Abstract for: Shaping organizational network structure to enable sustainable transformation

One of the fundamental principles behind transition towards high-reliable organization is preoccupation with failure and elimination of underlying defects. This paper reports on investigations into social network dynamics in two organizations which attempted transformational change. Both organizations used the same means for transformation – defect elimination action teams Through action teams new working relations between members of the organizations were build which led to introduction of ‘structural holes’ and new distribution of centrality in the social networks. The investigation suggests that introducing structural holes across all organizational functions resulted in more improvements related to process equipment. An agent based model was used to replicate the dynamics of change within social networks during transformation. Such model enables planning the transformations at the social network level and have direct impact on increasing the potential behind the effectiveness of the effort.