Geert Van Hootegem

Workplace innovation is about implementing combined interventions in the domains of work organisation, human resources, and technology. In current times of digital transformation, the question arises of how to embed the new technologies in an integrated workplace innovation approach. A brief literature overview shows that the interplay between these three domains has received attention in recent literature on the ongoing digital transformation. To clarify the conceptual relation between the three domains, we focus on the concept of production disturbances. We present a definition of production disturbances and describe how disturbances can be dealt with. We elaborate on the potential impact of production disturbances on organisational performance and quality of working life. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is described in terms of the production disturbances it may cause. The divisions of work, human resources, and technology are identified as infrastructural conditions for preventing and handling production disturbances. The importance of a combined approach of these three infrastructural conditions is illustrated with recent case studies on virtual teams, and workplace innovation in a machine production company. To conclude this chapter, we argue that a focus on production disturbances could improve our understanding of the potential impact of implementing new technologies on the autonomy of employees, as well as on organisational performance. Production disturbances may thus be a key concept for further workplace innovation research in times of digital transformation and pandemic disruption.

Background: The purpose of this article is to examine how different views on power and politics manifest in organizational change, and how they can be integrated into a single model. Methods: Our research was based on an extensive literature review about power and politics and their relationship with organizational change. We used the systems model of organizational change developed by Maes and Van Hootegem to map the different views on power and politics in organizational change. This systems model integrated different change discourses and allowed us to post the various aspects of power and politics in organizational change. Results: Using the systems model as a reference to look at power and politics from different angles led to a better understanding of the role they play in organizational change so that actors can enter the political arena of change better prepared and play the game of change at a tactically higher level. Conclusions: The analysis contributes to the study of power and politics in three respects. First, using the metamodel of organizational change to map the different views on power and politics offers a more detailed and varied understanding of the use of power and politics in organizational change. Second, looking at power and politics from different discourses can accommodate greater complexity and nuance. Third, it shows that change projects rarely run smoothly but are constantly traversed by all kinds of obstacles and barriers that require specific political astuteness. Members of an organization, who have been introduced to political skills, will be better able to navigate the pitfalls of organizational change and its rhetoric and thus be better agents of change or better able to resist unreasonable change.

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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a meta-model of organizational change that allows to look at change from different angles. This meta-model starts from the idea that there are different discourses about organizational change, each having their own merits but also their own limitations. Bringing these discourses together into an integrated systems model allows the authors to capture the essence of organizational change a lot better.Design/methodology/approach: This model is designed based on a literature review of organizational theories, systems theories related to theories of organizational change and specific theories about organizational change.Findings: The literature review resulted in a systems model of organizational change that is better able to grasp the complexity of change than linear models.Originality/value: This model goes beyond the usual change models from the normative discourse and provides a multidimensional view on organizational change.

The manufacturing industry is increasingly regarded as an essential ingredient of an ecosystem of production of goods and services. Key enabling technologies are considered to be the motors behind the ongoing digital transformation of industry. Given that there are still a number of open questions that need to be addressed in order to develop successful strategies for further implementation of these technologies, and to understand how workplace innovation plays a role in the digital transformation of industry, this paper seeks to design a comprehensive research approach and explains how this approach is applied in the PARADIGMS 4.0 research project on the digital transformation of industry in the region of Flanders, Belgium. Based on the identification of current knowledge gaps, research questions are defined on the topics of technology and work organisation, skills and participation, organisational and regional strategies, and labour market impact. A multi-level, multi-disciplinary, multi-method and multi-stakeholder research design was developed in order to study these topics in an integrated way. While this innovative comprehensiveness is seen as a major strength, it is acknowledged that the research design comes with certain risks that need to be tackled.

Purpose: There is a growing interest in living labs (a research concept in which innovations are co-created with end-users and tested in practice) as a method to test and develop health and social care innovations. However, little is known about their effect on the care organization and care providers’ quality of working life. By using the Flanders Care Living Labs program (Belgium) as a case study, the purpose of this paper is to explore how innovations in a living lab context may affect those issues.Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative study combined data from document analysis, in-depth interviews and focus groups involving 23 care innovation projects. Deductive category application was used for analyzing data.Findings: Outcomes indicate that 22/23 care innovation projects resulted in organizational changes, and that 22 affected at least one care provider’s quality of working life. Surprisingly, no project deliberately intended to affect the care organization and quality of working life. Future care innovation projects should focus on actual innovation and its implications for specific end-users, and on the broader organizational consequences and the possible effect on the care providers’ work.Originality/value: This is the first study that specifically focused on care innovation’s effect on the care organization and on the quality of working life within a living labs context.

Many care organisations claim to employ multidisciplinary teams, but the term is used to describe quite different forms of collaboration. A systemic view of the work organisation of care delivery is presented and applied in this article that allows to identify and understand often overlooked yet important differences regarding team composition, working relationships and therapeutic relationships. We used modern socio-technical systems theory to study care delivery for a particular patient population as a system of interrelated activities. The concept of work organisation refers to the way in which the composite task of care delivery is divided into distinct tasks and how these are grouped in either monodisciplinary or multidisciplinary organisational units. The systemic perspective was applied in a comparative case study of four Multiple Sclerosis hospitals. Among the hospitals, one was characterised by a functional work organisation, with similar tasks grouped in monodisciplinary teams. Cross-disciplinary working and therapeutic relationships were established on an ad hoc basis. The three other hospitals adopted a more process-oriented work organisation (which groups all tasks related to a specific care process within a single, multidisciplinary team). The more process-oriented the work organisation, the more working relationships and therapeutic relationships appeared to be fixed and continuous. The systemic view adopted in this study yields a better understanding of multidisciplinary teams through the concept of work organisation. The actual composition of multidisciplinary teams, and the related working and therapeutic relationships will vary depending on the type of underlying work organisation. Further validation of this conclusion will be needed in other settings.