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The Charismatic Organization: Vision 2000 and Corporate Change in a State-Owned Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2021

Ruth Barton Open the ORCID record for Ruth Barton [Opens in a new window]  and
Bernard Mees
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Abstract

British Telecom’s 1984 partial privatization set in motion the privatization and deregulation of many international state-owned telecommunications carriers. Most previous research on the privatization and deregulation of state-owned telecommunications carriers has focused on the economic outcomes. However, this was also a time of changes in managerial practice and thinking influenced by organizational theory. This article presents an analysis of the use of the prescriptions of Rosabeth Kanter in the attempted reform of the organizational culture of Australia’s largest business in the 1980s: the government-owned telecommunications monopoly Telecom Australia (now Telstra). It details the attempt to transform Telecom under the incipient threat of the introduction of competition to the telecommunications market and demonstrates how the country’s largest change management program, Vision 2000, represented an alternative approach to telecommunications reform.

Keywords

telecommunicationsprivatisationcorporate changeconsultants
Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 2023 , pp. 500 - 521
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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Moon, Jeremy, Richardson, Jeremy, and Smart, Paul A.. “The Privatisation of British Telecom: A Case Study of the Extended Process of Legislation.” European Journal of Political Research 14 (1986): 339–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Peter K. “Organisational and Workforce Restructuring in a Deregulated Environment: A Comparative Study of the Telecom Corporation of New Zealand (TCNZ) and Telstra.” PhD diss., Griffith University, Graduate School of Management, 2003.Google Scholar
Spector, Bert. “Flawed from the “Get-Go”: Lee Iacocca and the Origins of Transformational Leadership.” Leadership 10 (2014): 361–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Barry, and Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. “Building the Parallel Organization: Creating Mechanisms for Permanent Quality of Work Life.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 16, no. 3 (1980): 371–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van den Broek, Diane. “Crossed Wires: Cultural Change and Labour Management in the Australian Telecommunications Industry.” PhD diss., University of New South Wales, School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, 2001.Google Scholar
Williams, Claire. “The State, Class Struggle and Telecom Workers.” In Managing Labour: Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Industrial Relations, edited by Bray, Mark and Taylor, Vic, 147–166. Sydney: McGraw Hill, 1986.Google Scholar
Harvard Business Review Google Scholar
The Practising Manager Google Scholar
Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, CanberraGoogle Scholar
Barr, Trevor. Newmedia.com.au: The Changing Face of Australia’s Media and Communications. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 2000.Google Scholar
Bass, Bernard M. Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Butlin, Noel G., Barnard, Alan, and Pincus, Jonathon J.. Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1982.Google Scholar
Deming, W. Edwards. Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Graham, Michael. From Guru to God: An Experience of the Ultimate Truth. Melbourne: Michael Graham Company, 2007.Google Scholar
Griffin, Roger. The Nature of Fascism. London: Pinter, 1991.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hills, Jill. Deregulating Telecoms. London: Frances Pinter, 1986.Google Scholar
Horwitz, Robert. The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hulsink, Wilhelm. Privatisation and Liberalisation in European Telecommunications: Comparing Britain, the Netherlands and France. London: Routledge, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. The Change Masters: Innovation for Productivity in the American Corporation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.Google Scholar
Mees, Bernard. The Rise of Business Ethics. New York: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Moyal, Ann. Clear Across Australia: A History of Telecommunications. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1984.Google Scholar
Peters, Thomas J., and Waterman, Robert H.. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. New York: Warner, 1982.Google Scholar
Reinecke, Ian, and Schultz, Julianne. The Phone Book: The Future of Australia’s Communications on the Line. Melbourne: Penguin, 1983.Google Scholar
Schein, Edgar H. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985.Google Scholar
Sohm, Rudolf. Kirchengeschichte im Grundriss. Leipzig: Böhme, 1888.Google Scholar
Australia, Telecom and Campbell, Greg and Associates. Managing Change: How Telecom Managers and Supervisors Can Use VISION 2000 and Its Processes to Develop People and Their Performance. Melbourne: Telecom Australia and Greg Campbell and Associates, 1986.Google Scholar
Thatcher, Mark. The Politics of Telecommunications: National Institutions, Convergences and Change in Britain and France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tourish, Dennis. The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Tunstall, W. Brooke. Disconnecting Parties: Managing the Bell System Break-Up: An Inside View. New York: McGraw Hill, 1985.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr, 1922.Google Scholar
Williams, Claire. Blue, White and Pink Collar Workers in Australia: Technicians, Bank Employees and Flight Attendants. North Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986.Google Scholar
Wren, Daniel A., and Bedian, Arthur G.. The Evolution of Management Thought, 6th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009.Google Scholar
Ackers, Pater, and Preston, Diane. “Born Again? The Ethics and Efficacy of the Conversion Experience in Contemporary Management Development.” Journal of Management Studies 34, no. 5 (1997): 677–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barton, Ruth. “Trade Unions and the Restructuring of BT and Telstra.” PhD diss., Monash University, Department of Management, 2004.Google Scholar
Batt, Rosemary, and Darbishire, Owen. “Institutional Determinants of Deregulation and Restructuring in Telecommunications: Britain, Germany and United States Compared.” International Contributions to Labour Studies 7 (1997): 59–79.Google Scholar
Bauer, Johannes. “Globalization of Telecommunications Operators Under Conditions of Asymmetric National Regulation.” In Global Telecommunications Strategies and Technological Changes, edited by Pogorel, Gerard, 315–331. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1994.Google Scholar
Campbell, Ian. “Towards a Customer Leadership: Building a Sales Force in Telecom Australia in the 1980’s.” Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy 4, no. 4 (2000): 133–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, Alex. “The Hawthorne Studies: A Radical Criticism.” American Sociological Review 32, no. 3 (1967): 403–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Edward M. “Negotiating Structural and Technological Change in the Telecommunications Services in Australia.” In Telecommunications Services: Negotiating Structural and Technological Change, edited by Bolton, Brian, Davis, Edward M., Landreau, Yann, O’Ceallaigh, Sean, Wada, Norio, and Willman, Paul, 31–42. Geneva: ILO, 1993.Google Scholar
Deery, Stephen. “Trade Unions, Technological Change and Redundancy Protection in Australia.” Journal of Industrial Relations 24, no. 2 (1982): 155–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Funari, Rachel, and Mees, Bernard. “Socialist Emulation in China: Worker Heroes Yesterday and Today.” Labor History 54, no. 3 (2003): 240–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, Michael J., Gill, David James, and Roulet, Thomas J.. “Constructing Trustworthy Historical Narratives: Criteria, Principles and Techniques.” British Journal of Management 29 (2018): 191–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goggin, Gerard. “The Ghost of Competition Promises Past?” Consumers Telecommunications Network Newsletter 51 (2001): 4–5.Google Scholar
Griffin, Roger. “The Legitimizing Role of Palingenetic Myth in Ideocracies.” In Ideocracies in Comparison: Legitimation—Cooptation—Repression, edited by Uwe Backes and Steffan Kasilitz, 39–56. London: Taylor & Francis, 2015.Google Scholar
Hills, Jill. “U.S. Rules OK? Telecommunications since the 1940s.” In Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the Global Communications Revolution, edited by McChesney, Robert, Wood, Ellen, and Foster, Robert, 99–121. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Jones, Harold B. “Magic, Meaning and Leadership: Weber’s Model and the Empirical Literature.” Human Relations 54, no. 6 (2001): 733–771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milosevic, Ivana, and Bass, A. Erin. “Revisiting Weber’s Charismatic Leadership: Learning from the Past and Looking to the Future.” Journal of Management History 20, no. 2 (2014): 224–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moon, Jeremy, Richardson, Jeremy, and Smart, Paul A.. “The Privatisation of British Telecom: A Case Study of the Extended Process of Legislation.” European Journal of Political Research 14 (1986): 339–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Peter K. “Organisational and Workforce Restructuring in a Deregulated Environment: A Comparative Study of the Telecom Corporation of New Zealand (TCNZ) and Telstra.” PhD diss., Griffith University, Graduate School of Management, 2003.Google Scholar
Spector, Bert. “Flawed from the “Get-Go”: Lee Iacocca and the Origins of Transformational Leadership.” Leadership 10 (2014): 361–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Barry, and Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. “Building the Parallel Organization: Creating Mechanisms for Permanent Quality of Work Life.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 16, no. 3 (1980): 371–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van den Broek, Diane. “Crossed Wires: Cultural Change and Labour Management in the Australian Telecommunications Industry.” PhD diss., University of New South Wales, School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, 2001.Google Scholar
Williams, Claire. “The State, Class Struggle and Telecom Workers.” In Managing Labour: Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Industrial Relations, edited by Bray, Mark and Taylor, Vic, 147–166. Sydney: McGraw Hill, 1986.Google Scholar
Harvard Business Review Google Scholar
The Practising Manager Google Scholar
Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, CanberraGoogle Scholar