Redesign, Development and Organizational Learning

The organizational paradigm of maximal division of labor is loosing ground. From business process redesign and sociotechnical systems theory, methods have been suggested to redesign organizations. Many redesign projects, however, do not yield the desired outcomes. This paper shows that the progression of fundamental change is related to the management of the change process. Research in forty-eight major organizational change project indicates five barriers impeding the change process: the way decision-making is organized during the process, a limited consideration of the learning capability of organizations, the culture and the style of management, the power and political processes directed at the retainment of positions, and the way the entire change process itself is managed. The paper proposes that the ability to change can be increased by paying dedicated attention to the process of change and the development and learning capacities of the organization by integrating.top-down design strategies with participative development strategies.