IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/manlab/v40y2015i1-2p109-144.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating Change Management in an Indian Commercial Vehicle Manufacturing Firm

Author

Listed:
  • A. Venkataraman

Abstract

The article endeavours to understand the intellection, implementation and ramifications of change management on workers and managers through changes in the mode of work organisation and on organisational culture. It is a qualitative ethnographic study that tries to communicate the non-linear, partial nature of the change management process and the challenges that underpin its implementation in the Indian context. This paper makes a contribution to the larger intellectual conversation by going beyond the existing literature’s commentary on the impact of lean manufacturing on employees, from merely a cause and effect standpoint. It does this by drawing attention to an indeterminate subjective space that underpins interaction of employee aspiration, and work related viewpoints, corporate image, infrastructural constraints and the mode of work organisation that lean manufacturing seeks to modify. This indeterminate subjective space of organisational interaction between multiple stakeholders determines the outcome of change management. It also brings out the importance of context in impacting senior management’s decision making in its implementation of change management. The main impediments underlying the implementation of change management in the case study firm and India, comprised of limitations of personnel, infrastructure, market compulsions, supply chains and varying management repertoires and individual aspirations. The implementation of lean manufacturing in the case study firm was exacerbated by varying working arrangements prevalent within the same plant and degrees of automation and advancement in the same plant. Corporate and plant level management spoke of empowerment, participative management and long-term developmental objectives. In the same breath, there were more immediate economic and cost reduction imperatives for it to consider such as outsourcing and closing of its production shops. These counteracting measures in conjunction with the difficult Industrial Relations history of the plant made attempts to secure the wholehearted acquiescence of workers difficult. Poor communication and multiple anxieties of various stakeholders about their careers and relevance made the outcome the change management programme partial and unrealised. Finally, the paper has also highlighted the problems inherent in lean manufacturing and added voice to the sobering critique of lean manufacturing.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Venkataraman, 2015. "Evaluating Change Management in an Indian Commercial Vehicle Manufacturing Firm," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 40(1-2), pages 109-144, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:manlab:v:40:y:2015:i:1-2:p:109-144
    DOI: 10.1177/0258042X15601536
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0258042X15601536
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0258042X15601536?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michel Aglietta & Antoine Rebérioux, 2005. "Corporate Governance Adrift," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3675.
    2. Jean-Pierre Durand, 2007. "The Invisible Chain," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-28690-0, December.
    3. Bill Harley & Cynthia Hardy, 2004. "Firing Blanks? An Analysis of Discursive Struggle in HRM," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 377-400, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Engelbert Stockhammer, 2009. "The finance-dominated accumulation regime, income distribution and the present crisis," Papeles de Europa, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales (ICEI), vol. 19, pages 58-81.
    2. Maddy Janssens & Chris Steyaert, 2009. "HRM and Performance: A Plea for Reflexivity in HRM Studies," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 143-155, January.
    3. Barbara Townley, 2004. "Managerial Technologies, Ethics and Managing," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 425-445, May.
    4. Jackie Krafft & Jacques-Laurent Ravix, 2008. "Corporate Governance in Advanced Economies: Lessons in a Post Financial Crash Era.. Introduction to the Special Issue," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 74(4), pages 419-424.
    5. Blanche Segrestin & Armand Hatchuel, 2008. "The shortcomings of the corporate standard: towards new enterprise frameworks?," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 429-445.
    6. Thibault Darcillon, 2013. "What Causes Labor-Market Volatility? The Role of Finance and Welfare State Institutions," Post-Print halshs-00881198, HAL.
    7. Patricia Crifo & Elena Escrig-Olmedo & Nicolas Mottis, 2019. "Corporate Governance as a Key Driver of Corporate Sustainability in France: The Role of Board Members and Investor Relations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(4), pages 1127-1146, November.
    8. Puyou, François-Régis, 2014. "Ordering collective performance manipulation practices: How do leaders manipulate financial reporting figures in conglomerates?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 469-488.
    9. Robert Guttmann, 2015. "The heterodox notion of structural crisis," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 3(2), pages 194-212, April.
    10. Labadi, Moufida & Nekhili, Mehdi, 2012. "Structure de propriété et partage de la valeur ajoutée : application aux entreprises françaises non financières du SBF120," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 12.
    11. Pedro Linhares Rossi & Guilherme Santos Mello, 2014. "The Fourth Dimension: Derivatives As A Form Of Capital," Anais do XLI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 41st Brazilian Economics Meeting] 025, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    12. Or Raviv, 2017. "Europe's Mea Culpa: A Global Economy Gone Mad or a Crisis of Our Own Making?," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(2), pages 159-169, May.
    13. Margit Osterloh & Bruno Frey, 2006. "Shareholders Should Welcome Knowledge Workers as Directors," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 10(3), pages 325-345, September.
    14. Ricardo de Medeiros Carneiro & Pedro Rossi & Guilherme Santos Mello & Marcos Vinicius Chiliatto-Leite, 2015. "The Fourth Dimension," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 641-662, December.
    15. Biondi Yuri, 2011. "The Pure Logic of Accounting: A Critique of the Fair Value Revolution," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-49, January.
    16. Chiliatto-Leite, Marcos Vinicius, 2021. "Constrained integration in Latin America: analysis based on a twenty-first-century centre-periphery vision," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    17. Sergakis Konstantinos, 2015. "Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the “Comply or Explain” Principle in EU Capital Markets," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 5(3), pages 233-288, November.
    18. Neil Conway & Simon Deakin & Suzanne Konzelmann & Héloïse Petit & Antoine Rebérioux & Frank Wilkinson, 2008. "The Influence of Stock Market Listing on Human Resource Management: Evidence for France and Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 631-673, December.
    19. Michael Dietrich & Jolian McHardy & Abhijit Sharma, 2016. "Firm Corruption in the Presence of an Auditor," Review of Economic Analysis, Digital Initiatives at the University of Waterloo Library, vol. 8(2), pages 97-124, December.
    20. Prasnikar, Janez & Mikerevic, Dragan & Voje, Damjan, 2014. "Blockholding and organisational diversity: the case of a transition economy," Journal of East European Management Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 19(3), pages 277-304.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:manlab:v:40:y:2015:i:1-2:p:109-144. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.xlri.ac.in/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.