Oriana Milani Price

The post-bureaucratic parasite: Contrasting narratives of organizational change in local government

This article investigates the relationship between learning, bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy as manifest in a local government council in the Australian state of New South Wales. Empirically, we compare the culturally dominant narrative of the necessity and desirability of post-bureaucracy in public management, the managerial narrative of this particular organization and its restructure, and the local accounts of learning from employees who were immersed in the changing work environment. Our analysis confirms that post-bureaucracy is not an ideal form that exceeds or surpasses bureaucracy, but acts as another marker for the bureaucracy’s ability to survive and adapt. The article’s contribution lies in its exploration of the character of this adaptation. We contend that post-bureaucracy acts a parasite that both relies on and disturbs the practice of bureaucracy while failing to substantively challenge it. Moreover, like a parasite post-bureaucracy requires the ongoing vitality of its host in order to continue to nourish itself.

Creating work: Employee-driven innovation through work practice reconstruction

Considerations of Employee-Driven Innovation generally posit innovation as an advance in the substantive products, services and/or processes of an organization. More broadly, innovation can also refer to anything that seeks to do something new, or address a concern that would not otherwise be met. Employees contribute to innovation in many ways: they can generate and/ or implement a product or service; they can generate and/or implement new technologies; however, they can also influence the ways in which an organization adapts and evolves over time in more subtle ways through instigating work practice changes. Although these more subtle changes may not appear under the banner of organizational innovation, they nevertheless contribute to the creation and application of new organizational processes, practices and outputs. They may also never be part of the conscious and explicit agenda of the organization or be something that managers have a strong role in initiating. However, their effects can be cumulative and substantial.

Learning Organizational Practices That Persist, Perpetuate and Change: A Schatzkian View

In this chapter, we challenge two conventional assumptions from workplace learning research and organizational change research: that learning can be understood isolated from its embeddedness in work practices and that managing change at work aims to re-stabilize entities known as organizations. In contrast, we believe understanding the nexus between learning and change in organizational work lies in appreciating the apparent paradox when workers learn to carry forward (persist and perpetuate) practices, yet also learn to adapt (change) them to achieve the purposes of work. We draw significantly from Schatzki’s theorizations of practice and argue that practice theory has much to contribute in conceptualizing a more dynamic view of organizing, working and learning. We illustrate our use of Schatzkian concepts by discussing how workers at an Australian utility company use safety practices to learn how to become new kinds of safe workers and to embrace the organizational notion of safe working.

An enterprising phoenix: materiality, affect and learning

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how workers experience planned and unplanned change(s), how the effects of change endure in organizations and the entanglement (Gherardi, 2015) of materiality, affect and learning. Design/methodology/approach Research design is ethnographic in nature and draws from 30 semi-structured interviews of workers in an Australian organization. Interviews were designed to elicit narrative accounts (stories) of challenges and change faced by the workers. Desktop research of organizational documents and material artefacts complemented interview data. Analysis is informed by socio-material understandings and, in particular, the ideas of materiality, affect and learning. Findings Change, in the form of a fire, triggered spontaneous and surprisingly positive affectual and organizational outcomes that exceeded earlier attempts at restructuring work. In the wake of the material tragedy of the fire in one organization, what emerged was a shift in the workers and the practices of the organization. Their accounts emphasized challenges, excitement and renewal, which prompt reconsideration of learning at work, in particular the entanglement of affect, materiality and learning in times of change. Originality/value Much workplace learning research identifies change as conducive to learning. This paper builds on this research by providing new understandings of, and insights into, the enduring effects of change.

Lean Six Sigma and the Australian business excellence framework: An exploratory case within local government

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine a contextualized local government case study of the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in conjunction with the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) to highlight the importance of a good strategic fit between LSS and organizational objectives before implementation. Design/methodology/approach A local government council is used in a case study-based approach. Organizational artefacts and documents were used for data collection in conjunction with interviews from senior executives within the organization. Findings Results indicate that when used in conjunction with the ABEF, LSS provides focus on organizational learning practices embedded within the implementation of continuous improvement. Research limitations/implications The purpose of this paper is to contribute to discourse regarding the effective application and implementation of LLS in local government. Practical implications LSS tools and techniques are known to local government, but are applied in isolation of the overarching LSS framework. This paper emphasizes the importance of comprehensive implementation of these tools, guided by the inclusion of an external contextualized framework (ABEF) in conjunction with the LSS to achieve sustainable continuous improvement. Originality/value Business excellence frameworks are widely used in the public sector as a reference/means for improvement. This paper highlights the importance of LSS in operationalizing strategic direction provided by such frameworks and providing the focus on learning practices critical for sustainable improvements.