《企业组织文化的管理论文-英文版.docx》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《企业组织文化的管理论文-英文版.docx（118页珍藏版）》请在三一办公上搜索。
1、BPR and Organisational Culture Executive Summary Background When even the most ardent protagonists of BPR, such as Hammer & Champy, are quoting failure rates from 50% up to 80%, is BPR really such a sure fire solution to the challenges of the nineties? Is the reason for these failures solely the ina
2、bility to manage organisational change, or is there a more fundamental problem with BPR? And is managing the culture key to effective change, particularly within the context of a BPR initiative? These questions were the impetus behind a Henley Management College MBA dissertation. This management sum
3、mary reports on the resulting survey into organisational change techniques used by UK organisations undertaking BPR. Executive Highlights Most BPR organisations are making significant and wide reaching changes to their organisation in response to strategic business needs. The trend is to results ori
4、ented and more fluid structures. Highly centralised organisations, as epitomised in role management styles, have seen their day, but there remains a tendency to formalise the work processes through task allocation, procedures, rules and controls. BPR results in an average 18% reduction in staff. Man
5、agement are emphasising the harder techniques that more overtly control staff behaviour. However, many do get their staff involved in process redesign. Many in management (middle management?) are not exhibiting the required behaviour. BPR and change management consultants are widely used but they do
6、 not overtly influence the choice of culture change techniques selected. Neither do staff have much influence in the choice of techniques used. Many improvement are being realised but the empowerment of staff is not one of them. Staff commitment appears to be the biggest concern and innovation by st
7、aff is low. Despite these findings, respondents definitely believe they can change their employees values and beliefs. More improvements came with using many change techniques but most occurred when a range of both hard and soft techniques were used. Management needs patience. Up to 2 years may be n
8、eeded to gain even modest employee improvements. This may well be recognised, as the duration of BPR projects is increasing. Current projects, with a defined end date, are planned to run for 30 months compared to 19 months for completed ones. Within the UK business community, it is the banking and f
9、inance companies that are predominately undertaking BPR. There is a absence of case studies concerning BPR failures. McKinseys 7 S Model The well known McKinsey model was used as a basis for assessing the extent to which organisations undertaking BPR are changing themselves. All the 25 organisations
10、 analysed were extensively changing 5, 6 or all 7 elements as part of their BPR project. Overall, all elements were equally receiving attention. 80% stated that their BPR programme was extensively driven by business strategy, and 88% of organisations were aiming to extensively change their shared va
11、lues. These shared values, along with beliefs and assumptions, form the heart of McKinseys organisation model. Further on, this report reviews whether organisations are in fact using change techniques which address these fundamental building blocks of organisational culture and whether they are repo
12、rting positive changes in employee behaviour. Organisational Structures All bar 3 organisations were changing their type of structure. There was a near majority move away from hierarchical structures with 15 of the 25 moving to a process model and another 6 to a decentralised model. A few were imple
13、menting mixed structures and a couple choose to remain with a hierarchical structure. Overall there was a significant shift towards those structures which were more results oriented and a lesser shift towards more fluid structures. Management Styles Hierarchical structures are often associated with
14、role management styles. It is therefore not surprising that well over two thirds of organisations were moving away from a role style, with two thirds of these moving to a task style and most of the remainder to a directive style. Many of those that were already directive were now moving to self-mana
15、gement, a style that is advocated by many BPR consultants. Still, few seem confident with their staff to take this plunge towards a really empowered workforce. Instead they were moving (reverting?) to a more formalised task style. Yet, if the widely reported reductions in staff numbers are indeed ta
16、rgeted at the middle management levels, then staff will have to take greater responsibility for self management. On the topic of staff reductions, in those few organisations prepared to divulge numbers, staff reductions within the BPR areas were averaging just 18% but in some organisations reached a
17、s high as 60%. On average BPR projects were impacting 35% of the organisations total staff but in some case all staff were subject to the impact of BPR. Overall there was a significant shift towards low centralisation but there remains a tendency to control employees work content by means of high fo
18、rmalisation of tasks. Change Techniques There are a wide variety of organisational cultural change techniques. Consultants of the US excellence school (e.g. Deal and Kennedy) tend to promote techniques that tackle the more visible manifestations of culture. These include artefacts, such as lapel bad
19、ges and distinctive office decor, as well as rituals and the telling of success stories. Less visible, but often promoted by behaviourist, are those techniques (called behaviour patterns) that link performance to pay, assess staff via appraisals, and define actions via formalised procedures, rules a
20、nd regulations. Those with a sociological or psychological background (e.g. Schein) maintain that real and lasting change only occurs when people change their shared values, basic beliefs and assumptions. They advocate various individual and group therapy techniques. The questionnaire had 15 change
21、techniques which represented 5 layers of graduation from the visible, hard techniques through to the invisible, soft ones. Only techniques addressed to over 75% of staff or used monthly or more frequently were counted. Emphasis on Harder Techniques Whilst perhaps the excesses of US management techni
22、ques are shunned by UK management, there is clearly a tendency to use the harder techniques, mentioned above, that come under behaviour patterns. This correlates to the shift to a more results oriented organisations and the maintenance of a formalised management style. Encouragingly, the high use of
23、 behaviour norms was accounted for by the many organisations (74%) that actively involved their staff in the redesign of business processes. In fact this was the most used technique. On average, organisations choose 1.7 of the harder techniques for every soft one. Using other categorisations of thes
24、e 15 techniques it is seen that organisations use management to employee techniques twice as frequently as the reverse. They also are more inclined to use coercive techniques which Schein feels may be a necessity to shake up more mature organisations (note the significant shift away from traditional
25、 hierarchical structures). However, such techniques can have longer term repercussions for staff commitment. On average organisations are using 5 techniques extensively with some using 10. However, only one organisation is using the very soft techniques of Organisational Development and individual t
26、herapy. Management Not Performing Selection of techniques suggests that change through leadership is not particularly strong, perhaps confirming why respondents felt only 64% of their managers were exhibiting the required behaviour. Obeng & Crainer have highlighted the dysfunctional behaviour of man
27、y middle managers due to the simultaneous need exhibit the new behaviour to their own staff, before they have come to terms with the need to change their own behaviour. The result is stress due to pressure from both above and below. Influences The main reason selected for using the above techniques
28、was to gain staff commitment (80%) followed by speed of implementation and results (52%). This latter figure is not surprising given the long duration of BPR projects (see later) and one can speculate whether lack of staff commitment (also see later) is a major reason for the long timescales. Consul
29、tants Despite the fact that 68% used consultants they were not the main source of suggestions as to which techniques to use. Just a quarter selected only consultants as choosing the techniques and another quarter selected consultants together with some other source. 13 organisations used BPR consult
30、ants and another 6 used change management consultants. Consultants representing human resources, IT, O&M and psychology were little used. No one used a sociologist. The implication is that either BPR or change management consultants will address the human issues or such issues are considered not tha
31、t important. Those using consultants used on average 1.5. Whilst overall a wide range of sources were used, suggestions from staff only accounted for 13%. Staff appear to be just involved in the lower lever detail such as process redesign, and not in the higher level organisational change decisions.
32、 Interestingly, no organisations looked to their competitors. Does this indicate a feeling of superiority or are they relying on their consultants? Outcomes Respondents could select up to 8 areas of employee behavioural improvements widely acknowledged as the outcomes of a successful BPR project. Ea
33、ch could be marked as Lots or Some improvement. Acquisition and use of new knowledge and skills, co-operative team working, customer focus and results oriented were the most chosen Lots of improvements. However, there were lower numbers selecting acquisition and use of decision making powers, and ac
34、ceptance and use of responsibility. These suggest that empowerment, a much vaunted attribute of BPR, is slow to be taken up by employees. This may be due to lack of commitment to the organisation, which scored the lowest level for Lots of improvement, or it may be due to management, perhaps especial
35、ly middle management, being unwilling to actually allow their staff to be empowered. Espousing is one thing, realising it is another matter. Given that BPR is all about starting afresh with a clean sheet of paper then the low score for creation of innovative ideas is of concern. Similar hypothesis a
36、s outline above could be put forward. Overall, about half the organisations have yet to achieve modest levels of improvements. However, with on average 7 out of the 8 choices selected, management is presumably expecting improvements in all areas. Changing Employees Values and Beliefs Respondents wer
37、e decidedly up-beat about whether employees values and beliefs could be changed. 88% either strongly agreed or agreed they could. Respondents qualified their answer in a wide variety of ways, reflecting another survey which concludes there are no hard and fast rules about how to manage change. Two c
38、ommon responses were that changing values and beliefs took time, and that the change process needed much co-ordination of many activities. No one expressed any concerns over the ethics of trying to change employees inner, personal feelings. No Indications Those organisations with the most extensive
39、change did not appear to be using a greater range or number of techniques, despite the likely increase in complexity of the change. Also there were no indications that the extent of down-sizing had either any negative or positive impact on employee improvements. Finally, there were no indications th
40、at consultants tended to suggest the more harder, coercive change techniques. Duration Those projects that have been underway for some time tend to report higher levels of employee improvements with the peak at the 2 year point. Thereafter, improvement levels fall away. This confirms that BPR is not
41、 a quick fix solution. The tailing off may be due to improvement being taken for granted, or it may be that longer projects have lost focus. Such effect did not appear to be linked to the number of employees impacted by the BPR project. Techniques Used Those reporting the most employee improvements
42、were using a greater number of change techniques. Those with the top improvements were typically using 7 to 10 techniques. But the type of technique was important. Those using over 3 hard techniques reported 5 or more Lots of improvements compared to those only using on average 1.5 hard techniques w
43、ho were only reporting 5 or more Some improvements or even less. But those declaring most improvement were using a range of both hard and soft techniques. This suggests that the wide ranging organisational impact of BPR creates a complex change situation that needs a wide range of techniques. Hard t
44、echniques are known to provide a more immediate employee response. Softer techniques address the inner values and beliefs, which although they take longer to have affect, can have a more fundamental and enduring impact on employees attitudes. The Survey 122 UK companies were identified as having und
45、ertaken BPR. 51 questionnaires were distributed and 33 replies received. 25 of these organisations were, or had, undertaken significant organisational change, including significant use of multi-functional teams and the reengineering of their processes into one or few steps. These were considered to
46、be full implementations of BPR and were therefore included in the analysis. Company Profiles Compared to the 122 identified, responses from banking and finance companies were over represented (55% cf. 30%) and manufacturing under represented (12% cf. 24%). Although three quarters had under 10,000 em
47、ployees, the average number was almost 15,000 due to a number of financial institutions with large numbers of employees (up to 100,000). Half the respondents were at senior management level (director, CEO, AGM) with the rest at project manager or department head level. Nearly half were BPR sponsors
48、and a third BPR project directors or managers. BPR Projects Only 7 BPR projects had completed. The others were in progress with completion dates as far ahead as 1998. The average duration of completed projects was 19 months but those in progress had already run for 16 months, and those with an end d
49、ate were planned to run for 30 months. Two thirds had never previously completed a BPR project within the UK. Acknowledgement Thank you to all the organisations and their managers who responded to the questionnaire. The original report was created with Ami Pro 3 with diagrams and charts from Excel 3 using OLE. Desktop HP NewWave 4. OperatingSystem MS Windows 3.1. Printed on an Epson Stylus 8
