Manufacturing change

Abstract

This is a highly accessible presentation of organisational research, which demonstrates how ethnography can elicit a holistic understanding of a cross section of employees and thereby reveal a workplace culture. It suggests that change efforts fail if culture is ignored and offers a detailed account of how critical incidents translate into tools for change. The data analysis reveals the weakness in working relationships and how blame functions to prevent change. The Ideal Plant project emerges, which validates transformation tools to create cooperative workplace interactions and collaborative problem solving. The past and future, metaphorically represented as two different places, are connected by a bridge. The old way is bad, the new way is good and the present is a mixture of both. © 2012: Una Ruddock and Nova Southeastern University.