Change management in the public sector: The use of cross-functional teams

Piercy, Niall; Phillips, Wendy; Lewis, Michael

Abstract

Adoption of change management best practices continues to be offered as a route towards improved cost, quality and productivity of public services. These approaches are predominantly drawn from private sector research and their application by the public sector remains a relatively under-researched area. In this article we investigate with three case studies of local authorities one popular private sector change management approach-cross-functional team-based working. We analyse the varying success of three cross-functional teams and the organisational mechanisms that supported their implementation. We identify four requirements for success. The first three concur with established private sector research on cross-functional working (the need for the organisational leader to clearly support the team; cultural and structural issues that support cross-functional integration; funding support), although we find greater subtlety needed in their application in the public sector. Our research also uncovers a fourth critical requirement-the need to break the status-quo and overcome resistance to change. We find no evidence that these conditions cannot be met in the public sector and suggest cross-functional teams as a positive approach to be integrated in public sector change programmes. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: May 26, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: May 31, 2016
• Journal: Production Planning and Control
• Print ISSN: 0953-7287
• Electronic ISSN: 1366-5871
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 10-11
• Pages: 976-987
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2012.666913
• Keywords: cross-functional, change management, team, public sector
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/948819
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2012.666913
• Related Public URLs: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09537287.2012.666913
• Contract Date: May 31, 2016