Purpose – Business process implementation has been primarily seen as a redesign of the workflow with the consequent organizational change assumed to be taking place automatically or through a process of “muddling through”. Although evidence suggests that 70 per cent of business process reengineering programmes have failed due to lack of alignment with corporate change strategy, the question of alignment of workflow redesign with the organizational change process has not received adequate attention. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for managing organizational change in a structured manner during workflow redesign, a perspective missing in the literature on business process management (BPM) implementation. Design/methodology/approach – This paper attempts to integrate the 8-S dimensions of Higgins model across the different phases of workflow redesign to develop a process framework of managing organizational change during BPM workflow redesign. As an exploratory study the paper draws on existing literature on BPM and change alignment to conceptualize an alignment framework of associated managerial activities involved during different phases of BPM workflow redesign. The framework is evaluated against two case studies of business process implementation to substantiate how lack of alignment leads to failure in BPM implementation. Findings – The paper provides a conceptual framework of how organizational change should be managed during BPM implementation. The model suggests the sequence of alignment of the 8-S dimensions (Higgins, 2005) with the different phases of the workflow redesign and identifies the role of the managerial levels in the organization in managing the alignment of the 8-S dimensions during business process change. Practical implications – This framework would provide managers with an execution template of how to achieve alignment of the workflow redesign with the 8-S dimensions thus facilitating effective organizational change during business process implementation. Originality/value – This paper proposes a process model of how organizational elements should be aligned with the workflow redesign during business process change implementation. No such model is available in BPM literature proposing alignment between hard and soft factors.

South East Asian petroleum retailers are under considerable pressure to improve service quality by reducing turnover. An empirical methodology from this industry determined the extent that jobs characteristics, training opportunities, age and salary influenced the level of job satisfaction, an indicator of turnover. Responses are reported on a random sample of 165 site employees (a 68 per cent response rate) of a Singaporean retail petroleum firm. A restricted multivariate regression model of autonomy and training opportunities explained the majority (35.4 per cent) of the variability of job satisfaction. Age did not moderate these relationships, except for employees >21 years of age, who reported enhanced job satisfaction with additional salary. Human Capital theory Life Cycle theory and Job Enrichment theory are invoked and explored in the context of these findings in the South East Asian retail petroleum industry. In the South East Asian retail petroleum industry, jobs providing employees with the opportunity to undertake a variety of tasks that enhanced the experienced meaningfulness of work are likely to promote job satisfaction, reduce turnover and increase the quality of service.

Purpose -Change literature emphasizes the significance of aligning change at a systemic level for sustained effectiveness of strategic change initiatives. While this body of literature emphasizes the significance of psychological and process dimensions of managing change, research on an integrated and strategic approach to deploy, track, measure and sustain large-scale changes has been limited and inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the literature to propose a holistic conceptual framework for identifying, formulating, deploying, measuring, aligning and tracking strategic changes in organizations.Design/methodology/approach -Specifically, core concepts drawn from scholarly literature and practitioner writings from distinct fields of change management and strategy deployment tools, primarily the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as proposed by Kaplan and Norton, are reviewed, synthesized and critiqued, to inform and advance the integrated framework proposed.Findings -The suggested approach draws significantly from the BSC framework and focuses on the use of formal steps such as developing change themes and results, setting change objectives, developing lead and lag performance measures for measuring strategic change objectives. Furthermore, the proposed framework also provides directions on how to track the progress of change initiatives with respect to the desired objectives, for evaluating the effectiveness of change deployment efforts, all through applying cause and effect linkages.Research limitations/implications -Although the focus on individual change arose to support technical deployment of change, over the years the strategic deployment process itself has not received the desired focus in the change strategy literature. The proposed framework extends the current literature on strategic change to offer academics fresh insights on the significance of a strategic approach to change deployment. An application of the framework in the context of large-scale transformational changes in organizations can provide further evidence related to the validity of the proposed approach.Practical implications -A total of 70 percent of all change efforts fail. While some fail due to incomplete diagnoses, others fail due to gaps in deployment or measurement. However, there is uncertainty about how to prevent change failure, with no one having explicitly articulated the same. A rigorous and practical approach to systematically deploy change with a continuous focus on strategic alignment has specifically been found missing in the literature. The proposed framework fills this gap to offer managers and organizational decision makers a holistic and practical tool to successfully navigate the complexities of their strategic change efforts by measuring strategic alignment in a step-wise manner throughout the change process. Originality/value -Mention of the need to use integrated and strategic performance management tools, such as the BSC proposed by Kaplan and Norton, to measure and review change and to manage...

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PurposeTaking a career capital approach, this paper addresses the issue of “pipeline block” frequently experienced by women seeking career advancement. Focusing on the Arab Middle East (AME) region, the authors take a contextually relevant multi-level approach to examine these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a qualitative, interview-based approach, drawing on data obtained from women leaders from the AME region. Drawing on Bourdieu's capital-field-habitus framework, we explore how women in the AME developed career capital in particular organisational fields.FindingsThe findings show the importance of human and social capital, as well as the influence of habitus for women's career advancement in specific fields. The study also highlights the unique contribution of cultural capital in helping women to navigate organisational fields where it is necessary to both challenge, and conform to, traditional norms.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations of the study include assumptions of homogeneity across countries of the AME, whereas differences are known to exist. Future research should consider these contextual differences, and also include a study of women who were not successful in gaining career advancement.Practical implicationsThe study’s multi-level approach highlights practical implications for women, organisations and society. For organisations, the authors propose some context-relevant coaching strategies that can help women to attain leadership positions.Social implicationsThe study’s multi-level approach highlights practical implications for women, organisations,and society. Focusing on organisations, the authors propose some context-relevant coaching strategies that can help women to attain advancement in their careers.Originality/valueThe study demonstrates originality in the findings by showing how women overcome the pipeline block in relation to their career advancement. The use of the Bourdieusian framework, an in-depth qualitative approach, and the AME context also add to the study's originality.

Abstract:The interest in leadership continues to grow over the past few decades. Leadership Development Programs (LDPs) have become a priority for all sectors, especially for the public sector. However, LDPs tend to be based on Western leadership theories, and predominantly utilize Western leadership development approaches, and do not consider the influence of national culture in their utilization, namely high-context cultures, as exists in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This exploratory study focuses on elucidating leadership conceptualizations among Emirati leaders identifying their perceptions of the factors that impact on LDPs and leadership outcomes in the UAE public sector. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 leaders from three Dubai government organisations and data were analyzed using NVivo 10. The significance of the findings of the study are: (1) leadership conceptualizations were based on the common themes of inspiring others and communication, (2) mentoring and coaching were noted to be among the best mechanisms utilized in LDPs, (3) leadership challenges included access to financial resources, adapting to 'smart' government, and building and retention of leaders-hence the need for effective LDPs. The study provides a unique and significant contextual contribution highlighting improvement in opportunities for leadership development programs in the UAE public sector.

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