Management of Change and Innovation - Case Study of Coastline Electrics, Uk
Introduction
The changes endured by Coastline occurred in the very specific context of privatisation. In this perspective, clashes of paradigms are common, in particular in the way knowledge is viewed and exercised as well as between the past and present goals of companies engaged in such process. As described by Grey and Mitev (quoted in Wilson, 1995, p.59): "If post-industrial society ' does offer the possibility of decentralization of work and industrial structures, as well as an increase in the quantity of information and/or knowledge, it is important to remember that these changes have emerged in particular circumstances, that is, the countervailing tendencies towards (re)centralization of overall control; an increasing privatization and commercialization of social life; a commodification of information and knowledge; and an extension of surveillance and control".
In the Coastline Electric case, this tensions result in a radical change of the place of engineers in the company, and how their knowledge is being recaptured by other staff while engineers embark on totally different day-to-day tasks. Described by Bowen and Lawler (1992) as "a means to enable employees to make decisions" (quoted by Erstad, 1997), this question addresses the wider issue of knowledge distribution as well as the issue of the amount of power legitimated by this knowledge as demonstrated by Burns (2000) in a post-modern view of power as a constructed reality which allows the dominant groups to impose their will on others. The authors adopt a post-modern approach to the case, where numerous references to the way the reality is constructed, is observed throughout language and different points of view, and where engineers as object of the change rather than actors of the change - are given "a voice". Overall, the case study examines the steps of the process by which engineers were actually and gradually marginalized in their own field and dispossessed of their former power, and how
The changes endured by Coastline occurred in the very specific context of privatisation. In this perspective, clashes of paradigms are common, in particular in the way knowledge is viewed and exercised as well as between the past and present goals of companies engaged in such process. As described by Grey and Mitev (quoted in Wilson, 1995, p.59): "If post-industrial society ' does offer the possibility of decentralization of work and industrial structures, as well as an increase in the quantity of information and/or knowledge, it is important to remember that these changes have emerged in particular circumstances, that is, the countervailing tendencies towards (re)centralization of overall control; an increasing privatization and commercialization of social life; a commodification of information and knowledge; and an extension of surveillance and control".
In the Coastline Electric case, this tensions result in a radical change of the place of engineers in the company, and how their knowledge is being recaptured by other staff while engineers embark on totally different day-to-day tasks. Described by Bowen and Lawler (1992) as "a means to enable employees to make decisions" (quoted by Erstad, 1997), this question addresses the wider issue of knowledge distribution as well as the issue of the amount of power legitimated by this knowledge as demonstrated by Burns (2000) in a post-modern view of power as a constructed reality which allows the dominant groups to impose their will on others. The authors adopt a post-modern approach to the case, where numerous references to the way the reality is constructed, is observed throughout language and different points of view, and where engineers as object of the change rather than actors of the change - are given "a voice". Overall, the case study examines the steps of the process by which engineers were actually and gradually marginalized in their own field and dispossessed of their former power, and how
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