Effects of change strategy and top-management involvement on quality of working life and economic results

The aim of this paper is to propose change strategies that may enhance the outcome of ergonomic improvements. Representatives of 69 Swedish companies were asked to describe their experience of organizational change, There was a special focus on behavioral patterns and the behavioral aspects of change processes. These patterns were then related to quality of working life and economic output. A learning strategy for change is introduced which includes not only specific topics (e.g, ergonomic improvements) but also employee participation in formulating the organization's visions about the future while simultaneously covering broad goals for change. The results indicate significant positive correlations between the learning strategy, the quality of working life, and economic output. Contrary to previous studies, top-management involvement was not found to be the most important factor for change outcomes. Instead, processual factors were of at least equal importance. The results indicate that ergonomics, and especially macroergonomics! with its clear design and goals for change, could benefit from incorporating new theories of change. Relevance to industry It is crucial to find change strategies that simultaneously enhance the implementation of ergonomic goals and core business goals. The use of a learning strategy for change is proposed to achieve a highly effective change strategy in this respect. Empirical findings suggest that the manager's role may be to control the change process as a facilitator. In the case, the important tasks are to ensure broad participation among the employees in developing Visions of the future organization and dealing with a broad spectrum of change topics simultaneously. A learning strategy for change is therefore advocated as a complement to traditional change projects. The outcomes in terms of quality of working life, and economic output related to a learning strategy for change, are very promising. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.