Browsing by Author "Buchanan, David"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Exploring projectification in the public sector: the case of the next stage review implementation programme in the department of health
    (Cranfield University, 2015-10) Schuster, Andrew; Lupson, Jonathan; Buchanan, David; Jenkins, Mark
    Objective: Public projects are used to delivery policy objectives. From a financial perspective, the Major Projects Authority (MPA) estimated a whole life investment of £488 billion for 199 major projects in 2014, only a small subset of the total number of public projects. Given the financial exposure, the impact of endemic public project failures could put the economic health of the nation at risk. This thesis studies the challenges facing public projects. It applies an organisational capabilities lens to investigate projectification, when organisations shift away from functional-based organising (FBO) toward project-based organising (PBO). Research Design: This study adopts an interpretivist research paradigm, with a constructionist epistemology and an idealist ontology, and employs an abductive research strategy. Structurally, it follows the Cranfield Executive Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) methodology, with a linking document that summarises three complementary research projects: a systematic literature review (SLR) followed by two empirical studies that investigate the Department of Health (DoH) during the early phases of the Next Stage Review Implementation Programme (NSRIP). The findings are derived from over 250 academic literature sources, 100 government publications and 41 semi-structured interviews. ...[cont.]
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    Planned strategic change in a family-owned firm: an ethnographic study
    (2017-12) Oxley, David R.; Vyakarnam, Shailendra; Buchanan, David
    Empirical research into how planned strategic change (PSC) occurs in family-owned businesses has received little academic attention. Since organizational change is at least as important for family businesses as their non-family counterparts, understanding whether widely accepted distinctive dynamics within family firms influence attempts at PSC represents a major gap in existing research. This thesis reports the results of an ethnographic, single company case study into Nirvana Ltd’s (NL) transformation program, designed to address this gap. This research contributes in several ways. First, it demonstrates that PSC in this large, owner-centric, family-owned business does follow a distinctive path. Second, it shows that PSC in NL is not adequately predicted, explained, or helped by conventional Organization Development (OD) change frameworks, such as Kotter’s 8-steps. Third, it identifies three paradoxical forces linked to “familiness” (leveraging faith versus persuasion, individual justice versus utilitarianism, and formality versus informality), as the primary enablers for and barriers to PSC in NL. Fourth, it discovers and defines the phenomenon of Faithful Adoption as a powerful force that can be employed by a talismanic owner to achieve rapid shifts in a business strategy. Fifth, it offers a new theoretical model, ‘Two-Step Change,’ as an explanation of how PSC has occurred in a large family-owned business. And finally, the ethnographic method and resulting dataset provide a unique and unprecedented richness and depth to this research subject.
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    Releasing time to manage
    (2011-03-01T00:00:00Z) Parry, Emma; Buchanan, David
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    You stab my back, I'll stab yours: Management experience and perceptions of organization political behaviour
    (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008-03-01T00:00:00Z) Buchanan, David
    This paper reports the findings of a survey of 250 British managers, exploring their experience and perceptions of organization politics. Political behaviour appeared to be common. Most managers viewed political behaviour as ethical and necessary, and aspects of organizational effectiveness, change, resourcing and reputation were attributed to political tactics, although 80% had no training in this area. Tactics experienced frequently included networking, using 'key players' to support initiatives, making friends with power brokers, bending the rules, and self-promotion. Tactics experienced as rare, but not unknown, included misinformation, spreading rumours, and keeping 'dirt files' for blackmail. A consistent pattern of responses concerning willingness to engage in politics, the need to act ruthlessly and the appropriateness of reciprocity when faced with political behaviour implies an attitude of 'you stab my back, I'll stab yours'. Findings are discussed using an 'antecedents–behaviours–consequences' framework of perceived organization politics to guide resea