The Measures of Quality Improvement through Self-Assessment - Essay Example

Evaluating Organizational Culture Interventions This paper portrays the change strategies that were used in the Spencer Mathews case study. It basically analyses the action research project that was carried out by the head of an Australian institution. The paper also discusses the methods through which the change agent gathered data and studied the problems faced by the people in adjusting to change. Also, it provides the alternatives used by the change agent in order to ensure an increased level of involvement in the project. Evaluating organizational culture interventions The main aim of this project was the change of the approach on part of the faculty members towards the measures of quality improvement through self assessment. The project, initiated by the head of the institution, had the academics as the major participants. Since they knew more about their subjects, the academics were expected to experience discomfort as an investigation was anticipated. To mitigate the anxiety that could arise as result of the changing quality patterns and to encourage involvement of the participants, the project was designed to be collaborative. The head (change agent) was to work alongside the academics to improve the quality of the services provided. Overall, the project involved organizational change. The implementation of the change in the various departments of the organization was expected to be difficult because of the bureaucratic nature of the institution. According to the principles of Tichy, a general trend of hierarchy meant that the change would be accepted by some while some would not really approve of it. (1983). Hence, the change would not have similar effects on all the people. It was also probable that most of the people would take this change as something like a ‘bureaucratic checking device’ and would not think of it as something that would improve the quality. (Spencer-Mathews, 2001) Furthermore, it was also considered that such a mindset of the people may lead to the creation of certain barriers that may in turn lead to the annoyance and skepticism among the participants.(Richardson & Macneish, 1994 ) The attitudes of the people involved were believed to be important because only they could influence the success of the organization. To avoid the non acceptance of the change by the faculty, the head considered it pertinent to introduce a team based collaboration change in accordance with Dyer’s principles (1977). Also, Cornesky’s theory of open communication was planned to be carried out between the client and the participants because this would ensure that the anxiety and stress, which could basically be created due to the change, be removed. (1992) Dyer’s notion of ‘pseudo acceptance’ and Baur and Kogan’s beliefs on the negative feelings towards the improvement of the quality standards were also taken into account while creating the project. Using the theories of these people, the head sought to design the project in way that would move to the modification being accepted both technically and culturally. The methodology used by the client was the one termed as ‘action methodology’ which aimed at the carrying of the methodology along with the research. This process was divided into five parts. Initially the situation of the organization was analyzed after which a possible solution was found out. The rest of the scheme included the planning and the implementation of the strategy adopted by the client as a diagnosis to the situation. Later, the effects of the changes were taken into account as observations. The project was initiated after a consensus through which 15 people, 8 males and 7 females were selected. Since action methodology was adopted it meant that that a collection of techniques were used to gather data. Meetings and literature reviews along with general observations provided the consultants an idea of how the change was intercepted among the people. Data was collected through the above mentioned modes and then analyzed by the head and the consultants in order to provide alternatives to the situation. The method implemented by the head of the Australian institution was in a way similar to that of the competing values framework because many meetings were kept to ensure that the people were not dissatisfied with the change. A lot of emphasis was put on the feelings and attitudes of the people towards the quality measurements and many alternatives were considered so that the people accept the change. A stress on the internal focus of the organization is also what the competing values framework suggests. In addition, the framework considers the external focus as necessary because its goal is efficiency of the organization as a whole. Akin to the framework was the method crafted by the change agent because it ensured that the quality be improved. Hence, the method suggested by the change agent was very much related to the competing values framework. Generally the method adopted by the head was as follows. Firstly in an official meeting the participants were told about the task of self assessment to improve standards. Also, they were given confidence that the issues they would face in this task would be discussed in detail and alternatives would be sought. This meeting was greeted by mixed responses; however, most of the staff did not really welcome the change. According to them (and the union as a whole) quality standards were not a major concern. In fact they believed that the wages of the employees should be increased instead of emphasis being put on quality control. After the resistance towards the first meeting, a self assessment survey was carried out to engage the staff in the project. However it did not prove to be fruitful because majority of the people did not take part in it. Nevertheless, many misconceptions among the people were removed because of the written communication. Since the measures adopted so far had not met the desired goals, the head intervened differently the second time. This time, informal chats were held between the change agent and the academic staff as to why they had not responded to the written surveys. This new technique ensured that the people could directly interact with the head of the institution and the head could visit their offices. Cartoons and illustrations seen in the offices of these people helped the head to deduce the general ideas and values of the business culture of the organization. This approach was similar to that of Tichy who believed that humor could be used to judge the values of the people in a certain business culture (1983). Through these meetings it was found out that the staff was facing problems because of the complex language of the documents. It was observed that the resistance and alienation was present among the people because the document terminology (for example words such as inspection) discouraged them. To counter this problem the head proposed to engross the individuals who participate in the refurbishing of the document. This was done with due consent with the theory offered by Ritchie and Thompson which states that if the participants are encouraged to participate in the formation of the written documents their resistance towards change can be reduced. (1988). Also through the observation of the activities of the participants it was felt that they apparently had the feeling that they were being controlled by some one outside the organization. A number of meetings were kept again but they bore no results as people usually were not interested in giving time to such meetings. When the meetings with the participants did not work out the head decided to have meetings with the quality management team. Through these meetings the head found out that the team actually blamed the head for the non cooperation of the participants. Also it was observed that the quality management team kept to itself and did not include the academic staff in its findings and documentation. As a consequence, the participants did not have any trust in the team and so showed lack of involvement in the entire project. To conclude, the project had some results in the long run as far as the technical aspect was concerned. People did complete the self assessment task technically however the project met a dead end when it came to the cultural change. The project was quite predictable to be partially successful as the quality management team was not willing to cooperate with the participants. References Carroll, M. (1997) Self-audits of quality in academic and service departments : a practical experience. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 229(2), p. 225. Cornesky, R. A. (1992) Using Deming to Improve Quality in Colleges and Universities Madison,Magna Publications Dyer, T. (1977) Team Building: Issues and Alternatives. Massachusetts,AddisonWesley Macneish, J. & Richardson, T. (1994) The Choice: Either Change the System or Polish the Fruit.Melbourne, Don’t Press Spencer-Mathews (2001) Enforced Cultural Change in Academe. A Practical Case Study: implementing quality management systems in higher education. University of Southern Queensland, Australia Read More