Managers’ and employees’ contradictory argumentations of spatial change

Office design and organizational change

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare different employee perceptions of the success of one change: a move to new offices and an open-plan design.

Design/methodology/approach

In sum, 25 interviews were carried out in a New Zealand law firm that six months earlier had moved to new premises.

Findings

Contrary to academic and practitioner reports that open-plan offices are disliked, participants appreciated the new office space. A well-planned and highly participative program of change management led to positive perceptions of aesthetic design, open communication, collegiality, egalitarianism and inclusiveness.

Research limitations/implications

Given the small sample used in one organization, the study highlights the need for more research into the processes and outcomes of office space changes.

Originality/value

The roles of communication and culture, in particular, collegiality and egalitarianism, were salient factors in a complex web of causes and consequences in this context of change.

Persuasive speech in multi-professional change facilitation meetings

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe persuasive speech and discourses in multi-professional organizational change facilitation meetings at a hospital through rhetorical discourse analysis. Previous research has often considered organizational change to be a managerial issue, with other employees given the rather passive role of implementators. This study takes an alternative approach in assuming that organizational change could benefit by involving those who are most familiar with the tasks to be changed.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employed a qualitative, case study approach and focused on the construction of a hospitalist model within multi-professional change facilitation meetings. Eight videos of these multi-professional change facilitation meetings – which occurred between January and September 2017 – were observed and the material was analyzed by rhetorical discourse analysis. An average of 10–20 actors from different professional groups participated in the meetings. The change actors comprised physicians, nursing staff and nursing managers, along with a secretary and hospitalist. The meetings were conducted by a change facilitator.

Findings

The persuasive speech in the analyzed organizational change meetings occurred within five distinct discourses: constructing the change together, positive feedback, strategic change in speech, patient perspective and driving change. The content of these discourses revealed topics that are relevant to persuading members of healthcare organizations to adopt a planned change.

Originality/value

The presented research provides new knowledge about how persuasive speech is used in organizational change and describes the discourses in which persuasive speech is used in a healthcare context.