People and Process: Making Sense of Change Management (original) (raw)

Demystifying the Challenge of Change

2011

Conventional approaches to organisational change have failed to produce the results businesses are looking for. To produce different results, we must do different things. There is now mounting evidence that we need to apportion greater significance to the human side of change and move away from linear step-by-step approaches that erroneously represent the environment in which we work as controllable and static. This article describes a Lane4 research project that examines how business leaders can make these shifts through effective engagement with the human side of change whilst working in a dynamic and emergent manner. The Framework presented highlights the importance of developing and communicating a compelling story, shaping the change process and enabling the people involved. Ensuring these areas are thoroughly and meticulously addressed galvanises employee engagement and ultimately enables successful change.

UNDERSTANDING CHANGE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES: A CASE STUDY

The central focus of this case study is to advance knowledge regarding employees' understanding of change and change management within a public sector organisation, namely, the South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC). This organisation, like other public sector organisations in Australia, has undergone and is currently undergoing a series of significant organisational changes, mainly due to mandates brought about by public sector reform policy. Present trends in change and change management in Australia, both at the federal and state level, reflect a sense of urgency on the part of governments to revitalise a Public Service that is able to sustain continuity and change. This is based on the premise that it is only through reform that the Australian Public Service will be able to address the challenges of a rapidly-changing world. However, this means that public sector employees are now called upon to adjust their thinking and practices to respond to the changing needs and expectations demanded of them by governments.

Understanding Change: A Critical Review of Literature

Annals of Contemporary Developments in Management & HR, 2020

The current paper has attempted to shed light on the concept of change and the prominent models that can be of value for managerial authorities to bring transformation in their business. the paper sheds light on change which is refers to the continuous modifications that an organisation or individuals make to deal with adjustments in any matter. The paper highlights that although there are no static models of change yet still, some prominent perspectives and frameworks can be considered for top management and decision making bodies to make sense of the concept of change and work on developing policies and practices to ensure they remain competitive. The article discusses the idea forwarded by Lewin for change which catered to three stages at the first place. Following to this, the article discusses Burke and Litwin model of change that has been widely considered for business sectors for change management. Towards the end, the article discusses the ADKAR model of change. Taken togeth...

Understanding Type, Process and Elements of Change: A Conceptual Review on the Framework of Change Management

2020

Struggle to deal with change is not a current phenomenon. In 1950s, Kurt Lewin projected a scientific top-down and planned approach to manage change. Some 40 years later, emergent approach of Kotter, Kanter, Stein, Jick etc. came in to challenge earlier take, stating that change cannot be managed by top-down planning. Contemporary theorists, including Orlikowski, Yates, Willmott, Bridgman, Wagner, Newell etc., had nothing to deny those takes, but adding in another management aspect of change, known by some as elements of change. Despite some back-and-forth criticism, we found those theories, including the earlier ones, are still relevant in today’s context. We argue, therefore, that the real issue is not their irrelevancy, but their ambiguity. By comparing and contrasting relevant literatures, this digest aims at seriously understanding each of these theories, making sense of their strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately drawing up their real constructs for practical application. W...

DYNAMICS OF CHANGE: THE ROAD AHEAD

Vision-The Journal of Business Perspective, 2006

The advocates of proactive approaches towards managing systems, structures and processes have made the currency of change much evident and over-encompassing. The reactive approach has given way to proactive approach towards managing individuals, teams and organizations as a whole. Kurt Lewin's theory of de-freezing the status quo and refreezing with new inputs has become partially if not fully irrelevant in the present environment which is so dynamic and full of uncertainties. The stakeholders want quick results, which makes things worse for organizational specialists.

Understanding the management of change

Journal of Organizational Change Management, 1996

Reviews important contemporary theoretical approaches to the understanding and management of change in organizations, and then proposes an alternative framework for integrating the major themes encountered in organizational change management. Reports on results from an assessment instrument measuring agreement with key principles and concepts from this framework. Analyses results for trends indicating differences according to gender, culture, function, level, industry and other demographic and organizational variables. Discusses implications for change agents and human resources professionals.

The management of change in public organisations: A literature review

Public Administration, 2014

This article presents a review of the recent literature on change management in public organisations and sets out to explore the extent to which this literature has responded to earlier critiques regarding the lack of (public) contextual factors. The review includes 133 articles published on this topic in the period from 2000 to 2010. The articles are analyzed based on the themes of the context, content, process, outcome and leadership of change. We identified whether the articles referred to different orders of change, as well as their employed methods and theory. Our findings concentrate on the lack of detail on change processes and outcomes and the gap between the common theories used to study change. We propose an agenda for the study of change management in public organisations that focuses on its complex nature by building theoretical bridges and performing more in-depth empirical and comparative studies on change processes.

Coping with Chaos in Change Processes

Creativity and Innovation Management, 2003

In their efforts to change organizations, managers and change consultants are time and again confronted with the limited controllability of organizations, the complexity and indeterminacy of change processes and the uncertain and ambiguous effects of their actions. In short, they are confronted with chaos. Some managers and consultants try to enhance their (illusion of) control over organizations by attempting to reduce chaos, while others accept and embrace chaos and base their change practice on it. This article focuses on the second group. Based on a study of literature and a series of interviews with experienced change consultants, a typology is developed, in which an enlightened modern, an ironic, and a postmodern way of coping with chaos in change processes is elaborated. The typology may help change consultants and managers with the development of their way of working and the articulation of their professional identity.