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Journal of Organizational Change Management
Advancing knowledge on organizational change and public sector work
David Pick Stephen T.T. Teo Lars Tummers Cameron Newton
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To cite this document:
David Pick Stephen T.T. Teo Lars Tummers Cameron Newton , (2015),"Advancing knowledge on organizational change and
public sector work", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 28 Iss 4 pp. -
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-06-2015-0088
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Advancing Knowledge on Organizational Change and Public Sector Work
A recent literature review on change management in the public sector by Kuipers et
al. (2014) argue that there is a need to adopt a public administration perspective (see
Tummers, 2013; Vann, 2004). This is because the change management literature has
tended to focus on the private sector with little attention being paid to the way public
sector workers experience and respond to change (Kickert, 2010).
This special issue contributes to the need for thoughtful and critical assessment of
organizational change (such as that induced via NPM) and public sector work. Of
particular interest is the role managers as leaders take as agents of change (Fernandez
& Rainey, 2006), developing better theoretical understandings of public sector
management and governance of change, and formulating practical, evidence-based
principles for implementing change (Azzone & Palermo, 2011; Cunningham &
Kempling, 2009).
When we first proposed this special issue we could not have imagined the diversity of
papers that we would receive. As a consequence, it is methodologically very diverse,
including longitudinal case studies, surveys, interviews and narrative methods. It also
has a wide international scope with studies from the US, UK, Malaysia, Netherlands,
Australia and New Zealand. Taken together, the papers in this issue provide some
interesting insights into organizational change and public sector work. Two major
themes emerged. Firstly, it is not only the nature and character of change that counts,
it is also very much about the process; leadership in change management is crucial.
Second, next to studying intended effects, we can sometimes learn much by
examining unintended effects of reform.
We are also found the papers in this issue point to areas that will be of interest to
those wanting to research the issue of organization change and public sector work
further. It is clear that more studies are needed that should employ a
multimethod/mixed method design (there were some in this special issue that
benefited from combining the analytical strengths of two methodological approaches).
We also found that there is a need for more studies that go beyond examining the role
of management. Instead our gaze could be shifted to those departments in public
sector organizations that have a role in making employees ready for change, for
example, HR, given that HR practices can increase proactivity and lower stress).
When reading the papers in this issue it is important to keep in mind the profound
effects of new public management (NPM) ideology that has underpinned public sector
reform since the 1980s (Dieffenbach, 2009; Hood, 1991; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004;
2011). At its core is a problematisation of existing public sector institutional forms
and operations. The proposed solution was to establish organizational arrangements
within (and outside) state bureaucracies that could be subjected to modern
management as practiced in the private sector (Brunsson, 2012). Central to this are the
ideas of steering, effectiveness, and efficiency, which proponents of NPM argue
improve public administration by increasing accountability and productivity.
Organizational change arising from NPM tended to be around structure, culture,
strategy processes, and strategy content (Ashworth et al., 2009). Some examples of
these changes include the development of internal market-like competition,
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casualisation of employment, and the contracting-out of services in public hospitals,
schools, and public transport.
Despite the sizeable theoretical arguments in support of NPM-inspired change,
empirical research has not always produced results supporting the predicted desirable
outcomes. Rather than improving performance, change has tended to create stressful
environments for employees, especially arising from reductions in government
funding and tighter government requirements to do more with less, having ‘more bang
for your buck’. This can have significant deleterious effects on employee well-being
which can in-turn negatively influence recruitment and retention. Conley (2002), for
example, found that NPM reform is connected to an increasing use of temporary and
insecure employment arrangements. This is clearly evident in the higher education
sector where wide and deep changes to the forms and cultures of universities resulting
from NPM-inspired change have led to increased job insecurity and stress (Chandler,
et al., 2000).
This special issue on organization change and public work provides insights into
various countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New
Zealand, Malaysia and The Netherlands. The theme for this issue emerged from a
symposium held at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in San
Antonio on ‘Organizational Change in Public Sector Health Care Organizations and
Universities’ organised by three of the current special issue guest editors. A common
thread throughout this symposium was the effects of NPM and concern seemed to
arise about the need to develop new insights and to develop a clear point of difference
between insights gained from mainstream management theories about change and
those specific to public sector research. Much has been published about
organizational change in the public sector over the past two decades and discussion
about this has been well rehearsed (see for example recent contributions by
Christensen & Lægreid, 2011, Tummers, 2011 and Kuipers et al, 2014). This special
issue then presented us with the challenge of framing it in a way that elicited papers
that made interesting and original contributions that are consensus-challenging and
path (up)setting (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013). To achieve this we selected papers
that presented a variety of approaches and perspectives that explore the boundaries of
our current ways of understanding and researching public sector organization change.
The collection of papers in this issue provides interesting and thoughtful assessments
of public sector change. The first paper is one that sets the scene for this issue. Yeo
and Marquandt advise that those contemplating reform should need to consider their
actions. In an examination of the implementation of technology and e-government in
the Malaysian public sector new theoretical insights are provided into the influence of
agency and structure on strategy and performance when technological innovations are
introduced. Interestingly this paper identifies both intended and unintended
consequences of change. This is something practitioners should pay particular
attention to – hence the title of the paper, Think before you act. In the second paper in
this collection the importance of leadership in change is brought into focus. Bish,
Newton and Johnson pay close attention to the role of public sector managers as
leaders in change. They apply innovation and diffusion theory to examining change-
related outcomes in Australian public sector organizations. In tracing the relative
influences of distal and proximal leadership they find each are important contextual
factors in the effective implementation of change.
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The third paper shifts attention to the macro-scale. Hafsa, Belzanova and Cohen
present a welcome longitudinal analysis of NPM reform. In this study it is the New
Zealand electricity supply industry that cones under scrutiny. The authors suggest
that while evolutionary change theory is a useful conceptual and analytical tool for
understanding public sector change, this evolution can be non-linear and not
necessarily path-dependent. This connects well to Yeo and Marquadt’s finding about
reform in the Malaysian context where unintended consequences of change often
arise. This could be because the major stakeholder (national government) exerts
significant and perhaps unpredictable influence on the pace and direction of reform.
Reform to the electricity supply industry is also the focus of attention in the fourth
paper that connects the macro view in the previous paper to a micro perspective on
change. In this study, Descubes and MacNamara break away from mainstream
management research by introducing Theatre-Based Learning methods to assist with
change efforts. In their analysis of change in the French electricity supply industry
narrative research methods are employed to provide new non-linear perspectives to
our understanding of public sector change referred to in the second paper as well as
some new practice insights that public sector managers might consider when planning
change programs.
The effects of change on employees is the topic of the fifth paper. Dasborough, Lamb
and Suseno undertake a phenomenographic study of emotional responses to change
amongst staff working in Australian public universities. This research makes us think
again about how employees in public sector organizations respond to change. Of
particular interest is the effect of gender and conditions of employment and the
gradual shift from ‘anticipatory emotions’ to a new set of ‘realized emotions’
identified by the authors.
In the sixth article, Keliher and Parry examine the effects of reform in the British
National Health Service. This research suggests that it is the way change is
implemented and its outcomes that are associated with stress rather than the nature of
change itself. This finding is reinforced and developed in the seventh paper by
O’Mari that focuses on the Australian public sector. This paper demonstrates that
while NPM-inspired change is well established, it is the way it has been implemented
that causes most tension and negative behaviours in the workplace.
The eighth paper, Kellis and Ran undertake a study of how management implement
change in public sector organization from a leadership perspective. They examine a
case history of leadership failure in the United States Medicare and Mediciaid
services agency. They find that a focus on leadership is an important aspect of
successful change implementation. The issue of effective management and leadership
is taken further in the ninth paper by Xerri, Nelson, Brunetto and Reid who focus on
the effects of NPM-inspired reform on the management of publicly-owned assets.
They conclude that quality of management culture, particularly the degree of
autonomy that managers give to those they supervise is an important factor in
ensuring effective asset management practices.
An interesting perspective on the importance of the relationship between managers
raised in previous papers is given in a study of Public health services by Rodwell,
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Flower and Demir in the tenth paper in this collection. They examine the effects of
change on the psychological contract of medical practitioners in an Australian
maternity hospital setting. In finding that organizational justice is an important aspect
in that the participants in this study they find that psychological contract is affected by
the degree to which management fulfill promises they make during the change
process.
The last paper in the second half of this issue continues the theme of managing
change. In this paper, Tummers, Kruyen, Voesenek and Vijverberg examine
employees in Dutch health care organizations. They aim to connect Human Resource
Management (HRM) with change management by analyzing how HRM practices can
improve employees’ capabilities to cope with change. They suggest that three HRM
practices can stimulate change readiness: high autonomy, high participation in
decision making and high quality teamwork. This last paper provides a useful
counterpoint to the previous papers by drawing attention to the employee level and
involving the role of HRM into change management. On the one hand there are
questions about NPM-inspired change because it has often been asserted that it is the
nature of NPM-inspired change that leads to stress. But many papers in this issue
suggest that it is the how that is more important: how does management implement
change? Related to this, the last paper shows that there is a core role for HRM, next
to (line) managers. This raises a number of questions requiring further research
attention about the relationship between public sector change, those who are
responsible for implementing change and those who are subject to change.
We hope the articles presented in this issue are interesting and useful to both
academic researchers and practitioners and meets our goal of encouraging new
thinking about change and public sector work.
Compiling these papers is the fruit of the efforts of many people. We would also like
to thank Professor Slawek Magala who accepted our proposal and the editorial office
staff whose hard work and professionalism helped make this special issue a reality.
We thank the reviewers for their work in producing the papers:
Geoff Plimmer
Karolina Mikolajewska
Agata Dembek
Alison Thirwall
Amy Tian
Ann Dadich
Ben Farr-Wharton
Ben Kuipers
Bing Ran
Dianne Gardner
Fiona Buick
Julie Douglas
Katherine Ravenswood
Marie Dasborough
Megan Paull
Pawel Krzyworzeka
Peter Steane
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Richard Sisley
Roy Smollan
Slawomir Magala
Yvonne Brunetto
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