Managing Change Initiatives: Fantasy or Reality

Managing Change Initiatives: Fantasy or Reality?

The Case of Public Sector Organisations

Ebrahim Soltani

University of Kent Business School, Canterbury, UK

Pei-chun Lai

University of Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, UK

Abstract

It is becoming a commonplace statement that change initiative programmes are key tools to organisational long-term success. To this end, the last two decades have witnessed a surge of interest in the take-up of various change initiative programmes. Organisational change initiatives, we are told by many commentators, can maximise shareholder value (i.e. economic value theory) and develop organisational capabilities (i.e. organisational capability theory). Specifically, in recent years, as companies have been confronted by the conditions of heightened competition, globalisation, advancements in communications and information technologies, economic recession and simultaneously search for excellence, so the desire to take up change initiatives has interested the majority of leading organisations. At the same time, however, the analysis of the prospects for the majority of change management tools reveals so many deep-seated barriers to change with the consequence of little success in practice. This paper explores this apparent contradiction, arguing that, despite a heightened interest in the take-up of change initiatives, very few change programmes produce an improvement in bottom-line, exceed the companys cost of capital, or even improve service delivery. It also offers an explanation of why this is the case. To provide empirical verification for this, the paper presents the results of 4 case studies conducted at public sector organisations in the UK. The findings continue to point to the ineffective nature of the top managements contribution to managing organisational change programmes. Finally, using the case evidence, combined with previous research findings, the paper explores the implications for senior management of attempts to move from, as Mintzberg (1999:146) put it, direction and supervision towards protection and support.

Key Words: Change Initiatives; Success / Failure; UK Public Sector; Case Study.1. Introduction

It seems hard to deny that the conditions of heightened competition have forced many organizations to adopt more congruent and flexible strategies that focus on organization-wide change programmes (see Gehani, 1993; Ellinger et al., 1999:387). Here identifying the need for a particular organisation-wide change, and leading organisations through that change is widely recognised as one the most critical and challenging responsibilities of the management of private sector organisations. At the same time, the take-up of such initiatives are also notable in non-for-profit organisations. Previous research (e.g. Hopwood, 1984; Chun & Degeling, 1991; Covaleski et al. 1993; Comerford & Abernethy, 1999: 93) does indeed reveal that, the public sector in most Western economies has been subject to increasing demands for greater financial accountability, efficiency and effectiveness over the last decade. The result of such demands and the necessity to match services more closely to peoples lives (Modernising Government, 1999), have been to convince the management of public sector organizations of the need to lay far greater stress upon practical issues of various approaches and tools of change (Keep, 1995:113). Reflecting the sustained interest in and heavy emphasis on the application of change programmes, a wide variety of tools have been developed to, first, initiate and manage organizational change and, second, to control and direct change caused by unplanned disruptions (see Branch, 2002). Clearly, the underlying impetus for many of these tools and approaches has a lot to do with a desire to achieve quality improvement; to address workforce concerns; and to enhance flexibility by changing the organizational structure, processes, people, and/or culture.

In consequence, there is prima facie evidence that in response to conditions of heightened competition, and hence the necessity to continue to grow or at least to survive, such initiatives are now a part of the life cycle of any organisation, whether for-profit or non-for-profit one (Storey, 1995). The common ground that supports a wide array of change initiatives is based on the notion that they focus, at least in theory, simultaneously on the hard (structure and systems) and the soft (corporate culture) systems with the consequence of improving both organization and employee well-being (Beer & Nohria 2000:133).

Despite the attention paid by the policy makers in various governmental levels (e.g. Whitehouse et al., 1999; Modernised Government, 1999) as well as other organizational specialists (e.g. Drucker, 1999; Williams, 1994; Burke & Trahant, 2000) in the popular organizational change literature, relatively little work has been devoted to cast light on the take-up of various organizational change initiatives in public sector organizations (see Lovell, 1994). The purpose of the paper is to review the relevant literature in the light of four case studies of UK-based public sector organisations. The paper reflects on a number of significant challenges facing the take-up of any change initiative and suggests some recommendations for future research and practice alike.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 of the paper outlines the nature of change initiatives, approaches and tools of change initiatives, and its effectiveness over the last decade. Section 3 describes the research methods used in this study. The profiles of the cases studied are explained in section 4. In section 5, the collected data is analysed. Finally, in section 6, the paper concludes with the main lessons and implications for future research and the implementation of change initiatives in public sector organisations.

2. Change initiatives literature

On the one hand, managing change initiatives, which falls within the broader theoretical framework of social change (1958), has been a perennially popular topic in the organisational effectiveness and management literature (Branch, 2002). On the other hand, the last several decades have witnessed a tremendous interest in initiating changes of one sort or another with the support of top management. Specifically, in recent years, as companies have been confronted by the conditions of heightened competition, globalisation, advancements in communications and information technologies, recession and simultaneously search for excellence, so the desire to implement at least one change programme (Pascale et al., 1997:139) has interested the majority of leading organisations (Legge, 1995; Christensen & Overdorf, 2000). Faced with such catalogue of applications, the effectiveness of any organisational change initiative, it is argued, is a reflection of its top management (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). Top management commitment and support, for example, has remained the first category in the majority of organisational change initiatives (e.g. US Department of Commerce and Technology: MBNQA, 1993; EFQM, 1999). Moreover, it has been designated as the prime factor towards business excellence in a number of frequently cited texts (e.g. Dale & Cooper, 1994; Powell, 1995; Black & Porter, 1996; Zeitz et al.,1997; Kanji, 1998, Carpenter et al., 2004). Organisational change initiatives, however, have long been dogged by the problem of mismanagement. Some even raise the key question concerning whether top management is a threat or an opportunity to change initiatives (Deming, 1986; Schwinn, 2002; Dalgleish, 2003; Soltani, (in press)).

In the literature pertinent to change initiatives, two levels of organisational change are typically discussed (Burke & Trahant, 2000): (i) fundamental or transformational i.e. addressing big picture issues such as mission, strategy, culture, leadership, external environment and (ii) transitional or transactional i.e. the everyday, how things get done, issues such as structure, management practices, systems, motivation, needs, job fit, and work unit climate. Change initiatives advocates (e.g. Beer & Nohria, 2000; Abrahamson, 2000; Nadler & Tushman, 1997; Kotter, 1998) see such intentional changes as universally beneficial, making rapid improvements in economic value. At the same time, they create an organisation whose structure, processes, people, and culture are tailored appropriately for its current mission and environment and positioned to make the next round of needed change. In their zeal, the core philosophy of change management is to use of organization-wide change programmes, not least in terms of change in both structure and corporate culture simultaneously.The clear implication of the take-up of such initiatives, at least in theory, is the rapid improvements in economic value while at the same time improving their viability (Beer & Nohria, 2000). To this end, a close examination of the commentators (e.g. Mohrman & Mohrman, 1993; Jacobs, 1994; Miles, 1997; Nadler & Tushman, 1997) choice of tools and approaches of change management suggests the followings to be the most common organisational change programmes: Backward Mapping, Balanced Scorecard, Benchmarking, Business Process Reengineering, Continuous Improvement, Cultural Change, Employee Involvement, ISO9000, Knowledge Management, Learning Organisation, Management-By-Objectives, Organisational Design, Outcome-Based Evaluation, and Total Quality Management (Branch et al., 1984).

Further reflection, however, suggests that there have been three fundamental flaws in the thinking associated with the idea of organisational change initiatives. First, it has failed to document and clarify the results of change initiative programmes; second, it has been unable to measure their cost effectiveness; and third, it has failed to acknowledge the difficulty and complexity of their management (MacDonald, 1998; Kotter, 1998; Abrahamson, 2000). Indeed, the value of planned change has been challenged, with some studies indicating that most change management initiatives fail while exerting heavy economic and human tolls on the organisation (Beer & Nohria, 2000:133). The Harvard Business School, for example, tracked the impact of change efforts among the Fortune 100 and found that all companies had implemented at least one change programme between 1980 and 1995, but only 30 per cent produced an improvement in bottom-line results that exceeded the companys cost of capital (Pascale et al., 1997:139 cited in Branch, 2002). In a similar vein, a previous research in a sample of over 100 of the Fortune 500 firms found that nearly one-half of major change efforts were falling short of expectations, as reported by their managers and executives (Schiemann, 1992).

Arguably, while there is increasing evidence at the level of rhetoric of a growing enthusiasm for organizational change initiatives, the analysis of the prospects for the majority of change management tools reveals so many deep-seated barriers to change (Storey, 1995: 15). Senge and colleagues (1999), for example, argue that substantively there is little success in the practice of change initiatives mainly due to the difficulty of changing the basic ways of thinking within the organization. Even when an organization achieves such approach (i.e. changing the basic ways of thinking), it is also, they note, much more difficult to sustain; or in Martins (1998: 114) words, companies resist new truths with a great deal of emotion. Such resistance was reported not only in the depths of the organization but, notably, at the top as well (Schiemann, 1992). Goodstein and Burke (1991: 7) attribute the failure of change initiatives to the poor handling of both personal and organizational stresses and challenges. In this light, Martin (1998: 137) notes that even when an organization can figure out what to do, it still has to figure out how to make goals and methods transparent enough that employees are willing to take some calculated risks. Nor are Senge and colleagues (1999), Goodstein and Burke (1991) and Martin (1998) alone in articulating the barriers to change initiatives. Kotter (1998:2) points out that organizations need to plan for ten years of effort to accomplish a major transformational change. Skipping any step, Kotter argues, creates only an illusion of speed with the consequence of no satisfying results.

Despite the widespread impact of and the sustained interest in change initiatives as a means towards maximising shareholder value and developing organisational capabilities (see Beer & Nohria, 2000) in profit-oriented organisations, it is surprising that very few studies of change initiatives were targeted at non-for-profit organisations. That is, empirical evidence demonstrating the application of organisational change initiatives in public-funded organisations, however, has not been forthcoming. A consequence of the proliferation of the change initiatives studies in profit-oriented organisations, combined with the non-for-profit nature of public-funded organisations has resulted in a large body of literature that lack implications for public management and policy makers alike. The similarities in the need for change in the public sector, however, are apparent. In fact much of the evidence that is available tends to indicate that public sector services are under pressure to improve in quality to benefit the user but also not to increase the burden on taxpayers (Williams, 1994: 216). To meet these parameters, as Williams suggests, the only solution is to increase the efficiency of the conversion of taxpayers money into quality public services (1994: 216). In response to these demands, governments are left with no alternative but to implement various market-based business-oriented reforms. Clearly, lack of such evidence makes the association between any change programme and its contribution to cost-reduction and at the same time to improving services hard and vague.

It is against this backdrop that the authors undertake the current study. The aim is to empirically examine the take-up of change initiatives in four public sector organisations in the UK, their management, the major inroads that the initiatives are facing. In more elaborate language and based on the above discussion, the following questions are aimed to be answered:

Research Question #1. What is the place of change initiatives in the public sector organisations?

Research Question #2. To what extent the change initiatives in public sector organisations contribute to the bottom line (cost reduction)?

Research Question #3. What are the most common tools of change management in the public sector organisations?

Research Question #4. What are the factors that hamper change initiatives in public sector organisations?The hope is that this effort will, to paraphrase Ketchen (2002: 586), help to close the gap between what we know and what we need to know about the Fantasy or Reality of managing organisational change initiatives (Carpenter et al., 2004:752).

3. Research Method

Data for this research were drawn from four case studies of organisations operating in the UK. These organisations were members of one of the National Partner Organizations (NPOs) of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) in the UK. This NPO has a membership in excess of 200 organizations, the majority of which feature among the top companies in the UK.

It should be noted that the issues raised in this paper are based on follow-up case studies of a previously conducted survey research designed to explore the appropriateness of performance management systems in organizational environments with a total quality management (TQM) orientation during 2002-2003. Hence the present paper deals strictly with the take-up of various organisational change initiatives within a sample of four public sector organizations.

In the initial survey, a total of over 200 UK-based organizations were surveyed by mail questionnaire. The goal was to have diverse representations of both public and private organizations with various sizes, thus allowing generalisable conclusions. The survey generated a response rate of 45 per cent which compares very favourably with similar postal questionnaire surveys across various regions of the UK (e.g. IPM, 1993). The surveyed organisations represented both small-and medium-sized (19%) and large organisations (71%). In respect of the ownership of the surveyed organisations, 84 per cent were UK-owned. Within the UK-owned replies, 60 per cent were from publicly-owned, and 24 per cent form privately-owned organisations. US-owned organisations and continental-Europe owned accounted for 12 and 4 per cent of the respondents, respectively (For a description of the sample and the complete findings of the questionnaire survey, see Soltani, 2004).

A statistical comparison of the respondents to the questionnaires indicated that they have had various change initiatives in place. An unexpected findings was, however, that less than one-third of the respondents were satisfied with the outcome of their change initiatives, in particular, TQM programmes. Specifically, the study revealed the very strong association between top management commitment and the effectiveness of change initiative programmes. Put simply, the data highlighted the inadequacies of the current management to adapt effectively to the requirements of various change initiatives. As always the case, the questionnaire survey is limited in its scope and in-depth empirical definitiveness (Hambrick et al., 1993). To this end, taking a case study approach, the current research aims to focus more attention on managing change initiatives in the context of public-funded organisations. Our goal is to shed new empirical light on state of the art change programmes in place, and the support if any of top management to effectively managing such change initiative programmes .

Since a case study is an account of situations and events drawn from real life with a consequence of providing a basis upon which learning can take place (Simmons, 1975), the aim here was to call for the solution of the failure of various organizational change initiatives (see Sadler, 1990). In view of our aim, and in accordance with Yin (1994) and a recent work by Waldman et al. (1998: 182), the research approach taken here sounds appropriate given the fact that the research questions are exploratory in nature, is contemporary, and significant events or variables cannot be manipulated experimentally. Moreover, case studies allow the researcher to obtain a better and more in-depth understanding of complex social phenomena (Yin, 1994) such as initiating various organizational change programmes (Hansson et al., 2003).

Sampled cases represented a diversity of organizational types in terms of establishment size (from 80 to 1000+) and the type of service. In the light of Brymans (1989: 152) classification scheme of qualitative research based on the degree of participation in organizational events on the part of the researcher, this study falls into type 3, interview-based. That is, data collection relied heavily on semi- and un-structured interviews with senior and middle managers. Interview data were then supplemented by documentary evidence on change initiative policies, related training courses, its implementation as well as its outcomes (see Waldman, 1998: 182). Given the Modernised UK Government White Paper (1999), which has been encouraging all public sector organisations to make use of various change initiative programmes, we hope that the results of the case studies would, first, allow some useful actions for progress; second, enhance the benefits derived from the take-up of any change initiative; and third, highlight its usefulness to the policy makers and practicing managers alike.

4. Description of the cases studied

City Council Case

City Council is composed of several departments, namely education, housing, city development, social work, environmental services, culture liaison and corporate services unit. It employs nearly 17000 employees, of whom 1500 are employed in the department we studied. Towards improving the quality of service to the public, there has been a significant number of change initiatives going on in the council. This, in turn, has given an added emphasis to the need to re-structure the council. Within the department we studied, for example, there has been a various change programmes although some are not labelled as organisational change initiatives not least in terms of improving customer service with the consequence of meeting their needs. To this end, and in line with the UK Governments drive to modernise public services, the department was awarded the Charter Mark. It is unique amongst quality schemes since organisations are judged on their results i.e. the service the customer actually receives (see Chartermark: online). Other initiatives in the council aim at minimising the expenses, ensuring that the best value is obtained from public finance. Put simply, in the City Council in particular, and in the public sector in general, the majority of change initiative programmes are aimed at minimising the costs and hence driven by effectiveness and efficiency. The change initiatives which are being used in the Council, are not one-size-fits-all, but instead they are tailored to the requirements of each department to meet various needs of the customers. Despite the tendency to the take-up of various change initiatives in particular those introduced by the White Paper there has been a general acknowledgement that organisation-wide change initiatives related to quality management are not well-developed within the council. Put simply, such organisation-wide initiatives as TQM, BSC are not going to be regarded at least in foreseeable future as a means to meeting and exceeding public needs and minimising public expenses.

Local Enterprise Case

The case of Local Enterprise Company (LEC) is one of the 12 LECs which aims to develop and deliver projects and programmes within the region. There are 170 employees at this company. The company also works to make a wider impact, through investment in infrastructure, training and regeneration initiatives. This, in turn, contributes to the three themes of growing businesses, global connections, and skill and learning across the region. It first embarked various change initiatives such as TQM in 1997. To this end, the company started to apply for EFQM Business Excellence Model two years later. Having had an economic development approach, it has been member of many other professional bodies related to various business communities. It is, for example, ISO14000 accredited, and also recognised by Excellence in Europe. In 2002, the company has started to develop a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) at a corporate level. Due to the nature of role and responsibility of the company and its contributions towards growing businesses, global connections, and skills and learning, there has been more scope for managements in these organisations to out-perform the region economy. Direct intervention in the economy this company and its partners can be met through initiating various organisational changes. Such initiatives, it is argued, offer far greater benefits to the public sector organisations. As well as securing an adequate return on their investment in such initiatives, it promotes both competitiveness and cohesion by prompting further economic growth. Several organisational change initiatives namely EFQM, BSC, Investors in People (IiP) are in place in the company. In addition, there is a commitment to implementing new approaches to assist businesses, upgrade workforce skills and productivity. For example, the companys Lean Management Thinking Programme is specifically focused on improving productivity by facilitating culture change and innovation amongst businesses.

Police Force Case

As one of the eight divisions of the police in the region, it was formed in 1970s. The organisation employs around 3700 employees, which makes it one of the largest organisations of similar kind in the region. The senior management team is composed of chief executive, a deputy, and a team of six other senior managers. The organisation has five stated goals within a three-year time plan. Due to the particular nature of the organisation and the type of service they provide, they cannot be members of any trade union or of any association having as its object, or one of its objects, to control or influence pay, pensions or conditions of service of any member. The pressure on the government for providing better service to the public has made the organisation to take up various departmental or organisation-wide changes. To this end, the organization has been in the process of some quality-focused initiatives such as EFQM, Charter Mark, IiP and Best Value for several years. Some units of the organization are accredited against the International Quality Standard ISO 9001: 2000, which is maintained through regular internal audits of working practices and continual monitoring by an independent assessment company. According to the management, these processes enhance both management and public confidence in the output of the units. In terms of the employees, the commitment of staff to delivering a quality service was recognized under the Governments Charter Mark initiative the scheme for encouraging excellence in public service.

Higher Education (HE) Case

The HE case is one the largest further education in the country with approximately 25000 students of all ages and background. The HE employs in excess of 700 employees. It is a fully integrated HE, providing comprehensive and innovative educational programmes of business and organization, open learning, community learning and e-learning courses to name just a few. The aforementioned subjects are provided on a part- or full-time basis. The interaction of both academic and non-academic staff and students followed by a full support from the top, with an exciting range of theoretical and practical courses to suit the needs of community have resulted in the HE to be one of the best in the UK and Europe. The long-term aim of the HE is to promote excellence in the delivery of a high quality education and learning experience. To this end, the HE continues to improve quality management systems, professional development for all staff, the teaching process and the student support services to ensure that quality standards are maintained. In particular, it also aims to ensure that the major educational policy objectives of the government and national agenda are met. In 1992, it has started to focus on quality to improve service delivery. Having had such priority on its top management agenda, within few years, the HE has for several years in succession secured a number of prestigious awards marking excellence in many activities. In 1994, the HE was awarded the Charter Mark by the Prime Minister, in recognition of its provision of public services. The HE was a Charter Mark re-winner in 1997 and 2000. The HE has met the requirements of various quality standards, in particular, it was recognised as a Centre for Excellence for the second year by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). In short, the many external quality, safety and financial audits have demonstrated that the HE has a well run and effective organisation and will continue to have.

Descriptions of the participants and data collection

In total, 18 employees participated in the interviews. Of these, 8 were senior and the remaining were middle-level managers. The interviewees were selected on the basis of their consensus to be interviewed. Moreover, a number of interviewees were respondents to the earlier questionnaire survey. With regard to the level of qualification of the interviewees, 10 interviewees had completed a masters degree, and the remaining 8 possessed a bachelors degree. Furthermore, all of the interviewees had completed various professional and training courses. Having said that, they were key informants about the change initiatives and related issues in their organisations. In an attempt to increase the accuracy and reliability of the data collected during the interviews, a number of steps were taken (Waldman et al., 1998:183). Among them were neutral probing of answers, promises of anonymity, and the promise to submit a study report at the completion of the research (see Bryman, 1989). The main objectives here were two-fold: first, to motivate their current involvement in the research and any possible follow-up study as well as to ensure gaining access to the relevant documents; and second, to aware them of the implications of the research findings. It should be noted that all these efforts are in line with and similar to the ones utilised by Fleisher and Nickel (1995) and Waldman et al. (1998).

To analyse the interview and other collected data, a qualitative content analysis approach was taken. By definition, content analysis is a class of techniques for mapping symbolic data into a data matrix suitable for statistical analysis (Roberts, 2001: 2697). A central idea in content analysis, summarised by Weber (1990) - adapted from Krippendorff (1980) - is that many words of the text are classified into much fewer content categories. Becker and Lissmann (1973) offered a classification of different levels of content and argue that content analysis analyzes not only the manifest content of the material but also it clarifies the themes and main ideas of the text as primary content as well as context information as latent content. Put simply, it is used to analyse all sort of recorded communication (e.g. transcripts of interviews, discourses, protocols of observations, video tapes, documents) and hence texts and transcripts have been by far the most common objects of content analysis (Roberts, 2001: 2697; Mayring, 2000). To do so, the qualitative data analysis package, NVivo 2.0, was used. NVivo is a software tool for exploring and interpreting text data and analysing fine details. Interviews included questions about nature and extent of the take-up of various organisational change initiatives, effectiveness of the change programmes, factors that hamper organizational change initiatives in the context of public sector organizations. These questions, in turn, were intended to enable the researchers to assess the fantasy or reality of change initiatives in the context of public-funded organisations.5. Results and Discussion

The place of change initiatives

With an ambitious vision for UK public sector organitations to consider the economic, social and the environmental impacts of their activities, the Modernised Government White Paper was published in March 1999. Modernising Government, it is claimed, aims at improving value for money and quality in the way services are delivered by organisations. To this end, it has been encouraging all public sector organisations to make use of one of the four main change initiatives programmes (also called quality schemes). These are EFQM Excellence Model, IiP, Charter Mark, and ISO 9000. All these schemes are useful tools which could be employed for a local authoritys best value strategy (see, for further details, Modenising Government, 1999). In more elaborate language, the White Paper sets out a long-term programme of change in the government makes policy, in the way services are delivered, in the way government uses technology and in the way public service is valued. To achieve this the government advocates that, in the period ahead, it will set milestones to chart its course and success criteria so that the users of public services can judge whether the modernisation programme is working (see The UK Government Gateway to Corporate Social Responsibility, 2005).In response to the modernising government agenda set out in the White Paper, public sector organisations have been undertaking a large range of activities and initiatives. The management of the organisations studied, claimed that a significant number of change initiatives are going on in their organizations. Driven by West Minister Government, they argued, the initiatives in place focus on service delivery in a more effective and customer-oriented manner. In terms of the exact nature of the change initiatives, it was clear that the public sector organisations did not have a one-size-fits-all initiative to meet the needs of all public sector customers. This means that they have to customize any change initiative for various interest groups of their services.

It was very clear from the interviews that, although there have been a number of initiatives in place, the management we spoke to believed that those initiatives have not been well-developed. In this light, one participant from City Council noted that,

I do not think that anyone at this stage is considering whether to apply for an organization-wide change initiative.

For example, with regard to the most powerful of all the change initiative ideas i.e. total quality management to influence service delivery (Slack et al. 1998:36), a senior manager argued that they have not had a quality management system in place. Application of EFQM and other quality-related schemes, however, has been set out in the White Paper in the late 1990s. But running quite separately from all of this was the case of HE. In addition to insistence on an external customer orientation, the place of internal customers i.e. employees was center-stage. According to the management we spoke to, a quality workforce is a prerequisite for a change initiative success. The reason for this finding may reside in the fact the organization received accreditation for both high quality service and leadership.

With respect to quality-related schemes, the nature of the take-up of initiatives did vary among the cases studied. The majority of managers we interviewed noted that the variation in the demand for their services and the necessity to be flexible to the publics needs and wants, forced them to follow a particular quality-related methodology. This methodology, they argued, is to make sure that public service users, not providers, are the focus, by matching services more closely to peoples lives (Modernising Government, 1999). Achieving this goal, however, requires a number of important initiatives followed by a long-term programme of reform (Modernising Government, 1999). To this end, the management in the public sector organizations talked about registration with various professional bodies related to quality. Here what is notable is the variation in the range of initiatives. Compared to the HE case, who had launched a surprising number of initiatives of the modern kind, City Council, Local Enterprise and Police Force launched fewer initiatives and even for these the degree of coherence and persistence was weak (see Storey, 1995).

The current case study evidence also say little about the outcomes of their organisations initiatives. Apart from the HE case, the majority of managers we interviewed noted that there have been initiatives in place with no real implementation. Two issues are relevant to this response. First, it might be a sign of the governments short-lived reform initiatives, owning in part to the attention spans of politicians (March & Olsen, 1983). Second, it is consistent with what Deming (1986) called mobility of management, meaning that senior management will not be in the job long enough to know about the change programme, understand how to make a significant impact, and what to do in terms of positive actions (Schwinn, 2002; Dalgleish, 2003). The powerful implication of the interviewees comment is that to be meaningful and to make any difference, the longevity of any reinvention movement i.e. any change initiative, its implementers, and its agent is vital (see Lenkowsky & Perry, 2000: 298). In sum, in line with previous research (Miracle, 2004: 451) strong evidence suggests that successful planning and implementation of change initiatives would hinge on managements commitment and its first impressions of the process (Miracle, 2004: 451). Although the majority of managers we interviewed do seem to perceive various individual and organizational benefits from take-up of change initiatives, it is not clear whether they act as the change agent or not. Thus it is vital to evaluate the outcome of any particular change programme against the extent of senior management commitment (Wilkinson et al., 1997:806).

The impact of change initiatives on cost reduction

Closer inspection of the practice of organisational change initiatives suggests that the take-up of any change initiative must be treated with the greatest caution. Although not enough is known about the detailed practice of change initiatives in the public sector organisations, there is little reason to quarrel with the general thrust of private organisations experiences (see Sisson, 1994:20). In the cases studied, although the management were inclined towards the take-up of organisational change programmes, the evidence have attested to the less tangible outcomes of their change programmes. These findings also support the previous work (e.g. Claret, 1993; Cottrel, 1992; Neely & Bourne, 2000) that measurement an integral part of any change initiative is the weak link in the majority of cases studied.

With regard to the Police Force, City Council and Local Enterprise, although efforts to take up various organisational change programmes have seen to be high on the managements agenda, such change programmes have hardly been placed centre-stage, meaning that they have not been in place in an integrated manner and their cost effectiveness have not been examined (see Abrahamson et al., 2000; Kotter, 1998). Such approach to the take-up of change initiatives gives even greater cause for concern. One concern that has already been touched upon in public sector organisations (as well as privately-owned organisations) is the lack of a proper performance measurement of organisational change programmes. That is, using an integrated company-wide approach to measuring the outcome of change initiative seems to be ignored. Clearly, there seems little difference between the current and previous findings on the effectiveness of performance management tools. To elaborate on this point, while there is plenty of evidence (e.g. Neely & Bourne, 2000) to suggest a fairly increased use of various organizational measurement frameworks (e.g. BSC), it is claimed that 70% of such initiatives would fail. Even, over a decade ago, Cottrell (1992) and Claret (1993), on the basis of their findings come to the same conclusion, arguing that without this factual foundation, the initial enthusiasm of any change initiative will lack direction and fail to achieve results.

In addition to the problem with measuring the outcomes of change initiatives, the element of time was found to influence the effectiveness of organizational change initiatives. In effect, the majority of interviewees at both senior and middle levels noted that they have still been involved in developing some initiatives since several years ago. They therefore were unable in their attempt to fully implement such programmes, as shown in this quote: we are not in a stage to measure the outcomes of the initiatives in place. A middle manager also commented:

we started to implement BSC several years a go. It took us a lot of time to put it in place. It has been only from the start of this year that it has been a fully developed tool in our organisation.

Nonetheless, there is a great value in investing time and money in the take-up of change initiatives of the kinds taken up by the HE case. What clearly emerges is that the HE cases response is to stick close to the underlying ethos of change initiatives: to focus simultaneously on structures and systems and corporate culture (see Beer & Nohria, 2000).

Analysing the interviewees responses and other related evidence, some other factors were found to influence the differential pattern of take-up of initiatives among the case organisations. Managers at different levels, for example, talked in terms of:

the lack of resources to operationalise the change initiative strategy; of less tangible evidence on the take-up of the change initiatives on the well-being of the organisation mainly due to the lack of an integrated performance management system.

These findings are further supported by a Harvard Business School-sponsored survey of the impact of change initiatives among the Fortune 100 organisations: only 30 per cent produced an improvement in bottom-line (Pascale et al., 1997: 139). Later, Beer and Nohria (2000: 133) observed the practice of change initiatives by concluding that approximately 70 per cent of change initiatives fail. What clearly emerges is that the organization studied seem to be active in relation to change initiatives in recent years. What is less clear, however, is the ability of the initiatives taken to deliver their aims (Storey, 1995: 16). It remains the case, for example, that the public sector has a history of management fads/flavour of the change initiatives, namely EFQM, IiP, Chartermark etc so overworked and overburden staff and manager are inevitably cynical about the latest such initiatives when none of the others have been supported on a long-term basis (Wisniewski, 2005).

The above analysis of the practice of change initiatives shows that its reality can be in conflict with its rhetoric. In consequence, a major and growing concern which has developed out of the take-up of various change initiatives in the cases studied is that there is a major discrepancy between the rhetoric of change initiative and the reality of its practice. Further reflection on the cases studied as well as previous practice, suggests that there are a number of major flaws in the theory and practice of change initiatives which help to account for this state of affairs (Sisson, 1994:9). Further insights on each of the factors that hamper effective implementation of organizational change initiatives are to be gained in subsequent sections

Barriers to effective implementation of change initiatives

Fundamental flaws in the philosophy of change initiatives

A well known finding in the literature on organizational change initiatives is the existence of fundamental flaws in the philosophy of such initiatives. The conflicting epistemological precepts and implications for action embedded in the majority of change initiatives give an air of insubstantiality to the concept of change management generally (see Legge, 1995). Put simply, one epistemological problem is concerned with the change initiative bureaucracy. The implication of such problem, it is argued, is that it shifts too much responsibility down to the shop floor. That is, while the majority of change initiatives would argue a people-based management, their practice would argue a system-driven approach to the take-up of the initiatives (see Snape et al., 1995:43). Other problem stems from ambiguities in the (in)compatibility of various change initiatives. For example, quality initiatives, it is argued, are incompatible with more radical improvement approaches such as business process re-engineering (Slack, 1998:782-3). Another complication inherent in the philosophy of change initiatives is concerned with the context and its influence on implementation of any change initiatives thus lending support for a contingency approach to their implementation as opposed to a universal orientation. This, in turn, raises the question of whether the disappointment and dissatisfaction with the outcomes of change initiatives are due to conceptual flaws in the philosophy of change initiatives or implementation deficiencies. What it can be said is the fact that, some kind of balance is required between the change initiative and the organisational context. In short, the picture that the conflicting epistemological assumptions of various change initiatives present reveals a serious danger: confusion in understanding the real meaning of any change initiative may result in an inappropriate use of the change initiative that serves only to exploit workforce rather than to change the basic ways of thinking within the organization (Senge et al., 1999). As a result, the change initiative then might be seen as dysfunctional in that it can then detract from favourable outcomes for whole organisation.

Ineffective Communication

A close examination of the cases studied indicate that there are more important issues that hamper the change initiatives in the long-term. A usual barrier to change initiatives in the cases studied was the poor vertical and horizontal communication across the organisation. What it can be said is the fact that the ability of any change initiative to improve an organisations viability can be judged by existing an effective communication system throughout the organization. The implication of initiating organizational changes of any kind is very significant. It means that it presents both a management challenge and an infrastructure challenge to the organization. Similar empirical evidence across the UK also confirms that poor communication followed by an overload of information are making employees less efficient than their counterparts in Europe. This, in turn, will lead to low productivity (Thomas, 2005). As Oakland (1998: 307) has pointed out, an effective communication method for any change initiative should have two essential components: one is general information about the change programme; and the other is regular meetings between employees and managers/supervisors. Such communication system, Oakland argues, should include all conventional communication methods, namely seminars, departmental meetings, posters and newsletters. Nor is Oakland alone in suggesting the vital role of an effective communication system to the success of any change initiative. Schiemann (1989), for example, speaks of communication as an integral part of an effective organisational change programme. Crosby (1979) has addressed the supervisor training as the step eight of his fourteen steps of quality programme and states that all managers must understand each step well enough to explain it to their people. The proof of understanding is the ability to explain [or communicate] it (p. 137).

The essence of changing attitudes and consequently achieving personnel commitment is to gain acceptance through excellent communication processes (Oakland, 1998:318). The real benefit of such communication system is that it gets supervisors and employees in the habit of talking positively about the change programme; it aids the process of changing; it helps clarifying existing attitudes toward the change initiative; and it sets the basis for the corrective-action and error-cause-removal steps (see Crosby, 1979: 135). Oakland (1989), however, argues that this is possibly the most neglected part of many organisations operations, yet failure to communicate effectively creates unnecessary problems, resulting in confusion, loss of interest and eventually decline in the change initiative through apparent lack of guidance and stimulus (p. 307). Indeed more organization-wide and holistic approach to change management can be effective as long as employees at any organizational level understand the nature of the change initiative programme, its aims, and its benefits. All these can be fulfilled through an effective communication system.

Perhaps less surprisingly, the emphasis given to communicating the aims of change initiatives from the top management to all staff and employees was less observed in the majority of cases (see Oakland, 1998:307). One of the chief messages that emerged from the interviews with middle level managers, was the fact that that senior management team were uncertain about the strategic importance of the change initiatives in place. Except the case of HE, this was evidenced across the other three cases. It is worth quoting directly from the City Council case as one middle manager noted:

the reasons why these change initiatives are increasingly said to be dysfunctional relate to the low awareness of senior management of the nature of change programme, its contribution and what the outcome would be.

Such lack of direct communication from the top, in turn, has resulted in resistance to change and failure to gain acceptance for the need to change. Assuming this to be the case, the implication, as Oakland put it, is clear:

instead of order there is confusion, instead of progress there is stagnation, instead of success there is failure, resulting in frustration and a belief that change initiative programme is not the way forward to the cultural change necessary for continuous improvement (1998: 291).

The lack of continuous training

As a consequence of poor communication of any change initiative strategy, several other factors likely to prove particularly problematic with regard to adoption of organizational change programmes. The very clear example and a consequence of poor communication is the lack of continuous training to meet the requirements of a particular change programme. In generally all the published case studies of companies that have embarked upon any change initiative, training and development have been seen as an integral part of wider strategies aimed at the creation of new working practices and a better motivated, more self-reliant workforce (Ballin, 1986: 24 cited in Keep, 1995: 116)

Oakland (1998: 309) refers to training as the single most important factor in actually improving the organizational change programmes (e.g. TQM) and argues that it must be performed objectively, systematically and continuously in the form of a cycle of improvement. Central to this cycle of improvement is the fact that training must be part of the change initiative policy (p.310). A review of the UK and US writings on TQM initiatives, for example, gives the impression of a generally accepted view on employee training and development to be critical for its success ( e.g. Ballin, 1986: 24; Keep, 1995: 116; Oakland, 1998; Kanji, & Asher, 1993; Deming, 1986; Juran, 1989; Crosby, 1979; Saraph et al., 1989; Ahire et al., 1996; Powell, 1995). Despite the heavy emphasis placed on the training, recent research (e.g. Patton & Marlow, 2002; Gopal, 2005; Keep & Mayhew, 1997; Gallup Management Journal, 1998; Joyce et al., 1995) has served to underline the extreme poverty of both private and public sector organizations in this area, with levels of education of training that are very poor by international standards (Keep, 1995:118). Put simply, a review of literature on various organizational change initiatives gives the impression of a widening rift between the theory and practice of training: the organizations who take up changes of various kinds with less attention paid to education and training, and the academics who endlessly dissect the minutiae of the training and education programmes. Neither of any change initiative programmes, it is argued, can provide a competitive advantage to any organization unless training for quality is part of change initiative policy (Oakland, 1998).

In the wake up of the above evidence there has been a flurry of activity in this area, mainly centred on senior management with less attention to employees. In the cases studied, although a number of managers referred to workshops, disseminating the results and related documents to the lower and shop-floor employees, however, the presence of a well-developed training programme was not apparent. According to one senior manager,

the nature of our organization as opposed to manufacturing organizations does not require a huge amount of investment in training.

Or,

there is no any specific training course related to change initiatives in our organization.

Other middle manager stated,

in our organization, the training is delivered through personal development planning which focuses on more job- rather than change-related issues.

With respect to the HE case, there was clearly an extremely high mention by the interviewees of existing various training programmes in relation to both change initiatives and individuals development. More detailed analysis of the cases studied reveals a number of characteristics of the current state of training in the public sector organizations. A number of interviewees argued that they have got most of their training during their previous employment in other organizations; a lot of training courses were self-generated rather than being a requirements of initiating change programmes; some pursues academic education to reach the requirements for being a senior manager; due to the wide range of responsibilities, some public sector organisations invest a huge amount of money for job-related training as opposed to a prerequisite of the take-up of change initiative programmes. In line with previous research on the link between the take up of change initiatives and the organisation size (see Storey, 1995: 20), the evidence in the cases studied indicates that, although it has been generally assumed that an effective communication system as well as a continuous training programme are mainly problems of larger organizations, such problems, however, were evident in the case of small size organizations.There are also some final very significant points arising out of the interviewees responses of employee training course for change initiatives: they confirm what an increasing number of commentators have recognised, namely that staff training tends to depend on the manager who decides on the amount and type of training for staff; lower-level and shop-floor employees are looking forward to learning and developing rather than bigger room size or other facilities; the majority of training courses aim at organisational development as opposed to people development; employees are supposed to have training since this is part of staff appraisal system (see Sisson, 1994).

It is clear from the cases studied and other sources (Patton & Marlow, 2002) that education and training programmes for organizational change initiatives are not optimistic. There is an important implication here. Finally, there has been a general acknowledgement across all four cases that training could act as an important lever in prompting cultural changes. In fact, as evidence (e.g. Keep. 1995: 116) suggests, this has been the case within those companies that have been attempting to upgrade the importance attached to the workforces contribution to change initiative success..

Lack of top management commitment

Underpinning the philosophy of change initiatives are the twin ideas that senior management commitment is a prerequisite for their success, and so is the employee commitment and support. This perception of any change initiative concept appears to underline the majority of commentators (e.g. Deimng, 1986; Juran, 1989; Wilkinson et al., 1997; Dale & Cooper, 1994; Kanji Quality Culture, 2005; Hambrick et al., 1993; Carpenter et al., 2004; Kotter, 1999; Jackson, 2004; Lohrke et al., 2004) discussion of change initiatives, with their emphasis on a company-wide commitment to the change programme ranging from top to shop-floor employees. A close examination of the theory of change management shows that while it highlights the role of senior management, the reality is different. In terms of theory, change programme is being essentially a more central means of competitive advantage in that it is run by senior management; it concerns management in the achievement of business excellence; it expresses senior managements preferred organisational values. From this perspective, it is not surprising that some commentators (e.g. Deming, 1986; Juran, 1989; Mintzberg, 1999; Scholtes, 1998; Bennis, 1989, 1997; Bennis & OToole, 2000; Kanji, 1998; Dale & Cooper, 1994; Dale, 1999) identify the real difference between an organisation-wide change initiative (e.g. TQM) and other change programmes as not what it is but who is managing it. According to Kanjis leadership excellence model (KLEM), adoption of an organisation-wide change initiative such as TQM requires the top management (Kanji quality culture, 2005):

To define a mission, vision and goals that promote a quality culture, to establish a set of shared values, to define a Quality strategy, to better co-ordinate the use of resources in order to improve financial performance, to establish goals and systems to enhance customer satisfaction, to establish effective information systems and to use objective data in the decision process, to promote the development of the human resources, investing on training and education and to recognise quality achievements, and to communicate, define and motivate continuous improvement.

Despite such emphasis on the managing change initiatives in theory, a significant proportion of middle-level managers, has been concerned with low participation and commitment of senior management team. The analysis of the cases studied indicates generally low attention to organisational change programmes by the senior management (Keep, 1995). In the majority of interviews with senior management, they failed to provide strong evidence of their blank commitment to organizational change initiatives. As a middle-level manager commented:

From my experience of change initiatives in public sector organisations I should say that the senior management team have not been through and visibly involved.

This, coupled with concerns about very defensive approach of some managers to delegate authority to lower-level managers and employees, and to their own budget and staff as opposed to release control to allow the resources to be managed in a cross-functional way has raised another concern: there may be a tendency that the current management try to back up the well-being of their own department or division rather than organisational well-being (Sisson, 1994: 7). In the case of Police Force, for example, a senior manager replied this way:

although in the case of some public sector organisations there is a very command-and-control approach management, but ideally to trust people could lead to higher and better service delivery.

The HE case shows that while the organisation has taken up various initiatives, they also tried to introduce innovative techniques to allow the employees to take up the ownership of the change programme. In fact, the HE case evidence reveals some association between the effectiveness of any change programme and the incidence of such technique as employee participation. The analysis of the remaining cases, however, shows that the current management seem to be unconcerned about receptiveness to change, willingness to enable people to do things right the first time, embracing change initiatives, and identifying trust. They are, moreover, concerned with tackling financial and political barriers.

There is an important implication here. The public sector organisations of any size might take up organisational change initiatives that carry with them no opportunity for better service delivery. The fact that such situations towards the take-up of change initiatives held by a significant proportion of public sector organisations, it can be argued, reflects a number of deep-seated factors that impede the widespread adoption of change initiatives. This issue well summed up by one of the senior managers from City Council in the following comment:

A change initiative which you think has been the best in private sector organisations might come up against a political organisation. Because it is not something that the party and its administration are seeking to achieve or are interested in pursuing.

Added to these barriers, there has been a general acknowledgement that, in the words of one senior manager,

My general impression of the management of public sector organisations is that there has been a very traditional approach to managing organisation. That is, once you get to the top you do not want to lose the position.

In the view of the importance of many of these barriers to change initiatives, it is perhaps surprising that the management of HE case - also consistent with a participant from City Council believed that an effective manager will overcome such problems.

Despite insufficient resources and other associated barriers, it is the top management, who can make most use of them.

This is partly due to the management responsibility for the availability of resources and funds and specifically the overall implementation approach (see, Latino, 1999; Shin et al., 1998; Hansson et al., 2003). Significantly change initiatives programmes are all aimed not at shop-floor employees but at the top executives as the drive towards business excellence.

Despite the immense interest of the take-up of various organisational change programmes on the part of the government (see Modernising Government, 1999), a great deal of evidence suggests that senior management team may not yet have accepted the vital importance of organization-wide changes to providing high quality public services (see Keep, 1995). This, in turn, may be contrasted with the key commitment of the modernizing government: We will deliver efficient, high quality public services and will not tolerate mediocrity (Executive Summary, p.2).

Lack of employee commitment

Employee commitment in the cases studied was seen to be a function of senior management commitment. The overall view of the managers we interviewed appears to be optimistic, indicating that the staff commitment is high. Specifically, a number of middle-level managers have advocated that to achieve employee commitment requires sufficient number of champions among senior management team. In the case of HE, for example, a senior manager argued that:

The take-up of any change initiative is only the beginning of the journey towards business excellence. Later, it requires a full support through an organisation-wide commitment.

The evidence by HE case in particular and the remaining cases in general might help to confirm the assumption that the organisational researchers have so far made about the correlation between organisational commitment and organisational well-being. That is, the variability in the outcomes of various organisational change initiatives can be explained by the extent to which an organisation-wide commitment is present (see Kinnie, 1995). Indeed, in the cases studied, the management teams we interviewed agreed that the success of organisational change programme is required not only the support of senior management but also the support of employees. This is referred to mutual commitment. Such employees supportive role, it is argued, could be fulfilled by human resource management (HRM) techniques such training and development programmes and remuneration and rewards (Kinnie, 1995:146). The lack of such support, however, could be seen as a sign of poor management which in turn could lead to disillusioned and demotivated employees.

There also appears to be a conflict between the views of senior and middle managers towards each other. The views of the two managerial levels put forward in the cases studied except the case of HE appear to be pessimistic. While middle managers criticism of senior management was concerned on their low commitment and involvement, the majority of senior management we interviewed believed that middle-level management might negatively affect employee commitment either. Newall and Dale (1991), for example, confirmed that the majority of problems are usually within the middle strata, and cited one cause as the erroneous belief that nothing is wrong with the current system and management. In a similar vein, Cox (1990) has pointed out that a middle management mafia often sabotages a large portion of genuine worker initiative and innovation because it is not convinced that TQM is worthwhile pursuit (cited in Whalen & Rahim, 1994:21-2).

The picture these evidence present reveals a contradiction between middle and senior managers. The findings place value on an organisation-wide commitment among various managerial levels. This, in turn, will allow us to suggest not only that there ought to be a link between top management and employee commitment, but that between top and middle management (see Purcell, 1995: 64). To this end, there is clear, unambiguous evidence from previous surveys that the presence of a proper training programme for each individual employee top to shop floor makes a considerable difference to resolving the tension among different organisational beneficiaries. Such training system would help management to allow users to implement any change initiatives, to interpret and analyse the information produced by these systems, to enable them to cope with their change relationships with their superiors and subordinates (Kinnie, 1995:147).

But at the same time there is a parallel emphasis on employee commitment to organisational change initiatives as an organic entity that actually execute the activities during the implementation. As already discussed, however, while the change initiatives advocates see them empowering the employees by delegating responsibility to those actually carrying out the job, employees willingness to adopt the initiatives can be affected negatively for various reasons: fear of losing jobs (Hardwick & Winsor, 2001), status affected (McAdam & McGeough, 2000), negative experiences of earlier problematic change projects (Bardoel & Sohal, 1999; Dale et al., 1997; Hardwick & Winsor, 2002), stressful work conditions and lack of in-depth knowledge of the change initiative implementation and its associated techniques (Shin et al., 1998; Bardoel & Sohal, 1999). The clear implication from this is (Snape et al., 1995:42):

the notion of reciprocal commitment, with the organisation meeting the individuals needs for job satisfaction and self-actualisation, and receiving commitment to organisational goals in return .

6. Summary and Conclusions

The research has helped to case light on the place of organisational change initiatives in public sector organisations. A case study approach was chosen, given that there is a relative dearth of evidence regarding the take-up of change initiatives is governmental-funded organisations as well as their outcomes. Overall, the findings support the prior research, in particular earlier findings in private sector organisations (Neely & Bourne, 2000; Beer & Nohria, 2000:133; Pascale et al., 1997:139; Soltani, 2004; Schiemann, 1992) that change initiatives seem to have had little or no impact on the cost reduction of the public sector organisations in the decade or so in which the thinking associated with the concept of change management has been so pervasive. At the same time and similar to the Waldman et al.s (1998) study, these findings suggest an inextricable link between the effectiveness of change initiatives and top management commitment. Put simply, top management commitment is central to the effectiveness of change initiatives for several reasons, namely it promises as in the case of HE higher performance (Guest, 1995) with the possible consequence of low mobility of management team (see Deming, 1986). In short,

Proposition 1. High and continuous commitment of top management will lead to higher effectiveness of change initiative programmes.

Other related argument here highlights the proposition made by Reichers et al. (1997) that individual have grown cynical about organisational change strategies for a variety of reasons. To elaborate on this point, while there is plenty of evidence to suggest initial enthusiasm of management to the take-up of various organisational change strategies, such initial excitement will soon be replaced by other priorities or day-to-day pressures, with the consequence of wavering commitment with little return on investment. Here the implications are clear: a knee-jerk reaction is undertaken by management whereby the initiative is cancelled or put on hold; the current management team are replaced; the new team either disapprove the original change strategy or the new team desire to initiate their own pet initiative(s) (Waldman et al., 1998: 196; Shadur, 1995). Waldman and colleagues, on the basis of this argument, comes to the conclusion that : a pessimistic viewpoint accrues with regard to new initiatives because leaders are seen as either lacking personal commitment, incompetent, or both (1998:196). Put simply,

Proposition 2. The extent to which non-managers employees are committed and supportive to the new change initiatives will be closely correlated to the degree of top management commitment i.e. the notion of reciprocal commitment.Continuing mutual commitment does not imply that if it exits, it will result in a successful implementation of change initiatives with the consequence of meeting the needs of both organisation and employees. Perhaps of equal importance is that if the change initiative is seen to be effective, covers both levels of individual and organization, one final question remains and this relates to the degree of integration of the change programme towards addressing all aspects of the organisational context. Despite the host of examples of the take-up of various organizational change programmes, however, there is still almost no hard evidence available about the extent to which organizations have in fact managed to interlink these in a mutually supportive way though many organizations have certainly embraced the idea as a priority aspiration (Storey, 1995:9-10). As a result it can be proposed that,

Proposition 3. The higher the integration of a change programme towards fulfilling various organisational beneficiaries, the stronger the reciprocal commitment of management and employees devoted to the change programme.

Except the case of HE, as shown in the remaining cases, the low commitment of senior management team may ultimately lead to roadblocks in the way of shop-floor employees. This was also evident in the case of HE in that managers found their commitment central to the highly motivated workforce. In contrast and in line with previous research (see Deming, 1986; Marchington et al., 1992; Wilkinson et al., 1993; Schuler & Harris, 1992), at the other three cases, the evidence highlighted the difficulties of winning employee commitment to change initiatives. One reason for such difficulty is that traditional working practices and management styles may be inconsistent with the new initiatives, with the consequence of employees resistance (see Snape et al.,1995). For example, in the case of City Council there was a pessimistic view with regard to the practice of current management in public-funded organisations because of managements traditional approach to managing new change initiatives. Overall, the evidence here revealed that the practice of management was largely inconsistent with the requirements of the change initiatives. In sum, it can be proposed that,

Proposition 4. The effectiveness of change initiatives will be higher in organisation which their management practices are consistent with the requirements of the change programmes.

While the importance of top management commitment to the success of any change programme has been considered previously in the literature, the headline finding was the lesser extent to which the cases studied had taken up the modern change initiatives i.e. Balanced Scorecard, Benchmarking, Continuous Improvement, Cultural Change, Employee Involvement to name just a few. With the exception of HE case, this was evidenced across the remaining three cases. Although, in some cases the interviewees claimed that they have had a number of new change initiatives in place (e.g. the City Council case), such initiatives, however, appeared to be under developed. As a consequence, the evidence provided little information about their real impact on the improvement of service delivery. To a greater extent, this could confirm the rhetoric nature as opposed to its reality of change initiatives in the public sector organisations. Clearly, the limited evidence on this issue and hence the outcomes of change initiatives in other public sector organizations is therefore open to question. As we have seen in the case of HE, it would be in the interest of public sector organisations to take-up organisation-wide change initiatives as a coherent means of maximising public satisfaction and developing organisational capabilities (Beer & Nohria, 2000) that paves the ways to achieving competitive advantage (Legge, 1995). In formal terms,

Proposition 5. The more organisation-wide the change initiatives, the higher quality service of public sector organisations will be.

A significant proportion of the literature on organisational change initiatives has been highlighted the centrality of training to the practice of change programmes. In the case of HE, for example, training has been regarded as an investment. Specifically, the HE case appeared to have progressed some way towards successfully implementing its change initiatives through a well-designed training system. This training system, in turn, was integrated into the organisational change strategies (see Keep, 1995: 113). However, what was found to be happening in the remaining cases was that the take-up of change initiatives has rarely involved intensive training courses towards radical skill enhancement of both managers and employees (see Legge, 1995). Some organisations (e.g. City Council) attempted moves towards running training courses particularly and change initiatives generally have apparently come unstuck through internal resistance from the top referred to as political barriers by the interviewees. The findings are also consistent with previous evidence (e.g. Manpower Services Commission, 1985; OMahony & de Boer, 2002) that indicate generally low average per capita spending on training development by British companies (see Keep, 1995: 117). Therefore,

Proposition 6. Continuous training programmes will lead to effective communication of change initiatives aims and philosophy, especially when they are integrated into wider organisational change strategy.

With regard to the implications for future research and one that might be a limitation of this research, longitudinal would be a more fruitful research approach. What, then, is required is a detailed study of the effects and effectiveness of various change programmes taken up by the public sector organizations within the last two decades. Much more importantly, there is also a need to examine and compare the present government change initiatives with those introduced by the previous government to see their similarities, differences, effectiveness and their impact on the public satisfaction. Differences and similarities that were found in this research among the various managerial levels, suggest that an additional avenue for future research would be to focus on policy makers to see the degree of their commitment to follow up the practice of change initiatives that they introduced. Put simply, factors that appear to hamper change initiatives in the cases studied may have no justification from policy Makers viewpoints.

We believe that the results of the study highlighted the potential contribution as in the case of HE that the take up of change initiatives might make towards the achievements of long-term programme of reform of the government. However, as the evidence showed, these opportunities will not always been taken up, largely because of inadequate support from top management, poor communication systems, lack of continuous training programmes to name just a few. As a result of such findings, one implication for practice is that managers and non-manager employees need to be trained, motivated if they are to take on fully their new responsibilities and accountabilities. As Kinnie put it, in the absence of this it is highly likely that these new change initiatives will not be fully realised (1995:152).

Acknowledgments: The empirical research upon which this paper is based was funded by ESRC award number PTA-026-27-0622.

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