P CH8 Implementing Change: Change Management, Contingency, and Processual Approaches Flashcards
Change Management and Contingency Approaches
- director image (associated wit the work of many large consulting companies)
- series of steps that need to be followed
Change Management Approaches
- provide multistep models of how to achieve transformational change
discontinuous change
occurs in static environments
- multistep models have to be applied including al the steps
continuous change
occurs in dynamic environments
- staff here already is accustomed to change and therefore the models don’t need to be applied step for step
3 elements to be managed in transformational process
- need to manage org. power
- need to motivate people
- manage the transition itself
3 transformational change phases
- rationalization (streamlining company operations)
- revitalization (leveraging resources and linking opportunities across the whole organization)
- regeneration (managing business unit operations and tensions, while collaborating to achieve peformance)
utility of normative steps (critique)
(read not learn)
- practice and implementation varies according to the particular change maker
- multiple changes may be in progress so the “past” is difficult to determine
- change commandments need to be tailor to needs of each org.
- communication should include allowing different voices to be heard
- action is not always possible by the change manager, so the change manager has to be prepared to react to opposition
- there may be multiple leaders not only one as in many normative guides
- sometimes not a controlling change but experimentation and risk-taking are required
What does Kotter acknowledge about his 8 step framework?
- it is a simplification
- even successful change efforts are messy and full of surprise
- but is steps have to be taken in sequence
Has change management supplanted (replaced) OD?
- change management has a broader scope(considers human performance and relates it to technology, operations, strategy)
- change management consultants operate with technical knowledge and as part of a team consisting of skill sets that cover a range of strategy and org. areas.
- structural changes lead to new behaviors (not changes individual attitudes and ideas like in OD which then lead to wider structural changes)
Contingency Approach
- still underpinned by director
- offers an alternative to change models which show “one best way” of producing change. Although it is often not clear which of the various models to chose.
- contingency models argue that change depends on the scale and the receptivity of the members engaged in the change
Dunphy/Stace Contingency Model of Change
Scales of change:
- developmental transition
- task-focused transition
- charismatic transformation
- turnarounds
- Taylorism
-> as different paths of change the org. might adopt at different periods of time
developmental transition
- situation with constant change
- leadership style is consultative (coach)
task-focused transition
- directive
- may be more consultive by managers further down in org. implementing the change
charismatic transformation
- where people accept the org. needs change
turnarounds
- frame-breaking changes
- change leaders as commanders
- used where there is little staff support or time
taylorism (least successful)
- fine-tuning
- charismatic transformation or turnaround should be used at some stage to reinvigorate
Huy and categorization of change
- commanding
- engineering (medium-term)
- teaching (longer term)
- socialization (long term, participative experiential learning)
Why are contingency approaches not as dominant as the change management approaches?
- fitting on org. to type of change is not easy
- contingency approaches are more ambiguous
- might be less attractive to senior management to adopt a particular style of leading
- employees may see senior management as not sincere when their actions change all the time (depending on the situation)
Processual Approaches
- underpinned by Navigator image
- share the assumption with contingency approach that change unfolds differently over time
- they view change as continuous and not linear
- change is best understood as a complex interplay btw. content, process, and context.
- different groups in org. have different rationalities, all of which influence how org. change occurs
- political and cultural view of change
- change is likely to challenge the dominating ideology, culture, and systems of meaning and interpretation
Who provides the backdrop to the processual approach?
Pettigrew and his study of the chemical industry
What timeframe does the Processual Approach take?
- long-term conditioning
external context
economic, political, and competitive environment
internal context
- strategy, structure, culture, power relations
What does context provide managers with? (processual approach)
opportunity and constraints of change
Stages to engage in the processual approach
- problem-sensing
- development of concerns
- acknowledgement and understanding of the importance of the problem
- planning and acting
- stabilizing change
