Admission Tests GMAT Dumps

The passage most strongly suggests that most firms aim to adopt flexible and participative work arrangements adopt innovative routines and production methods enhance the centralization and hierarchy of their bureaucratic structures produce more-marketable goods and services achieve improved performance

One line of analysis points toward the phenomenon of structural inertia, suggesting that organizations are "imprinted" with the conditions under which they were bom, tending thereafter to ding to long-established routines, production methods, and identities. A second approach fastens on resistance to change among middle managers, who are said to view new work practices as threats to their traditional status and authority. A third approach suggests that because firms have tended to adopt innovations singly, rather than in clusters, the firms often fail to achieve far-reaching organization change.

Although each of these perspectives contains a partial truth, each one is limited. Analysis using the concept of structural inertia tends to emphasize the conservative aspects of organizational culture and to neglect inside factors as sources of change. While theories of managerial resistance have stressed the importance of within-firm political processes, they often endow upper level of management with an omniscience and openness to egalitarian practices that upper-level managers do not possess. Finally, the last approach often views new practices as if they exist in a vacuum—as if they are unmedtated by the manner in which they are introduced.

An alternative approach builds on developments within industrial sociology. The outcome of workplace change initiatives is shaped in large part by the social and organizational processes that unfold during the implementation of new work practices. In other words, workplace change is not akin to a surgical procedure performed under anesthesia. Rather, it constitutes a negotiated phenomenon In which the language and strategies that particular occupational groups employ can either blur or sharpen the boundaries that exist within the firm. Where workplace change fails to transform existing organizational patterns, the reasons may stem less from the nature of the innovations than from the processes that surround and shape their introduction.