Influencing Change : Organizational Change and the Implementation of Self-Managing Teams

Organizational changes are inevitable, yet up to 70% fail. Technological development and competition in a volatile environment require more flexible organizations. As such, implementing self-managed teams (SMTs) has become a more common approach. The fact that SMTs ought to be self-managed has further raised a debate, since it is argued that some form of manager still is required. Therefore, the following research question was proposed; How does the interplay of influences unfold between the manager and the organizational context when implementing SMTs? The purpose of the study is to increase the understanding of how different activities, events and actions during a change process of implementing SMTs influence the manager, as well as how the manager influences the change process of implementing SMTs. The research was conducted by a qualitative, abductive approach based on a case study. The results show that managers influence perceived history of change, control and the SMTs. Managers are influenced by perceived history of change, employee commitment to change, control, and by the SMT. These influences determine how the manager is influenced by, and how the manager influences the organizational change towards the implementation of SMTs.