Middle-management leaders are in a crucible. In addition to managing their extensive regular duties and leading groups toward common goals, they must navigate conflicting expectations and competing demands from their superiors and subordinates. The challenges in middle-management leadership are exacerbated in fast-paced, high stakes, large-scale…

In this paper, we provide an overview of the Pathways to Innovation Program (Pathways), a faculty development and institutional change initiative designed to address the adaptive challenge of integrating innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) into undergraduate engineering, nationwide. In particular, we build upon earlier papers that describe…

This article examines the development and implementation of a strategic cultural change program from a case study perspective. Initially, the article describes how the program was developed, including an explanation as to how a communication component was integrated into the program from inception. This integration helped reduce the anxiety that…

In an attempt to understand the effects of managerialism on university managers in a developing country, we set out to gather rich data on the strategy work of middle managers through a single case study at a South African university. Managerialism has the potential to solve inefficiencies in university systems and processes, as it could help to…

This capstone examines how a newly formed senior-level team worked together to complete a complex task, while driving towards a larger goal of becoming a learning organization. For the 2014-2015 academic year, central office leaders in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) worked to develop a new approach to the execution of their…

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the significance of considering the organizational ecosystem in implementing wikis for knowledge sharing.The findings suggest that a prerequisite of an effective wiki is the appreciation of the factors that make up the organizational ecosystem; technical and organizational factors are variable elements of…

Despite the popularity of planned change efforts, the failure rates of implementation are as high as 50 to 70 percent (Lewis & Seibold, 1998). While these efforts are affected by technical issues, the organizations' approach to change, structure, technological capabilities, and organizational culture and communication practices are…

This article explores the relationship between users' interpretations of a new technology and failure of organizational change. I suggest that people form interpretations of a new technology not only based on their conversations with others, but also through their use of technology's material features directly. Through qualitative and quantitative…

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation projects are unique to each institution and yet are expensive, time consuming, and result in change across the institution. Five Midwest public and private 4-year higher education institutions were studied to determine the impact of five specific key factors on the overall success of the ERP…

Guided by theories of institutions, organizations, and sense-making, this manuscript examines how public, charter, and Catholic school staff in a large urban area organize for instruction and respond to educational change. To build theory about institutional processes of "organizing" from participants' perspectives, data included a…

Research indicates that numerous variables have an impact on a leader's effectiveness. This study explores the behaviors associated with leadership effectiveness in driving change. The findings confirm previous research that identifies change effectiveness skills, while isolating the specific leader behaviors deemed most valuable to implementing…

Examines the implementation of quality programs in four organizations; the communication used to introduce the programs and to encourage employees to participate; and employees' perceptions of the programs, implementation activities, and change agents. Presents four key themes that emerged: creating and communicating vision; sensemaking and…

Discussion of organizational change and performance improvement programs focuses on 10 guidelines for developing successful implementation plans. Highlights include defining a vision and mission; cultural considerations; forming a team; contingency plans; communication; employee education; monitoring mechanisms; and rewarding and recognizing…

This paper describes the processes and outcomes experienced by the Marshalltown Community School District (Iowa) as it implemented a shared decision-making, school-improvement program. A district Shared Decision Making (SDM) Team and School Improvement Program (SIP) teams were trained to facilitate greater staff participation in the…

Focuses on critical factors for success for organizations planning to use upward feedback systems to drive organizational change. Highlights include assessment of organizational readiness, use of an appropriate feedback instrument, consistent implementation, effective communication and training, quality control, and continuous improvement.…