The evolving role of managers and non-manager professionals in a dispersed change management context: issues and implications

This study carries forward earlier research by the author into the management of change and the evolving role of managers and professionals who now find themselves involved or implicated in the process of organisational change. The conceptual focus for the study is the dynamic interplay between the structures that are generating the distribution of change management responsibility and the freedom of social actors to make intentional choices and decisions about how they will or will not assimilate that responsibility into their role, and the consequential effects this produces for them and the change process. The case study method was employed to investigate the roles of managers and professionals in two contrasting organisations: one a large Primary Care Trust, the other, a small Research and Technology company. A total of forty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with a non-probabilistic sample of managers and professionals in both organisations. The data were supplemented by observation and an in-depth analysis of documentary data sources which were used to define and describe the substance and context of the change processes under investigation. Analysis of qualitative data was based on a modified grounded theory approach. The findings suggest there are challenges to the sustainability of rational, centred, top-down, hierarchical models of change management when they are confronted by the discontinuities and instabilities of contemporary change scenarios where hierarchy and status are arguably less meaningful and important and where control and certainty become more problematical. Arguments are made that senior managers, as change strategists, may have to learn to modify or even discard existing models of directive control. Instead, they will look to make second-order interventions that generate the receptive contexts for successful change.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Nottingham Trent University

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Doyle, M

Language dc:language

en