In Vietnam, together with the renovation program known as Doi moi, promulgation of resolution 49/CP in 1993 and subsequently of directive 58 CT/TW in 2000 provided the incentive and resolve to use Information Technology (IT) as a driver of economic development and social advancement. Thus, IT was designated a national strategic priority. However, despite the Government�s efforts to implement IT, uptake and use of IT in organisations have been embryonic. Existing studies implied IT implementation in Vietnamese organisations to have been influenced in part by organisational culture factors traceable to the national culture. In light of these findings, the present study focuses on the relationships between organisational culture and IT implementation in Vietnamese organisations. Nine objectives were set for the study. The related research questions were focused on identifying the most common features of organisational culture in Vietnam, how respondents� and organisational characteristics were associated with organisational culture, the general level of IT implementation success in organisations, how respondents� and organisational characteristics were associated with IT implementation, and the nature of the relationship between a Vietnamese organisation�s culture and effectiveness of its IT implementation. In pursuing quantitative research methodology, a questionnaire was developed and subjected to a focus group scrutiny at the preliminary stage and then again prior to implementation to confirm the questionnaire�s suitability and applicability. Data, from 328 returned questionnaires, and the findings of the subsequent analyses were validated via semi-structured interviews and a panel of experts. To address the research questions, the data were subjected to a battery of statistical analysis tools, including descriptive, correlation, association, analyses of variance and factor analysis. The findings were then interpreted and the panel of experts used to confirm and better understand the findings and to offer extra insights. The majority of the organisations surveyed were characterised by the 'Elephant' organisational culture (OC) style that had elements of order, uniformity, rules and regulations and emphasis on stability. Most of these organisations were state-owned enterprises located in northern Vietnam. In number, these were followed by the �Tiger� OC organisations, comprising mainly private and foreign-owned organisations, especially those located in Ho Chi Minh City. These �Tiger� organisations stressed their operational efficiency, and externally positioned themselves toward winning competitive advantage and achieving market superiority. �Rabbit� characteristics, such as flexibility, creativity and innovation did not surface often within Vietnamese organisations. Most organisations surveyed claimed to enjoy a rather high level of IT implementation benefits, especially those relating to internal-focused aspects such as �Faster response time�, �Better communication & networking�, and �Higher quality of performance�. Finance related benefits of IT implementation were at the lowest level. Private and foreign-owned organisations had the highest level of both IT investment payoff and IT implementation benefits while state-owned organisations had the lowest on both measures. State-owned organisations also reported the most problems with IT implementation the most frequently, while foreign-owned organisations least often faced such problems. Exploration of the association between OC and IT implementation showed that 'Elephants� were significantly associated with lower levels of successful IT implementation, while �Tiger� organisations followed by �Rabbit� were significantly associated with higher levels of success. �Production-oriented� organisations indicated higher levels of IT investment payoff than �People-oriented� ones. Organisations with �entrepreneurial� characterisation were found to have high levels of IT implementation success. In light of the findings and their implications, recommendations were made for government, industry, business and research organisations. The recommendations are designed to foster improved uptake and use of IT in Vietnamese organisations through the process of 'Organisational Doi moi' (organisational renewal) as well as to enlarge the research base on socio-cultural aspects of IT to buttress such efforts.

This thesis sought to advance understanding of the politics of workplace reform, explaining the respective roles of management and employees and how they relate. The literature on workplace reform usually argues that reform is predicated on greater workforce participation in managerial decisions. More specifically, different approaches to workplace reform can be aligned to different forms of participation. Thus quality management can be associated with direct forms of participation, institutional workplace reform may depend on representative forms, and best practice may require a combination of both. This thesis uses empirical evidence to explore this alignment between the different approaches to workplace reform and forms of participation. The period chosen for empirical study is approximately 1985-1992 - an era of rapid innovation in workplace reform for Australian manufacturing. Three workplaces were chosen for intensive study from automotive component manufacturers because that industry was itself a laboratory for workplace reform and also because these firms exemplified different approaches to competitiveness and reform. Three approaches to workplace reform - quality management, institutional workplace reform, and best practice - were distinguished to capture the range of Australian practice at that time. Similarly two approaches to workplace participation were distinguished - direct and representative - to reflect the range of observable practices at that time and to represent competing philosophies. Direct participation illustrated an approach founded in managerial context of the political status quo, whilst representative forms were considered to permit a pluralist shift of power to enable employees to manage in place of management. The three case studies depict companies sharing the competitive crisis of their industry. From this stems the impetus for workplace reform. At this point the firms diverged in their choice of competitive strategies for workplace reform. The case studies reveal, at the superficial level, a match between the chosen approaches to workplace reform and forms of participation. Basically, quality management is associated with direct employee participation, institutional workplace reform with collective bargaining and representative consultative committees, and best practice with both. However when the implementation of reform and participation are examined this match becomes less significant. One firm, Auto Air, achieved highly effective outcomes in both reform and participation. Another firm, Auto Electrical, failed in both. The thesis concluded that the relationship between forms of participation and reform is less significant than the effective implementation of policy. Unitarist or pluralist approaches to power distribution count less than managerial capacity to integrate successive reform initiatives and their commitment to workforce participation hi change.

This thesis is about the role that shop floor workers play in organisational change. In particular, it investigates the manner in which a distinct group of worker-level leaders and change agents affected the generation and implementation of change and helped to shape the change process in an organisation undergoing planned change. The data for the thesis were obtained from a three-year, longitudinal case-study of organisational change in a medium-sized automotive components manufacturer, Moving Metals Limited (MML). Data were collected at MML during a move from traditional mass production to lean production and the research was conducted using processual action research, while the researcher adopted the dual roles of researcher and consultant to the company. The research identified a distinct group of workers, with no supervisory capacity, who were able to shape the change process in the organisation. These workers are referred to as workers of influence. This group of workers emerged as central characters in the process of organisational change and as leaders and change agents in the organisation. Drawn from the empirical data, criteria for identifying workers of influence are developed in this thesis, based on the authority vested in them by the workforce and their access to management decision-making. A taxonomy of workers of influence is developed in this thesis using these criteria, as well as the duration of tenure of influence. In much of the literature, shop floor workers are portrayed as either passive participants in, or active resistors of organisational change. This research provides evidence of some workers acting as leaders and change agents in an active and influential manner. The research examines issues of power, influence, autonomy and control and their impact on workers' capacity to participate in change. In so doing, this research identifies and opens up an important area of study with implications for organisational theory, literature and the implementation of planned interventions in organisations. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Social Inquiry, 2000.

<p>When companies go trough a merger or an acquisition all involved parties within the organisations becomes affected. These changes can affect the company in many areas which could create tensions and anxiety among employees which could create strong negative forces at the end and prevent the new organisation to function at its best. In service companies this could be of great importance to overcome since they often are dependent on functional organisations to help them create a wanted quality. This study will address this problem and will do so in a case study performed on a transportations company which have gone trough a number of mergers. Due to these mergers, the company has also grown in both numbers of employees and in financial conditions.</p><p>The applied thesis statement is: “How should a small expanding company manage the integration of acquired companies and at the same time maintain a sought identity within the organisation, in order to reach their main strategic objectives? “. The ambition is to be able to understand how the studied company has developed and also to analyse its organisational transition. Furthermore we also want to create proposals for organisations that are facing future organisational transitions, based from our findings in this study.</p><p>This study has been conducted with a hermeneutic scientific ideal and an abductive approach. The empirical collection was done inside the studied organisation in a qualitative manner. We conducted nine interviews, one with the manager (co-owner) and the other eight with employees inside the company. We wanted to be able to see both parties’ sides of the mergers. Therefore the interviews where conducted at two separate offices in different cities.</p><p>The theoretical framework consists of a number of theoretical areas, who together creates a holistic view over the entire research area. The theoretical parts consist of: Organisation, network, mergers, acquisitions, family firms, corporate culture, identity, social identity, service quality and Human Resources.</p><p>Our main conclusion is of the studied company shows that the biggest problem which the organisation faces today is the lack of communication between the manager and the employees. Although we claim that the merger has played a mayor impact on the company in many areas. Some of the main difficulties which we identified were the fact that the merger never was discussed thoroughly between the management and the employees. We also claim that the company when divided between the two offices have created a cultural gap between the wanted culture and the actual culture. We argue that the quality thinking permeates trough the entire organisation and all of the respondents have described the importance of achieving a high quality service within the organisation.</p>

When companies go trough a merger or an acquisition all involved parties within the organisations becomes affected. These changes can affect the company in many areas which could create tensions and anxiety among employees which could create strong negative forces at the end and prevent the new organisation to function at its best. In service companies this could be of great importance to overcome since they often are dependent on functional organisations to help them create a wanted quality. This study will address this problem and will do so in a case study performed on a transportations company which have gone trough a number of mergers. Due to these mergers, the company has also grown in both numbers of employees and in financial conditions. The applied thesis statement is: “How should a small expanding company manage the integration of acquired companies and at the same time maintain a sought identity within the organisation, in order to reach their main strategic objectives? “. The ambition is to be able to understand how the studied company has developed and also to analyse its organisational transition. Furthermore we also want to create proposals for organisations that are facing future organisational transitions, based from our findings in this study. This study has been conducted with a hermeneutic scientific ideal and an abductive approach. The empirical collection was done inside the studied organisation in a qualitative manner. We conducted nine interviews, one with the manager (co-owner) and the other eight with employees inside the company. We wanted to be able to see both parties’ sides of the mergers. Therefore the interviews where conducted at two separate offices in different cities. The theoretical framework consists of a number of theoretical areas, who together creates a holistic view over the entire research area. The theoretical parts consist of: Organisation, network, mergers, acquisitions, family firms, corporate culture, identity, social identity, service quality and Human Resources. Our main conclusion is of the studied company shows that the biggest problem which the organisation faces today is the lack of communication between the manager and the employees. Although we claim that the merger has played a mayor impact on the company in many areas. Some of the main difficulties which we identified were the fact that the merger never was discussed thoroughly between the management and the employees. We also claim that the company when divided between the two offices have created a cultural gap between the wanted culture and the actual culture. We argue that the quality thinking permeates trough the entire organisation and all of the respondents have described the importance of achieving a high quality service within the organisation.

This thesis reports findings and results from studies of development work and change processes in the secondary woodworking industry. The purpose with the research is to increase the knowledge on how companies can initiate change and to increase their ability to change. The dual aim of improving both business and working conditions served as a guiding condition for the research. Case studies and action research were performed in small companies, mainly with less than 100 employees and in some cases less than 20 employees. The thesis encompasses six papers addressing different topics within the framework of development work and change processes. Topics elaborated are how performance concerning the ergonomic situation in a company can be measured and how the content and process of ISO 9000 implementation as well as standardisation influence system performance and working conditions. Furthermore, a framework for how change is enacted in SMEs and its effects on ergonomic considerations is suggested. A methodology for initiating change efforts in complex and ambiguous problem situations is presented. Finally the different expert and participant roles in an organisational change effort are elaborated and analysed with reference to experiences from previous case studies and theory. Together, the papers and the thesis emphasize the importance of action and work activities as a base for change. It is in the conflicting work activities or work conduct of differing perspectives where many of the drivers of change can be found. I also argue that this is a main reason to give good working conditions utmost importance for organisation performance. Further, I conclude that the six papers together contribute to a theoretical basis for developing small firms and attractive workplaces. It is indicated that the results are relevant to small manufacturing firms, while neither organisational structure nor resources available are the same as in larger companies. Moreover, the organisational size has a number of implications on aspects like visibility, available theoretical knowledge, vulnerability, formalisation, institutionalised organisational inertia etc. that will alter the demands on the change process. Many of the results are not limited to woodworking industry; the technical content of the ergonomics problems will however be different in other firms.

Background: Focus on processes within organisations emerged during the nineteen ninetees and has since then become the most dominant management method. The main aim and positive features of process orientation is the customer focus and increased flexibility/efficiency. There is not much academic research conducted to leadership combined with processorientation. With this thesis we will minor that gap. The change into a process oriented approach makes a drastic change and the leadership could be a key factor or problem when implementing it. Purpose with the thesis: The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how leadership is affected, on a top managerial level, as a result of implementing a process oriented approach. Method: In this thesis we have used a qualitative method and a hermeneutic approach to increase the understanding of how the leadership is affected of process orientation. We have made a case study on the Swedish Road Administration, Vägverket who has done a process orientation. We have made six interviews with topmanagers at their headoffice. Conclusion: We have come up with a model that states that a leader within a process oriented organisation can be compared with a tour guide. The model is based on our five key findings of how leadership is affected by changing into process orientation. These are: lead change, achieve aims, increase teamwork, increase communication and increase holistic view. These characteristics applies on a leader when changing into a process oriented organisation. / Bakgrund: Fokus på processer inom organisationer började under 1990-talet och har sedan dess varit den dominerande ledarskapsmetoden. Det främsta målet och fördelarna med processorienteringen är kundfokuseringen samt ökad flexibilitet och effektivitet. Det finns inte mycket forskning beträffande ledarskap kombinerat med processorientering. Med denna uppsats vill vi bidra med en undersökning. Förändringen till ett processorienterat synsätt innebär en drastisk förändring och ledarskapet har en nyckelroll i samband med implementeringen. Syfte med uppsatsen: Syftet med denna uppsats är att öka förståelsen för hur ledarskapet påverkas, på högsta chefsnivån, med anledning av implementeringen av ett processorienterat synsätt. Metod: I denna uppsats har vi använt en kvalitativ metod och ett hermeneutiskt tillvägagångssätt för att öka förståelsen av hur ledarskapet påverkas av processorientering. Vi har genomfört en fallstudie av Vägverket som genomfört en processorientering och intervjuat sex chefer på deras huvudkontor. Slutsats: Vi har tagit fram en modell som säger att en ledare inom en processorienterad organisation kan jämföras med en turguide. Modellen är baserad på våra fem viktigaste områden om hur ledarskap påverkas vid en förändring till ett processorienterat synsätt. Dessa är : att leda förändring, uppnå mål, ökad teamwork, ökad kommunikation och ökad helhetssyn. Detta kännetecknar en ledare när man förändrar till en processorienterad organisation.

<p>Background: Focus on processes within organisations emerged during the nineteen ninetees and has since then become the most dominant management method. The main aim and positive features of process orientation is the customer focus and increased flexibility/efficiency. There is not much academic research conducted to leadership combined with processorientation. With this thesis we will minor that gap. The change into a process oriented approach makes a drastic change and the leadership could be a key factor or problem when implementing it.</p><p>Purpose with the thesis: The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how leadership is affected, on a top managerial level, as a result of implementing a process oriented approach.</p><p>Method: In this thesis we have used a qualitative method and a hermeneutic approach to increase the understanding of how the leadership is affected of process orientation. We have made a case study on the Swedish Road Administration, Vägverket who has done a process orientation. We have made six interviews with topmanagers at their headoffice.</p><p>Conclusion: We have come up with a model that states that a leader within a process oriented organisation can be compared with a tour guide. The model is based on our five key findings of how leadership is affected by changing into process orientation. These are: lead change, achieve aims, increase teamwork, increase communication and increase holistic view. These characteristics applies on a leader when changing into a process oriented organisation.</p> / <p>Bakgrund: Fokus på processer inom organisationer började under 1990-talet och har sedan dess varit den dominerande ledarskapsmetoden. Det främsta målet och fördelarna med processorienteringen är kundfokuseringen samt ökad flexibilitet och effektivitet. Det finns inte mycket forskning beträffande ledarskap kombinerat med processorientering. Med denna uppsats vill vi bidra med en undersökning. Förändringen till ett processorienterat synsätt innebär en drastisk förändring och ledarskapet har en nyckelroll i samband med implementeringen.</p><p>Syfte med uppsatsen: Syftet med denna uppsats är att öka förståelsen för hur ledarskapet påverkas, på högsta chefsnivån, med anledning av implementeringen av ett processorienterat synsätt.</p><p>Metod: I denna uppsats har vi använt en kvalitativ metod och ett hermeneutiskt tillvägagångssätt för att öka förståelsen av hur ledarskapet påverkas av processorientering. Vi har genomfört en fallstudie av Vägverket som genomfört en processorientering och intervjuat sex chefer på deras huvudkontor.</p><p>Slutsats: Vi har tagit fram en modell som säger att en ledare inom en processorienterad organisation kan jämföras med en turguide. Modellen är baserad på våra fem viktigaste områden om hur ledarskap påverkas vid en förändring till ett processorienterat synsätt. Dessa är : att leda förändring, uppnå mål, ökad teamwork, ökad kommunikation och ökad helhetssyn. Detta kännetecknar en ledare när man förändrar till en processorienterad organisation.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX210507.

This research is concerned with investigating reengineering teams in the context of business process change, or more widely known, business process reengineering (BPR). Business Process Change, on the one hand, is still considered as being an approach that is required in recent times. Reengineering teams (teams that are involved with the planning, analysis and design of the approach) on the other hand, have been viewed to be essential for the development and implementation of BPR. Bearing these points in mind, it was discovered that although the reengineering teams area warrants attention, there has been little attention paid to it. In the reengineering area, specifically, this research aims to address two main issues: first, the role of reengineering teams in business process change and second, the human and organisational aspects that surround the teams. For this, the research applied several steps and they are described in the following paragraphs. To discover the role of the reengineering teams in the context of business process change, it was initially assumed that the foundations of the BPR lie in organisational change. Using this assumption, it became simpler and clearer to determine the exact role of teams. With regards to the human and organisational aspects, a strategy unique to the topic was adopted. At the outset, some human and organisational aspects that are more commonly found in the organisational behaviour and psychology areas were revealed and research with regards to these particular aspects was described. Whilst that was the theoretical side of the research, the research then had to determine whether the deductions formed from the theoretical side were evident in practice. For the empirical results, the research used a combination of approaches in order to obtain the desired results. A qualitative approach that has its foundations in Interpretivism was the methodology used in the research. The ontology assumed then that subjective meanings could be assumed to reconstruct reality. Evidence from practice was obtained using initially, two pilot studies. Further, a multiple case study strategy and the research techniques of mainly, interviews and referring to archival documents were utilised. Once the data was analysed, a theory that could be used for future research in the reengineering teams area was developed. This was arrived at using a combination of certain grounded theory techniques, particularly, the forming of categories and coding. The findings suggested that reengineering teams are imperative for BPR and that some of the selected human and organisational aspects are evident in the newly formed theory.