Fast Cultural Change : The Role and Influence of Middle Management

Organizational change is still an issue of high importance for organizations, yet many change initiatives fail. These failures are often attributed to a lack of consideration of existing organizational culture. This book explores ways to undertake cultural change within a shorter time span without losing sight of complexity and sustainability. Organisational change is an issue of high importance for organisations. However, many change initiatives still fail. These failures are often attributed to a lack of consideration for the existing organisational culture. In addition, organisations often seem to regard the work on organisational culture as something to be undertaken during times of well-being and as incentives to keep the engagement on a high level. Literature often states that cultural changes in organisations need at least seven years and longer. The work on culture change, therefore, is often disregarded. However, this cannot be the solution and, so, organisations invest important leverages for successful change. The role and influence of middle management on organisational culture change still seem to need researching. Fast Cultural Change explores ways to undertake organisational cultural change within a shorter time span without losing sight of complexity and sustainability Cover 1 Half-Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 12 Preface 13 Acknowledgements 15 1 Introduction: Research Background 16 1.1 Practical relevance 16 1.2 Relevance for research 18 1.3 Research question and objectives 18 2 Changing Organisational Culture: A Review of the Literature 20 2.1 Introduction 20 2.2 Organisational culture: the difficulties of a definition 22 2.2.1 Organisational culture: the definition 24 2.2.2 The functionalist perspective to organisational culture or culture as a variable 29 2.2.3 Organisational culture as a metaphor 31 2.2.4 The has and is debate in organisational culture research 34 2.2.5 Organisational culture as a dynamic process 35 2.3 Managing the cultural change 40 2.3.1 Why change an organisational culture? 41 2.3.2 Models of cultural change and the reality in organisations 43 2.4 Organisational change from a middle-management perspective 54 2.4.1 Leadership versus management 56 2.4.2 The role and tasks of the middle manager 59 2.4.3 The current state of research with a middle-management perspective 62 2.4.4 Middle management and cultural change: hindrance or facilitator? 65 2.5 Summary and research aims and objectives 72 3 Methodology and Overall Research Design 76 3.1 Epistemological and ontological underpinnings 76 3.1.1 Rigour, relevance and critical realism 82 3.2 The researcher between the academic and the practical world 85 3.3 Action research as the appropriate strategy 88 3.3.1 Foundations of action research 89 3.3.2 The action-research cycles 91 3.3.3 Two action-research cycles: the core and the research cycles 93 3.4 Rigour and relevance in action research 95 3.5 Action research and ethics 100 3.5.1 Consultancy, research, power and ethics 103 3.6 Summary and justification of methodology 106 4 Consultancy and Research at German Real Estate 107 4.1 The story of German Real Estate 108 4.2 Overall design 110 4.3 Preliminary stage 111 4.3.1 Semi-structured interviews as expert interviews 115 4.3.2 Workshop with the board (workshop I) 116 4.4 Main investigation: Cycles I and II 117 4.4.1 AR Cycle I 117 4.4.2 Staff Survey I 123 4.4.3 AR Cycle II 127 4.5 Closing stage: AR Cycle III 129 4.5.1 Staff Survey II 130 4.5.2 Closing of AR Cycle III 131 4.6 Summary 131 5 The Research Cycles – Collecting and Analysing Data 134 5.1 Preliminary stage 135 5.1.1 Semi-structured interviews as expert interviews 135 5.1.2 Workshop I 146 5.2 Main investigation: Cycles I and II 152 5.2.1 Research Cycle I 153 5.2.2 Research Cycle II 164 5.3 Closing stage: Research Cycle III 165 5.3.1 Staff Survey II, section 1 165 5.3.2 Staff Survey II, section 2 168 5.4 Summary 174 6 Findings 176 6.1 The analysis of the qualitative data 177 6.2 The analysis of quantitative data 184 6.2.1 Reliability of staff surveys 2010 and 2011 (section 1) 186 6.2.2 Significance tests 186 6.3 Consolidation of qualitative and quantitative data according to the research objectives 195 6.3.1 Organisational culture change at German Real Estate 195 6.3.2 The importance and influence of middle management during the cultural change 204 6.3.3 The roles of middle management during organisational culture change 207 6.3.4 Cultural activities of middle management with regard to their importance and influence 212 6.4 Summary 216 7 Overall Conclusion and Recommendations 217 7.1 Overall conclusion 217 7.2 Limitations of this study 219 7.3 Recommendations 222 7.4 Recommendations for future research 223 7.5 Final remark 224 Appendices 226 References 245 Index 263 Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction: Research Background....Pages 1-4 Changing Organisational Culture: A Review of the Literature....Pages 5-60 Methodology and Overall Research Design....Pages 61-91 Consultancy and Research at German Real Estate....Pages 92-118 The Research Cycles — Collecting and Analysing Data....Pages 119-160 Findings....Pages 161-201 Overall Conclusion and Recommendations....Pages 202-210 Back Matter....Pages 211-256