Make a reflective portfolio with the materials ·         A critical reflection of your groups Literature Review process and presentation.

·         Discussion and reflection of Seminar/Case Study activities.

·         Discussion and reflection of your significant learning themes.

·         Application and integration of your learning - how can you apply and integrate this learning? and on the topics 1 The context of Change Management

John Kotter in his latest book Accelerate (2014:1-2) states that the speed of change has increased so fast that our basic systems and structures of the past century can no longer cope. Leadership and management have lost the ability to cope with the rapid pace of change.

Reflect on this modern age phenomena and give insight into the different schools of change management theory that address change management. Change Management has tended to focus on the achievement of one of three types of outcomes- individual change, group change and system change (Katz and Khan, 1978). Each of these has its advocates as to which is most important. For example, Maslow (1943) and the early Human Relations school focussed on the importance of individual motivation and behaviour. Lewin (1947) and Schein (1988), while recognising the importance of individual behaviour to overall organisational performance, argued that modifying group behaviour was the best way to improve performance. Senge (1990), took a systems approach to improvement. He saw the interconnectedness of organisational life as being the most important factor and, therefore change has to start from this perspective. It is not the supporters of these three forms of change ignore the other two, but rather they see their form as being the lynchpin that holds the others together. 

In your analysis you need to consider if the three schools of thought are still relevant as the ‘central planks’ of change management theory.

Refer to Burnes (2014:306-311).

2 Resistance to change

 The prevailing view in organisational change literature appears to be that employee resistance to change is the main reason for the failure of many change efforts (Maurer, 1996, Waddell and Sohal,1998). However Burnes (2014) argues that one has to consider four theories which are fundamental to the resistance debate to make an informed decision:

Theory 1: Dispositional resistance

Theory 2: The depth of intervention

Theory 3: Cognitive dissonance

Theory 4: The psychological contract

Review the literature on these above theories and give your understanding of the application of these theories in understanding the resistance to change debate in organisations.

Refer to Burnes (2014: 312-318)

3 Managing change

Using the Framework for Change model (Burnes 2014: 409) analyse change in one of the case studies that you have studied on your module. In particular, identify the type of change, the selection and suitability of the approach to change and the degree to which the change implemented was a success. (For example case studies: McDonalds, St Mungo’s Broadway, Tesco’s etc) Reference Burnes 402-421)

Read less