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The purpose of this paper is to develop a meta-model of organizational change that allows to look at change from different angles. This meta-model starts from the idea that there are different discourses about organizational change, each having their own merits but also their own limitations. Bringing these discourses together into an integrated systems model allows the authors to capture the essence of organizational change a lot better.

This model is designed based on a literature review of organizational theories, systems theories related to theories of organizational change and specific theories about organizational change.

The literature review resulted in a systems model of organizational change that is better able to grasp the complexity of change than linear models.

This model goes beyond the usual change models from the normative discourse and provides a multidimensional view on organizational change.

Decentralisation attempts that aim to increase job autonomy do not always succeed. This paper aims to study to what extent the tendency to maintain existing operational task divisions is an important explanation for this lack of success.

In total, 456 employees in 25 organisations participated in a cross-sectional intervention study. Each employee filled out a questionnaire on job autonomy both before and after the decentralisation process, in which all organisations shifted regulatory, preparatory and supportive tasks to the lowest organisational level.

This study found small, but significant, effects of decentralisation attempts on job autonomy. The size of the effects, however, depended on the way the way in which the operational tasks were divided. Simultaneously, larger effects were found for organisations which decentralised tasks and changed the way operational tasks were divided. Both findings reached the conclusion that although decentralisation attempts seemed important for increasing job autonomy, the way in which the operational tasks were divided and even changed, was at least as important for a successful decentralisation process.

After decades of research on modern sociotechnical theory, this study is the first to show that decentralisation attempts do not merely increase job autonomy. The effect of such attempts depends on the way in which operational tasks are divided in organisations.

Volume 19 of Research in Organizational Change and Development includes chapters by an international diverse set of authors including Michael Beer, Victor J. Friedman, Luis Felipe Gómez and Dawna I. Ballard, Ethan S. Bernstein and Frank J. Barrett, Karen J. Jansen and David A. Hofmann, Guido Maes and Geert Van Hootegem, Tobias Fredberg, Flemming Norrgren and Abraham B. (Rami) Shani, and William A. Pasmore. The ideas expressed by these authors are as diverse as their backgrounds.

Volvo's car assembly plant in Ghent, Belgium, is currently experiencing turbulent times. The plant is implementing the biggest expansion in its history, with plans to almost double its production capacity in 2004. Moreover, Ford is increasingly consolidating its position as the new owner of Volvo. Both developments are challenging the distinctive model of teamwork that Volvo‐Ghent has established over the last decade. This paper assesses the challenges presented by these two developments and the possible outcomes in terms of teamwork at Volvo‐Ghent. This assessment relies on a combination of theories of team structure and team processes.

The purpose is to analyse the impact of team responsibility (the division of job regulation tasks between team leader and team members) on team performance. It bases an analysis on 36 case studies in The Netherlands which are known to have implemented team‐based work. The case studies were executed in 1997 by means of face‐to‐face interviews with HRM staff and line management. It concludes from the analyses that two different types of team responsibility prevail. In a “hierarchical team” team leaders take responsibility for decisions concerning work preparation, support and control, while in the “shared‐responsibility team” decisions are taken by the team members themselves. The analyses show that “shared‐responsibility teams” are thought to contribute more substantially to team performance outcomes than “hierarchical teams”. The analysis helped gain a better understanding of the relationship between HRM and organisation performance, as it is viewed in the “human resource‐based view of the firm”.

The literature on change is characterized by an opposite, dichotomist view on the subject. Many authors describe only one or some of these characteristics and attribute a normative value to it. When discussing one of these attributes they will make a deviating classification in the way in which change arises. Although types and attributes of change are largely studied in the change literature, there is no general agreement on the attributes that can best describe the different types of change. The purpose of this chapter is to try to consolidate the vast literature on the types and attributes of change in order to find a more homogeneous set of attributes.

From an extensive literature research on change articles and books from 1970 onward, eight dimensions of change attributes were found that are able to describe the characteristics of a change in a dynamic way.

In order to overcome the dichotomist view, organizational change is approached not as a process changing a system but as a system by itself. Although the borders between the change system and the system to be changed are not always easy to perceive, this view seems to create a richer picture on change. A systems approach allows to define the attributes of change in a holistic way that captures the always paradoxical state change is in.

In this paper we evaluate the impact of the institutional context on the politics of flexibility. We examine whether differences in institutional embedding lead to differences in the way in which companies seek to achieve flexibility. Belgium and The Netherlands were selected for comparison on the reasons for their different flexibility mix. The conclusions are based on both a macro‐economic analysis of national statistics and a micro‐economic analysis of organisations in both countries. The main conclusion is that the institutional frameworks of Belgium and The Netherlands have been built up along different lines. Dutch legislation encourages contractual flexibility. The Belgian institutional context focuses more on temporal flexibility. A competition for the greatest flexibility has little point given these observations. It is not a question of more or less, but of different flexibility. A wider significance of the comparison is that it clearly demonstrates that evaluations fail if the different components of the institutional framework and flexibility are not studied in their close mutual interrelationship.

To assess how team working processes at the Volvo‐Ghent car plant in Belgium could evolve following the purchase of Volvo by Ford and the intention to vastly increase production from the year 2004.

Doctoral research on work organization in Belgian car assembly plants, an assignment of the Flemish government to provide scientific back‐up for a “round table” on the car assembly industry, and an interview with a key respondent, responsible for personnel relations in the case study plant.

They discuss the challenge to the Belgian car plant's distinctive model of teamwork, which it has established over the last decade, by its biggest‐ever expansion (plans to double its production capacity in 2004) and by the new ownership of Ford. The explanations and descriptions of the effectiveness of various teamwork models are given in considerable textual and diagrammatic detail, and are applied to an assessment of the sustainability of team working at the Ghent plant.

The extent to which the plant is able to limit regression of the teams on the process dimension is crucial for upholding its structurally progressed “third way” in teamwork within the Ford group.

The explanations and descriptions of the effectiveness of various teamwork models are given in considerable textual and diagrammatic detail, and are applied to an assessment of the sustainability of team working at the Ghent plant.

Dawna I. Ballard (PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002) is associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines organizational temporality, with particular attention to ways in which time shapes and is shaped by a range of communication processes. Her published research appears in outlets such as Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Small Group Research, Management Communication Quarterly, as well as several interdisciplinary edited volumes, including Time and Memory, Workplace Temporalities, and Time in Organizational Research.