Understanding failure to change: a pluralistic approach and five patterns

The learning organization and organizational learning in the public sector: a review and research agenda

Purpose

This study aims to propose a new research agenda for the theories of “organizational learning” and the “learning organization” in relation to the public sector. The research agenda can be used by researchers to make explicit accounts of how and where the results from their studies advance the current state-of-the-art in the intersection between public sector and organizational learning and/or the learning organization.

Design/methodology/approach

A combined systematic and bibliometric review methodology is applied based on the research that has been published in the past three decades.

Findings

Through an analysis of 238 journal publications obtained from the Scopus database, the authors determine the leading authors, countries, highly cited papers and take the stock of current literature. Similarly, by analyzing papers published between 2010 and 2020, the authors identify current tendencies and emerging themes of organizational learning and learning organization in the public sector and offer avenues for future research.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is potentially the first, fully refereed study published reporting on a bibliometric and a systematic review of organizational learning and learning organization in the public sector.

Failed culture change aimed at more service provision: a test of three agentic factors

Purpose

Headquarters managers of a medium‐sized manufacturing company initiated a culture change in five of their dispersed wholesale units. The aim was for more external service quality. This paper aims to report the results of a test of three hypotheses, shedding light on the behavior of the involved agents. The hypotheses are rooted in the change management literature.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study rests both on quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interviews) field data collected in two discrete phases over 3.5 years and obtained from the operational employees. The authors use their quantitative survey data to examine agentic explanations for the failed change; their qualitative data corroborated the findings.

Findings

No culture change or service improvement was detected. Despite the fact that local change agents were not the initiators or owners of the intended change, employee satisfaction with the local change agents (situated in the service units) was found to explain variance in the culture and climate scores. The results underscore, furthermore, the critical importance of training employees, or lack thereof, in instituting the required new behavior.

Originality/value

Most change‐management research collects data from the managers' point of view. There are relatively few studies like this one that have been conducted from the perspective of those employees working in frontline service units. Meeting the challenge to improve external and internal service through culture change is crucial in many firms, for their survival and growth; accomplishing such organisational change (in which both culture and climate are positively affected) does indeed require experienced change‐management skills. Results of this study recommend the honing of the change‐management skill “coaching” for experienced managers, even though they themselves may not feel such a need.