fied that progressively more staff participated in the different
tasks, as well as granted permission to lead and run
sub-projects which were necessary for the support of the
change process. Nevertheless, a significant problem faced in
some cases was the staff reluctance and resistance to the
actual implementation of changes that had to do mainly with
new work conditions and responsibilities. Other obstacles
included financial issues (allocation of budget, etc) and delays
caused by the company’s bureaucracy (ineffective decision
making process). The interviewees also reported that due to
the problematic support by the company’s top management
the project team had to carry out the control and mitigation
of the project risks.
Planning for and creating short-term wins
Contradictory results characterize this phase, in terms of
the diverse responses received by the interview participants.
In practice, this exhibited the lack of strategic planning of
short-term goals and wins during the implementation of the
project. Therefore, one may recognize that the staff morale
was not by any means boosted in the necessary levels, such
that to cope with the extremely time pressuring situation
and the organizational constraints and difficulties met. The
planned company’s privatization had affected the staff’s morale
and behaviors. Also, most of the staff involved in the
research commented that the absence of any reward system
affected negatively the change process.
Consolidating improvements and producing still
more change
Based on the interview results, the implementation of the
new e-services did assist the staff to realize the importance
and the criticality of the project. As identified, this new system
required a solid process capable of providing continuous
improvements to accommodate the future demands.
Another finding was that the company had not coordinated
any efforts to bring groups, teams and departments together
in order to spread, reinforce and enhance these changes.
Institutionalizing new approaches
The interview participants argued that a change in the organizational
culture was a straightforward issue, which nevertheless
required deeper changes due to the company’s
fundamental problems. The initiation of the changes emerged
from the project requirements, but when taking closer look
this is not sufficient to generate the momentum to improve
the organization in a large scale. As indicated, a variety of
reasons may have contributed to that, such as financial difficulties,
technical problems, incompetent staff, problematic
organizational culture, government interference and other
issues