The Contribution of Processual and Emergent Perspectives to Strategic Change

variegate is ubiquitous. Organisational heighten has become synonymous with managerial proceedingiveness since the 1980s (Burnes, 1996 Wilson, 1992). However, north Ameri bear lick everywhere the quest for commitment, efficiency and improved performance, appears to have fallen back upon largely Tayloristic concepts of guidance, with the result that organisational interchange is astray perceived to be controllable by new-fangled management, with organisations themselves instrumental in their in their hands (Collins, 1997).However, this scientific entree appears to have diffused with scant regard to contextual variables that may serve to modify and constrain contemporaneous managerial rhetoric for change (Hatch, 1997). One persuasion that attempts to refocus the surround on wider issues has come to be known as the processual or emergent attack to organisational change (Collins, 1997), and it is this perspective that this paper seeks to evaluateYou can read withal Waves First, the inevitability of change is briefly considered as the time frame selected for organisational digest melt downs to tell the substance of investigation. This leads into a critique of planned change under the umbrella of strategical election, with its core assumptions establish upon managerial hegemony. This approach is then contrasted with the processual and emergent perspectives that seek to widen management appreciation to allow in factors beyond the organisation and its immediate surrounds. The implications of the appargonnt divergence between theory and practice are briefly adumbrate before concluding that the subjectivist paradigm of the processual/emergent approach is opera hat seen as a modification to theories of strategic choice, which may add to effective managerial practice in the future. This argument is qualified by the privation to bind such a modification by a fundamental change in modern managerial education.The Inevitability of ChangeChange exudes impermanentity. While it may be a truism that in both field of activity, all periods may be characterised by change and continuity, the time frame selected will tend to broad(prenominal)light change or continuity (Blyton and Turnbull, 1998). For example, a focus upon organisational change during the last two-decades may break out a period of rapid change. However, a perspective encompassing the last two hundred geezerhood may indicate a basic continuity in the capitalist social mode of exertion (ibid). Consequently, differentiating between whether organisational change should be analysed from the perspective of a strict chronology of clock or linear time, with its associated nonions of relentless progress, grooming and implementation, or whether changed is viewed from the perspective of a processual analysis oer tracts of time, has given rise to a vigorous contention on how change should be understood as it applies to complex business organisations (Wilson, 1992).Two paradi gms dominate the analysis of organisational change. On the one hand, a positivist view holds that change is objectively measurable, and and then controllable, embracing nonions of rationality, temporal linearity and sequence change is an outcome of metrical action by change agents (Hatch, 1997 Kepner and Tregoe, 1986). On the opposite hand, a subjectivist view holds that change is dependent upon the temporal context of the wider social system in which it occurs and is indeed a social construction while organisations define and attempt to manage their change processes, outcomes are not necessarily the result of the top-down cascade advocated by the planned approach (Pettigrew, 1985). Consequently, as a auspicate of departure, planned organisational change shall be discussed before moving on to examine the emergent approach as a challenge to the rational model.The Planned PerspectiveContemporary US and UK managerial ideology may be identified as an outcome of, and a contributo r to, neo-liberalist voluntarism (Dunlop, 1993). This ideology is mobilised with the agency of management to protect capitals interests above all others. Consequently, management and managers come to be considered a social elite through their exercise of god-like control over a logical and rational process of adaptation, change and ever-improving performance. The organisation is therefrom instrumental in the hands of management (Collins, 1997 Daft, 1998 Hatch, 1997 Kepner and Tregow, 1986).Generally referred to as strategic choice, the planned approach, according to Wilson (199222) is constructed upon the undermentioned theories of organisation1 Organisational Development (OD) and Behavioural Modification (BM)2 Planned incrementalism3 The enterprise culture, best practice and gurus as change agents.These perspectives have all in common the place of humans agency, whereby, human decisions make an important difference a voluntarism in which human courage and determination count ( Gouldner 1980, cited in Wilson, 199225).OD and BM ( unopen system) approaches emanate from the field of psychology, positing that organisational change is implemented by management through changing the behaviour of individuals. OD aims to foster consensus and participation on the basis that management attributes resistance to change to poor social relations (Wilson, 1992). BM is a systematic approach to the conditioning of managerially defined appropriate behaviour, based upon Skinnerian mental theories of learning (reward and punishment) and motivation (ibid).Both approaches are based on the assumptions that managers are capable of identifying internal barriers to change, determine appropriate behaviours, and designing and implementing programmes to achieve desired outcomes. Consequently, there is a plethora of frameworks, recipes and how to packages aimed at managerial audiences (Collins, 1997)A central feature of many of these packages is Lewins (1951) force field framework, w hich proposes that change is characterised as a state of imbalance between forces for change and pressures against change. It is suggested that managers are capable of adjusting the equilibrium state of zero-change, by selectively removing or modifying specific forces in the required direction (Senior, 1997). Implicit is the normative character of planned change managers should know the various forces as they apply to their own particular situation, and should understand and possess the means to exert influence over them. It follows that, ceteris parebus, without deliberate managerial action, change, at worst is un credibly to occur and, at best, is unlikely to realise desired outcomes without the hitch of chance (Collins, 1997).Planned incrementalism argues that change is constant and evolutionary and should be planned in small move based on an orderly adjustment to information flowing in from the operate environment (Quinn 1980, cited in Senior, 1997). This approach is related to contingency theory. The argument runs that the most effective government agency to organise is contingent upon conditions of complexity and change in the environment. then, the organisation should achieve congruence with its market environment and managers should support their strategies with appropriate constructions and processes to set up the likelihood of success (ibid).Turning to the final ingredients, Wilson (199237) argues that enterprise culture, best practice and management gurus are different faces of the resembling ideology. Enterprise culture denotes best practice and grows from a particular interpretation of management theory. This interpretation shapes the role of external consultants and thus determines who are the gurus the ideology becomes self-supporting. Thus the ideology of strategic choice is mobilised in support of managerial ideology to be successful in a free market system (entrepreneurial), firms should be modelled by managers upon best practice (c urrently, from the US and Japan), should adopt flexible specialisation and decentralised structures, and should seek to realize organisational cultures congruent with managers own. The successful manager comes to be defined as a change master (Kanter, 1993 see Peters and Waterman, 1982).The Emergent, Processual PerspectiveA common critique of the planned perspective is that the ability of management to rationally plan and implement organisational change ignores the influence of wider, more deterministic forces outside the realms of strategic choice (Wilson, 1992). Largely in opposition to this perspective and generally referred to as systemic conflict, the emergent approach, according to Wilson (ibid22) is constructed upon the following theories of organisation1 Contextualism2 state ecology3 Life one shots4 Power and politics5 Social action.While also tending to acknowledge the role of human agency in effecting change, these approaches serve to widen the debate to include the imp act of human interaction at micro and macro levels, thus constraining strategic choice (ibid).Contextualism is based upon an open systems (OS) model which views any organisation as organism an interdependent component of a much larger whole (Pettigrew, 1985). Serving as a direct intellectual challenge to closed system perspectives, fundamental is the notion that no organisation exists in a vacuum. Emery and Trist (1960, cited in Wilson, 1992) argue that OS reveals the following characteristicsEquifinality no one best way of achieving the same outcomesNegative entropy importing operating environment resources to curtail or reverse pictorial decaySteady state relationship perceptual constancy between inputs, throughputs, outputsCycles and patterns cash flows, stock-turns and so on.Thus, OS enables the variances between organisations performances to be explained by external influences, facilitating comparative analysis, the make-up of sectoral norms and the identification of sup ra-normal practices (Wilson, 1992).Population ecology (and perhaps institutional theories) is based upon the Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest (Hatch, 1997). Thus strategic change is aimed at maximising fitness within the general population of organisations, through the identification of market niches and strategies of specialisation, specialism or generalism (Porter, 1980, 1985). Competitive advantage is thus created and sustained through the construction of distinctive and inimitable structures, processes and cultures, eg hard-on high barriers to entry through technological investment, or eliminating threats of product substitution through high R & D investment and thus (desired) innovation (ibid).The life cycle perspective explicitly recognises the temporal nature of organisational change. Though linear in nature (all life cycle theories assume birth, growth, maturity, decline and death as givens), this approach provides insights into the potential internal and extern al conditions (and constraints) that an organisation is likely to encounter during distinct life cycle phases (Greiner, 1972 cited in Senior, 1997). However, this approach suffers from a similar critique to those levied at models of planned change. Cycles are not in fact cycles (suggesting reincarnation). Development is linear and progressive and an organisations location on the cycle is highly subjective.Perhaps the major part of the emergent approach to organisational change, is the highlighting of the role of forefinger and politics in moderating managerial efforts to effect fundamental and sustainable change (Handy, 1986). Essentially, three political models of power reveal that outcomes are incapable of being considered independently of processes and personal stakes.First, overt power is the visible manifestation of localised influence over best-loved processes and outcomes (eg its the way weve always done things around here). Second, covert power is less visible and related to the purpose of information sharing and participation in change processes afforded by organisational sub-groups (eg senior management) to others the phrase inner circle is a common indicator of covert power relations in operation. Finally, third, contextual power suggests that outcomes are talk terms by societal forces and the economic structure of society itself (eg elites, notions of social justice, and so on) (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). Postmodern analysis reveals the influence of discourse, symbol and myth as interchangeable between organisations and societies in the endorsement of preferred solutions.Thus, contextual power may be utilised to shape the wider justification and acceptability for organisational change( eg restructuring for labour stripping reingeering for work intensification partnership for bodied labour coercion TQM for zero-tolerance and panoptican managerial control). Moreover, the contextual power perspective also reveals the hegemony of accounting ideol ogy in neo-liberal systems (itself positivist, reductionist and inextricably linked to Taylorism). Thus serving to expose the influence of elite groups, notably uncommunicative under the strategic choice framework (Wilson, 1992).Finally, social action theories depict organisational culture (OC) as the structure of social action (ibid). The strategic framework choice would hold that OC is a possession of the organisation and is thus capable of manipulation . In contrast, the systemic conflict framework depicts OC is something an organisation is (a contrasting ontological position) and is and then largely beyond managerial influence (Legge, 1995). Nevertheless, strong (integrated) notions of OC are eulogised by the so-called gurus (see Kanter, 1993 Peters and Waterman, 1982), despite receiving severe unfavorable judgment for their weak methodological foundations (See Guest, 1992). The emergent approach appears to be at odds with the strong culture = high performance proposition at the heart of most change programmes its causality is unclear.ImplicationsAs the above discussion illustrates, the management of change appears to hold sway over the analysis of change (Wilson, 1992). This implies that catch has been exchanged for expediency. identify differently, managing change is both a learnable and teachable skill.In view of the short-termism inherent in the US and UK economies, with their shareholder emphasis on maximum financial returns and minimal financial risk (itself a contradiction with the notion of entrepreneur), it is hardly surprising that recipes for success are so eagerly sought after by under pressure managers and eagerly supplied by management gurus with pound-signs in their eyes. Practice appears to be on a divergent way of life from theory (Collins, 1997).Collins (ibid) attributes this apparent divergence to managerial education, which itself (as must any educative process) be viewed as a perpetuation of ideology. With respect to organisati onal change, management education serves to promote the aggrandisement of managers as Canute-like rulers of the waves. Epitomised by the MBA (Master of sod All?) with its roots in north America, such programmes are themselves reductionist and short-term in nature. Thus, students are precluded by time constraints from exposure to the theoretical foundations of change and, consequently, may be discouraged from challenging received wisdom. This is not to assert that hands on skills are unimportant, rather to expose that they lose potency in the absence seizure of the appreciation of the wider context which MBA babble, among a wider range of programmes, serves to suffuse.Conclusion a rejection of Positivism?The investigation of organisational change has not escape the inexorable north American shift towards hypothetico-deductive perspectives of economics and psychology, with their positivist paradigms focused upon atomisation akin to the natural sciences (Cappelli, 1995).From a tempo ral perspective, while organisational change is viewed as inevitable in much the same way as in nature, the time frame selected for analysis tends to dictate the scope and degree of change to be investigated. Short-termism, it appears, is a form of temporal reductionism in the search for objective truth, that is a key factor after part the notion that managers can be trained to manage change through sets of skills that imply mastery over the natural world and therefore, time itself. In this view, planned models of change, rooted in classical theories of management, may be criminate of being an ideological construct of assumed legitimacy and authenticity.On the other hand, a subjectivist systemic tension approach, rejects reductionist tool kits and lays claim to the inclusion of contextual variables at work throughout an organisation, its operating environment and beyond. In this view, while change is clearly not beyond managerial influence, its management is reliant upon wider un derstanding of the interplay of these variables, of which power relations may be prominent, in order to be able to predict the likely outcomes of managerial actions.However, for something to exist it must be capable of theoretical explanation. That practitioners have opted for voluntarist models of strategic change is not surprising given the elitist ideology of modern management to control is to manage short-termism equates to reduced risk and increase control the institutions of Western corporate governance and finance thus have their goals met by such an approach.Yet, this is to change the quintessential qualities of the processual, emergent contribution to organisational change. While not refuting planned change, it perhaps serves to modify it for any change to be understood, explained and sustained, the duality of voluntarism and determinism must be acknowledged and incorporated into the managerial knowledge base. The emergent approach exposes the potential folly of the extre mes of positivism as applied to organisations as social entities, thus throwing open the debate to multi-disciplinary perspectives and enriching the field or organisational change. To be of value, such enrichment must be reflected in managerial education itself.