Strategy, Organization & Change

Strategy describes the long-term orientation of an organization and its fields of activity. The needs of the relevant stakeholder groups, contexts such as markets, politics and regulation must be analyzed as external aspects, as well as internal resources and competencies. The effective orchestration of internal and external perspectives creates added value for the fulfillment of the value proposition. Such strategy work is particularly challenging in pluralistic settings such as public organizations, because not only does the strategic catalog of objectives sometimes contain conflicting aspects, but also the often-competing logics and rationalities at work within the organization.

Two completed basic research projects by Prof. Claus D. Jacobs, Ph.D., of the Swiss National Science Foundation ("Strategy as Discourse - Reconstructing a social practice"; "Seeking strategic coherence -Balancing internal and external legitimacy in pluralistic settings") form the conceptual basis for this research focus.

Ms. Maria Riniker on this thematic axis on the topic "How do social entrepreneurs persuade backers through verbal and visual communication?".

The review of administrative structures and processes requires systematic procedures as part of an organizational analysis. This involves recording and evaluating organizational characteristics that are relevant to the functioning of the organization and its effectiveness. Various types of task reviews and budget reviews (spending reviews) are widely used at national level to analyze administrative organizations. Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz's research interest is based on an examination of the causes, contents and procedures of organizational analyses in order to better understand and apply this instrument. Applied research projects have been carried out by the KPM at federal, cantonal and city level.

Public tasks are not fulfilled exclusively by central administration organizational forms, but also by decentralized, outsourced and even private-law administrative bodies. Public companies in the Confederation, cantons and municipalities play a particularly important role in guaranteeing the public service. The organization and management of such administrative bodies pose a particular challenge in this respect.

This public corporate governance is researched in a variety of ways at the KPM - also in the context of application-oriented research, such as the assessment of the management model of public companies of the federal government, in which Prof. Dr. Andreas Lienhard was involved.

The research is also carried out in an international network, for example in cooperation with the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen. A new PCG model code has been developed as part of this cooperation. Prof. Dr. Andreas Lienhard was a member of the expert commission.

The organization of public administration raises numerous legal issues, such as legal forms, management instruments, personnel law and state liability. These topics are also researched and regularly published in cooperation with the Swiss Association for Administrative Organization Law.

Thomas Nistelberger is currently examining legal aspects of performance agreements within the central administration as part of a dissertation project with Prof. Dr. Andreas Lienhard.

The sustainable financing of public tasks is of particular importance here. The result of a long-term research project is a textbook on public finance law, which Prof. Dr. Andreas Lienhard co-authored.

Strategic innovation usually makes it necessary to adapt the organization in terms of structure, processes, practices and/or culture. These change processes can be incremental or transformative in nature. However, the complexity of organizational change does not lie in its technical-structural dimension, but in the fact that people in organizations (should) change. Therefore, micro-political, socio-psychological and cultural aspects are the most relevant levers that need to be considered.

Ms. Konstanze Krüger is conducting research on this thematic axis on the topic of "Undoing stigma - Enacting palliative care in children's hospital".

Organizational identity refers to an attribution of "who we are as an organization" in relation to the organization as a whole. Here, both the organization as a whole can be viewed as a social actor from the outside, as well as the discursive negotiations of meaning within the organization. A higher degree of homogeneity in these attributions of meaning, which constitutes the essence of the organization, is useful for many organizational processes. As a rule, strategy development processes, organizational change projects and cultural changes are then easier to implement. Nevertheless, such homogeneity cannot be imposed from above.

Dr. Emamdeen Fohim heads the research project "How 'new work' settings shape organizational identity beliefs" funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

The English term sensemaking is difficult to translate into German. It roughly describes the need to interpret new and irritating things for the organization and to derive consequences for action from them. This is not an interpretation using known patterns, but rather the hermeneutic challenge of creating meaning and significance outside of known patterns, which is usually presented to the organization on an ad hoc basis and unannounced in crises. Successful sensemaking can promote the organizational ability to respond as well as its resilience in crises. In particular, sensemaking is a central prerequisite for organizational learning.

Ms. Catharina Geurtzen is conducting research on this thematic axis on "Making sense of reliability threats: Exploring risk work in Swiss prisons".