Public administration in the 21st century – Consequences for organizational design and change management

Public administration in the 21st century –
Consequences for organizational design and change management

English Summary - Project Overview

Methodological support for the management of difficult change processes

The management of difficult change processes will be aided by the analysis and representation of implicit theories of decision makers about the "good organization design" to adapt to challenging tasks in public organizations and about the "good change management" of the accompanying cognitive, emotional and social processes. 

 

Theoretical and methodological background

The theoretical foundation of the project lays in the cognitive organizational psychology established in the 1980ies and in research about the function and representation of lay theories or implicit theories. Methods developed to support decision makers in managing complex tasks are transferred to the visual representation of implicit theories. It is planned to compare such implicit theories of highly ranked decision makers with the state of research about the management of organizational change. This comparison will be elaborated to develop a tool for the evaluation of actual or planned change processes.

The methodological background of the project is based mainly on expert interviews and literature and document analysis. In qualitative interviews with experts in change management, high level senior officials in public administration and with members of consulting agencies,  are analyzed. Here the focus is on the public administration. In sum, a social science approach is followed to study organizational change. 

 

Analysis and representation of implicit theories of decision makers about organizational change 

  • The central questions are:

  • Which implicit theories hold decision makers about good organizational design to adapt to challenging tasks of the future?

  • Which theories do they hold about the management of the accompanying social processes e.g. resistance to change?

  • To what extent knowledge from organizational sciences are integrated into these implicit theories? 

Analysis of the supporting and prohibiting factors of organizational change 

The analysis of the state of the art in organizational research on change processes and the comparison with given implicit theories is used to develop supporting and prohibiting factors for organizational change. 

 

Development of an evaluation scheme for organizational change processes

The systematic comparison of implicit theories about organizational change and results from organizational research allow to develop a scheme for the analysis and evaluation of future and ongoing change processes.

 

Knowledge transfer – Professional Education, Teaching, Consulting

The project will contribute to the enhancement of methodological and social skills of senior officials in the public service. Thus, a high level of the quality of change processes should be preserved.

The knowledge transfer is realized within the professional education program for senior officials from public administration of the "German University for Administrative Sciences Speyer" (Deutsche Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer) and within the complementary study and the master program of the Speyer University.

Actual publications are listed under "Ergebnisse".

 

Project organization 

 

Project period: 1.11.2003 - 31.10.2007

Funds by the German Research Institute for Public Administration at the German University for Administrative Sciences Speyer

The project stands in the tradition of earlier work by Dieter Beck and Rudolf Fisch about the analysis of public decision-making from a social science perspective and of work on the analysis of social interaction processes in group decision-making.

(see also www.foev-speyer.de/e-edesign/)

 

Last revision: September, 4, 2006