Bakgrund och problem: Lärande inom organisationer har effekt på hur organisationer hanterar förändring och anpassar sin organisation för en förbättrad effektivitet, vilket kan leda till konkurrensfördelar. Det är intressant att se på ideella organisationer och deras lärande funktion då organisationsformen skiljer sig från den privata sektorn där företag i större utsträckning arbetar med lärande mer strukturellt medan ideella organisationer ofta baserar sin lärande funktion på lösa samtal. Vår undersökning tar avstamp från detta och mer specifikt i den ideella organisationen KFUM Sverige. Eftersom det är en organisation som sysslar med en rad olika aktiviteter har vi valt att smala av undersökningsområdet till de basketföreningar som har koppling till KFUM. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur KFUM arbetar som lärande organisation och hur de lokala KFUM-basketföreningarna har arbetat för att öka medlemsantalet. Potentiellt kan vi få en bild av hur en ideell organisation arbetar som en lärande organisation och huruvida de tar tillvara på intern kunskapsförmedling mellan sina underföreningar. Metod: Vår studie grundar sig i en djupare förståelse för dels människors agerande men även rutiner och arbetssätt inom olika föreningar, valde vi att genomföra intervjuer med personer från basketföreningar med KFUM-anknytning samt en intervju med personen som arbetar som kommunikationsansvarig hos KFUM Sverige, vars arbetsuppgifter behandlar kommunikation med KFUM:s föreningar i hela Sverige. Resultat och slutsats: Efter genomförd studie kan vi dra slutsatserna att KFUM:s basketföreningar är förändringsbenägna och de arbetar som lärande organisationer på individuell nivå men att KFUM Sverige, på nationell nivå, har brister i sin lärande förmåga. Vi anser att detta skulle kunna förbättras genom införande av system som gynnar kunskapsdelning och att organisationen i sig behöver arbeta för att förbättra sin organisatoriska identitet då detta är ett sätt för organisationen att få en organisationskultur som främjar lärande mellan de lokala föreningarna.

Aim: The aim of this study is to gain deep understanding on how organizational changes are managed and implemented in small firms.   Method: The data for this study is collected by doing an extensive literature study and by conducting semi-structured face-to-face interviews with respondents from one single case company. This data was then sorted by topic and analyzed accordingly. The management’s perspective is presented by statements and quotes and the employee’s perspective is presented in summarized essay form.    Result & Conclusions: The study showed that change is an ever-present future of the small firm business environment and must be seen as an ongoing process. Firms have to take a thorough approach when implementing change, where gaining enough support for a change initiative is essential for its success.  Suggestions for future research: Since this study is only focused on a single case, the suggested framework needs more validation. Also the author recommends further research on the topic of change implementation at small firms in general.  Contribution of the thesis: More case studies are needed to further validate the research outcomes since this study was a first attempt to discover the field of change implementation in small organizations.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This case study documents the work of this researcher and others to transform oppressive ideologies and practices in an urban community college through human rights policy development and implementation. Analysis of policy processes examines how contestations of equity discourses by various organizational stakeholders influenced organizational constructions of equity as ideology, policy and practice. Policy struggles over the three administrations are examined using a typology of equity discourses defined as assimilationist (status quo: resisting human rights/equity), managing diversity (organizational benefits: liability protection, commodifying equity/human rights) and transformative (structural/curricular change). In this particular case study, a human rights crisis during the 1990’s led to substantive policy change as human rights was framed as organizational change. These changes were resisted and recuperated by the next cadre of change agents and senior and middle managers and human rights were administered as rights based complaints management. However, the large complaints bureaucracy was unable to contain underlying systemic issues and complaints increased dramatically. Management responded with neoliberal influenced managing diversity/cultural competency training, proposed as a customer service model to train faculty and staff how to deal with the Other - ‘culturally diverse’ clients/students. This discourse of equity was challenged by this researcher (who was seconded to develop institution wide cultural competencies for faculty). This curriculum project was used to recoup some of the transformative elements of the policy and refocus institutional efforts towards system wide organizational change. This attempt at tempered radicalism was recouped by senior management and the competencies developed were contained in a single course during the next administrative turnover. This research builds on the survey studies of equity practitioners by Westerman (2008) and Agocs (2004) that examine how the positionality of institutional change agents influences opportunities to advance equity in institutions (in areas of complaints management and/or employment equity). It differs from previous studies in three ways: first I expand the definition of equity as the totality of all institutional functions including curriculum. Second, in addition to examining the scope and impact of these ‘expert’ roles, this study examines the influence of larger societal discourses of equity, the motivations of managers and other important stakeholders such as unions in shaping what constitutes equity work, how this is embraced and/or resisted by change agents and others in spite of ‘official’ policy. And third, it is a historical case study examination of one institution over a sustained period of time. The conclusions drawn from this institution’s policy struggles suggest that transformative equity initiatives can shift organizational cultures by changing the conversation about was constitutes equity work, however their effectiveness in bringing about structural change remains tenuous. Neocolonial societies are premised on relations of inequality, and dominant neoliberal discourses have imposed business models of managerial efficiency, standardization and profitability on public institutions which ensures that managers will continue to translate the demands of equity-seeking groups into bureaucratic procedures.

<p>Organisational culture has been one of the most studied and theorised concepts in organisational development. New ways of working, globalisation, increased competition and change in technology have created a greater need for strategic innovation and co-ordination and integration across units (Schein, 1992). Culture is the single most important factor for success or failure and has the greatest potential to effect organisational improvements or hold it back (Deal &amp / Kennedy, 1982 / Fowler, 2002). Research suggests that organisational culture, its assessment and management is increasingly viewed as a necessary part of healthcare improvements (Scott, Mannion, Davies &amp / Marshall, 2003). In the health care environment, organisational culture has been associated with several elements of organisational experience and initiatives that contribute to quality, such as nursing care, job satisfaction and patient safety (Boan &amp / Funderburk, 2003).</p> <p>In order to implement strategic initiatives or performance improvement interventions, it is important that an organisation understands the current status of its organisational culture. The best way to gain understanding of the culture is by assessing it (Davidson, 2004).&nbsp / he aim of the research was to assess the organisational culture of a private hospital in the Western Cape. For the purpose of this study a quantitative methodology adopted used utilising purposive sampling. The sample (n = 221) was inclusive of males and females and comprised of permanent and contract employees extending across the following departments: Human Resources, Patient Administration, Pharmacy, Technical, Support Services and Nursing. The nursing department was the largest representative group of the sample. The sample also included of medi-staff, management and an additional small hospital that reports to the management team. The Denison Organisational Culture Survey was used to gather data for the study. The Survey measures four culture traits, namely, involvement, consistency, adaptability and mission. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Results indicated that employees perceived involvement, consistency, adaptability and mission positively. Furthermore, there were no significant differences found for consistency and sense of mission by employees in different departments. There were several limitations of the study. Amongst others, the results cannot be generalised to the broader population of all private hospitals as the findings are unique to the particular organisation. Secondly, the Denison Organisational Culture Survey has only been validated in a financial organisation in South Africa. A recommendation for further research would be to utilise quantitative as well as qualitative methodology to add to the existing body of knowledge.</p>

Understanding how committed employees are within an organization is a valuable tool for managing and fostering a successful work environment. A continued appreciation of employee commitment is especially beneficial following organizational change as it has been shown that change inevitably impacts commitment levels to some degree. This study investigated organizational commitment within a subpopulation of the newly restructured Parks Canada Agency using an established survey instrument. The findings revealed that an employee's tenure and work location currently influences commitment levels among the sample that was surveyed. This study also found that commitment to the Parks Canada mandate significantly differs from the expressed commitment to the current state of the organization. An effort to improve the moderate levels of organizational commitment would be a valuable strategy for enhancing the employer-employee relationship and contributing to the positive effects of the organizational change.

This portfolio identifies a lacuna in the ways most mainstream management literature speaks of change. This literature focuses predominantly on the activities of 'planning', 'implementing' and 'evaluating' change in organizations, while largely overlooking the situated and embodied experience of actually becoming changed. I propose that this type of experience lies at the heart of organizational change. My research focuses on such experiences, addressing the questions of what characterizes them, what are the conditions that enable them, and what is involved in a practice that attempts to generate and sustain them. Building on Complex Responsive Process Theory, which claims that all change is constituted by shifts in the patterning of local interactions, I am proposing that the study of the qualities of ordinary, everyday 'experiences of transformation', which take place in conversational interactions between organizational members, is crucial to our understanding of how change happens. These qualities involve fleeting and elusive shifts of awareness and energy. What I am suggesting 'transforms' in such experiences is the complex interweaving of meaning, sense of self or identity, and ways of interacting and speaking. I argue that these shifts both create, and are created by, the responsive engagement with the complex, puzzling and ambiguous aspects of lived experiences of interaction. My narratives are concerned with the ways in which new meaning and novel directions of 'going on together' emerge paradoxically within the very experience of the fragmentation and dissolving of our usual, taken for granted understanding and sense of self. This often happens as we agree to encounter the 'otherness' of others in a conversational setting in which all the disconcerting, troubling and moving ramifications of that encounter are allowed to play out. In crafting an approach to change which resonates more with our everyday organizational lives, my narratives call attention to the details of such experiences: their textured richness and complex multi-facetedness. I propose that learning to carefully notice and engage with such experiences offers both deeper insights into the nature of change, and generates more nuanced, subtle, and ultimately effective, ways of working with change processes.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / Organizational change for the purpose of improving performance is extremely challenging, particularly for government institutions. Large bureaucracies, hierarchical structures, and deeply rooted work cultures are some characteristics of governmental organizations that have proven to be serious impediments to performance improving change. In May 2003, the NAVAIRDEPOT North Island Engineering Competency (NAVAIRNI 4.0) began a transformational process to improve organizational performance by providing higher value to its customers, generating higher quality of products and services, and attaining better financial performance. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the experience of government organizations in implementing performance related change efforts such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Business Process Reengineering (BPR), and Activity Based Costing (ABC). Specifically, this thesis will identify leadership characteristics and strategies employed by public firms during successful transformation initiatives. By isolating leadership traits associated with these successful change efforts, this thesis hopes to develop a simplified relational model that can provide NAVAIRNI 4.0 and other government organizations with effective leadership concepts for use in their own endeavor. / Civilian, United States Navy

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / Having graduated from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in 1998, I found myself reassigned there two years later only to watch the same frustrating cycle of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Classes were still being manually scheduled using 3x5 cards, the results transferred into a 1970’s mainframe for printout on 15 inch-wide computer paper, and then distributed by hand. Incoming US and international families from any of 50 countries found it difficult to locate timely orientation information. Students, faculty and staff did not have a convenient, consistent method of finding people, places or things on campus. The school’s intranet was littered with outdated, irrelevant information. And the crews of 300 warships, positioned worldwide, were hungry for 24/7 distance learning programs. Bureaucracy, fiscal pressure, excruciating oversight, and declining enrollment stifled the school’s prospects. A group of us in the technology department launched the school’s first Web Operations Group and I modeled NPS’s new website after Monterey’s weekly open-air farmer’s market. I harvested three conclusions: 1) Like the fresh produce sold every Tuesday afternoon, no one wants information that is beyond a week old; 2) The marketplace provides a secure, convenient, consistent forum in which to transact business as well as ideas; 3) The stalls with better marketing and more relevant produce or services garnered more business. I started attending NPS bi-weekly leadership meetings and asking lots of questions. With no budget, I taught myself how to use web-authoring tools, studied the government Web edicts, and leveraged my server privileges to help stakeholders communicate ideas, collaborate on research projects and partner with NPS. After collecting survey data, I pitched the final concept to school leadership, crafted the new website over Christmas break, and went live six weeks later. As a result some report processing was reduced from two days to two minutes, information resources were doubled, data clutter was reduced by 96%. The redesigned website now loaded in a third of the time and a simple, ubiquitous search tool helped people locate campus resources instantly. / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy

D.Comm. / The point of departure of this study is that South African manufacturing organisations are far from being competitive in world-class terms, and that lean thinking has become a strategic necessity for many South African manufacturing organisations that want to compete successfully in today’s globalised economy which is characterised by fierce competition. However, even amongst the pioneers and advocates of lean thinking there is uncertainty as to the reasons why lean sometimes fail or do not achieve the same results as is the case at Toyota, the organisation that pioneered lean thinking as a business management strategy. Given the former stated problem the primary objective of this study is to identify the critical success factors for the successful implementation of lean thinking in South African manufacturing organisations. The literature study conducted identified the theoretical critical success factors, the independent variables in this study, as mindset and attitude; leadership; ordinary employees; strategic driver; basic stability; promotion office; lean tools and techniques; and integration. The indicators of lean thinking success, the dependent variables of this study, were identified as cost reduction and customer satisfaction. A convenient sample was used to collect primary data by means of a self developed questionnaire or measuring instrument. A factor analysis of the data yielded 5 critical success factors, which were labelled as philosophy and principles; people or soft issues; basic stability; strategic driver; and promotion office. The research further revealed that lean thinking has a very low success rate in South African manufacturing organisations (thereby justifying the reason for this study); that senior leadership has the biggest impact or influence on the sustainable success of lean thinking; and that trade unions are considered to have a limited positive impact on successful lean implementation. The emerged factors were interpreted and operationalised, and translated into practical recommendations for the successful implementation of lean thinking in South African manufacturing organisations. The most important recommendations relate to the role of people and leadership in a lean transformation; finding of an experienced facilitator; and lean thinking as a strategic driver. Recommendations for further research include the role of, and skills required by the human resources function and practitioners in a lean thinking organisation; and lean thinking training on tertiary level in South Africa. The study thus has theoretical, practical and methodological value for successful lean thinking implementation in South African manufacturing organisations.