Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti

Research methodology and data
As all of the case programs involved confidential aspects e.g. related to the
scope and schedule of the attempted changes, it was agreed with the case
organizations that the cases were to remain anonymous. As a result, the
identities of the organizations, the studied change programs and the
informants are not revealed. Instead, the three selected cases were given
pseudonyms after the characteristics of the case organizations.
The first case, “Center”, is a non-profit organization, a central agency for a
consortium of a wide number of public organizations in multiple service
businesses. Center supervises the interests of its member organizations of
the consortium, provides various expert services to them, and conducts
research and development activities in its field. The case program in Center
aimed at renewing the service system concerning both Center and its
member organizations. The program was terminated early, largely due to
severe internal problems.
The second case, referred to as “Bureau”, represents a complex change
program implemented by a large public sector organization that can be
characterized as a traditional government institution. Bureau’s case
program was a part of a larger structural reform and it aimed at
rationalizing the IT management of Bureau by renewing the system
architecture, the related network infrastructure, organization, and
management system.
The third case program is implemented in a large private service sector
organization, here called “Chain”, which provides services for consumers
and business customers. The change program under investigation was
related to transforming the company’s central service processes in the
company’s largest business area. The transformation included establishing
new infrastructure, reorganizing operations in regional units, renewing the
services, and developing and adopting new ways of working.
Table 8 provides a summary of the three case organizations and their case
programs. The cases are described in more detail in the Results chapter.
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