In like fashion, Grant, O’Donnell and Shields
(2004) consider the discursive contexts and
dynamics associated with a major culture change
project in the Australian Public Service. They
show how a proposed culture change started first
as a discursive concept among politicians and
senior public servants, became a discursive object
that was discussed and planned at the organizational
level, and was then applied in the form
of changed performance and reward structures.
In this case, their findings showed that the
proposed new motivational concepts and practices
encountered significant barriers and had been counterproductive. Employees did not
embrace the new discourse and its associated
changes. Instead they constructed a counter
discourse that played upon the perceived violations
of their psychological contract, and procedural
and distributive justice. This research
demonstrates how change related discourses at
the macro-level can influence and be linked to
micro-level discourses. Further, it demonstrates
the importance of taking the social, historical and
political contexts in which change may be taking
place into account and how this might be
achieved.