Change efforts in the context of church culture: A study of Church of Pentecost headquarters

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to explore the extent to which the culture of the Church of Pentecost influenced the outcomes of change efforts of the Church during the period 1991-2009. Through an exploratory case study research design, 55 interview respondents and seven focus group discussion participants provided the data. Three embedded change efforts undertaken during the period 1991-2009 by the Church were used as the basis for data collection. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software was used to analyse the data. The key findings were: the causes of the change efforts were the need for the Church to produce skilled staff and increase productivity in the light of changing environment; for majority of the staff, consultation as part of the change efforts process needed improvement because little consultation was seen during the change efforts; values of the Church, such as respect for authority and humility, facilitated the success of the change efforts; and the Church’s hierarchical power culture dictated the pace of the change efforts. The main conclusion was that the processes in the change efforts limited involvement. However, collaboration between management and staff, and modification of values, such as respect for authority, could help leverage values towards successful change efforts in future change efforts. A major recommendation is that processes adopted in future change efforts should be context-specific and encourage the involvement of the staff because the input of staff can help to improve processes in the change efforts.