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By exploring the process of concept revitalization, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the intraorganizational retention of organization concepts. Concept revitalization occurs when an organization refocuses attention and resources toward a previously adopted organization concept. This paper investigates why and how organization concepts are revitalized.

The findings are based on a case study of a Norwegian energy company's revitalization of the organization concept “lean”, whose initial implementation had been unsuccessful. The data were analyzed inductively by identifying how the concept was reframed during the second attempt and how the revitalization was justified.

In the case company, the revitalization was driven by (1) replacing the original label, (2) maintaining the original content in a slightly modified form and (3) altering the implementation mode. The changes were supported by a narrative of past shortcomings, lessons learned and a plan for future success, authored by internal experts in lean with a strong interest in ensuring positive results.

Concept revitalization implies that there is more continuity in the application of ideas than is suggested in the literature on management fashions.

So far, the retention of organization concepts has only been studied at the field level. This study is the first to offer an empirically grounded understanding of intraorganizational concept revitalization.

This paper aims to document the development of cellular manufacturing at Scania-Vabis, thereby contributing to the history of an organizational idea.

The authors draw on published sources and interviews to reconstruct the development of cellular manufacturing at Scania-Vabis and its traces.

Cellular manufacturing was applied and further developed at Scania-Vabis in the 1940s and 1950s. Nevertheless, it seems to have fallen into oblivion. The key idea resurfaced in the 1970s.

The authors argue that such “proven technology” should be considered a classical insight in organization design rather than old and thus outdated.

The authors demonstrate that this form of flow-based organizing is much older than commonly assumed and point to barriers in accumulating knowledge on organizing.

This study aims to emphasize the importance of taking into account the perspectives of prospective participants and identifying potential tensions in action research.

This paper reflects on a (participatory) action research (AR) project in which the first author was involved as an embedded researcher. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, field notes and observed project activities. The authors conducted a thematic analysis.

This paper thematically categorized four types of tensions between both groups. These were tensions connected to: internal facilitators giving guidance, project goals, top-down expectations and unfamiliarity with AR working formats.

Quintessential to AR is giving the less privileged a voice. For this to work, gaining a good understanding of their perspectives is crucial.

This paper challenges the implicit assumption that prospective participants of AR projects are always willing to participate.

Organisation concepts consist of prescriptive ideas concerning how to manage or organise. The simultaneous use of multiple concepts in an organisation may create synergies but also confusion and conflicts. This paper aims to explore how change agents deal with the simultaneous use of multiple organisation concepts within a single organisation.

A qualitative case study of a Norwegian energy company using lean, agile and design thinking.

The findings show that change agents compare the concepts with each other and recognise commonalities and differences. They also match individual concepts and tools to the nature of tasks, the different phases of projects/initiatives based on their perceived maturity or internal communities. Most agents emphasise similarities between concepts and complementarities between tools. This approach creates a versatile toolbox for improvement.

Companies making use of multiple organisation concepts should continuously discuss and actively manage the tensions that exist between concepts while establishing a unified approach and common culture for improvement.

This study offers a novel understanding of how change agents make sense of different approaches to improvement within a single organisation.

This study aims to discuss the usefulness of free-text comments to gain insights into participants' opinions about an organizational change project.

A secondary analysis of 152 free-text answers to an open question in a questionnaire evaluating the implementation of lean facility design was conducted.

The authors identified three categories of responses to change: (1) dismissive – lean unrelated, (2) dismissive – lean related and (3) supporting – lean related. Notably, the large majority of the comments were dismissive by nature and unrelated to lean. Furthermore, critical responses also emanate from the most supportive group (critical friends).

Quintessential to change management is understanding how those involved perceive the changes. Free-text comments offer an opportunity to gain a view on these perceptions, particularly perceptions that often stay covert whilst having the potential to undermine change initiatives. At the same time, the comments may also be used to capitalize on constructive criticisms.

This study delivers a unique view on how free comments allow developing a broader understanding of hospital staff's responses to an organizational change initiative and particularly its “undercurrent” that may potentially have significant implications to change processes.

The aim of this study is to document and analyze experiences with building a new hospital guided by lean-led hospital design (LLHD) (Grunden and Hagood, 2012) and to investigate key mechanisms enhancing healthcare professionals' participation and collaboration in implementing this innovative approach.

An in-depth case study of the implementation of LLHD in a Dutch hospital was performed based on multiple data sources. The case hospital presented a unique opportunity since there was embedded access to the data by the first author.

Three mechanisms supporting participation and collaboration of staff for implementing LLHD were identified. (1) Freedom in translating a concept enables managers to balance it with variations in practice at the organizational level. (2) A set of key principles governing the design process appeared an important anchor on a managerial level in a changing environment. (3) Creation of a supportive attitude toward lean and lean facility design, with co-creation as a key element of LLHD.

By using the emerging mechanisms, managers/change agents can enlarge collaboration and participation of hospital staff when implementing organization-wide innovations.

This case study delivers a unique inside view on the dynamics evolving in the complex change processes at organizational, managerial and personal levels involved in implementing LLHD.

Companies create company-specific production systems (XPS) by tailoring generic concepts to fit their unique situation. However, little is known about how an XPS is created. This paper aims to provide insights into the creation of an XPS.

A retrospective case study was conducted in a Norwegian multinational company over the period 1991–2006, using archival data and interviews.

The development of the XPS did not start with a master plan. Instead, dispersed existing initiatives were built upon, along with an external search for novel ideas. Widespread experimentation took place, only later to be combined into a coherent approach. Once established, the XPS was disseminated internally and further refined. The CEO orchestrated the experimentation by facilitating the adaptation and combination of different concepts and by allocating resources to institutionalize the XPS in the global network.

This paper is the first to study how an XPS is created. This study contributes with novel empirical insights, and it highlights the role of top management in facilitating experimentation and step-by-step organizational learning.

This article addresses why movements towards less-hierarchical organizing may be unsustainable within organizations.

Eschewing hierarchy may prove sustainable if alternative forms of management are acceptable to both employees and managers accountable for those employees’ performance. Developing alternatives means dealing with the fundamentally contradictory functions of coordination and control. Through a qualitative case study of a manufacturing company that removed first-line supervisors, this article analyses how issues of control and coordination were dealt with formally and informally.

Removal of the formal supervisor was followed by workers’ and middle managers’ efforts to informally reconstruct hierarchical supervision. Their efforts to deal pragmatically with control and coordination were frustrated by formal prescriptions for less hierarchy, leading to contested outcomes. The article identifies upward and downward pressures for the hierarchy’s reconstruction, undermining the sustainability of less-hierarchical organizing.

This study is limited by the use of cross-sectional data and employees’ retrospective narratives. Future research on the sustainability of less-hierarchical organizing should preferably be longitudinal to overcome these limitations.

Unless organizational changes towards less hierarchy engage with issues of managerial control and upward accountability, they are likely to induce pressures for hierarchy’s reconstruction.

The article offers an original approach to the classical problem of eschewing hierarchy in organizations. The approach allows us to explore the interrelated challenges facing such restructuring, some of which are currently unacknowledged or underestimated within the literature.

This paper aims to identify why warehouses do or do not succeed in putting to use digital technologies for order picking.

Building on structuration theory, the authors investigate the situated use of one such a digital technology, more particularly the head-worn display (HWD). Based on a most-similar comparative case study of two Belgian warehouses pioneering HWDs, the authors focus on whether and how order pickers and their manager interact to modify the properties, functionalities, and the context in which the HWD is used.

In one warehouse, using the HWD was discontinued after implementation. In the other, order pickers and the order pickers' manager succeeded in implementing the HWD into their work. The authors find that the prime explanation for these opposite findings lies in the extent to which order pickers were given room to improve the properties and functionalities of the HWD as well as the conditions that unfold in the HWD's use context. In the latter warehouse, pressing issues were overcome and improvement suggestions were implemented, both regarding the HWD itself as well as regarding the job-related and person-related conditions.

Theoretically, the authors contribute to the situated use of technology stating that (1) giving room to alter the use of digital technologies, and (2) fostering continuous employee participation regarding conditions stemming from the use context are necessary to realize the promising and unexploited potential of digital technology in practice. Empirically, this paper exposes distinct types of interactions that explain whether and how digital technologies, in particular HWDs, are put to use for order picking practices.

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.