The ability to manage change-management processes depends on individual skills and organisational culture. These skills have to be increased and practiced; in this perspective, the reading and analysis of this casebook can generate mental training about innovation.
In order to look for common problems and solutions for implementing managerial development, a rich portfolio of European cases, with at least one representative for every European component, is presented. Typically comparative works select different countries according to criteria such as English speaking, countries from the same region or industrialised countries. This book looks at comparative differences but also has sufficient cultural, social, political and economic homogeneity. Comparisons are more useful and easier to understand due to common implementation difficulties and possible change strategies.
A general introduction leads on to some theoretical background, which presents the Editors' thinking about strategy, change management and the strategic approach to change management, representing the framework at the core of the book. A guide through the European examples introduces the cases themselves. Teaching notes on how to position the case, learning objectives, question discussion, case analysis and further reference are provided in order to show teachers and trainers how to use each individual case.
This book is a tool for discussion and a framework to structure a debate about the evaluation of managerial evolution, providing trainers, students and practitioners with an instrument to understand how to face the difficulties each change management process is affected by.
Strategic planning is supposed to give many opportunities to public managers in designing and promoting change and innovation. Strategy implementation, however, is probably the area scoring the highest degree of failure in public organizations. The book presents 11 different international cases of strategic change management processes in public organizations from 11 different European countries. From all these real cases we can learn what to do and which mistakes to avoid in managing strategic changes.
Every case faces a different area of innovation: from new organizational structuring to different performance evaluation systems, from improved customer relation approaches to innovative public-private partnerships. Every managerial innovation is presented in its design and implementation phases, both evaluating final impacts and ascertaining the explanatory drivers conducive to better performances. Different public sector organizations are considered: local governments, public utilities, health care agencies and mass transports.
The book is aimed at readers who want to better understand strategic change management approaches in public administrations, for those who are interested to learn from evidences, for trainers and professors looking for European cases for class discussions, for policy makers searching for new ideas and change approaches.
