Siew Kien Sia and Boon Siong Neo
This paper aims to clarify the apparent confusion on the work impacts of business process re‐engineering (BPR), specifically, the level of empowerment and work monitoring, through…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to clarify the apparent confusion on the work impacts of business process re‐engineering (BPR), specifically, the level of empowerment and work monitoring, through the conceptual lens of Panopticon.
Design/methodology/approach
An intensive case study at the Singapore Internal Revenue Services was conducted. Ninety‐nine employees were also surveyed on their perceived empowerment and work‐monitoring pre‐ and post‐BPR.
Findings
The findings revealed intense work monitoring in the post‐BPR environment. For the redesign of routine processes, tighter work monitoring is coupled with continuous efforts to formalize behaviors, leaving little need or scope for real empowerment. Greater empowerment is evident only in the redesign of non‐routine processes, through a Panopticon‐like combination of greater empowerment and higher work monitoring.
Research limitations/implications
The research suggests the applicability of Panopticon as a conceptual lens in understanding and reconciling the apparent contradictions greater empowerment and heightened work monitoring in reengineered workplace. It suggests the need for future research to begin bridging the disparate empowerment and control literature.
Practical implications
The study shows practitioners how they can leverage the discipline of visibility to orchestrate control creatively in a reengineered environment. The glimpses of post‐BPR workplace also help managers to better anticipate change management issues.
Originality/value
The paper addresses an important issue of BPR work impacts. Its suggestion of Panopticon as a conceptual lens also provides a refreshing look at the traditional issues in BPR.
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Siew Kien Sia and Boon Siong Neo
This paper provides a comprehensive account of how the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) successfully managed organizational transformation to achieve significantly…
Abstract
This paper provides a comprehensive account of how the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) successfully managed organizational transformation to achieve significantly increased customer satisfaction, enhanced organizational agility, and dramatic reduction in tax arrears. The case study reaffirms that the soft issues are the hard issues in reengineering. Indeed, the recognition by IRAS that people resource issues are at the heart of change is the major factor for its success. In addition to tackling people issues, the transformation experience of IRAS also reveals the need to integrate the traditional change models more tightly in managing large‐scale change. The inability of IRAS in anticipating all major consequences of their change actions suggests an improvisational model of change management. Organizations embarking on large‐scale transformation should consciously build their internal capabilities to tackle emergent changes (e.g. establishing the information systems for change, nurturing people resources, and providing slack resources).
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Dennis J. Gayle and Jonathan N. Goodrich
As both concept and process, privatization possesses ambiguous connotations and multiple meanings. Webster's Dictionary (1981) defines one related noun, privatism, as “an attitude…
Abstract
As both concept and process, privatization possesses ambiguous connotations and multiple meanings. Webster's Dictionary (1981) defines one related noun, privatism, as “an attitude of uncommitment or uninvolvement in anything beyond one's immediate interests,” while another associated noun, privacy, denotes a state of “withdrawal from society or the public interest” (Oxford English Dictionary, 1972). If government is a means of providing a wide range of collective goods, which do not necessarily lend themselves to market exchange, the public sector is naturally a highly visible target.4 At the same time, unrestrained public-sector expansion inevitably leads to public policy failure, as problems of communication, coordination, effective cost–benefit control, and revenue satiation accumulate.5 Privatization represents a logical reaction.