Organization and Management Theory OMT

I am looking for academic research articles, practitioner articles (e.g., HBR, CMR), and/or case studies that examine/discuss cultural change within high-reliability, process-driven organizations.

For the past few years, I have been working with an executive education client in the defense industry. This organization produces products and systems that require enormous care and attention to issues of safety. The organization is also dominated by engineers. As a result, the organization is one in high-reliability is a core value and in which there are detailed, formalized processes and procedures for nearly everything. The challenge this presents is that such processes impede or eliminate flexibility and responsiveness in the form of discretionary judgment by managers throughout the organization (an old problem discussed in a variety of research literatures). The senior leaders (all with PhDs in engineering) are looking for background reading to help them think about how to begin to change their organization to one in which managers feel more empowered and enabled to make quick decisions. I would appreciate any suggestions on readings that might be useful on this topic. I will post a summary for the list.