BUSINESS CHANGE MANAGEMENT- AN OPTION OR COMPULSION

Research Proposal

[Name]

Afkar Ahmed

[Date]

09th-April-2010

[Name of supervisor]

Alan Foran

BA (H) Business Management

Year 3

Proposal OutlineBUSINESS CHANGE MANAGEMENT- AN OPTION OR COMPULSION..............................3Introduction......................................................................................................................................3Short Literature Review...................................................................................................................4Research Strategy and Methodology...............................................................................................5Logistical and Ethical considerations..............................................................................................5Ethical Considerations.....................................................................................................................5Logistical Considerations.................................................................................................................6Expected outcomes..........................................................................................................................6Planned Timetable...........................................................................................................................6Indicative Bibliography...................................................................................................................7

BUSINESS CHANGE MANAGEMENT- AN OPTION OR COMPULSION

Introduction

Organizational change management is the structured approach in the transitioning of

teams, organizations and individuals from the prevailing state to the desired future state (Duck,

2003). Change management is the process of implementing a pre-defined model/framework

(sometimes with modifications) in an organization (Wardale, 2008). Changes in marketplace, in

technology, workforce demographics, social values, and political environments have been

encapsulated to have significant effects on the organization’s products, processes and services

rendered (Chandler, 2004). It has often been imagined that the conclusion of these forces have

led to an external environment that is devastating and often unpredictable to those firms which

are unable or unprepared to respond. This leads us to our research question “Is change

management an option or a compulsion in organizations?” To arrive at the conclusion to this

question, this dissertation seeks to critically evaluate whether organizations have a choice when

it comes to change management.

The dissertation aims to carry out a primary research entailing Management Change

Questionnaires (MCQ) on some of the major corporations which have been known to implement

change management models or specific aspects of it, and those which have not including Tesco,

Spar, Londis and Starbucks. Thus following objectives will be pursued in the conduct of the

dissertation:

i. Determine the extent to which change management is practiced in Tesco, Spar

and Londis and Starbucks for the purposes of understanding the impact of change

in organizations

ii. Determine the value of change management to business organizations

iii. Determine the costs associated with change management in organizations, and

iv. Compare organizations which have adopted change management practices and

evaluate the difference in performance of their business and the level to which

these differences if any would be attributed to the difference in change

management practices. Some of the organizations which have practiced change

include Londis who recently have closed some of their stores in Ireland.

Short Literature Review

According to Burke & Church (2002) many corporate giants such as Xerox, Texaco and

IBM are victims of change management’s pressures. Those companies which failed to survive

change have been downgraded to the role of “ catch up” compared to their competitors which

embraced change, while others have been absorbed by large entities through acquisitions and

mergers or dissolved into collections of companies’ liabilities and assets (Kanter, 2003).

According to Hammer and Champy (2003), Managing Change Questionnaire (MCQ) has

been administered to over 1, 840 participants in areas such as leadership, executive and

management from 12 organizations in five industries worldwide (Burke, 2008). The MCQ is a

short 25 item questionnaire (True or False) and has been used widely in line with executive and

management development programmes, large scale firms change efforts and consulting skill

workshops (Burke, 2008).

Research Strategy and Methodology

This research will carry a primary data collection from organizations by way of

Managing Change Questionnaire (MCQ) which will be administered to employees and across

various companies in various industries and functions. Based on the information gathered from

these questionnaires, the findings will be assembled to explore the differences and similarities

with respect as to how the organizations which implemented change management processes and

those which did not. A particular attention will be focused on the organizations which have been

known to have utilized change management models and succeeded or failed and those which

didn’t apply the change management models and either succeeded or failed even in specific

aspects of change. The answers drawn from the MCQ questionnaire will be utilized to score the

organizational responses which will be converted into percentages. These responses will be

measured against the organizational performance to establish how positive or negative, the

process of change management had on these organizations and compare these findings with the

organizations which did not embrace change or specific aspects of it to establish the necessity of

change management. The primary research will be carried out on Tesco, Spar, Londis and

Starbucks. Secondary research which will entail a review of academic literature not older than 10

years will be investigated.

Logistical and Ethical considerations

Ethical Considerations

The primary research undertaken will comply with principles of research taking into

considerations the privacy and dignity of individuals and companies who in the course of

administering the MCQ questionnaire will provide commercially valuable information (Hammer

& Champy, 2003). Therefore, the company and individuals will be notified of the methods, aims,

potential dangers and predictable benefits of the research; their right not to participate in the

research and their right to terminate their participation at any time; the confidential nature of the

replies to the questionnaires; the individual/company will only become a subject of research after

freely giving their consent to participate the identity of the individuals/company shall be kept

strictly confidential (William, 2008).

Logistical Considerations

There would certainly be frequent logistical hurdles that would need to be overcome.

Some of the logistical problems likely to be encountered include need to travel to meet

respondents, some of whom may be in far away locations, sending of questionnaires to selected

respondents, collection of completed questionnaires, among others. Needs for travel may be

reduced by targeting respondents from within the locality and questionnaires may be sent to

selected respondents via email and followed up by phone calls.

Expected outcomes

The main expected result from this dissertation would be that change is necessary for an

organization if it is to survive and therefore it is not an option but a compulsion. Tesco and

Londis and Starbucks overcame the onslaught of global competition through the adoption of

change management processes.

Planned Timetable

The dissertation is scheduled to be completed by the end of April 2010. In order to meet

this deadline, it would be important schedule every activity that forms part of writing the

dissertation to make sure that they are completed within the scheduled time. The table below

indicates the activities and their respective time slots.

Planned Schedule of Activities

Activity Dec’09 Jan’10 Feb’10 Mar’10 Apr’10 May’10Identifying topic, Writing the ProposalApproval of Research proposalStarting the dissertation, Collection and review of relevant literatureData collectionAnalysis and discussionCompilation of final dissertationPrinting, binding and submission of final copy

Indicative Bibliography

Brehm, J.W. (1966). A Theory of Change Management. Academic Press: New York, NY.,

Bridges, W. (2006), "Managing organizational transitions", Organizational Dynamics, 15 (1)

pp.24-33.

Burke, W.W. & Spencer, J.L. (2000). Managing Change: Interpretation and Industry

Comparisons. W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc., Pelham

Burke, W.W. (2008), Managing Change Questionnaire, W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc.,

Pelham, .

Burke, W.W., & Church, A.H. (2002). Managing change, leadership style, and intolerance to

ambiguity: a survey of organization development practitioners. Human Resource

Management, 31 (4): 301-18.

Chandler, A.D. (2004). The history of business change", in Berger, L.A., Sikora, M.J. with

Berger, D.R. (Eds),The Change Management Handbook: A Road Map to Corporate

Transformation, Irwin, Burr Ridge, IL, pp.24-32.

Church, Allan et al (1996). Managing organizational change: what you don’t know might hurt

you. Career Development International, 1 (4): 25-30. Retrieved February 13, 2010 from

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?

contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/

1370010204.pdf

Duck, J.D. (2003). Managing change: the art of balancing. Harvard Business Review, 71 (6):

109-18.

Fornaciari, C.J., Lamont, B.T., Mason, B. & Hoffman, J.J. (2003), "Incremental and

revolutionary strategic change: an empirical test of common premises", International

Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 1 No.3, pp.273-90.

Goodstein, L.D. & Burke, W.W. (2005). Creating successful organization change. Organization

Dynamics, 19 (4): 5-17.

Hammer, M. & Champy, J. (2003). Reengineering the Corporations. Harper Business, New

York, NY

Kanter, R.M. (2003). The Change Masters: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the American

Corporation, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.

Wardale, D. (2008). Organization change management. Retrieved February 14, 2010 from

http://mmhr.org.au/uploaddocs/Rural%20Health%20Change%20_OHT_.pdf

William, H. (2008). Ethical considerations in Research. Journal of Management, 13 (4): p. 132-

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