Andrew Pettigrew

Studying Organizational Change and Development: Challenges for Future Research

This article presents several studies that examine organizational change. The authors note that certain issues should be addressed when examining the studies including an examination of the multiple contexts and levels of analysis in studying organizational change, the inclusion of time, history, process and action, the link between change processes and organizational performance, the investigation of international and cross-cultural comparisons, the study of receptivity, customization, sequencing, pace and episodic versus continuous change and the partnership between scholars and practitioners in studying change. The authors discuss how these issues are related to the concepts in the studies and note their research has not addressed these issues at this point in time.

The awakening giant : continuity and change in Imperial Chemical Industries

First published in 1985, this book is about Imperial Chemical Industries’ response to the changing social, political, business and economic environment over the past twenty years. Using personal interviews and archival material, Andrew Pettigrew examines the evolution of business strategy, organisation structure and culture, technology and union-management relations within this corporate giant over an extended period of time. It is a compelling account, told from the inside, by one of the world’s leading management and organisation theorists. The Awakening Giant has made a major practical and theoretical contribution to the study of corporate strategy, organisational analysis and change, and business history. Anyone with an interest in managing change in a large corporation will find this reissue rewarding reading.

Power and Influence in and Around the Boardroom

This paper presents the early findings of a pilot study of the power and influence of part-time board members in the top 200 U.K. industrial and commercial firms by turnover and the top 50 U.K. financial institutions. The part-time board members hold multiple roles of either chairman and/or non-executive director of these organizations. The findings are presented around a tripartite model of power and influence. The results indicate that the power and influence of part-time board members is shaped by the simultaneous and interactive effects of a set of structural and contextual factors, position and skill in mobilizing a constellation of power sources, and skill and will in converting potential power into actual influence.

Information Control as a Power Resource

This study uses a variety of methods—reactive and unobtrusive—to operationalize the filtering of information during an innovative decision process by a gatekeeper. Specific data are presented on gatekeeping within the focal organization and also between the focal organization and other organizations in its organization set. Theoretically, the paper explores the increased possibilities for filtering information under the uncertain conditions of an innovative decision. Power is discussed both in terms of the resources which form the base of an actors power and also the tactics of resource use. The focus on decision making as a political process provides an emphasis lacking in current organizational studies.

Human Resource Management: An Agenda for the 1990's

In keeping with an inaugural issue, we seek in this paper to do four things: to trace the origins of human resource management (HRM); to provide an explication and critique of it as a conceptual model; to outline the perspective which characterizes our own research programme at Warwick University, and in the process identify a range of themes and issues which the study of HRM ought to address; and finally, given the centrality of the strategic concept to HRM, to argue for an adequate treatment of strategy. in conclusion, we suggest a number of ways forward for research in the 1990s.

Sources and Uses of Power in the Boardroom

This article reports novel empirical findings on the conduct and behaviour of the boards and directors of the top 500 UK firms by capital employed. The particular focus of the article is the relative power and influence of part-time board members (chairmen and non-executive directors) compared with full-time board members (chief executive officers and executive directors). The empirical data are interpreted by a four-part conceptual framework examining the interactive effects of context, structure, power sources, and will and skill in using power to deliver intended effects. The conceptual approach to power is illustrated by two case examples of the mobilization of power to dismiss board members with the greatest positional power.

THE DETERMINANTS OF RESEARCH GROUP PERFORMANCE: TOWARDS MODE 2?

This paper explores the determinants of performance of research groups in the context of the emergence of knowledge as a key intangible asset. It focuses specifically on how best to configure knowledge producers for optimal effectiveness in the current research environment. It explores the under-researched area of the organization and management of research groups located in and at the interface of university research and focuses on medical and medical-related research groups. The discussion is embedded within the current debate concerning modes of organization in knowledge production. Factors identified with high-achievement are: strong leadership; finding, motivating and retaining talent; strategies of related diversification; strongly linked theory and practice and, in particular, network connectedness. Such groups exhibit an increasingly complex internal environment, facilitating a flexible response to an increasingly complex external environment. It finds evidence of Mode 2 working, with increasing use of collaborative strategies and some evidence of a thematic emphasis emerging, although to a lesser extent than the literature suggests, since participants are still working from a strongly disciplinary base. Driven by the more competitive environment, both intellectual and commercial forms of entrepreneurship are present. At the hub of this complex web of inter-related factors is network connectedness, which proves to be centrally facilitative in mobilizing the other necessary resources.

Towards a Political Theory of Organizational Intervention

This paper discusses the neglected theme of the political context of the interventionists work in terms of the client-consultant relationship and the consultant-consultant relationship. It is suggested that the internal consultants ability to influence clients will be a function of his possession and tactical use of five power resources: expertise, control over information, political access and sensitivity, assessed stature and group support. Of these, the first three appear to be necessary but not sufficient conditions for consultant power. Once he has the political access and understanding, the consultants ability to negotiate and persuade depends on his assessed stature with the appropriate figures in his political network.

Strategizing in the multi-business firm: Strategy teams at multiple levels and over time

Strategy teams have received little attention in the strategic management literature. The goal of this article is to fill this theoretical and empirical gap by studying the practices of strategy teams. Drawing upon an in-depth longitudinal case study of a FTSE-100 multi-business firm and evidence from 36 interviews, this study points to the importance of both actions and interactions of corporate centre and business unit strategy teams during the strategy process. Our study also shows that acting and knowing of these teams is dynamic, collective and distributed within the multi-business firm across two interrelated levels: within the team and across teams, each involving both recursive and adaptive activities.Our article is divided into three parts. The first outlines the theoretical and methodological issues for studying the practice of strategy teams in multi-business firms. In the second, our empirical findings are reported. Finally, the third part presents our contributions and some implications for future research.

Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm: A Reprise

This article returns to address the strengths and limitations of Pettigrew 1985 and 1987. It then responds to two of the main deficiencies of those publications. These are the failure to link context to process to outcome in those studies and in process scholarship more generally and the limited treatment of the method of process analysis offered by Pettigrew in 1985 and 1987. The article then compares and contrasts the methods of five additional process scholars – Mintzberg, Burgelman, Langley, Van de Ven, and Eisenhardt – to highlight developments in the conduct of process research since the mid and late 1980s, and to identify a set of pointers for the conduct of future process research.