很有價(jià)值的一篇探究BPR與組織文化的論文

1、297/298BPR and Organisational Culture A Survey into Organisational Cultural Change Techniques This survey was part of an MBA Dissertation at the Henley Management College, England, undertaken by Alan Cooper. The full dissertation is now available on-line.Executive Summary Background When even the mo

2、st ardent protagonists of BPR, such as Hammer & Champy, are quoting failure rates from 50% up to 80%, is BPR really such a sure fire solution to the challenges of the nineties? Is the reason for these failures solely the inability to manage organisational change, or is there a more fundamental probl

3、em with BPR? And is managing the culture key to effective change, particularly within the context of a BPR initiative? These questions were the impetus behind a Henley Management College MBA dissertation. This management summary reports on the resulting survey into organisational change techniques u

4、sed by UK organisations undertaking BPR. Executive Highlights Most BPR organisations are making significant and wide reaching changes to their organisation in response to strategic business needs. The trend is to results oriented and more fluid structures. Highly centralised organisations, as epitom

5、ised in role management styles, have seen their day, but there remains a tendency to formalise the work processes through task allocation, procedures, rules and controls. BPR results in an average 18% reduction in staff. Management are emphasising the harder techniques that more overtly control staf

6、f behaviour. However, many do get their staff involved in process redesign. Many in management (middle management?) are not exhibiting the required behaviour. BPR and change management consultants are widely used but they do not overtly influence the choice of culture change techniques selected. Nei

7、ther do staff have much influence in the choice of techniques used. Many improvement are being realised but the empowerment of staff is not one of them. Staff commitment appears to be the biggest concern and innovation by staff is low. Despite these findings, respondents definitely believe they can

8、change their employees values and beliefs. More improvements came with using many change techniques but most occurred when a range of both hard and soft techniques were used. Management needs patience. Up to 2 years may be needed to gain even modest employee improvements. This may well be recognised

9、, as the duration of BPR projects is increasing. Current projects, with a defined end date, are planned to run for 30 months compared to 19 months for completed ones. Within the UK business community, it is the banking and finance companies that are predominately undertaking BPR. There is a absence

10、of case studies concerning BPR failures. McKinseys 7 S Model The well known McKinsey model was used as a basis for assessing the extent to which organisations undertaking BPR are changing themselves. All the 25 organisations analysed were extensively changing 5, 6 or all 7 elements as part of their

11、BPR project. Overall, all elements were equally receiving attention. 80% stated that their BPR programme was extensively driven by business strategy, and 88% of organisations were aiming to extensively change their shared values. These shared values, along with beliefs and assumptions, form the hear

12、t of McKinseys organisation model. Further on, this report reviews whether organisations are in fact using change techniques which address these fundamental building blocks of organisational culture and whether they are reporting positive changes in employee behaviour. Organisational Structures All

13、bar 3 organisations were changing their type of structure. There was a near majority move away from hierarchical structures with 15 of the 25 moving to a process model and another 6 to a decentralised model. A few were implementing mixed structures and a couple choose to remain with a hierarchical s

14、tructure. Overall there was a significant shift towards those structures which were more results oriented and a lesser shift towards more fluid structures. Management Styles Hierarchical structures are often associated with role management styles. It is therefore not surprising that well over two th

15、irds of organisations were moving away from a role style, with two thirds of these moving to a task style and most of the remainder to a directive style. Many of those that were already directive were now moving to self-management, a style that is advocated by many BPR consultants. Still, few seem c

16、onfident with their staff to take this plunge towards a really empowered workforce. Instead they were moving (reverting?) to a more formalised task style. Yet, if the widely reported reductions in staff numbers are indeed targeted at the middle management levels, then staff will have to take greater

17、 responsibility for self management. On the topic of staff reductions, in those few organisations prepared to divulge numbers, staff reductions within the BPR areas were averaging just 18% but in some organisations reached as high as 60%. On average BPR projects were impacting 35% of the organisatio

18、ns total staff but in some case all staff were subject to the impact of BPR. Overall there was a significant shift towards low centralisation but there remains a tendency to control employees work content by means of high formalisation of tasks. Change Techniques There are a wide variety of organisa

19、tional cultural change techniques. Consultants of the US excellence school (e.g. Deal and Kennedy) tend to promote techniques that tackle the more visible manifestations of culture. These include artefacts, such as lapel badges and distinctive office decor, as well as rituals and the telling of succ

20、ess stories. Less visible, but often promoted by behaviourist, are those techniques (called behaviour patterns) that link performance to pay, assess staff via appraisals, and define actions via formalised procedures, rules and regulations. Those with a sociological or psychological background (e.g.

21、Schein) maintain that real and lasting change only occurs when people change their shared values, basic beliefs and assumptions. They advocate various individual and group therapy techniques. The questionnaire had 15 change techniques which represented 5 layers of graduation from the visible, hard t

22、echniques through to the invisible, soft ones. Only techniques addressed to over 75% of staff or used monthly or more frequently were counted. Emphasis on Harder Techniques Whilst perhaps the excesses of US management techniques are shunned by UK management, there is clearly a tendency to use the ha

23、rder techniques, mentioned above, that come under behaviour patterns. This correlates to the shift to a more results oriented organisations and the maintenance of a formalised management style. Encouragingly, the high use of behaviour norms was accounted for by the many organisations (74%) that acti

24、vely involved their staff in the redesign of business processes. In fact this was the most used technique. On average, organisations choose 1.7 of the harder techniques for every soft one. Using other categorisations of these 15 techniques it is seen that organisations use management to employee tec

25、hniques twice as frequently as the reverse. They also are more inclined to use coercive techniques which Schein feels may be a necessity to shake up more mature organisations (note the significant shift away from traditional hierarchical structures). However, such techniques can have longer term rep

26、ercussions for staff commitment. On average organisations are using 5 techniques extensively with some using 10. However, only one organisation is using the very soft techniques of Organisational Development and individual therapy. Management Not Performing Selection of techniques suggests that chan

27、ge through leadership is not particularly strong, perhaps confirming why respondents felt only 64% of their managers were exhibiting the required behaviour. Obeng & Crainer have highlighted the dysfunctional behaviour of many middle managers due to the simultaneous need exhibit the new behaviour to

28、their own staff, before they have come to terms with the need to change their own behaviour. The result is stress due to pressure from both above and below. Influences The main reason selected for using the above techniques was to gain staff commitment (80%) followed by speed of implementation and r

29、esults (52%). This latter figure is not surprising given the long duration of BPR projects (see later) and one can speculate whether lack of staff commitment (also see later) is a major reason for the long timescales. Consultants Despite the fact that 68% used consultants they were not the main sour

30、ce of suggestions as to which techniques to use. Just a quarter selected only consultants as choosing the techniques and another quarter selected consultants together with some other source. 13 organisations used BPR consultants and another 6 used change management consultants. Consultants represent

31、ing human resources, IT, O&M and psychology were little used. No one used a sociologist. The implication is that either BPR or change management consultants will address the human issues or such issues are considered not that important. Those using consultants used on average 1.5. Whilst overall a w

32、ide range of sources were used, suggestions from staff only accounted for 13%. Staff appear to be just involved in the lower lever detail such as process redesign, and not in the higher level organisational change decisions. Interestingly, no organisations looked to their competitors. Does this indi

33、cate a feeling of superiority or are they relying on their consultants? Outcomes Respondents could select up to 8 areas of employee behavioural improvements widely acknowledged as the outcomes of a successful BPR project. Each could be marked as Lots or Some improvement. Acquisition and use of new k

34、nowledge and skills, co-operative team working, customer focus and results oriented were the most chosen Lots of improvements. However, there were lower numbers selecting acquisition and use of decision making powers, and acceptance and use of responsibility. These suggest that empowerment, a much v

35、aunted attribute of BPR, is slow to be taken up by employees. This may be due to lack of commitment to the organisation, which scored the lowest level for Lots of improvement, or it may be due to management, perhaps especially middle management, being unwilling to actually allow their staff to be em

36、powered. Espousing is one thing, realising it is another matter. Given that BPR is all about starting afresh with a clean sheet of paper then the low score for creation of innovative ideas is of concern. Similar hypothesis as outline above could be put forward. Overall, about half the organisations

37、have yet to achieve modest levels of improvements. However, with on average 7 out of the 8 choices selected, management is presumably expecting improvements in all areas. Changing Employees Values and Beliefs Respondents were decidedly up-beat about whether employees values and beliefs could be chan

38、ged. 88% either strongly agreed or agreed they could. Respondents qualified their answer in a wide variety of ways, reflecting another survey which concludes there are no hard and fast rules about how to manage change. Two common responses were that changing values and beliefs took time, and that th

39、e change process needed much co-ordination of many activities. No one expressed any concerns over the ethics of trying to change employees inner, personal feelings. No Indications Those organisations with the most extensive change did not appear to be using a greater range or number of techniques, d

40、espite the likely increase in complexity of the change. Also there were no indications that the extent of down-sizing had either any negative or positive impact on employee improvements. Finally, there were no indications that consultants tended to suggest the more harder, coercive change techniques

41、. Duration Those projects that have been underway for some time tend to report higher levels of employee improvements with the peak at the 2 year point. Thereafter, improvement levels fall away. This confirms that BPR is not a quick fix solution. The tailing off may be due to improvement being taken

42、 for granted, or it may be that longer projects have lost focus. Such effect did not appear to be linked to the number of employees impacted by the BPR project. Techniques Used Those reporting the most employee improvements were using a greater number of change techniques. Those with the top improve

43、ments were typically using 7 to 10 techniques. But the type of technique was important. Those using over 3 hard techniques reported 5 or more Lots of improvements compared to those only using on average 1.5 hard techniques who were only reporting 5 or more Some improvements or even less. But those d

44、eclaring most improvement were using a range of both hard and soft techniques. This suggests that the wide ranging organisational impact of BPR creates a complex change situation that needs a wide range of techniques. Hard techniques are known to provide a more immediate employee response. Softer te

45、chniques address the inner values and beliefs, which although they take longer to have affect, can have a more fundamental and enduring impact on employees attitudes. The Survey 122 UK companies were identified as having undertaken BPR. 51 questionnaires were distributed and 33 replies received. 25

46、of these organisations were, or had, undertaken significant organisational change, including significant use of multi-functional teams and the reengineering of their processes into one or few steps. These were considered to be full implementations of BPR and were therefore included in the analysis.

47、Company Profiles Compared to the 122 identified, responses from banking and finance companies were over represented (55% cf. 30%) and manufacturing under represented (12% cf. 24%). Although three quarters had under 10,000 employees, the average number was almost 15,000 due to a number of financial i

48、nstitutions with large numbers of employees (up to 100,000). Half the respondents were at senior management level (director, CEO, AGM) with the rest at project manager or department head level. Nearly half were BPR sponsors and a third BPR project directors or managers. BPR Projects Only 7 BPR proje

49、cts had completed. The others were in progress with completion dates as far ahead as 1998. The average duration of completed projects was 19 months but those in progress had already run for 16 months, and those with an end date were planned to run for 30 months. Two thirds had never previously compl

50、eted a BPR project within the UK. Acknowledgement Thank you to all the organisations and their managers who responded to the questionnaire. The original report was created with Ami Pro 3 with diagrams and charts from Excel 3 using OLE. Desktop HP NewWave 4. OperatingSystem MS Windows 3.1. Printed on

51、 an Epson Stylus 800 inkjet printer. The text and images were then copied to this document via the clipboard. Abstract Many companies claim to have successfully undertaken business process reengineering (BPR) and point to dramatic improvements in their competitive position. They and their management

52、 consultants have quite rightly highlighted the need to address the organisational and people issues, if BPR is to be successful. Antagonists of the BPR band-wagon have pointed to the high rate of failures. They have criticised the simplistic view taken by organisations, which they say has reduced o

53、rganisational culture1 issues to mere empowerment and team-working, whilst coincidentally driving through capitalistic Taylorism into the office environment, and so creating the new sweat-shirt factories of the 20th century. This report describes research into BPR and organisational culture change.

54、A liturature review is first used to define BPR and then, using McKinseys 7 S model, it is shown that full BPR has significant impact on an organisation, particularly in terms of its culture. A further liturature review highlights the complex and widely varying views of what culture is. A model prop

55、osed by Rousseau is used to describe cultures various elements. Management and acedemic views, including post-moderist, are explored as to whether culture is an unchangeable root metaphor, an uncontrollable external variable, or an independent variable that can be manipulated. The culture views of t

56、he various proponents of BPR are assessed against these various definitions. A hypothesis is defined along with various issues. These are then used as objectives for an initial preliminary research into managements views on culture change within the context of BPR. Based on this preliminary research

57、, the tentative findings are that organisations wishing to maximise employee behaviour as a result of implementing BPR, are advised to use a range of cultural change techniques, including both hard and soft techniques. Ideas for further research are outlined, including why the very soft techniques o

58、f organisational development and therapy appear to be little used. The report contains an extensive bibliography as well as appendices which describe in detail the research, the results of which are visually shown by means of numerous charts. 1 For shortness the term culture will be used to mean org

59、anisational culture. 1. Introduction In recent years a number of highly publicised companies have successfully undertaken business process reengineering (BPR) in its true incarnation, involving total and radical redesign of their company along process lines. Other companies have apparently failed in

60、 their reengineering attempts, as many as 66% according to Andrews & Stalick, (1994, p28). Why then such disparity in these results? Vidgen et al (1993), and others, suggest that BPR has suffered from an over-emphasis on structured analysis of the processes and too little on the softer people issues