<p>Background: Acquisitions are a well-known method for increasing company size and strength on the market. But to reach the targets set, more than just a positive economic calculation is required. An atmosphere that supports the company's integration is needed, for which it is of great importance for management to understand the underlying sets of values that exist in the organisation, and to take into consideration the way they might become an obstacle or a tool for a successful integration. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explain and understand how cultural change occurs and how it affects the employee, as a smaller company is bought and integrated into a larger organisation. </p><p>Procedure: The analysis is based on theories on organisational culture and organisational change. Data was collected through personal interviews with five employees at Sydkraft Service Partners (SSP), but also the authors'own observations and Sydkraft's internal press material, have contributed to the knowledge of the case company. </p><p>Conclusions: The culture in SPP is structured after a model based on levels of consciousness, where the visual aspects on culture (the artefacts) are considered to reflect the underlying sets of values and fundamental notions that the culture consists of. These are partly influenced by the artefacts, but can also be of a threat to the culture change process. To accomplish a successful integration, good leadership that can communicate the new set of values is required.</p>

In response to competitive and economic pressures, an increasing number of manufacturing firms are adding services to their traditional product offerings. However, companies are confronted with an arduous undertaking, and find it difficult to servitize successfully and profitably. This thesis investigates the transformation that traditional manufacturers undergo to become providers of integrated products and services, a phenomenon known as servitization. Servitization is considered a strategic re-direction of the manufacturing organisation and a major challenge for senior management. The purpose of this study is to provide better understanding of the change that occurs when a manufacturer attempts servitization. The study adopts a qualitative theory building approach to investigate an under-researched phenomenon and a major managerial challenge. It follows a strategy of engaged scholarship to understand a complex organisational problem. The research utilised multiple case studies, action research, and focus groups to tackle a problem with significance to industry. The findings reveal the nature of servitization as a complex transformative change which exposes the manufacturing company to its environment in new ways, and closely interlinks the organisation with a network of stakeholders through new dependencies. The transformation of traditional manufacturers towards servitized organisations is multi-dimensional and goes through eleven dimensions of transformation across the organisation and its network. In addition, thirty nine forces of change were found to influence the outcome of servitization, and were categorised into three sets of change drivers for servitization. The results of the study led to the formation of a model for transformation towards a servitized organisation for use by industry practitioners to roadmap and facilitate their organisation‟s shift towards services. The model represents a novel approach to managing servitization. This research has addressed a literature gap and met an industrial need, and has made a significant contribution to knowledge about the change that traditional manufacturers experience to become servitized organisations.

This study was concerned with elaborating theory and informing practice about the process of managing change in organizations. It was premised on the implications of organizational culture and its underlying basic assumptions for strategy, particularly in terms of responsiveness and resistance to change. Harmony between the external environment and an organization's culture was postulated as a critical determinant of the rate of uptake and acceptance of new strategic directions in an organization. Drawing from organizational and critical social theories, past conservation efforts in KwaZulu-Natal were reinterpreted in the light of historical and contemporary developments. The theoretical contribution rests on exploring how basic assumptions, as the core of a culture, may be conceptualized and accessed to examine historically and culturally based meanings of conservation. The practical contribution relates to the need for mechanisms to explicitly address basic assumptions as the core of an organizational culture. Data collection and analysis were informed by the ideas of hermeneutic philosophy, Giddens' Theory of Structuration and Schein's framework of organizational culture. The main source of primary data was interviews that were tape-recorded, transcribed and analysed using a multi-stage process in data organization and interpretation. The analysis involved the identification of common themes and differences in opinion amongst the respondents. Data analysis was done with the help of Nvivo - computer software for qualitative research. The software did not effect the analysis, but assisted in organizing the interview transcripts for analysis purposes: facilitating easy storage, retrieval and querying. The findings revealed a temporal variance in the understanding and interpretation of the mission of conservation in KwaZulu-Natal. Respective executive leaders of the two erstwhile conservation agencies in KwaZulu-Natal were historically very influential in shaping the mission. For the present leadership, four basic assumptions emerged from the data: 'public funding defines who we are'; 'we are leaders in conservation'; 'we know our realities are changing' and 'we are conserving a great natural and cultural heritage'. These assumptions reflect the various themes which the respondents discussed in respect of the present-day strategy processes in conservation in KwaZulu-Natal. Within and across these four assumptions, respondents expressed variable and sometimes contradictory meanings and interpretations. Differences were especially noticeable between the conservation sector's historical inclinations towards public service and its emergent commercial activities. Overall, the study demonstrated the variety of perspectives the respondents used to interpret their understanding and meanings of what the fundamental mission of conservation in KwaZulu-Natal ought to be. The findings highlight the need for those involved in strategic processes to base their activities, and their approaches to managing change, on the continual exploration of basic assumptions as the portal for the ideas, perceptions and beliefs that influence change. In matters of strategy, leaders should work with the prevailing organizational culture and its underlying basic assumptions, rather than develop the strategy and then attempt to deal with the basic assumptions and cultural support afterwards. Finally, the findings suggest that in all visioning and strategy development processes, whether in a conservation agency or some other organization, explicit analysis of assumptions is critical for securing support for, and reducing prospects of resistance to change. Among members of an organization, visions, missions and strategies are unlikely to be effectively internalized unless they accord with the assumptions they hold. This process requires explicit mechanisms for doing so, and this study highlights such mechanisms. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

The management of knowledge has taken on greater importance in 21st century as more companies compete in the open market. The company that is aware ofwhat knowledge it possess and is able leverage its knowledge effectively will have a significant advantage over its competitors. A major stumbling block to implementation of knowledge management initiatives has been organizational culture. If the culture of the organization is not conducive to knowledge sharing, no knowledge management initiative will ever succeed. This study was focussed on examining the cultural landscape ofthe Generation Division of Eskom in order to understand what impact it will have on future knowledge management initiatives and to provide insight on what issues need to be addressed in order to facilitate a culture of knowledge sharing within the Division. Hermeneutics, coupled with systems thinking, was used to identify the factors within the Generation Division's organisational culture that influenced knowledge sharing. Trust, compassion for fellow employees and mutual respect were identified as critical factors that inhibited the development of meaningful relationships amongst employees which is pivotal to sharing tacit knowledge. This study recommends paying more attention to developing and improving employee relationships than investing in expensive IT infrastructure to transfer tacit knowledge. / Thesis (MCom.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2005.

By developing strong, self-sustaining individuals in organisations, employees will need to withstand the forces of stressors and be able to cope with continuous changes within their working environment. To move the equilibrium level from the current to the desired condition, the field of forces must be altered - by adding driving forces and by removing restraining forces. An individual's sense of coherence may either alleviate or aggravate reactions to a stressor and moderate the impact of occupational stressors on the individual's affective outcomes. The objectives of this study were to validate the 13-item version of the Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OLQ) (Antonovsky, 1987) and to determine the experience of employees with high levels of sense of coherence regarding helping and restraining factors within the workplace (compared to that of those with a low sense of coherence). A cross-sectional s w e y design was used. The total population (N = 2 678) of employees in a financial institution in Gauteng was used in this study. Random samples of groups with a strong (n = 300) and low (n = 300) sense of coherence were taken for purposes of the qualitative study. The OLQ (Antonovsky, 1987) and a biographical questionnaire were administered. The scale showed acceptable reliability and construct validity. The study set out to determine the applicability of the theoretical model of sense of coherence to employees in a financial institution. Reliability analysis revealed that the three subscales of sense of coherence were sufficiently internally consistent. The reliability of the measuring instrument were assessed with the use of Cronbach alpha coefficients. Descriptive statistics (e.g. mean and standard deviations) were used to analyse the data. By using the structural equation modelling approach, a one-dimensional factor structure for sense of coherence amongst employees in a financial institution emerged. The reliability analysis revealed that the alpha scores were acceptable. It can therefore be concluded that the 13-item version of the OLQ is a reliable and valid measuring instrument. The results showed that although employee groups with high and low levels of sense of coherence are experiencing similar helping and restraining factors within their working environment, helping factors are being experienced with a higher frequency by groups with high levels of sense of coherence and restraining factors with a higher frequency by groups with low levels of sense of coherence. Recommendations were made for future research. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007

This thesis reports an exploratory, quantitative study into the implementation of strategic decisions. Implementation was viewed as a discontinuous organisational activity involving strategic change. The organisational vehicle of change is seen as "the project" and the specific unit of analysis adopted is the capital investment project. Manufacturing organisations were studied because these were shown to most frequently undertake such projects. Adopting a theoretical perspective derived from systems theory and cybernetics a model of implementation was developed which recognises two dimensions of implementation success (modes of organisational change) to be contingent upon a dimension of project uncertainty and two dimensions of information. From this model ten hypotheses were developed. Data on 45 projects was collected from a diversity of manufacturing companies. This was obtained using a structured questionnaire instrument administered to a single informant during a retrospective personal interview. Initially the data was analysed using principal components factor analysis to determine the factorial compositions and reliabilities of scales measuring theoretical constructs. Subsequently, causal modelling and stepwise regression techniques were employed to test the hypotheses. Analysis demonstrated that the essentially structural approach to implementation taken in the study adequately explained many of the observed associations between constructs. Hypothesised associations between organisational structure and implementation success could not, generally, be supported. Finally, the theoretical model adopted was not able to account for a number of empirically observed associations. These associations were explicable in terms of a behavioural or social dimension. The wider implications of the study are also discussed.

This thesis is about how systems thinking might contribute to the successful management of change (MOC). The motivation is the increasing importance of MOC in an environment where competition and internationalisation of markets are ever intensifying: organisations either &quot;change or die&quot;, yet MOC suffers adversely with unacceptably high failure rates. A critique of MOC literature shows that current MOe methodology is characterised by reductionist approaches with a diversity of confusing and contradictory suggestions and recipes. This is seen to be impoverished where different types of organisational change are interacting. All these suggest that MOC methodology itself needs to be improved and a systemic approach is more appropriate. In search of methodological underpinnings for proposing a systemic approach to MOC, literature on systems thinking is reviewed, indicating that systems approaches, especially critical systems thinking, are potentially powerful to inform the development of MOC. Nevertheless, important questions are raised about applying systems ideas to MOC. Further research is needed. And this has been done by triangulating data, theory and method to develop a fuller understanding of systems perspectives and their relevance to MOC. By combining MOC and systems thinking together in a theoretically informed way, a systemic MOC framework is suggested and revised. This framework is seen to provide a characterisation of MOC by identifying the conceptual components, a coherent theoretical structure by specifying and ordering the relationships between these components, and a way of helping understand and manage the diversity in organisational change systemically. This framework is theoretically underpinned and applied to a case study where different types of organisational change and their interactions are surfaced. The outcomes firmly support the view that MOe is characterised by different types of organisational change and their interactions, for which systemic approaches are more appropriate; thus the systemic MOC framework developed is seen to be useful in helping understand and manage organisational change more effectively. The findings are critiqued within the study, and from this come out the conclusions, and recommendations for future research.

This dissertation investigated a very specialised, highly sensitive and complex research area in policing known as undercover policing or covert policing operations. This is the first examination to be conducted in the Australasian policing context and the only known research to explore, empirically, undercover operatives' experiences of returning to mainstream police duties after completing their covert duties.----- There were two main research objectives in this dissertation. The first was to develop research methodology specific for use with undercover police officers. The second main objective was to conduct an empirical investigation to identify the psychological processes associated with the reintegration or re-assimilation of undercover police officers into mainstream policing environments. Social identity theory was applied to deconstruct undercover police officers' reintegration experiences.----- Given the closed and protected nature of covert policing, careful consideration to methodological and ethical issues required high priority in the development of research practices. Addressing these considerations in research practices protected the anonymity and security of those involved in the research. Tailoring research methods to suit the officers' circumstances and satisfy police managements' security concerns improved the practical application of research methods and research relations with police members and, therefore, the quality of the findings.----- In developing a research methodology for specific use with undercover police officers, a multi-method approach was adopted. Data triangulation with the use of a variety of data sources and methodological triangulation with the use of multiple methods and multiple indicators were employed. This technique proved constructive in creating a more holistic perspective of undercover policing and officers' experiences of re-assimilation.----- In theoretical terms, the major issue under investigation is of negotiating dual memberships or multiple identities. Three studies are reported. The first study is a field study, in which the researcher spent more than 18 months in the covert policing context, as a participant observer. Through field research, the researcher was able to learn about the Australasian covert policing context; obtain in-house police documents; define research issues and hypotheses; understand methodological considerations; identify a psychological theoretical framework; and examine &quotthe fit " between theory and the social dynamics of covert policing. Other benefits of becoming immersed in the working life of undercover police officers and the police organisation included understanding the ways of proceeding and the social and organisational structure that exists among covert personnel.----- The second study interviewed 20 former covert police personnel, from two police jurisdictions, who had been reintegrated for more than three years. The majority of officers found returning to mainstream police duties a difficult experience and two separate profiles of reintegration experiences emerged from the data. This study identified the presence of more than one police identity among former operatives. It found that some officers internalise aspects of the undercover policing norms and use these police norms to define aspects of the self both as a police officer and as an individual. That is, role-playing the undercover police persona became an extension of the officer as an individual and contributed positively to their personal self-worth. It was noted that the majority of officers expressed cognitive confusion over how to behave in the mainstream policing environment after covert duties had ceased.----- The other profile to emerge from the data was of officers who characterised their undercover policing experiences as being more integrated into their overall police persona. Officers interviewed in this study employed different identity decision-making strategies to restructure their police identities. In sum, this study found that the extent, to which the undercover and mainstream memberships were integrated cognitively, influenced officers' experiences of reintegration.----- The third study is a cross-sectional design using survey methods. Thirty-eight trainees, 31 currently operational and 38 former undercover operatives from four police jurisdictions took part in this study. A group of mainstream police officers matched according to former operatives' age, gender and years of policing experience was also included. This study found that police identities change over the phases of undercover police work and that changes in former operatives' mainstream police identity were a function of covert police work. Cross-sectional comparisons revealed that former operatives' undercover police identity had declined since covert policing, however, officers' mainstream police identity had not significantly increased. Failure to increase identification with mainstream police after undercover police work has ceased has a number of implications in terms of predicting re-assimilation. Operatives most likely to experience difficulties were those who resisted the mainstream police identification and reported difficult relations with their mainstream peers. Trends analysis revealed that despite the physical change, 'cognitive' re-assimilation actually commences in the second year of the operatives' reintegration. These exploratory analyses revealed that following return to the mainstream policing environment, identity stressors were mostly likely to be experienced in the first year of reintegration.----- To determine psychological adjustment since undercover police work, the person-environment fit was also investigated in the study. Operatives' current perceptions of working in the mainstream context were reported using a number of behavioural and organisational indicators. Overall, this study found that former operatives remain committed to their policing profession, however, those who experienced identity stress during the re-assimilation process were less satisfied with their current work duties and failed to find their work interesting, tended to perceive undercover duties as having been detrimental to their career, and expressed greater intentions to leave the service within 12 months of the survey. Overall former operatives' satisfaction and commitment levels were not significantly different from mainstream officers. Mainstream police, however, reported being under greater pressure and felt more overworked in the mainstream context than former operatives. In summary, these organisational indicators revealed that the difficulties of re-assimilation and intentions to leave the service are more related to the stress of modifying officers' police identity during this period than the workload characteristics of mainstream policing.----- Overall these studies demonstrated that the process of negotiating police identities is an important psychological dynamic present in undercover operatives' reintegration experiences. The identity stress experienced during this period was shown to have a number of organisational-behavioural consequences, such as problematic intergroup relations and greater intentions to leave the police service after undercover police work. Based on findings from this research a number of practical recommendations are made and suggestions for the direction of future research are outlined. Contributions to theory are also discussed.

The last two decades have seen an increasing sophistication in the type of information systems employed by organizations. In particular we have seen the emergence of enterprise systems technology - advanced information technology specifically designed to integrate the vast majority of an organization's processes and data flows. As the characteristics of ES technology have encroached beyond individual user domains and have become integrated throughout organizations, user acceptance issues have also broadened beyond the individual unit of analysis. At the same time numerous examples can be found both in the trade press and academic literature of organizations wishing to use enterprise systems as a primary driver of widespread organizational change and restructuring. A fundamental premise of this study is that while it may be intuitively appealing to consider technology as a primary catalyst for organizational change, it neglects to acknowledge the presence of what is referred to as the &quoteduality of structure&quote (Giddens, 1993). Duality of structure proponents contend that while IT system protocols may to a certain extent determine individual action, human agency can also determine the extent to which the technology is incorporated into everyday operations. The failure of past research to acknowledge the role of individual action and the influence of social context in determining IT usage is considered to be a significant oversight (DeSanctis & Poole, 1994). Underpinned by the theory of structuration and its notion of duality, a theory of user acceptance is put forward capable of clarifying the process by which users evaluate and react to enterprise systems technology. The thesis reports on an empirical investigation into the relationship between three representations of structure within an organization: the characteristics of ES technology; job design; and social networks. The capacity of ES technology to alter the structural elements of both job design and social networks, and hence form user's attitudes and behavior towards the system, is the fundamental theoretical premise of the thesis. As such this represents a clear step forward in understanding the implications of ES technology for both users and organizational structure. Using a longitudinal embedded single case design, this study examines the user acceptance and structural implications of introducing an ES into a large public sector educational institution. A social network and job design perspective was adopted to offer fresh insight into the dynamics of employee reaction to the introduction of ES technology. Five hypotheses support the job design component of the thesis. It was argued that given the inherent design elements of ES technology, along with the specific intent of the system's introduction, that users would both anticipate and perceive a decrease in job characteristics following an ES implementation. Further, that the positive relationship between job change and user acceptance would be moderated by the amount of system usage reported by users. Users with a greater exposure to the system were hypothesized to have a far stronger relationship between job change and acceptance than low users. The ramifications of perceived or actual changes to embedded resource exchange networks and subsequent employee reactions to those changes were also considered. Essentially social networks were argued to play a dual role in the user acceptance process, one being a conduit for the facilitation and transfer of user attitudes towards new systems, the other acting as a catalyst for attitude formation towards new systems. Overall the findings only partially supported four of the eight hypotheses put forward. While users were seen to anticipate an &quoteacross the board&quote decrease in job characteristics at Time 1 following the introduction of an ES, perceived changes in job characteristics at Time 2 were dependant on user hierarchy and the extent of system usage. Those high in formal authority reported an increase in job enrichment following the system's introduction, while those low in formal authority reported a decrease in overall job enrichment. Usage was also seen to moderate the relationship between job change and user acceptance. At Time 1 low users reported a positive relationship between anticipated changes in meaningfulness and user acceptance. Conversely at Time 1 high users reported a negative relationship between anticipated skill variety levels at Time 2 and user acceptance. Only one job characteristic reported a relationship between usage and user acceptance. Low users reported a positive relationship between changes in task identity and user acceptance. A post-hoc profile of the usage categories indicated that high users were more likely to be a lower hierarchical position than low users. The positive relationship reported by low users at Time 1 and Time 2 was explained by both the nature of the system, as well as the type and quantity of information received by low users. As senior members of the organization they were considered more likely to receive information that highlighted its attributes in the context of their job roles. The inherent design of ES technology, along with the specific intent it was being introduced, facilitated largely management orientated objectives. Therefore it is unsurprising that low users anticipating an increase in experienced meaningfulness following the introduction of a system that enhanced their job role reported corresponding acceptance levels. In contrast, the negative relationship between anticipated levels of skill variety at Time 2 and perceived ease of use was explained by the affinity that high users were likely to have with the old system. To high users with a high degree of proficiency associated with a redundant skill set, increased skill variety only represented a steeper learning curve and an increased pressure to adapt to the new system. The network component of the study also produced mixed results. Of the two networks that were measured over time, only one supported the hypothesized increase in both advice and resource exchange networks over time. Post-hoc analyses indicated that two of the four groups exhibited network change consistent with the hypothesized relationship. Anecdotal reports suggested that contextual elements such as geographical location and managerial policy at a localized level determined the nature of the change for the remaining two groups. The results failed to support the relationship between network change and user acceptance. However, a weak but significant negative relationship between the measure of network efficiency and user acceptance was found. In simple terms users developing an increasingly redundant set of contacts reported higher levels of user acceptance. In sum, the thesis represents a contribution to enterprise systems, user acceptance and social network literatures. In the first instance the research validates the call by Orlikowski & Iacono (2001) to readily acknowledge the specific nature of the technology under investigation. Despite the growth and saturation of enterprise system types, comparatively little research has been undertaken to examine the user and organizational issues surrounding their implementation. This research has demonstrated the capacity for the inherent design elements of ES technology to have differential effects in terms of job design for different user classifications. This and other findings represent a step forward in understanding the structural and user acceptance implications of this technology, while sign-pointing a number of promising future research avenues. The job design results, and to a lesser extent the network efficiency results, demonstrate the effect of social context on user acceptance. As such they provide further insight regarding the potential determinants of user acceptance beyond the individual unit of analysis. The findings also indicate an increasing need for user acceptance research to stretch beyond the transitory, short term measures of user acceptance such as perceived ease of use, usefulness, training and computer efficacy. Finally the thesis contributes to a small, but growing literature examining the role of social networks in the process of organizational change. In particular this thesis has considered in detail, the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of artificially altering established patterns of interaction. As such the study highlights the need to better understand the role of networks not only in the case of facilitating change, but the effect of network change in terms of change intervention success.

While the change literature is currently dominated by the punctuated equilibrium paradigm, anomalies have appeared to the paradigm in the form of high velocity change and hypercompetition. D'Aveni (1999) reconciles these anomalies with the punctuated equilibrium paradigm by suggesting that the frequency of change experienced affects the change experienced. This research considered whether the presence of increasing returns in an industry is correlated with the frequency of change experienced by the industry and the types of change that appear, thus providing an explanation for the differing forms of change. A second observation in the literature is that an industry experiences a period of instability after a discontinuity. This research considered whether the temporal proximity or type of a preceding discontinuity influenced the likelihood or type of later discontinuities. A longitudinal study identified discontinuities in nine industries throughout the industries' histories. The industries were categorised as: increasing returns, derived from external network effects (Airlines, Data Communications, Electricity and Shipping Lines), complementarity (Information Storage) or information content (Software), respectively; or as constant returns (Aircraft Manufacturing, Telecommunications Manufacturing and Shipbuilding). A comparison of discontinuities has been made between pairs of industries with a common end-user of the industry outputs, where one industry exhibits increasing returns and the companion industry has constant returns, using Binomial Distribution, Fisher's Exact Test and Generalised Linear Modelling techniques. Further Generalised Linear Models tested the interactions of discontinuities. Industries with increasing returns were found to have greater frequency of change. The types of change experienced were found to affect subsequent change, with both types of discontinuities being correlated with increased proportions of competency-enhancing change for ten years, while competency-destroying and competency-enhancing discontinuities were associated with increased frequency of change for twenty and ten years, respectively. The evidence associating increasing returns with competency type was unreliable. Consequently, increasing returns industries may experience a greater variation of frequency of change, with industries entering and leaving periods of enhanced frequencies of change. Thus, industries with increasing returns are more likely to experience change consistent with hypercompetition and high velocity conditions, compared with the punctuated equilibrium style change experienced by constant returns industries.