This thesis is concerned with the effectiveness of change agents within organisations. The argument presented is that the effectiveness of change agents depends on their ability to develop an understanding of the complex situations they are faced with. This includes a rich understanding of their own role within the situation. The systems approach described by Churchman (1971, 1979) and further developed by Ulrich (1983) provides methods that aid the development of a rich understanding of, inquiry into, and intervention in complex socio-technical situations. The structure of the paper will take the following form: Part 1: Appreciative systems and the systems approach. Performance criteria for change agents are declared. The key role of appreciation ineffective change management is highlighted. An explanation of appreciative systems and how the systems approach can make them more effective is presented. Finally an appreciative frame for human populated (social) systems is explained. Part 2: Investigating sources of purpose in traditional Business Process Reengineering (BPR).Before developing the complete the appreciative framework in Part 3, our understanding will be consolidated by applying the human populated systems frame to organisational change (business process reengineering) as a system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/18878 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Topp, Warren Kent |
| Contributors | Strumpfer, Johan |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MIndAdmin |
| Format | application/pdf |
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