Publications (25) View all
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Article: COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY AND THE REDEFINITION OF SUPERVISION: A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF COMPUTERIZATION ON RAILWAY FREIGHT SUPERVISORS
Journal of Management Studies 05/2007; 23(1):116 - 132. · 4.26 Impact Factor -
Article: Rurality, remoteness and the change process: evidence from a study of maternity services in the north of Scotland.
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ABSTRACT: There is a wealth of material on 'how to do' change plus empirical work revealing change process complexity. In health care, the relevance of context is highlighted, but studies of rural health-care change have focused on community impacts. There is little to inform health-care managers of how remoteness and rurality impact upon change processes. This study considered Scottish maternity units and aimed to identify issues in the change process associated with rurality and remoteness. Six units were purposively selected and 131 interviews were conducted with managers, staff and community members over 15 months. Analysis induced themes pertinent to remoteness and rurality. These included: perceived 'distance' between senior managers imposing change and the wider community of staff and residents; perceptions of community vulnerability; and tensions arising from working in small teams and living in small communities. The study provides useful insights for rural managers at a time of considerable service reconfiguration.Health Services Management Research 03/2007; 20(1):59-68. -
Article: Discourse and Audience: Organizational Change as Multi-Story Process
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ABSTRACT: This article is critical of monological research accounts that fail to accommodate polyvocal narratives of organizational change, calling for more fully informed case studies that combine elements of a narrative approach with processual/contextual analysis. We illustrate how contrasting versions of the same change event by different stakeholders and by the same stakeholder for different audiences, raise theoretical and methodological issues in the analysis and presentation of data on organizational change. Our argument is that research narratives (that seek to develop understanding of change processes) are necessarily selective and sieved through particular discourses that represent different ways of engaging in research. They are authored in a particular genre and written to influence target audiences who become active co-creators of meaning. Organizational change viewed from this perspective is a multi-story process, in which theoretical accounts and guides to practice are authored consistent with pre-selected narrative styles. These, in turn, are purposefully chosen to influence target audiences, but this subjective crafting is often hidden behind a cloak of putative objectivity in the written and oral presentations of academic research findings. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007.Journal of Management Studies. 01/2007; 44(5):669-686. -
Article: Changing Manufacturing Practices: An Appraisal of the Processual Approach
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ABSTRACT: There has been a longstanding interest in human factors and the processes of change in manufacturing organizations. In this article attention is focused on the establishment and contribution of a processual perspective to understanding change. A history of the processual approach is outlined and some of the main defining elements and ongoing developments are appraised. Field data drawn from a study of cellular work arrangements at a mirror manufacturing plant are used to highlight the interlocking and overlapping dynamics between substance, context, and politics. In advocating the benefits of a processual perspective, it is argued that during the uptake of cellular manufacturing there is a mutual shaping between the “technical” and the “social” and in support of this claim, case study data are used to illustrate the complex and ongoing interaction between sociopolitical processes and the substance of change (in this case, the technical reconfiguration into cellular form). It is argued that attempts to distill, separate, identify, and examine discrete elements (such as technology) are misplaced and likely to produce misleading results that undervalue the importance of the contextual and sociopolitical processes that also play a key part as mutual shapers of change.Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing 08/2005; · 0.61 Impact Factor -
Article: Organisational change stories and management research: facts or fiction
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ABSTRACT: Organisational change stories are often constructed around a linear series of 'successful' events that serve to show the company in a positive light to any interested external party. These stories of company success sanitize complex change processes and offer data for change experts to formulate neat linear prescriptions on how to best manage change. This article criticizes this position and argues that change is a far more dynamic political process consisting of competing histories and ongoing multiple change narratives which may vie for dominance in seeking to be the change story. A central aim is to identify and unpack narratives of change in order to highlight a number of theoretical and methodological implications for management research. It is argued that post-hoc rationalized stories should not be used as a knowledge base for prescriptive lessons or theoretical developments, nor should research data simply be presented as a single authentic story of change.ERA - 2010.
