A proposal to investigate the role of interim or other atypical management in the transformation of lean organisations in response to market conditions. Document 1 Definition and Mapping of Research Questions In part fulfilment of the requirements of Nottingham Business School in pursuance of an award of the degree of Doctor of Business Administration Jeffrey Tyrrell 33 Pyotts Copse, Old Basing, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG24 8WE 01256 811983, [email protected] Introduction .................................................................................................................... 2 Section 2: Organisational and management context ..................................................... 6 Section 3: Management problems and issues description. ............................................ 8 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 8 Context ....................................................................................................................... 8 Lean organisations ................................................................................................... 10 Atkinson’s concept of the flexible firm ..................................................................... 13 Atypical management ............................................................................................... 15 Section 4: Academic fields relevant to the proposal. ................................................... 16 Document 2 .............................................................................................................. 17 Document 3 .............................................................................................................. 17 Document 4 .............................................................................................................. 18 Document 5 .............................................................................................................. 18 Section 5: The research issues, objectives and scope .................................................. 18 Document 2: The literature review .......................................................................... 18 Document 3: Ethnographic research ....................................................................... 19 Document 4: Structured Research ........................................................................... 19 Document 5: The thesis ............................................................................................ 20 Section 6: Research Plans and Methods ...................................................................... 20 Section 7: Ethical and political issues ......................................................................... 23 Section 8: Outcomes .................................................................................................... 25 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 27 1 Introduction This paper outlines a proposal the objective of which is to understand the role of atypical management in the transformation of lean organisations in response to market conditions. Borrowing from the literature on atypical employment, atypical management is equated with managers who are hired to achieve a particular outcome through non- standard employment arrangements. Employment is used here in the non-technical sense to mean engaged by an organisation. The working definition of atypical management, set out below, is broad enough to include interim managers and consultants, though the primary focus of the proposal will be the role of the interim management. The inclusion of consultants will enable the enquiry to extend to include the reasons why an employer engages an interim manager as opposed to a consulting firm or a consultancy in preference to an interim manager. The working definition of an atypical manager could also incorporate certain of the arrangements that are used for the provision of non-executive directors. Indeed, a growing number of professional, interim managers either hold or aspire to such appointments. However, the proposal is concerned with atypical managers engaged in business transformation and my current thinking is that this focus will exclude most non-executive directors. Recent years have seen significant growth in the use of outsourcing to provide services to organisations. The outsourcing market has matured from simple arrangement whereby, e.g., information system services are provided under contract 2 to embrace the outsourcing of business processes and, the research of Taylor et al shows, the management of innovation (Taylor, Quintas et al. 2000.; Taylor, Quintas et al. 2000.). Outsourcing is a form of atypical employment but outsourcing strategies and their impact on an organisation would be an extensive study in itself. Consequently, whilst it is likely that issues relating to outsourcing will arise during the course of the proposed research, it is not a focus area of this study. This proposal explores the relationship between lean organisations and the concept of the flexible firm and draws the preliminary conclusion that the essence of a flexible firm is that it adopts what Bryson (1999.p. 83) describes as a ‘tight’ business model, in effect, creating a rigid, inflexible, organisational structure, in pursuit of an optimal configuration. However, the acquisition of such a configuration is an elusive goal. Therefore lean organisations should be defined as to include those organisations that have a strategy intended to achieve that outcome. The hypothesis underlying the proposal is that lean organisations face difficulties in maintaining alignment to an ever changing and complex external environment within which they must in the private sector achieve a competitive advantage and in the public and not for profit sectors satisfy their mandate. One answer to that difficulty is to use atypical management. That use may enable an organisation to staff for an average demand, meeting peaks of demand and troughs through atypical employment or, the primary focus of this proposal, may be part of a consciously chosen strategy to use atypical management to provide innovation and change skills rather than to maintain such skills in house. Of course the proposed research may demonstrate that the growth in the use of atypical management is not a planned outcome at all but the unplanned consequence of the decision to adopt lean, process driven, strategies, or as 3 an externality to other polices, downsizing comes to mind, adopted to meet stakeholder expectations or environmental conditions. All organisations endure change, but the proposal distinguishes between change and transformation. Adopting Aldrich’s (1999.) typology, transformation is a major or substantial change to an organisation. Although there is room for argument as to whether a particular change is a transformation, the definition is itself subjective; the concern here is with the organisation’s view of its proposed change. An organisation will determine whether it is faced with change or transformation having regard to whether the change involves the entire organisation or commits a significant set of an organisation’s resource. Although the flexible firm literature is extensive there is relatively little literature on interim management, the role of interim management in business transformation or the process by which employers chose between the use of interim management and consultancy services. Consequently the proposal will be of interest to a number of communities, including:- The academy, Interim managers and their professional associations, Interim management intermediaries and agents, Actual and potential employer’s of interim managers, Consultancy firms, Policy makers and regulators. It is intended that tangible outcomes from the proposed research should include: 4 A competency model for interim managers engaged in business transformation and change. An understanding of the criteria by which interim managers are selected in preference to other types of atypical management, and in particular consultancy services. An understanding of the informal, or psychological contract, implied in an interim management engagement. An understanding of some of the key drivers behind the use of interim management. Having outlined the key aspects of the proposal the rest of this paper is organised in the following sections: Section 2 discusses the organisational and management support, which will be available for the proposed research. Section 3 outlines my preliminary thoughts on key management problems that underpin the central hypothesis of the proposal. To recap, that hypothesis is that lean organisations have difficulties when faced with the need to change and that they address those difficulties through the use of atypical management. Firstly this section establishes a context within the resource- based view of strategy. The section then goes on to discuss whether the flexible firm of the literature is in fact flexible. The final part of this section sets out some preliminary thoughts on atypical management and in so doing seeks to come to a working definition for use in the forthcoming research. Section 4 identifies the academic fields that appear relevant to the proposal. 5 Section 5 Outlines the research issues and objectives of each of documents 2, 3 and 4, and in doing so establishes the scope of each