Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of Two Aboriginal Organizations

Abstract

This paper describes two Canadian aboriginal organizations which have attempted a second-order change, a transformation of their belief system, to make their organizations operate in a manner consistent with traditional aboriginal beliefs, values, and customs. One organization completed a successful change, the other organization's change process was abandoned after 2 years. The process of organizational change followed by the two organizations illustrates the link between interpretive schemes, organizational actions, and organizational structures. The process which focused primarily on the link between the aboriginally-based interpretive scheme and actions proved more effective than the process that linked the structure and the interpretative scheme. For the successful organization, the process of organizational transformation was shown to be incremental, iterative, multifaceted and required a lengthy period of time to complete. During the early stages of process of change, both old and new interpretative schemes were present within the organization. The process of organizational change then became a dialectic involving the old and the new. As a critical mass of people began to adopt the new interpretative scheme, the dialectic focused on different ways of implementing the new scheme. Leaders, critical to the process, had two essential tasks: enabling or permitting the presentation of new interpretative schemes and keeping the dialectic going for a sufficient period of time to ensure the emergence of a interpretative scheme shared by a critical mass of organizational members.

The future trip: a story of transformational change

“…7 of leadership must be balanced by other aspects, it seems to be of high importance in transformational change because it must engage and include all members of the organization (Amis et al, 2004;Kezar and Eckel, 2002;Newhouse and Chapman, 1996;Pettigrew, 1987).…”

“…The role of the leader is often mentioned as critical for successful change (Kezar and Eckel, 2002;Newhouse and Chapman, 1996). In an article on transformational change in higher education institutions, Kezar and Eckel (2002) contended that senior administrative support, collaborative leadership, vision, and design were all strategies related to transformational change.…”

Organizational Transformation

“…• Poor financial performance (Alexander et al, 1996a(Alexander et al, , 1996bHarrison & Kimani, 2009;Kitchener, 1998;Stebbins et al, 1998) • Poor financial performance (Barker & Mone, 1998;Bernasconi, 2005;Clark & Soulsby, 2007;Craig, 1996;Cule & Robey, 2004;de Holan & Phillips, 2002;Dunphy & Stace, 1993;Huy, 2002;Kezar & Eckel, 2002;Lant et al, 1992;Pettigrew, 1987;Wischnevsky & Damanpour, 2008) • Restricted access to services (Oliver, 2007) • Poor productivity (Dixon et al, 2007) • Poor service quality (Oliver, 2007) • Poor efficiency (Bernasconi, 2005) • Employee strikes (Voss & Sherman, 2000) • Mismanagement (Voss & Sherman, 2000) Interest dissatisfaction • Dissatisfaction with status quo (Harrison & Kimani, 2009;Kitchener, 1998;McNulty & Ferlie, 2004;Oliver, 2007) • Dissatisfaction with status quo (Newhouse & Chapman, 1996;Siggelkow, 2001) • Perceived need for change (Harrison & Kimani, 2009;Kitchener, 1998;Young, 2000) • Perceived need for change (Ciborra, 1996;Clark & Soulsby, 2007;Cousens, 1997;Cr...…”

Adaptation, transformation et stratégie radicale de changement

“…La théorie du chaos (Lichtenstein, 1997;Weick et Quinn, 1999) n'attire-t-elle pas l'attention sur le fait que de petites modifications peuvent entraîner des changements d'envergure considérable, imprévisibles au départ, et des interventions majeures se solder par peu de changement? En outre, il existe des études de cas montrant que des organisations se sont transformées sous l'effet de plusieurs changements vécus sur une longue période (Claveau, Martinet et Tannery, 1998;Fridenson, 1998;Newhouse et Chapman, 1996). Dès lors, avec Greenwood et Hinings (1996), il y a lieu de reconnaître que la transformation peut survenir selon l'une ou l'autre de deux grandes modalités : l'une évolutive qui se veut assez longue et l'autre révolution-naire qui est rapide et abrupte.…”