Browsing by Subject "Organizational change"
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Item Case study of the regional resource center program: a study of organizational change(2013-11) Hawes, Maureen ElizabethThe purpose of this study was to examine the policy, social, and behavioral dynamics of how the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) funded Regional Resource Centers (RRCs) evolved from individual centers into a national RRC Program. A critical instance study was used to examine the dynamics of how the RRCs have evolved into the national RRC Program, reflecting on policy context which led to the formation of the national Program, the challenges encountered, those that remain and the prospects of institutionalizing organizational change for the future. The investigation incorporated concepts related to Lewin's (1951) traditional perspective of organizational change as contemporary views incorporating Social Identity Theory (SIT). The case study approach used in this investigation involved data collection and analytic methods which encompass aspects of traditional change theory via a Force Field Analysis (FFA), while the method used to capture the more affective components of change was the Organizational Change Recipients' Beliefs Scale (Armenakis et al. 2011). Select staff interviews were also conducted in order to gather more qualitative data to better understand the underpinnings of the change process.This case study revealed a number of common driving and restraining forces that impact the organization's ability to establish equilibrium and move beyond a phase of transition. The convergence of data sources confirmed the identification of driving and restraining forces, which included the Program structure, trust, evaluation, and governance. Five major themes emerged from staff interviews that support the identification of a number of driving and restraining forces. The themes include: importance of relationship building, the role of communication in development of the organization, alignment of Program and state work, RRCP structure and its impact on organizational growth, and professional development. Findings also confirm the current status of the RRCP with regard to organizational socialization, role conflict and resolution, and intergroup relations.Item Insecure commitment and resistance: an examination of change leadership, self-efficacy, and trust on the relationship between job insecurity, employee commitment, and resistance to organizational change(2013-09) Smith, Robert ElijahThis study was designed to examine the mediation role of self-efficacy and the moderating roles of change leadership strategy and trust on the change attitudes of job insecure employees. Using job insecurity theory (Greenhalgh, 1983), Chin & Benne's (1961) seminal classification of change leadership strategies and the tripartite model of attitudes (Breckler, 1984; McDougal, 1909) as a theoretical basis, data were collected from two samples of employees including a manufacturing firm (n=275) and a retail company (n= 350). The samples and study hypotheses were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis.As predicted, job insecurity was directly positively related to affective, behavioral, and cognitive resistance to change and self-efficacy partially or fully mediated the relationships. Mixed results were found for the role of trust as well as information and participation-based change leadership strategies in moderating employee resistance to change. In some cases perceived information-based and participation change leadership approaches were associated with increased resistance rather than decreased resistance to change. Power-based change leadership strategies however were found to be consistently associated with more pessimistic employee attitudes. Results support previous findings showing that individuals who believe they will be negatively impacted by organizational change are particularly sensitive to change leadership approaches. The results also suggest that commonly prescribed change leadership strategies such as increased information, communication, and participation during periods of heightened job insecurity may not always be effective in reducing resistance to change but efforts to increase employee self-efficacy may support the coping mechanism employees use to reduce resistance to change attitudes in organizational change climates with moderate levels of job insecurity.Item A retrospective case study of long-term evaluation capacity building at neighborhood house(2013-09) Anderson, Kirsten LynnThis thesis provides a case study of how evaluation capacity has been built at one mid-size social service non-profit organization over the last eleven years. Through reviewing documents and conducting interviews with current and past staff of Neighborhood House in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author determined the facilitators and barriers to successful evaluation capacity building as well as the indicators and outcomes of successful ECB work in this context. The thesis presents a model, in logic model format, for how ECB has worked at Neighborhood House. The lessons learned over eleven years of sustained ECB work should prove useful to evaluators and ECB practitioners doing similar work.