Leadership School

Question 1

Strategic choices

Oreg & Berson (2009)

Answer 1

key executive decisions about firms’ focus of investment, such as in innovation, diversification, or renewal.

Question 2

identified 3 key functions of leaders´ behaviors through which leaders shape recipients´ response to change:

Oreg & Berson (2009)

Answer 2

1) effective communication (visionary leadership),
2) being supportive and attentive to recipients´ concerns (supportive leadership) and
3) involving followers (participative leadership)

Question 3

Organizational change has two streams:

Oreg & Berson (2009)

Answer 3

1. The process through which organizational change develops and the outcome of change/organizational outcomes. (macro)
2. Change from the perspective of the recipient- responses of individuals. (micro)

Question 4

Change process vs change context

Oreg & Berson

Answer 4

Change process: the manner in which change is managed, involving the procedures that change agents employ for driving and managing change. (moderator in leadership component>change outcome)

Change context: the organizational conditions that preceded the change and their role in influencing the change and its outcomes. (moderator in leadership component>change outcome)

Question 5

Emotional balancing?

Emotional intensity?

Huy (2002)

Answer 5

Emotional balancing refers to a group-level process involving the collocation of emotion-related activities intended to drive change and to induce continuity in a group of people.

Emotional intensity depends on the relationship between an event and a person’s frame of reference, which determines the subjective meaning of the event

Question 6

Bounded emotionality

Huy (2002)

Answer 6

Acknowledging the inseparability of private and work feelings and consciously attending to them.

● Given that was a bureaucratic company, Servico’s managers were instructed to now show emotions vis-à-vis the employees, being always bland, smiling and agreeable. Under radical change, however, certain managers deliberately broke emotional display rules to maintain some continuity in their subordinates’ lives, while observing traditional rules in their dealings with certain superiors- executives who still frowned upon intense emotional displays, especially unpleasant ones.
● Emotion attending sessions for employees affected by restructuring, which made them feel better

Question 7

Work-group inertia

Huy (2002)

Answer 7

results in modest, incremental change, at best.

Low emotional commitment-organizational inertia

Question 8

Work-group adaptation

Huy (2002)

Answer 8

is reflected in the degree to which the change project is realized, as well as the continuity in the quality of customer service.

High scores on commitment and recipients emotions lead to adaptation

Question 9

Work-group chaos

Huy (2002)

Answer 9

characterizes projects in which the change project was generally realized but in which benefits were below initial forecasts, employees were in turmoil, and there was serious degradation in the quality of customer service.

High commitment /little attending to recipients’ emotions-chaos

Question 10

Conclusions

Huy (2002)

Answer 10

The initially feared massive sabotages and strikes by powerful unions did not occur. Managers’ emotion-attending behaviors reduced a potentially higher state of anger and fear among the employees driven by emotional contagion.

Question 11

The model of emotional balancing developed specifies 3 interrelated dimensions of a change process theory:

Huy (2002)

Answer 11

1. middle managers as the main actors,
2. emotional balancing as the process,
3. organizational radical change as the specific context.

The findings suggest that emotional balancing widened the learning repertoire of managers involved in radical change, imparting knowledge on learning to change and skills that included both technical and human dimensions.

Question 12

What is the general view on middle- & topmanagers in change management? Explain?

Heyden (2017)

Answer 12

• TMs are often presented as initiate the change. However, there is evidence indicating that MMs can, and do, initiate change.
• MMs are often presented to execute the change. TMs have also been known to execute change. As TMs have a ‘big picture’ overview of how different sub-units interlink throughout the organization’s value chain, they can interpret performance-feedback from rollout activities holistically and adjust the execution swiftly as information becomes available. TMs’ formal authority, access to resources, and external networks may help legitimize execution by rolling out change from an organizational-wide perspective, reducing concerns of unit-specific favoritism

Question 13

Change initiated & executed by TMs

Heyden (2017)

Answer 13

No significant increase in employee satisfaction

• Some evidence suggests that centralizing the handling of change at the top, when both change initiation and execution are in the hands of TMs, is associated with lack of engagement and participation from organizational members, resistance to change, foot dragging and lack of trust.
• Employees perceive TM driven change initiation as, or even unfair, accentuating their feelings of powerlessness.
• TMs also tend to articulate change plans in a broad, sometimes visionary manner, with less detail and in ways that are aimed at different stakeholder audience. As such, employees may feel that the general organizational benefits overshadow their own concerns for job security, training, and personal development.

Question 14

Change initiated by TMs and executed by MMs

Heyden (2017)

Answer 14

No significant increase in employee satisfaction

• MMs are better equipped to articulate solutions for unforeseen problems and for addressing inconsistencies between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘real’ by using more relatable language.
• While TMs elucidate the change in broad, visionary ways, MMs translate these general output-oriented plans into concrete everyday activities that employees can understand. Due to MM’s unique position as a ‘linking pin’ between TMs and the workforce, they are at the nexus of key knowledge flows and have access to information from both TMs and day-to-day operations.

Question 15

Change initiated by MMs and executed by TMs

Heyden (2017)

Answer 15

Significant increase in employee satisfaction

• However, MMs may be prone to position bias and favoring their unit’s goals over organization-wide goals. TMs can counterbalance this possible bias through their
• When MMs initiate change, they may be better positioned than TMs to create a strong conviction among employees that change is needed and to engender trust in individual and organizational capacities to undertake it.
• As MMs tend to be more directly affected by change themselves, employees may believe that change initiated by MMs must be truly necessary. This may suggest fairness of the change and fairness of how employees will be treated during or after the change.

Question 16

Change initiated and executed by MMs

Heyden (2017)

Answer 16

Significant increase in employee satisfaction

• It is worth noting that despite the favorable response expected, this configuration might make the change somewhat slower from an organizational perspective, and thus the overall effect may not be as pronounced as when TMs execute the change.
• The configuration where MMs initiate and then execute the initiatives is characterized by high autonomy of those who are closest to the employees. Arguably, MMs have a better understanding of employees’ perspectives and are better placed to gain their support for change and its integration into work processes.
• In fact, employees may expect that if those who are closer to them are driving change and are executing it, employee concerns will be accommodated in the change initiative throughout its realization (Huy, 2002). As such, when MMs are highly involved in change, there is less chance of misinterpretation of ideas or confusion arising from translation losses across organizational levels.
• Consistency in communication will be high and likely trigger favorable attitudes. Also, the messages regarding the change will be easier to understand and relatable because there is less information and power asymmetry between MMs and employees than between TMs and employees.
• Initiation by MMs may offer opportunities for proactive involvement in strategy processes for employees, which usually entails positive attitudinal responses.

Question 17

Conclusions

Heyden (2017)

Answer 17

Research of organizations undergoing change show that top-down change does not engender above-average level of employee support, regardless of whether the change is executed by TMs or MMs.

However, employee support for change is boosted when change is initiated by MMs and executed by either TMs or MMs, with the strongest positive attitudes being evoked when MMs take on the initiation and TMs take on the execution—although this is the rarest configuration observed in our sample. Our theorizing and findings have important implications and contributions.

Question 18

recipients’ responses to change (path 4): leaders promote change by engaging followers and shaping their emotional and attitudinal responses

• Effects on emotions:

Oreg & Berson

Answer 18

contagion mechanism or influencing follower’s self-concept. Transformational/authentic leadership is linked to experiencing positive emotions. Through integrity and involving followers in decision-making.

Question 19

recipients’ responses to change (path 4): leaders promote change by engaging followers and shaping their emotional and attitudinal responses

• Effects on change attitude:

Oreg & Berson

Answer 19

commitment to change or to the organization in the context of change. Influenced by transformational, ethical, supportive & communication behavior.

Emphasize vision communication/selective sharing information> openness to change. The perception of leader effectiveness also influences change attitude.

Cynicism: an attitude consisting of the futility of change along with a loss of faith in those who are responsible for the changes.

Question 20

recipients’ responses to change (path 4): leaders promote change by engaging followers and shaping their emotional and attitudinal responses

• Effects on behavioral consequences and job attitudes:

Oreg & Berson

Answer 20

Charisma> OCB (not always the case).

Employee commitment to change mediates the effect of leaders’ change-promoting behaviors. Change attitude also influences organizational commitment. Whether change leaders are also the initiators of the change, or merely its implementers, is a key factor that determines both the process and outcomes of the change.

Question 21

recipients’ responses to change (path 4): leaders promote change by engaging followers and shaping their emotional and attitudinal responses

• Effects on change recipients’ sense-making:

Oreg & Berson

Answer 21

A perquisite to effective change is that organization members need to first understand the meanings of the change and its ramifications for the organization, through a process of sensemaking. Leaders must turn the understandings to favorable to the change: a viable interpretation of a new reality Is needed and to influence stakeholders and constituents to adopt it as their own.

Prompting cognitive shifts; by communicating one’s understanding and reframing it as a means of engaging change constituents.

Synergistic change: leaders should be inviting, proposing, clarifying and involving.
Not effective when leaders are dismissing, repeating and invoking hierarchy.

Question 22

Explain the model

Huy

Answer 22

To generate the emotional energy that fuels the pursuit of their change projects, middle managers as change agents have to strive continuously to manage their own emotions associated with change. To maintain operational continuity in a radical change context, recipients’ emotions also have to be carefully managed.

Question 23

Emotional balancing in change?

Huy

Answer 23

In change: agents have to strive continuously to elicit pleasant/high-activation emotions and reduce unpleasant/low activation emotions in themselves.

Question 24

Emotional balancing for continuity?

Huy

Answer 24

In continuity: recipients’ emotions also have to be carefully managed, by eliciting pleasant/low-activation emotions and attenuating unpleasant/high-activation emotions.

Question 25

Emotional balancing with bounded emotionality?

Huy

Answer 25

Bounded emotionality: acknowledging the inseparability of private and work feelings and consciously attending to them.