Category: Change Management

Abstract

The overall purpose of this study is to understand whether or not data science will render management science redundant. it includes the importance of data science in the business industry and the world today and also discusses the importance of scientific management and management theory. As the world is constantly improving with technology, we need to keep up with the new and improved abilities, whilst still remembering the original theories of management so that companies do not get completely taken over by technology and computers. It was investigated whether or not this new data analytics and data mining is making original management theories pointless. The design of this study is in a report form, where you can find debates for and against the argument. You can find an introduction which will explain what data science is and which will explain what science management is. You will also find an analysis and a discussion of the findings regarding the topic. This includes Taylors principles of management and includes key factors of management theory that is highly needed in the business world. The major findings of this report are that many businesses rely on data science and that it is extremely important in today’s worlds. It also finds the risks and benefits of using data science. My interpretation of these findings is that management theory will always be needed within a business. However, data science does help businesses succeed quickly and more efficiently.

Introduction

In this report you will find a discussion on whether data science will render management science redundant. Basically, in simple terms, is data science making science management pointless. This will include different management theories but mainly management science theory. Data science is the study of the generalizable extraction of knowledge from data. a common epistemic requirement in assessing whether new knowledge is actionable for decision making is its predictive power, not just its ability to explain the past (Dhar, 2013). It can be viewed as an amalgamation of classical disciplines like statistics, data mining, databases, and distributed systems (Van Der Aalst, 2016). Whereas management science, an approach to decision making based on the scientific method, makes extensive use of quantitative analysis (Anderson et al, 2018). Management theory also falls under the topic. Management theory is based on the idea that management activities can best be analysed in terms of four essential groups of activities, namely planning, organising, motivating and controlling. The main debate comes from the opinion that data science is more profitable. On the other hand, theorists believe that that sound research should always start with a hypothesis, which cannot be done with data science (Cole, 2004)

In the modern world, 2020, technology has been advancing rapidly. The requirement to learn to use new technologies is becoming pervasive in the lives of adults, young and old. For example, computer systems of various forms are prevalent in nearly every aspect of our lives, including video-cassette recorders, computerised library catalogues, electronic banking, information kiosks, multi-function answering machines. This includes the new and better software that is being produced every day helping businesses. Businesses are constantly looking at new technology and software that’ll help improve their business and make things more effective. This includes different practices of data science.

Analysis and discussion

The purpose behind Data Science is to discover patterns within data (Gour 2019). It utilises different measurable strategies to break down and draw bits of knowledge from the information. From information extraction, fighting and pre-preparing, a Data Scientist must investigate the information altogether. At that point, the scientist has the obligation of making expectations from the information. The objective of a Data Scientist is to get ends from the information. Through these ends, the scientist can help organisations in settling on more astute business choices.

Data science is important in businesses today. One of the reasons it is important is because it helps mitigates risk and fraud (Monnappa, 2020). Data scientists are trained to identify data that stands out in some way. They create statistical, network, path, and big data methodologies for predictive fraud propensity models and use those to create alerts that help ensure timely responses when unusual data is recognized (Monnappa, 2020). This is important to businesses because it prevents businesses from getting frauded by other businesses. Another reason why data science is important is because it allows for ‘smarter’ thinking (Dataflair Team, 2019). Data science allows companies to analyse information on larger scales. Data science strategies allows companies to understand the problem, then to explore the quantity and the quality of the data. To decide whether the data is valid or not. It then allows tools to be implement. This means that finding the correct solution to solve the problem.

However, a problem with using data science in business is that the tools that are used for data science and analytics are more expensive to use to obtain information (intellspot, 2020). This means that businesses will be spending more money in order to develop the best results. However, despite data science being a smarter thinking technique, some researchers believe that scientific management theory is the best type of technique to use. Taylor (1911) recommended that “each worker be assigned a specific amount of work, based on time and motion studies.” He believed that if employees have specific quantitative challenging goals, their performance results are better (Taneja et al, 2011). He advocated that workers be given feedback daily as the extent to which they achieved their respective assigned tasks. This implies that workers and businesses can do really well, however they need a manager to do so. The statement is also implying that managers can do the same at what data scientist can do but involving the workers and looking at the issues and situation from a face to face perspective.

Another way that data science may cause science management to become redundant is because it can predict customer churn. The involuntary customer churn is referring to those customers whose contract terminated, or service disconnected by the company, while voluntary customer churns are those customers who switch the company without any prior information (amin et al, 2018). Although this is something the management theory can do, data science can do it a lot better with more specific readings and quicker. Therefore, businesses are choosing to use this rather than management theory so that they can understand trends better and prepare for them sooner in order to achieve good results.

One argument against the statement data science render management redundant is that according to Domino (2018) there is an industry shortage of data scientist managers. the ratio of individual contributors to managers is 15:1. Therefore, this shows us that data science is not taking over. However, as we are living in a forever advancing technological world, more and more people will be looking into job regarding data analytics and data mining. Therefore, in the near future we are likely to see a massive rise in the amount of data scientists’ managers.

One risk of using data science according to Marr (2018) is bad analytics. For example, misinterpreting the patterns shown by your data and drawing causal links where there is in fact merely random coincidence is an obvious pitfall. Sales data may show a rise following, say, a major sporting event, prompting you to draw a link between sports fans and your products or services – when in fact the rise is purely down to there being more people in town, and the rise would be equally dramatic after a large live music event. This shows us the need for management rather than just statistics because they will be able to rule out anomalies such as this. They will also be able to prepare themselves for situations like this and do things such as order more and relevant stock depending on the situation.

Another issue with using data science also according to Marr (2018) is the cost. Not only does a company have to pay for a data scientist, they will also have to pay for the equipment and software for the data scientist to be able to do their work. The better the quality of the equipment and software, the more expensive that it is. Moreover, companies will have to then pay for the data collection, the aggregation, the storage and then the actual analysis. This can be managed with budgeting techniques produced by a data scientist. However, it still could go wrong losing the company a lot of money. Where is if they stuck to a scientific management technique, it would be down to the manager to come up with more basic analysis and budgeting techniques, that would not cost the company any extra money.

Using data science, cannot solve all issues within a company. For example, staff motivation. It is all well and good staff members getting told the targets they need to reach and achieve. However, without proper leadership, staff will not have good morale and therefore will not likely meet the aims and targets set out by the company. Bande et al (2016) discovered that according to cognitive evaluation theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985), challenge-seeking individuals tend to exhibit an attribution basis for their behaviours and to work harder when approaching tasks. Individuals who enjoy task-related activities feel rewarded by performing a particular task (Deci and Ryan, 1985). In these respects, intrinsic motivation has been found to be a strong predictor of task performance (Kuvaas and Dysvik, 2009) and organizational citizenship behavior (Chiu and Chen, 2005), as well as the strongest determinant of employee creativity Industrial sales setting (Amabile et al., 1996). Further, several studies suggest that intrinsic motivation is related to learning orientation (Wang and Guthrie, 2004) and that intrinsically motivated individuals learn from the feedback that they receive. However, data science does not provide feedback on individuals, only on how the company does as a whole. If data science did completely take over, individual would not receive feedback, there for their motivation will be lower meaning that they would not perform as well as they could. Whereas in scientific management, managers are able to set certain tasks and aims for certain individuals which they will then be able to praise and give feedback on promoting encouragement and a positive workforce.

Despite this argument Sequoia (2019), says that A company’s ability to compete is now measured by how successfully it applies analytics to vast, unstructured data sets across disparate sources to drive product innovation. This therefore shows us that companies are now being judged on the data science that they collect and how well they use the data collected. Even though this does not fully support the statement ‘Data science will render management science redundant’, it still shows that we are moving towards a data science world where management theory may not be needed.

Conclusion

To conclude, data science has taken over the business world by storm. Data science is needed and does help create helpful and useful information for companies. However, there should always be a place for management theory as computers cannot do everything.

As mentioned in the debate, there are certain situations that need managers in order for sales to be achieved as well as possible.

However, data science does find the best techniques and methods for a business. Management theory will always be important for businesses, but businesses need to adjust to this forever changing world and find a way data science and management theory can correspond and work together.

Data science will continue and continue to grow and become more advanced so although data science has not currently rendered science management redundant, there is no way of saying that it will not in the future.

Refrences

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An organisational structure is a system that outlines how certain activities are directed in order to achieve the goals of an organisation. These activities can include power, roles, and responsibilities. The organisational structure also determines how information flows between levels within the company. For example, in a centralised structure, decisions flow from the top down, while in a decentralised structure, decision-making power is distributed among various levels of the organisation. There are many different structures and this depends on the organisation’s objectives and strategy.

Hierarchical – this structure has a longer chain of command, each on a different level one above the other, like a pyramid. The advantages of this is authority and responsibility are clear and well defined, opportunity for promotion motivates employees and employees can specialise and develop expertise in their field. The disadvantages are communication between departments may be less effective, decision making can take longer, it may be harder to be flexible and adapt and change. There may also be rivalry between departments.

Functional – this is one of the most common especially in larger businesses, it divides its such as sale, marketing, finance, human resources etc. The advantages of this structure is that it is specialised so departments focus on one area of work, productivity may be improved as the staff are specialised and skilled in the tasks they perform, there are clear lines of management and accountability leading to clarity and everyone understands their roles. The disadvantages may be closed communication, co-ordination may become difficult and there may be resistance to change.

Flat – this occurs when there are no management levels, when all staff report to one overall manager mainly seen in small businesses. The advantages to this structure are better communication and relationships between different roles, a simple fast decision making process, adaptability and flexibility are increased. The disadvantages may be that employees are less specialised and it is difficult to maintain this structure as the company grows.

(Management Study HQ 2020)

In the NHS there is and element of hierarchical but also a functional structure. There are separate clinical boards with specialised departments within these clinical boards, so whilst there is clear authority and responsibility is clear and well defined there are specialised teams with expertise in their specific field that can initiate change with the correct permissions.

Change management theories

Business and organisation environments are constantly changing and evolving as new technology and research evolves & improvements are made with products and services. New innovations and developments mean that businesses and organisations have to develop and change to remain relevant and competitive. In healthcare specific changes to an organisation’s current processes can maximise efficiency, improve overall patient and provider satisfaction, and improve security and compliance efforts. However, implementing change in a healthcare organisations requires strong attention to detail regarding patients and service providers, as well as stringent security measures, ensuring that all data and health information is secure and maintained. Change is a key source of competitive advantage and change is key to survival.

Several change management models have been developed over the years, one of the most commonly known is that defined by Kotter (2012) he describes the eight step model for leading change.

Create a sense of urgency – For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it. Develop a sense of urgency around the need for change. This may help you spark the initial motivation to get things moving. This stage involves open and honest dialogue about what’s happening currently and why things need to change. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself.

Bring everyone together/form a coalition – it is essential to have a strong leader to convince employees that the change is necessary.

Create a clear vision and strategy – having a clear and concise vision that you can articulate easily allows people to remember what your are asking them to do.

Communicate your vision to others – share the visions and make sure all staff understand the change and aim. It is important to talk about the vision often and use it daily to make decisions and solve problems.

Remove obstacles – clear any barriers or obstacles, praise those championing the change and support those resisting it, this will help empower employees execute your vision and move forward.

Motivate with short term wins – this will build confidence and allows staff to achieve short term goals will give them a taste of success. It must be achievable to ensure ongoing motivation.

Build on the change – it is also important to be careful not reward too early and keep moving forward and building on the change.

Change to become the core of the organisation- the change needs to be embedded into the heart of the company.

In order to successfully instigate and maintain change a lot of hard work and collaboration is involved, working through each of the above steps. If change is planned carefully and built on the proper foundation, implementing change can be much easier, and the chances of success are improved.

Since change for many brings about a loss of control, comfort, or territory, effectively working through the emotional elements remains a key factor for the successful implementation of innovative change. One of the best models to explain the human element is the Kübler-Ross Cycle of Grief (Kübler-Ross 1969). This model represents the emotional upheaval of terminally ill patients as they adapt to impending loss. The elements of denial, anger which gradually turn to acceptance and adjustment are reinterpreted in many organisational change methodologies. Kübler-Ross’ (1969) Change Curve is a reliable tool to understand change and the stages associated with it. The following stages are identified by Kübler-Ross:

Denial – Denial is a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, reality, etc., relating to the situation concerned. It’s a defence mechanism and perfectly natural. Some people can become locked in this stage when dealing with a traumatic change that can be ignored. Death of course is not particularly easy to avoid or evade indefinitely.

Anger – Anger can manifest in different ways. People dealing with emotional upset can be angry with themselves, and/or with others, especially those close to them. Knowing this helps keep detached and non-judgemental when experiencing the anger of someone who is very upset.

Bargaining – Traditionally the bargaining stage for people facing death can involve attempting to bargain with whatever God the person believes in. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example ‘Can we still be friends?..’ when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it’s a matter of life or death.

Depression – Also referred to as preparatory grieving. In a way it’s the dress rehearsal or the practice run for the ‘aftermath’ although this stage means different things depending on whom it involves. It’s a sort of acceptance with emotional attachment. It’s natural to feel sadness and regret, fear, uncertainty, etc. It shows that the person has at least begun to accept the reality.

Acceptance – Again this stage definitely varies according to the person’s situation, although broadly it is an indication that there is some emotional detachment and objectivity. People dying can enter this stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must necessarily pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the grief.

(Based on the Grief Cycle model first published in On Death & Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969. Interpretation by Alan Chapman 2006-2013.)

It is important to support staff through every stage of change implemented to ensure success, this can be achieved through training and supporting staff to give them the tools they need to achieve the change. Translating this model of managing change may help managers identify their staffs needs at various stages.

During stage one there may be shock or denial to the fact that change needs to occur and staff may need to adapt to something new. Information is key at this stage, it will take time to digest and providing information and developing their knowledge and constantly communicating will empower confidence in the change.

During stage two, once things are more settled and everything becomes clear staff may begin to feel fear of what lies ahead of them. It is natural to panic and believe that change is not possible and may not happen. It can also make staff feel anger or resentful because they may have been comfortable in what they were doing and change means learning something new. This is an important stage to manage and ensure it is controlled so that employees stay with the change process, communication remains key here.

During stage three employees may understand the change and may start to bargain and possibly learn what they think is necessary. This is when training is key and vital to ensure that everyone receives the best information and access to mentoring. It is important not to rush this stage.

During stage four moral and motivation can be low so when providing training and support it is important to be positive and keep focusing the change.

During stage five staff start to embrace the change and will really start moving forward.

There are numerous other theories available when contemplating and discussing change management, the two analysed above demonstrate the differences between the models but also their relevance and importance. In conclusion any change within the organisation requires careful thought, planning and consideration utilising a model or tool such as Kotter’s will ensure that all stages are considered, combining this with something like the Kübler-Ross model will ensure that the human and emotional impact of change are also considered. It is important to ensure everyone involved in the change is on board, educated, supported and enthusiastic about the project in order for it to succeed. Change can not be made to happen by one person it takes the whole team to come together to move forward, therefore it is essential to make sure the change is properly managed and that staff are supported through the process.

The main focus of this case study is to deepen our knowledge regarding the implementation of strategic leadership and change management in a diverse company based in Indonesia, where diversity is still an issue. This case study will discuss the manager’s experience of the company’s strategic leadership process and his change management interpretation and how effective it has been for the company. A 90-minute-semi-structured interview with a manager of a renowned Indonesian-based law firm was conducted as the main source of findings for this case study. The key findings for this case study will include:

• The nature of law firm in industry in Indonesia.
• The nature of the firm as an organisation and a business entity.
• The process and outcome of the firm’s strategic leadership and change management from the manager’s perspective.
• The impact of diversity towards him as a manager.

The Law Business Research Ltd.’s website (2015) indicates that foreign firms in Indonesia add the-already-high competition and allow clients to shop around more, while also forcing firms to continue to improve services. In order to have a reasonable chance of outperforming the competitors, effective strategic leadership and change management must be implemented.

Strategic leadership is the ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, think strategically, and work with others to initiate changes that will create a viable future for the organisation (Hitt & Horkinsson, 1999). To implement it effectively, Lussier & Achua (2015) believes that companies need to implement it concurrently with strategic management which consists of strategic thinking processes and decision-making steps to develop SMART goals and allocating organization’s resources in order to achieve its strategy (Appendix 2.2). It rests at the organization’s top-level management (Appendix 2.1). Kenton (2018) believes that although top-level managers are ultimately responsible for its strategy, the strategies themselves are sparkled by actions and ideas from lower-level managers and employees.

Strategic leadership strongly interconnectes with change management that plays an important role in the implementation of strategic leadership. Change management is a systematic activity to prepare an organization for and implement ongoing environmental changes in a business operation. Successful change management not only improves the governance structure which needs to be changed, but also raises productivity by modifying and complementing the existing organization system (Ahn et al., 2008). To successfully implement change management is one thing, but to implement it in a diverse environment is a whole different thing.

It can be a challenge because it requires knowledge and understanding of cultural diversity. M.G. Finn (1995) emphasized “Bringing our own cultural assumptions into our awareness and learning to recognize the cultural assumptions of others is a difficult and sometimes painful process”. The managing process starts from creating mobility for minorities, and then there is the phase of building relationships with respect for diversity and the last part of the process is managing diversity, which means that we want to achieve full utilization of diverse human resources (Schermerhorm, 2010)

A semi-structured interview was conducted with the chosen leader. The method was chosen because it can give the interviewer more flexibility to explore other interesting questions that are not necessarily included in the guiding questions but still relevant for the purpose of this case study.

The chosen leader is suitable for this case study because he has been acting as the senior financial manager (middle-level manager) for the firm since 1989 and still able to maintain the firm’s financial condition and renowned reputation in Indonesia until now. Because diversity is still an issue in Indonesia, it would be interesting to learn about his own experience in outperforming competitors throughout the years while ensuring that everyone within the firm is happy with his decisions, and eventually comparing it with the previous understandings of the topic.

From the interview, we learned that the firm adopted a high-quality approach for their strategy. It wasn’t their core strategy since the beginning, but they were forced to take actions in response of the growing competition. By using effective strategic leadership combined with strategic management, the firm came up with a strategy in which the firm consistently elevates their standard to achieve multiple awards and licenses that are desirable in the law industry. It includes ABA, ALB, ISO 9001, and others.

In the discussion of the firm’s strategy, the male leader plays an important role for the decision. Although he wasn’t a part of the top-level managers (i.e. owners, founders, and managing partners), his view and knowledge of the firm’s financial situation gave them a more thorough consideration.

In terms of the change management, the male leader adopted a stance of being a guide and a motivator for his employees rather than a punisher. In assigning everyone on their responsibility and making sure that everyone’s on the right track, he uses delicate but firm language so that everyone understands what they have to do without excessive intimidation from him. He rarely scolds his employees, but he always visits them and have a casual talk to hear what his employees have to say. His view is that every employee is essential for the firm and that to replace one would disserve the firm and his employees. Even though sometimes laying off an employee seems like the best option, his approach was that he will always explore all possible solutions that will bring the least harm towards him, the firm, and the employee.

From his perspective, diversity is still an issue inside the law industry in Indonesia. However, that is not the case in his firm. Given the healthy firm culture, every kinds of individual are regarded as fair as everybody else. His approach in managing diverse people is to have an adequate knowledge about their backgrounds and culture by getting to know them personally. After he understood the individual’s personality, he then takes management action that he deemed suitable for the specific individual.

The firm implemented strategic leadership effectively by applying it with strategic management concurrently which aligns with the understanding from Lussier & Achua (2015). The leaders of the firm are able to anticipate the incoming threats both from competitors and limited internal resource to accommodate excessive clients (Appendices 1.6) and envision the appropriate steps that the firm should take to thrive. In doing so, the firm also implements strategic management concurrently. They were able to develop the firm’s vision, mission, and objectives given the developing circumstances by taking into account the firm’s resources and both the external and internal environment analysis in order to achieve the firm’s strategy and goals. In doing so, the firm includes every crucial individual of the firm in the discussion, including the selected leader. This aligns with the understanding from Kenton (2018) that while top-level managers are the ones responsible for the strategy, the lower-level managers and employees’ ideas are crucial for the strategy.

The selected strategy was to keep elevating their service quality by achieving various awards and licenses. This aligns with the understanding from Lussier & Achua (2015) that organisations should have a goal and/or objective that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-specific.

In implementing the determined strategy, the subject also exhibits approach that aligns with the understanding from Lussier (2015) that manager should be a good coach and an empowering figure among other things. The selected leader always omits a facilitator figure rather than a punisher that contributes greatly towards successful strategy execution. The firm also has a weekly and monthly progress report that’s very helpful in measuring and evaluating performance of each employee as an individual and the firm as a whole.

The leader is very clear in communicating to his employees regarding the situation of the firm, the firm’s direction and desire, their responsibilities in order to achieve the desired outcome, providing guidance, and overseeing everyone so the team is going in the right direction at the right pace. This aligns with the understanding from Courtney (2016) that to manage change, leaders need to clearly define the change, determine the impacts and those affected, develop a communication strategy, provide effective training, implement a support structure, and measure the change process.

And in terms of managing a diversity workforce, diversity doesn’t alter the leader’s decision in any way (Appendices 1.18). The leader’s approach also aligns with the understanding from (Schermerhorm, 2010) in the introduction section. From his own experience of managing a LGBT employee, we know that the leader welcomes him from his first day in the firm without any preconceived judgements towards him. Then, the leader tries to get to know him better in a personal level. After the leader had understood what kind of individual he is and how motivated he is, the leader uses this background knowledge to encourage, utilize, and manage him. The leader’s main point in his approach is that he regards everyone equally and will only judge their performance through the firm’s standard and expectation. In addition, given the positive culture of the firm (Appendix 1.14), it wasn’t long since he had joined the firm that he was regarded as “one of us” by everyone in the firm. It’s also easy for him to get acquainted with other people because the firm’s system requires individuals to cooperate actively with other people from different division.

All of his management steps and decisions brings the leader a very positive feedback from his firm and employees. A lot of his employees are the firm’s most achieving employees because of his strict but guiding management style. Except for his past obstinate employees that was laid off, his relationship with his employees was never affected negatively because of his management decision. But most importantly, the firm had reached its vision and mission, and also its long-term plan of being the best practising law firm in Indonesia and one of the largest law firm in South East Asia. It’s not necessarily because of his management actions alone, but it does contribute greatly towards the firm’s high productivity level that leads to the firm’s success.

The downstream oil and gas industry has faced an extremely difficult challenge over the past few years from 2015 to 2017. How were companies in this industry going to survive while the average selling price for a barrel of oil was twenty dollars, and the business models for many oilfield companies had been built on selling barrels of oil at eighty to one hundred dollars? If companies wanted to survive in the longest downturn in industry history, many company-wide changes had to take place. For a major oil field service company in the Gulf of Mexico region, this meant merging departments and offices, in addition to laying off many support staff and management staff. My division lost all in house management, moved to a new facility, and a leader from a much different department stepped in.

Jessie[1], the new manager, had his work cut out for him. Being a leader during a major industry transition is problematic enough; yet Jessie was also taking on a new young team with a culture that was much different than what he was used to supervising. His previous department was large with well established procedures and protocols. They had many global advisors that could answer any questions during any hour. Our division had the same human capital, however our knowledge lived in the operations team. Our global advisors were limited, and did not always answer their phones on nights and weekends. Our field service personnel team had multitudes of tribal knowledge that didn’t always make it back to the office, and was not currently included in procedures. Most of this team had ten plus years of relevant industry experience, while office personnel had one to five years and most of the global advisors had less than ten years of experience. Jessie ignored repeated request from the office personnel to acknowledge the field service personnel. He felt that the field service personnel were replaceable and not worth his time. They made sufficient money for the worked performed, and they should be happy to have a job with the current industry conditions. By creating a cultural that devalued his employees, making them seem as only “hired help”, field personnel began leaving to pursue other careers.

Jessie did not value the human capital he had encountered on his new team. The team realized that new management believed they were replaceable. They feared for their jobs even though they were knowledgeable, hardworking and team oriented. Jessie had a Theory X perspective. He assumed all the employees were easily replaced because they were “just field workers”. A study by Lawter, Kopelman, and Prottas (2015) looked at both Theory X and Theory Y management styles with on job performance. They proved that there is not one way to evoke maximum output from all types of people. They concluded: (Lawter, Kopelman, and Prottas, 2015) “not only do managerial attitudes matter, but how managers behave towards employees affects both individual and group level performance.” As people began to quit, service quality quickly declined.

Jessie’s second mistake was not valuing and understanding the diversity of his new team. He continued the management style he had perfected with his previous team. He attempted to use fear and money as a means to keep employees putting forth their best effort. As the department continued to lose field personnel, office personnel realized they could no longer be the best in the field without proper offshore service support. These employees became disengaged and disgruntled. Within two years the department lost over half of the original team that was merged with Jessie’s division.

Jessie’s original meeting had started the merge off on a positive note. However, management’s actions and decisions proved to the team that Jessie was not committed to making the merger beneficial for both parties. He had good intentions of bringing the small team mentality to his large group, but he didn’t follow through on this promise. Olsen and Martin (2012) discussed the importance of commitment when managing diversity. “Organizations whose DM [Diversity Management] approaches focus on leveraging diversity to achieve business-related outcomes hold diversity as an instrumental value, because diversity is viewed as instrumental in achieving business success. In contrast, organizations that view a diverse workforce itself as an objective without explicitly considering it as a means for achieving business outcomes hold diversity as a terminal value.” This was evident when Jessie treated all people as if they were the same. Not all ages, genders, and cultures hold the same values in high regard. Most were looking for job security, not the uncertainty Jessie instilled.

Jessie never showed an interest in the people he was managing. He did not get to know them, their backgrounds, family, or work ethics. A study by Marquis, Lim, Scott, Harrell, and Kavanagh (2008) looked at and interviewed CEOs of companies that were highly respected in regards to diversity. It was noted: For them, diversity encompassed more than race and gender; it included age, sexual orientation, disability status, national origin, and even style of thinking. They believed diversity management was an essential component of their overall business strategy —enabling them to tap into diverse labor markets, compete with more innovative products and services, and market to more diverse customers. These executives believed that diversity management warranted a considerable expenditure of their time and effort.

It not only made a difference in their business, but helped them to become leaders in their field. They also spoke with employees who noted: … the chief executives in their companies had established accountability for their diversity initiatives. Either they or members of their board of directors conducted formal quarterly or semiannual diversity progress reviews, and they rewarded managers who achieved diversity objectives with formal recognition, bonuses, and stock options. In two of the firms we studied, the CEO or president administered sanctions to managers who failed to meet diversity objectives.

This explains that its not only enough for CEOs to believe and preach diversity, but to reward those who incorporate it to into everyday business. It is also important to hold everyone responsible for their actions. If some managers are not meeting expectations, they should be trained and mentored to help build their diversity management skills.

Each country has a level which improve the ranked once they achieved something that could be consider as proud of in economics of the country such as gross domestic product, gross national product and per capita income, however, many countries occasionally will have some kind of problems that caused the fall of the country ranking. Malaysia is closer to the ranking of developing countries if Malaysia does not face any decline in productivity, and this will open up the pace towards the high income status that will be recognized by World Bank. Malaysia will soon follow in the footsteps of other developed countries such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Korea and many more. According to Prime Minister’s Office of Malaysia website stated, by 2020, Malaysia will finally be going to achieve as a fully developed country.

Seemingly, implementing change can be said as risky and will cause problems. It is also about the changes that will be made in the employment sector, where workers will assume that their jobs will no longer exist after the change is implemented. Sometimes it has caused disgust for the change that is occurring within the workforce.

Due to economic downturn among employment sector for the past few years, government has taken few initiative to improve and regain Malaysia’s ranking in the global. While, change in employment sector will obviously affect organizations the most.

organizations to strategically position themselves in order to survive the competitive environments within which they operate. As a result, businesses across the world are constantly changing their operations and re-strategizing to overcome the stiff competition existing in the business world. It has been observed that seven important environmental challenges to businesses in recent times include rapid change, rise of the internet, workforce diversity, legislation, evolving work and family roles, globalization, skill shortages and rise of the service sector.

Change is something that we see very clearly especially nowadays, almost every day change happened. As the world goes and keep on developing, some country are still drowning and continuously trying on surviving. Malaysia, which is also listed as a developing country, is competing and implementing changes led by Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, however, if those changes are not going to be sustained, then Malaysia will revert to the previous system which might slow down the development of this country.

Kanter, Stein and Jick (1992, p. 11) considered change to be ‘the shift in behaviour of the whole organisation’. In other words, most organisations are influenced by changes in the environment that require adaptation of internal processes (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, Roth and Smith 1999). However, adding a new dimension to the definition of change, Robbins (1990) maintained that change should not be incidental in nature. All change initiatives must be planned in consultation with employees.

In fact, Armstrong (2003) identifies two main types of change: strategic and operational change. According to him, strategic change deals with broad, long-term and organization-wide issues such as strategic vision, mission and corporate philosophy. On the other hand, operational change relates to new systems, procedures, structures and technology that have immediate effect on work arrangements within a part of an organization

Interestingly, change is an indispensable phenomenon in the life of every organization. Thompson, Strickland & Gamble (2010) also observe that in the current business environment, many companies operate in industries characterized by rapid technological change, short product life cycles, competitive manoeuvres, fast-evolving customer requirements and expectations, all of which occur in a manner that creates swirling market conditions and uncertainty.

According to Moran & Brightman (2000), change management best definition would be the continuous activity of reintroducing the organizations’ new directions and structure or the job responsibilities of an employee as require by the stakeholders. as stated by Szamosi & Duxbury (2002), change management is a part of our lives and is needed in the employment sector by most organizations. Furthermore, both state and federal levels of government in Australia have undergone change and reform with the aim of increasing efficiency and human resource productivity (O’Donnell, Allan & Peetz 1999).

Based on few reading that has been made, change management can be defined as a process of changes which will be implement in an organization Basically this involved a creative and innovative strategies made by parties involved in controlling and implementing the change.

One of the factors that really hits Malaysia’s economic growth is in 2017, BANK Negara decided to reduce the prediction of economic growth of Malaysia for the next year. As we clearly seen in newspaper and television, the price for crude palm oil is decreasing.

As for manufacturer, economic downturn most probably influence the life-span on the business. They probably would not be able to receive any dividend. Once its effect the Ringgit Malaysia currency, their client might think twice to buy product produced by the manufacturer. Supplier may charge a bit pricey for the materials.

Company shareholders may become upset and may, along with the board of directors, call for the appointment of new company leadership. The manufacturer’s advertising agency may be dumped and a new agency hired. The internal advertising and marketing departments may also face a personnel shakeup.has lowered Malaysia’s economic growth forecast for 2018 to 5% from its earlier estimate of 5.5%-6%. For those in the loop, the move is largely unsurprising.

After all, the country’s economy has expanded below the 5.5%-level over the last two consecutive quarters. In fact, Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been decelerating since the third quarter of 2017, when the economy grew by 6.2% year-on-year (y-o-y).

The softer growth, given the fall in government development expenditure in the second quarter and the lacklustre performance of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude palm oil, meant that the earlier estimates could not be met. Furthermore, global purchasing manager indices and export volumes have been moderating.

In the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18), GDP growth came in at 4.5%, which was below the Bloomberg consensus of 5.2%. In comparison, GDP growth was 5.8% in the corresponding quarter of 2017 and 5.4% in 1Q18.

Once economic has gone bad, organization will start searching for a plan on how to keeping the productivity, but at the same time, they can reduce the expenses on employees’ salaries. Due to economic downturn, small company especially will start lowering the number of their employees from 20 to 12. This might also effect manufacturing sector, when the company who does not do well in the market might reduce the number of their employees and only keep the best employees who can do multitasking and have a great skills (Lowth, Prowle, & Zhang, 2012).

And regulations can also be initiated or developed by other parties than government, like social partners (e.g. collective agreements)

The government’s policy today is to give priority to the employment of Malaysians, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Aware about fears concerning a deluge of foreign workers in the country, he said the government had taken a number of measures to ensure that foreign workers were only employed if really needed by sectors that find it difficult to get local workers, mainly those categorised as 3D (Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult).

Dr Mahathir said that the presence of foreign workers was due to the attitude of Malaysians who did not want to do certain types of work, even though these actually could be done by them.

“So, these opportunities are grabbed by foreigners. In the end, they will become rich and we remain the same or become poor,” he said when officiating the 2019 Workers Day celebration at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre here today.

Dr Mahathir said the government was also aware of the unemployment rate among youths and understood the need to empower the workforce and harness local talent.

Beside of that, Malaysia also has bilateral relations with other countries and this is one of the factors affecting the change in the employment sector. Among the most noteworthy is Malaysia’s cooperation is with China.

Malaysia and China have reached more than US $ 100 billion as a result of the volume of bilateral trade. And this proves that China remains Malaysia’s largest trading partner. This business relationship is not new, but it has been around for the past 10 consecutive years. This is especially evident when the Malaysian manufacturing sector receives a very high return on foreign investment compared to a few years ago. This has led to our country’s economy has slowly recovering and maintaining the relationship with China.

What surprisingly, Malaysia-China relationship is not only stop at the trading business and partner, but it also continue with the “Twin Countries Twin Parks” .

According to Malaysia’s aerospace manufacturing exports is projected to grow 15 per cent to RM9.75 billion this year from RM8.48 billion registered last year.

International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Darell Leiking said the country’s aerospace manufacturing sub-sector growth trajectory would be supported by the continued orders of aircraft components and additional new products for aircraft sets.

‘The sector is set to strengthen its position as the regional leader in producing world class aerospace products to global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including Airbus and Boeing.

“We welcome global suppliers to set up facilities in the country and hopeful existing players continue to expand its operations, increase capacities and ramp up production of aero-structures products,” he said after touring Spirit AeroSystems Malaysia Sdn Bhd facility here today.

Leiking said the aerospace manufacturing sub-sector currently contributes about RM6.97 billion equivalent to 48 per cent of the total Malaysia aerospace industry revenue.

“The government will continue to support Malaysian aerospace industry ecosystem. Under the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP), a specific strategy is currently being formulated by Aerospace Technical Working Group led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MEA).

Looking at other countries that are using current technology especially in the industrial and agricultural sectors, Malaysia is trying to invest in technology, in line with foreign countries such as China, Korea, and Japan. High technology not only speeds up or increases productivity, but also reduces the mistakes that are often made. With the advent of cutting-edge technology, the government is aware that technological facilities should be expanded to be used by every sector of employment.

Like Korea and Japan, both countries are very advanced in terms of the technology used in their jobs.

The human factor magnifies the work redesigning process and gives it the right guidance. The HR manager needs to understand that several work-process changes projects the focus on technology and fails to focus on the organizational and human aspects of work. Most often, the technology strategy drives the organizational change. Dion (2012) stated that new technology advancement is reshaping business industries to industries where every business will need technology to compete successfully. In recent years, we have seen many of these technological changes; some are merely evolutionary, while others are more revolutionary becoming firmly entrenched in the way our organizations will need to deal with the social world.

A combination of technology with the human factor makes the balanced roadmap for making sesuatu . Therefore, for any change in the business, it is highly important that technology and human factors are taken for consideration. For making any change in the organization, the HR manager needs to rethink the customer needs. Every time the customers view the business making changes for their best interest, the business wins. These days, the HR manager needs to understand that identifying the aspects of processes, which are visible to customers and prepare formats for making changes. The important thing is making changes in the present methods and getting the process right. Customers are the most important facet of business and without successfully retaining customers any business cannot survive for long term.

The employment sector is largely monopolized by foreign workers. If you look at the city of Kuala Lumpur, foreign workers are scatter all over the place every weekend. This slowly show that other foreign worker are more capable in adapting to changes, they can be counted as a fast-learner. One of the reason why Malaysian’s employment sector has be filled up by foreign worker is the lower salary.

Changes are made to the business of ensuring the business is able to gain and retain customers. HR managers need to ensure than any change made does lead to the possibility of the business losing their customers. Improving communications in the change initiatives are one of the most important actions that HR managers need to take. Communication can be the key for developing the change initiatives and implemented. Information sharing is an important function of communication of change.

For employees who are aged, to accept something new takes a relatively long time, especially when there is a new technology. With the advent of advanced and sophisticated technology, it is likely to change the responsibilities of an employee, the possibility of an employee assuming the presence of a new technology and the changes it creates are a burden. Employees who age around 40 to 60 years old are known as rebel-employees, because they are reluctant to receive anything new in their life. A study done by (Finkelstein, Burke, & Raju, 1995) has stated that employees that has work for longest time in an organization normally being linked with unattractive on behalf of any improvement which referring to acquire new skills or exciting in facing new challenges in task given.

Based on seeing organizational change in terms of the diffusion model it is common to point out forms of friction that may slow down and obstruct the natural progression of plans and ideas. The focus here is on how people might disobey or deviate from planned change and managerial sovereignty.

Accordingly, culture does not refer to social structures and behaviour but in contrast to mental phenomena such as how individuals within a particular group think about and value the reality in similar ways and how this thinking and valuing is different from that of people in different groups (occupations, tribes, etc.). Culture refers to what stands behind and guides behaviour rather than the behaviour as such.

Employer for each and organization and each sector should be alerted regarding the change being made by the government. Employees should have been enlighten about the whole idea or plan of change, especially the critical employment sector such as manufacturing, service, agriculture and many more. Employees should be given clear disclosures about changes in their work, possibly if exposure is not been given to the employees, they might consider employers are ignoring their feelings and would probably think they might be kick out from the organization sooner or later.

When making changes, employers need to keep remind employees regarding company’s objectives, mission and vision. This is to prevent the change being ignored by the workers. If workers neglect, the efforts of the government and employers to change will be futile. Other than that, // be charismatic // it is crucial for managers to be able to communicate with employees. In order to do so, it is important for employees to perceive they have a good relationship with their managers and to feel they can communicate openly. Hence, managers should try to get to know their subalterns better and communicate in a more informal way. Management has to communicate with the employees, and listen to their opinions, before decisions are taken. Thereby, the employees will feel they are involved in the process and commit to the change.

Interaction’s strategic management and connection between the government and all of the employees in the organization should be highlighted in all type of employment. Internal communication efforts can involve routine communication with employees through a range of channels including face-to-face, company newsletters, and email to provide information about new employees, promotions, changes in benefit programs, and acknowledge employee achievements.

Communication is central to the implementation of planned change. Once a change is decided upon, it must be communicated to others who are affected or involved in implementing it. Caruth et al. encourage managers to communicate, and argue that communication is one of the most essential measures to prevent resistance. If managers communicate succesfully, they will know how subordinates feel and minimize the risk of subtle resistance. Furthermore, by asking the employees‘ opinions and use their advices, they can create a sens of involvement in the change.

Other solution that government and employers might try in order to persuade employees to adapt and learn the changes are through motivating them. Dealing and negotiate with employees regarding the advantages and the . Gaining acceptance at the staff level can be a challenge as getting buy-in by the employees’ who are going to work with happiness with the changes happen. Introducing changes within an organization can cause disruptions in patterns or behaviors that can cause loss of continuity, replace customary social structures and familiar relationships.

Employees often attribute changes in their work to the meaning of terminating their services in the sector in which they work. These dialogues sessions can enhance their understanding of the real changes in the employment sector. The parties (especially government and employers) who are responsible for making the change can organize such a program and ask employees opinion on what changes are being made or what they want to implement.

Managing employees’ acceptance of technology change can be a challenge for any organization. To successfully implement a technology change, several areas need to be affectively addressed. Challenges with internal conflict, or resistance by staff to the change must be managed. Employee training, communication and a multi-generational work force should all be considered and planned for when selecting a new technology. These items can be addressed with a well-defined implementation plan, an effective training plan and open communication between employees and management.

The need for change must be linked to the development of a country and not to be forgotten the cooperation of employees in implementing and adapting the change as well as the high spirit and zeal of achieving a national success. The efficiency and competitiveness of an employee in carrying out their assigned tasks and responsibilities. These are one of the characteristics that can drive change in employment sector. Change is sometimes necessary to improve and enhance the effectiveness of the work and can improve the productivity of an individual. But if there is something that prevent the change from happen, then the parties involved should be more aware in find solutions of such issues.

To avoid failure in making changes, governments and employers need to take prompt action and monitor and continuously review changes. Keep an eye out for any decisions and activities undertaken to bring change. Managing change is not an easy thing, if you fail to manage it properly, all the effort will be wasted and making changes is not that cheap. Change involves a very high amount of value. And if the changes are handled in a very sloppy way, the parties must restart the process by reviewing the mistakes made during the process of change.

The study identified change management practice factors and evaluated its influence on the growth of private business in Nigeria. These were with a view to provide information for management policy makers on change management best practice to achieve needed expansion and contribute to the country’s economic growth. The method of data collection was questionnaire to elicit information on change management practice and perceived private business growth in the study area. Data were analysed using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics.

The results of the study show that the predictor variables – employee reorientation, product brand name retention, organisation name retention, product delivery evaluation, and effective communication with customers are change management practices employed in Nigerian Private Businesses investigated. Of these change management practices, employee reorientation (mean = 30.2); product brand name retention (mean = 22.80); and organization name retention (mean = 17.7) are widely embraced in private business settings in Nigeria. The results also underscored the significant influence of these change management practice factors on private business growth in the study area; R square = 0.276, P = 0.0000 which shows that 27.6% of the improvement in growth rate in businesses under this study was due to effective change management practices..

Just as ‘change’ is the only permanent thing in humans, so it is in any thriving business organisations. Change takes diverse forms (Balogun and Hope Hailey, 2004; Burnes, 2004; Carnall, 2003). It takes the form of internal reorganization strategies and sometimes the need for change in business organisation may be warranted from the situations from the external business environment. Basically in today’s business orgainsations, change is expedient in order to build a stronger organisational culture, improve employee attitude to work, take charge of an impending or ongoing emergencies, keep up with technological innovation, adjust to new government regulation that affects business, take on new market opportunities as well as improving competing abilities of business organisations. Burnes (2004) opines that change is a constant feature of organisational life either at operational or strategic level. In a nutshell, change in business organisations involves revision or adaptation of the organization to its environments with the sole objective of bringing improvements to business day to day activities.

Based on business architecture, literature reveals quite a number of reactive approaches for effective management of change. These include right sizing operations, cost tradeoffs, management shakeups. This study emphasizes different proactive approaches for effective organization change management. Such approaches will bring about employee training, employee reorientation and redeployment, vision and mission evaluation, far-reaching innovation and new product introduction, social image reposition and identity retention. However, managers should not forget that there would be individuals in their establishments that would resist proposed change initiatives. For instance the workforce may resist change initiative when it occurred to them that the changes planned will affect their comfort at workplace and their job’s security. Workers also resist change because to them it may affect their personal plans and workload. Change could be resisted because of the culture an organisation has built over the years of operation.

On the other hand, organisational growth is the improvement in output and maintenance of organizational wellbeing. A business concern is said to be growing when employees are happy and satisfied for being part of their organisations; as well as when the organisation is able to retain its productive workers. It is also imperative for organisations to maintain their good standing in the public by not only ensuring their products are meeting the promised value, but they should be fulfilling their social responsibilities in the communities where they are sited. Other indices or yardsticks to measure business growth is increase in revenue period by period, as well as evidence of skill acquisition and application by the employees for the betterment of their organisations. Growth in business organisations also occurs when the top management has relentless urge for product development as well as product market development. Private business could be said to have contributed to the economic growth of developed nations. Basil (2005) documented that private businesses are the engine of economic growth.

Realizing the experience of developed economies in relation to the roles played by private businesses in the development and growth of their economies, Nigerian governments exercised concerted efforts to improve private business development and growth. For instance, agencies were created, and laws were also laid down to assist the growth of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises through the length and breadth of the country. Recently, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Abuja, Nigeria commented that the efforts of Nigerian governments have yielded only 14 percent contributions to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the last 20 years. In other words, the efforts could be said to have rather led to mere proliferation of the sector without a remarkable expansion and growth. The lack of remarkable expansion and growth could be ascribed to possible inability of private business operators to manage and adapt to changes and manage change initiatives effectively. Therefore, these drawbacks call for a generic change management proactive approaches as a process, capable of enhancing an immediate redefinition of each individual role in the organization and the organizations’ roles in the society; hence this study.

Organisational change can be construed as a movement of an organisation from its present profit making position towards a desired future state for improved organizational productivity. The change management literature in the last three decades underscored the relevance of programmes such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Management by Objective (MBO), restructuring which formed a broad body of research. All these were seen not to cater for the processes and outcome side of change. Many recent researches have assessed critically initiatives such as TQM, BRP and MBO on the basis of deficiency in uniqueness, tangibility, strategic approaches and learning among others (Hsu & Sharma, 2008). Certain contemplations by previous researchers on organisational change management advocated that organisations would not perform optimally if they were persistently changing (Rieley and Clarkson, 2001). Rune (2005) argues that the successful management of change is crucial to any organisation in order to survive and succeed in the present highly competitive and continuously evolving business environment.

However, it is important to understand that whatever approach the organisation adopts to implement the proposed change initiatives, detailed understanding of the ‘what’, ’why’ and ‘how’ of the change initiatives must be a part of it (Sharma, 2008). He explained that the ‘why’ includes the management’s and organisational members’ knowledge regarding the ultimate goal for which the change process has been initiated, the reasons behind the need for change, the benefits of change for the department and the organisation or specific performance and morale of the people in general. The ‘what’ of change includes factors such as tangible and intangible results to be expected as outcomes of the change initiatives and the objectives of change process. More precisely, it is to know how much of what and when of the change efforts. The ‘how’ includes the change agents’ ability to design the sequence of the change initiatives, activities and processes and to utilize the organisational members’ competency to move from the current state to the desired state. Sharma (2008) noted that there often exist gaps between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ creating impediments in the change process. Also, factors such as ‘resistance to change’, ‘slow learning’ and ‘fast forgetting’ must be taken into consideration and dealt with so as to ensure a successful change implementation.

However, organizational managers view resistance as the enemy of change, it is the foe which must be combated if a change effort is to be successful (Schein, 1998). Ansoff (1990) defines resistance in change initiative as a phenomenon that affects the change process, delaying or slowing down its beginning, obstructing or hindering its implementation and increasing its cost. On the other hand, Perren (1996) viewed resistance as positive force to build support for change. Resistance according to this perspective is any conduct that tries to keep the status quo, equivalent to inertia that persists to avoid change (Zaltman and Ducan (1977). In this case, inertia and change are not considered to be undesirable concepts as change always may not be inherently beneficial for organisations.

O’ Conor (1993) identifies causes of resistance as follows – lack of belief that there is serious need for change;

different descriptions for the need for change; no agreement about the need for change; lack of belief that the goal is attainable; no confidence in the manner of change. Mabin et al (2001) documented that resistance to change is caused by individual factors, group factors, and organisational factors. According to him individual factors are simply personality factors and attitudes based on previous experiences of change; group factors are factors related to group cohesiveness, social norms and participation in decision making. He emphasized that organisational factors are threats presented by the unknown, challenges to the status quo, and workload consequences. Therefore, managers should be aware that any change initiative comes with attendant amount of resistance and overreactions to any noticed resistance is harmful to organisation’s progress. Managers should work out ways to gain the supports of all organisational members as well as respecting different views in a bid for the successful implementation and management of organisational change.

This study is anchored on John Kotter’s (1995) Eight Steps Change Model. John Kotter, a Harvard University Professor propounds this model for effective change initiative implementation, outlined eight steps that change agents may follow in effecting fundamental change and in transforming organisations. He signaled that all the steps are essential. According to John Kotter, these steps are establishing a sense of urgency; forming a powerful coalition; creating a vision; communicating the vision; empowering others to act on the vision; planning for and creating short-term wins; consolidating on improvement and producing still more changes; and institutionalizing new approaches.

Although there may not be one best way to manage change particularly when it emanates from external business environment, change will catch business organisation unawares if managers were not proactive enough to envisage need for it. In drawing up a framework to manage change in business organisations, managers should consider success rate of the past strategies employed while implementing change initiatives. Managing change in business organisations requires relentless efforts by firms’ operators to determine where they are now, and where they need to be in the future; as well as how to manage the change initiatives necessary to get there. John Kotters Change Model provides an easy step by step framework for change implementation. The focus is on preparing and accepting change, not actual change; as well as making transition easier. It is relevant to the present study as employees often look forward to their managers to convince them of the urgent need for change to occur through a worthwhile reorientation.

The study employed the survey research design. It enables the researcher to collect information from a large population. Information obtained for this study was generalized for the entire population. The independent variable was organisational change management. It was measured using five organisational change management variables namely: product brand name retention, organization name retention, effective communication with customers, employee reorientation, and product delivery evaluation. The dependent variable was private business organisation growth; and the factors used to measure private business growth in this study were customer retention, revenue growth, employees’ satisfaction and retention, product development, and product market development.

The population of study – 3000 employees was drawn from Private Business Organisations in Southwest Nigeria. In order to determine an adequate sample size for this study, the values of significance level, and effect size were well-thought-out to optimise sampling effort within the constraint of the available resources. Then, Krejcie and Morgan’s (1970) sample size table was applied to decide on the sample size for the study – 320 respondents. Structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The questionnaire was divided into two sections. The first section (SECTION A) elicited information on demographic characteristics of respondents. The second section stimulated information on Change Management Practice (CMP).

In this study, organisational change management was expounded using five predictors namely employee reorientation, product brand name retention, organisation name retention, product delivery evaluation, and effective communication with customers. The analyses show that business managers need to be proactive in managing change as change particularly from external business environment often comes without warning. From this study, It is glaring that not much attention was paid to envisaged change in business environments by business operators. Private business operators still employ reactive approaches to manage change. This finding corroborates the study of Leifer (1989) which concludes that non-equilibrium conditions provide the opportunity for a new organizational order, resulting in an increased ability to manage complexity. Therefore, there is urgent need for industry leaders and business operators to enshrine robust change management strategies as a process identified in this study. Furthermore, the results of the study reveal that private business managers need to intensify efforts in carrying out effective product delivery evaluation as well as effective communication with both the existing and potential customers to achieve much needed business growth objective (public image maintenance/customer retention, employee satisfaction and retention, increased business revenue, product development, and product market development). It was also evidenced that employee constant reorientation significantly influence private business growth as proactive measure to face changes in the business environments.

From this study, it is abundantly clear that change is an ever-present element that affects business organisations. Organisation’s change management calls for practical approaches to meet sudden change in the business environment. For this reason, managers need requisite knowledge to be able to prepare their workforce for future change in their business operations. Reactive measures will not match needed skills to enforce and manage change in business organisations. Businesses should engage their research and development section of their organizations to scan their environment and develop training programmes for the employees. Also, meeting with business customers is necessary for effective communication with them on the likely change the business might implement in the near future. Such meeting with the customers will give room to be part of decision on way forward for the likely change in their operations. Furthermore, business should imbibe good customer relationship management with a view that when change occurs the customers will remain with the business. Therefore, this study recommends the adoption of change management practice such as constant employee reorientation, effective communication with business customers, product delivery evaluation, product brand name retention as well as organisation’s name retention. These are proactive procedures and catalysts capable to bring about effective change management in business organisations as found out in this study. Adopting these procedures will enhance every organizational member as well as business customers to be driven towards getting ready for change and accepting change.

If change equals growth, then we will always want our company to be changing and thus growing. As the project manager of a new initiative in our company, I am proposing that we are in need of a change manager. If the company will choose to invest upfront in a change manager there will be many benefits in the long run. One way to look at this is prevention rather than reaction. I am going to lay out for you what a change manager is, why a change manger is important for this project, and how it will benefit the company. I will also show you examples of evidence based research that backs up this claim and makes recommendations of locally based change management companies.

The definition of what change management or a change manger is can vary. However, to put it simply, change management is a structured approach to being able to smoothly transition teams, organizations, people and businesses, through the process of change. This can be applied at different times in the life and growth of a company. It can be having to change to a new computer system or other technological changes, it can be having to downsize, or add new employees, or in our current situation, it is starting a new project. All of these things involve the change process which can be hard for people who grow comfortable in what they know. A piece of what the change manger can also help facilitate is managing this transition of changes within the company. It is the change manager that can help the business to minimize resistance, increase engagement, reduce overall costs, improve performance and to help encourage creativity and innovation.

A change manager is someone that will be able to help our employees create a growth mindset. Growth mindset is a concept that implies that we are ever changing and growing, and that we need adversity and mistakes and challenges to be able to grow. In contrast a fixed mindset is a thought process that your intelligence skills and abilities are fixed or set. An example of this would be a person with amazing athletic abilities who doesn’t work hard in practice but can still do well in the game. On the contrary the person who works hard everyday in practice, with less athletic ability can be just as successful because with growth mindset, hard work can create positive change. A change manager is someone that can help us facilitate this. It is critically important that this person is a third party, and not part of the company. The reason for this is that someone within the company may feel compelled to follow the same norms, and stick with the company culture. A third-party entity is not going to have this same feeling of obligation to the company. They are going to be able to challenge the norms and culture if this is not creating this growth mindset that is needed for a company to expand, grow and succeed.

I also want to point out that the purpose of the change manager is put themselves out of a job. Their goal is to come in and to create change leadership within the company and to set the stage for long term success.

In doing research on the subject, I looked at a literature review that reviewed several research articles about the need for organizational change management (Dhingra & Punia 2016). The review highlighted that in this research it is strongly suggested that change is an inevitable part of the business world and that change is needed for growth. It also suggests that in all of the research that has been reviewed on this topic over a 10-year period that one of the biggest predictors of how successful the project is, depends on how change is managed.

A second study that was looked at studied the development of self-awareness and self-management and the impact of learning change management skills (Hornstein, 2015). This study recommended that organizations seek out not only top-level managers with emotional intelligence skills, but that a third party can be integral in terms of managerial success, and that these skills can be developed. This can help to create this growth mindset and could enable them to motivate themselves as well as the employees that work for them and this in turn will lead to company success in the future.

In taking this process a step further to make it a reality, I have researched some locally based companies. The one that I found to have the most useful website, ease of information and overall feel that it will be a good fit for our company is Keystone International. Keystone is an Albuquerque based company as well as a Veteran owned small business (Keystone, n.d.). They provide a third-party entity that can provide a change manager to provide support services to help our company advance to a growth mindset and to be able to give a fresh, and unbiased look at the company culture and current change processes (Keystone, n.d.). I ask you to check out their website and to join me in calling them to explore more about how their services can benefit us.

In conclusion, I think that as a project manager it is my duty to promote change and positive growth within the company. I feel that having a change manager that is a third party will be beneficial to helping us as a company accomplish that goal. I also feel that creating a new culture around growth mindset is essential to any business for long term success. Not only is this something that I strongly believe in, but I have provided evidence through research that this is not only a good idea, but that it is evidence based.

Vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage (VSAH) refers to delayed ischemic complications associated with the narrowing of major intracranial arteries following SAH. There are four different major clinical definitions for vasospasm, depending on how it is diagnosed. Symptomatic vasospasm is a clinical syndrome, defined as a clinical deterioration deemed secondary to vasospasm after other causes were eliminated. Delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) includes both symptomatic vasospasm and infarction on CT attributable to vasospasm. Angiographic spasm is diagnosed by digital subtraction angiography. Transcranial Doppler (TCD) spasms are those that are diagnosed based on a mean flow velocity >120 cm/sec. There are currently no guidelines for early identification of clinical risk predictors and/or early warning signs of VSAH. This means that rather than taking proactive measures to prevent VSAH, the standard procedure is to react to VSAH after its occurrence has been diagnosed. Although vasospasm can be treated and potentially reversed in its early stages, optimally it would be prevented from developing. Therefore, as a change management strategy, it is proposed that a checklist be developed for nurses to use in the monitoring of all SAH patients. The checklist would indicate any further diagnostic tests that would be indicated by the presence of one of the indicators on the checklist, along with any potential medical interventions to be recommended and the evidence supporting those interventions. The current model is top-down, with doctors ordering diagnostic or monitoring tests. Nurses follow these instructions and inform doctors when there is a sign of VSAH occurring, and doctors give orders on what diagnostic tests and therapeutic interventions must then be given to mitigate the damage once the vasospasm has begun. The new model is bottom-up, placing more responsibility on nurses for proactive action to prevent vasospasm before it occurs. With the help of the proposed checklist, nurses would be alert for risk factors and symptoms and advise doctors on recommended preventative action.

Kurt Lewin’s change management theory is a theory of planned change that has been useful in planning organizational change in nursing. It consists of three major stages: unfreeze, change, and refreeze. Each of these stages will be considered in turn to produce a plan for instituting the proposed change.

Unfreezing involves recognizing that a current model is counterproductive and instilling a desire to change that pattern, thereby making it possible for people to psychologically accept a new way of working (Kaminski, 2011, p.1). This requires an analysis of the situation to identify the forces that maintain the current behavior. To promote unfreezing, the organization may conduct transformative activities such as workshops where colleagues can discuss the situation, brainstorm, and team-build. It is therefore suggested that interprofessional workshops, including both nurses and doctors, be conducted as a first step in developing the checklist.

The process of change involves a shift in the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that maintained the old model (Kaminski, 2011, p.2). Nurses and doctors must be convinced that the new model is more effective than the old one. This is the most time-consuming stage, but also the most productive. This will involve presenting evidence of how the use of the checklist will be beneficial to patients, instituting the use of the checklist, monitoring the use of the checklist, and getting feedback from nurses and doctors on how the checklist is working, revising accordingly. For example, at regularly scheduled developmental workshops there should be a review of whether the checklist was used, what the results were, barriers to following the checklist, and what changes should be made to make the checklist more useful.

Freezing involves the establishment of new changes as operating procedures (Kaminski, 2011, p.3). Some methods of ensuring personnel do not fall into the old pattern include rewards, ongoing support, and leadership that consistently orients personnel toward the old procedure. For example, leadership can point out cases in which nurses brought early warning signs to the attention of doctors and the result was prevention of vasospasm.

Force field analysis involves the identification of the driving forces promoting change in addition to the restraining forces that hinder change (Kaminski, 2011, p.4). To disrupt equilibrium or status quo, the driving forces must exceed the restraining forces. The restraining forces on the nursing ward may include routine, dislike of change, and hesitancy to speak up to doctors. The driving forces include the desire for the best possible outcome for patients and the empowerment of taking on a leadership role. To magnify the strength of the driving forces, nurses and doctors alike must be presented with strong evidence for the potential benefits to patients, as well as highlight the positive outcomes that occur on the ward following the change.

A checklist of early signs, symptoms, and risk factors for VSAH has the potential to prevent VSAH from occurring. The fundamental change of working from top-down doctor-led to bottom-up nurse-led has been discussed in this essay in the light of change management theory. The proposed checklist is a change that is both possible and necessary for the prevention of VSAH.

Executive summary.

This report tends to analyse General Motors, one of the most important automotive company of the past century, from 1980 to 2010. This essay demonstrates, analyse and understand the important changes that took place at General motors during the financial crisis of 2008 and tends to explain their nature and impacts on the company and its stakeholders.

To fully understand these changes, we will first define some change management tools that drive successful change management then we will briefly review the history of the company to understand the economic context in which it stands and finally, we will analyse the causes that drove General Motors to conduct these changes. The results of these changes will also be mentioned.

Introduction

While globalization has allowed the expansion of the international market and the growth of many companies, it has also created a significant increase in competition between companies who face a growing number of competitors and a constant rise of customer’s expectation. To respond to a constantly changing environment, companies must become familiar with change management and apply it when necessary. Change management could be defined as a structured approach to moving individuals, teams, and organisation from a current state to a desired future state and involves changes in a company towards processes, organisational culture, job roles and systems. Different concepts come to support change management. One of them is the Force field analysis that helps companies to understand and analyse driving forces and restraining forces for better decision making. This could be done through a stakeholders mapping or a PESTEL, SWOT analysis. A second one could be Lewin’s analysis which help companies “Unfreeze” from a current state “Move” and “Refreeze “to an evolutionary shape. Through this essay, we will analyse why and how General Motors implemented a significant change and what were the results of this change. We will mainly focus on the North American market.

General motors a successful company

General Motors, a car manufacturer founded in 1908 by William Crapo Durant, is a company that has for more than a century shine on the automotive market, controlling more than a dozen brands and ranking as the largest automobile manufacturer between 1931 and 2005.

Between 1908 and 1929 General Motors acquires more than twenty companies in which we can count Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland and sees its number of employees grow to about 85,000. In 1929, General motors acquires more than 80% of the German car manufacturer Opel. The success of the company in the 1920s is often attributed to the leadership of Alfred Sloan who introduced the concept of ‘planned obsolescence’ that wants the design of cars to be changed every year.

During world war two, general motors is highly solicited by allies and produces both vehicles, armaments and airplanes. By the end of the war, the company is granted 33 million in compensation of the damages that the Allies caused to its German sections. After the war, General motors becomes one of the most successful and largest company of the United states and become the corporation with the largest number of employees after the Soviet state industry. General Motors continues to evolve in this way and although the company is threatened by the Japanese market during the 80’s, it sees its market share increase sharply and its profits multiply until 1999, when inflation and the recession of the stock market create economic tensions within the company.

Reasons and forces for change.

1) External forces.

One of the main reason that led General Motors to change is the consequent increase in competition in the automotive market that the company faced. Thus, General Motors saw its market share decrease against its Japanese competitors and its American competitors.

At the beginning of the 80’s Toyota by its new system of production manages to reach the level of General Motors and gains a significant market share in the North American automotive market, closely following general motors. Ford follows the same path and during the year 1986, see its sales surpassing those of General motors.

[image: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d0rMi8ru9xOW_xgpIMSEtep7tkvNurT9oPn2CEaDkmVFdgvgcDSDqSUbqO5xV9mGx0UpwdjKzRJupLF2lnDXlMTivFtXDIc0whVdh0T4-C03aTt-AQgwn_P9nnrusI60AllNr_ql]

Net income of Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors automotive companies, 1980-1990. (The national academics of science, engineering, medicine)

Global competition is becoming more and more heavy and Gm loses its market share to the profits of Asian car manufacturers like Toyota and Honda. However, the company is still profitable and although it is losing power in the international market, it continues to sell nearly one in two cars in the United States.

2) Internal forces

But in 1990, General motors is affected by the recession which greatly affects the automotive market, and encounter several crises. Indeed in 1998 General Motors faces the biggest strike of its history which causes the company a shutdown of its production chains for nearly 50 days and a very significant loss of revenue. During the next 20 years, General Motors encounter many other crises and is unable to maintain its position as the leader of the automotive industry. Many reasons explain its decline. First General Motors has a costly and inefficient operation system that do not allow the company to make the same profits as other companies such as Toyota. Indeed, the company pays its employees 74$ an hour while Toyota pays them 44$ an hour and spent over 103 billion on post-employment healthcare and pension expenses. In addition, the brand is no longer able to attract as many customers as before because of unattractive and repetitive car design and the implementation of a wrong pricing strategy. Its inability to move from fuel-consuming SUVs to more fuel-efficient cars to respond to customer’s demand increase its revenue loss. General Motors also fails to track and implement new technologies as well as its Japanese competitors and seems to always be a step behind. Added to this is a complicated organization because GM must juggle between a dozen brands and faces poor leadership.

3) 2008’s financial collapse.

All these flaws weaken greatly the company before the economic crisis of 2008 and the collapse of the financial market, which has a great impact on the international automotive sector and leads General Motors to bankruptcy. Indeed, this crisis leads to unstable oil prices and a high unemployment rate, which reduces the spending of households that no longer buy cars. This affect greatly the cash flow of the company. To save GM from bankruptcy, the US government decides to nationalize GM and injects close to $ 50 billion in the company through US and Canadian ratepayers. But this is not done without counterpart and several factories are closed, many employees dismissed and Gm completely restructured.

A leadership and cultural change.

1) Force field analysis

As mentioned above, Force Field Analysis allows companies to analyse driving forces for change and restraining forces for change. The table below shows both driving and restraining forces, found through a SWOT analysis, that General Motors faced soon after the financial crisis.

Driving forces

Restraining forces

An urgent need to reduce the costs, especially those of wages and pensions

Employees and staff resistance to cost cutting

The need to change an inefficient organization culture and leadership and to reduce decision-making time (over bureaucratic organization, weak leadership)

Anxious and fearful employees of cultural change.

The need to increase the quality of products

Agreement with trade unions.

The international economic and financial crises, economic recession.

Uncertainty avoidance.

A rising competition (entrance of new competitors)

Job role dependence on bureaucracy

Changing consumer behaviours

2) Leadership and cultural change

From 2000 to 2009 General Motors has for CEO Rick Wagoner (also elected chairman in 2003). During his years at the head of the company, General motors losses more than 85 billion$ and declares bankruptcy. Although Rick Wagner tries to increase the company’s profits by various strategies, he fails to make the necessary decisions and often makes unwise choices, such as when he decides to focus his program on electric cars rather than hybrids. Although appreciated by the company’s employees, he is described by analysts, according to the BBC, as a leader who lacks judgment and willingness to make the tough decisions needed to rebuild the company. He tends to ignore the advice of analysts who recommend significant cost reductions and a change in the operating system.

Not surprisingly, when the US government regains control of General Motors (control over 60% of the company), Rick Wagoner is asked to resign and is quickly replaced by Fritz Henderson, who stays in the company only a few months before being replaced by Edward Whitacre who is also, a few months later replaced by Dan Ankerson. It is during the period under Whitacre’s and Ankerson Control that the company make its first big changes. Unlike his predecessor, Edward Whitacre stands out as a transformational and charismatic leader. He understands the issues that the company faces and the sense of urgency for change and sets new goals for the company to be successful again in the international market. It is through strategies of cost reduction and structural reorganisation that he pursues his objectives.

First, GM reduced the diversity and the number of its models which conducted to a diminution of the number of its employees. Thus, from 1998 to 2009 General motors reduced the number of its employees from 228 000 to 101000. The number of its workers in the factories also decreased by 20 000. Meanwhile, the company tried to reduce employee dependency on bureaucracy by giving them more power and responsibility. However, cost reduction strategies also implied significant wage reductions for the workforce.

In a second time, General Motors decided to sell a large part of its brands that were no longer profitable. Among them, Hummer, Saab, Saturn and Pontiac which is phased out by the company. The company decided to focus on its core brands and pursued a rebranding strategy to improve its image and win back its customers. GM also invested in technology programs to improve its cars and satisfy customers expectations.

Resistance to change

Resistance to change could be defined as the rejection of corporate changes from individuals or groups. Diverse reasons can explain resistance to change: anxiety, fear, lack of knowledge and communication, lack of understanding or poor change management.

1) Employee’s resistance

When General Motors was nationalized and passed into government control, there was a lot of speculation circulating among the employees. In addition, the important changes made to save the company from the financial crisis, including significant cost reductions, gave rise to fear and anxiety among the workforce. Thus, employees who were not dismissed have seen their salary decrease and their responsibilities increase. With no surprises, they resisted to change for fear of new responsibilities and dissatisfaction with the reduction of their salary. Unsatisfied with the change, they represented a threat to the change that Whitacre was trying to put in place. To reassure his employees and to calm rising tensions, Whitacre’s sent an email to the entire company in which he wrote ‘A smart company changes and adapts to the needs of the business. So, while there will always be individual moves within GM, I want to reassure you that the major leadership changes are behind us ‘.

Although some employees were not reassured by this email that lacked explanations and was perceived as insufficient given the significant changes taking place in the company, good communication, a well-managed change management and the empowerment and involvement of the workforce, helped employees to embrace change and get involved in the company to make again General Motors a leader in its industry.

2) Trade union resistance

However, the company was also facing resistance from the UAW (United auto workers union) in which it was engaged in several agreements. Among these agreements, we can count the obligation of job security guaranteed, high wages and the provision of health services and pensions to every worker. Thus, the company’s cost cutting program, which relied mainly on lowering wages and decreasing social privileges for employees, strongly displeased the UAW. Many discussions were needed and General Motors and the UAW entered negotiations to find new agreements in line with the economic crisis.

Finally, the UAW managed to make concessions by accepting that the wages of the employees would be halved for the new workers and that the cost of the pensions would be cut on conditions that the company creates an independent trust fund.

Results of change.

It is very difficult for a company to conduct an effective and successful change especially when this change is emergent. General motors through its different strategies and not without encountering problems has been able to reduce its cost by 15 billion$ and to slowly get out of bankruptcy. Strategies of cost cutting and rebranding helped the company makes profit of 4.7 billion$ in 2010, which was its first profit since 2004.

These strategies were very effective and allowed the company not only to regain market share in the following years, but also to become one of the leaders in the automotive industry, once again making an impressive turnover.

Below is a diagram based on the Kübler Ross Grief model, which tends to show the different stages in which General Motors went through during the 2008 stock market crash. Kübler Ross Grief model is widely used in change management to understand the different emotions felt by the people impacted by the change and determine the reasons for a possible resistance to change.

[image: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/6NXLJS9-XTiFGjjVfWIYzSYcG-pqXY_ojrn8xRkzCHcFicxtDPyclxc5u7O1NaCBPYi5Qw5KUS_2JHCbh8FQtKQU6Rer1X89wA-iZKV4PGPpZQEdON8-J_AQOKquU9rva2zV52Pn]

International Journal of Research in Management, Economics and Commerce. GM’s strategy change as reflected in the Kübler-Ross Grief model

[image: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/B36RqJk0nuPkxVMl2DZERB4e-EcPUNPNzwBE09–v5CVjFRAUqSyWHhgVOabCdSrYJaE1tqTPUfZ8pt3Odk3vK3NULZA024QYPyejb26fNX7hfgfKxVojmubFDyRnY216d_c3fjX]

World’s largest automakers April 2017, Forbes. “Top 10 Global automakers.”

Conclusion.

We have seen through this report that General Motors, a company once flourishing but victim of the economic crisis of 2008 and weakened by a bad management coupled with a system of too expensive production, managed through a change management to recover on the international market. During the establishment of its change the company has encountered many problems including resistance to change from different stakeholders but has achieved through effective communication, well-conducted negotiations and a focused and effective management to implement its strategies and to make it successful, thus allowing General Motors to perform again on the international automotive market.

References.

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