Description
Public sector organizations, worldwide, are currently in the process of dramatic transformation. Organizations in the (semi-) public sector are recently confronted by severe challenges to their existence and performance. The current financial-economic crisis forces governments, worldwide, to cut-down public sector expenditures dramatically. In conjunction with the planned budget-cuts, governments formulate large-scale reforms in many domains of the (semi-) public sector, such as health care, education, defense, police and security, social policy, or culture. Hence, organizations in the (semi-) public sector will be soon forced to adapt their strategies, goals, and primary processes.
Major changes in the public sector often take place simultaneously at various levels of the multi-level system of public sector management: at the top-level of political-administrative management, within networks of inter-organizational collaboration, and within public sector organizations themselves. The underlying motivation of most reorganization activities in the public sector is to increase performance and efficiency. However, the planned change approaches most often neglect unintended, negative consequences of these changes in the rule-making system of the organizations (producing red tape) and in the service-delivery system of employees (producing resistance to the organizational change).
The course “Organizational change: Resistance and red tape” zooms in on processes of organizational change within public sector organizations, such as (networks of) administrations, departments, and providers of (semi-)public services—such as the police, housing corporations, schools and universities, or youth care institutions. The focus of the course is on two key processes within organizations that are often associated with organizational change and reorganizations:
(a) resistance to organizational change among employees, and
(b) the creation of red tape induced by the new rules, regulations, and procedures that are produced by the organizational change. Both processes are dysfunctional to public sector organizations, because they could severely impede the proper functioning of professionals and the quality of services delivered. Hence, employee resistance and the creation of red tape could backfire on the original goals intentions of the change itself.
The course “Organizational change: Resistance and red tape” has a specific place in the master “Comparative Public Management” because in this course the focus is on transformation processes within organizations.
Course objectives
An important, overall learning goal is to prepare students for the academic reading in the Master´s thesis phase, and prepare students for designing an organizational study that could be relevant in that stage or in their prospective career. After this course, students are able to:
1. Reflect on the main approaches in the academic literature on organizational change;
Origins and causes of organizational change;
Explanations for the process of organizational change over time;
Provide a clear and consistent summary of an empirical study into organizational change, and discuss how that study fits into one of the main approaches;
Reflect on (a) the origins, mechanisms, and consequences of the dysfunctional process of employee resistance to organizational change, and (b) interventions to mitigate employee resistance;
Reflect on (a) the origins, mechanisms, and consequences of the dysfunctional process of red tape in (public) organizations; (b) interventions to mitigate red tape;
Develop a research design to:
Study the causes and mechanisms that drive the occurrence of red tape within a specific organization,
Implement management instruments that deal with red tape
- Report on the research design and / or the implementation of the management instruments both in a presentation and a written proposal.
Timetable
Friday 8/2/2013 t/m 22/3/2013 from 9-12 hrs in room A0.01 Schouwburgstraat
Mode of instruction
To be announced
Assessment method
Active participation in class readings and discussion;
A brief oral presentation for an “adopted” organization on the basis of the academic literature;
One individual assignment (weight 40 percent) on resistance to organizational change.
One joint paper (written by maximally two students; weight 60 percent) on a research design for a red tape study.
Reading list/Literature
This book will not be used for this academic year : Demers, Christiane. 2008. Organizational change theories: A synthesis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. 296 pp. (ISBN 978-0-7619-2932-1).
Instead, this book will be used: Pfeffer, J., Salancik, G.R.; The External Control Of Organizations, Stanford University Press, ISBN10:080474789X, ISBN13:9780804747899
Bozeman, Barry, and Mary K. Feeney. 2011. Rules and red tape: A prism for public administration theory and research. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. 207 pp. (ISBN 978-0-7656-2335-5).
Articles will be announced via Blackboard.
Blackboard
Instructor uses Blackboard. This page is available.
Registration
Via USIS
Contact information
Remarks / Preparation for first session
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