University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Change for a chance: a plan of approach for implementing the new world of work in dutch municipalities

Bouius, M. (2013) Change for a chance: a plan of approach for implementing the new world of work in dutch municipalities.

[img] PDF
4MB
Abstract:“The last thirty to forty years, the nature of the work and the external conditions have changed dramatically, but the way we organize, direct, perform and reward work has insufficiently changed. The current management model fits no longer with the actual work we do. Therefore we silt; we miss opportunities” (Bijl, 2009, p. 19). The statement of Bijl indicates that there is a need for a new way in which work is organized. This thesis focuses on one of such new management models: the New World of Work. Research into the New World of Work within a municipality has – to our knowledge – not been done before. The importance and uniqueness of this research is therefore the contribution it makes to the limited available scientific research on the subject of the New World of Work in conjunction with the research within a municipality. Our aim is to fill up this gap and gain a first insight in how the New World of Work can be optimally implemented in Dutch municipalities. The main objective of this research is to identify the most important conditions of the New World of Work in order to provide Dutch municipalities with a practical implementation plan, so that the New World of Work can be successfully introduced. This leads to the following main question: What are the most important conditions of the New World of Work and how can they be improved in order to optimally implement the New World of Work in Dutch municipalities? In order to answer this main question, the following research design is followed. Based on the literature of the theoretical framework a questionnaire is designed to do a baseline measurement at the municipality of Losser to the current state of affairs. These results have been incorporated and form the basis for five group discussions and five interviews with the managers. In this way we assessed the opinion of the employees to achieve the best possible implementation plan. The implementation plan is based on Kotter’s (1995) eight-step plan to transforming organizations. In this plan, the first four steps relate in particular to preparing for the change, while the change is actually implemented in the last four steps. In conclusion it can be stated that the most important conditions for the New World of Work are determined based on the literature. Dutch municipalities need to use these conditions (flexible workplace, concentration, flexible working arrangements, degree of virtualness, autonomy, steering on output, trust, social cohesion and communication) to find out what the focus areas are for their municipality to optimize the New World of Work. For the municipality of Losser, we found that they have not optimally introduced The New World of Work yet. Focus areas are improving the degree of virtualness, the introduction of flexible workplaces, the possibility to concentrate on workplace, steering on output, improving and maintaining the social cohesion, improving communication with the manager and their support for the New World of Work as well as the attitude of the employees towards the New World of Work. These focus areas can be improved by following the implementation plan to optimally introduce the New World of Work.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/63485
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page