Examining Organizational Change Management: Analysis of a Case Study

Essay Question

 

“Examine the role of organisational change by analysing a case study of change management in an organisation of your choice”.

The case study can refer to managing change in any type of organisation. You can thus choose to discuss issues of change in a for-profit company, public organisation, voluntary organisation, or social enterprise.

 

Indicative answers

A requirement for this essay is to describe and interpret how organisations change, what managers and leaders do to support change, and how employees may experience change based on evidence from your chosen case. The case chosen can be both about successful or unsuccessful change management as a departure point for your elaborations.

You should focus on internal organisational issues: for example, how leaders or managers communicate any required changes; how changes are introduced in different departments, and what kind of employees are involved and a what level. Often, this is about specific individuals and teams being involved as well as their motivation or resistance to change.

Additionally, you can explain the reasons and effects of the case’s organisational change in relation to external stakeholders such as customers, suppliers and business partners as any of these can have an influence on how change is perceived, lived, and managed internally.

You will discuss or interpret organisational change with at least one change theory learnt in the dedicated lecture on organisational change (i.e. life-cycle theory; evolutionary theory, teleological theory and dialectical theory). It is likely that you may need to interpret different types of change with more than one theory or model.

You should describe the specific organisational context at the outset. The type and profile of the company should be brief but it is necessary. The context should include briefly e.g. business strategies as a background, as they prompt changes for employees. The essay will cover interventions or programmes that require effective change management. For example, an intervention for organisational change and how leaders or managers helped the process of change of groups, departments and individuals. You can also look at various types of training programmes to enhance new skills in departments and teams. You should add if such programmes are supported by particular HR policies.

Your elaborations may include selected concepts and points of analysis beyond “organisational change” for helping to illuminate aspects that are interrelated in the case. For example: resistance to change, organisational culture or teamwork and collaboration. You should explain all used terms also conceptually, at least briefly, not just merely mention them in one sentence as an ‘add on’. This will support a deeper discussion of different change practices, after you described events and behaviours.

Conclusion

Final recommendations given by a student can be based on relevant academic literature too, not just practical insights. Whilst any recommendation may be easier to imagine based on analysed unsuccessful or less effective approaches to managing change, they can be offered also for positive processes you have seen in the case study. That is, if the organisational change you analysed had been successful overall, you can still suggest as to what might be changed, emphasised or developed because organisations aim to maintain effective changes also in future.

An introduction to an essay should address directly the question or topics you have been asked to discuss. You should give a brief starting definition and specify the importance of organisational change. You should also introduce the case you will describe later. Finally, you should present a brief structure of subsequent topics (sections) in your essay.

The main section of the essay should outline the argument(s) that describe your response to the essay question. In this body of text, you will first define organisational change in more detail or provide more than one definition. Then, you will give an overview of main change theories, before saying which one(s) will apply particularly in your case. Next, you will analyse the case’s evidence in your chosen case. To do so, you will first describe how organisational change was introduced, with which individuals and groups, and to what effect. On this background, you should analyse and interpret specific changes through the aid of the organisational change theory that is most applicable for your particular case overall and/or specific illustrations.

The conclusion of the essay should draw together all the previous points of your argument into one general statement, which is then directly related to the essay topic or the questions you have been answering. This is the section where you can also add implications of your analysis as well as a suggestion or a potential recommendation.

Note 2 – Reading.

Students are required to show evidence of use of various established and reputable literature sources (i.e. academic journal articles, books and other sources of information). For the specific case description, you are allowed to use web-based information about a company, but you must reference it.

For available online reading, you can access the TALIS list or read the material on the BE460 Moodle page. See also the dedicated lecture on Moodle about organisational change and the attached article for theories.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to critically understand:

• organising and collaboration as a situated, socially accomplished activity of different organisational actors, groups, and stakeholders
• views of  organisation  and  how  these  have  affected  the  notion  and  practice  of managing people
• the impact of internationalisation and globalisation as a multi-layered context for organisation and leadership, cultural influences and identity construction in organisations
• knowledge processes, with specific reference to group and team learning
• leadership issues and processes
• reflexivity as a mode of being and acting as managers and leaders.