INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT:

“Leadership and Change Management”

Master of Business Administration (Executive)

SUBMITTED TO:

Prof. Subas Kc (Dean)

SUBMITTED BY:
Neeraj Sharma

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
BALKUMARI, KATHMANDU
17 April, 2010
BACKGROUND:

This article on “Facilitating Organizational Change: a test of Leadership Strategies.” has been
taken from www.emraldinsight.com on the Journal of Leadership and Organization
Development. Mr. Daniel T. Holt, Dennis R. Self, Alfred E. Thal Jr, and Steven W. Lo are the
authors and have tried to investigate the different strategy that helps in facilitating the
organizational change process
The key issue of this article focused on knowing how to make change process effective that
help in facilitating the organizational change with applying different leadership strategies.

SAMPLING

This is a research paper is based on the respondents of Military officers and government
civilian employees with the total sample of 339 that constituted of 242 officers and 97
civilians. While the attempt was to take a sample of 547 officers, 183 officers were not able to
be contacted due to invalid email addresses.
The sample consisted of craftsmen, engineers, material controllers and division managers who
have been employed in government service for 16.9 years in an average with 60 percent
holding a master's degree.

OBJECTIVE

This is a research based article. From the research, authors have tried an attempt to analyze
the implementation of organizational change through different systematically progress of
development. Many influencing strategies are applied in an organization by the change
leaders to encourage the adaptation and implementation of change. So, they that focused on
knowing how to facilitate the organizational change message such as appropriateness, valence
and the management support will be effective through training and participation of the
employees that helps in facilitation for the organizational change and improvement of quality
within the organization.

Authors have focused on providing the initial conceptualization based on Lewin's five phase
of change strategies labeling them as unfreezing, moving and refreezing.

Unfreezing Changing Refreezing

If you have a large cube of ice, but realize that what you want is a cone of ice, what do you
do? First you must melt the ice to make it amenable to change (unfreeze). Then you must
mold the iced water into the shape you want (change). Finally, you must solidify the new
shape (refreeze).
By looking at change as process with distinct stages, you can prepare yourself for what is
coming and make a plan to manage the transition – looking before you leap, so to speak. All
too often, people go into change blindly, causing much unnecessary turmoil and chaos.

To begin any successful change process, you must first start by understanding why the change
must take place. As Lewin put it, “Motivation for change must be generated before change
can occur. One must be helped to re-examine many cherished assumptions about oneself and
one’s relations to others.” This is the unfreezing stage from which change begins.

Authors have also focused on Kotter's eight phase model that builds on Judson's model for the
effective organizational change process.

Proposition
Ensure the need. Managerial leaders must
verify and persuasively communicate the
need for change.
Provide a plan. Managerial leaders must
develop a course of action or strategy for
implementing change.
Build internal support and overcome
resistance. Managerial leaders must build
internal support and reduce resistance to
change through widespread participation in
the change process and other means.
Sub-propositions
• Convince organizational members of the
need and desirability for change.
• Craft a compelling vision of change.
• Employ written and oral communication
and forms of active participation to
communicate and disseminate the need for
change.
• Devise a strategy for reaching the desired
end state, with milestones and a plan for
achieving each one of them.
• The strategy should be clear and specific;
avoid ambiguity and inconsistencies in the
plan.
• The strategy should rest on sound causal
theory for achieving the desired end state.
• Encourage participation and open
discussion to reduce resistance to change.
• Avoid criticism, threats, and coercion
aimed at reducing resistance to change.
• Commit sufficient time, effort, and
resources to manage participation
effectively.
Proposition
Ensure top management support and
commitment. An individual or group within
the organization should champion the cause
for change.
Build external support. Managerial leaders
must develop and ensure support from
political overseers and key external
stakeholders.
Provide resources. Successful change
usually requires adequate resources to
support the change process.
Institutionalize change. Managers and
employees must effectively institutionalize
changes.
Pursue comprehensive change. Managerial
leaders must develop an integrative,
comprehensive approach to change that
achieves subsystem congruence.
ARTICLE FACTS
The article revolves on the implementation strategy by Achilles A. Armenakis on seven
suggested influencing strategies that can be used by leaders to implement change and has also
cited where these strategies have been applied in the real practice.
Sub-propositions
• An "idea champion" or guiding coalition
should advocate for and lead the
transformation process.
• Individuals championing the change should
have the skill and acumen to marshal
resources and support for change, to
maintain momentum, and to overcome
obstacles to change.
• Political appointees and top-level civil
servants should support the change.
• Build support for and commitment to
change among political overseers.
• Build support for and commitment to
change among interest groups with a stake
in the organization.
• Provide adequate amounts of financial,
human, and technological resources to
implement change.
• Avoid overtaxing organizational members.
• Capitalize on synergies in resources when
implementing multiple changes
simultaneously.
• Employ a variety of measures to displace
old patterns of behavior and institutionalize
new ones.
• Monitor the implementation of change.
• Institutionalize change before shifts in
political leadership cause commitment to
and support for change to diminish.
• Adopt and implement a comprehensive,
consistent set of changes to the various
subsystems of the organization.
• Analyze and understand the
interconnections between organizational
subsystems before pursuing subsystem
congruence.
These strategies includes,
• Persuasive communication
• Participation by those affected
• alignment of human resources management practices
• symbolic actions
• diffusion programs
• management of internal and external communication
• formalization practices

Unlike others, here Armenakis have focused on influencing strategies to convey the change
rather than the content of the message that are conveyed to organizational members. To
support the fact authors have provided the empirical evidence with the recommendation that
leaders should also stress the appropriateness of the change, support for the change and value
of the change (valence). However, for the strategies to be effective, there must be a clear
message convey to the people as well as their apparent agreement concerning to these issues
should be present which can only be achieved through effective communication, anecdotal
case studies, experiments, and observations.

This paper has provided some empirical support which is supporting 2 major issues.

1. Influence the specific messages regarding a change appropriateness, principal support

and valence on the organizational members for a major change.
2. The importance of participation and training to influence perceptions of change in the
expected ways.
Authors focus on providing adequate information to the concerned employees before applying
any major changes. This is an effective influencing strategy that will help reduce the
resistance in a great deal. However the medium of communication should be effective and
special attention should be given in the way it is communicated. So there is a great need of
orientation, participation and training need before venturing for such organizational changes.

Dependent variables
The authors have used Outsourcing benefits and Quality of information inside the
organization as dependent variables. Outsourcing benefits is based on seven items used by
Klass et al 1999 where he has focused on outsourcing importance as
What is likely to make the outsourcing decisions a success?

In the first instance it is important to point out that very little empirical research has
been carried out examining the effect of the decision to outsource. Furthermore, much of the
HRM outsourcing literature has concentrated on modelling factors that predict the outsourcing
decision, rather than examine its success. Therefore to discuss what might make HRM
outsourcing successful is to examine outsourcing success in general and to engage in
conjecture.Gilley and Rasheed (2000) argue ‘the results [of their empirical study] indicate that
firms pursuing more intense outsourcing strategies do not experience significant direct
performance impacts… However, it is highly likely that outsourcing has an effect on the
individual functional areas in which it occurs…Therefore, individual functional areas may
experience performance improvements or declines as a result. ’This argument is usefully
understood in two parts. First it is evident that for the outsourcing decision to be a success the
provider would have to deliver service that was uncommon. In other words, if due to it’s
tradable nature outsourced provision does not provide market advantage, then only an
outsourcing relationship that leads to market beating provision will bring measurable gains in
‘success.’ Second, it is clear that outsourcing will only be successful if it meets goals on a
departmental level. Whether it is the HRM department who manages the relationship or some
other operational function, there will only be ‘success’ where the outsourcing service meets
the needs of that department. This seems an area worthy of further investigation! If
outsourcing does not provide over all increases in firm performance, even given its well
known cost and competitive focus advantages, then the decision to outsource must also
consider whether the provider (in the case of HRM, a PEO) has market leading skills, and
whether these skills are sufficiently understood by the contracting organization in such a way
that they form part of the outsourcing ‘plan’ in the first place.

Quality of Information
Here quality of information was measured with six items developed by Miller et al in 1994
which reflects the usefulness, timeliness, and adequacy of information that was provided
about the outsourcing strategy.

Change Process Model

Armenakis et al has focused on a comprehensive theory based on model of organizational
change that includes the change process, change message and the reinforcement strategies. It
focuses on how a change is adopted in an organization from readiness to adaptation to
institutionalization.

Individual items such as Appropriateness, senior management support, supervisor support,

extrinsic valence, interpersonal valence were used.

With this facilitating strategies were identified as Participation, Training and Controls.
Readiness is a cognitive state that occurs when organizational members have positive
attitudes, beliefs and intentions towards the change. When the appropriate cognitive state is
attained through development of the relevant attitude, beliefs, and intentions, the
organizational members will begin to adopt the change such that they behave in a way that is
consistent with the change initiative complying to adaptation and with the continues of
adopting such change, a time will come when the final stage of the change is integrated
completely into the organizational fabric and the change process is institutionalized.
Through Armenakis et al’s model, authors have tried to describe specific messages that
leaders should convey so that the organization and its members can proceed smoothly through
the temporal stages of change. This model of an organizational change is termed as change
message that includes discrepancy and efficacy, belief of appropriateness, valence and
principal support.

LIMITATIONS AND GAPS

The limitation can be seen in the research as they could not capitalize most of their sample
only due to small difficulties of having their correct email address which would have given
the article more proof on their findings. There may be some cases where the samples were
dishonest due to various reasons. This report can’t be generalized for the private and non-
governmental organizations as the research only focused on military and government
civilians. As the paper suggests that the research was self-reported, there might have been a
gap of some kind of influence involved. The research did not focus on the bivariate
relationship that warrant mentioned. The research only focuses on Armenikas et al model to
draw a conclusion and moreover this research has been conducted in February 2003 and its
validity in today's organizational change is a big question.

RELEVANCY TO NEPALESE CONTEXT.

The research article focuses on the need of training, education and orientation before a change
program is introduced which are the increasing strategies in Nepalese organization in today
context. Nepalese organizations have well understood especially private sectors the need of
prior preparation to the carried out for the change process to be effective. So, this research
paper gives a very useful insight in knowing the major strategies and components to be taken
care of for implementing effective change program.
CONCLUSION

Change is the name of the game. Change is inevitable and is the essence of constant
development, however calculated risk should be analyzed at first with effective and prior
communication regarding any change process always ensures healthy relation ship between
the organizational change and the concerned people. The importance of prior communication
is essential to reduce the unwanted resistance form the unions, staffs and the executives who
may oppose to certain change initiatives from the organization.

The results provide evidence that individuals' perceptions of appropriateness, supervisor

support and valence frame organizational member's perceptions of organizational change. In
changing the perception, a change agent i.e. Leader should be more sensitive in knowing the
root of the problem and eliminating it through the change process. He should keep in mind the
consequences that might bring to the organization and set a vision to accomplish by such
organizational change practices. Leader should be open for any criticism from the resistance
group and try to respond to it in a thoughtful way without being bias.

While in an attempt to provide training to the organizational members a leader might expect
these activities to influence their employees' perception of the change, however he should
know that these perceptions may not always be in the desired manner. Leaders should know
the change initiative is a dynamic process that must reflect not only the change leaders' belief
that the change initiative is necessary and appropriate, also that the organizational members
also feel the same way to avoid unwanted consequences in an organization.

Reference:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Influence-Strategy&id=789347
http://ibacnet.org/bai2007/proceedings/Papers/2007bai7698.pdf