Toward an understanding of macro political context and power on organisational development and change

Abstract

“Burn to be heard”. This chilling statement echoed across social media platforms during the #Feesmustfall and #Outsourcingmustfall mobilisations in 2015/16 and wreaked over R600m in damages in the South African higher education sector. It also led to the insourcing of previously outsourced workers at Uptown Academy, thereby providing the example of unplanned forced change that this study investigates, describes and analyses. The aim has been to propose a framework that explains instances of unplanned forced change driven from a macro level context, fuelled by power shifts between internal and external actors. The study formulates a constructivist grounded theory framework through a single, embedded, longitudinal case study design based on 18 informant interviews, observations, archival records and a historical timeline of events in the macro and micro contexts. The research discusses the role of multiple logics in framing organisational practices and decisions. It established activism as a mechanism to shift the prevailing logic that frames an organisational practice. It also uncovered how collective identities operating as power mechanisms can force change emanating from the macro context. Over a period of almost 20 years the transformation in the HE sector had unintended consequences for labour practices. An increase in student numbers along with a decrease in public funding brought the ideas of market logic to the administration of public HE institutions, thereby normalising the practice of outsourcing non-core services. This service level agreement (SLA) created a collective, objectified identity of the disenfranchised worker, enabling domination to occur through the normalisation of power in an exploitative outsourcing agreement. Internal activists tried unsuccessfully for over 17 years to fight for insourcing, framing the workers’ plight through market logic, emphasising low wages. Management ignored them, however, perceiving the worker not as a person but as an object situated in an SLA and the supply chain process. A historical meaning of identity rooted in the history of South Africa marginalised both the students and the workers on campus. With no means nor voice to raise their concerns, however, the workers developed a collective ‘subservient worker identity’, presenting a public transcript (or face) of tolerance that hid the transcript of their discontent. When management was confronted with their plight in the beginning of 2016, it was framed in a socio-political logic and the activism, with elements of political posturing, was positioned in a blended economy. A form of manipulative power was manifested when the activists linked the collective racial identities of the “black child” and the “contract worker”. The force of this historical alignment placed the plight of the worker in the domain of the Academy and provided the basis for mobilisation. The theoretical contribution invites organisational change scholars to consider how the forms and influence of power and identity at the collective, social level lead to unplanned forced change. The framework links discourse and institutional logics, integrating social movement theory and the power framework of Fleming and Spicer (2014), to explain unplanned change. The summarised framework of Fleming and Spicer (2014) presents a useful guide for managers to understand how power operates. Combined with the findings in this study, it can locate mechanisms of collective identity in the different forms of power. IIIThe grounded model on unplanned forced change aligns to and extends the social movement framework posited by Briscoe and Gupta (2016) and extends it to include change management literature. The South African story of a challenged macro context rife with socio political and economic inequalities, racial tensions and misunderstood identities is not unique. The findings on forced unplanned change could provide practitioners and business leaders with the agility and intelligence to navigate unintended consequences of power and the impact of unplanned change.