BMG 527J2 Organisation Change and Transition

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BMG 527J2 Organisation Change and Transition

• Dr Martin McCracken
• School of Business and Management
• 1H16 Ext. 68346
• m.mccracken_at_ulster.ac.uk

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About me

• Qualifications
• BA (Hons) Business Studies
• MA Human Resource Management and Industrial
  Relations
• PhD Human Resource Development and Learning
• Experience
• Investment Management
• Banking
• Academic Consulting and Research (See web-page
  for publications)
• University Teaching Scotland and Canada
• Personal Interests
• Sport, Music, Travel

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What I expect from you

• Turn up on time
• Take active part in classes
• Be creative and innovative
• Work at Masters level
• Be a critical thinker
• Apply your subject knowledge
• Make a positive contribution to the learning
  experience

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What I expect from you
Be Creative
Develop Subject Knowledge
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Course Overview and Objectives

• On completion of this module, students will have
• Developed an understanding of the nature of the
  change process and be able to critically appraise
  the dynamics of the change process within
  organisations
• Critiqued the various frameworks and approaches
  for organisational change, and be able to apply
  them in appropriate ways to organisational
  practice
• Compared and contrasted packaged off the shelf
  type approaches to change with other emergent
  change theories
• Considered how organisational politics and
  culture influence the change process
• Evaluated how leaders direct the change process

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Reading

• Recommended Texts
• Senior, B. (2002) Organisational Change, London
  Prentice-Hall. 658.406/SEN
• Others cited in Outline Available on short
  Loans
• Other useful materials
• Other Organisation Change Textbooks (library)
• Journals, Magazines, Papers (library)
• TV News programmes
• Use Instructors homepage
• www.busmgt.ulst_at_ac.uk/modules/bmg527j2/bmg527j2.ht
  ml

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Areas covered in course

• 1. Introduction to Course and Change Management
• Foundations of the course Definitions and nature
  of Organisational Change
• 2. The Business Environment and Change
• Perspectives of Strategic Change Strategic
  Change and the issue of Fit General approaches
  to change
• 3. Approaches to Change Management
• Emergent v planned approaches Processual and
  Interpretive approaches to change
  Socio-technical approaches
• 4. Planned Change in Organisations
• Structural, technical and human approaches
  Incremental approaches to change

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• 5. Changing Organisational Structures
• Rationale and problems of introducing new
  structural arrangements
• 6. Developing People and Organisations
• Personal Transitions Assumptions and techniques
  of the Organisational Development change approach
  
• 7. Organisational Culture and Change
• Nature and levels of culture Cross cultural
  studies Managing and Changing Organisational
  Culture

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• 8. Power, Politics, Resistance to Change
• Understanding organisational struggles and
  resistance to change Overcoming resistance to
  change through negotiation
• 9. Enterprise, Entrepreneurship Innovations
• Enterprise and innovations Creativity in large
  and small organisations
• 10-12. Leadership, Transition and Change
• Definitions, nature and traditional approaches to
  leadership Contingency Transformational and
  Charismatic leadership theory
• Managers v Leaders Essence of leadership and
  management Connection to change
• Importance of leadership in bringing about
  organisational change Management Fads and
  Fashions

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Assessment Requirements

• Individual Report (50 of total marks)
• Identify a change that has happened in your
  organisation
• Apply concepts and theories to real world
  (organisational) experience
• If you feel your organisation is not suitable,
  use a case study organisation or one recently
  reported in the media
• Report to be submitted to the Business and
  Management Office (1K20) by the Monday 18th April
  2005
• Word Length 2,500 words

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Assessment Requirements

• Final Examination (50 of total marks)
• Final exam is a seen paper
• Nine questions choose any three
• Designed to examine all material from course
• Answers should be typed and no longer than 1,250
  words
• Examination answers to be submitted by the
  Business and Management Office (1K20) by Monday
  09th May 2005

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Assessment Requirements

• Additional issues
• Ensure clear structure employed (beginning,
  middle and end) ensure reader knows where the
  piece is going (signposting)
• Check grammar and spelling before submission
• Ensure that ideas from textbooks, journal
  articles, or other sources are cited properly
  acknowledging rightful author
• If you feel that you need help with assessments
  please contact me as early as you can to discuss

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What is an Organisation?
Introduction to Change Management

• Definition
• Organisations are (1) social entities that
  (2) are goal-directed, (3) are designed as
  deliberately structured and coordinated activity
  systems, and (4) are linked to the external
  environment (Daft, 2004 11)

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What is an Organisation?
Introduction to Change Management

• Bring together resources to achieve desired goals
  and outcomes
• Produce goods and services efficiently to create
  value for owners, customers and employees
• Facilitate innovation by using modern
  manufacturing and information technologies

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What is an Organisation?
Introduction to Change Management

• Adapt to and influence a changing environment
• Accommodate ongoing challenges of diversity,
  ethics, and the motivation and coordination of
  employees

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Introduction to Change Management

• Perspectives on Organisations
• Closed Systems
• Not dependent on environment internal
  efficiency
• Open Systems
• Environment vital customers, suppliers and
  competitors
• System designed to acquire inputs, transform them
  and discharge outputs to external environment
• Importance of subsystems in organisations

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An Open System and Its Subsystems
Environment
Transformation Process
Raw Materials People Information
resources Financial resources
Products and Services
Input
Output
Production, Maintenance, Adaptation, Management
Boundary Spanning
Boundary Spanning
Subsystems
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Introduction to Change Management

• What is Change and Innovation?
• Some Definitions
• Change
• The adoption of a new idea or behaviour by an
  organisation (Daft, 2004 404)
• The process by which organisations move from
  their present state to some desired future state
  to increase their effectiveness (Jones, 2004
  301)
• Innovation
• the adoption of an idea or behaviour that is new
  to the organization's industry, market, or
  general environment (Daft, 2004 404)
• Process by which organisations use their skills
  and resources to develop new goods and services
  or to develop new production and operating
  systems so that they can better respond to the
  needs of their customers (Jones, 2004 301)

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The Nature of Change

• Three types of Change (Grundy, 1993)
• Smooth Incremental
• Bumpy Incremental
• Discontinuous Change
• (Tushman et. al, 1988)
• Periods of incremental change or convergence,
  punctuated by discontinuous change
• Fine tuning incremental adjustments
• frame-breaking modular transformation -
  corporate transformation (Dunphy and Stace, 1993)
  

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Major types of change
Discontinuous
Rate of change
Bumpy incremental
Smooth incremental
Time
Source Grundy, T. (1993) Implementing Strategic
Change, Kogan Page, p. 25
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Incremental vs. Radical Change
Incremental Change
Radical Change
Continuous progression
Paradigm-breaking burst
Affect organizational part
Transform entire organization
Through normal structure and management processe
s
Create new structure and management
Technology improvements
Breakthrough technology
Product improvement
New products, new markets
Sources Based on Alan D. Meyer, James B. Goes,
and Geoffrey R. Brooks, Organizations in
Disequilibrium Environmental Jolts and Industry
Revolutions, in George Huber and William H.
Glick, eds., Organizational Change and Redesign
(New York Oxford University Press, 1992),
66-111 and Harry S. Dent, Jr., Growth through
New Product Development, Small Business Reports
(November 1990) 30-40.
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The Nature of Change

• Planned v Emergent Change
• Linked to Open Systems concepts goal of
  restoring equilibrium
• But is change planned systematically?
• Strategic drift related to perceptions of
  management results in need for planned change
• Change more likely to emerge (Stacey, 2000)
• Logical instrumentalism (Quinn, 1980)

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Predictable ChangeThe Basic Organisational Life
Cycle
Streamlining, small-company thinking
Large
Development of teamwork
Continued maturity
S I Z E
Addition of internal systems
Decline
Crisis Need for revitalization
Provision of clear direction
Crisis Need to deal with too much red tape
Creativity
Crisis Need for delegation with control
Crisis Need for leadership
1. Entrepreneurial Stage
2. Collectivity Stage
3. Formalization Stage
4. Elaboration Stage
Small
ORGANIZATION STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
Sources Adapted from Robert E. Quinn and Kim
Cameron, Organizational Life Cycles and Shifting
Criteria of Effectiveness Some Preliminary
Evidence, Management Science 29 (1983) 33-51
and Larry E. Greiner, Evolution and Revolution
as Organizations Grow, Harvard Business Review
50 (July-August 1972) 37-46.
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Understanding Change Situations

• Need for effective diagnosis of change situations
• Identifying Breakpoints
• Innovation variety creation (Divergent
  breakpoints)
• Efficiency Survival of the fittest (Convergent
  breakpoints)
• Importance of both Formal and Informal systems

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Understanding Change Situations

• Hard/Mechanistic (Difficult) v Soft/Complex
  (Messy) Problems
• Using the TROPICS Test to access impact and
  magnitude of impending change
• Time Scales
• Resources
• Objectives
• Perceptions
• Interest
• Control
• Source

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Difficult versus messy problems
DIFFICULTIES - Smaller scale, well-defined
limited timescale
know what would be a solution
priorities clear
limited applications
know what the problem is
BOUNDED
can be treated as a separate matter
know what needs to be known
limited number of people involved
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
____________________________
MESSY PROBLEMS - bigger, poorly defined
longer uncertain timescale
priorities called into question
no solutions
uncertain but greater implications worrying
UNBOUNDED
know what the problem is
cant be disentangled from its context
dont know what needs to be known
more people involved
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Activities

• 1. In groups of around 3-4, note three
  difficulties and two messes (if possible) you
  have faced at work or alternatively in your
  private life
• Using some of these examples discuss how
  difficulties differ from messes (Use Handout 1 to
  help).
• 2. Take a couple of the examples you thought of
  in the first part of the activity and apply the
  TROPICS test (Handout 2), i.e. put a cross on
  each line according to whether your example is
  nearer to one end or the other of the factor.
• When you have done this for each example,
  make a judgment as to whether your example is,
  overall, a hard or a soft problem/change
  situation.

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Conclusions

• Change A Constant in organisations
• Characterised simply Grundy
• But is a complex area many variables to
  consider
• Considered some ways to understand change
  situations
• Next week will look at External Environment and
  Change in more detail