Change Management in Organizations Free-Samples for Students

Question: Write a Project Report on Change Management in Organizations. Answer: Introduction Change management has become one of the most debatable topics of the corporate world. The leaders of organizations have been struggling to explore and develop strategies to bring effective changes within the organization so that the organization can adapt itself to survive the economic and social changes of the country or region. Lewins model, McKinseys 7S model, Kotters change management theory, nudge theory, ADKAR model, Bridges Transition model and Kubler-Ross Five Stage model are few of the proposed theories of change management by various scholars and authors. There has been an ongoing debate whether change management should focus on strategies and tools or influencing people and their identity. The paper would thus, make an attempt to gain an insight of effective change management methods and approaches through analyzing the different literature works of various scholars and authors. The paper would present the ideas of few of the journal articles and books in the form of literature review to study the existing change management theories and models. Further, they would be demonstrated by connecting them to the existing organization to understand their efficiency in the current global scenario. Appropriate conclusions and recommendations would be drawn to drive inference. Literature Review According to Paton and McCalman (2008), change is an essential component of an organization to survive in the changing business context. The companies must develop new strategies to manage multiple future scenarios. Restructuring was stated by the authors as one of the strategies of change management that helps an organization to grow and prosper. Restructuring facilitates an organization to align its internal activities as per the social and economic conditions of the region. Further, the authors also stated that how a firm responds to the changing global environment including growth of European Union, growing economies of India and China and reducing costs of communication, transportation and information, reflects an organizations ability to handle change management. The authors also addressed the importance of people in an organization in terms of knowledge contribution. People are the most sustainable weapons of an organization and the real challenges lies how effectively a firm uses them in the changing global environment. Hayes (2014) presented his own views on change management in organization and strongly emphasized on change process by stating change as purposeful and meaningful process comprising of 7 core activities. According to the author, the first step is to identify the need for change in the organization followed by diagnosing the change to construct a vision for future. After developing a vision, the process of planning is initiated to implement the change. The change is then reviewed in order to analyze the whether the intended state has been achieved or not. The author further stated that change management is not only about attaining the desired goal, instead it is about sustaining the change as long as it is beneficial for the organization. The authors Cameron and Green (2015) stated that Lewins model is required for change management. The three stage model has proved to be a successful in bringing effective changes within organizations. The first stage is unfreezing that brings motivation for change through disconfirmation and removing the psychological barrier of learning anxiety. Stage of Lewins encourages learning of new concepts and evolving new meanings for the existing concepts. The stage three brings an internal change by incorporating the new concepts along with their meanings. According to Karp and Helgo (), chaotic change is an essential component for bringing effective changes in an organizations with high external and internal complexities and uncertainty. The change process focuses on people to influence their interaction, identity and relationship. The author stressed on the fact that a change that focuses on tools, strategy and structure instead of people is likely to have low efficiency. Thus, the author concluded that in order to bring successful change management, the leaders should focus on accountability, unpredictability, self governance and emergence and avoid design-oriented managerial interventions. According to the authors Nastase, Giuclea and Bold (2012), change is about influencing the people of an organization and the attitude of human resources could either lead to success or failure of an organization, therefore, human dimension is one of the critical success factors. Analysis and Discussion In the fast changing business environment, change has become an integral part of the organization. The leaders and managers consistently thrive to develop effective approaches to implement change within the organization successfully. A firm has to consider several factors in order to develop effective change management model. The practices have demonstrated that most of the managers fail to perceive industrial changes and if the changes have been perceived, they are unable to respond to those changes or delay the response or adopt inappropriate approach to implement change. The figure below demonstrates the relationship between firm and competitiveness of the industry. (Source: Jovanovic, 2015). Restructuring As discussed in the literature review, restructuring is one of the change management approaches that is being frequently used by the organizations to enhance the structure of the organization to achieve organizational effectiveness. The firms adopt restructuring approach in order to expand their businesses through mergers and acquisitions, joint venture or wholly owned subsidiary. The firms generally adopt this technique when they want to take their operations worldwide and become a global firm. There are several critical success factors that would define companys growth in other market. Firstly, the managers must be able to identify the need to restructure the organization along with the potential market. The managers must perform an external environment analysis of the region through PESTEL analysis and Porters Five Forces analysis. PESTEL analysis would help to evaluate political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors of the country. The analysis provide s an insight of the countrys policies, structure, demand and availability of resources. Porters Five Forces analysis would help to evaluate the bargaining power of suppliers and customers and the existing competition in the country. Thus, with the help of these tools, the firm is able to develop effective strategies and planning to set up its operations in another country through one of the restructuring approaches. Therefore, it is suggested that an organization must invest into research and development before adopting any strategy or approach for change management and decision making ability of the managers play a significant role in bringing effective change management. Design, execution and marketing are the three important processes that managers must work out effectively. The design process helps to develop the strategy that would be suitable for the organization to deal with the problem or opportunity. The execution deals with the management of the strategy so as to yield bet ter results. Marketing process helps to communicate effectively to the investors so as to attain the most optimum stock price. Further, restructuring could also lead to continuous downsizing, job losses and redundancy among the employees of the organization (Idowu and Adegoke, 2014). During the recession, several firms fired their employees and downsized their operations in order to save the firms from bankruptcy. Millions of people lost their jobs in US and Europe and its impact was felt across the globe. Kurt Lewins Change Management Theory Kurt Lewins change management theory of three stages is one of the most effective theories for the businesses and is still found to build sustainable model for the organizations. The first phase is unfreeze that helps to employees understand the need for change and dismantle their current mind sets. The second phase is transition that build new approaches and strategies for the organization by identifying the need of change. The third and final stage is freeze that reinforces changes in the organization to dismantle the former ways and methods. The model is frequently used because of its simplicity and straightforwardness. The method deploys the top management to bring an effective change through effective decision making and problem solving skills. The senior management develops goals for organizational change and the most feasible and effective one is selected. A change agent is responsible for bringing an effective change within organization. The company may hire consultant as a change agent or appoint someone from the internal team or someone from organization who is not familiar among the employees, for instance a team member of headquarters may lead the team. It is the responsibility of the change agent to evaluate, measure and control the change. The agent works collaboratively with the senior management to assess the effect of changes on the organization. The change agent works with several individuals and groups and departments of the organization. An organizational is likely to face resistance to change from the employees and staff members. The employees resist change because they find it difficult to change their current approaches and thinking pattern to adopt some new methods. They perceive change as coming out of their comfort zone for something unknown. The employees are also concerned about their performance that could be affected by the change which is a threat for employees as it could risk their positions in the organization. In order to implement effective changes in an organization, the employees must have faith on the change agent or the change agent should be able to convince the employees with strong belief and conviction to drive them towards a common goal and achieve the desired change. The change agent should be able to make the employees comfortable by showing the results of change and how it could grow their career. Kurt Lewins model has been found to be effective for the non government organization by merging with the standard practices for instance strategic planning. The model has had a significant impact by redefining mission of the organization and bringing successful organizational change (Medley and Akan, 2008). Learning Organization Theory Learning organization is another concept of change management that helps an organization to develop sustainable model to survive in the changing business environment. The model integrated five dimensions including systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, team learning and building shared vision. The worlds most successful organizations have integrated learning organization theory within their framework very effectively. Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft are the top most organizations demonstrating the importance of model in the current business scenario. Apple has successfully integrated shared vision and systems thinking under the leadership Steve Jobs. Facebook has also integrated personal mastery and shared vision under the leadership Mark Zuckerberg. Conclusion The paper has successfully discussed and analyzed the different theories of change management and their impact on current businesses. Lewins change management theory was found to be most frequently used model by merging with the standard practices such as strategic planning. The three phase model has demonstrated effective change within non government organization by defining appropriate goals and objectives to attain the desired change. Restructuring was another change management theory that considers PESTEL analysis and Porters Five Forces to analyze the external environmental factors of the country. The organizations have to consider the probable impact of social, economic, political, legal and environmental factors of a country in order to attain desirable results. Further, identifying the need of change was also an important concern for the managers. The practices have demonstrated that most of the managers fail to perceive industrial changes and if the changes have been perceiv ed, they are unable to respond to those changes or delay the response or adopt inappropriate approach to implement change. Learning organization was another theory that has given success to the worlds top notch companies including Apple and Facebook. Thus, in order to develop a successful organization, the management must identify the need of change within the organization at the appropriate time so as to grab the opportunity or handle the problem. Once they have recognized the need, proper model or approach must be identified to bring effective changes within organization. Restructuring is preferable for expansion or downsizing the company. Lewins model is preferable for developing strategies for the organization and the model has been proved to be very effective in non government organization. Learning organization theory requires effective leadership to ensure that learning is an integral part of the organization. References Cameron, E., and Green, M. 2015. Making Sense of Change Management:A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change.London: Kogan Page Publishers. Hayes, J. 2014. The Theory and Practice of Change Management. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Idowu, A. and Adegoke, K., 2014. Impact of Environmental Factors on Organizational Restructuring in the Banking Sub-Sector of Nigeria.technology,4. Jovanovic, Z., 2015. Management and changes in business environment.Ekonomika,61(2), p.143. Karp, T. and Helgo, T.I., 2008. From change management to change leadership: Embracing chaotic change in public service organizations.Journal of change management,8(1), pp.85-96. Medley, B. C. and Akan, O. H. 2008. Creating positive change in community organizations: A case for rediscovering Lewin. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 18(4), 485496. Nastase, M., Giuclea, M. and Bold, O., 2012. The impact of change management in organizations-a survey of methods and techniques for a successful change.Revista de Management Comparat International,13(1), p.5. Paton, P.R.A., and McCalman, J. 2008. Change Management:A Guide to Effective Implementation. London: SAGE.