Changing Organizational Culture

viii Contents Cultural change: preceding, following from or intertwined with ‘substantive changes’? 47 Conclusions 49

PART 2

Contents

Change work in practice – a close-up study

4 The case – and how we studied it The company and its story 53 Investigative model of management and cultural work 55 Method 57 x xi xiii 5 A cultural change project I: background, objectives and design 60

51

53

List of figures List of tables Preface

PART 1

Perspectives on organizational and cultural change

3

1

Some key actors in our story 61 I Background – talk of an existing culture 63 II Objectives: ideas behind and aims for a culture change project 66 III Designing a change project 69 Summary 77 6 A cultural change project II: implementation, reception and outcomes IV Implementation and interaction 79 V Reception and interpretation 90 VI Results 92 Summary – and questions 96

PART 3

1 Introduction

Understanding organizational change 4 Studying change in depth 7 The purpose of the book 9 The structure of the book 10 13

79

2 Organizational change

Crucial issues in cultural change work

7 ‘It is not so damn easy’ – lack of consistency and expressiveness in cultural change work

97

Forces of organizational change 14 Views on organizational change 15 The planning approach 19 The planning approach – a critique 26 The process approach 27 Resistance 31 Conclusions 33 35

99

3 Organizational culture and change

What is organizational culture? 36 Sub-cultures and identity 38 Organizational cultural change 40 Views of organizational culture change 44

Immobilized engagement – on the difficulties in getting the process moving 99 Key dimensions behind the problems I: coordination and prioritization 101 Key dimensions behind the problems II: on symbolism, emotionality and expressiveness 104 Discussion – a challenge that vanished 105 Summary 108

Contents ix 109

8 Disconnected work: cultural change efforts decoupled

From Excellence to HR –...