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This document contains findings of research related to organizational change. The findings in this document are a follow-up of the previous research “Leading principles for IT related organizational change”

http://www.slideshare.net/ldohmen/iba-frame-study-results-20100416

Content of this document

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Research background

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This document is part of an ongoing journey exploring why organizational change leads to success and why not. Key in this journey is the permanent interaction between universities, business schools and private and public companies. Collecting data via questionnaires is accomplished with case studies.

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Some characteristics of the study

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Shared objective versus collaboration

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Shared objective should create the proper conditions for preparation and implementation. This document express shared objective as a factor (or construct) of control for organizational change whereas the questions above are representing the elements (or variables) used to define the factor control.

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Realism and collaboration on team or department level should lead to support developing, building and implementing the result visualized with the construct shared objective. This document express collaboration as a factor (or construct) of contributing to organizational change whereas the questions above are representing the elements (or variables) used to define the factor collaboration.

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To acquire a strategic result like improving strength and position of the organization, the change result should be absorbed by individual employees and lead to improvement within departments or teams. Value perceptions as a result of IT usage are not absolute and differ depending on the technology applied, user skills and (organizational) context. Result in this document is expressed in a number of elements (see above). The average result referred to in this document is the average of the used elements.

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IBAFrame contains six leading principles for steering organizational change where IT plays an important role:

1. Shared objective and common view: determining the corporate objective leads to a common view for the destination. The complexity and impact are assessed and known.

2. A fitting approach: the pace for implementation should fit the complexity and circumstances. This supports the learning process and people are able to contribute.

3. Commitment and collaboration: the corporate objective is translated to detailed objectives on group level. Objectives and timelines on this level are realistic. Steering on this level is focused on collaboration and involvement inside and outside groups. Steering is focused on alignment and connection between project, users of IT-solutions and IT-support.

4. Stimulation of the learning process: there is sufficient room and time to learn and share insights. This forms the fundament for a proper adoption of (new) IT-solutions.

5. Attitude: an attitude of open-mindedness supports collaboration and involvement.

6. Competences: (basic) knowledge about technology, organization and people and their interaction is important besides knowledge and experience with coordination of IT related organizational change.

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Key findings of the study. The study results are quantified and expressed on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 10 (excellent). The next slides refer to a score expressed as good, sufficient or positive when a score is greater than or equal to 5.5. Result perceptions lower than 5.5 are referred to as insufficient, low or negative.

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Comparatively many small changes (number of people involved <100) are included in this category. In (only) 6 situations / projects out of 22 (this is 27%), the result is perceived as being insufficient. It is noteworthy that for 5 cases of these 6 exceptions examined the question “Complexity has been assessed well enough?” scores insufficient.

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Cooperation experienced as insufficiently when control (= shared objective) is perceived as good is apparently a rarity (2 cases of 70). A (large) outsourcing issue is an example where this is found. Time and objective realism scored low in this case.

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Analysis of a case outside this sample of 70 for which control (= shared objective) was rated as negative and the (local) cooperation is experienced as being sufficiently, but people qualified the result anyway as insufficient, occurs in an ERP implementation commissioned by the parent company where a local (regional) office lost autonomy. Key employees of the local office was asked for their perception.

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A positive result for this category is reached (only) for 8 out of 27 cases (this is 30%). Without these 8 positive exceptions the average valuation of the result is 3.8. Compared to the situation where control (= shared objective) AND collaboration are perceived as good, the lowest result measured is 4.0 while a 1.0 score is reached in the opposite category (control AND collaboration are not sufficient). Apparently there is minimum lower limit for result (=4.0) when control AND collaboration are perceived as good.

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The 70 examined cases are visualized in the picture above, sorted on (achieved) result. The relation between result and shared objective is stronger (correlation coefficient = 0.64) compared to the relation between collaboration and result (correlation coefficient = 0.49) which can interpreted as shared objective has a greater influence on the result than collaboration. Also it shows that 30 from 70 cases (this is 43%) lead to a positive result (greater than or equal to 5.5).

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Zooming in to the concepts of complexity and impact.

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In the fifth technology revolution (Carlota Perez, 2010), technology, organization and people are the most important domains which are involved in changes. Understanding complexity is understanding the interplay between technology, organization and people and its impact when one or more parts in the interplay change.

Technology

This is the supply of available technology and the possibilities, limitations and the impossibilities that this technology has. Where IT is concerned, the available technology is limited to the IT domain. Even with this limitation, the supply of available technology is enormous. Characteristically, the life cycle of new technology is (still) becoming shorter.

Organization

Here it concerns processes and structure (including location) of the organization. Organizations commit IT for the realisation of their organizational goals. The application of technology is tuned on this. In some branches, the application of new technology has an enormous influence on the existing processes, structures and relationships. Internet technology has made it possible to create a virtual world (V-world) next to a physical world in which the meaning of the terms place, time and presence has drastically changed.

People

A new IT solution often means new work content and changing cooperation with colleagues or people outside its own organization. Often, because of this, interests of people change. The main question is: How fast are people able to make new IT solutions their own and apply them within their work situation? Other behaviour, new knowledge and skills must be developed. This will be nearly always coupled with a learning process. However, this learning process can be different for each person. It is popular to distinguish between people who have grown up with IT (digital natives) and the elderly (digital immigrants). Besides this, people have different learning styles which also affect the learning process.

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Projects that run in the wrong direction will end up in chaos. Companies should prevent to enter this zone.* When complexity is sufficiently assessed complexity can be „reduced‟ by growing insights and a better understanding of the issue. Evaluation in the beginning of a merger confirms this by a statement made shortly after a workshop set up to explore the status and objectives of the merger: “… now the situation is clear and I understand which bottlenecks we have faced, I really believe we can bring this merger to a good end.” Interventions like front-end loading and kick-off workshops can help to bring the status of a project from perceived as complex to a situation as perceived more certain, understood by key players and where choices and decisions can be made. A very helpful manner to understand complexity is Ralph Stacey‟s complexity matrix. Another useful concept is the general system theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

Also conditions or circumstances can affect complexity. For example: when you like to travel from Copenhagen (Denmark) to Florence (Italy), it can be a huge difference when you travel in the summer period or in winter. So weather conditions can affect preparation , effort and duration time of the journey even when starting point and destination are the same. This is also applicable for organizational change issues. Circumstances and conditions can differ per situation.

* Source: Stacey RD. Strategic management and organizational dynamics: the challenge of complexity. 3rd ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall, 2002. Adapted by L. Dohmen (2013)

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Before assigning an expectation of value, the IT value discussion must first recognize the type of technology being implemented – basic infrastructure to innovation (Goldstein, Katz and Olson, 2003). Shenhar et al (2001) confirm the different impacts of new and proven technology on project success. The type of technology cannot be ignored when researching user value perceptions.

The result or value of the interaction between technology, organization and people is not absolute. Orlikowski (1992)* uses the term interpretive flexibility: interaction of technology and organization is a function of different actors and socio-historical contexts. Ruben Puentedura‟s SAMR concept (see above) is a very good instrument to analyze the impact of technology on organization and people aspects.

* W. Orlikowski, The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations, Organization Science, vol. 3, no. 3 (1992), focused issue: Management of Technology, August.

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The elements complexity and impact show the strongest correlation with result from the researched shared objective and collaboration elements in this document. Assessing complexity AND impact is a powerful indicator for the result of organizational change projects. Based on a sample of 70 projects and/or situations (n = 70) a quadrant can be created showing the result of assessing complexity and impact and the percentage of cases with a result perceived as greater than or equal to 5.5.

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Content of this document

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If control of the (higher) (project) management is found inadequate good cooperation on team or department level can hardly compensate this. The influence of having (not) a common goal (shared objective) on the result is very large. If the direction is not clear, the joint image is missing and the issue is poorly understood (impact and complexity have not been adequately studied) then chances are (very) small that a positive result is achieved. The complexity and impact factors - and good researching it - are important indicators of the (achieved) result.

This study elicits a number of important insights concerning elements and factors determining the result of organizational change. It confirms that powerful perceived collaboration only is not sufficient to come to a positive result. However the findings of this study need much more exploration and fine-tuning to gain a better understanding of the phenomena of control, collaboration and result and its interdependencies.

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In case of questions ….

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Leon Dohmen is Principal Management Consultant. He joined CGI in 2001. He has more than 20 years of experience as a consultant, project manager and IT manager and guided more than 60 assignments and projects for large and small (inter) national companies including DSM, Stream Group, NXP Semiconductors, Philips, VGZ and Imtech. Internet, Enterprise Resource Planning (including SAP and Microsoft Dynamics), control (management) of IT services and global sourcing are key terms related to the knowledge and experience of Leon. ERP as a cloud solution, making better use of offshore facilities in India and China and the use of agile (lean) development methods also play a role here. Leon acts on the interface between business and IT and combines extended (industrial) business knowledge with knowledge about the latest IT developments. He is specialized in organizational change and the impact of IT. For this specialization he has produced several publications. Leon developed and teached at the Rotterdam Business School the module Management of Technology for MBA and Masters students from 2003 to 2012. Since 2011 he performs a PhD research on the value of IT. Professor Bert Kersten is his promoter.

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Thank you for reading.

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