HCA 610 Module 3 DQ 2
answer
Historical development of the theory The disciplining context and the internal market system are two key organisational design innovations developed by Andrew Pettigrew to improve performance in healthcare organisations. They were adopted as a result of radical changes to social, economic and political conditions, coupled with advances in computing technology.
Organizational contexts and the environment surrounding the organization influence how corporate management strategizes and makes decisions. Since these contexts are unpredictable, they affect an organization’s decision-making process considerably. This is known as contextual dependency of strategic change and was outlined by Peter G. Pettigrew in his “The Concept of Organizational Strategies” paper. He studied the development and evolution of strategic thinking and made three important points:
In a context where the quality of care was poor or uneven, the expectations of patients held the real power. If those expectations were not met, a problem could develop that had to be fixed immediately. This is what happened with SMART (Satisfaction Measurement and Resolution Team) in the UK.
Among the 19th century’s contributions to the evolution of organizational theory was Alfred D. Chandler Jr.’s concept of administrative decentralization, whereby certain major functions of management are under the responsibility of autonomous divisions or subsidiaries. Chandler saw this as a critical factor in the creation and growth of a modern organizational structure; his thormonitor to this critical process was Frederick Winslow Taylor, who created the foundation for scientific management through his study of the mechanization of industrial processes and his development of tools for increasing worker productivity. The introduction of administrative decentralization since its inception in the late 1800s has largely been motivated by economic forces, particularly the need to reduce production costs. However, an additional important element in its widespread adoption has been that segmenting functional activities into separate units brings with it great advantages in terms of improving efficiency by facilitating specialization and freeing personnel from routine tasks thus allowing them to concentrate on more complex work. From its initial adoption as an element in large-scale manufacturing conglomerates, administrative decentralization has spread rapidly throughout all sectors of industry, including banking and financial services, health care, merchandising, telecommunications, transportation and numerous others.
question
Discuss Pettigrew’s theory on the contextual dependency of strategic change. Explain the concept of the disciplining context and why medical professionals accepted and used it. Also, explain why the internal market system, which was implemented to solve financial problems, was abandoned.