KBR

Acknowledgements

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

KBR

Introduction

This paper discusses the important role of KBR in developing new organizational restructuring. Although KBR do not deny the influence of senior manager actions on the new negotiated understandings that develop in an organization during a change, they do question the extent to which leaders can manage the development of change recipients' schemata, particularly in the larger, geographically dispersed, modularized organizations we are increasingly seeing.

A. KBR Leadership and Team Dynamics during Organisational Structuring

The important role of KBR in developing new organizational restructuring and other changes designed by their seniors requires acknowledgement. There is an assumption in practitioner literature that top managers can direct change. KBR determine its outcomes through their social processes of interaction and the meanings they develop as a result--and therefore, the term "change recipient," with its implication of passive acceptance, may be inappropriate. Determining stakeholders' "deep structures" in advance may enable a change leader to better understand the various responses to a change initiative, but it does not make the responses predictable. Furthermore, in larger organizations, with their greater diversity of individuals, understanding the multiple meanings that are developing is a challenging proposition. (WileyCummings 2005)

However, KBR does show that during organizational change it is essential to tap into, monitor, and understand the multiple interpretations that are developing among recipients. It is also important to understand why these interpretations are developing and the outcomes to which they are leading, so that appropriate actions can be taken. Black holes in design can also be expected to occur in all change initiatives. The tracking of change progress in ways similar to that done here might be used to identify the multiple interpretations and black holes as they arise. Specific transition management resources and interventions are needed to track the progress of change, resolve black holes and design problems as they occur, and facilitate the resolution of conflict based in schematic differences.

These issues suggest scholars need to know a lot more about the sense-making processes that accompany both change to and change within modular organizational forms. Our research enabled us to offer some tentative propositions about the patterns of schema change accompanying structural shifts, and it highlighted the critical shaping role of middle manager sense-making. To make further progress, researchers need to develop greater understanding of how specific aspects of change context and design affect patterns of schema development and the implications of observed effects for how managers facilitate change in organizations. Yet this research also highlighted the key role of social interaction in schema development. It is through these processes of social negotiation that new understandings and ways of working develop. These processes are also the more visible aspects of schema change, and thus they may be crucial for leaders of change to understand and seek to facilitate. Future research on schema changes occurring in strategic and structural change settings could usefully pay more ...