"This thesis investigates organizational change strategies for e-business transformation. It proposes an instrument to measure the strength of a company's organizational change capabilities to make this transformation. Most "brick and mortar" business in the year 2000 are faced with a massive wave of change associated with the Internet. It is impacting the fundamental rules of business and changing their relationship with customers, suppliers and how work gets done. Firms that successfully make an e-business transformation will be rewarded with growth and strong returns. Many of those who are unable to change will not survive in the long run. A fundamental issue in e-business transformation is disruptive organizational change. A review of the academic literature identifies ten dimensions of organizational change capability that can increase the probability that a company can make a successful disruptive organizational change. These include: emotional unifying vision; use of symbols; enabling the free flow of emotions; providing a transition to the past; creating a playful environment; change infrastructure; first line supervisor buy-in; project management; training; and the reward system. An expert panel was surveyed to get their opinion on the dimensions. Dimensions were added and altered based on these opinions. An instrument was proposed to uncover these dimensions. It was reviewed by an expert panel, and then was then edited based on their feedback. It was found that the opinions of the expert panel were highly correlated with the dimensions identified in the academic literature. The instrument has a reasonable chance to measure the strength of an organization's change capabilities to make an e-business transformation. Further research could apply this instrument with a representative group of companies to determine the strength of each dimension."

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of frequent operational changes on the repairs and maintenance of public lighting in the Energy and Electricity Division of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality as a result of management decisions. The results of the study showed contrasting opinions and perceptions amongst all participants on the repairs and maintenance activities of public lighting. Both employees working in the maintenance operations and public lighting sections agreed that their sections were performing the repairs and maintenance of public lighting satisfactory. Customers and community leaders on the other hand agreed that the maintenance operations sections are performing the repairs and maintenance of public lighting satisfactory as compared to public lighting section. All employees were in favour and support of decisions taken respectively since these decisions were beneficial to their respective sections, but however they were concerned on the frequency of decisions taken by top management and changes implemented within their respective sections as these decisions and changes created confusion and conflict amongst employees. All sections involved in the repairs and maintenance of public lighting were faced with numerous similar challenges that created deficiencies and ineffectiveness on the maintenance activities of public lighting and that contributed to enormous complaints from customers and community leaders on the service rendered by the division.

Thesis. 1975. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / Includes bibliographical references. / by John Lanterman. / M.C.P.

Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 262-269. / Ph.D.

The increased rate of change in organizations, and a failure rate up to 70% (Kotter, 1990; Higgs & Rowland, 2000; Pasmore, 2011), has led to an increase in research concerning organizational change. However, the literature still has yet to identify the ideal set of change implementation strategies. While leadership is argued to be an essential element to successful change the research on the specific behaviors and skills needed of change leaders is still in development (Beer & Walton, 1987). More investigation needs to be done concerning the identification and measurement of behaviors and skills related to successful organizational change. The current study contributes to this area in the literature. The aim was to develop and validate an instrument, the Change Leader Behavioral Inventory. The instrument identifies distinct behavioral dimensions associated with organizational change and the relationships among them. The goal was to provide a tool for individuals who lead change to receive feedback from their direct reports on how well they perform change related behaviors during a change initiative. The feedback will be beneficial to guide the professional development of change leaders. In order to develop the Change Leader Behavioral Inventory many areas of the change literature were considered. The psychometric validation of the Change Leader Behavioral Inventory was based on a modified version of Hinkin’s (1998) framework for instrument validation. The instrument was administered in an online survey to employed individuals who had been through organizational change. The analysis of the survey responses (N = 405) provided support for the hypothesized model which consisted of seven categories of change. There was also support for the addition of another dimension to the instrument, resulting in an eight-factor model which will be used for future research. The results and implications for future research and practice will be discussed.

This dissertation examines an underexplored type of innovation - the discovery of new resources. Schumpeter distinguishes among five types of innovation: new products, new processes, new organizations, new markets, and new resources. Most prior work has focused on the first three types of innovation. This study focuses on the last type of innovation, the discovery of new resources, in creative industries where talent is the most important resource of creativity and profit. This dissertation is comprised of three chapters. Each of the chapters examines a strategy or an environmental change such as unbundling, digitalization, and cross-border acquisition which may facilitate or weaken the discovery of new talent and experiment with new artists. In the first chapter, I explore the impact of unbundling on the discovery of new talent. The results highlight the trade-off between breadth-oriented experimentation (experimenting with more new alternatives by producing unbundled products) and depth-oriented experimentation (collecting more accurate information on fewer alternatives by producing bundled products) and suggest that unbundling may facilitate firms’ breadth-oriented experimentation and the discovery of new talent. In the second chapter, I investigate whether digitalization (digital market) facilitated the discovery of new talent by entrepreneurial firms. Digitalization offers diverse niche opportunities from a long-tail market and decreases the cost of experimenting with new artists. However, the findings from this chapter suggest that entrepreneurial firms did not benefit from such opportunities; iTunes and YouTube did not facilitate entrepreneurial firms’ discovery of new talent and experimentation with new artists (compared to incumbent firms). In the third chapter, I turn to look at the impact of foreign ownership or capital on the discovery of new domestic talent. The “liability of foreignness” argument suggests that foreign ownership may weaken the discovery of new talent from the host country because foreign owners may lack a good understanding of the host country culture. This study analyzes the case of Sony’s acquisition of CBS Records (a US major label) in 1988, which is the first merger by a Japanese firm with a firm of a distant culture. The results suggest that Sony did not undermine CBS Records’ discovery of domestic new talent but instead increased the popularity of new domestic artists in CBS Records and its subsidiaries.

The quantity of emerging literature on the subject of leadership testifies to the urgency that is felt in these times for understanding it. The phenomenon of leadership is a subtle one and each author is at pains to justify their particular slant on its nature. This thesis shifts away from trying to find essential qualities of leadership that are generically applicable and instead considers leadership as it is experienced. It therefore examines leadership as a personal phenomenon regardless of the position held. The phenomenon is recognised through the experience of those who are present to its influence. This includes the practitioner, in any role or job, for whom the experience of leadership is necessarily personal and its expression evolving rather than static. I have chosen the method of conversation to identify the presence of such a phenomenon. This provides an expansive format which, because it is a lived experience, provides access to people’s experience of leadership, both their own and that of others’. I have used reflexive and imaginative writing processes to express and develop theory and praxis. Through these means, I have examined leadership as an engagement and used myself as a presence in order to develop insight. The thesis draws on the philosophical tradition of Goethe, Husserl, Bohm and Varela to understand the nature of experience and change; qualitative researchers like Van Manen, Crotty and Reason to develop reflective tools of inquiring; and leadership thinkers such as Senge, Jaworski, Scharmer and Mintzberg to find more vital ways of considering the very human experience of leadership in these times of rapid change. The thesis showcases an evaluation of leadership in a medium-sized industrial organisation in Western Australia. The task of the study was to assess the change in leadership in the whole organisation as a result of management attending a leadership program. For this purpose, phenomenological research methods were used to provide an in-depth and experientially based methodology. Narrative analysis offered the ground for capturing the presence of leadership through expressing the whole spectrum of voices in the organisation. Further, first-person methods brought relational sensitivity and researcher engagement, immersion and leadership. The evaluation resulted in a confronting report that enabled new ways of hearing between management and non-management and the organisation was enabled to take its next steps forward consensually. The study is followed by three exploratory chapters that deal with: How does the ‘new’ get dreamed up? What are the big issues of leadership that challenge the establishment? What does change actually imply and why is this so important to leadership? I protest the flippancy with which organisational consultants and leaders confuse structural change with the change that people really desire. The crystallisation of my exploration into the phenomenon of leadership transpires through a synchronous event. This was a personal experience of leadership. I apply a classical philosophical phenomenological analysis to my story as a narrative. This results in a new theoretical framework which I have called confluential leadership: the interaction of the constellations of synchronicity, clarity of intention and co-creativeness. The appreciation of these influences within one����s role is a meaning-making or enhancing process. This can result in greater engagement with one’s role or perhaps the realisation that one is in the wrong job! The centrality of my own engagement, a feature of the research conducted through this thesis, has resulted in the development of a passion for the subject of leadership and an enthusiasm for the possibilities of advancing and applying many of the ideas introduced. I have found that in order to find leadership, one has to bring leadership and the quality of that intention determines what one finds. Similarly, when leadership is experienced in a workplace, others are influenced to present the best of their own leadership. There is always the possibility for each person to enhance their own experience of leadership to become more integrated, wholesome and passionate about their work. The potentiality of this excites me. Confluential is my own word and is a combination of the words consciousness and influence. It is the conscious influence of the three constellations of synchronicity, clarity of intention and co-creativeness. Each of these has been very specifically defined; their meanings are carefully discussed in the body of the thesis. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Becoming a Learning Organization (LO) is widely recognized as a process through which organizations can develop characteristics that enable them to be competitive in an increasingly competitive business environment. While there is an assumption that LOs have the ability to manage change, few empirical studies are available to prove whether an organization with strong LO characteristics also has a high level of change readiness. In developing itself into an LO, an organization seems to gain possession of relevant characteristics through knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing and knowledge utilization. There is, however, a lack of clarity on what LO characteristics are developed at each of the three stages. The relationship among these stages is also confusing. The purpose of this research is to confirm whether organizations with a high level of LO characteristics also have a high level of readiness-to-change. It also attempts to verify the relationship among the LO development stages of knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing and knowledge utilization. A questionnaire has been designed following an extensive review. It incorporates "an Inventory of LO Characteristics" to measure the level of LO characteristics formed in an organization. There are also questionnaire to gauge the level readiness-to-change. The questionnaire has been distributed to employees in two leading mobile phone service companies in Thailand. The industry is selected because of its changing business environment. Thailand has been chosen for as the location for the research because few studies in LO have been conducted outside the more developed economies. The findings demonstrate two major insights. Firstly, the correlation coefficient between the six categories of LO characteristics - cultural values, leadership commitment and empowerment, communication, knowledge transfer, employee characteristics and performance upgrading - and readiness-to-change confirms that if an organization has a high level of LO characteristics, it will also have a high level of readiness-to-change. Secondly, the correlation coefficient between the three LO development stages - of knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing and knowledge utilization - and readiness-to-change, support the hypothesis that they follow a sequential order. Results of the research are analysed and discussed, providing valuable contributions to both research and practice in the area. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Adelaide Graduate School of Business, 2004.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-221). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.