Change Management Agents: Literature Review And Critical Analysis

Literature Review

Discuss about the Organizational Change Management Model.

Globalization has created a tremendous competition among the players of any industry. Organizations are operating under a competitive environment and constantly trying to achieve higher degree of sustainability through better change management plans. Organizational change management is the process that helps in restructuring the business operations in order to achieve better outcome (Kuipers et al. 2014). However, the change initiative is the primary stage where a change agent acts as the pivotal element. Based on the initiative taken by a change agent, strategic decisions are taken by an organization and finally the change management process is implemented.

In this discussion, the change management will be discussed in brief and main focus will be given on change management agents. The entire discussion will be divided into two parts, which are literature review and critical analysis.A literature review will be provided where the change management agents will be pointed out and some theories will be discussed. In the critical analysis section, different views from various authors will be analyzed in argumentative manner.

An organization takes its decision based on both the internal and external influences. The strategic decision is implemented through a change management process, which is mostly actualized through the most common Lewin’s change management model.

Lewin’s Change management model is comprised of three stages, which are unfreeze, change and refreeze (Hossan 2015). In the first stage, employees are communicated regarding the change and its significance, adequate support is provided, need for change is created, mission and vision statement is communicated and finally any doubts from employees are entertained. In the next stage change management plan is executed where all the decided strategies are placed. Finally, in the last stage changed process is anchored with organizational culture and adequate support is provided (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown 2016).

However, any change requires the initiative from an agent who highlights its significance and rationale behind the plan. Once the plan is accepted, change management plan is executed.

An organization executes its change management plan through the influence from either internal or external stakeholder. Internal change agents are commonly considered as the corporate board members, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), managers, deputy supervisors or even middle level executives (Buono and Subbiah 2014). On the other hand, external change agents are the consultants who are hired for short term in order to provide strategic development plans. The external agents may be even the outside researchers from a corporate or regional office.

Critical Analysis

Following are the four common types of change agents:

Types	Explanation
Outside pressure type	Ø  External change agents Ø  Provide radical change options
People-change-technology type	Ø  Change agent from individual point of view Ø  Change in individual behavior, changes organization
Analysis-for-the-top type	Ø  Managers are the most common type of agent Ø  Organization structural change is initiated
Organization-development type	Ø  Interpersonal group relations are changed Ø  Culture and communication change is initiated

Table 2: Change Agents and Roles

(Source: Waddell et al. 2016)

The most common role of a change agent is to change the structure of an organization. This helps in bringing about new designations so that operations are processed in better categorized manner. Redesigning of job and talent management is another major role of a change agent. Such change helps in building career planning of an employee and better commitment towards employee performance. This role also includes changing the authority relations, which is associated with job enrichment, job rotation, shifting employees and criteria for appraisal. Some internal change agents also have the role of undergoing training process change so that culture and process is better practiced by employees (Entrekin and Scott-ladd, Brenda 2014). Furthermore, infrastructure and facility change agents have the role of modifying and improvising better tools and equipment so that workplace becomes more attractive and professional. Finally, the most essential and challenging role of a change agent is to act as the counsellor and mentor to change the mindset of employees and encourage them to create a positive notion towards change management.

Considering the change management model of Lewin, it has been found that unfreeze stage is the most critical and challenging for the change agents. Therefore, in such stage the internal change agents have the role of taking ownership of the team’s readiness. They act as the champion change that benefits the community folks. The agents create the open mode of communication throughout the workplace so that point of dissatisfaction, doubts and clarification among teammates are addressed (Cameron and Green 2015). The agents also work with others to identify the cultural and organizational factors and create better team cohesion.

Addressing the difficulties during change management is the next priority and roles of agents consist of adhering to change strategies, control and quality along with strategic developments. Moreover, at the final stage of change management when operation is actualized through new process, the change agents try to adhere to quality standards and act as the supportive players so that any challenge post change is addressed at the root level. The major roles of a change agent are consisted of investigating, advocating, encouraging, facilitating, mediating, advising and managing (Klonek, Lehmann-Willenbrock and Kauffeld 2014). Finally, the roles are comprised of integrating ideas, building creative environment, keeping commitments, understanding strengths and weakness, supportive leadership, being assertive, extending intent for help and creating the level of trust among key organizational stakeholders.

Types of Change Agents and their Roles

The roles and responsibilities of the change agents are quite dynamic as they are constantly engaged with the teams starting from communication to post implementation feedback. It has been found that addressing the resistance to change is one of the most complicated challenge that the agents need to counter and the execution of such responsibilities create a successful change management. Overall, it can be said that with help of change agents, an organization is able to establish its sustainability and create a remarkable position in the competitive market.

Critique on Change Agent Initiative

According to the viewpoint of Gatenby et al. (2015), change management initiative is often found to be unsuccessful and the reasons are mostly confined to the poor support and executive process taken by a change agent. However, from the literature review it has been found that the change agents act as just the supportive player for implementing change and therefore, failed change management might consist of other factors as well, which are not well examined in this source.This is the weakness from the article as major players who are responsible for change has not been pointed out.

On the other hand, Heyden et al. (2017) pointed out thatmost of the managers try to figure out the change requirement by focusing on the bird’s eye view and does not take into consideration the potential historical reviews regarding the organizational strengths and weakness. Therefore, it can be said that the investigation role of change agents as mentioned in literature review is lacking among them. This source has highlighted the key reason for change failure and its root cause that agents need to focus while implementing change management. This idea of change failure can be considered as the strength of the article.

According to Klonek, Lehmann-Willenbrock and Kauffeld (2014), the role of change agents is supported with some cognitive skills such as self-understanding, conceptualization, and evaluation in order to realize the change management. These skills were not mentioned in the literature as discussed earlier. Therefore, it has broadened the scope of analyzing the character of change agents. Therefore, the article highlights new ideas and theories in response to the role of change agents and their skills. Some of the useful elements such as the impact of cognitive skills on change initiative have been understood, however the optimum outcome is lacking.

However, Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015) argued that a change agent needs to have more action-oriented skills than cognitive skills as they need to act as the researcher, consultant or counselor to bring out the change. Therefore, the views of authors support the fact that agents need to advocate, encourage and facilitate the mindset of employees as discussed in earlier literature.This source act as the credible empirical evidence that proves the existing literature of change management. This article does not take into consider the elements such as conceptualization and evaluation of change, which might perhaps be considered as the primary requirement for change agents before strategic change implementation.

Challenges Faced by Change Agents

Rosenberg and Keller (2016) pointed out that change agents try to bring out strategies that might help in organizational stability though structural improvement. Such changes help in segregating the work-load and responsibilities among existing human resource base. Eventually, the management is able to reduce work-pressure and streamline the entire process of operation, which further helps in reducing the resource consumption. This article highlights some descriptive discussion however fails to prove the success and the degree of measurement about how well the structural change might take place.This is the weakness but it has successfully emphasized on role of change agents.

However, Long, Wan Ismail and Amin (2013) argued that even if the change agent is able to change an organizational structure, later it is found that adequate support after change is not prominent. There is no adequate training and sessions provided to employees and ultimately an organization has to face huge attrition. This mostly occurs in small-scale companies where the change agents do not have enough experience and knowledge. Therefore, the sources gave the ideas of potential challenges that organizations might face post change management process. According to the roles that were discussed in literature review, if is compared with these sources, it can be found that change agents are failing to justify the change management process either due to lack of experience or due to poor planning. The ideas in this article pertinent to challenges faced by change agents are quite new, which is its strength. However it does not take into consideration authentic recommendations in support of change agents.

While considering the viewpoint of Matos Marques Simoes and Esposito (2014), it can be said that resistance to change is the reason that largely impacts on change management. Even though it is the responsibility of change agents to address such challenges through communication and clear objectives, however addressing and resolving the queries of all the employees is often found to be painful.Therefore, it can be said that this article highlights the same points as discussed in literature review, however does not point out suitable recommendations in support of change agents. Certain elements such improper communication, unclear set of objectives, improper rationale can be considered as the useful elements. This source does not give any proper resistance resolving idea for the change agents.

On the other hand, Burnes (2015) pointed out some recommendations for resolving resistance to change, which serve as the strength for this article in support of change agents. Continuous communication, meeting, sessions and presentations are the best ways for communicating with employees regarding the objectives of change management. At each point the agents need to resolve any query highlighted by a stakeholder through realistic rationale and benefits that might satisfy and address the employee concern. Therefore, this source serves as pointing out new ideas for change agents. This article not only highlighted the challenges faced by change agents but also recommended the best ways of communication through which employee grievances can be addressed prior to change management.Some competing perspectives such as different modes of communication and justifying the change significance can be considered as the dynamic roles of change agents.

Factors Contributing to Successful Change Management

Conclusion

The literature review highlighted some aspects of change management including a theory, the main players of change management and their respective roles. The main idea was to critically analyze the available literature with other articles. The critical analysis pointed out strengths and weakness of the articles including useful elements and competing perspectives. It has been found that most of the authors discussed and found similar points against the theories and roles of change agent described in literature. However, some of the authors have extended their viewpoints, added new ideas from their own findings but somewhere either failed to provide suitable recommendations or failed to identify the practical result from their assumptions.

Reference List

Al-Haddad, S. and Kotnour, T., 2015. Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), pp.234-262.

Buono, A.F. and Subbiah, K., 2014. Internal consultants as change agents: Roles, responsibilities and organizational change capacity. Organizational Development Journal, 32(2), pp.35-53.

Burnes, B., 2015. Understanding resistance to change–building on Coch and French. Journal of Change Management, 15(2), pp.92-116.

Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2015. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K.G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. human relations, 69(1), pp.33-60.

Entrekin, L. and Scott-ladd, Brenda D., 2014. Human resource management and change: a practising manager’s guide, London: Routledge.

Gatenby, M., Rees, C., Truss, C., Alfes, K. and Soane, E., 2015. Managing change, or changing managers? The role of middle managers in UK public service reform. Public Management Review, 17(8), pp.1124-1145.

Heyden, M.L., Fourné, S.P., Koene, B.A., Werkman, R. and Ansari, S.S., 2017. Rethinking ‘top?down’and ‘bottom?up’roles of top and middle managers in organizational change: Implications for employee support. Journal of Management Studies, 54(7), pp.961-985.

Hossan, C., 2015. Applicability of Lewin’s change management theory in Australian local government. International Journal of business and Management, 10(6), p.53.

Klonek, F.E., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. and Kauffeld, S., 2014. Dynamics of resistance to change: a sequential analysis of change agents in action. Journal of change management, 14(3), pp.334-360.

Kuipers, B.S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J. and Van der Voet, J., 2014. The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public administration, 92(1), pp.1-20.

Long, C.S., Wan Ismail, W.K. and Amin, S.M., 2013. The role of change agent as mediator in the relationship between HR competencies and organizational performance. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(10), pp.2019–2033.

Matos Marques Simoes, P. and Esposito, M., 2014. Improving change management: How communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), pp.324-341.

Rosenberg, A. and Keller, M., 2016. Making sense of organizational structure change: a practice-based approach. Baltic Journal of Management, 11(4), pp.452-472.

Volberda, H.W., Van Den Bosch, F.A. and Mihalache, O.R., 2014. Advancing management innovation: Synthesizing processes, levels of analysis, and change agents. Organization Studies, 35(9), pp.1245-1264.

Waddell, D., Creed, A., Cummings, T. and Worley, C., 2016. Organisational Change: Development and Transformation, Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia.

Waddock, S., Meszoely, G.M., Waddell, S. and Dentoni, D., 2015. The complexity of wicked problems in large scale change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(6), pp.993-1012.