- Title
- Exploring and integrating perspectives on organisational change: examining the design and implementation process of a human resource information system in a public sector organisation
- Creator
- Priyantoro, Arief
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2023
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor in Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Organisational change is ubiquitous and impactful for those planning, implementing or affected by it. The research literature exploring organisational change is vast but often unsatisfactory because it fails to disentangle the complexity of the change process, generating only partial or contradictory explanations. An important reason for this failure is that different theories of change are narrowly based, providing a ‘lens’ on only some aspects of change, while rejecting the validity of, or simply ignoring, others. This thesis explores the possibility of a more integrated approach. It uses Van de Ven and Poole’s (1995) influential typology characterising different approaches to change to inform the choice of three theories of change: Kotter’s model of change (originally 1995), representing teleological theories of change; strategic negotiations theory (Walton, McKersie and Cutcher-Gersherfeld, 1994), representing dialectical theories of change; and punctuated equilibrium theory (by various scholars including Gould, 2007, and Tushman and Romanelli, 1985), representing evolutionary theories of change. Put simply, these three theories and the approaches they represent address the questions of how, respectively, organisational objectives, stakeholders’ interests and the external environment influence the organisational change process. Following a critical analysis of their strengths and limitations, the theories are applied individually to the empirical data. The results and insights are then compared to explore the potential for integration. This research is qualitative, in the form of case studies and a cross-case analysis. The design is unusual. Rather than conducting case studies in three different empirical domains to generate insights in relation to a single theory, this research investigates a common empirical domain using three different theories. The common empirical domain is the design and implementation of an HRIS in a large public sector organisation in Indonesia, in the period 2005-2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 34 informants, and relevant documents were collected, to explore the change process from various perspectives. The analytical techniques used included pattern-matching, chronological analysis, and drawing analysis (where the researcher sought to understand the processes at work by developing diagrammatic representations). Cross-case analysis used these same analytical techniques, strengthened by others specifically suited to theoretical integration, such as broad scholarship and reflective critique. The findings of the three case studies demonstrate that each theory has clear strengths and can partly explain the phenomenon. Each focuses on particular aspects of change, based on assumptions about what will explain or predict the change process. But each theory also has blind spots. Cross-case analysis shows how the three separate approaches can be seen as complementary, in that the strengths of one can be used to address the weaknesses of others. In this way, adopting a multi-theoretical approach can help researchers to develop a broader interpretive repertoire and thereby better understand the complexities of organisational change. Important insights are generated about the common contribution of learning across approaches, and the value of switching between prescriptive and descriptive approaches. A more complete integration of the three theoretical approaches, however, is challenging, primarily because of their different underlying assumptions. In particular, integrating theories with different frames of reference (especially unitarist versus pluralist) is difficult. Beyond these theoretical contributions and the novel empirical domain in which the research is conducted, the findings also provide some guidance for practitioners – especially those in the public sector – as they enact planned organisational change and respond to emerging change.
- Subject
- organizational change; integrating perspective; HRIS development; public sector
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1471558
- Identifier
- uon:48698
- Rights
- Copyright 2023 Arief Priyantoro
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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