The process of managing strategic change within a hospital dental laboratory.

Strategic management is concerned with the understanding, as well as choosing and implementing, the strategy or strategies that an organisation follows. It is a complex process which can be considered from a number of different perspectives. There is no single approach, model or theory to the management of strategic change. Pressures to change are always present in the form of opportunities and threats and managers must establish what approaches and decisions are likely to prove the most effective. The study was designed to help dental laboratory managers develop strategic awareness, to determine the issues and questions which must be addressed if changes in strategy are to be formulated and implemented effectively. The managerial and behavioural processes which take place within the laboratory in order that they can understand how changes come about are also discussed. Case studies of companies and dental laboratories are used jointly with the relevant literature to evaluate the theories and concepts of strategic management and implementation of change models provide a framework for evaluating how managers can reach their decisions and reach their objectives. The study has shown that the strategic ideas and methods used by private sector companies and discussed in the relevant literature can be adapted to provide a framework for managing the process of strategic change in a hospital dental laboratory.