能力组合过程,而且依赖于组织迅速、持续构建能力的能力.本文调查且分析了为什么一些组织在能力构建过程中比其竞争对手取得更好的成绩的问题.     

The Leadership Effectiveness in the Process of Planned Organizational Change

Using data from public employees in Korean central agencies, this research examined the effectiveness of team building as a planned organizational change with respect to the change-oriented leadership and leader–member exchange. However, no statistically significant differences in change-oriented leadership and leader–member exchange were found either before or after planned organization change. Because this type of change did not reflect the characteristics of the Korean public sector, organizational members do not become completely institutionalized. Based on these findings, this research concludes that organizational change did not have the intended results unless organizational contexts were considered.     

The Impact of Leadership and Change Management Strategy on Organizational Culture and Individual Acceptance of Change during a Merger

This article reports a longitudinal study that examined mergers between three large multi‐site public‐sector organizations. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis are used to examine the effect of leadership and change management strategies on acceptance of cultural change by individuals. Findings indicate that in many cases the change that occurs as a result of a merger is imposed on the leaders themselves, and it is often the pace of change that inhibits the successful re‐engineering of the culture. In this respect, the success or otherwise of any merger hinges on individual perceptions about the manner in which the process is handled and the direction in which the culture is moved. Communication and a transparent change process are important, as this will often determine not only how a leader will be regarded, but who will be regarded as a leader. Leaders need to be competent and trained in the process of transforming organizations to ensure that individuals within the organization accept the changes prompted by a merger.     

组织信息资源管理论纲

本文在简要分析现代组织管理环境基本特点的基础上,对社会组织的信息资源管理的功能、原则及其运作等若干问题进行了认真的探讨,以期进一步完善现代组织管理理论。     

Organizational Change and the Importance of Embedded Assumptions*

‘Managing change’ appears a simple enough term. However, no common ontological assumption underlies either the notion of ‘managing’ or that of ‘change’. In this paper, we identify different assumptions about both what it means to manage and the nature of change outcomes. From these assumptions we derive six different images of managing organizational change: directing, navigating, caretaking, coaching, interpreting and nurturing. We show how each image is underpinned by different organization theories. We then take each image and show how the differing ontological assumptions about managing and change outcomes are associated with different research agendas. We illustrate this by focusing on three elements commonly associated with managing organizational change: vision, communication and resistance.     

Measurement of Perceived Organizational Readiness for Change in the Public Sector

Using the act frequency approach we developed and operationalized two constructs: perceived organizational readiness for change and perceived organizational unreadiness for change. Using a sample drawn from five Canadian public sector organizations, it was found that perceived readiness for change can be conceptualized with three sub-constructs: commitment of senior managers to the change, competence of change agents, and support of the immediate manager. Perceived unreadiness for change had two sub-constructs: poor communication of change and adverse impact of change on work. Using structural equation modelling techniques, the measurement scales of all these constructs were tested for reliability and validity using job stress and perceived organizational support as outcome variables.     

New Public Management and Principals’ Roles in Organizational Governance: What Can a Corporate Issue Tell us About Public Sector Management?

The article analyzes debates between institutional investors and corporate management as a way of investigating accountability issues in organizations with dispersed principals. By exploring issues at stake in entrepreneurial management in any organization with multiple owner/principals, the narrative adds to the critique of public-sector entrepreneurial management from an unusual vantage point.     

Organizational Behavior Management and Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Abstract

Six scholars in applied psychology wrote thoughtful and provocative reactions to a paper written by the author that presented a case for broadening the content and language of organizational behavior management (OBM) in order to enhance appreciation for OBM in organizational settings and among university faculty and students in mainstream psychology programs. This paper summarizes the follow-up commentaries and adds justification for key points made in the target article. Five topics are addressed: (1) critical distinctions between OBM and industrial/organizational psychology, (2) disadvantages of using negative over positive reinforcement to motivate behavior change, (3) the need to after OBM language in order to increase interest and application, (4) the use of unobservable person state vs. personality traits to explain behavior, and (5) the challenge of improving the education and training of students in OBM programs.     

Dealing with Ethical Dilemmas in Organizational Change Processes

Several theories exist on how managers think aboutethical responsibilities in a business environment.Some stress the economic way of thinking and explainwhy there is no space for moral reasoning in abusiness environment. Others claim that in a businessenvironment also moral considerations can play animportant role. In this article, we will explore theway managers have actually dealt with potentialdilemmas in organizational change processes,especially changes with drastic consequences foremployees. Do managers consider moral arguments? Dothey feel a moral responsibility towards theiremployees? And in what way do they include a moralresponsibility in the decision process and itsoutcomes? These questions were investigated throughcase studies in two organisations and interviews withsix managers in other companies. The framework whichis used in the research will be described and the mainresults of the field-research will be presented. Wedid find that managers actually strived to some extentfor fair and morally responsible solutions in dilemmasituations, but in another way then we expectedbeforehand. Managers did not base their acting onmoral arguments. Instead they used a more pragmaticapproach wherein acting in a morally responsible wayis based on strategic arguments, such as the positiveeffects for the organisation in the long run.     

Response-Response Relationships in Organizational Behavior Management

Abstract

The issue of behavioral covariation has been a topic of interest to behavior analysts for many years. Many writers have used the term response generalization interchangeably with behavioral covariation. In this paper, we argue from the extant literature that the term “response generalization” should be used to describe only very specific occasions of behavioral covariation. In fact, we argue, response generalization is merely one of at least six types of behavioral covariation observed in organizational behavior management studies. After describing response generalization, the remaining five types of response-response relations we describe are: (1) physiological relations, (2) when target behaviors occasion related behaviors, (3) when target behaviors reinforce related behaviors, (4) when target and related behaviors are maintained by the same reinforcing stimulus, and (5) covariation through participation in verbal relations. We conclude by discussing the potential for additional research on this topic in the area of verbal relations.     

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management

No abstract available for this article.     

Current Topics in Organizational Behavior Management

No abstract available for this article.