INTRODUCTION
Firms nowadays are called upon to abandon the emphasis on lowering cost, rigid organizational structures and "command and control" management styles. Instead, they are urged to direct their attention to value creation for the customer, to innovation and flexibility.
Organizational change, within this context, is not just an option; it constitutes a fundamental necessity for success within the new competitive landscape (Hamel & Prahalad, 1996). Firms word-wide appear to recognise the need for transformation and make efforts to implement the changes deemed necessary to improve their competitiveness. It appears, however, that this attempts aften result is failure (strebel, 1996).
It has been suggested, for example, that producing change depends on the level of top management commitment, the type of intervention uses, peopleôs readiness to accept the changes required, levels of resistance, and the organizationôs culture (Goodman, 1982; and Quinn and Cameron, 1989). Beer and Nohria (2000) introduce two "archetypes" of change in organizations: theory "E" based on economic value and theory "O" based on organizational capability.
Theory E puts shareholder value at the centre of measurement of corporate success. Theory O advocates development of corporate culture and human capability. In this case we tend to incline towards the "O" approach, while recognising as Beer and Nohria stress, that both approaches need to meet and integrate.
BACKGROUND -- FRAMEWORK
Following Ford Motor Company ETS (European Transformation Strategy, ) starting in 2000, with a clear objective: "bring back the company into profits" one of the main action it was launch 45 new products in next 5 years. Valencia plant has supported the introduction of different models since then (two new models , Fiesta & Mazda and several restyling changes of the current models). Also same productivity action were putting in place, the introduction of the night shift as a working shift...