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This research highlights the scenarios that might serve as a strategic vision to describe a future beyond the current library, one which both guides provosts and creates a map for the transformation of human resources and technology in the university research libraries. The scenarios offer managerial leaders an opportunity to envision new roles for librarians and staff which brings a much needed focus on the development of human resources as well as a thought-stream to understand decisions which effectively and systematically move the organization toward a strategic vision.

These scenarios also outline possible future directions research libraries could take by focusing on perspectives from library directors, provosts, and administrators for human resources. The four case study scenarios introduce potential future roles for librarians and highlight the unsustainability of the current scholarly communications model as well as uncertain factors related to the political, social, technical, and demographic issues facing campuses. Given the changes institutions face, scenarios allow directors to include more uncertainty when developing and articulating a vision. These scenarios may start a discussion, before a strategic planning process, to sharpen the evaluations and measures necessary to monitor achievements that define the value of the library.

In some organizations action is taken to stimulate creativity and innovation. The right steps may have been taken, such as involving employees in decision making, recruiting and appointing employees who evidence characteristics of creativity, setting standards for work performance and giving regular feedback, yet creativity and innovation are hampered in some way. The culture of an organization may be a factor contributing to the extent to which creativity and innovation occur in an organization (Johnson, 1996; Judge et al., 1997; Pienaar, 1994; Shaughnessy, 1988; Tesluk et al., 1997; Tushman & O’Reilly, 1997 in Martins & Terblanche, 2003). The current organizational culture and the demands of creativity and innovation may lead to a conflict situation.

The study aims to explain the process of management accounting practices and organizational change aspects in the public sector’s response to environmental pressures. Specifically, it discusses the interaction process between management accounting practices from one side and culture, leadership and decentralization from the other side.

This study adopts qualitative research approach and an interpretive case study. The study uses the triangulation method of data collection, including interviews, annual reports, documents and archival records. A theoretical lens informs it of the contextual/processual approach for interpreting interaction processes between management accounting and organizational change aspects, including culture, leadership and decentralization.

The findings confirm that a change in organizational culture has an important impact on accounting change, which has played a central role in the desire to initiate and accept such changes by the organizational members. Similarly, the new leadership style created a unique culture that was considered a solid platform to introduce new accounting systems by enhancing the trust between IT staff and management accountants and their trust in themselves to accept the change. The paper concludes that the relationships between the change aspects at the organizational level, and accounting practices at the inherent organizational and accounting levels are both recursive and two way, with the two concepts inextricably interwoven.

The study has some limitations as the data is limited to only a single country – more explanation for Jordanian Customs Organization quantitative understandings of governance improvement. The study has important implications for practitioners and customs officials by showing that different government regulations and customs reforms have varied influences on the public sector. These reforms have included most modifications to the accounting and organizational configurations. This study contributes to institutional theory development and refinement by exploring the interface between external influences and internal origins in the accounting change process.

This study uses a categorical association between organizational changes and accounting in the public sector as most prior studies have been conducted on the private sector due to competitive and technical pressures. It also contributes to organizational change and accounting literature by discussing the relationship between accounting from one side and culture and leadership from another side.

Estonian companies have been in a continuous state of change for the past 15 years, and there is still a lot to be done to achieve welfare levels comparable with developed countries in the European Union. The crucial question is how to achieve employee commitment to organisational change. The aim of this research is to highlight employee attitudes toward organisational change and how organisational culture can influence these attitudes in a rapidly changing environment.

A model showing the connections between organisational culture and employee attitudes in the organisational change process has been developed as the theoretical conceptual frame for the study. The empirical study was conducted by the authors in 26 Estonian organisations with 412 respondents. A tool for measuring employee attitudes in the process of organisational change and a questionnaire for measuring organisational culture were developed by the authors.

Under the conditions of economic transition, employees with higher job satisfaction are more willing to participate in an organisational change process than employees with a lower level of job satisfaction. Employees who evaluated their organisational culture as being stronger were more willing to participate in implementing organisational changes and were more satisfied with their jobs and managers. The attitudes of those managers who were younger than 45 were more strongly related to a positive organisational culture than to a strong organisational culture.

The most significant finding was that in a transition economy a strong organisational culture influences attitudes to change in a positive way. This is different from countries with more stable economies, where a strong organisational culture is considered to promote stability.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organisational culture has changed between 2011 and 2016 in a higher education institution (HEI) that has been faced with both significant internal and external changes. There are three areas to be examined: the change in culture on an organisational level, the demographic changes in the workforce, and the changes in values and perceptions of the workforce over time.

This is an explorative study and a repeated cross-sectional study of the organisation. The authors used the same methodology and approach for both the 2011 and 2016 studies, namely, the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument was used to ascertain respondents values and perceptions. The instrument was distributed in printed format to all members of staff and approval was received prior to distribution. Results were tested for significance using Cronbach’s α and ANOVAs.

There were demographic changes in the workforce primarily for age, occupation and tenure of staff, but little change in gender. Despite these changes in the workforce, on an organisational level perceptions and values have changed little over the five-year period, despite a multitude of external and internal developments. Although there were statistically significant differences between culture types and demographics (age, tenure, gender and occupation), there was no single demographic with a statistically significant difference for a particular culture type, either in values or perceptions.

The study questions the concept of organisational culture being affected by internal integration and external adaptation over time. Results indicate that culture is, by itself, either slow to react change, or does not react at all. A high response rate would be best for getting a clear picture of the culture of the organisation and a qualitative study is necessary (and planned) to develop the findings further, as well as triangulate the findings of this study.

This study should be of interest to practitioners as it presents the caveat that organisational culture of this study cannot be expected to change on its own, and highlights the need for a planned change process for the organisational culture to adapt to the changing needs of both the external and internal environments. The potential for resistance to change in this organisation appears is high and values and perceptions appear unrelated to any particular demographic.

Although the authors cannot generalise from this longitudinal case study, the authors can consider some potential social implications, especially if further studies confirm the findings. First, despite government attempts to develop higher education in Hungary, staff perceptions and values within the institution are harder to change. Second, any attempts to revitalise the organisation from the inside (such as in this case with the forced retirement of older employees) seem unfruitful. Finally, the HEI is struggling to survive, and yet employees seem to not be a part of that struggle.

Although there are studies of organisational culture in HEIs, very few have undertaken a longitudinal approach. The study takes place in a unique situation: just before and just after extreme changes – both internally and externally – have taken place. Few studies question the organic and evolving nature of culture as it is difficult to predict when changes will occur. The study is in the unique position of having been able to do so.

This work seeks to offer a greater understanding of Lean healthcare implementation challenges conceptually taking a situated cultural organizational change perspective.

A descriptive model of healthcare organizations’ Lean adoption trajectories is built using ripple and bridging modelization strategies from elements of three classic organizational change theories and knowledge from Lean, organizational culture, healthcare and operations management literature.

The “contingent Lean culture adoption” (CLCA) model suggests five theoretical trajectories the healthcare organizations may experience when conducting a Lean transformation. These trajectories evolve from a new concept of Lean cultural friction (LCF) which represents cultural friction that a healthcare organization encounters toward an ultimate Lean culture proficiency state through time. From high to low initial LCF, a healthcare organization may in its Lean proficiency course end up in three states: lower, similar or higher LCF situation.

The CLCA model demonstrates the potential to be developed into a framework and possibly a Lean cultural friction theory pending further qualitative and quantitative validation.

The CLCA model may help healthcare managers to use more appropriate cultural change strategies during their organization’s Lean journey.

This work enriches the concept of Lean cultural change which may apply not only to healthcare organizations but also to other ones. It suggests the existence of a healthcare organization Lean culture proficiency archetype and introduces the notion of Lean cultural friction.

Knowledge management (KM) is associated with higher performance and innovative culture; KM can help the public sector to be fiscally lean and meet diverse stakeholders’ needs. However, hierarchical structures, bureaucratic culture and rigid processes inhibit KM adoption and generate inertia. This study aims to explore the nature and causes of this inertia within the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) public sector.

Using an in-depth case study of a UAE public sector organisation, this study explores how organisational inertia can be countered to enable KM adoption. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 17 top- and middle-level managers from operational, management and strategic levels. Interview data is triangulated with content analysis from multiple sources, including the UAE Government and case organisation documents.

The results show transformation leadership, external factors and organisational culture mediate the negative effect of inertia on KM practices adoption. We find that information technology plays a key role in enabling knowledge creation, access, adoption and sharing. Furthermore, we uncover a virtuous cycle between organisational culture and KM practices adoption in the public sector. In addition, we develop a new model (the relationship between KM practices, organisational inertia, organisational culture, transformational leadership traits and external factors) and four propositions for empirical testing by future researchers. We also present a cross-case comparison of our results with six private/quasi-private sector cases who have implemented KM practices.

Qualitative data is collected from a single case study.

Inertia in a public section is a result of bureaucracy and authority bounded by the rules and regulations. Adopting a qualitative methodology and case study method, the research explores the phenomena of how inertia impacts KM adoption in public sector environments. Our findings reveal the underlying mechanisms of how internal and external organisational factors impact inertia. Internally, supportive organisational culture and transformational leadership traits positively effect KM adoption, which, in turn, has a positive effect on organisational culture to counter organisational inertia. Externally, a progressive national culture, strategy and policy can support a knowledge-based organisation that embraces change. This study develops a new model (interactions between internal and external factors impacting KM practices in the public sector), four propositions and a new two-stage process model for KM adoption in the public sector. We present a case-comparison of how the constructs interact in a public sector as compared to six private/quasi-private sector cases from the literature.

The green management literature repeatedly argues that in order to behave in a sustainable manner, organizational actions will need to go beyond technical fixes and embrace new environmentally responsible values, beliefs and behaviors. In this context, developing sustainability is frequently viewed as largely dependent on the extent of green culture change in organizations. However, empirical evidence for such a change in culture is not apparent, although much anecdotal support has been cited. Seeks to address some of the shortcomings in extant literature and supplies contemporary evidence of managers’ perceptions of the extent to which the green culture change is occurring and of factors acting as barriers or facilitators to such change. Begins with a review of the literature pertaining to organizational culture and greening. Following this, details the research design and methodology. Thereafter, lays out the findings of the interviews in detail. Finally, discusses these findings and suggests a number of implications, conclusions and directions for further research.

Organisational culture is increasingly being recognised as a critical determinant of the success or failure of organisational change efforts. A power utility company in Africa was undergoing planned change driven by its ambitious vision of becoming one of the top five performing utilities in the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the organisation’s culture was impacting on the change initiatives of one of the organisation’s operating units. The study also sought to investigate the robustness of the change model employed to inform the change process.

The study employed qualitative research methods for data collection, sampling and analysis. Ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with managers, supervisory and non-supervisory staff in the operating unit. Data analysis was by means of thematic analysis.

Organisational culture was found to be impacting the operating unit’s change efforts. According to the participants, cultural analysis to determine organisational readiness for change was not adequately undertaken. The cultural factors of, among others, communication, feedback, involvement, and consultations negatively impacted the change efforts. The participants’ perceptions were that leadership failed to connect employees to the vision.

The paper provides insight into the importance of leadership’s understanding and consideration of organisational culture in change initiatives. Cultural analyses before embarking on change assists leaders in identifying and then strengthening or changing cultural tenets implicated by the change initiatives.

The construction industry has struggled with efficiency issues for decades. Organizational culture is identified as one of the biggest hindrances for the enhancement of efficiency in a highly labor-intensive sector such as construction. Based on recent academic studies, Finnish construction industry professionals would embrace clan and adhocracy culture features to achieve a better level of construction efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the promoters and the barriers for making the desired culture change happen in the case company.

The paper presents a semi-structured theme interview case study, including 12 in-depth interviews. The interviews were recorded, and later, transcribed into text, which forms the empirical data of this paper.

The Finnish construction industry must adopt a holistic approach to enhance its prevailing level of efficiency through the culture change. Basic learning and knowledge management processes seem to be missing from the industry and organizational levels. Better knowledge management in the case company would be the first step to start fixing this problem.

Because of the nature of a case study, the research results can be generalized only with caution in the Finnish construction industry. Generalizing the findings in another country would require further studies in a different cultural environment, e.g. in another European country.

The paper includes implications for the development of the organizational culture on the Finnish construction industry level and on an organizational level.

The found influencers are discussed through Engeström’s activity model for the first time in the construction culture context.