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Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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University of Pretoria
2016
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| _version_ | 1867613687407181824 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author2 | Verster, John |
| author_browse | Verster, John |
| author_facet | Verster, John |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | © 2016 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
| description | Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/56763 |
| institution | University of Pretoria (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:40:06.524Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publishDateRange | 2016 |
| publishDateSort | 2016 |
| publisher | University of Pretoria |
| publisherStr | University of Pretoria |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| spelling | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/56763 Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change Verster, John Ismail, Arif Organizational culture UCTD Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015. Management scholars lament the lack of understanding of how organisation change actually happens. Simple reductionist models that describe planned, step-wise linear processes of organisation change fail to do justice to the complex realities that characterise organisations in natural flux. Such mechanistic conceptions are based on research methodologies that provide snapshots of the change process. While researchers claim to acknowledge change as continuous, it gets studied as episodic. Although progress in pursuit of an understanding of change has been made through alternative approaches, such as storytelling, sensemaking and complexity perspectives, a systematic review of the organisation change literature revealed seven theoretical gaps that confirm the need for further research to yield an in-depth process understanding of change. Building this deeper theoretical understanding of change processes, together with the required practical skills and behaviours, is termed the “dual challenge”. It represents both a theoretical and practical void requiring scholarly attention. The purpose of the study was thus to contribute to the development of a non-linear, meso-level theoretical understanding of organisation change. To heed the call for empirically-rich longitudinal studies of change aimed at overcoming previous methodological limitations, an in-depth, real-time, single-case study was undertaken. The unit of analysis selected for study was an instance of change in an industry-level financial services organisation, based nationally in South Africa. Data were collected continuously over 3 years and analysed to gain a meso-level understanding of how and why organisation change emerges. The researcher, an insider scholar-practitioner, amassed more than 3 500 pages of real-time qualitative data. These were analysed using process coding, to bracket a rich, “thick” narrative. Thereafter, balancing and reinforcing causal feedback loops were identified using system dynamics techniques. Insights based in cognitive dissonance and organisation complexity theories served as guides to aid interpretation. This provided an abstracted and theoretically meaningful account of a complex organisation change process at the meso level of analysis. Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) PhD Unrestricted 2016-09-20T13:06:12Z 2016-09-20T13:06:12Z 2015-03-29 2015 Thesis Ismail, A 2015, Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change, PhD Thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/56763> http://hdl.handle.net/2263/56763 en © 2016 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria |
| spellingShingle | Organizational culture UCTD Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change |
| title | Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change |
| title_full | Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change |
| title_fullStr | Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change |
| title_short | Cracking the code: towards a meso-level theory of organisation change |
| title_sort | cracking the code towards a meso level theory of organisation change |
| topic | Organizational culture UCTD |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/2263/56763 |