Seminar 9

The Politics of Organisational Change

• Burnes, Chapters 4 and 13
• Buchanan & Huckzynski, Chapter 21 and 22
  
• Buchanan, D. & Badham, R. (1999) Power, Politics & Organisational Change: Winning the Turf Game, Sage, Chapter 1.
  
• Morgan, Images of Organisation, Chapter 6
• Business Open Learning Archive on Power

Overview

Accounts of change management from classical and scientific management to concerns for contingency and strategic choice/political process, are associated with organisational theory. When we evaluate cases of actual change we should see the value of theory - which we hope has some usefulness in practice

• guiding our understanding and approaches
• questioning when classical and rationalist assumptions are in use

This is important when change programmes are enacted. We are also aware that from the 1970s both the OD and the strategic choice/political process views have challenged rationalist approaches. The human relations and participative management techniques of OD are partly useful but the theory is not particularly rigorous or penetrating as it is limited by its human relations, behavioural emphasis. This contrasts however with strategic choice ideas which offer a theoretical, descriptive analysis with some practical applicability also.

Child's (1972) arguments about strategic choice have been elaborated and focus our attention on organisational and institutional processes: interpretations, decision processes and actions, across different situations, 'world views' and 'strategic' interests. Pettigrew's 'expanded focus' view elaborates strategic choice ideas also so as not to neglect power, knowledge and 'discourse formation'.

Power/political process views

Burnes' 'Choice Management, Change Management' model (Chapter 13) presents organisational change process as

• a series of critical encounters wherein managers can make key strategic choices.
• These contested or modified through negotiation with other members & stakeholders.
• choice and negotiation proceses shapes the effect that change management programmes will have.

Thus a strong link is argued between strategic choice/political processes and the 'management of meaning' within organisations.

Child's "strategic choice" is a political view

• it has strengths and weaknesses
• management of change is frequently an inherently 'messy' process, unsuited to predictive methodologies and narrowly rationalistic models.
• the planners, assessors and agents of the changes develop frameworks of understanding and devices to monitor and 'map' technical and non-technical change factors and initiatives onto existing organisational structures and processes.

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Now read the GovMIS case and work through the questions offered. There is value in printing the case and using the right column to make notes.

The GovMIS case study illustrates

• how theories of power, agenda setting and political processes apply to change management.
• how IT developments open up opportunity for development in the organisation and "informating" of medical care.

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Now read

• Buchanan, D. & Badham, R. (1999) Power, Politics and Organisational Change: Winning the Turf Game, Chapter 1.
• Morgan Chapter 6, particularly pp. 171-2 on sources and exploration of power.
• Business Open Learning Archive on Power

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Managing Politics and Power

Power is the capacity to get decisions and actions taken and situations created which support one's interests and preferred outcomes where their realisation is dependent on the agency of other. Power is the capacity to 'make a difference' (Willcocks and Mason 1987 p. 15).

Sources of power (after Morgan) include:

• formal authority
  
• alliances and informal networks control of resources control of uncertainty use of rules
• control of knowledge
• symbolism and me
• setting the agenda
• being irreplaceable
• energy, endurance and stamina
• the centrality of the unit in the communication network, e.g. finance
• the power one already has; power as the route to power.

Organisational Conservatism and New IT-based Information Systems

At the time (circa 1987) that local area networks of PCs were only just beginning to be commonly introduced in large organisations, Child et al offered several propositions in support of an organisational conservatism thesis:

1. Many producers try to make new equipment compatible with existing organisational structures and systems. Not changing the existing organisation is a powerful marketing appeal. We can sum this up with the aphorism "New data attached to old hypotheses."
2. For internal investment and design decisions the status quo is a powerful consideration. Radical organisational changes are expensive, require more analytical work, many jobs and departments are affected and more conflicts are likely as tasks and competences are reshuffled. People need briefing and retraining. The status quo's sunk costs are a major consideration.
3. In the internal redesign process, key players in positions of power are likely to try to defend and extend their positions.
4. Known design philosophies, templates and principles of organisational design with a long history, influence how experts perceive organisational problems and design solutions. These perceptions and definitions are also dependent on the analytical tools they use. In cost benefit analyses, radical solutions are often ruled out as costs and benefits are more difficult to estimate.
5. Solutions resulting in new kinds of jobs with new qualification requirements may be difficult to implement via the labour market. Legal restrictions which preserve specific tasks for certain professional groups - also restrict variation in organisational designs. So qualification systems and legal regulations also underpin organisational conservatism.

• How true are these propositions in the first few years of the 21st century?
• Use the above checklist to explain how Child's organisational conservatism is relevant to the GovMIS case.
• From Buchanan & Huckzynski's chapter on conflict (Chapter 21), which theory of power best explains the outcome of the govMIS case (see also Morgan's checklist, pp.202-3)
• Suggest some strengths and weaknesses of the political resources approach to organisational change?

(Guidance on SAQs)

Pettigrew: Expanded Focus and the Management of Meaning

Pettigrew elaborated his 1973 political resources view of management as an 'expanded focus' view of organisational change - a 'culturalist' primarily sociological view. He seens change as:

a product of processes which recognise historical and continuing struggles for power and status as motive forces.

(Pettigrew, 1985, p.43)

This requires a 'contextualist' and processual analysis. The management of meaning is key to Pettigrew's work and the concept of legitimacy is also central to political and culturalist analyses.

The management of meaning refers how organisational actors:

• construct symbols and slogans which testify to the legitimacy of certain ideas and actions
• de-legitimate the actions and ideas of opponents
• operate to secure conceptual ascendancy - managing forums and data flows to disseminate and secure their interpretation of events
• mobilise bias in favour of one's values.

Goffman's account of the Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and Irving Janis' analysis of the capacity for distorted decision making where the dynamics of 'group think' feature add to this analysis.

Diagnostic Frameworks and Practice

Pettigrew's is a theoretical and interpretative framework within which more narrowly defined change auditing methodologies and diagnostic frameworks may be located. Dawson (1994) also tries to theory and practice with practical guidelines through a checklist of homilies which really needs a thorough and critical revisitation. His 15 points are:

1. Appreciate that change takes time.
2. Transitions are unlikely to be marked by continual improvement from beginning to end.
3. People need to understand the context of change (a little obvious)
4. Change strategies need to be sensitive to existing cultures.
5. Change champions may be valuable.
6. The substance of change needs to be fully understood.
7. Appropriate training for new equipment is important.
8. Ensure senior management support.
9. Develop a committed and cohesive local management team.
10. Ensure that supervisors are part of change programmes.
11. Gain trade union support.
12. Spend time developing good employee relations.
13. Clearly communicate the intentions of change to employees.
14. Provide appropriate funding
15. Take a total organisation approach to managing transitions.

Diagnostics: Change-mapping

The OB literature and Pettigrew's expanded focus approach suggests that managers need a way of mapping the organisational status quo. Various writers offer change-mapping techniques. The 'critical change variables' such as

• SWOT and STEEPLE analysis
• Boston Box portfolio analysis
• Checklands CATWOE and rich picture analysis
• Leavitt's Diamond
• Force field analysis
• Logical Framework Matrix

.... all provide mnemonics and headings for mapping the political and organisational status quo, relationships between key variables or 'state of play', before the change management programmes are implemented or evaluated.

• The operating environment.
  - traditionally dominated by institutions and statutory 'givens' which set the agenda for status and performance evaluation and operating targets. It is of obvious concern for managers to identify precisely how changes in the regulatory and operating environment impinge on the delivery of services and the criteria success criteria for change management projects.
• The number of functions involved
  - has a bearing on the breadth and complexity of the changes. It would be facile to compile a checklist of those 'affected by' change. We need to analyse how one function relates to another and ask questions about ownership, the investments and interests of the parties and mechanisms of decision-making control. The change agent must be able to map (trace) such patterns and assost managers to redefine roles, relationships and authorities. We can use both classical management techniques (organisation charts and job descriptions), processual methods (such as management by objectives) and also matrix organisation definitions.

Technical change is most fruitful when the socio-technical system change implications are understood. A large-scale information system investment will generally involve different functions at evaluation and implementation stages.

• Employee relations background is
  - another formative influence. Resistance (union-based or non-union e.g. people vote with their feet) will turn on traditional concerns like the scope of jobs and career prospects, rewards, working locations and conditions. However, as the case studies show, change management involves sensing and bargaining processes to establish and negotiate the vested interests, perceptions and expectations arising from success and failure.
• Strategic maturity and organisational readiness for change are matters to be informed by well-grounded analysis of all factors.
  
  
  • Strategic maturity defines
    How far the organisation has its own distinctive approach to handling problems and opportunities. The maturity will also be reflected in the experience of management and their reaction to panic.
  • Readiness
    This not only involves idealised long term 'planning and scanning' activities but it also may be contrained or enabled by short term events - someone leaves or is ill. The organisation may have its back to the wall with very limited resources and time to be able to handle the full ranges of changes that are indicated. Perhaps a proverb such as "a stitch in time saves nine applies" or a managerial joke such as the "alligator theory of management" ie "If you are up to your arm-pits in alligators it is no use talking about draining the swamp". The joke reminds us to be realistic abouot what we can achieve with the resources available.

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Identify one or two recent changes in your own organisation and relate these to some critical change variables.

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Power Distributions; Constituency-building; Open/Closed Strategies

Identification of critical change variables is a prerequisite for change management. How can we

• map the distribution of power?
• build constituencies and alliances?
• select between 'open' and 'closed' change strategies?

Mapping, Constituency-building and Change Strategies
POWER DISTRIBUTION	CONSTITUENCY BUILDING	SELECT STRATEGY
Existing Politics & Culture Options given istribution of power Feasibility of Changes	e.g. Networking to build personal credibility and collet favours Start with early success See resistance as a signal to be responded to rather than avoided Support of senior-level fixers with authority and resources Heighten uncertainties to which your expertise is a remedy	CLOSED ! Confrontation ! Unilateralism ! Information ! Consultation ! Restricted ! Negotiation ! Centralised ! Participation ! Decentralised Full Participation ! OPEN

Mapping Power Distributions - How?

1. analyse the existing political and cultural system, the membership of dominant coalitions and the sources of their influence.
2. Do a close analysis of lower-level participants, their power bases and how they, as well as dominant individuals and coalitions, will support or resist. Determine how crucial such responses might be to development and implementation.
   
3. establish all the possible options and their effects on existing power distributions. More radical shifts in power distribution will require different strategies and alliances and a more careful political approach.
   
4. assess the likely political and cultural traps in the course of developing and implementing change options. A preliminary political assessment of feasibility of each proposed change can then be made.

Constituency Building Support Networking

Define

• Political goals
• undertake a ends-means analysis (i.e. what do we want to achieve and how do we go about it?).
• identify targets to be influenced.

Constituency building activities are crucial to the management of politics and culture. From the start change agents should:

• ensure they have a "contract for change"
• seek out resistance and treat it as a signal to be responded to
• rely on trust-building and face-to-face contracts
• work hard to build credibility and co-opt supporters early on.

Other constituency and alliance-building skills

• presenting a non-threatening image
• aligning with powerful others
• developing liaisons
• developing the stature and credibility of change proposals
• diffusing opposition by open discussion bringing conflicts out into the open (no smouldering).

Expertise - a crucial power resource

Internal consultant activities across departmental boundaries give privileged access to, and so control over, organisational information. Political sensitivity and establishing relations with those with power is as important, as the gaining of 'assessed stature' by gaining favours by serving the interests of relevant others. Group support by departmental colleagues and related consultant groups is a power source that needs to be developed.

'Open' Versus 'Closed' Implementation

Three areas in implementation need to be addressed from a political resources perspective.

1. resistance to change,
2. the danger of the change process running out of control,
3. how to maintain influence over the political dynamics of change.

Closed strategies

1. marked by a minimum of communications and consultation, negligible participation in design and implementation by the majority of interested parties. Too frequently this is typical when technical systems e.g. centralised computer systems are being introduced
2. often linked with confrontational employee relations at implementation, though this depends on the power and leverage realities. Often little confrontation is necessary and changes can be smoothly introduced unilaterally by change agents or management. It is sensible to properly consult and avoid a harsh, authoritarian management styles. Such behaviour reinforces a coercive, uncaring culture and leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths. Objectives tend to be control- and finance-focused.

More open strategies

1. stress participative design, communications, consultation, and willingness to modify technical systems, job design and work Organisation in the face of user feedback.
2. tend to be associated with negotiated change by agreement and consultative machinery in a formal industrial/employee relations sphere e.g. worker councils and consultative meetings.

Some strategies are more 'open' than others and management must analyse the internal and external context of change before the appropriate level of 'openness' in the change strategy is clear.

Factors significant to fostering change.

1. Motivation for the change.
   
   - related to the objectives for introducing change, and stakeholder perceptions of objectives the changes supposedly serve. Failure to clarify objectives and share their validity tends to reduce stakeholder willingness (motivation) to work with the system.
   
   
2. Commitment to change.
   
   - measures the strength of belief in the change programme and ownership of ways to solve problems and overcome obstacles. Commitment is related to preferred/valued leadership interventions and championship. Failure here can reduce commitment to change. High motivation tends to lead to high commitment but it is often not sufficient.
   
   
3. Organisational culture.
   
   - concerned with

• the style of management
• relationships within the organisation
• the extent to which the Organisation has an 'enterprise' culture.

An important feature of successful change management is a sharing of values by stakeholders and these could be achieved both in authoritarian (loyalty to the leader) and participative cultures.

1. The management of implementation.
   
   Management of the implementation process is concerned both with

• planning of the implementation activities
• selecting open or closed approaches

It is important that the approach taken is appropriate for a given organisational culture, and the time available.

Conclusion

The GovMIS case demonstrated the practical effect of agenda setting. It also provided a graphic example of how politically symbolic resources exercised by a powerful group can have a material effect on the management of change.

Pettigrew's expanded focus approach bridges the gap between theory and practice by offering a framework through which the context, content and process of change can be evaluated. This approach provided the theoretical underpinning for the practical guidelines and diagnostic tools featured at the end of the module.