Engendering Change within a Water Infrastructure Client Organisation: A Participatory Action Research Approach

Abstract

Continuing demands by stakeholders for improved service delivery has caused Infrastructure Client Organisations (ICO) in the UK to embark upon organisational restructuring. It is expected that such restructuring would enhance cost-effectiveness and quality in asset management and service delivery. However, this change, if not properly managed and sustained, could result in the inability of the ICO to achieve these targets. This study outlines the use of systemic thinking and Participatory Action Research (PAR) in driving and managing such change within a UK-based Water and Wastewater ICO (UK WASC). Besides highlighting the context for change in response to policy, austerity and regulatory pressures, this study portrays how the PAR approach can assist in the management of change within ICOs. Furthermore, it provides an insight into the evolution of an external researcher, from novice to expert within the ICO, imbued with the required knowledge to encourage other stakeholders to participate in driving the change management process. Preliminary findings indicate the usefulness of this phased approach toward PAR. This study provides a platform for researchers wishing to engage with ICOs to improve service delivery, identifying the value of engagement, change and systemic thinking.

Reconciling theory and practice on the participation of the downtrodden in poverty intervention policies and programs

“…The misgivings of orthodox development theories in the late 1960s and their inability to address the conundrum of poverty across the globe facilitates the systematic search for an alternate theoretical analyses and a paradigm shift from economic growth to social development. Within the neighborhood of 1970s and 1980s, participatory approaches were metaphorically perceived as a "child of necessity" to development practice and progressively upheld people-centered development, state society synergies, participatory democracy and grassroots development (Maiava, 1995;Potts, Awuzie, McDermott, & Stephenson, 2015;Rahman, 1993). Participatory theory is a conceptual framework which attempts to bridge the subject distinction.…”