British Railways: The Advanced Passenger Train Project

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Main body
Application
Theory Section
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The case study is based on the British Railways and its adoption of innovative and technological change due to increased competition from the emerging airline industry. The case demonstrates a situation where the British railways introduce a new technology by replacing an older technology. The centralized research team of the railways was asked to study the areas where modernization of technology was necessary. The research team found the necessity to modernize the railways and introduce new technology removing the older versions. However, introduction of a new technology in a traditional organization leads to the problem of low level of acceptance and understanding of the new technology. Therefore, in transforming a traditional organization to a highly technology based environment met with resistance to change.

Main body

The case study analysis will first try to determine the current situation of British railways. This process will help to understand the requirements of the organization and the changes that are unavoidable. Second, the paper will try to determine the process of implementation of the changes that had been identified as necessary in the first part of the analysis. Here the change management will be dealt with the internal issues that a manager faces rather than the external issues. The method and concepts that is used for the analysis is described below.

The first step for the analysis is to understand the project’s profile and complexity in order to ascertain the present condition of British railways and the areas where it needs to change. For this process, diamond approach to project management (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007). This will help us to understand the competitiveness of the British railways. This will help to understand the external environment and the change that are required for the organization in order to remain competitive. This analysis allows us to understand the processes that actually make the organization more competitive, and the process creates wealth and competitive advantage. Thus, policy and industry analysis can demonstrate the need of the business and to what extent these needs are necessary. In the case analysis of the British railways, this will be applied to the British railways of the 1960s and 1970s. This analysis will enable us to understand the aptness of the timing of the implementation of the new technology, the external environment, and the product complexity of the new technology. The analysis will allow the timing of the project implementation, the design of the project made by the research team, and the complexity of the new product that led to resistance to acceptance of the new technology in British railways. Therefore, the analysis will allow us to understand the complexity of the transportation industry and the effect it has on the various stakeholders. Second, the paper will present recommendations for implementation of the project. This section will demonstrate the possible ways of implementing technological change within the organization. This is an important part of the case analysis, for the traditional setting of the British railways created a lot of hurdle for the implementation of the new technology, as there were inherent resistance to change acceptance. Therefore, due to high level of resistance to change due to the traditional nature of the British railways, the management team must pay a lot of attention to the implementation of the project.

The following section describes the diamond approach to project management and how this model can be used in identifying the issues related to the British railways in the 1960s. This will also help in identifying the measures to be taken for implementation of the strategy for the new technology in a traditional environment and identifying means of reducing the resistance to change.

Application

The diamond approach is used to determine the project environment of British railways and determining the areas where change is necessary for the organization. Managerial decision making for new technology implementation in an organization tend to be inclined to ascertain five dimensions that determine the success of the project (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007). These are:

Project efficiency – this implies that projects must meet the goals set for time of implementation of the project and the budget.
Effect on customers – the change process must meet the customer needs and achieve the benefit and satisfaction of the customers as well as their loyalty.
Effect on team – the project team must be satisfied with the project, should be retained, and must gain personal growth through the process.
Success for the business – the after-effect of the project implementation should be higher ROI (return on investment), higher market share, and growth of the organization.
Future outlook – the project must make the future outlook clear with aim to attain new technology and new markets in order to bring forth higher growth.

Each of the above mentioned dimensions have a probable sub-measures that can help the managers to identify the various areas where the new technology needs to be implemented and wherein change is necessary. In this section, the diamond model is used to determine the present condition of the British railways prior to the initiation of the project.

British railways were a traditional organization that required changes in technology in the 1960s to compete with the ever-growing airline industry. Therefore, the research team identified that the organization must adopt new technology in order to maintain competitiveness. Therefore, the project management team was established to implement new technology in the railways for greater efficiency. Project management has been defined as “temporary organization and process set up to achieve a specified goal under the constraints of lime, budget, and other resources, and “project management the managerial activities needed to lead a project to a successful end.” (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007, p. 94) Therefore, in case of British railways a method of implementation of the new technology had to be devised in order to meet least amount of resistance. According the diamond model approach of Shenhar & Dvir (2007) there are four bases based on which a project can be analysed. These are novelty that shows the important aspects of a project that are new. In case of British railways, the novelty of the product is derivative as it was not a new technology in the 1960s and therefore was derived from the existing product base. The second dimension is technology that shows where the technology of the project exists on a scale of low-tech to super high-tech technology. British railways being a traditional organization used a medium technological environment. Therefore, due to the increased competition in the transportation industry from other substitutes like air travel that provided a faster model of transport, providing customer with fast travel opportunity as essential for the competitive edge for the railways. Complexity of the project is assessed in the section that shows how complex the project and the implementation process are. The fourth dimension that is assessed is pace that shows the urgency of implantation of the project. Thus, this dimension measures if the process is fast, normal, time-critical or blitz (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007).

Figure 1: Project Diamond, Source Shenhar & Dvir, 2007

Figure 1 shows a four-axis graph that demonstrates the nature of the project after implementation and the present situation of British railways. The figure 1 shows that the technological environment of British railways was that shown by the green line before the project was initiated. Therefore, there was obvious need for technological advancement as the railways was now competing against the airways that were much faster and technologically advanced mode of transportation. Therefore, technological advancement was necessary. Further, the complexity of the operations was lower, which might be due to the low technology in use. The time that is required for the project to be implemented is at the earliest to increase competency. The diamond model demonstrates that the British railways were in a situation where in the organization had to move towards a higher level of technology that would evidently increase complexity of operation. Due to increase in complexity, the risk factor will also increase. This may lead to reluctance to accept the new technology. Further, the new technology will provide novelty value to the railways and its offerings. Thus, new technology is desirable in case of railways so that the organization can beat competition from others like airlines that use high technology bases for its operations. Therefore, in order to bring forth the changes in the British railways one of the major problems that seem evident would be to implement change. As there is a large shift from the present culture that is nor traditionalist and low technology based, a higher technology platform would increase the risk as well as uncertainty and hence create problem for implementation and acceptance. Therefore, change management is essential in a case like that of British railways where there is a shift from low technology to high technology as such kind of situation meets with higher degree of resistance.

Theory Section

This section will relate change management requirement and theory in project management. The changes expected out of the new technology are quite different from the set up of the railway that existed in the 1960s. Therefore, a large scale change in the organization and management was expected due to the implementation of the new technology. The main problem identified by the research team is resistance to change that may be faced by the project. Traditional organizations are reluctant to change and are not adaptive and receptive of any change making process. Therefore, the projract will face change management issues. In this section, change management theories for a project are discussed that can be applied for reducing the issues for British railways.

Organizations must be adaptive to the changes in its environment in order to survive (Gareis, 2010). Therefore, change management is essential in order to reduce complexity of operations as well as increasing efficiency. Thus, here change refers to the basic development of the organization (Gareis, 2010). Therefore, change can be of various types and can lead to various outcomes. Therefore, in case of project based environment, the best way to allow the internal environment to adopt a change management or project management situation is through increasing adaptability (Lehmann, 2010). It is suggested, that when a change team is in charge for the implementation of a new project, then there must be an increased coherence and adaptability in the organization (Lehmann, 2010). In this, case it is essential to identify the stakeholders who are supportive of the change:

“So, an inner logic can be readable between proposals and actions: if change needs to be formulated, several special tasks as steering teams must be in charge of; if part of change is already defined, management of cooperation and collaboration can be envisaged; besides, the scope of the community of change involved should reflect change stakes and available resources. It is essential here to define precisely willing people and other supportive stakeholders.” (Lehmann, 2010, p. 336)

This approach is a useful amalgamation of the mineral and the organic approach to change. The mixed approach absorbs in the good aspects of both the methods. For instance, in case of mineral approach, the stress is on design and the zoom is on methodology. In case of a change management process, entailing high level of technology shift design and methodology cannot be overlooked. Therefore, cooperation from the internal stakeholders is essential for the implementation of the process. However, this approach is autocratic in nature, as the stakeholders do not get to understand the need for the change. Therefore, the organic approach stresses on sense making that allows stakeholders to understand the necessity for implementing the change. Thus, the focus of the organic approach is on collaboration and human elements. In case mixed these two are brought together in order to let the stakeholders know the importance of the project as a process of sense making as well as stick to the design of the project. Therefore, an amalgamation of both the processes of change is required in order to implement the change process.

Leadership too plays a critical role in change management process (Michaelis, Stegmaier, & Sonntag, 2009). Effective leadership can influence the psychological construct of the stakeholders and increase trust on change management process. Michaelis, Stegmaier, & Sonntag (2009) suggests that charismatic leadership can facilitate in increasign the acceptance of a change managemtn process. Therefore in case of charismatic leaderhsip, “followers identify with the leader, encouragement to re-examine assumptions, the status quo, and old ways of doing things are likely to be successful.” (2009, p. 402) In another leadership theory, it is suggested that transformational leadership can lead to educed resistance of the change process (Michaelis, Stegmaier, & Sonntag, 2009). Frutehr the trust in top managemtn is an essential feature for successful change managemetn. Michaelis, Stegmaier, & Sonntag show that “both sentiments regarding top management and immediate managers are important and complementary for successful innovation implementation.” (2009, p. 411) therefore trust, leadership, and adaptibility are three important elements in a change management process.

Application Theory

This section discusses the situation of British railways in the 1960s and how the issues can be solved using the theories that has been discussed in the previous sections. Further, this section will provide recommendations for the railways for adopting a change management process. The change that was being brought about in British railways was in the form of Advanced Passenger Train (APT) and in other areas like signalling, designs of coaches and making them lightweight, railway tracks, etc. Thus, in accordance to the project management for developing technologically advanced trains for the railways, APT was made and the design of the proposal was drawn. However, once the first phase of the implementation was brought about, it caused union problems as train drivers. ASLEF, the train drivers union, banned any movement of APT(E) and their demand were for higher wage for driving trains that moved at higher speed. Thus, this led to further modification of the design of the train in the drivers’ compartment, which was earlier designed for one-man driving.

The APT project was found to be a failure in the 1960s due to the outdated organizational practices of a traditional engineering organization. The main cause was low level of acceptance of the new technology and understanding of the technology was low. The organizational culture was not receptive of the new technology. one of the most essential features of organizational adoption of new technology is found to be organizational culture (Claver, Llopis, Garcia, & Molina, 1998; Hoffman & Klepper, 2000). As in case of British railways, the company was a traditional engineering organization that was reluctant to accept the changes brought forth by the APT.

Further adoption of new technology occurs at two levels – at organization and at individual level (Frambach & Schillewaert, 2002). Research shows that individual and intra-organizational acceptance of change is based on the beliefs of the future outcome of the project and change (Frambach & Schillewaert, 2002). Therefore, attitudinal components play a vital role in stimulating technology acceptance. This was not done in case of APT.

APT was implemented solely based on design and methodology as is done in case of mineral change management approach. As it was a high technology based system, the importance of technology, design and methodology could not be overlooked. However, there was a no effort given in order to acclimatize the new technology with the employees who would directly deal with the APT. In case of the first trial of APT(E) just a day’s trial was given to the driver who was going to drive the train. Thus, there was almost no knowledge of the new technology that could have increased acceptance. Therefore, the organic change approach was completely missing in British railways. Lack of knowledge can lead to non-diffusion of the new technology (Attewell, 1992). Therefore, knowledge barriers created a great problem for technology diffusion in British railways.

User involvement in new technology implementation is a must for increasing the level of acceptance (Ives & Olson, 1984). Unwanted attitude from the potential users for the new technology can lead to non-acceptance and failure of the technology (Aladwani, 2001). However, in case of British railways, the employees were informed about APT only after the official publicity through media. Therefore, the adoption of a new technology by the organization was not informed to the employees. This may have led to apprehension and non-acceptance of the technology.

Another issue with APT was non-acceptance from the Board. Acceptance of top management of the change process and endorsement plays a crucial role in acceptance of the change process. Lack of top management acceptance and support would not lead to acceptance of the overall organization as there would be a lack of trust on the new technology (Leonard-Barton & Deschamps, 1988; Cooper & Zmud, 1990; Henderson & Venkatraman, 1993). In case of British railways, there was lack of support from the Board for the project APT that may have led to lower level of trust among the employees and led to greater degree of resistance. As there was no acceptance from the top management regarding the new technology, no communication was sent to the workers regarding the benefits of the new technology. Further, there also arises the problem of unrealistic worker’s expectations that may resistance to new technology (Aladwani, 2001). This was seen in case of British railways as the union demanded for higher pay for drivers, and then the project design had to be changed due to the demand for workers to incorporate two drivers instead of one in the drivers’ cabin.

Conclusion

The change management process in British railways failed due to various reasons. The essential problems faced by British railways were the adoption of the new technology by the top management and the workers. The Board of Directors did not support APT, and with lack of top management support, no change management program can become successful. Due to lack of support of the management, there was no communication made to the workers and the direct users of the new technology. This led to their dissatisfaction and increased their apprehension regarding the system. One way of avoiding such problem was to generate top management support for the project. Further complete transparency and involvement of the workers in developing the technology was essential to break the initial barrier to adoption. Continuous communication of the change process in all steps right from technology development to implementation would have increased the mental preparedness of the employees to accept the technology. Without employee support and high degree of resistance, the project was bound to become a failure.

References

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