Page 191 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Chapter 11 ■ Strategies for change
might have been quite disruptive conflict over these highly symbolic and, in a
uniformed service, very contentious issues.
However, the objectives of this part of the book are pragmatic. The intention
is not to develop a grand theory of how organizations should be structured and
arranged in any ‘ideal’ sense. Here the reader will find no elaborate propositions,
hypotheses or theories. Rather, we have attempted to synthesize what we take to
be the most useful approaches to the problems of managing changing organiza-
tions. Through that synthesis we intend to achieve a rather better understanding
of what can and cannot be achieved and to point the way towards improved
managerial practice and performance.
In Figure 11.1 an ‘outline map’ of the organizational change area is proposed.
It sets out the key influences on the nature of any organizational change. This
relates to the scope, scale and complexity of change, these being important deter-
minants of many of the issues which arise for those managing major changes. For
example, the greater the complexity of change the more likely we are to adopt a
radical approach to change. The more concerned we will be to develop a clear
programme of change with accountabilities, project plans, milestones, task force
inputs, etc., the more likely we will be concerned to achieve change quickly. All

(Strategic) organizational diagnosis
● Employee surveys
● Customer surveys
● Managers‘ views and inputs to
decision making
● Other stakeholders

Culture Strategy formation Competitive
change Vision/strategy benchmarking

1. Organization-specific changes
2. Generic organization-wide change
programmes (e.g. business process re-
engineering, total quality management,
time-based strategies, etc.)
3. Generic multi-organizational change
programmes (e.g. closures, mergers,
strategic alliances, joint ventures, etc.)

Figure 11.1 Strategic change

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