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2016 | 4/2016 (64), t.2 | 120 - 143

Article title

How to Select Change Agents in Organizations? A Comparison of the Classical and Network Approaches

Content

Title variants

PL
Jak wybrać agentów zmian w organizacji? Porównanie metod klasycznych i sieciowych

Languages of publication

PL EN

Abstracts

PL
Dynamika rynku zmusza firmy do wprowadzania ciągłych zmian i dostosowywania się do potrzeb i wyzwań otoczenia. Proces ten może być prowadzony przy pomocy agentów zmian rozprzestrzeniających informacje i dostarczających wsparcie innym pracownikom. W artykule przedstawiamy podejście oparte na analizie sieci organizacyjnej. Proponujemy sposób wyboru pracowników do roli agentów zmiany pozwalający na optymalizowanie ich zasięgu w sieci, by przy jak najmniejszej liczbie wybranych osób maksymalizowany był ich łączny zasięg wyrażony liczbą pracowników, do których mogą bezpośrednio dotrzeć. W celach eksploracji i wstępnej weryfikacji zaproponowanego podejścia na trzech sieciach współpracy pracowników przedsiębiorstw średniej wielkości porównaliśmy kilka metod wyboru agentów. Wyniki sugerują, że agenci wybrani przy wykorzystaniu miary centralności sieciowej, jaką jest pośrednictwo (betweenness), uzyskują najlepszy i istotnie wyższy zasięg w sieci w porównaniu z agentami wybranymi na podstawie wysokiej pozycji w hierarchii. Także sam zasięg agentów wydaje się duży – w najlepszym testowanym przypadku 5% wybranych agentów jest w stanie dotrzeć do 70% wszystkich pracowników, w porównaniu z 40% zasięgiem uzyskanym przez agentów wybranych losowo. Duży zasięg komunikacji i wsparcia w zmianie organizacyjnej może zwiększyć szanse jej powodzenia dzięki kompleksowemu i ciągłemu dostarczaniu pracownikom rzetelnych informacji pochodzących z pierwszej ręki i wsparcia oraz zbieraniu od nich informacji zwrotnej. Jednocześnie zaangażowanie jak najmniejszej liczby osób w proces wsparcia zmiany pozwala na utrzymanie kosztów jej implementacji na relatywnie niskim poziomie.
EN
The dynamic business environment forces companies to change and adapt constantly. The process can be organized with help of change agents. We develop a simple network approach to spreading information and delivering feedback in organizations. We suggest selecting employees with a role of change agents, focusing on the coverage they can obtain in the network – minimize the number of involved agents and maximize the size of their overall communication area. To explore and pre-verify the proposed approach, we compared and examined several network and classical methods of selection. Data includes networks of collaboration from three medium-sized companies. Agents selected according to network betweenness centrality obtained the best and significantly broader reach than agents selected as employees with high hierarchy levels. Moreover, selected change agents reach impressive coverage; even 5% of company employees engaged as agents may directly reach up to 70% of company staff, compared to 40% for agents selected randomly. A large coverage of a company organizational network can increase the success of change initiatives as vital for spreading reliable, first-hand information and feedback about implemented change. On the other hand, engaging only a limited number of influential employees in a company’s network should keep costs of implementing change relatively low.

Year

Pages

120 - 143

Physical description

Dates

published
2016-12-18

Contributors

author
  • Wroclaw University of Economics, Network Perspective, Wroclaw
  • University of Warsaw, Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling
author
  • Network Perspective, Wroclaw

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Document Type

Publication order reference

Identifiers

ISSN
1644-9584

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.desklight-ce942574-2877-424f-871d-b690ac2a6bfa
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