Recent writing on contemporary organisations is suggestive of extensive moves to create more responsive and flexible firms. Such claims often rest on studies of exceptional organisations or atypical sectors. Drawing on large-scale surveys of organisational innovations in Europe and Japan, this...

This paper presents a novel and distinctive approach to the study of change within the NHS. Central to the paper's approach is the view that research on change in health care systems should be processual, comparative, pluralist, and historically based. Guiding such a view is a meta-analytical...

This paper reports some early findings from a major research project which explores strategic service change in the NHS in the post-Griffiths era. We begin by briefly reviewing the relevant literature on change and general management in the NHS, and go on to outline the particular features of...

The core of this paper is a case study of how a District Health Authority (Paddington and North Kensington, now Parkside DHA following a recent merger with Brent DHA) in Inner London responded to a major new health care issue of the 1980s — Aids — but the paper also seeks to locate this case...

The recent health care reforms include major changes to the composition (and, it is hoped, role) of health authorities. The research team at the Centre for Corporate Strategy and Change, Warwick Business School, will be undertaking a major study of these reforms, financed by the National Health...

This article explores the question of why the management of change has become an issue in the National Health Service (NHS). It reports the results of a study which explored reasons for variability in the observed rate and pace of strategic service change in the NHS. The metaphor of...

Hierarchies, markets and networks have been described as three alternative styles of organizing, each of which may call for distinctive managerial orientations and styles. The question arises as to whether there is now a deep-seated shift underway from organizational forms based on markets and...

In this paper we suggest that the study of attempts to secure headquarters level change may now be of increasing significance. Evidence of a wave of HQ level change is beginning to accumulate and requires further investigation. The twin purposes of this paper are: (1) in descriptive terms, to...

Recent writing on contemporary organisations is suggestive of extensive moves to create more responsive and flexible firms. Such claims often rest on studies of exceptional organisations or atypical sectors. Drawing on large-scale surveys of organisational innovations in Europe and Japan, this...