Adoption of management systems in Indian organisations

Abstract

Management Systems have always been in use in Indian organisations. However, not much is known about them either for their functional advantages or for their long term effects on organisations. This study was undertaken to understand them and to investigate how far they have been adopted in the Indian organisations. The three Management systems viz., Management by Objectives (MbO), Budgeting and Human Resources Development 5ystem (HRDS) were taken up for study across four organisations. The principal method of research was questionnaire Followed by interviews. Supported by conceptual understanding and exploratory study, 10 independent variables were identified viz., departmental climate, leadership commitment, top management commitment, processes of implementation, stabilisation process, top management attitude towards departments, and adoption prone factors. Three indices of adoption were developed viz., use of the system, continuance of processes and change in the climate or managerial processes. A total of 512 responses from 102 departments across the Organizations were used for this study. As the objective of research is to understand adoption behaviour at a department level and to find on what variables the high and low adoption departments differ, analysis has been directed at a departmental level. Descriptive cases of each company have also been developed to show the details of implementation. The major findings of the study are: 1) The most Significant differences between high and low departments across all systems and organisations were due to perceived differences on stabilization process of systems, processes of introduction and implementation followed by perceived adoption prone factor at a department level, departmental climate, and leadership commitment. 2) From the correlational analysis, the three different dependent variables were differently associated with independent variables. Use of the system was not significantly correlated as much of the continuance of processes and change in the climate or managerial processes. However, continuance of processes was significantly associated with all independent variables. Change in climate was associated significantly with leadership commitment, implementation and stabilization, adoption prone factors and attributes of the system. 3) Four factors have been identified through factor analysis. They are contextual factor, process factor, integrating factor and facilitating factor. 4) Multivariate analysis was carried out and results from multiple regression analysis show that the continuance of processes was explained by departmental climate, stabilization and top management attitude towards departments, and change in the climate was significantly explained only attributes of the system. 5) Analysis of variance results indicated that the combined effect of system and organisation influences adoption. Based on the results, a conceptual framework has been developed. A number of implications have been given for organisations, managers, organisation change and development and theory of adoption.