Techno Structural Interventions

Keywords: techno structural interventions case study

Employees involvement is one of the major issues in the field of management sciences; it becomes relatively more important when appears in organization development process. While going for some interventions, success without the employees’ involvement seems to be impossible. This paper argues that how the employees involvement affect the success of interventions process. For this Empirical study has been conducted in the textile sector of Pakistan to explore the relationship between the employees’ involvement and the techno-structural interventions, the results are very much likely the literature.

Employees Involvement, Techno-structural Interventions, Organizational Development, change

Change tries to alter the employee’s status quo; if it occurs rapidly it can be very disturbing for all the stake holders of the organization (Daphne G. Taras, James T. Bennett, 2007) as the employees are the direct victims of the change that’s why they feel more economic insecurity in the work place. Change can be of various types and can raise the fear in the employees, doest not matter; it has good or bad impact on the employees (ADF Price, K chahl, 2006) but on the whole change always come in the organization for the development purposes (Rikard Athin, 2004). Organization development is controlled process in which sequence of actions, activities intended to improve the organizational performance and effectiveness (Thomas G cummings; Christopher G whorley, 2002).These set of sequenced planned changes for improvement of organizational performance and development are called interventions (cummings; whorley, 1993). Interventions will only work for the organization if they are relevant with the organization (Chris Argyris, 1970). These interventions design varies from organizational needs and can be divided into different types of interventions (D. Coghlan 1995). At the highest level in the organization, there are strategic level interventions, which are designed to form the organization structure for achieving its objectives affectively (R. Draft 1998). The other one is the techno-structural intervention, having purpose is to form appropriate work designs and organizational structures to provide the strategic support of the organization development (E lawler III, 1974). The third component of the intervention is the people oriented interventions which focus on the fulfillment of human needs in the organization as well as the expectations of the organizational effectiveness (Frank Friedlander; LD Brown, 1974).

Our main focus in this research is in techno-structural intervention, which deals with the restructuring of the organization; the restructuring is in the division of workload of overall organization in to subunits for completion of the task effectively (M Tushman, E Romanelli, 1986). Restructuring can be performed on at least five major factors, environment, organization size, technology, organization strategy and world wide operation (Thomas G cummings; Christopher G whorley, 2002). Second other major component of techno structural intervention is the employees’ involvement, D Glew, et al 1995 defined the employees’ involvement on the basis of power, information, knowledge and skills and finally reward. Final component of intervention is work design , broadly speaking work design is of two types, one is of scientific management (F. Taylor, 1911) which is task oriented, the other type of work design is motivational approach (G Susman, 1976).

aMuhammad Imran is the Lecturer in COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore

bMuhammad Mahmood Aslam, is a students of Management Sciences in the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore.

In literature, F. Herzberg, N. Mausner, B snyderman 1959, describes the work design having the opportunities for autonomy, move forwarding, responsibility and authority gives more satisfaction to the employees and increase the employees involvement. Enrichment of the job of the employees leads to the employees’ satisfaction as well as to the acceptance of the change (F. Hertz berg, 1974). Employees’ involvement plays an important role in the success or failure of the organization. Our research in this context revolves around the relationship between the employees’ involvement and its effect on the techno structural interventions. In this exploratory research we will describe the relationship which exists in the employees’ involvement and techno-structural interventions.

Methodology

We have used the data from three different sources i.e. Literature, Survey using questionnaire and unstructured interviews. The literature based on the interventions; which includes the previous research on the interventions as well as the case studies from national as well as from international journals have been used to provide theoretical ground to our hypothesis. Beside this, for empirical study we have selected the textile industry of Pakistan, in which changes are imminent on radically basis (Yim Yu Wong, Peng S. Chan 1993). In textile industry of Pakistan, we have selected the five readily available organizations from which we get the sample of 150 respondents by using the simple random sampling method. All the respondents were middle level managers having minimum 10-15 years of experience in the apparel industry. Beside this in our respondents are the top level management, for them we use the interviews for collecting the data. Analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data has been performed in our research.

Scope

As the Economic recession all over the world has affect the industry all over the world, but in all these circumstances under developed countries suffer more with this phenomenon (Nick Beams 2001 ). In case of Pakistani, where the major export portion is based on the apparel industry this phenomenon become more critical (Frank P. Saladis PMP, 2007) resultantly, decreasing in export give rise the manager to bring some intervention in this sector at top management level, a number of decision has been taken to bring change but the success ratio of these are very low (Areeba Khan 2001) our research in this context will bring the revolutionary change it will give the manager a new direction that how the successfully interventions can be made by involving the employees. Our study setting is contrived in which we have the minimal interference in this study so, the external validity of our study will be very high and it will provide a great support to the industry.

Limitations

The intervention process or any change process is not an event of day; it took from months to the year (Stuart Gilmour, et al 2006). As our study is cross sectional study in which we have gather the data in the same span of time so we can just analyze the past that in the past what are the impact made by the employees’ involvement in the intervention. However we can give recommendations for the future. Another thing which limit our study is that though we have selective the respondent with the random sampling methodology; however the organizations for the study are those which are readily available to us.

Literature Review

Changes must be preceded systematically (Guangming Cao, et al 2004). The success ratio for the change increase greatly, when we use the proper model of planned change (Yitzhak Samuel, et al 2004). In spite of all the planning and development change never successfully happened and mostly the reason behind this failure is resistance (James L. Vann, 2004). To overcome the resistance and for the success of change several factors can influence, these can be management involvement and support, employees’ participation, information sharing and the most important is leadership (Jean E. Neumann, et al 1999). The sequenced, planned, organized and managed from the top changes are called the interventions (Beckhard 1961). While designing intervention, concept of Effective intervention has much importance which describes that effective intervention is providing the free and informed choice to the employees by the organization (C Argyris, 1970).

Widely, research has been done that how to design intervention and how to make them effective to achieve the organization objective effectively (D. Warrick 1995). While designing some interventions, individual differences (skills, knowledge, need for autonomy, etc), organization factors (management structure, Employees, culture etc) and dimension of change process (management support, employees’ involvement, power etc) must be considered (J Porras, et al 1987).While going for interventions in the organization, four major options are available that are strategic interventions, Techno-structural Human Process and Human Resource Management intervention (Thomas G. Cummings, et al 2001 ). Strategic intervention is of broader term describes the corporate as well as business level strategic intervention like cultural change, strategic change, self design organization, and integrate strategic management (P. Evans, et al 1997).

In human process, the interventions deals with the social issues which occurs among the organization members like communication gap, individual differences, conflicts and team issues (D. Ancona, et al 1992). Thirdly, the human resource management interventions, aim is to goal setting, Performance management, reward systems, career planning and development and managing work force diversity (D. McDonald, et al 1995). Techno-structural intervention is another type of the organizational intervention which mainly deals with the issues like business process reengineering, total quality management, Quality circles and work design (M. Tushman, et al 1985). Techno-structural interventions have two important components which are technological interventions and the structural interventions (J. Galbraith, R. Kazanjian 1986). Technological interventions involve introduction of new technology in the organization like in organization changes made from the manual to computerized, or to implement some enterprise system (A. Chandler 1962). While in case of structural intervention it deals with the changing in organization structure, work design so that the organization may able to achieve the organization objective more effectively (G. Hamel, C. Prahalad 1994). In textile sector of Pakistan several techno-structural interventions have been made but the success ratios of these intervention is very low and still Pakistan is far behind than the rest of the world (Noor Ahmad Memon, Noor Zaman 2007). There are a number of reasons behind to discuss all these failure in the industry, but the most important of it is the lack of employees involvement in the intervention process which lead to this failure (S.A.J Shirazi 2007). Some researcher has defined the employees’ involvement on the basis of Participation in the change process and the profit sharing with the employees (Susan Schwochau 1997). Employees Involvement can be defined as on the basis of Power, information sharing, Knowledge & skills and finally Reward (Thomas G cummings; Christopher G whorley, 2002). In our research we have used all the four variables which we have further sub divide into sub variables to measure this abstract into concept.

Theoretical Framework

Employees Involvement in relation with the Techno-structural Intervention

Employees Involvement is independent variable and having sub variables are power, information sharing, knowledge and skills, while on the other hand techno-structural intervention is dependent variable. In our research we have studied the empirical relationship between the employees’ involvement and techno-structural intervention. Our scope of study is limited up to the textile industry of Pakistan in which we have selected the five readily available organizations.

Power

Information Sharing

Knowledge and Skills

Reward

Employees Involvement

Techno-structural Intervention

Independent Variable

Dependent Variable

Figure-1: Employees Involvement in Relation with the Techno-structural interventions.

In five organizations, we go through the study of 150 participants who are all the middle level managers. For data collection we further classified all these four variables into its indicators. Power is being defined as the decision making authority given by the employer to the employees up to their levels (D. Glew, et al 1995). The other indicators which we used in our research in order to find the indicators of power are management support and autonomy which gives the employees confidence and increase their participation in the intervention process (E. Lawler III 1986).

The second indicator of the employees’ involvement is the information sharing which also encourage the employees to participate in the change process (Susan Schwochau, et al 2007). The information can be strategic information of the organization which deals with the organization vision, mission and objectives as well as the financial information which indicate the financial gains or loss by the organization, it also give raise to the trust between the employees and employers as well (David E. Morgan, Rachid Zeffane 2003). The third indicator of the employees’ involvement is the employees’ knowledge and skills which focuses on the Training and development of the employees regarding the interventions (D. Roche, et al 1984). Employees’ involvement can also be made affective by giving them assignment which are challenging and relevant to the change of the organization (K. Broosseau 1983), beside this overall technique of knowledge management and transfer of learning can be made applicable to enhance the positive participation of the employees (R. Ruggles 1998).

Finally, Reward systems of the organization also affect the intervention process in the organizations. While going for intervention, the organization have pay plans like skill based pay plans in which employees are being rewarded according to the skills they owned (V. Gibson 1995). Performance based pay plans and performance based incentive is also in voyage in modern management practices to encourage the employees to work for the change (Z Schiller 1996). After the successful intervention, Employees should be get participated in the profit which the organization actually make by the implementation of intervention, this will encourage other employees to be the part of the intervention in the future (J Belcher 1994). If the organization don’t go for the direct financial benefits, than other measures like promotion can be a source of encouragement to the employees.

In this way, we have developed all these variables to measure the employees’ involvement in the process of Techno-structural interventions.

Power

Decision making

Authority

Autonomy

Management Support

Information Sharing

Strategic Information

Financial Information

Future Plans

Procedures and Results

Knowledge and Skills

Training & development

Challenging Assignment

Developing Skills

Knowledge Management

Reward

Skill based plans

Performance based plans

Gain Sharing

Promotion

Employees Involvement

Figure 2 Variables effecting the employees’ involvement

Data Gathering

For getting the data for our research, we developed several questionnaires in which we measure all these four variables that are power, information sharing, knowledge and skills. In questionnaire technique, all questionnaires consists of approximately 15-20 questions in which we have measured all these four variables to measure the employees involvement while techno-structural intervention has been measured by the indirect questions by asking about the work design, changing in technology and adoptability of the employees with the interventions.

Analysis of Data

Analysis of Data is being performed by the SPSS (statistical package for social sciences) and in which by using the regression model we analyze our findings. We used the regression analysis model for finding the empirical relationship between the employees’ involvement and the techno-structural interventions in the organization.

ANOVAb

Model

Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Sig.

1

Regression

3.653

4

.913

2.675

.034a

Residual

49.500

145

.341

Total

53.153

149

a. Predictors: (Constant), Reward, Information_Sharing, Power, Knowledge_Skills

b. Dependent Variable: Technostructural_Interventions

Table 1- Regression Analysis, Employees’ Involvement and Techno-structural interventions

This model indicates that there is positive relationship exists between the employees’ involvement and techno-structural interventions. If the employees involvement is greater than the employees will perform better and go for the success of the intervention, in case if the organization is not given the employees the right to involve in decision making and employees don’t find enough autonomy than employees not only will resist the change but also the success ratio of the intervention will also reduced. In context with the regression analysis performs above this indicate that model is quite significant, as the value of significance is less than .05. The significance value is actually the p-value which in statistics predicts that how much reliable is your model to predict the independent variable.

On the basis of the data we gather by using the likert scale, from the observation as well as from executives interviews, we well come to know that there exist a strong relationship between the employees involvement as well as in the success of the techno-structural interventions, we have also proved this by using the SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) where we use the regression analysis to find the correlation in between our variables. As the data is collected from the field so the externally it does not give the exact result which we expect from the study but it shows the positive relationship and model is quite significant, in spite of field study. Another reason which can also be one of the factor that it is not showing the optimum relation is the culture of Pakistan, in which most of the time employees hesitate to take the responsibility and very few go for the intervention process and want to take the responsibility another thing which we study during this empirical study is the attitude of executives who don’t want to share the information with the employees due to broken of secrecy problem they never ever trust in their employees either they are the bottom line managers or middle level managers, our study in this circumstances is just limited up to the executives and middle management as the low level managers and workers are not directly victim of the change process, they actually take the commands from the top and middle level management and act like that, in Pakistan it is more about the culture rather than the rules and regulations or policies of the company.

Conclusion & Recommendations

Based on the data, and the calculations shown above, it has been proved that techno-structural intervention is greatly impacted by the employees’ involvement, if the employees found the chance to participate in the change process, than they better performed as compared to those who don’t have a chance to give their views about the intervention process. So, it is better to get the participation of the employees which should be in positive manner this will enhance the confidence of the employees towards the intervention process and self responsibility of the employees will lead to the success of the intervention.

In Textile Sector, as in case of Pakistan, Employees involvement can be increased by giving the employees proper participation as well as providing the opportunity to the employees so that they can get the responsibility by their own self. The all four variables which have been discussed here must be kept in mind in order to prepare the employees for the Techno-structural intervention. One of the major problems which we really face while getting the data about the employees involvement is the organization structure which is highly autocratic. At the top level, Management don’t wanted from the employees side to listen any thing they just wanted to pass the orders rather than to make the decisions by the consensus of the employees. But on one way around though some employees are also enough satisfied with this culture of the organization but in real sense the employees’ creativity element will all shutter down, resultantly they unable to produce that thing which actually they can. Summing up, our discussion as that as the competition is in the market is increasing, new and radical changes are being occurring in the organizations. Those organizations who get prepared their employees to accept the changes got success while other who unable to got accept the changes fail badly and one of the major reasons they have that their human resource don’t accept the change made by the employer in some technical work or some structural design, resultantly it fails down.