Characteristics and Performance of Organisational Change Teams: An Empirical Study of Korean Large Firms

Abstract

This study explored direct relationships among top management support as the major organisational context, the characteristics of organisational change team (OCT) and OCT performance. Based on the previous studies on change agents and organisational groups, and the practices of change efforts in Korean large firms, six hypotheses were generated and tested through questionnaires culled from 58 teams among four Korean conglomerate groups. The four OCT characteristics studied were professionalism functional diversity, team position and team size. By controlling for the group difference, it was found that the professionalism and functional diversity of OCTs were significantly correlated to managers satisfaction with the OCTs. Beyond our expectations, strategic support of the top management had more direct effects on the performance of the OCTs than the OCT characteristics. This study suggests that getting the strong support of the top management as well as having their own professional knowledge and abilities are very important for OCTs to achieve higher performance.