Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-238).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1993. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-212).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-199). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, MN, 2008. / Description based on Print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-163).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Case Western Reserve University, 2009 / Title from PDF (viewed on 19 August 2009) Department of Organizational Behavior Includes abstract Includes bibliographical references Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center

Thesis (D. Min.)--Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, 2004. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-135).

D.Phil. / One of the principal reasons people form organisations is to focus attention and energy on a selected goal - this goal being the provisioning of products and/or services to clients. Due to forces demanding change, organisations are required to change to be able to continue their existence, making change unavoidable and part of the organisation's life cycle. The premise is that if change is unavoidable, it needs to be managed to serve the best interests of the organisation, thus the need for change management. Research indicates that 50 to 75% of all major corporate change efforts fail and that resistance is the "little-recognised but critically important contributor'' to the failure of change efforts, and central to the change problem. Also, central to the change problem and successful change management lie the following factors: • The reality that people tend to resist change. • The issue of measurement for change management intervention purposes. Research Objectives The objectives of this study are divided into literature and empirical research objectives, each posing primary and secondary objectives. The primary literature review objective is to create a theoretical frame of reference for the interrelated concepts of change, change management and barriers-to-change. The primary empirical research objective is to apply Barriers-to-Change Questionnaire (BCQ), developed in meeting the literature review objectives, to a Governmental service delivery type organisation with the purpose of determining which barriers-to-change is evident in such an environment. Literature Research A review of the literature revealed that there is no integrated view on change and barriers-to-change, but it also revealed that the concept of barriers-to-change has been prominent in organisational and management literature for quite some time. However, no evidence could be found of a measuring instrument focused on measuring barriers-to-change as a whole. During the literature research the concepts of organisational development, organisational change, change management, resistance to change and barriers-tochange were investigated, clarified and reported upon. The above-mentioned concepts were integrated into a theoretical frame of reference called the SCM, which served the purposes of providing a framework from where barriers-to-change can be understood, explained and managed as well as providing a firm base from where the BCQ was developed to measure barriers-to-change in a specific environment. It was concluded, for the purposes of this study, that barriers-to-change can be grouped into two types of barriers, being hard and soft. It was also concluded that there are four causes (or groupings) of barriers-to-change, being barriers inherent to the change project, people barriers, organisational barriers and barriers from the environment, each with specific sub-dimensions. Each sub dimension is supported by an appropriate number of questionnaire items, contained in the BCQ, which were administered to the target organisation.

In this study, participants performed a change detection task. Specifically we examined whether participants had to fixate on a difference between two images before they could detect it. Thirty-six participants performed a change detection task in either a 3 minute or a 1.5 minute condition. We found a significant interaction between task duration and fixation type (whether the participant had fixated on the difference in both, one, or neither image). Participants found a greater number of differences given more time only when they fixated on the difference in both images. The number of differences which were detected by participants with a fixation on only one image or on neither image did not increase with a corresponding increase in time, indicating that some mechanical error may be involved. This suggests that participants need to fixate on a difference before being able to detect it.

The use of digital communication has become more interesting for organizations since the rise of globalization and liberation of markets. It allows employees within multinational companies to communicate effectively with each other. The use of digital communication when managing global, IT-enabled change is, however, an area that has not received much attention from scholars. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate use of digital communication in a global IT change project. Iveroth (2010) argues that a high degree of willingness to change is achieved when employees understand the intended change, accept the meaning of the change, have an interest in changing and finally act accordingly towards the new intended state (behaviour). Thus, a research question needed to be addressed: How do employees perceive digital communication and what impact does this communication have on their willingness to change? The study was carried out within a global organization that performed an IT change project in which a content management system (CMS) was updated from an old to a new platform. With support from the chosen theoretical framework, empirical data was then collected through interviews, observations and document analysis during a 10-week internship. To grasp the full complexity of IT change, a meta-framework was used as the theoretical framework of this study. Since the meta-framework focuses on how change leaders can manage successful IT change, and does not solely focus on communication aspects within an IT change initiative, extensions of relevant organizational change communication theories were included in the framework. The result showed that when change leaders use digital communication in an IT change initiative, it has a strong effect on how employees perceive communication. In general, we found patterns indicating that the use of digital communication can create a certain amount of understanding for a global IT change initiative among employees. However, reaching meaning, interest and behaviour among employees is more complex.

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