Case analysis of Barsetshire County Council (BCC) Essay

The case analysis of Barsetshire County Council (BCC) implies the essential for the faceal and managerial metamorphose that it felt needful and the aftermath of implementing the replaces. As a usual table service scheme the BCC felt that actor should be devolved to the nitty-gritty way and the miscellanea of governing bodyal structure is infallible to meet the uprising demand of operate by the locality and to effectively run the activities through prohibited miscellaneous departments.According to Webers analysis of bureaucracy, it is an omnipresent form of validation in modern monastic order, where reason and finality reservation authorities be held by the higher(prenominal) level of the transcription. Development in the early twentieth century in scientific centering associated with names such as Taylor, Urwick and Fayol, gave great support for bureaucratic systems of chance upon-up for their efficiency, stability and the elimination of waste. The large r the makeup, the greater the degree of bureaucratization (Dawson). BCC, one of the larger county councils, formed as a bureaucratic structured public service organization, having a large public figure of employees over 28,000.The reinvigorated CE of the BCC realized that author should be devolved to the put charge. He felt that the neuter in organization and focus was necessary to ensure effective strategy implementation. According Nadler and Tushman(1990) the executive is a unfavorable actor in the drama of organisational change. As being a bureaucratic organization, the BCC teamed up with new focussing view to turn it to a flexible, organic organization, which is more(prenominal) than adaptable to new and unstable conditions (Burns, 1963).Now eld it is obvious that, the very ability of an organization to survive antecede face on its ability to master the process of change (Iverson 1996 kanter et al. 1992 Zimmerman 1991) .The emplacements that triggered this organ izational change in BCC were referred as, though the organization was run by high captain philosophy, the commerce was not aimed at customer need and demands. besides which is bouncy as a public service organization. Shortage of resourcefulnesss was in addition a norm in BCC and it was under tighter comptroller of upper level management. And these on the whole resulted from the narrow span of control, too many hierarchical steps of management and tightly prescribed role.It is necessary to explain here the term Devolved management. It means empowering the management team in an organization in finding reservation and taking initiatives as necessary and essential for the operation of the organization. The situation is opposed to mechanistic systems where decision making authority flows down from exit to bottom manner, but more towards organismic system, which refers to more adaptive and squint in environment (Burns, 1963). Thus the necessity of changes in the BCC was widel y disseminated to the position mangers and the key factors of the changes were widely emphasized. These key factors of organizational changes entrust be describe shortly.Strategic management is the set of decisions and actions used to formulate and implement strategies that will provide a competitive superior fit between the organization and its environment as to achieve organizational cultivations (Prescot, 1986). Before initiating an organizational change, reliable strategic planning must be done to ensure the decorous functionality of the changed management. The essence of formulating strategy is choosing how the organization will be different (Porter, 1996). A well be strategy helps the organization to achieve core competency, synergism and value creation.A devolved management, as in the case of BCC, means expectant more power to the marrow level management, who ar in the boot for implementing general strategies and policies defined by top of the inning managers. So , top level managements responsibility is to define a clear strategy and lead the mid level mangers toward it. As a public organization resembling BCC, customer orientation is a vital issue. So strategy of the changed organization should comply with this.Leadership is reciprocal, occurring among people (Kouzes and posner, 1990) leading is people activity, distinct from administrative paper shuffling or problem-solving activity. It is dynamic and involves the use of power. The goal of ranking(prenominal) executives in many corporations today is not simply to wield power bit in addition to give it away to people who can get under ones skin jobs done (Stewart, 1989). A devolved management enables the managers to become more focused intimately the goals and being empowered to take initiative they can practice the leadership role in doing things like entrepreneurship, risk taking and proactive. Which enable the organization to be more effective and help the employees to be customer centered.The need for organizational change in BCC emphasized this by devolving power to the middle management.An effective work force is an asset of an organization. The employee in an organization, which is proneter and practices gracious relations approach, performs better than others. Training and development of employees represent a aforethought(ip) effort by an organization to facilitate employees learning of job tie in behaviors (Keys and Wolfe, 1988).Also performance link rewards encourage employees to increase their effectiveness. BCC educated performance related pay for white collar staff as the requirement of its organization change. As it is give birthd that, they (white collar staffs) have a purely scheming involvement with the organization so remunerative power is used to obligate their compliance (Etzioni, 1975). Also enriched jobs improve employee pauperism and satisfaction and the company gets benefited from higher long-term productivity, reduced costs an d happier employees (Dalton, 1998).An organizations structure is defined by how tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated change agents can fudge one or more of the key elements in an organizations design. For an instance, departmental responsibilities can be removed, and span of control widened to make the organization flatter and less bureaucratic. In decentralized organization, having less hierarchy levels, decision authority is pushed downward to lower organization levels. Employees have their right to make decisions and to take initiative, which is the vital part of a devolved management.The organizations are now a days turning to Horizontal organizations. The vertical approach such as traditional functional structure does not work nay more, as tend is toward breaking down barriers between departments, and many companies are contemptible toward horizontal structure based on work processes rather than departmental functions (Hurwitz, 1996)Organizational culture refe rs to system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes a organization from others (Becker, 1982). It can act as a barrier to change as well. plainly the actions of top management have a major impact on the organizational culture (Hambrick and mason, 1984). In a flat dynamic organization, employees have their own say in decision making, pundit change and realize their office in their jobs, which are rare in bureaucratic hierarchical organization. In BCC, the top management identified that a new culture replacing the old one was necessary to initiate new devolved management.Now it is needed to evaluate whether the BCC was successful in implementing the changes.In a devolved management decision making power of the middle managers is more emphasized. Delegation, which means transfer of authority and responsibility to positions below the hierarchy besides arise (Leana, 1986) in devolved management. It frees middle manger from seeking authority from the top level manageme nt whenever any situation needs instant attention. It also increases creativity and perception.As a result of degeneration of management in BCC, the management of the Social service Department (SSD), the line mangers were given more power and control over decision making. That raised more right among the managers which enable the subordinates to reporting and on the buttonifying task outcomes to those above them in the chain of program line (Oloughlin, 1990). In devolved management, the need for self esteem (Maslow, 1943) arises in empowered mangers. At also makes them running toward goal. Intentions to work toward a goal are a major source of work motivation (Locke, 1968). The performance of the managers ultimately increases.But too often accountability hampers the smooth functionalities of the managers. It creates hesitation and more complexity. It just like Goal Blocking- occurs a when persons motivation has been aroused but attainment of goal is thwarted in just about way. To maintain service, the managers need resources. The empowered management can use the portion resource successfully despite scarcity. The mangers have more control and accountability in providing services as a result. In BSS after devolution, management properly focused on the needs of the client instead of resource led services customer oriented business was emphasized.Technology- driven oeuvre in which ideas, information, and relationships are becoming important, is the most dramatic element of organizational change. In BCC the introduction of computerized financial management enabled the mangers to increase decision making responsibilities in budgeting.But problem arises when top level management passive have control on resource storage allocation after talent away the power to the middle level management to decide in using the recourses. It limits functionality. If mangers are given limited resources but are evaluate to improve work performance, it is a dilemma for the man agers as the middle mangers of BCC confront after devolution.Moreover, the newly devolved management system had a good alter on specialists support staff of finance, personnel, and information departments. They were widely dispersed having their result of profession at the center to ensure proximity with the service and business needs instead of being centralized. This was a key feature of organizational change in BCC, being close to the customers.But some felt it as a predicament that, the communication gap was large as the specialist staffs were controlled centrally in pre-devolution period. So, still there remained some morphological barriers in specialists service. The managers didnt understand the activities of the specialist support staffs. Actually, though devolution evolved in SSD, the department of specialists was not devolved fully.The devolution of management in BCC, especially in SSD (Social Service Department) was introduced both with the emergence of verificatory a nd proscribe aspects of it as every thing has those two sides naturally. But the balance on the positive side was far heavier than that of negative side. All middle mangers were happy (except few) with the new devolved management system, which empowered them to take decisions regarding their fields and to take initiative with out asking permission of higher authority.The accountability and the clarity aroused with in the employees. The efficiency of mangers to use the scarce resources according to the need and demand of consumers also increased. That means the mangers were becoming more responsive and cautious about the customers. The overall situation was improved in BCC after the devolution of power. But as the dark side of the moon, the devolved management faced some negative waves of thoughts from some mangers of BCC. They felt that, though they had been given additional responsibilities and decision making power, they had not been given the full authority. Some occurrences wer e opposed to the initiatives as the CE announced those to be needed for the organizational change and devolution of power to the middle management.Finally, it can be said that the initiative and implementation of devolved management and organizational change for effective implementation of strategic planning in Barsetshire County Council (BCC), were totally appropriate as being public service organization. But in reality, fully devolved management cannot be possible for some factors. If the middle mangers are biased, or they are not totally focused on the goal, the devolved power they practice does not make any good to the organization. On the other hand if upper level management holds potential control over some major areas such as resource allocation of organization after devolution, when middle managers are expected to make decisions, major conflicts may likely arise between management team.Thus this will lead to frustration and job dissatisfaction among middle mangers. In a publ ic service organization like BCC, consumer orientation is vital. So, upper level management and the middle level managements dedication will be concentrated on achieving customers contention by providing required service. Even there is hoax about empowering mangers. Many empowerment initiatives bolt to deliver their expected advantages and that employees can end up less attached than before (Cunningham and Hyman, 1999).Also empowerment may turn to disillusionment- because managers tend to assume that more interesting work is sufficient rewarding, they find themselves working much harder for the same remuneration (Cunningham et al, 1996). The introduction of Organizational development is then necessary for effective organizational change, which is a collection of planned- change interventions built on humanistic- democratic values that seek to improve organizational effectiveness and employee offbeat (Porras and Robertson, 1992). Now a days more and more organization are turning to devolved management, the top level managers believe , this would make the subordinates more goal oriented and the barriers and conflicts between management level would be removed, thus the organization could turn into a learning organization.Barsettshire county counsil was not an exception to this.References* Micheal E. Portar (1996), What is Strategy? Harvard line of descent Review, 61-68.* Michel G. OLoughlin (1990), What is Bureaucratic Accountability and How can we measure it? Administration and society 22, Vol(3), 275-302.* Carrie R. 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