Organizational change tactics in a homeless services agency

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21386
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019

RESEARCH NOTE

Organizational change tactics in a homeless services

agency

Thomas Packard

School of Social Work, San Diego State

University, San Diego, California

Correspondence

Thomas Packard, School of Social Work,

San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

92182.

Email: tpackard@sdsu.edu

Abstract

There is a vast literature on organizational change, but

research on a key aspect of organizational change, the tac-

tics used by change leaders, is limited. To address this

gap, a questionnaire assessing the use of organizational

change tactics has been used to allow an organization's

staff to describe an organizational change initiative they

had experienced. This study also included an interview

with the agency's director of programs, an interview with

two other staff, document analysis, and pre–post client

outcome data. Findings showed the extent to which these

tactics were observed and were seen as useful in achieving

the change goal, offering guidance for change leaders con-

sidering organizational change tactics, and for researchers

by advancing methods for studying organizational change.

Results were also contrasted with those of an earlier study

to identify common themes.

KEYWORDS

change tactics, homeless services, human service organizations,

organizational change

1|INTRODUCTION

The study described here examined organizational change processes used to implement a new service

delivery model in a homeless services organization. Building upon the literature described below,

using both quantitative and qualitative methods, it focused specifically on the use of organizational

change tactics that the literature has suggested are important for successful organizational change.

An earlier summary of this research was presented at the annual conference of the Association for Research on Nonprofit

Organizations and Voluntary Action, Denver, CO, 2014.

Received: 7 December 2017 Revised: 9 July 2019 Accepted: 12 July 2019

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21386

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2019;30:353–363. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 353