This study examines how structural reforms unfold through the reconfiguration of interrelated organizational practices. It investigates how changes in these practices – whether or not formally mandated – are enabled or constrained through changes in the material-spatial, temporal, jurisdictional and communicational–cultural connections that link them.
The study uses qualitative interview and documentary material from two structural reforms in the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research to demonstrate how practice connections can be analysed empirically. During the analysis, a distinction emerged between practices targeted by reform and instrumental practices through which reform implementation unfolded, providing the analytical basis for identifying how ties between practices were maintained, disrupted or reconfigured.
The findings show that organizational change gains traction through changes in how everyday practices are connected. Reforms reshaped work when authority and responsibility were redistributed, when task sequencing and timing changed or when spatial arrangements altered opportunities for coordination. Where reforms did not alter these connections, or addressed them only weakly, particularly through communication, formal changes remained largely nominal.
This study introduces the distinction between targeted and instrumental practices, proposing instrumental practices as an empirical entry point for tracing how reform implementation alters the practice connections through which organizational practices change. In doing so, the study makes empirically visible how organizational practices are connected across space, time, authority and meaning, and how reform efforts succeed or fail by influencing these interconnections.
