O foco da pesquisa consiste em identificar oportunidades e propor projetos no âmbito das organizações sociais. A partir da revisão literária, foi possível estabelecer uma metodologia contemplando elementos identificados no contexto social. Através da aplicação da metodologia em uma organização comunitária, foi feita a revisão e o aprimoramento da proposta. A proposta está estruturada em dez etapas, agrupadas em quatro macro-etapas: (i) planejamento das etapas, (ii) coleta de informações, (iii) identificação de oportunidades e ( iv) concepção de projetos. O estudo aplicado contemplou a utilização de instrumentos de coleta de informações como questionários, entrevistas em profundidade e grupos focados. As informações coletadas originaram oportunidades de projetos que foram priorizadas e, por sua vez, geraram seis propostas de projetos. As conclusões revelaram que a metodologia apresentada oferece uma visão mais completa dos elementos a serem considerados na concepção de projetos voltados a organizações sociais e viabiliza o envolvimento maciço dos membros destas organizações. / The focus of this research consists of identifying opportunities into projects of development in the scope of social organizations. From a literature review, it was possible to establish a methodology considering elements identified in the social context. The revision and improvement of the proposal was performed through the application of the methodology in a communitarian organization. The proposal is structuralized in ten stages, grouped at four macro-stages: (i) planning of the stages, (ii) collection of information, (iii) identification of opportunities and (iv) conception of projects. The applied study was conducted using instruments of data collection of information, such as questionnaires, individual interviews and focus groups. The collected information originated project opportunit ies that were prioritized and, in turn, generated six proposals of projects. The conclusions disclosed that the presented methodology offers a more complete vision of the elements to be considered in the conception of projects orientated to social organizations and makes possible the massive involvement of the members of these organizations.

As atuais pesquisas em gerência de mudança em um ambiente de TI (Tecnologia de Informação) têm explorado diferentes aspectos desta nova disciplina, porém normalmente assumindo que as mudanças expressas em documentos de Requisição de Mudanças (RFC – Request for Change) são sempre executadas com sucesso sobre uma determinada infraestrutura de TI. Esse cenário, muitas vezes, pode não refletir a realidade em sistemas de TI, pois falhas durante a execução de mudanças podem ocorrer e não devem ser simplesmente ignoradas. Para abordar esta questão, esta dissertação propõe uma solução onde atividades em um plano de mudança podem ser agrupadas, formando grupos atômicos. Esses grupos são atômicos no sentido de que quando uma atividade falha, todas as outras atividades já executadas do mesmo grupo precisam retroceder para o último estado consistente. Automatizar o processo de rollback em mudanças pode ser especialmente conveniente no sentido de que não seja necessário um operador humano desfazer manualmente as atividades que falharam de um determinado grupo atômico. Para avaliar a solução proposta e a sua viabilidade técnica foi implementado um protótipo que, usando elementos da linguagem BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), torna-se possível definir como sistemas de gerenciamento de mudanças em TI devem se comportar para capturar e identificar falhas. Os resultados mostram que a solução proposta não somente gera planos completos e corretos com base em marcações de atomicidade, mas também que a geração dos planos de rollback interfere minimamente no processo de agendamento de mudanças. / The current research on IT change management has been investigating several aspects of this new discipline, but they are usually carried out assuming that changes expressed in Requests for Change (RFC) documents will be successfully executed over the managed IT infrastructure. This assumption, however, is not realistic in actual IT systems because failures during the execution of changes do happen and cannot be ignored. In order to address this issue, we propose a solution where tightly-related change activities are grouped together forming atomic groups of activities. These groups are atomic in the sense that if one activity fails, all other already executed activities of the same group must rollback to move the system backwards to the previous consistent state. The automation of change rollback is especially convenient because it relieves the IT human operator of manually undoing the activities of a change group that has failed. To prove concept and technical feasibility of our proposed solution, we have implemented a prototype system that, using elements of the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), is able to control how atomic groups of activities must be handled in IT change management systems. Results showed that the rollback solution not only generates complete and correct plans given a set of atomicity marks, but also that the rollback plan generation minimally interferes in the change scheduling process.

Atualmente, o ambiente extremamente dinâmico e altamente competitivo, no qual as organizações estão inseridas, aumentou expressivamente a importância da Tecnologia da Informação (TI). Aliada a isto, a crescente complexidade das infraestruturas de redes e serviços, também conhecidas como infraestruturas de TI, tornaram a Gerência de Serviços de Tecnologia da Informação indispensável a qualquer organização. Nesse cenário, coletâneas de boas práticas e processos foram desenvolvidas visando a obter o melhor desempenho dos produtos e serviços oferecidos. Entre as coletâneas amplamente aceitas, tanto na academia quanto na indústria, vale destacar a Biblioteca de Infraestrutura de Tecnologia da Informação (i.e., Information Technology Infrastructure Library, ITIL). Dentre os processos descritos na ITIL, o Gerenciamento de Mudanças é de suma importância para as organizações. Tal processo é responsável por padronizar o planejamento, o agendamento, a implementação e a avaliação de mudanças no ambiente de TI. Ainda que a adoção das boas práticas proporcione significativas melhorias, a ocorrência de falhas em procedimentos de mudanças não pode ser negligenciada. Para tratar eventuais falhas é proposto o processo de Gerenciamento de Problemas, o qual é responsável por gerir o ciclo de vida de problemas. Nesse contexto, o reúso do conhecimento e da experiência do operador, sobre os processos de TI, é de fundamental importância, pois possibilita a simplificação de procedimentos para a detecção da causa raiz de falhas e, consequentemente, minimiza perdas financeiras e custos de manutenção. Apesar disso, nas soluções existentes o processo de diagnóstico é realizado de uma forma estática e ad hoc, o que dificulta reutilizar o conhecimento em falhas recorrentes ou similares. Diante do exposto, nesta dissertação é proposta uma solução para a identificação interativa da causa raiz de problemas detectados em mudanças. Em contraste com as soluções existentes, o foco desta dissertação é o reúso de traços históricos de diagnósticos e da experiência do operador. A solução proposta teve sua aplicabilidade avaliada em dois estudos de casos. Os cenários utilizados são baseados em situações reais, bem como consideram falhas recorrentes em mudanças sobre as infraestruturas de redes e serviços. Os resultados demonstram a capacidade da solução em reutilizar o conhecimento adquirido com experiências anteriores, bem como, na adaptabilidade do diagnóstico gerado, tanto na infraestrutura de TI na qual a falha ocorre, quanto nas respostas fornecidas pelo operador. A estrutura modular da solução desenvolvida permite dividir a complexidade do processo de identificação em problemas menores que podem ser resolvidos individualmente. Assim, as organizações podem personalizar partes da solução para melhor refletirem as necessidades específicas do seu ambiente de TI. / Presently, the extremely dynamic and highly competitive environment, in which organizations are inserted, significantly increased the importance of Information Technology (IT). In addition, the increasing complexity of network infrastructures and services, also known as IT infrastructures, turned the Information Technology Service Management essential to any organization. In this context, guides of best practices and processes were developed to obtain a best performance out of provided products and services. Among the most widely accepted proposals, in both academy and industry, it is worth mentioning the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). From the processes described in ITIL, Change Management is indispensable for organizations. This process defines how changes should be planned, scheduled, implemented, and evaluated in IT environments. Despite the significant improvements that the adoption of ITIL’s best practices can provide, the occurrence of failures cannot be neglected. To address possible failures, the process of Problem Management is proposed. Such process is responsible for managing the life cycle of problems. Thus, the reuse of operator’s knowledge and experience, on IT processes, has fundamental importance for allowing to simplify the procedures of detecting failures’ root cause and, therefore, minimizes financial losses and maintenance costs. Nevertheless, the diagnostic process, in the existing solutions, is performed in a static and ad hoc fashion, which complicates the reuse of knowledge in recurrent failures or similar. Based on the previous considerations, in this dissertation, we propose a solution for interactive identification of the root cause of problems detected in IT changes. In contrast to existing solutions, the focus of this solution is the reuse of the operator’s experience and the knowledge from cases that have already been completed. The proposed solution had its applicability evaluated in two case studies. The scenarios used are based on real situations, taking into account recurrent failures in changes on IT infrastructures. The results show not only the ability of the solution to reuse the knowledge acquired from previous experiences, but also the adaptability of diagnosis generated in both the IT infrastructure, where failure occurs, and the responses provided by operator. The modular structure of the developed solution allows to divide the complexity of the identification process into smaller problems that can be solved individually. Thus, organizations can customize parts of the solution to better reflect the specific requirements of your IT environment.

A implementação de Sistemas de Produção Enxuta (SPE) é reconhecidamente essencial em empresas que desejam obter alto nível de competitividade. Há disponíveis na literatura diversos exemplos de roadmaps de implementação enxuta, os quais possibilitam guiar as empresas em seu processo de mudança enxuta. Contudo, uma vez que esses roadmaps priorizam os fatores técnicos da mudança enxuta, os fatores sócio-culturais do processo de mudança tendem a ser negligenciados, o que dificulta a construção de um comportamento e sustentabilidade da mudança. Esta tese tem por objetivo apresentar uma metodologia de identificação e avaliação dos fatores sócio-culturais em uma empresa em implementação enxuta. Esta metodologia agrega práticas e conceitos de gestão de mudança aos roadmaps de implementação enxuta e possibilita a análise de maturidade da empresa quanto aos fatores sócio-culturais da mudança em diferentes níveis de contextualização. A aplicação do método é ilustrada em uma empresa do ramo automotivo, a qual se encontra em processo de implementação enxuta há mais de nove anos e possui dificuldades na sustentação do SPE. / The implementation of Lean Production Systems is essential for companies aiming at high competition levels. Many examples of lean implementation roadmaps are available in the literature guiding companies in their lean change process. However, most of these roadmaps prioritize technical factors in the lean change process, while the socio-cultural factors tend to be neglected, making the behavior construction and change sustainability more difficult. This thesis has as objective to present an identification and evaluation methodology that approaches the socio-cultural factors implied in the transition to a lean production system in companies. The model merges change management practices and concepts with lean implementation roadmaps, and allows the company’s maturity analysis regarding sociocultural factors of the change in different contextualization levels. In addition to that, the model is validated in an automotive company that has been in the lean implementation journey for more than nine years and presents difficulties in sustaining the change.

Os desafios de competitividade têm levado as organizações a estruturarem estratégias robustas de crescimento, consolidando a sua atuação em determinados setores ou mesmo levando à expansão das suas atividades para novos mercados e regiões geográficas. As combinações empresariais, caracterizadas por aquisições e fusões, tornam-se cada vez mais relevantes para a viabilização destas estratégias e passam a fazer parte integrante da agenda dos líderes empresariais. Diante dos baixos indicadores de efetividade verificados em operações desta natureza, torna-se importante refletir sobre a sua gestão e identificar as condições necessárias para que as novas configurações organizacionais implementadas resultem alinhadas às orientações estratégicas que motivaram a realização destas transações. Este trabalho insere-se neste tema ao propor um modelo de gestão da mudança organizacional advinda de combinações empresariais e a sua aplicação no setor de ciências da vida. As oportunidades características deste novo setor, com fronteiras ainda pouco estabelecidas, têm gerado uma série de movimentos de combinação em empresas tradicionais do setor químico, em busca de crescimento ou obtenção de indicadores mais elevados de competitividade. Ao propor o modelo de gestão, este trabalho traz duas contribuições para o arcabouço conceitual sobre aquisições e fusões. Em primeiro lugar ele elabora, com base no referencial teórico disponível, um conjunto de categorias para a gestão da etapa de integração entre as empresas participantes de um processo de combinação. A aplicação deste conhecimento na realidade empírica, com adoção de procedimentos estatísticos, levou à identificação de uma nova categoria - denominada clareza de expectativas - que está relacionada ao estabelecimento de relações entre a empresa e os seus profissionais visando fortalecer a adesão e o comprometimento das pessoas com os novos modelos de gestão implementados. A segunda contribuição corresponde à verificação da importância de não dissociar a etapa de integração das empresas do processo decisório que levou à efetivação destas transações. A atenção antecipada às variáveis indicadas neste trabalho, para o momento anterior ao fechamento do acordo de combinação, pode evitar equívocos e conflitos viabilizando uma integração efetiva entre as organizações participantes da operação. / The challenges around competitiveness faced by organizations are leading them to structure robust growth strategies, consolidating their presence in specific economic sectors as well as ensuring their growth in new markets and geographic regions. The combination of companies, identified as mergers and acquisitions, are gradually becoming more important to enable the implementation of these strategies and therefore constitute important components of leaders agenda. It is a key challenge to reflect about the managerial aspects of these transactions due to the low effectiveness indicators identified, researching the required conditions that will enable the alignment between the new organizational configurations and the strategic drivers that motivated their implementation. This study is related to this theme since it proposes a model to manage organizational change that results from this type of transaction. The model is also applied in combinations within the life sciences sector. The potential opportunities identified in this new sector, which has low defined boundaries, have generated some combinations between traditional chemical companies aiming at growing or reaching higher levels of competitiveness. Whilst proposing the management model, this thesis builds two contributions to the conceptual framework around mergers and acquisitions. It designs, as a result of the available theoretical references, one set of categories to manage the integration phase for companies facing combination processes. The application of this knowledge in an empirical reality, enabled by statistical procedures, led to a new category identificaion - named as clarity of expectation ? which refers to the relationship established by the company and its employees and aims to reinforce the people commitment with the new management models implemented. The second contribution shows the importance to connect the integration planning phase to the decision making process that leads into the transaction. The anticipated analysis of the variables presented by this thesis in the previous stage before the deal conclusion can mitigate mistakes and conflicts enabling an effective integration between the companies that are part of these operations.

D.Litt et Phil. / Dynamic organisations with information technology driven infrastructures are invariably in a state of change, which can be attributed to a multitude of planned (as opposed to forced) interventions. Planned interventions can vary greatly in format and the following serves as examples: • Change required as a result of a new management structure being introduced. • New systems or technology being implemented. • Processes being improved or changed. • New corporate cultures being established. • Changing market focus. • Business Process Reengineering initiatives. Business process reengineering flowing from a planned intervention would normally culminate in a requirement for a further planned intervention in the form of change management to be implemented. This is required to not only ensure that end to end processes are established to ultimately culminate in sustained process improvement and competitive advantage, but also that the impact of such process changes map to the subsequent cultural and organisational change requirements. Should these entities however be undertaken against the background of a forced intervention, a new approach is required to ensure that not only processes are catered for, but also include behavioural and organisational considerations. Research hypothesis validation was conducted in two organisations of which one served as a Control Group, while the other organisation was split to form two separate and distinct research groups. Into the first research group of the latter organisation (Experimental Group B), the Transformation Process model, which forms the focus of this thesis was introduced to facilitate the implementation of business process reengineering and change management as planned interventions and affirmative action as the forced intervention. In terms of the methodology of the Transformation Process model, any process entity is required to be infused and mapped to a change entity and thereafter superimposed onto the applicable forced intervention in symbiotic unison to test the hypothesis. Into the second research group (Experimental Group A) the same interventions were implemented as in the case of Experimental Group B, however not in terms of the Transformation Process model, but in the traditional way whereby process change was followed by organisational change the latter, which included the forced intervention.

M.A. / Organisational transformation has become a way of life. Transformation may be prompted by forces internal and external to the organisation. Typical organisational transformation involves the restructuring or elimination of jobs. Transformation of any organisation necessarily balances the elimination of outdated systems alongside the preservation of core assets. Change creates pressure in any organisation. This is especially true when the organisation has not had much experience in dealing with it. The first taste of major change in this situation can be traumatic. Organisational transition is slow, expensive and difficult. There is a tendency to believe that change can be instant, painless and quick. The process of making a major change to an organisation's identity requires people to let go of "how it was" and move through a period of doubt and uncertainty. The focus of this study is on describing the attitude of workers towards transformation. A standardised scale was used as a way of measuring the feelings and attitudes of workers towards transformation. The actual result reported from this study indicates that there is a lot of negative feelings and attitudes towards the whole transformation process.

Companies spend considerable amounts of money on implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The implementation of an ERP system is risky since it involves the core administrative processes used to give a good customer service, plan and monitor production, handle suppliers and monitor the financial effectiveness of the company. It is quite clear that a wrongly managed ERP implementation can cause lower customer satisfaction and weakening trust from the market. These are effects that companies can’t afford in most markets were competition is very strong and customer service is the key to future improved business. One very important part to minimize the risk in such projects is to focus on change management and knowledge transfer to the end users. The end users need to be equipped with the right knowledge in the new ERP system from day one, otherwise the risks grow considerable. Missing knowledge can cost missed deliveries, customer complaints, financial claims and most importantly lower compatibility on the market. This thesis builds a framework with main points to consider when building a positive learning environment and how to break the information wall so that the trainer can get through with the message.

E-business modeling is a concept that has several components and can be designed based on different combinations of them. Furthermore, it is a concept that is vulnerable to changes as it is associated with technology, which is developing rapidly day by day. By con-ducting this research on 1) how the companies are managing changes in a competitive envi-ronment by means of adjusting their e-business models, and 2) if there are any compo-nent(s) of e-business model(s) that has more importance than the others for the competi-tiveness of the company, the thesis intends to define the change management procedures that the organizations involved in e-business are using, and to compare the components of the e-business models in order to find out if there is any component that is more important than the others for the competitiveness of the organization. We conducted the research through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. A semi-structured interview method was chosen for the collection of qualitative data with the aim of acquiring in-depth information from our respondents. On the other hand, quan-titative data, which we gathered via questionnaire, provided us with the opportunity to make statistical inferences about the data. According to our report, there are four components of e-business models; product innova-tion, customer relationship, infrastructure management, and financials. Each component has three elements. By asking the respondents to state the degree of importance of each element in each component, this thesis aims to compare the degree of importance of each component via statistical measures. Furthermore, by combining the statistical inferences with the qualitative data and theories related to the components of the e-business model, financials component is found to be more important than the other components for the competitiveness of the organization. Additionally, this report uses several change management models and procedures from books and articles from the library and the Internet. In comparing those theories with the answers gathered from the respondents, we found out that being proactive towards the changes, applying changes without modifying the basic strategy of the organization, stress-ing on the training and involvement of the users, communication with users and stake-holders, and early commitment of the stakeholders were found to be important issues for the change management in an e-business environment. Besides, the utilization of external parties in the areas where organizations lack expertise concerning change was found to be important for a successful change in an e-business environment. When we reviewed the research questions, we observed that the purpose has been fulfilled and the research questions have been properly answered. By considering the conclusion that has been derived, organizations could successfully design their e-business models and experience competitive advantage, and successfully manage changes that could take place in their e-business environment.

The research objectives which underpin this study were threefold. Firstly was to analyze the Port Elizabeth Hospital Complex (PEHC) restructuring process from a planned changed management perspective in particular the three stage model of Lewin (1951) which include unfreezing the current equilibrium, moving to a new position and refreezing in the new position. Secondly was to analyze how unforeseen circumstances were dealt with. Thirdly was to analyse the setting of objectives and measurements of targets to monitor progress. The study is based on the restructuring that took place in the PEHC which was called “Rationalization”. The research indicates that the development and implementation of the rationalization cannot be understood from the perspective of the three stage model of Lewin (1951). The conclusion was based on the manager’s perceptions of their analysis of the restructuring in the light of the theory of the three stage model of Lewin (1951). The study has shown that: · Rationalisation began by gathering information on the shortcomings of the structure of the three hospitals, but did not understand the degree of readiness to change. · The timescales for achieving rationalization were not clearly defined. · It was driven from the top with clear objectives and no timescales. · There was no structure that prepared the employees to go through the process of rationalisation. · There was lack of capacity of middle managers to respond to the workers in an encouraging way. · Rationalisation sub-committees had limited time to meet with employees at the sectional level. · External stakeholder involvement was not mobilized to its full potential. · Rationalisation was not an open process that involved both formal and informal employees. · Budget constraints and staff shortages were not informed by the restructuring needs. · Workers did not feel secure about the current and future work practises. · There was no feeling that the change will be beneficial to their wellbeing and to the organisation’s goals and mission · There was no monitoring and evaluation put in place to track progress. · There was centralisation of even the most basic administrative functions. The study seems to imply that the restructuring in the PEHC bears no resemblance to the Lewin (1951) planned change model and therefore cannot be understood from the perspective of this model. Given the initiative to rationalize, the PEHC management can learn from the model of Lewin (1951) planned change.