Venkataraman, Anuratha (2013) Change management? Organisational change strategies and managers' and workers' responses : a case study of a commercial vehicle manufacturing plant in southern India. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the conception, implementation and outcomes of
corporate management change strategies through an ethnographic study of a
commercial vehicle manufacturing plant in Southern India with a history of
labour-management conflict. Participant observation and interviews were carried
out mainly within one manufacturing facility between July 2008 and June 2009,
with a further visit in 2011. Towards the end of my fieldwork I also interviewed
trade union conveners, activists and a cross-section of workers.
The change management programme at the case study firm sought to
implement the precepts of lean manufacturing by removing systemic
inefficiencies in inventory management and production processes and installing a
new organisational culture that promoted greater participation and self-initiative
among workers and managers. Investigating the reasons for this programme’s
very partial success made it possible to understand better the contradictory
pressures faced by corporate management, the challenges encountered by senior
plant managers and the factors shaping the reception of management policies by
middle managers and workers.
The thesis furthers our understanding of the limits of managerial agency
by integrating two largely independent strands of enquiry: the rich ethnographic
studies of the labour process, by Delbridge [1998], Milkman [1997], Durand and
Hatzfeld [2003] and others, that consider the implementation and denouement of
Japanese modes of work organisation such as lean manufacturing, and the
granular focus on managerial subjectivities that shape managerial activity and
condition managerial agency, represented by the work of Watson [1994], Jackall
[1988] and Dalton [1950]. In addition, it documents the importance of broader political-economic contexts in determining the outcomes of management
initiatives.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Organizational change -- Management -- Case studies, Strategic planning, Automobile industry and trade -- India, South, Industrial relations -- Case studies
Official Date:	March 2013
Dates:	Date Event March 2013 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Elger, Tony; Wolkowitz, Carol
Extent:	2 volumes.
Language:	eng

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