Humor is usually associated with trivial or non-serious banter; it is however a significant factor in the construction of organizational culture. This work provides an experience based organizational account of how organizations are produced and reproduced, as well as how organizational interaction is coupled with structure. This dissertation is based on two ethnographic studies: the first, a year-long study of a hotel kitchen, and the second, a three-year study of a private boarding school. This long term examination of an organization??s interaction is used to illustrate how organizational interaction produces the duality of organizational structuration overtime. An ethnographic communication-focused approach provides methods for recognizing multiple sites and levels of the Structuration process. As a result, this approach provides a major contribution to understanding the process of Structuration through agents?? actions in the context of their organizational culture.

<p>This study has been executed at the Public Employment Office, an institution that has been</p><p>subject for much debate during the last couple of years. The government has instructed the</p><p>Labour Market Board to change the Public Employment Office toward a more effective</p><p>organization. This study examines one of the Public Employment Offices that are included in a</p><p>pilot project that aims to improve and develop work methods with the objective to become a</p><p>more service minded organization. From this starting point we have investigated which effect this</p><p>organizational change has had on the employee within this organization and within the pilot</p><p>project. In addition we investigate whether attitudes of the unemployed has an effect on the</p><p>staff´s work situation. In connection to this we seek to produce proposals of how to improve the</p><p>work situation for the staff. The purpose of the study is thus to map out the staff´s experience of</p><p>the work situation within the pilot project. Our intention has been to comprehend the complex</p><p>reality of an agent at the Public Employment Office. To create a basis for our analysis and to be</p><p>able to answer the questions at issue, we apply theories regarding organizational change, learning</p><p>and health. The main results of this study indicate that learning has increased at the workplace.</p><p>The results also indicate that the new, more service minded work methods increase the demands</p><p>on the agents to be able to handle social relations with unemployed and with colleagues. Finally</p><p>we find that though agents have a high workload they find their work to be stimulating.</p>

Today’s business environment is becoming increasingly dynamic, complex and socially aware. One sustainable competitive advantage in contemporary, rapidly changing organizations is competent management (Waldman, Ramirez, House, &amp; Puranam, 2001). The behaviors of organizational leaders directly influence actions in the work environment that enable change (Drucker, 1999). Leaders in complex organizations are now responsible for creating and nurturing conditions which will enable fast, innovative adaptations to change. Indeed, leaders and managers are responsible for change strategy, implementation, and monitoring, thus they function as change agents (Kanter, Stein, &amp; Jick, 1992). However, they must take into consideration that there is a part of unknown, which they will never control. As a result, the challenge of managing change is one of the most essential and enduring roles of leaders (Ahn, Adamson, &amp; Dornbusch, 2004) while current rapid organizational changes has made effective leadership more imperative. Resistance to change is a dead-end street. In today's business world, organizations that support and implement continuous and transformational change remain competitive (Cohen, 1999). Many researchers have attempted to explain why change is so difficult to achieve, and develop models to manage the change process. Despite the numerous theories, models, and multi-step approaches, leaders continue to lack a clear understanding of change, its antecedents, effective processes or the ability to successfully implement organizational change and how to engage members in change initiatives (Armenakis &amp; Harris, 2002). The purpose of this study is to explore leaders’ effectiveness in implementing organizational change and the processes, skills, abilities required for such effectiveness. My reference to leaders implies all leaders and managers within an organization. The literature review that follows explores change implementation processes, current complex environment and the leadership behaviors associated with successful change.

This study has been executed at the Public Employment Office, an institution that has been subject for much debate during the last couple of years. The government has instructed the Labour Market Board to change the Public Employment Office toward a more effective organization. This study examines one of the Public Employment Offices that are included in a pilot project that aims to improve and develop work methods with the objective to become a more service minded organization. From this starting point we have investigated which effect this organizational change has had on the employee within this organization and within the pilot project. In addition we investigate whether attitudes of the unemployed has an effect on the staff´s work situation. In connection to this we seek to produce proposals of how to improve the work situation for the staff. The purpose of the study is thus to map out the staff´s experience of the work situation within the pilot project. Our intention has been to comprehend the complex reality of an agent at the Public Employment Office. To create a basis for our analysis and to be able to answer the questions at issue, we apply theories regarding organizational change, learning and health. The main results of this study indicate that learning has increased at the workplace. The results also indicate that the new, more service minded work methods increase the demands on the agents to be able to handle social relations with unemployed and with colleagues. Finally we find that though agents have a high workload they find their work to be stimulating.

Organizational behavior literature has not typically viewed person-environment (PE) fit as an outcome of organizational change. Although organizations consider PE fit of their employees to be important to the success of both parties, the study of antecedents to individuals fit with their work environment has largely been restricted to the selection and socialization of newcomers. This study investigates effects of several change factors (e.g., the extent of change and how it was managed), as well as the cross-level interaction between the change factors and individual differences (e.g., motivational orientations) on PE fit of individuals who participated in various organizational changes. PE fit was evaluated along three dimensions (Person-Job, Person-Group, Person-Organization). Results show that change is a complex phenomenon and is best understood by interactions between the extent of change, characteristics of the change process, and differences in individuals motivational tendencies. Specifically, the study showed that the fairness of the change process was typically associated with PJ and PO fit, whereas management support for the change generally related to PJ and PG fit. In addition, limited support was found for hypothesized effects of motivational orientations. As expected, Mastery related positively with PE fit, while positive effects of Competitiveness (an externally cued Approach orientation) on PE fit depended on high levels of management support. Surprisingly, it was low Avoid individuals (not high) where the extent of change related negatively with aspects of PE fit. A discussion of the results, as well as limitations and implications of this study, is provided for consideration on future research in this area.

The current research aimed to investigate the relationships among perceptions of organizational change, job stress, and the Big-five personality traits of the employees in Kaohsiung Education bureau after the merge. Three hundred questionnaire were distributed via purposive sampling and 244 of them were valid. The response rate was 81.33%. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson¡¦s product-moment correlation, and multiple regression. The results showed that both perceptions of organizational and job stress among the employees in Kaohsiung Education Bureau were greater than a moderate level. Job stress was not associated with sex, age, working years, and parenthood. Unmarried employees reported higher job stress than did those who married. Perceptions of organizational change, neuroticism, and openness predict the job stress. According to the present findings, implications for administrators and future studies were discussed.

This study explores the extent to which organizational culture and operational environment influence the leadership activities of an organization in the midst of significant organizational change and whether culture drives leadership development or vice versa. After exploring several different leadership theories, the study focuses on the concepts of transformational leadership as the theoretical foundations for the leadership component of the research. Likewise, the study builds on organizational theory and sociological foundations to focus on the work of Schein and Hatch for organizational culture, and Schneider for key concepts used in the development of person-organization fit. The research in this study concentrated on the manufacturing organization of a large, well-known company based in the US. This organization is in the midst of considerable organizational change in response to upheavals in its markets, its technology, and its manufacturing strategy. Research was conducted through collection of data from public sources, review of internal organization documents, a survey of perceptions of the organizational culture held by the staff, and detailed interviews with a cross section of the professional and managerial staff involved in the leadership development process. The results of the research and analysis showed that despite strong efforts by executive leadership and developing leadership at all levels to create a more compassionate organizational culture, the crisis facing the organization caused even the most committed and well-meaning individuals to revert to a cultural norm of a driven, results-oriented organizational culture. The interviews and survey data led to conclusions that culture change is a long term effort; that it requires executive leadership commitment, vision, and constant communication to reinforce the vision; and is best addressed through leadership development in the younger staff with less personal investment in the status quo.

Abstract The liberalization of the telecommunication market in Taiwan began in 1987 with the permission of consumers to legally own communication terminal equipment. Since then, the rapid advancement in telecommunication technology and the change in market demand have gradually diminished both the need for a monopolized telecommunication market and the validity to protect public interest. In addition, the demands under the Basic Telecom Agreement, an agreement reached by member countries of WTO, have made it clear that an open, liberalized, and privatized telecommunication market is inevitable. Since his inauguration as Chairman of Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., on Aug 21, 2000, C.K. Mao had been carrying the responsibility for a smooth transformation of Chunghwa Telecom, from a government-run corporation to a private enterprise, while continuing to function as an efficient conglomerate of social resources and services, and to maintain its competitiveness in a fully liberalized market. In the course of privatization, Chunghwa Telecom has to compete with other service providers not only on its organization, efficiency, cost, product variety and service quality, but also on network build-out, technological advancement, and overall operational strategies. After 2 years and 5 months of facing harsh challenges coming both domestically and internationally, Chunghwa Telecom still unshakably leads the market. This paper tries to analyze the course of Chunghwa Telecom¡¦s organizational change initiated by Mr. Mao, the former Chairman, and, through his experience of a successful enterprise transformation, hopes to provide a paradigm for many other government-run enterprises, which will soon be facing the same forces of organizational change, and the pressure of privatization that were once dealt with by Chunghwa Telecom.

Due to the several facts, like the effect from global economical recession onto our domestic insurance industry, the influence from non-stop interest rate declining in cost-benefit of management, Taiwan becoming one of the WTO members, the high-rates of insurants in Taiwan, the change of consumer¡¦s demand, as well as the passing Law for mergers of Financial Insitutions and Financial Holding Company Law, some insurance companies are facing severe challenges. In order to survive and develop, these insurance companies would like to provoke their employees¡¦ conscious about this crisis and to re-assess the goal and achievement for their organizations. The project is designed for assisting H Insurance Brokerage Company to process the intervention activity about the organizational transformation. Now-a-days most of the research topics about organizational transformation and development are focused on a big scale of structural convergence like system reengineering and strategic application or the research topics stress on the discussion about the effects element instead of the working process of organizational transformation execution. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is taking H insurance Brokerage Company as an example to apply Quasi-Experimental method to do the case study on organizational transformation process and the changing situation of organizational efficiency after the intervention activity, which was based on the action research. Within one-year intervention process, this thesis is advanced with these three steps, searching for a fixed position, searching for a consensus, and developing the effective leadership. The production of these three steps is created for resolving the former problems and each of these steps includes ¡§ to diagnose, to plan, to execute, to assess¡¨. At the same time, the research methods such as observations, interviews, conference records and document files as well as Quantitative method, were applied, including twice survey collections, document assessment and analysis. Based on the result from the analysis of these required information, this thesis discovers: 1.Both participants¡¦ ability and organizational performance are elevated through the research process of participatory activity. 2.This case-studied company re-news its location, develops its new goal, and completes its management tools like flowchart, system manual and operational manual after intervenient. 3.Both administrators and participants experienced this learning process of Learning- Internalization-action- improvement during the action research sessions. 4.Action research sessions allows both organization and its members to endlessly improve and develop within endlessly creative changing process.

This research is taking a comprehensive view to discuss the case of one leading IT company for its organizational structure change that has spanned for nearly five years. Using narrative analysis, the research¡¦s thorough discussion covers facets of the organizational structure change. The critical findings of the thesis are as follows: 1.Because the goal of an organizational structure change is to accommodate the organization¡¦s new mission statement, the new CEO is thinking of starting an organizational structure change in order to place staff with the right skills in the right jobs, clarify lines of authority and eliminate duplicate functions. 2.The new CEO¡¦s background and familiarity with the organization will affect the organizational structure change¡¦s scope and activities. 3.An organizational structure change is itself unable to reveal the change status. However, owing to its extraneous characteristics, the CEO is apt to declare his authority by building a new organizational structure and quickly formulating a plan to implement it.