ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a narrative overview of the processes of redevelopment of one of the State of Victoria's major institutions for the care of the intellectually disabled. It utilizes the framework developed within the theory of organisational responses to environmental change to develop a theoretical perspective on those changes which took place. P. R. Lawrence and J. W. Lorsch have identified differentiation as a key dimension on which organisations vary, contingent upon the level of turbulence within their environments. They found that successful organisations faced with a complex and rapidly changing environment tended towards high levels of internal differentiation of function, reflecting the differential rates of change and variability within their environments. The organisation held assumptions about the capacities of intellectually disabled people and the nature of the service which should be provided to them which were antithetical to those being promoted by major agencies within the environment, including its sponsor organisation.
