Search results

Change propagation is the major source of schedule delays and cost overruns in design projects. One way to mitigate the risk of change propagation is to impose a design freeze on components at some point prior to completion of the process. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model-driven approach to optimal freeze sequence identification based on change propagation risk.

A dynamic Bayesian network was used to represent the change propagation process within a system. According to the model, when a freeze decision is made with respect to a component, a probabilistic inference algorithm within the Bayesian network updates the uncertain state of each component. Based on this mechanism, a set of algorithm was developed to derive optimal freeze sequence.

The authors derived the optimal freeze sequence of a helicopter design project from real product development process. The experimental result showed that our proposed method can significantly improve the effectiveness of freeze sequencing compared with arbitrary freeze sequencing.

The methodology identifies the optimal sequence for resolution of entire-system uncertainty in the most effective manner. This mechanism, in progressively updating the state of each component, enables an analyzer to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the freeze sequence.

‘Acceleration’, that is, the performance of activities in ever-shorter periods of time, is a distinctive feature of contemporary organizations and societies that is reflected in, and driven by startups’ attempts to scale up their businesses in ever-faster ways. Although prior research has highlighted that temporary organizing is a key way to accelerate the startup process, little is known about how actors do so. Based on a one-year ethnographic study at a startup accelerator, the authors explore how actors enact temporary organizing to attempt to accelerate the startup process. Their analysis shows that this process involves a plurality of partly conflicting temporal structures. As their study shows, such conflicts invoke tensions that actors live out in their daily activities. The authors identify three temporal practices – sequencing, freezing, and merging – through which actors engaged in temporary organizing enact acceleration in the startup process by reconciling these temporal structures. Their study has implications for understanding time in the expanding literature on temporary organizing and acceleration.

New Public Management (NPM)-style reforms have resulted in unintended effects such as fragmentation, deficient coordination and undermining political control. This book is in search of new steering concepts to counter this fragmentation and re-coordinate the public sector. In this chapter, the search for new steering concepts is addressed by looking at a type of public management reform that is an extremely ‘wicked problem’ in terms of steering and coordination, that is, emergent and complex change processes. Such a type of reform process is a complex network of different sub-types of reform with a multitude of actors with different interests and motives. Many decentral actors initiate various reforms at different places from which in the course of time a trend emerges, and several central actors try to coordinate and supervise, but have limited influence. Such an ‘emergent and complex’ type of change process indeed requires fundamentally new steering concepts.

The proposed theoretical model offers a systematic approach to synthesize the fragmented research on organizational crisis, disasters and extreme events.

This paper offers a theoretical model of organizational responses to extreme threats.

The paper explains that organizations choose between hypervigilance (freeze), exit (flight), growth (fight) and dormancy (fright) when faced with extreme threats. The authors explain how the choice between these responses are informed by the interplay between slack and routines.

The study’s theoretical model contributes by explaining the nature of organizational responses to extreme threats and how the two underlying mechanisms, slack and routines, determine heterogeneity between organizations.

The authors advance four key managerial considerations: the need to distinguish between discrete and chronic threats, the critical role of hypervigilance in the face of extreme threats, the distinction between resources and routines during threat mitigation, and the recognition that organizational exit may sometimes be the most effective means for survival.

The novelty of this paper pertains to the authors’ use of the comparative developmental approach to incorporate insights from the study of individual responses to life-threatening events to explain organizational responses to extreme threats.

New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of temporality, identified here as causal-time. Because it emphasizes identity and state-transitions, causal-time is inherently static and past-centered. An alternative view, called flow-time, emphasizes the dynamic of the always arriving future. The claim is made that a future-centered temporality gives access to the knowledge change agents need to cope with accelerating and ongoing change.

This study aims to explore and empirically test variables influencing material delivery schedule inaccuracies?

A mixed-method case approach is applied. Explanatory variables are identified from the literature and explored in a qualitative analysis at an automotive original equipment manufacturer. Using logistic regression and random forest classification models, quantitative data (historical schedule transactions and internal data) enables the testing of the predictive difference of variables under various planning horizons and inaccuracy levels.

The effects on delivery schedule inaccuracies are contingent on a decoupling point, and a variable may have a combined amplifying (complexity generating) and stabilizing (complexity absorbing) moderating effect. Product complexity variables are significant regardless of the time horizon, and the item’s order life cycle is a significant variable with predictive differences that vary. Decoupling management is identified as a mechanism for generating complexity absorption capabilities contributing to delivery schedule accuracy.

The findings provide guidelines for exploring and finding patterns in specific variables to improve material delivery schedule inaccuracies and input into predictive forecasting models.

The findings contribute to explaining material delivery schedule variations, identifying potential root causes and moderators, empirically testing and validating effects and conceptualizing features that cause and moderate inaccuracies in relation to decoupling management and complexity theory literature?

Various explanations are possible for the observation of similar outcomes from repeated choices, for example, both cognitive psychologists and behaviourists find support for their viewpoints in such patterns. Pattern recognition and interpretation are necessarily model‐bound activities as, indeed, are attempts to analyse such data in terms of probabilities. In the face of many alternative procedures with their associated rationales relative simplicity of screening is important in assessing new data in terms of their structure and conformity to a model. This article outlines in a non‐technical way one such procedure which is appropriate to analyse data, particularly brand choice observations, expressed in dichotomous fashion. The recognition of such patterns and a formalisation of an underlying rationale are necessary steps in the improvement of both data‐handling technique and the furtherance of our understanding of consumer behaviour.

As they say, “Change is the only constant.” Thriving and surviving during a period of extraordinary collision of technological advances, globalization, and climate change can be daunting. At any given point in one’s life, a transition can be interpreted in terms of the magnitude of change (how big or small) and the individual’s ontological experience of change (whether it disrupts an equilibrium or adapts an emergent way of life). These four quadrants represent different ways to live in a highly dynamic and complex world. We share the resulting four-quadrant framework from a quantitative and a mixed methods study to examine responses to various ways we respond to transitions. Contingent upon these two dimensions, one can use a four-quadrant framework to mobilize resources to design a response and hypothesize a desired outcome. Individuals may find themselves at various junctions of these quadrants over a lifespan. These four quadrants provide “requisite variety” to navigate individual ontology as they move into and out of fluid spaces we often call instability during a time of transition. In this chapter, we identified social, cognitive, psychological, and behavioral factors that contribute to thriving transition experiences, embracing dynamic stability. Two new constructs were developed, the first measures the receptivity to change, Transformation Quotient (TQ) and second measures the range of responses to transitions from surviving to thriving, Thriving Transitional Experiences (TTE). We hope our work will pave the way for Thriving to become a “normal” outcome of experiencing change by transforming the lexicon and expectation of engaging with transitions.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the innovative ritual-based redesign of a routine in the challenging context of the dining-out sector, characterized by low employee commitment and high turnover.

This study adopts a mixed methods experimental design. This study focuses on a field experiment in a real restaurant centered on the restaurant’s welcome entrée routine. The routine is first observed as it happens, after which it is redesigned as a ritual.

The ritual-based redesign of the routine enhances employee sharing of the purpose of the routine and reduces the variability of the execution time of the routine, which increases group cohesion among the restaurant staff. Besides the positive impact on the routine’s participants, the ritual-based redesign has a beneficial effect on the performance of the routine by increasing the enjoyment of the end-consumers at the restaurant.

The ritual-based redesign of routines is a powerful managerial tool that bonds workers into a solidary community characterized by strong and shared values. This allows guidance of the behavior of new and existing employees in a more efficient and less time-consuming way.

Rituals have been traditionally analyzed from the customer perspective as marketing tools. This research investigates the employees’ perspective, leveraging ritual-based redesign as a managerial tool for increasing cohesion among workers.

In this paper, we offer a model of how leaders and managers can create energy for change by influencing patterns of conversation across the organization. We develop the model by linking social constructionist thought with theory from the field of positive psychology. We propose that effective leaders work with others to co-author persuasive narratives of change that generate energy by providing people (including themselves) with a sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Energy is expressed in the form of support, time, money, and resources, which contribute to the success of the work. Continuous attention to crafting persuasive narratives in a collaborative way creates upward spirals of energy, and increases the probability of successful change over time. We illustrate these ideas with a case study of a successful IT change initiative in a Fortune 100 insurance company, and conclude by discussing implications for research and practice.