The purpose of this paper is to identify, describe and evaluate the different ways in which formal collective change agency is structured in specialist units inside 25 diverse…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify, describe and evaluate the different ways in which formal collective change agency is structured in specialist units inside 25 diverse organisations. As such it is oriented towards a range of practitioners operating in HR, project management or with responsibility for delivering change in public and private sectors.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative design, exploratory interview and case study research was conducted in organisations across the UK public and private sectors to explore how different change agency units operate within organisational structures.
Findings
Four dominant types of internal change agency unit are identified, varying in terms of their change impact scope and degree of structural embeddedness in the organisation. These units are described as transformers, enforcers, specialists and independents and share key concerns with securing client credibility and added value, effective relationship management and the use of consulting tools. Their roles and the tensions they experience are outlined along with hybrid forms and dynamic shifts from one type to another.
Research limitations/implications
The study could be extended outside of the UK and conducted longitudinally to help identify outcomes more precisely in relation to context.
Practical implications
Each of the four types of change agency unit identified is shown to be suited to certain conditions and to present particular challenges for collective change agency and for specialist management occupations engaged in such work. The analysis could usefully inform organisation design decisions around internal change agency.
Originality/value
The authors extend debates around the nature of internal change agency which has typically focussed on comparisons with external change agents at the level of the individual. Developing the work of Caldwell (2003), the authors reveal how emergent, team-based or collective approaches to change agency can be formalised, rather than informal, and that structural considerations of change need to be considered along with traditional concerns with change management.
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Pawan Budhwar, Andy Crane, Annette Davies, Rick Delbridge, Tim Edwards, Mahmoud Ezzamel, Lloyd Harris, Emmanuel Ogbonna and Robyn Thomas
Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce �…
Abstract
Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.
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Andrew Sturdy and Glenn Morgan
Reviews the current transition in French retail banking fromoligopolistic power and strict state control towards a greater marketingorientation and competitive challenges. Drawing…
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Reviews the current transition in French retail banking from oligopolistic power and strict state control towards a greater marketing orientation and competitive challenges. Drawing on research including interviews with French marketing practitioners, identifies a number of trends in marketing practice – the expansion and targeting of products and distribution channels, packaging products and “personalizing” services. Illustrates the centrality of market segmentation to these practices by the use of a case study company, Credit Agricole. Focusing on the organization′s use of a psychographic study on European lifestyles, shows segmentation to be a core strategic tool in a changing society and competitive marketplace. Concludes by noting the parallels between developments in France and elsewhere, but also highlighting the application of marketing in particular economic and cultural contexts. In addition, identifies some possible dangers with targeting and “courting” particular consumer segments with a “personalized” service.
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Peter Fleming and Andrew Sturdy
The paper seeks to explore the nature and employee experience of an emergent approach to managing employees which emphasises “being yourself” through the expression of fun…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to explore the nature and employee experience of an emergent approach to managing employees which emphasises “being yourself” through the expression of fun, individuality and difference.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper utilises interviews and observations in a US‐owned call centre in Australia.
Findings
The management approach outlined is located within the emergence of market rationalism and associated claims of the limitations of normative control. With its emphasis on diversity and identity derived from non‐(paid) work contexts, it is presented as complementary to, but distinct from, the group conformity and organisational identity associated with conventional culture and “fun” management. The seemingly liberal regime is shown to be controlling in its limited scope and by exposing more of the employees' self to the corporation. This raises questions about the nature of workplace control, resistance and the meaning of authenticity at work.
Originality/value
The research provides an insight into an approach to management which has been largely neglected in research and proposes a modified concept of culture and “fun” management – neo‐normative control. It also serves to challenge the liberal claims made by proponents of the new approach and of “fun at work” more generally, that it is liberating for employees, a form of “existential empowerment”.
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David Knights, Andrew Sturdy and Glenn Morgan
Marketing has traditionally deployed the rhetoric of consumersovereignty and the efficiency of market relations to legitimize itsrole as an academic discipline and as a management…
Abstract
Marketing has traditionally deployed the rhetoric of consumer sovereignty and the efficiency of market relations to legitimize its role as an academic discipline and as a management practice. Draws on theoretical reflections and empirical field work in financial services to question elements of this rhetoric. It is only in recent years that, as a result of dramatic changes in the regulation and structuring of the industry, financial services has begun to subscribe to marketing as a basis for distribution and sales. Even then there is some question as to how prevalent the use of marketing concepts is in financial services. In deconstructing the rhetoric of marketing, also provides a fresh and sceptical view about its potential to deliver the benefits it claims, except perhaps in a limited sphere of the financial services. Many of the limitations of marketing, it is argued, revolve around the problematic nature of its assumptions about the consumer and the contradictory tension between claims to satisfy consumer needs while ensuring high levels of profitability.
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Stefano Harney and Cliff Oswick
This paper seeks to confront the orthodoxy of global business education with some insights from postcolonial theory in order to develop a new critical pedagogy adequate for a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to confront the orthodoxy of global business education with some insights from postcolonial theory in order to develop a new critical pedagogy adequate for a global sociology of management and accounting.
Design/methodology/approach
Reviewing the state of play in postcolonial theory and noting the new politicisation in that field, the paper asks what relevance this politicisation might have for an alternative to orthodox global business education.
Findings
The paper finds that the texts available to postcolonial theory present a wealth beyond the regulation of colonial and neo‐colonial regimes and in contrast critical management studies do not have texts that express such wealth or reveal global business as the regulator of such a wealth. Instead critique and indeed the anti‐globalization movements risk, appearing as regulators of wealth and business, threaten to emerge as the true carnival of wealth and path to freedom.
Research limitations/implications
To dissociate critique from regulation and business from wealth, business and management education must seek out these texts in the fantasies among students and in the differences that obtain, as Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued, at the heart of capital.
Originality/value
This article embraces the fantasies of the fetish of the commodity as part of an immanent politics, claiming both an excess of wealth and an access to wealth, based on a new fetish adequate for the globalized limits that students and teachers encounter.
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Sharon C. Bolton and Maeve Houlihan
This extended editorial to the Special Issue “Are we having fun yet? A consideration of workplace fun and engagement” aims to review the current debates on organised “fun at work”…
Abstract
Purpose
This extended editorial to the Special Issue “Are we having fun yet? A consideration of workplace fun and engagement” aims to review the current debates on organised “fun at work” and to suggest a framework for understanding workplace fun and employee engagement. The papers included in the Special Issue are also to be introduced.
Design/methodology/approach
The editorial review asks for an approach that offers a critical appraisal and sets the latest move towards fun at work within the context of the material realties of work.
Findings
A review of contemporary debates on fun at work reveals a predominantly prescriptive focus on attempts to engage employees through fun activities that oversimplifies the human dynamism involved in the employment relationship. The editorial suggests that we need to consider the motivations, processes and outcomes of managed fun at work initiatives and to consider employees' reactions in terms of “shades of engagement” that detail how people variously engage, enjoy, endure, or escape managed fun.
Research limitations/implications
The suggested framework for understanding workplace fun and employee engagement offers opportunities for empirical testing.
Practical implications
Understanding workplace fun and the work that it does, and does not do, offers opportunities to improve relationships between employees and between employees and the organisation.
Originality/value
The editorial and Special Issue overall offers an important contribution to the ongoing fun at work and employee engagement debate and opens up avenues for further exploration and discussion.
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Banks and building societies are increasingly concerned to sellinsurance and investment products within their branch networks. Reportson the different ways in which this process…
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Banks and building societies are increasingly concerned to sell insurance and investment products within their branch networks. Reports on the different ways in which this process is managed within three major UK financial services institutions. Examines how the different forms of integration create distinctive problems for management. Argues that management has to balance the requirements for integration with the need to develop a change process which minimizes conflict and encourages co‐operation between different groups within the companies. Integration is seen as a long‐term change process which institutions need to manage in ways that fit their own existing cultures and structures. Such a change process can be most effective where it develops from a strong customer orientation so marketing has a central role to play.