IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIC CHANGE - A SURVEY OF BRITISH AND GERMAN WORKERS

Large manufacturing companies are developing strategies to respond to changing competitive circumstances. These commonly have their major fo cus on technology and human resource development through the implement ation both of new technologies and of corresponding, quality centred a pproaches to organization. There is a wide range of theoretical and em pirical research evidence on the creation and espousal of these strate gies, but, until recently, little on their implementation. This paper looks at the implementation of strategy in one company renowned for it s strategic leadership, particularly in the area of new organizational methods of achieving manufacturing excellence through continuous impr ovement. Through an examination of its operations in two countries it is possible to highlight some of these key elements of successful impl ementation of organizational change. On the basis of this it argues th at there are some important differences between the characteristics of the two workforces which have had a profound effect on the implementa tion of strategic change, and in particular on the degree to which a c ompany is free to introduce change gradually. Such a survey points to the need for further comparative analyses of strategic change in two n ational environments similar to that undertaken here. Copyright (C) 19 96 Elsevier Science Ltd