Change management is an important factor in the current business scenario. This is due to the reason that the current business environment is changing rapidly and frequently. It is becoming urgent for the business organizations to come up with their change management approach in coping up with the change in market. However, they are having number of models or theories of change management to be followed. Each of the change management models is applicable and effective in different situation and it is up to the organizations to implement them accordingly (Ceptureanu 2015). There are also different views given by different authors regarding the use of these change management tools. In addition, they also came up with the different view regarding the utility and importance of change management for the contemporary business organizations. Thus, it is important to identify the different approaches being initiated in stating the concept of change management prior to defining the change management tools (Matos Marques Simoes and Esposito 2014).
This essay will critically analyze the views of different authors regarding the concept of change management and what they are saying about its implementation on the contemporary business organizations. In addition, the major three change management tools will also be discussed in relation to the change management.
According to Vora (2013), implementation of change management is important for the contemporary business organizations due to the reason that market and business scenario is changing and in order to stay relevant in the industry, organizations should also have to change their existing approach. The author have also stated that effective implementation of change management process in the organization is a source of gaining business excellence. This is due to the reason that effective implementation of the change management will help the business organizations to be more suitable with the current business scenario. In this article, the author has given the example of fast moving retail industry. It is stated that in the current scenario of the fast moving retail business, demand and expectation of the customers are rapidly changing. Thus, it is becoming more important to change their product strategy to cater to the changed demand of the customers (Nesterkin 2013). Organizations changing effectively with the market change will be able to meet their customer’s demand with updated products and will gain advantages of their competitors. On the other hand, it is also being stated by the author that the organizations that can get change management implemented effectively will get trailed. Nokia was one of the leading names in the global mobile device market but due to their ineffectiveness in changing with the change in demand and trend in the market, they lost out to their competitors (Palthe 2014).
On the other hand, a complete different approach is taken by Della Torre and Solari (2013) in stating the importance of change management for the contemporary business organizations. According to the authors, change management is also beneficial in identifying the shortcomings with the existing approach of the organizations and overcoming them. This is due to the fact that it is important for the upper level management to have the idea about the shortcomings and limitations of their current business approach including the human resource management. These shortcomings should get rectified by initiating change management and implementing new processes. Thus, according to the authors, change management is also important in maintaining the effectiveness of the internal management of the organizations. The effective will be the implementation of the change management in the process, the more will be will be the efficiency of the internal business management of the organizations. Based on this approach, Jansson (2013) stated that change management is more important for the contemporary business organizations in managing the employees along with motivating and engaging them. This is due to the reason that change management is being implemented only after determining the limitations and issues with the current and existing business approaches. According to the authors, the issues faced by the employees should also be included and change should be made accordingly. This will help in having more motivated and engaged employees in place. This will also help the business organizations in gaining competitive advantages from the side of their employees.
Though it is important for the business organizations to implement change management process to gain competitive advantages but here are number of challenges to be faced in implementing it. According to Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015), the major and most common challenge that is being faced by the business organizations in implementing the change management process is resistance from the side of the involved stakeholders including the employees. This is due to the reason that the core objective of implementing change management process is to enhance the organizational effectiveness. However, in major cases it is being seen that employees are having the negative perception that implementation of change process may put their job security at stake or their value in the organization will get reduced. This led to the resistance from them and cause challenges in effective implementation of the change process. Lines, Sullivan, Smithwick and Mischung (2015) stated that another major challenge in implementing the change management process is lack of infrastructure for the business organizations. According to the authors, implementing a new approach will require certain infrastructure that may involve more investment and other expertise. Thus, it will be challenging especially for the small and medium scale organizations to cope with the cost and expertise in implementing the change process.
Kuipers, Higgs, Kickert, Tummers, Grandia and van der Voet stated that for the current business organizations, diversity is another major challenge in implementing the change management process. This is due to the reason that contemporary business organizations are having workforce from different countries with having different social and cultural backgrounds. Thus, it is difficult to consider the different approaches of different employees with the change process. The initiated change process may be accepted by a section of the workforce and another section will be against it. Thus, it is a major challenge for the contemporary business organizations in initiating change management process is to manage their diverse set of employees. In addition, in the diverse workforce, some of the approaches of the employees may be contradicting against each other. According to the authors, it will get more difficult for the organizations to create the consensus among the employees prior to the initiation of the change management process.
There are number of change management models that are having different utilities and effectiveness. In the above section, the importance of the change management process along with their challenges is being discussed. In this section, the major three change management models will be discussed about they can help in overcoming the identified issues. According to Small, Gist, Souza, Dalton, Magny-Normilus and David (2016), Kotter 8 steps model of change is one of the major change management models. According to this model, there are mainly eight steps that should be followed by the organizations in having a successful change management process. The first step is identifying the urgency or need for change management. It is important to identify the limitations and threats that may get emerged from the existing process and the opportunities that can be gained by implementing the change process. Mishra (2013) stated that effective identification of issues will help to designing the change management approach accordingly. It is also being stated by the author that the second step in this model is also much important. The second step states the importance of involving of stakeholders in the change process. It is also important for the organizations to involve the stakeholder from top level to bottom in accordance to the need, which will help to properly managing the process. The next step is creating a vision. This will help the change process to follow a single approach rather than creating issues among the stakeholders. Mishra (2013) also stated that the importance of next step that states the communication process of vision. The communication process should be diverse and effective in order to identify the concerns of all the stakeholders and motivate them. This will also help to overcome the issue of resistance of the employees.
The next step is identifying and overcoming the obstacles. Wheeler and Holmes (2017) stated that it is important to focus on the barriers of the change management process. It is also being stated that organizations should have precautionary measures to prevent the initiation of the barriers such as selecting stakeholders with having expertise in change management and rewarding the people for better performance. This can help in managing the obstacles in the primary stage and having effective change process. It is also being stated by the authors that creating shorter targets are also important in the change management. This will help the change agents in motivating the employees by achieving the shorter targets. The next step is evaluating the change process. According to Mitchell (2013), continuous process of evaluation is important due to the reason that there will have shortcomings in every implemented process and they should be detected in time. The authors have also stated that effective process of evaluation will help the change agents to maintain the effectiveness of the entire process. The authors have also stated that maintaining the change process is also important due to the reason that it will help in identification of areas for improvement in future.
It is stated by Ravanfer (2015) that Mckinsey’s 7s model is another effective change management model. This model focuses mainly on the internal elements of the organizations in initiating the change process. According to this model, the organizations should have particular strategy or approach for the change process. It also states that structure of organizations should also be designed in according the change process. The authors have stated that the internal values, systems, employees and their skills should be structured in order to have the effective process of change management. The issues and challenges related to the change process can be mitigated if the staffs are being selected based on the required expertise. This model also stated that leadership is another important determinant of change process. Thus, contemporary business organizations can have proper and ideal internal infrastructure by implementing the Mckinsey’s 7s model.
Shirey (2013) stated that Lewin model of change management is another popular model of change process. This model is having three basic steps that can help the organizations I having effective process of change. The first step is the unfreezing process. According to the authors, unfreezing refers to the process of identifying the issues and gaps in the existing process. This will help in structuring the change process accordingly. As per the authors, the more effective will be the identification of the issues, the more efficient will be the change process in overcoming them. The next process is implementing change. In this step, the potential risks should be communicated to the employees in order to motivate them in the change process. Furthermore, the change process should be in phased manner in order to identify any issues. According to the authors, this will reduce the probability of issues in change management process. The last step is refreezing. This refers to stabilizing the process after implementing the change. It is also stated by the authors that gathering feedback from the employees is important in this step. This will help to identify the issues with the new process and managing accordingly.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the change models discussed in this report can help the contemporary business organizations in overcoming the challenges that to be faced in implementing the change process. All the change management models are having a few steps that can help the organizations to have favorable infrastructure in initiating the change. This essay also concludes that in the current business scenario, the probability of resistance to change is more and diverse. Therefore, it is more important to follow the change management models
References
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.
Ceptureanu, E.G., 2015. Research regarding change management tools on EU SMEs. Business Excellence and Management Review, 5(2), pp.28-32.
Della Torre, E. and Solari, L., 2013. High-performance work systems and the change management process in medium-sized firms. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(13), pp.2583-2607.
Jansson, N., 2013. Organizational change as practice: A critical analysis. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 26(6), pp.1003-1019.
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.
Lines, B.C., Sullivan, K.T., Smithwick, J.B. and Mischung, J., 2015. Overcoming resistance to change in engineering and construction: Change management factors for owner organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 33(5), pp.1170-1179.
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.
Mishra, S., 2013, September. Relevance of Kotter’s Model for Change in Successfully Implementing Lean. In IFIP International Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems (pp. 540-547). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Mitchell, G., 2013. Selecting the best theory to implement planned change. Nursing Management (through 2013), 20(1), p.32.
Nesterkin, D.A., 2013. Organizational change and psychological reactance. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 26(3), pp.573-594.
Palthe, J., 2014. Regulative, normative, and cognitive elements of organizations: Implications for managing change. Management and organizational studies, 1(2), p.59.
Ravanfar, M.M., 2015. Analyzing Organizational Structure based on 7s model of McKinsey. Global Journal of Management And Business Research.
Shirey, M.R., 2013. Lewin’s theory of planned change as a strategic resource. Journal of Nursing Administration, 43(2), pp.69-72.
Small, A., Gist, D., Souza, D., Dalton, J., Magny-Normilus, C. and David, D., 2016. Using Kotter’s Change Model for Implementing Bedside Handoff: A Quality Improvement Project. Journal of nursing care quality, 31(4), pp.304-309.
Wheeler, T.R. and Holmes, K.L., 2017. Rapid transformation of two libraries using Kotter’s Eight Steps of Change. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 105(3), p.27
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