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Sheltered for a long time within the public sector environment with high job security and professional research autonomy, defense R&D organizations faced unprecedented challenges when government support was being withdrawn and closure threatening. They needed to be led by a suitable vision in order to implement comprehensive changes to their operations and remain viable. This study explores this constitution of vision as a mechanism of intentional change, a strategic tool to reach the desired future for the organization. Going beyond the current literature, the authors ask to what extent, and how, organizational members reconstruct vision in a way that it can support or detain change, a question of importance for management scholars as well as professional managers in both public and private organizations.
“This is an excellent body of ethnographic scholarship on institutional entrepreneurship within the defense R&D sector, beautifully written and complete with a rich description of Gamma - a truly deep ethnography.” · Siri Terjesen, Indiana University
“This book is a pleasure to read. It is a highly unusual ethnography that provides a window into an institutional space (nuclear research) that is virtually invisible to the public eye. Given the obvious security issues involved, it is even more remarkable that the work was done. The ethnography itself is brilliantly written, showing ‘Gamma’ during a major transition in organizational ethics and activities.” · Benson Honig, Teresa Cascioli Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership, MacMaster University
List of Tables and Figures
Chapter 1. Introduction
- The Structure of the Book
Chapter 2. Methodology
- Data Collection
- Data Analysis
- The Role of the Researchers
Chapter 3. Conceptual Framework
- Institutional entrepreneurship: An Approach to Organizational Transformation
- Planned Change Interventions
- Organizational Vision
- Vision and Organizational Leadership
- Organizational Vision: A Facilitator of Change
- Organizational Vision: A Hindrance to Change
- Legitimacy as Practice Mechanism
- Sensemaking Accounts as Schema for Change
- Conclusions
Chapter 4. Gamma: The Evolution of Goverenmental R&D Organization
- Challenges to the Mandate for Organizational Change
- Managing Tensions
- Conclusions
Chapter 5. Survival : The Pressure for Change
- Conclusions
Chapter 6. Chang in Style, Change in Form: Regenerating the Organizational Structure
- Why Change? - The Demands of Organizational Environments
- Deploying Change at Gamma
- Conclusions
Chapter 7. The Sensemaking for Change
- Sensemaking
- Confrontational Sensemaking Accounts
- Change related sensemaking accounts
- Conclusions
Chapter 8. The Construction of Legitimacy for Change
- Competing Legitimacy: Narratives of Founding Legacy
- Confrontational Narratives of legitimacy during change
- Reconciling Legitimacy: survival narrative
- Conclusions
Chapter 9. The envisioning Process: Building an Entrepreneurial Vision
- Building a Vision: Existing Theoretical Models
- Gamma’s Formulation of a Entrepreneurial Vision
- Conclusions
Chapter 10. The Task of Constructing Change: The Mechanism of Vision Creation
- Formation of the Survival Vision
- Creating Vision for Survival
- Constructing Strategic Vision
- Conclusions
Chapter 11. Conclusion: Vision and Change in Gamma
- Conclusions
References