Draft Research Proposal
Research Title
“ Avoiding unintended consequences of organisational re-structure in Australian Organisations”
Business Research Area
The research area, focuses on the organisational changes applied in the corporate structure and the business models that are being used in the regulatory context to bring changes in the operational process. Organisational leadership is helpful to provide proper direction to the changes.
Background and Problem
Research Problem
Organisational restructure exerts certain unintended consequences such as employee dissatisfaction in corporations that relates to disrupting the ongoing process of the regulatory operations.
Background
Globalisation has enhanced the competition in business, and thus it is essential to change the structure in the organisation to adapt to the new demands in the business market. However, the novel managerial process sometimes fails to inject new work-life extent and interest among the employees of the organisation. The new -work life hampers the workplace attitudes of the employees leading to the unintended problem that relates to adapting to model changes and performance as per demand. It sometimes results in social dysfunction development among employees. In this regard, certain social actors are prevalent while observing the consequences of model changes in companies. Stress macro-societal needs or institutional reasons are responsible for the long-run occurrence of the issues in organisational settings.
Definition of Terms
‘ Organizational Restructure’ refers to the changes that are performed in the structural components of an organisation to avail of new opportunities.
‘ Workplace Attitude’ is the interrelated belief of the individuals that maintain the common focus of the employees towards work situations.
‘ Unintended’ refers to not planned situations or consequences.
‘ Social Dysfunction’ refers to the impact on the work-life balance maintenance of an individual that leads to the support of communication and connection with society.
Research Purpose, Objectives and Questions.
Purpose The purpose of the research is to identify the issues that are occurring in the organisations of Australia due to the restructuring of the organisational components. The occurrences of unintended problems are prevailing in the manufacturing industry as the production and delivery patterns change as per the consumer demand shift. Thus, various restructuring of the organisation is developing specific unintended issues such as employee attitude problem, dissatisfaction and social dysfunction. Therefore, for the corporations, it is vital to avoid the consequences of the unintended consequences to keep the work in motion. This research will highlight the possible solutions to unintended consequences. Apart from that, the associated factors that are responsible for the unintended consequences development in the organisations will in this research. Objectives To identify the unintended consequences in the manufacturing industry of Australia due to organizational restructure To determine the factors that are resulting in the unintended consequences in the organizations To develop recommendations for the organizations to avoid the unintended consequences during organizational restructure
Research Questions What are the unintended consequences of organizational restructure? What are the factors responsible for unintended consequences development? How can corporations avoid unintended consequences of organizational restructure?
Literature Review
Benos, T., Kalogeras, N., Verhees, F. J., Sergaki, P., & Pennings, J. M. (2016). Cooperatives’ organizational restructuring, strategic attributes, and performance: The case of agribusiness cooperatives in Greece. Agribusiness, 32(1), 127-150. Bloomrosen, M., Starren, J., Lorenzi, N. M., Ash, J. S., Patel, V. L., & Shortliffe, E. H. (2011). Anticipating and addressing the unintended consequences of health IT and policy: a report from the AMIA 2009 Health Policy Meeting. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 18(1), 82-90. Brown, R., & Mawson, S. (2016). Targeted support for high growth firms: Theoretical constraints, unintended consequences and future policy challenges. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 34(5), 816-836. Burt, G., Mackay, D. J., & Perchard, A. (2015). Managerial hyperopia: A potential unintended consequence of foresight in a top management team?. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 101, 134-146. Burt, G., Mackay, D. J., van der Heijden, K., & Verheijdt, C. (2017). Openness disposition: Readiness characteristics that influence participant benefits from scenario planning as strategic conversation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 124, 16-25. Carey, G., Buick, F., & Malbon, E. (2018). The unintended consequences of structural change: When formal and informal institutions collide in efforts to address wicked problems. International Journal of Public Administration, 41(14), 1169-1180. Dougherty, K. J., Jones, S. M., Lahr, H., Natow, R. S., Pheatt, L., & Reddy, V. (2016). Looking inside the black box of performance funding for higher education: Policy instruments, organizational obstacles, and intended and unintended impacts. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2(1), 147-173. Guerra, E. (2016). Planning for cars that drive themselves: Metropolitan Planning Organizations, regional transportation plans, and autonomous vehicles. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 36(2), 210-224. Hirst, A. (2011). Settlers, vagrants and mutual indifference: unintended consequences of hot-desking. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(6), 767-788. Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 291-298. Jimmieson, N. L., & Tucker, M. K. (2018). Change consultation during organizational restructuring: Buffering and exacerbating effects in the context of role demands. In Organizational Change (pp. 27-46). Routledge. Longe, O. (2013). Social effects of organisational restructuring on employee workplace attitudes in selected manufacturing industries in Nigeria. African Research Review, 7(3), 292-307. MacKay, R. B., & Chia, R. (2013). Choice, chance, and unintended consequences in strategic change: A process understanding of the rise and fall of NorthCo Automotive. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1), 208-230. Stroh, D. P. (2015). Systems thinking for social change: A practical guide to solving complex problems, avoiding unintended consequences, and achieving lasting results. Chelsea Green Publishing. Walker, R. M. (2014). Internal and external antecedents of process innovation: A review and extension. Public Management Review, 16(1), 21-44.
The findings from the research articles have ensured the fact that organisational restructuring is considered as the organisational saviour that helps in the valuable transformation of the organisation. In some instances, the process of implementing corporate restructuring focuses primarily with the development of disrupting and inhibiting employee work attitude and performance. The unintended consequences that have been occurred during the process of restructuring and in the long run can develop social dysfunction for the employees who are working in the organisations (Jimmieson & Tucker, 2018). The literature findings have indicated the fact that the radical change model has an impact on the workplace attitude of the employees. However, the research gap is existing at this point, and existing researchers still are researching the type of radical change. Moreover, the reason behind the development of fundamental impact on the employee attitude has not been addressed in the study (Benos et al., 2016).
On the other hand, some other researchers have identified the fact that organisational restructuring process is preferably a painful process for the managers (Carey Buick, & Malbon, 2016). It is hard for the real development in the organisation and some instances; that job security related issues along with a loss of work freedom. In this case, the reason for these consequences and the process by which it hampers the organisation is not discussed in a broad manner (Longe, 2013). The existing literature has indicated the fact that the organisational restructuring must be carefully implemented in the organisation to observe the tangible differences through this process. On the other hand, specific literature has mentioned that maintenance of realignment and support is essential to apply organisational restructuring successfully in the organisation. Nevertheless, the process of maintaining the realignment and support has not been, and thus a literature gap is existing in this field. This research intends toward solving the deficit.
Moreover, the tangible differences in work attitude are essential to be understood from the end of organisational management (Bloomrosen et al., 2011). However, the extent of success through restructure is not addressed. Existing research work states that the guiding norms, values, and expectations maintenance can maintain the successful restructuring process in the organisation. In this regard, the literature gap is existing to identify the method of managing the norms and values that can help organisations to avoid unintended circumstances (Brown & Mawson, 2016). Thus, this research can ensure the changes that apply in the organisational context and the associated factors with it. Furthermore, this research must concentrate on the possible solutions for the organisations during restricting practice to fill the gap in the literature. It is evident that the limitation