The Scottish Road Network Authority - Research Paper Example

1). Indeed, one basic hurdle to SRNA's senior management's decision to shift a long-standing and all-public service strategy of construction and maintenance to one focused on procurement and contracting out is SRNA's organisational culture. The proposed changes will inevitably lead to redundancies and an explosion in services outsourced. Expectedly, upper management's suggestions are met with great resistance as is shown in provided case. The case for change is, in fact, hard to 'sell' among staff given SRNA's senior management's practices evidenced in poor knowledge management strategies.

This report argues that, in order for SRNA to diffuse and manage change effectively among staff, network-based, knowledge-sharing strategies should be put in place. Since devolution, Scotland has barely shifted away from a 'public sector mentality' (Lyall, n.d.). Resistance to propositions by upper management comes, therefore, as no surprise. Placed in a wider context, outsourcing public services - road building services included - is, in fact, a continuation of a set of policies enacted across all U.K. (Lyall).

Indeed, just as outsourcing services has generated much opposition since introduction back in 1980's (Dodworth, M. & Constable, M., 2006), SRNA's staff's opposition to suggested changes is only symptomatic of such shift's main arguments: employee As a matter of fact, all three i. THE SCOTTISH ROAD NETWORK AUTHORITY: KNOWLEDGE SHARING 4retention and rights, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and service quality (Dodworth, M. & Constable, M.; Hemson, 1998). As a matter of fact, all three issues are not only a U.K. concern but are spread about as much countries as can be wherever and whenever a case is made for outsourcing (Hemson).

Indeed, one can hardly find a similar issue in which almost same concerns are voiced. In SRNA's case, Henry Irving's, Director General's (DG's), practice of surrounding himself with a narrow circle of senior executives adds a particular emphasis on SRNA's case for knowledge management in a wider context of an eminent change. More specifically, SRNA strongly speaks for a case of workplace power structure within which corporate culture as well as knowledge sharing strategies are defined, controlled and set by a minority cohort made up of a DG and a narrow circle of surrounding senior executives (e.g. Charles Hampden, Finance Director).

Indeed, corporate culture has been increasingly emphasised as a definitive aspect of corporate style and performance (Schein, 2004; Willmott, 2003). According to McDermott and O'Dell (2001), corporate culture is the 'shared values, beliefs, and practices of the people in the organisation'. Put differently, an organisation's culture is an overarching framework within which all employees fall and are committed to (Willmott). That is, one way management holds sway over workplace power politics is to define how employees should adopt specific codes of conducts supposedly divorced THE SCOTTISH ROAD NETWORK AUTHORITY: KNOWLEDGE SHARING 5from interpersonal, intradepartmental, and interdepartmental interactions.